Evening star., 1938-08-25
BY JOHN LARDNER,

2o.-ln the middle of Congress Park
In the heart of Americas grandest and
y melloWest racing and sporting town
stands brick mansion that once
blazed with light from dusk till dawn
when Dapper Dick Garfield backed his
wheels against all comers, and the
summer sky was the limit.
Today the brick mansion is a mu-
scum, owned by the town of Saratoga
Springs. Tourists drift drowsily
through the big gambling rooms, now
as bare and empty as the picture gall
lery where Garfield hung his old mas
tiers and his tapestries. The museum
Is all that is left of Saratogas golden
age, from 1890 till 1908, except for the
race track itself. and a scattering of
old-time buggy drivers.
And the sad truth is, the whole town
may soon be museum. The hand
writing is on the wall for Saratoga
scratched there by a local reform
party.
Saratoga did not die when Garfield
sold out. but 1t came very close to doing
so. 1t was then. in 1908, that the citi-
zens OF this cool little hill town first
realized that gambling meant life or
death to their community-as a sport
ting community. 1t meant more than
the race track. and the running horses.
and the mineral springs. and the mil
lonalres who owned the horses and
bathed in the springs. 1t held them all
together.
Towns Existence Threatened. :
Legal racing perished in New York
state at that time, but it wasn't the
want OF racing that almost killed Sara
toga. 1t was Canf1eld's exodus. When
new gambling places sprouted up
around the town, the town survived,
racing or no racing. Today, on the
other hand, with racing legal and pros
porous, the towns existence is threat
ened by ban on gambling.
Herbert Bayard Swope, chairman of
the Racing Commission. admits that
Saratoga may have seen her last great
season.
There will be an extended race
meeting at Belmont, anyway, next
summer" says Swope, land it NAV not
be worth while to race here. There's
no doubt that the town has been badly
hit"
The gambling ban is ruinous," saws
George H. Bull. owner of the race
track.
It'll kill u.s." say hundreds of hotel
owners, night club operate and ma
tive business men. supported for years
oy free-spending visitors in the month
of August.
All this because Alfred L. Simon,
new district attorney of Saratoga
County. has failed to agree with the
county bosses. who organized and
sponsored the gambling frachise. ST.
mon has padlocked the town, and the
town is dying of starvation.
CoIored by Tradition.
Other towns have done the same
There are ghost towns in the old gold
and silver fields of the Far West which
were once as loud and lusty and gaudv
as three-rlng circus. But none of
these was Saratoga. None of them DOS
sessed the stately tradition. the vigor-
nous past, the wealth. the fame and the
mellow attractions of the racing town
by the lake.
II you've seen Saratoga, you'll never
forget 1t. The ancient main street
Broadway. bridged and shaded bv
elms, swarming of an August after
noon with racegoers, program sellers,
oarkers, cabmen, touts and city gam
oiers: the great, sprawling, wooden
hotels, the Grand Union and the
United States; the shady little park in
the middle of town, with its silent
memorial to Dick Garfield a gambling
man; the old track, and the green.
open paddock; the incandescent road
houses out on the lake shore where the
crowd goes at night to eat good food
and to gamble: the century-old homes.
Dig and square, with spreading lawns,
which may be leased in August by
subway magnate or lucky gamester.
The Revolutionary War was won not
Tar from here, but Saratoga's true
share In American history is some
thing of different story.
Play High in Night Clubs.
Most of the gambling in recent
years has been done in the lake houses
the night clubs. The play is high
and the players mixed crew. Society
people, horse owners, those who in
Test the rotogravure sections, will be
shooting the works alongside shoeshine
millionaires. Texas oil kings, mob
sters, ordinary tourists and Broad
way guys up from New York with
stake
Roulette and dice are the big games.
though there is action also in faro,
blrd-cage and chemin- defer. Down.
town, off Broadway, there are spright-
lier, franker joints. their doors open
to the street, where you walk in with
no cover charge and slap your stake,
from dollar up, on the table-when
you find room at table
Now and then you stumble upon the
big private games, where dice players
like Nick the Greek, Joe Madden, Art
Rooney, the Pittsburgh plunger, and
Dave Wilentz, who prosecuted Bruno
Richard Hauptmann, are fading one
another's bets.
You find these things or, rather,
you did find them. For this year the
lid is on, and the tables and wheels
and the green baize have been rolled
out Of town, and gambling in Sara
toga is deader than the era of Honest
John Morrissey and AL Spencer, the
first men ever to bank game in this
outpost of sporting culture-and that
goes back to 1857.
tCopyrisht. 1888, by the North American
Newspaper Alliance, Inc)
PLAY S0FTRAI FINAL