The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-08-11
OUTLOOK DOLEfUL
Racing Seems on Its Last Legs
in New York State.
Public Sentiment Is Aroused
Over Patrons Treatment.
fGOVERNOR Is OPPOSED
Hughes Has Announced Himself
Against the System.
All Talk Of Credit Betting Taken
With a Grain of Salt.

New York, Aug. 11.-Just what will
the. harvest be for the New York race
track managers this season?
+ No answer can be forthcoming I'M
III Governor Hughes and the various
district attorneys get ready to hand
down their ultimatums. From the
record Of indictments and arrests
made at the local course it does not
seem as if the pathway of the tracks
was primrose affair by any means.
Every one admits that conditions
are different from the times in which
the Percy-Gray law saw it's birth.
There is no disposition for compromise
in these days. The governor is bit
terly opposed to the present system of
managing the tracks, and he shows it
at every angle. And no one needs to
be told that it is the brutal arrogance
of the Tammany faction that has
killed the game in New York.
Bitter complaints have been made
continuously of treatment of patrons
at tracks like Jamaica and AQueduct.
1t has often been charged that the
employees of these concerns are APP
pointed strictly through political
pull" and it is said that even the
judges appointed by the jockey club
are pOwerleSS to stop inconsistent
racing If the offending horse or jockey
happens to be connected with the
Tammany ring.
Indictments by the grand jury are
too serious to be squelched. In some
cases three and four bills have been
returned against each offender. There
can be no hope of pardons under
present circumstances, and it is be-
lieved that this will be a fight to the
finish.
Early in the game there was a
disposition to sheer at the remarks
made by Governor Hughes when he
said that he would push cases against
the racing men to the utmost. There
IN oil o1, OIL inc
dropped" at Saratoga, as was pre-
dicted for last week.
THE race track element has killed
it's own game"
This is the remark to be heard
everywhere around this city. It is
conceded that II proper treatment had
been accorded to the patrons of the
various tracks, no such bitter
opposition would have been met with
when 1t came to the life or death of
the racing game.
In baseball, at theaters-in fact, at
every other public form of amusement
or sport, patrons are treated civilly
and an effort is made to please them.
On the contrary, the race tracks have
been run on the Tweed idea of What
is no redress here, for a patron who
wishes to complain of uncivil treat
ment or of worse usage.
Probably the worst impression has
been created by the very element
which has direct profit by the game.
The men employed as clerks of the
bookmakers have so frequently
offended bettors who have come in
contact with them that even the pat
rons Of race courses have turned
against the game. Considering that
these men often draw down SO for
about two and one-half hours work in
the afternoon. it is difficult to see why
they should insult the bettors.
But they do, and it IS this that has
now thrown many of them out of
jobs-for the deciding vote in the
state senate came after a pronounced
advocate of racing died, leaving an
opportunity for that district, formerly
a Tammany stronghold, to elect a man
who had declared himself against the
racing game. This was Senator Voel-
ker.
All talk of credit betting in New
York may be taken with a grain of
salt. 1t is generally conceded here
that racing Is on its very last legs and
that it has been killed by the very
men who make their livelihood out
Of it.