Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-06-09

termine the financial value of players SER
vices than the club he plays with. This com
mon sense fact suggests that one of two things
could or might be done. First, salary limit
without any grade could be made to go into
operation as soon as adopted without
tolerating any two, three or four years agree
tnent with players. Let the rule be SO absolute
that not player in the League can receive
more than the limit from the day that it goes
into operation. Of course the general idea OF
this was tried before, or at least rule OF this
kind was adopted. 1t was never tested, how
ever, because nobody lived up to it It may
be argued that almost all the players in a team
might want the limit. If they were worth it
s6 NAVE snd
the eXchequer of a club could not pay major
ity of its men the limit, providing they were
worth it, there is no reason whatever that those
players who are not so paid should be robbed.
=
II IL Really Robbery.
Any rule that retains player in a club at a
salary below what his services are worth pro-
mulgates a system of robbery That player is
being robbed of talents that are his own and
which ought certainly to be exchanged for their
market value atleast If club cannot pay him
his full worth there is no reason whatever
why that club should prevent another club from
doing so. Even the graded salary plan now in
operation seems to acknowledge this truth, but
as stated above the graded plan is so full OF OBJ
jections and permits even now SO many glar1ng
replaced by more satisfactory rule, and GER
tainly one containing more elements Of justice.
But there is nothing to prove that were the
would want the limit than are receiving that
figure now Another plan to meet the big diff
1iculty has been suggested 1t is that which is
now in operation in some of the minor leagues
1t provides that the salary list of each club
shall only amount to a certain figure. Each
club is allowed to divide that amount among
its players as it likes. Whatever may be the
ms 0ff n 10
some for tie National League. Its chances of
adoption are so remote that it would be useless
to spend any time in discussing it However.
let me say again that this question OF the lin
itation and grading of salaries must be faced,
and it must be faced fairly There is always
a tendency on the part of large portion |
OF the baseball public to sympathise with |
the players. In this instance, however, it must
not be forgotten that there are gentlemen
financially interested in baseball every year,
while, on the other hand. there is scarcely a
ball player in the League who can save con-
siderably every year. This is fair way of
looking at the case. It may now and again be
trle that the players have correct theories and
sound logic on their side, as in the case of the
reserve rule But it ought not to be forgotten
that theories are often beautiful things until
applied to facts. Laws and rules have to be
made for the world and business as they are;
not as they should be. If the baseball business
was a model as it should be, both as regards
players and capitalists, the reserve rule might
be dispensed with; but in view of human i'm
perfections, its abolition now would cause a
general collapse, and were it made less strin-
gent matters would be worse than at present
Gambling Club Evils.
OF late there has been much said and written
about clubs in this and other cities in the State
1t seems, that a similar state of things under
similar laws exists in London, Eng On this
subject Pendragon, in a recent issue of his
paper, makes the following interesting re-
marks: |
Bad and wicked as these aristocratic clubs |
arc it is probably the so-called working mans |
club which brings about most misery. l have |
myself no objection whatever to the floral tri- |
butte, the Priapian, and the anti-vestal clubs, so
long as they keep themselves to themselves ex- |
cept on the score already set forth-that il |
world at large, and more than ever an oppres-
sor to those who are compelled to put up with |
its heavy and expensive tyrannies. But |
to s %Tes
and the starving children of the me-
chanics and laborers who keep these
infamous places going, and who sit there play
spirits, for hours after the neighboring taverns
are empty and silent. Most of these clubs have
a tape in the daytime, and layer handy to
snap up the unconsidered trifes of the men
who, like moths round a candle. are drawn
thither against their will and what ought to be
their better judgment. The police must be
aware of these dens of iniquity, which abound, |
and yet no move is ever made to purge lower
class London of their hi6eous presence. /
have no desire to say word for the Adelphi
Club. of which know nothing but what have
been told, or for the more pretentious sheol in
which what would be q fortune to you OF me, |
reader, is regarded as a mere bagatelle. But of
both these places it may be said that nights
dissipation and card or dice playing there
would never bring about tithe the misery and
deprivation among women and children that is
brought about by the same sort of thing when
we meet it in its far coarser and baser and
uglier circumstances about Clerkenwell, the
Borough or Whitechapel Not SO long ago /
was informed, semi-oficially, that the difficulty
Of dealing with these acknowledgement foul
smelling, bare-boarded and dirty deal-tabled
copper hades was that they could not be
touched without danger accruing to one or two
clubs of high repute in the West which,
though in conduct undoubtedly clubs in the
best sense of the word and of a repre-
character at that are run |
not by the members themselves |
but by private individuals for profit, and there
fore are really commercial speculations, violat- |
ing the fundamental principles of our inland
revenue system. If so or 100 or 100O men
arrange to start and continue an establishment |
at their own risk and for their own advantage, |
and nobody but themselves and those they |
may afterwards elect as joint proprietors with
them are allowed to participate in expenses or |
benefits, that establishment is as private as
your house Or mine, and unless something
happens whieh makes the place public scan
dal it is naturally and properly free from any
thing in the way of outside Intervention. |
But the case is altogether different in the
event of the law being put in force,
with Jones or Brown, who takes house.
no matter whether it be in Pail Mall or the
Bethnal Green road and turns it into club so as
to get his living and make money thereby. The |
growth of cheap clubs has become SO enormous
of late, and their proprietorship is now SO re-
business, that what the law was
to wink at when Brooks and Whites
and the Travellers and one or two such-like un-
licensed proprietary houses, were the only Of
tenders, is likely to become serious if not a
State matter now that almost every parish in
London has its two or three notorious club and
therefore unlicensed night and gambling
houses