Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-02-07
DAILY REGORD-UNION
:. :. FEBRUARY !. 1880
AN INFAMOUS SCHEME,

Nevada have caught the unfortunate peo
pie OF that commonwealth in trap, and
neck and heels propose to enslave them to
the most vicious, mean and debasing of
gambling schemes, compSred with which
faro, roulette, chuck-a-lucll and hockey
pokey are angelic devices The Legis-
lature has forced upon the people of that
State an election on q proposition to legal
lie lotteries, on the promise of the garn
bling ring that portion of the ill-gottes
results wrung frofa those so weak as to be
made victims shall be paid into the Sts5e
Treasury.
A commonwealth that is in s,sch etraib
that it must resort to lottery gambling is
ready to die, and ought to be pat cat of its
misery, were it possible to do so. But Ne
yada is not thus reduced The law sub
hitting the constitutional amendment was
passed and approved January 10Th, and
the election under il is set for February
1lth-less than a month after the enact
ment, and this, though Nevada is a State
OF such great distances, and such non-com-
nlunieation, that some OF her people viii
not hear of the election until long after it
is over. The new law requires thatnotices
of election shall be posted one week before
the day appointed, although even for
school election ten days notice is required
This is equivalent, says one of the pro-
tests, to almost no notice at all, and one
fourth of the people of the State will
simply hear from some of their neighbors
that there is to be an election, but what for
or when they will know little about. The
Steer Sat says:
This is lightning process for amending a
state Constitution, and if the Legislature mas
not applied for patent for the method il sEould
do so at once. In this county the Board stands
adjourned until the first Monday in March. The
commissioners of some other counties. especi-
ally Nye, White Pine and Lncoln, viii find it as
dIfica-t to comply with the law as those of
Humboldt, and the voters IN the remote pre-
clncts, II they hear that an election is to take
place, will hardly have an opportunity TO ascer-
tain for what purpose.
The business is snap game ON the
part of the gamblers of Nevada They
believe they can turn that State into a
Monte Carlo and draw support foT It from
California. They boldly argue that Cali
fornians send hundreds of thousands of
dollars annually to the Louisiana lottery
swindle, and that Nevada can just as well
catch that drift as not California is
interested deeply in the defeat of this in
famous scheme, for if it is not defeated,
this State will be flooded with the Nevada
Il.
peddlers will swarm in every town and city
of this State
1t would be an insult to the intelligence
of ordinarily informed people to enter
upon argument to prove the evil of lottery
gambling. The world knows it to be the
most debasing form of gaming to afford
the greatest opportunities for swindling, in
fact most State lotteries are robbing games.
and all take more of percentage for the game
than they give of winnings to the ticket
holders. They are the mills that next to
whisky grind out most of poverty, idleness
and woe. They are the foes OF industry
and the enemies of honest thrift.
One of the protests against the Nevada
snap game has these pathetic passages:
For hundred years the English nation de-
rived part OF its revenues from lotteries, but for
the last century such means have been s'taboo''
among all economists worthy the name Even
the Latin races have outgrown the folly They
have been proven by ages of experience to be
conducive to bad morals. Vice, idleness crime
and poverty are their natural products
The argument that money spent in suf h
folhes would be better kept at home applies
equally well to every State in the Union. Why
does not California start a lottery? Twenty
dollars, perhaps hundred, goes out of Califor-
ma to every one out of Nevada and yet there is
no proposition TO start lottery there.
II is freely prophesised that if the bars ar
oaee taken down no power the people can avail
themselves OF viii ever put them up again. If
this thing has the strength to compel the calling
OF a special election a weeks notice in mid
winter, to enable its starters to launch it. it is
hard TO say what il cannot do when once il is
fairly under way. Ii will be the most veritable
man OF the sea that the people Of Nevada
ever got upon their back. No man hostile to il
can ever hope to rise in this State and with The
floating element in its politics Nevada can never
get smut OF 1t, no matter what outrsges it
may commit or what disgrace it may put upon
her name She is not in the best tdoT now
among the people of the older States aud this
WIZ put cudgel into the hands OF her enemies.
Upon the decision of this matter rest the most
serious considerations affecting the future OF the
state and the fortunes of GENERATORS yet un-
born IL they are willing 20 be the victims OF
such a job let them remain Indifferent on cleo
ton day and they VIII have no occasion to End
faut with the efficiency of the machinery or
with the promptness and thoroughness of its
operations. II, however, they give this cheeky
proposition the answer il deserves it viii be no
tice TO the world that Nevada is living in the
nineteenth century. That She is up with the
times ana is cultivating better civilization
than that OF hundred years ago. That her
people propose to build State, not on games of
chance or the practices of the harlot and
sharper, but upon hopest industry and an intel
hgent development OF natures bouDties Such
an answer would elevate her in the eyes of the
nation and would be an invitation to her elder
sisters IN the Republic to give her a helping
hand in the work of overcoming the difficulties
before her The amt rican people are generous
end sympathetic, and when they see a brave
State ruggling with the clements aud wi h
sturdy morris and honest effort trying to
make homes for its people, they will not refuse
necessary aid.