The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1934-09-29
LOTTERIES
(Fort Myers News-Press)
"a Lottery is Taxation
Upon all the Fools in Creation
And Heaven be praised
IT'S easily raised
For Credulity's always in Fashion. +"

For Credulity's always in Fashion"
Henry Fielding wrote that two centuries ago
when it was not commonly considered a function
OF government to protect fools from their folly
That is modern development, as exemplifed by
our blue sky laws and stock control bills.
century after Fielding wrote his satire lot
teres were abolished but not because of any shame
faced reluctance the part of governments TO
collect from those easily separated from their
money. Neither does it appear that the moral is
sue was the real reason, though that was often
made the basis of attack In 1853, shortly after
Fielding's death. the Rev. Samuel Seabury
Protestant Episcopal bishop of the United States
and the direct ancestor of Samuel Seabury tha
present day New York reform leader noted in his
diary that "by the blessing of God" ticket had
won him $4,000. In that day lotteries were being
used to finance churches, hospitals and charities,
and funds from the sale of chances figured largely
in the founding OF such schools as Harvard, Yale,
Brown and Dartmouth.
In abolishing lotteries the country did not be-
come suddenly conscious of harboring a moral
evil, nor did the good people of those days yield to
concern over the parting of a fool and his money
What happened was that there was too much COM
petition for limited supply of foolish money
Merchants felt that the lotteries were getting too
large a share OF it, at the expense of fraudulent
groceries and shoddy clothing. Employers were
distressed at losing good man at 81 day who be-
came enriched by lottery prize and quit So tho
crVyV aiSaa hot 4bo
selves by gambling and lotteries were outlawed to
profit the tiIls of business
The lottery was, in fact, tax on the poor,
albeit one which they appear to have paid cheer
fully. If restored it will again be a tax on the
poor 1t will serve, perhaps. to meet the conten-
ton of those who maintain that part of the cost of
relief should come from the economic level toward
which it returns. Any list of recent sweepstakes
winners will show that the patronage in this coun-
try comes chiefly from class which contributes
little in direct taxation They escape because they
are too low in the scale of ability to paw to make
the usual devices OF taxation profitable
II it is desirable that they should contribute,
lottery is the way to get them; perhaps even a
better way than the sales tax. sales tax applies
to the thrifty and the spendthift; the destitute
(heaviest of all on them) and the well-to-do Able
or unable, all pay it. If taxes must be collected
from that class it would seem that a lottery has
the merit of being optional.
Earmarked for relief, it will not encounter the
objections which tradesmen found to the lotteries
of 100 years ago. In public instead of private
hands it will escape the tribute to politics which
discredted the Louisiana lottery Morally, it may
be bad incidence but it is difficult to why souls
be blackened by lottery tickets and not by the
deacon's hedge in cotton or a little line of stocks
such as Bishop Cannon carried.