Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1890-02-27
A FALSE ALARM
Is What the l'ittsburg Dispatch
Correspondent Calls the
Lottery Scare.
Hotels, Churches, Benevolent In.
stitutiOn Called into Life
by Lotteries.
Dead as q Smelt, the
Lottery and it's Lore Com
tinuc Favorite Topics.
The Lottery Bugab0O.

The Lottery Bugab0O.
Under the head of the Lottery Scare"
the Washington correspondent of the
Plttsburg, Pa, Dispatch, has the follow
ing:
There seems to be considerable agita.
ton among the good Sunday school
politicians and others here as to the pro-
posed lottery business in Dakota to les
sen taxation for the discouraged farmers
of that great agricultural region and to
raise money for public purposes. But
the people there are surely not wicked
beycn their fellows. Their plans as set
forth is only history repeating itself.
When the country was in its infancy pub
lie works and enterprises of all sorts
were managed upon the lottery scheme.
Even the churches and schools were
built with money raised in that way, and
that fact does not appear to have inter
fered in any perceptIble manner with their
prosperity and usefulness. If the subject
we're closely investigated, and the details
carefully gone over, it might be found
that lottery schemes for raising money
were not now considered as dreadfully
wicked as some people suppose, since
they have become known under other
names. Churches are even in these days
built in part aud furnished, hospitals are
supported, benevolent and philanthropi"
schemes of all sorts are benefited by
lotteries known under the titles of taking
chances, making guesses and voting on
all sorts of uncertainties and matters
IN which luck only is supposed to be The
controlling factor. Even some of the
churches in orthodox Pittsburg we're
built and sustained by lotteries, and yet
they have prospered and grown
Rich in Good Works
and piety. The fairs and enterprises in
behalf of some of the churches and hos
pitfalls with their votes and chances sue
ceed better in drawing dollars from close
pockets than any that are managed on
the plan af legitimate contributions, or
the regular sale of merchandise. as every
body is well aware. Knowing this, it is
not wonderful That the poor Dakotans,
who see in the S! stem OF taxation for the
expenses Of their new and ambitious
state bugbear that will strain their
financial ability to the breaking point,
have bethought themselves of the money
drawing power of a lottery that was so
successful in building up new enterprises
in the early part of the century, with
the least burden upon the people at
large.
In this great city OF Washington the
first hotel built was prize IN a lottery,
and lotteries were used to encourage
settlement in the District of Columbia
which, while then SO poor, now teens
with wealth and has become the favorite
home of mlllionaires during the season
and the Mecca of political pilgrims in
their pursuit of an ''oflis."
70 hear the doleful words OF condemna-
tion and witness the shocked expressions
ent administration, it would appear that
maker, Brother Halford and the most of
them were greatly srieved and
Disquie,ed in Their Souls
over this lottery business as proposed in
Dakota. Moreover. as lotteries constitute
a great part of what is deemed legitimate
business, it is hard to see how the line
can be drawn to avoid the crime and sin
OF betting upon chances or taking risks
in luck. II 81 is risked for chance on a
silk quilt or a set of silver at a fair for
the benefit of Il church or the support of
a missionary, in what Goes the sin of the
Dakotans consist, who, in order to pro-
mote the prosperity Of their state, IN
stltute Il system OF chances for people to
secure town lots and farms by similar
plan?
II lotteries are so dreadfully sinful and
criminal. why does not the country rise
up and howl over the speculation and
the daily inculcation of the doctrines OF
chances and blind luck as exhibited in
the business, the transactions in stocks,
the bulling and bearing of markets, by
which crednlou: men are heeced of their
money by the 'sulart business men" and
money sharks and sharpers to be found
in every community.
Emmons County Record: For num-
Der of years the writer went in a dollar a
month on the Louisiana lottery. He
never drew much; but he erected some
very fine and satisfactory air castles
each moon. He has also played deeply
against the church fair devices; and he
has lost dollars on the latter to cents on
the former. A church fair counter with
a pretty woman behind it selling five cent
articles for a dollar is more dangerous to
the pocketbook Of the average man than
Il brace faro game would be.
The Seed Wheat Problem.
Farmer Fenton of Cass county, who
runs bonanza plantation, is unnecess;l.
rily advising all farmers to cut down the
acreage of their wheat fields one-half
this year. He says the production
of wheat is again almost certainty for
1890. The outlook in the winter wheat
states for large crop is at present about
as good as could be and prices
are predicted that 'will make us all