The leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1895-1905, 1902-09-03
POKER PLAYING AND HORSE
RACING.

poker, or gamble on horse races,
Secretary Shaw has set an example
which should be promptly followed,
not only by other custodians of FEEDER
al and State funds, but also by the
heads of all financial institutions in
the Union. The Secretary's ruling
will, of course, awaken opposition in
certain circles; the cry that the Secre-
tary is attempting to interfere with the
personal liberty" of government en-
ployes will doubtless be loud in GER
tain quarters; but the sober sense of
the American people will, in the end,
overwhelmingly sustain Mr.. Shaw. In
enforcing this new rule, the Secretary
of the Treasury is merely taking wise
and necessary precaution to protect
the public funds from attack and, in
cidentally, to safe guard the clerks,
affected by the ruling, from tempta-
lions which, as every one knows, beset
officeholders at the national capital.
1t is not too much to say that the
continued practice of gaming is one of
| the most demoralizing influences now
at work in the life of the American
people. Here in the United States -
as, indeed, is the case in all countries
of the Western World-the alcoholic
mania is less prevalent than it is in the
northern countries of Europe. The
use of narcotics is here not so wide
spread as it is in Asiatic nations; we
have not yet learned to believe that
"opium is Gods best gift to man."
Neither has the race yet yielded itself
prey to the baser human passions
that have degraded certain people in
Southern Europe and other countries.
The evil that menaces life in America
and it is needless to say that this
evil is grave-is the constantly in
creasing desire to speculate, to take
chances, to make money with accelera-
ton greater than the recognized nor
NAL speed. In one word, then, the
bane of social and industrial life in
the United States is the speculative
impulse.
Learned and pious men have, from
time to time, written exhaustive treat
les in which this practice of gaming
has, from an ethical point of view, been
ably defended "What belongs to a
man is his to do with as he pleases, so
long as what he does Injuries only him
SELF, reasons the casuist, straightway
dismissing the subject. Theoretically,
true; but in practice how insidiously
false! AS society is constituted nova
day, we wonder by what process of rea-
soning a man can deliberately injure
himself and imagine that his, act af-
fects not at all his fellow-man? Elk
anime, for instance, the case that is
cited by Secretary Shaw:
&C By order of Secretary Shaw three
Treasury Department clerks we're to-
day reduced in salary and removed to
departments where they will not be
required to touch public money funds
This was punishment for their con-
slant poker playing.
"One of the clerks suffered cut of
$500 year in his salary, and the other
two we're reduced several grades in pay.
cit seems that one of the trio has
long been addicted to card playing and
with much bad luck. Suspicion had
been directed toward him for months,
and it was thought that his passion for
gambling was getting away with his
better judgment This feeling was
clinched the other day when his wife
appeared at the department and re-
quested that a portion of her hus-
bands salary be turned over to her
every month, as he had lately failed to
provide the expenses of living for the
| family.
"The matter was at once investi-
gated by the Treasury officials, and it
was found that the greater part of the
salary of $500 was passed over the
green table at gambling resort. 1t
was the habit of the clerk and his two
associates to ride to this resort at the
close of Office nearly every day and
play poker until late in the night"
Now, every one who knows anything
of life-every man who has "gone all
the PAGES" or who is acquainted with
"all the PAGES" men of the world are in
the habit of northumberland that
the case of this Treasury Department
clerk is merely zone among ten thou
sand" throughout the country. When
this clerk began "to play poker" he
was satisfied that he would never
"overplay" himself; was confident that
his powers of self-control would avert
him fromharm; talked volubly about
how he could "sit down and win or lose
$50 and get up and leave the table,,
and soforth, with endless variety
Had anyone told him that he would
even have neglected his wife and fam
lily in order to crafty his lust for gam
bling, he would have Indignantly re-
scented the prediction, and yet-what
is all his earlier Boosting worth today
in the light of his experience-in the
light not of theory but of fact?
Mr.. James T. Hayden, the president
of the Whitney National Bank of New
Orleans, in an address made two or
three years ago before the American
Bankers Association, said that "the
human brain could not devise means
which would insure honesty among
bank clerks unless an honest hand
guided the pen that made the entry"
and he went on to say that it was the
duty of bank presidents to exercise
certain measure of vigilance over their