The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1893-06-19
THAT MATTER OF GAMBLING.

The Stockton Mail devotes column to
criticism of Sacramento as the Capital
City, which is adverse and harsh, because
the other day Sacramento jury failed to
agree as to whether the particular indi-
viduals on trial for gaming were the per-
sons who dealt on the particular date
charged in the complaint.
The Mail declares that the moral senti-
ment of Sacramento is not opposed to
gambling; that it favors it so far at least
that it is impossible to suppress gaming
in this city. The paper points to Stockton
as town in which gaming is suppressed,
and declares that in no town or city ex-
cept Sacramento is it declared that the
law of the State cannot be enforced
against gamesters, a statement that is
error.
1t is not necessary to follow out the
stated fairly indicates its character-but
we must add that it quotes local paper
as saying that it is impossible 70 enforce
the law here, and the Mail adds, and
several times repeats, that this city is de-
handing and advocating the licensing of
gambling, wherefore the Stockton paper
concludes that it is not city fit to be the
Capital.
1t is only necessary to say in response
TO this TRADE that the Mail is Just as far
'otf" in this matter as it was in the mat
ter OF the new water supply proposed,
and upon which it criticised Sacramento
harshly from wholly untenable premises.
The fact is that the State laws can be and
are enforced here, as in any other com
munity. During the month of May six
gamblers were arrested and fined 500
each in the Police Court for violation of
the State law. The fact that the Sheriff is
now pushing the gamblers is refutation of
the Maips charge.
1t is not true that Sacramento is de-
manding that gaming shall be licensed.
No such demand has been made by this
city or ever will be. A few years ago
local board did attempt to license gaming,
but it was the first and last effort, and a
Sacramento Assemblyman was the au-
thor of and introduced the bill that be-
came a law prohibiting such attempts
and making it crime to license gaming.
This community is as refined, its moral
sense as acute, and its tone and sentiment
as high as the standards of any sister
city. That the laws are violated here as
they are elsewhere is very true, and that
not all offenders are promptly prosecuted
and punished is as true here as it is in
San Francisco and other cities. But it is
also true that fewer great crimes disgrace
this city than smirch the regulations of
large number of our sister cities. The
ignominy of lynch law, midnight and
mysterious hanging, and other outrages
of that character, to say nothing of finan-
cial and business scandals, have not at
tached to the Sacramento of the last
thirty years.
That there are some people in this city
who would like to have gaming licensed,
and who honestly believe that it is the
better way to deal with the vice, no one
denies. But such citizens are to be found
in all parts of the State, and in larger
numbers than in Sacramento; people who
think that gaming is thing that cannot
be controlled so well under prohibitive
as under permissive law. But this city
has not and never will make any such
demand, or put forward such plea as the
Mall declares that it makes. Any such
effort in this State would meet over
whelming defeat; California viii never
license gaming, and that every one
knows who makes any study of civiliza-
ton, which does not go backward.
Hence it is that the few who entertain
a sentiment favorable to license effect
nothing, and although they are heard in
all sections of the State, and though aeon
siderable number of the press of the State