New-York tribune., 1907-06-05
ExORCIsING THE LOTTERY.

The federal government has won another not
able victory in its long campaign to stamp OUT
the lottery evil. In the district court Tor the
Southern District of Alabama pleas OF guilty 10
indictments charging conspiracy to cause the III
terstate carriage of lottery advertising nave just
been entered by thirty-seven persons, all dlrec-
TORS. stockholders or agents Of the Honduras
Lottery Company. Fines to the amount OF S2S4,-
600 were imposed and the company, which has
long fattened on the ignorance and credullty OF
its patrons surrendered its plant equipment
and paraphernalia and virtually promised to
abandon its iniquitous enterprise This collapse
marks the end of a desperate struggle to per-
petuate an Illicit and enormously profitable
business, for the Honduras company was only
a continuation of the outlawed Louisiana com
pany which from 1868 To 1894 feeced the Amer
lean public under the protection of the laws of
Louisiana. When that state refused to accept
an annual payment of S1.350000 in return for
the renewal of the lottery'S charter. an inef
fectual attempt was made 10 shift its base Of
operations to North Dakota. But the moral
sentiment of the country was so strongly aroused
by this bid for new lease of life that North
Dakota had to revoke Il promised concession,
and the lottery concern, changing its name but
retaining its identity. went into ostenSbe exile
in Honduras
Congress passed law in 1861 closing the
mails to lottery tickets and literature. But the
company overcame this handicap by turning to
the express companies and It not until 1890
that another law was secured forbidding inter
state transportation of lottery tickets or adj
vertisements. That law was at once assailed as
unconstitutional, on the ground that Congress
did not possess the power to prohibit the trans
portation of any article from one state TO an
other 1t took eight years TO fight the case
through the courts, but in 1903 the Supreme
Court handed down far reaching decision hold
ing the act Of 1895 constitutional and declaring
that the power TO regulate interstate commerce,
vested by the Constitution in Congress- did in
clude the power to prohibit. The lottery there
after resOrted TO messengers to distribute its
tickets. But evidence ana before the grand jury
at Mobile indicated that it also attempted to
use the express companies agents in conduct
ing its business. The Secret Service made out
so strong case of conspiracy that the defend
ants thought it expedient to anticipate jury
verdict
1t is 10 be hoped that the lottery fraud will
go the way of the policy fraud, now pretty eff
fectualy stamped out. The one rivals the other
for eminence as "the meanest form Of gambling
For, while the policy men coined fortunes out of
1.-The pennies of the poor" the lottery operators
took the half dollars and dollars of a vast army
of improvident and easily deluded wage earners
VI the sums collected half went confeSsedly 10
expenses and profits, and of the other half the
patrons never knew how much was diverted
without confession. OF all "get-rich-qulck"
schemes the lottery was, for the operators tho
most profitable and the most elastic: for the
army of dupes being continually recruited
and the purchasers of tickets had no means
whatsoever of testing the integrity Of the man
agement Were are countries IN which il Is still
held that something may be said IN defence of a
government lottery, which levies tax for state
purposes on the almost universal passion for
getting something for nothing But the exploita
ton Of this weakness for private gain is an un-
mitigated offence against the body polite It IS
opposed to good morals, and, like the racetracl,
evil, breeds only Incidence, degeneration and
crime. The governments successful crusade
against the lottery IS a material gain for public
decency and social progress