The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1909-01-23
PRESS COMMENT.
Horse Races and Fairs.

II uSCu W Uc Sdlu tudt TdCetEdck
gambling was necessary to keep the
agricultural fairs agoing. The race
track gamblers sought an alliance
with the farmers and for some time
the impression prevailed that to
stop racetrack gambling would kill
the fairs. But in states where race
track gambling was stopped the fairs
continued as usual. They were even
better than usual because attention
and premium money were not divert
ed from the chief purpose of such
institutions, which is to promote the
interests of agriculture and stock
raising.
When it was proposed in 1907 to
stop racetrack gambling at the in
terstate fair held at Spokane, a great
cry went up that it would bankrupt
the institution if the city council
passed the ordinance The city
council was prevailed upon not to
make the ordinance effective until
after the fair of 1907 The fair of
1908 succeeded without racetrack
gambling.
The Puyallup Valley fair, which
is free from gambling because the
management will have none of it, has
succeeded Possibly it has not had
| the speediest race horses in the
Northwest, yet the races are quite as
interesting as they would be were
lot of ''touts" on hand and were
the races fixed" to suit the book
les" What is horse race worth, so
far as interest in speed is concerned,
if the horses are manipulated to suit
the "bookies."
The legislature should not hest
tate a moment about enacting a law
against racetrack gambling. And it
should attach an emergency clause
so that the visitors to the Alaska
Yukon-Pacific exposition will not be
fleeced next summer. AS well post,
pone the taking effect of law
against housebreaking as law
against race track gambling.-Seat-
tie Post-Intelligencer.
Liquor Fills the POorhouse.
w. NJ STAFFORD, superintendent OF
the county poor farm at Spangle.
says that in 80 per cent or more of
the cases of dependents at the farm.
liquor is the cause of their being
there. This means that over $50 of
the 44O unfortunates received at the
farm last year owe their helpless con-
dition to excessive drinking.
1t would not be right to say that
liquor alone is responsible. Many Of
the people who became hopeless pau
pers had a poor start in life. In
heritei tendencies, bodies rendered
peculiarly susceptible to the ravages
of alcohol by malnutrition, social sur
roundings that promote dissipation,
contribute to the production of de-
pendent class.
Liquor, however, aggravates all
these conditions and adds the final
touch to their despair. When We
search more deeply. we find that a
great part of the degeneracy and
moral weakness of the present gen
Grafton is due to the drinking habits
of the parents.
OF 1854 epileptic or weak-minded
children in French institution. it
was learned that Al per cent had
alcoholic parents. A large proper
ton of the idiots and criminals of
Switzerland are conceived at the sea-
son of the year when popular festi-
walls occur accompanied by heavy
drinking.
The effects of bad social conditions,
especially of city congestion, and OF
alcohol are reciprocal and cumula-
tive. Society has long war to wage
against them all. The people who
are least able to resist alcoholism are
the most severely tempted.-Spokes-
man Review.
No Cussing.
The town of Prescott has put
uuietus on "cussing" on the streets
of that progressive burg. And why
should not other towns and cities of
the state do the same as a wholesome
step in the moral uplift of their COM
munity? If it is found impractical
BILE to include the whole town or city
it might be a good idea to make
profanity limit, like fire limit, and
enforce it. But it is strange that
town should prohibit profanity just
as winter opens, when the heating
stove has to be put up and the pipe
is all rusty and smashed up after it's
summers rest. If, in view or all this,
such an ordinance can be enforced at