Evening star., 1922-07-16
ATTACK ON LOTTERY
RESENTED BY CUBA
Republics Foundations
TrembIed When Crowder
Memo Hit This Institution.
DRAWINGS NET MILLIONS
Public Pays $500, 900 Yearly for
Three Dozen Shots at 500, 600
and Lesser Prizes.

Ey the Associated Press.
HAVANA. Cuba, July 10. - What
base ball is to Uncle Sam and cricket
to John Bull. that and more is the
national lottery to Liborio, who Is
Cuba personified by the cartoonists.
But base ball never has threatened
the constitution nor cricket the
Magma Carta, while the lottery has
shaken the very foundations of the
twenty-year-o Cuban republic.
In the significance of the lottery
to Liborio is included the willingness
of some hundreds of thousands of
CubanS to take a chance three times
n month and the opportunity this has
given those managing the lottery TO di-
rect the republics political destinies
Created fifteen years ago during
the administration of the late Jose
Miguel Gomez and after being banned
by the provisional American govern
ment, the lottery was modelled after
that which t1ourished for deGa0es
under Spanish rule.
Charmed Circle Knows.
Just as the records of the Spanish
governors general throw little real
liEht on the intimate workings OF
the nineteenth century gamble, so
does the legislative tangle surround
today keep almost everybody outside
a charmed circle from knowing just
how the wheels go round. From the
snappy legal excerpts appearing on
the back of the tickets 1t can be esti-
mated that, IL the government gets
all it legally is entitled to and the
thirty-six yearly drawings are all
absorbed by the public, said public
will have paid roughly S.S0O.000 a
year for three dozen shots at the
l. Of
smaller brothers
But. just as the lottery has drawn
away from the secretary OF the treas
ury, SO do the. prices paid in the
legal scale The director OF the lot
terry, responsible only to the presi-
dent. has eclpsed in Importance most
of the cabinet members. and prices
paid peddlers for tickets are from 20
to so per cent above par. During the
dance of the millions that marked
wartime sugar profits. they were
double the legal rate. These phe-
nomena have afforded grounds for
bitter philippines by political outs and
and recipients of these extra re-
ceipts.
Once year a list Of 1000 names
Is published in the official gazette.
been granted the tri-monthly privi-
lege of securing thirty-two full
tickets from the government at $l9
each and selling them at not more
than SCI The publication of the last
list. on May 1. was followed this year
by charges filed in criminal court by
Representative Enrique Mazas that
not only did persons long dead and
others in insane asylums figure in the
list. but that $3.240.000 year Of lot
terry receipts were being diverted to
purposes to him and to the Cuban
public unknown.
Although Judge Antonio Garcia
Sola, who Investigated these charges
to determine whether there existed
grounds for indictments. announced
he had found the lottery records in
perfect order, the sensation produced
by the publication of charges that
had been going the rounds for
months fixed the attention OF both
the public and congress on the lot
terry and the mysteries thereof. There
was little surprise when 1t was