St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1891-10-24

itself by taxing the poor, the ignorant
and the deluded alone2 My friends, you
can do great many things in this world
indirectly which you could not do directly
although what is done indirectly is equiva
lent in substance to what is done directly
/ / tell you that if the lottery advocates
We're standing before the people of Louis
lana to-day with proposition to exemp!
| banks, railroads, insurance companies and
rich people from taxation and to put il
upon the poor, the ignorant and the de
luded, the people would tear them to
pieces and there would not be a remnant
left of them. They would boot every adj
vocate of the lottery out OF this State. And
| that would be the result if the direct pro-
position were made My friends, the pro-
position as it stands is in substance and
essence, nothing more, nothing less than
this
Do you want an illustration of what l
have said? Go and stand at any one of
these pest-holes scattered all over the city
as have done; go and stand at the door
of any of these
INTERNAL POLICY SHOPS
and see who goes in. Go and follow one
of the ticket sellers as he goes along the
street and you will see the percentage of
poor people who buy tickets day after day.
That would not only be your experience, it
has not only been mine, but my friends, it
has been the experience of the world.
This lottery question is not any new
thing. This experiment has been tried be-
fore. What we say to you on this subject
is not mere speculation as to what is going
to happen, but we can look back in the
past and can see where lotteries have been
used and what has happened there; and,
with the light of history before u.s. we can
see that the most destructive, the most in
furious, the most terrible method by which
government can undertake to support it
self is the establishment of a lottery. Gap
plause.) For that reason it is condemned
universally condemned-by the political
economists-and what l mean by polite
al economist, my friends, is a man who
makes a special study of his branch of
knowledge just as the astronomer studies
the stars, as the chemist studies the organ
ization of things and as the iron man
studies the characteristics of iron. The
political economists are the men who make
a study of
THE METHOD OF GETTING RICH;
of the production of wealth, the distribu-
ton of wealth, the way society grows and
itself and what has good effect
like Adam Smith, Jean Baptiste Say John
Stuart Mill, McCulloch, DR.. Wayland and
many others. All those great men who
have studied this thing, who have watched
the operation Of lotteries in France, in
Belgium, in England and other countries
a dissenting voice unite in the statement
that public lottery for the support of gov
ernment is public curse. (Applause.)
The growth of society in wealth, comfort,
knowledge and health is based on the two
great foundations of industry and frugali-
ty-they are the constant application of
human energy of mind and body to labor
in the fields, the forests, the mines, the
on the high seas, in trans
portation of various kinds, in thousand
small industries that grow as society grows
the other, the content of mind and the
of habit which leads men to
live within their means, to waste nothing
in destructive vices and to lay by their sur
plus earning. A lottery strikes at both
these cardinal virtues.
1t teaches man that there is way to get
rich other than by the divinely appointed
path of honest labor. And the tending is
false. 1t makes men drunk with the de-
lusive sight of gold within their grasp, and,
when they have been robbed of their all, |
it dashes them down to despair
1t impoverishes and degrades the ..peo-
pie. 1t provokes embezzlements and sui
cides.
1t drains the savings banks and The
boarded money of the people. No other
form of gambling appeals so strongly to |
the speculative instinct Inherent in human
nature. To use the language Of the
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
5wice repeated at intervals of thirty years
Experience has shown that the common |
forms of gambling are comparatively inno-
,uous when placed in contrast with the
pestilence of lotteries. The
former are confined to few persons and |
places, but the latter infests the whole com
nunity, it enters every dwelling, it reaches
every class, it prays upon the hard earn
ngs of the poor, it plumbers the ignorant
and simple "a voice: NThat's so.'D
Now there is another economic reason.
Not only is it public
CURSE UPON THE PEOPLE
lpon whom it lies, but it is the most de-
'tructive method of raising a revenue that
,ould be devised.
To give You an illustration-if the State
puts tariff on anything the tax is collect
I'd at the custom-house The only thing
which the government loses is the cost of |
which is very small So that |
,he money which is paid for the purpose of
he tax is only spent to that small extent
If the government of the State levies di-
'ect tax the taxpayer puts his hand into /
lis pocket and pays the tax collectors a dol
ar, and all the tax collector gets out of
hat dollar is from to 5 per cent and 95
o 81 per cent goes into the treasury and
1one of it is distributed between the pocket /
If the taxpayer and the Golfers of the gov
But how is it about lottery? Take
ottery. It is established; it sells its tick
It's to the people. The cost and expense Of
conducting a lottery and the cost and ey-