Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-10-23
WAR OF THE TRACKS
AND POOL ROOMS
Fight That Was Begun Many
Years Ago in New York by
Peter De Lacy.
By Clarence L. Cullen.

York race track authorities and the New
York poolroom proprietors goes rasping on.
There is Washington end to 1t. too.
The New York poolroom people have car
ried the war to Benning. They make little
or no attempt to conceal the fact that they
stop betting at Benning.
A test case, in the shape Of q trial In a
District court of bookmaker arrested at
the last Benning meeting on the charge of
setting up gaming table," Is to be put
through before the autumn meeting at Ben
ming.
That test trial and its outcome will mean
a lot to the racing game in this vicinage.
The race track people don't. at any rate.
like the looks of the situation. There may
be betting at the approaching Benning
meeting, and there may not be.
Without betting the sport OF kings Is
about as appetizing as a Welsh rarebit
when sarsaparilla Is served on the side. A
palate of the Washington racegoer as
might be a meal consisting exclusively of
liver and milk
This thing of making mind" bets on the
horses is just about as much fun as 1t
would be for men with whiskers to play
London bridge-is fallingdown. or beam
bag, or jacks.
Some dreamful turf persons with ele-
pHdHIldSiS VI Tie Ddllh TOll StpdTdlcQ luSIA-
selves from something ike half million
pieces-of-eight couple of years ago to
build race track up in a little New Eng
land town. The idea was to get the Bos-
tonians dippy on the runners. The Bos-
tonians might have fallen for 1t. at that,
but the appeal never reached them.
The pulpiteers up New England way got
busy with that track before 1t ever opened
its gates for the first meeting last sum-
mer They didn't want the roll cking gam
boilers up that way. it appeared. The gov
ernor of the state in which the track was
plated and erected rested his ear on the
ground to listen unto this clamor against
the gee-gee gambling, In VIII Oh a consld-
cradle element of the New England press
joined. and when he got through listening
he had his mind all made up. He issued
them papers" and there wasn't any lay
ing of odds or taking of the same when
that expensive race track opened It's gates.
That made the racing seem to the pa
trons-a scant lot Of patrons-like series
of six afternoon workouts.
The patrons stood around while the pet
less workouts were in progress pairing their
nails and gazing up at the sky to see
whether the evening would hold up or not.
They looked everywhere except at the rum
ming horses. What was the use! D1dn
any pulp-conk know that one horse could
beat another horse, or several Of en- for
that matter? And when the numbers Of
the winners Of the betless races were hung
out they didn't even look at those numbers.
There was no need for them to exert
themselves by twisting their heads around
to see the numbers. and SO they didn't
After a few days of such sOmberness,
the Boston dead-games forgot to ride out to
the new track any more. They remained In
Beanville and attended the ball games,
where they could get action Of some sort,
anyhow, by betting on the results of
innings with each other. or they just
stayed on their own beat and bet on how
many street cars would pass given point
in given time. They could not perceive
the thing OF journeying a considerable dis
lance to a race track where the only ex-
making mental bets with themselves on
their picks and transferring their money
from one pocket to the other. whether they
won these bets or lost them.
A Fight Of Years.
The fight between the New York race
track people and the poolroom folks goes
away back in the mist Of years to the time
when Peter De Lacy was the biggest pool
room man in New York. or in the United
States. for that matter. De Lacy had be-
come very wealthy out of the poolroom
thing in New York. and bis large chain of
the blackboard plants was doing all the
business when the race track people made
I'D their minds that the open poolrooms
were keeping down the attendance at the
tracks. It Is generally understood that
Phil Dwyer. the owner of the Gravesend
track, was the first of the race track
authorities to set to work to put crimp
in De Lacy.
De Lacy, a fighting man. backed by mil
lions threw down the gantlet at the first
challenge The New York police were set
, upon him. He defied the police. He def1ed
everybody. He employed expensive law
yers He fought tooth and nail.
De Lacy invented phrase with regard to
the situation that. viewed from strictly
logical basis. Is unanswerable.
"Why is it right to permit gambling on
one side Of fence and to prohibit 1t on
the other side of the fence?" inquired De
Lacy.
He meant. of course. that the reverse
English was being put on the square deal
thing when the law permitted or at least
winked at betting on the ponies within a
several thousand Of brick on the same kind
of betting when 1t was done on the outside
of the race track fence. Fair men, not In
the least interested in racing, declare.
ton on this point is absolutely correct. All
| the sophistry and legal clubbing In the
world can't make q bad thing good on one
side Of board fence and bad thing more
bad on the other side of the pickets.
The race track people attempted to make
| the point stick that only such folks as could
afford to visit race track and lose their
| money visited the New York tracks. where
as. they claimed. q riffraf Of poor devils
who could in no wise afford to lose. and
whose losses led them into the paths of
crime, patronized the New York poolrooms.
De Lacy was ready for this one. He had
been keeping a careful and elaborate set of
newspaper clippings and he showed con-
clusively that the great majority OF the
bookkeepers and cashiers and clerks and
such like who were pinching their employ
| ers' coin out Of the till and getting them
selves pinched and thrust into prison In
lconseouence were fellows who visited the
race tracks and not the poolrooms.
The battle swayed back and forth fof
years, and It's still a-swaying. De Lacy
and the poolroom people made things SO
uncomfortable for the New York racing
authorities that they had to go to the New
York legislature and get special bill
framed up and passed whereby a new
system of betting on the ponies became. in
a way, legalized.
The New Betting Scheme.
The new scheme did away with the plan
whereby you got something to show for
the money you so gayly tossed into the
hands of the bookmaker. Under the old
plan you got a ticket with the name OF
your horse and the amount OF your bet
scrawled on 1t, and the ticket gave the
club name and address Of the bookmaker
along the big line to whom you had in
trusted your coin. The ticket was your
receipt, and If, basking in the benevolence
of the Lady Fortune,~you did, by some odd