The Roswell daily record. [volume] (Roswell, N.M.) 1903-current, 1907-03-14
THE PASSING OF THE
PueLIc GAMBLER.
(Ratoa Correspondent OF New York

PUBLIC GAMBLER.
tRatoa Correspondent OF New York
SUM-
BY the middle of this year licensed
public gambling will probably have
disappeared from the territories of
the United States. The ease and ap-
parent willingness with which the IL
ger has surrendered surprises home
people who looked for a fight.
But the end has been approached
so gradually through regulation a1d
high license, that even the gamblers
themselves were prepared for it. 1t
was a complete surrender by what
was once regarded as an impregna-
bly, ~intrenched evil. This passing of
the professional gambler shows the
advance of public sentiment due Il
persistent agitation, and it follows
naturally the disappearance of the
frontier. There are no longer any
w~ickedest owns.
Where the gamblers will go or
what they will do is not certain. The
! Arizona closing law becomes effective
April 1, and it is expected that by Ju-
ly 1 a similar law will be in effect
in New Mexico. A number of the
Arizona professionals will doubtless
come up into New Mexico to think
the matter over, and then drift down
into old Mexico, or over into Nevada
where everything is still wide pen
| 49, $4,000 h A. ---.AIo-- I-,o
given up is that the business of pub
lie gambling no longer pays-there is
nothing in it. The high license fee
in this territory, $500 a year for Zach
table and the disappearance of COW
towns and mining camps nave caused
the profits to dwindle. The writer
has been in Ration for about two
months, and in that time has not seen
or heard of a game worth mentioning
Unless a stranger wanders into a
saloon he would never suspect that
public gambling is a source of reve-
nue. for the support of the public
schools here. Last summer When a
couple of new railroads were being
built into this city, there was high
play, but since then the business has
been dead.
There is practically no playing at
all in daytime, and at night there are
only a few isolated games of poker.
Once a molth on the occasion of a
railroad payday, the roulette wheels
may whirl for a night and then dust
settles on them again. Nor is there
p~erceptible anywhere the demoraliza-
ton which is supposed to accompany
the legal recognition of public gamb-
ling. This town of 5000 inhabitants
is as quiet and orderly and clean NOR
ally as any town of like size in the
United States.
When the leading gambler of Ration
was questioned as to the outlook he
said:
They've got the drop On us and
we must submit. It's a poo consola-
ton, but still a consolation, that we
havn't nue. to give up. Some games
will stop entirely and a number of
sports will leave the territory; the
rest will be driven to cover.
Are there any big games nov run
ming in the Territory"
None that the old time gambler
would call big games. Of course there
is stiff play in Albuquerque, where
the prof1igate sons of new ricn men
abound, but such games are rarely
public. There is only one blooded
player in Santa Fe.
The Only really profitable games
are away out in mining camps or
at the front of new railroads. About
the deadest town in New Mexico is
Cimarron, which was once to the
south. what Julesburg was to the
north.
With the disappearance of the
cowboy and the petering out of new
mining camps, gambling for high
stakes has died out. When the gamb-
ling spirit subsidies it doesn't matter
much what the law $50 we simply
don't care whether or not the legisla-
ture prohibits public gambling"
In his message to the legislature
governor Hagermal advocated the
passage of a stringent antigambling
law providing penalties of from $500
to $4,000 fine and Imprisonment of
from two months to one year, and
recommended that any deficit be
made up by increasing the amount
of the liquor licenses. At present
two thirds of the net amount receiv.
ed by the territory from liquor and
gambling licenses is paid into the dis
trict school funds. This open endorse
ment of public gambling is objection
able to citizens generally and peculia
rly so to prospective settlers from the
east.
h lumber of retail liquo- licens-
es in the territory IN 1905 vas 585,
wholesale licenses %, and gambling
licenses 800. The total income there
from to the territory was only 1854.