The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1910-09-24
Proprietors of Public Gambling
Houses Are Guilty of Sin
of Scandal.
The Same is True of Those Who Aid
in Any Way in Forming
Gambling Clubs.
What Applies to This Evil Applies
in General to Speculation
on Exchanges

Rev. T. J. Campbell, S. j., writing
in America on the subject Of the at
titude of the Church toward gambling
says:
Seeking information, a distinguished
professor of literature in Columbia
University, New York, writes to ask:
"If Protestant may come to Amer
ica' with request for enlightenment"
The answer is obvious, and we hasten
to shed what light we may on the
question he presents. It is about
gambling, and was prompted by
strong feeling Of dissatisfaction with
the utterance alleged to have been
made by the Protestant pastor and
Catholic priest, OH the occasion of d
raid made on fashionable clubhouse
at Narragansett Pier, where gambling
was said to have been going on, and
in consequence Of which some con-
spicuous people were in danger of
being oited to court.
It IL somewhat difficult to do justice
to such a subject in the restricted
space Of an article, but the general
outlines Of Catholic teaching on this
very vital and very actual question
of the day may be given.
Gambling, properly so called, is risk
ing money on games Of chance, where
there 10 nothing but chance to be
reckoned with, as in throwing dice,
or where science and skill afford
basis Of calculation, as in billiards or
whist and the like.
To the question, Is 1t wrong, NOR
alists generally speaking answer in the
negative. It may shock tinnid souls at
first. but even in throwing dice there
is nothing per sc against the moral
law. If can give away my money
when and in what way choose, there
is nothing to prevent me from making
suoh disposal Of it depend on the turn
ing up of three spots instead of six
1t is like tossing up coin to see which
road shall take. What is true Of
games of mere chance is to be said
also of those in which the skill of the
players diminishes the element of haz-
ard. In wagering on results in such a
case I often take no more risk than
when I am buying horse or house.
But the morality of an act is not
to be measured by the act alone The
circumstances must be considered,
what theologians call the virtue of
eutrapelia or moderation. Hence the
stalking of extravagant sums on a
game would be wrong, and conse-
quently when the Episcopalian pastor
at the Pier is hailed before the public
as saying: IF had 100000 to spend
it is nobody's business how I spend
it," he must have been misquoted It
certainly is somebody's business If the
money is thrown away recklessly or
spent for some silly or immoral pur-
pose.
Secondly. the money ostaked on a
game must belong to the player. A
lawyer cannot put up the money of
his client, nor a clerk that Of his en-
ployer; nor can a man run the risk of
plunging his wife and children into
poverty.
Thirdly, player must be perfectly
free to play. He cannot be inveigled
or forced into the game; and it would
be manifest robbery for man to
gamble with another who is under the
influence of liquor-an easy POSSIBLE
ity in gambling houses where the liq-
uids flow freely for visitors, and where
the professional player is usually a
man of abstemious habits.
F'ourthly, all cheating and trickery
must be debarred. though the usual
aid accepted ruses of the game are
not forbidden.
If these conditions are observed
gaming is permissible. But, as every
one knows, in the rough and tumble
OF life, especially in the life not only
OF q professional gambler, but of those
who arc inordinately addicted to play,
4 these safssuards are usually swep.
IS