Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1890-08-07
OPPOSED TO LOTTERIES.

The President Sends Message to Con.
gr-ss Calling Attention to Eecent At.
tenpts to Establish and Perpetustc
LOTTERY Schemes. and Urging LIE gislat ion
to Reduce Their Pernicious Influence to
the Minimum by Closing the Mails to
Thera-
WASHINGTON, July 30.-The Presi-
dent sent the following message to
Congress yesterday:
The recent attempt to secure n charter
from the State of North Dakota for a lot.
ter" company; the pending effort to obtain
from the State of Louisiana Il renewal of
the charter of the Louisiana State Lottery
and the establishment of one or more lot
terry companies at Mexican towns near our
border, have served the good purpose of
calling attention to an evil of vast proper
tions. If the baneful effects of these lot
terleS were confined to the States that give
the companies corporate powers and a
license to conduct the business, the citizens
OF other States. being powerless to apply
legal regulations, might clear themselves
CT responsibility by the use of such moral
agencies as were within their reach. But the
case is not so. The people of all the States
are debauched and defraulel. The vast
sums of money offered to the States for
charters are drawn from the people OF the
United States, and the General Government,
through its mail system, is made the
effective and profitable medium of
intercourse between the lottery company
and its victims. The use of the mails is
quite as essential to the companies as the
State license. 1t you'd be practically i'm
possible for these companies to exist if tho
public mails were once effectively closed
against their advertisements and remit
tances. The use of the mails by these COM
panies is a prostitution of an agency only
intended to serve the purposes of legiti-
mate trade and decent social Intercourse.
1t IS not necessary, am sure, for me to
attempt to portray the robbery of the poor
and the width of corruption of public and
private morals which are mere necessary
incidents of these lottery companies. The
National capital has become a sub-head-
quarters of the Louisiana Lottery Company,
and its numerous agents and attorneys are
conducting here a business requiring prob
ably larger use of the mails than that of
any legitimate business enterprise in the
District of Columbia. There seems to be
good reason to believe that the cOrruptfng
touch of these agents has been felt by the
clerks in the postal service and by some OF
the police officers of the District OF Column
bia.
Severe and effective legislation should
be promptly enacted to enable the Post
office Department to purge the mails of all
the letters newspapers and circulars relat-
ing to this business.
The letter of the Postmaster General
which transmit herewith, points out the
inadequacy of the existing statutes, and
suggests legislation that would be elective
1t may also be necessary to so regulate the
carrying of letters by the express COM
panies as to prevent the use of those agen-
cies to maintain communication between
the lottery companies and their agents
customers in other States.
1t does not seem possible that there can be
any division of sentiment as TO the pro-
priety of closing the mails against these
companies, and therefore venture to ex-
press the hope that such proper powers
are necessary to that end will be at once
given to the Post office ID partment.
tSigned.l BENJAMIN HARRISON.
Executive Mansion, July 20, 1881.
Accompanying the message are two
documents, one a letter of the Post
master-General directing the Presi-
dents attention to the subject; the
other a compilation of the laws relat-
ing to lotteries heretofore enacted, to-
gether with the decisions of courts de-
filming those laws. In his letter to the
President, the Observation-Disclosures says
that the urgent necessity of the case
impels him to anticipate his annual re-
port by this special communication in
regard to the use of the mails by the
Louisiana Lottery Company.