Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-03-09
Would Have the Business Placed I'm
der Police Supervision.
WHAT This WOULD ACCOMPLISH
=
Might Keep Young Men From
Acquiring the, Habit.
AN IMPUDENr. SUGGESTION

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
NEW YORK, March 8, 1901.
There perhaps never was time when
this town underwent SO thorough and uni
versal an awakening as to the evils of gam
bling as it has been undergoing during the
past six months. Even the temperance
question has never been so exhaustively
discussed and sifted. The gambling prob
lem has broken into the domain of politics
with such vengeance that 1t has already
disrupted and torn apart the party In mu-
nicipal power, and if any single issue shall
ever serve to accomplish a complete and
protracted downfall for that party 1t is
likely to be the gambling issue.
In other years there have been notable
crusades In New York on the part Of the
best element of the population against Off
cially winked-at violations of the excise
laws. just as there have been some pretty
powerful campaigns against dishonesty in
office; but even law-abiding citizens who
don't ordinarily align themselves on either
one side or the other in these fights, and
who have made it a practice to vote ac-
cording to their upbringing and hereditary
traditions. are now talking violently against
the continuation of the thoroughly organ
lied outfit in this town that is colloquially
known as the gambling trust.
The almost monotonous reiteration of
stories in the New York daily press with
reference to the cases of young, middle
aged and even elderly men who have been
driven to thievery and crimes of violence
owing to gambling losses have at length
had their effect upon thinking men of all
classes in this community, so that 1t really
does now seem as if the agitation Is going
to result In pretty tight closing down
ON all gambling of whatever sort in this
neighborhood before the general outcry is
professional NJ
bers themselves instead of holding to their
cool, confident air, have been driven to at
tempt to defend themselves. The aggrieved
stand that some of them take, after all
these years during which they've been
swapping their fingers and asking the
Tweed question. What are you going to do
about it?' is indeed funny. Others look
upon themselves as, in a way, sacrificial
offerings upon the altar of an irremediablt
public weakness or vice-gambing; and
these are even inclined to become some-
what mawkish in dwelling upon how sad it
is that it should have been their fate in
early life to become attached to a general
lnlqu1ty-Which Is gambling again.
Views of a Gambler.
The writer hereof met one of these self
sympa thetic chaps the other night and it
was diverting to study his FEASIBILITY. He
is the manager of one Of the recently
closed gambling houses of New York, a
luxurious institution that has often sur
vived when more pretentious and SEEM
ingly impregnable establishments have been
shut up. He is man Of fifty, and he has
been in receipt of an income Of $4,000 per
annum for perhaps half of his life He
was RECALLING himself extensively at one of
the flash Broadway restaurants and he
appeared to be on terms of great excellence
with himself. a
Yes he said in abiding to the raids
on the gambling houses, they sure have
got us some on the run-ehere's no sense In
denying that. They've got US going proper,
so to speak, and, considering the aroused
state of public sentiment. 1 wouldn't be in
the least surprised, If they succeeded in
mailing us up for quite a time. With the
election coming on, they're more than
liable to do it. We haven't been pushed so
hard for a long while
But if they think for a minute that
gambling is going to be erased from this
generations catalogue of vices, they ought
to stop dreaming. 1t isn't. No doubt it's
a bad thing that 1t isn't, but it isn't, all
the same. AS long as you and I are able
to creep around, there'll be gambling, and
plenty Of it. The forms of gambling may
change, the circumstances under which
gambling is practiced may undergo a radi-
cal switch--but therell be gambling Gam
bling has quite as strong hold upon all
the races of men as has drink. The two,
in fact. walk hand In hand; or, If they
are not partners the one inevitably leads
to the other. Gambling is a sort of moral
oblteration arrives
"You employ pretty frank phrases in al
luding to your business, don't your in
quired the gamblers listener.
Frank Admissions.
81 merely give expression to facts that all
of us fully understand" was the reply
Dye suppose for minute that we don't
know, all of us, that gambling is bad
thing? That 1t stands near the top Of the
list as a home destroyer? That. every year,
it sends thousands and tens Of thousands
of men to the bow-wows? That 1t is con-
stantly producing a class Of loafers and
non-producers? That in the long run, 1t cru
cities nnety-nine men out of hundred that
even daily with it? Why, of course we
know it-every man-jack Of US! We've
known it all the time. The state of the
case has never been in doubt for an in
slant in our minds"
You're sort Of calloused to 1t, them"
mot a bit-never was a hard-hearted
man, never will be-few of us are. But.
since gambling is one of the tragedies of
life I take my part in it. and profit by it,
instead Of going to the wall through it. At
that, had some bitter years through it. I
don't approve Of myself. a little bit, mind.
But, when I was young chap, gambling
completely untitled me for any other bust
ness, and when I got the chance I elected
to choose the least of two evils in the cir
cumstances in which found myself-and