The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-06-24
ON THE LOTTERIES.
Pastor Goodwin Points Out Their Inn
morality-Judge Campbell Sc
verely Criticized.

Rev. W. B. Goodwin, pastor of the Cali
fornia-street Methodist Episcopal Church,
treated of the recent report of the Grand
Jury from the pulpit last evening.
He read several long selections from the
printed document, accompanying them
with a running fire of comment, which was
at times satirical. He favored the report,
however, and his invective was reserved
for those whom the grand jurors criticized
The preacher prefaced his address by a
justification of his course. Some people,
he said, think that a minister should con-
fine himself to religious deeds, and that
the church should be too pious to NEEDLE
in politics or take any part in business
affairs. The Bible thinks otherwise. 1t
says:
But if the Waterman see the sword coming
and blow not the trumpet and if the sword
come and take one from among them he shall
die in his iniquity, but his blood will l require
at the watchman's hands.
The speaker considered the report of the
Grand Jury marvellous because of the
courage shown in its compilation and be-
cause of the character of the men who
made it. He spoke of it because he con-
sldered that careful consideration of the
report would cause more care in the selec-
ton of public officials.
The paragraph concerning election
frauds was read. "Every man who was
engaged in Juggling the election returns, 3"
said the preacher, fought to be behind the
bars. There are a thousand men in San
Quentin who are better than these fellows.
One who because of hunger steals a loaf of
bread and he who in a moment of anger
wounds a fellow-creature go to San QUEEN
tin, while these fellows who conspire to
defeat the will of the people as expressed
in the ballot, who violate a sacred trust,
go free.
Judge Campbell came in for scoring.
GA Judge of that character ought to prac-
tice in Mexico. Such thing is shame to
any city in the world
Concerning the property-owners who
rent Morton-street dives for immoral pur-
poses he said: THE proper. place for such
men is the penitentiary. They are worse
than the women they rent to. They are
moral lepers and social ulcers"
Concerning gambling and lotteries he
said:
am utterly opposed to lotteries Outside of
the liquor business, which is the foulest crime
outside of perdition, lotteries break up more
homes and cause more crime than anything
else. Yet l have some sympathy with the
buyer of lottery tickets after the Louisiana
style, especially ii he is a member OF a church
which INDUCES in the lottery business. An
institution which countenances rallies has no
right to say one word against lotteries or any
other form of gambling which can be imag-
ined. l would rather rent the basement of the
church for saloon purposes than countenance
rafles.
The newspapers should not countenance lot
teries. They are next to the pulpit, and in
some respects superior to the pulpit in educat-
ing the people either for good or for evil They
have no more right to disseminate crime than
has the pulpit, and any of them which panders
to evil or sells its columns to lawlessness is it
self a sword which will destroy the people.
The Civic Federation was defined as a
banding together of reputable citizens who
had grown tired of being governed by Jug
glers and perjurers. The result had been,
according to the preacher, to stir up the
basest elements of society, and he pre-
dicted that if in the libel suit against GER
tain members of the organization the court
would allow all the facts to come out the
eyes of the people would be opened wide
in amazement at the depth of corruption
and wickedness from which the opposition
to the federation really sprang.
In conclusion the speaker expressed the
hope that the owners of the Morton street
cribs and others like them would be
| speedily wrecked in pocket and made fit
inmates for the poorhouse, even as they
| were already for the penitentiary,