The people's voice., 1940-02-14
A City Attorney
Answers Voice On
Law Enforcement
Editor The Peoples Voice:

Editor The Peoples Voice:
Space, Mr.. Editor, l crave space i
your valuable publication to discuss
as city attorney of one of the MOI
tana cities you name in your editoria
of last week entitled Law Enforce
ment."
In the first place the subject of th'
editorial, the Montana gambling Law
and it's non reinforcement. is old, OLE
stuff. 1t goes back. in its essence. al
far as the Garden of Eden, when Adam
and Eve took chance on the fruit o
the forbidden tree and lost; to wher
Pandora's curiosity overcame her ant
she opened the casket thereby losing
to the world all the blessings of life
save Hope, or so goes the story. The
stone tablets of ancient Egypt tell oi
governmental troubles with the gam.
bling evil Gambling is as ancient as
the oldest profession in the world and
as troublesome to constituted author
| ity, great and small. From a local
newspaper of February 5, 1907, l Gull
the following:
"The licensed gambling law is
coming up again in the state legis-
lature. 1t will be backward step
in the history of our state when
gambling is admitted to the stat
utes as legitimate business"
The gambling instinct in human
kind is akin to that of reproduction
and as strong. Every time a farmer
plants crop he CANDLES on the
weather and the market and all of us
chase our favorite phantom.
The evil of which you complain, Mr..
Editor, the recreancy or venality of
officials charged with enforcement of
the anti-gambling law lies deeper than
the faults of such officials. If you
don't believe it, get a job as a sheriff
or policeman, or prosecuting officer
and take a whirl at it yourself. You'll
learn lot in a short time. You will
find out in short order that enforce
ment does not fail because of official
venality alone. You'll find that pub
lie sentiment has lot to do with it.,
just as it had lot, in fact, to do
with failure to enforce the liquor pro-
hibition law. You will learn in actual
practice the difference between an act
malum in Sc (evil in itself and one
merely maIum prohbitum (evil by leg
islative act).
You will find out the difference be-
tween church rattle or lottery and
the same thing in cigar store. You
will learn to distinguish between a
keno game at a picture show and the
same thing at a beer parlor down the
street. You will find out that there
is world of difference in law and
in morals between an afternoon bridge
game for one-tenth of a cent a point
and up in private home and the
same thing in a public place, and may
conclude that the private home brand
is much the worse of the two, whereas
one is lawful and the other unlawful.
You will find that wise" legislature
and the votes of rural legislators took
away from cities and towns of Mon
tana the power to legislate against
the gambling evil while at the same
time imposing upon them the burden
of its suppression. You will find that
with the most convincing evidence of
guilt before them juries will not con-
vict, and if you don't believe it ex-
anime district court records in Mon
tana for the past ten years. You may
think that now we are to have women
on our juries that phase of the diff
ficulty will vanish. That's what we
thought about prohibition, too, when
women were given the vote But those
home bridge games breed a fellow
feeling which makes us wondrous kind
10 those who take like chance in
/ public place. You may be asked
20 raid legislative poker game in a
lotel room, of some of the legislators
who ipveigh with sound and fury on
he legislative floor at the horrid |
gambling evil" You may learn |
about former Attorney Cen |
,ral Ray Nagle's strenuous effort to |
suppress gambling in Butte and the |
gnominious failure of the effort You
will find that business interests, serv-
We clubs, women's clubs, yes, and
hurch organizations are as fluctuat-
ng and variable, in their zeal to sup
'ress gambling, as an intermittent
ever. And when you find out all |
hese things you will know that pol
tics playing legislatures have given
Ionest enforcement officers an impos-
ible job and dishonest ones a pro-
table field for their activities.
OF course | know there is gambling
n this town, public and private. But
We have no ordinance against it. Nor
as any other city or town in Montana
ny ordinance against gambling, pub
c or private. The legislature when
adopted the original anti-gambling
NV in 1921, invalidated (Sec. 11179
!. c. all such ordinances and de-
rived us of the power to adopt any
theirs on the subject of gambling.
hen in 1897 (Chap. 153) the legis-
lture, for all practical purposes, took
he teeth out of the anti-gambling law
y a three-line amendment exempting
religious, fraternal or charitable or
and all private homes
'om its provisions. Note the "relig-
,us" and ponder.
The arguments that were made for
,galized liquor are just as strong for
,galized gambling. Liquor, and gam
ling, and prostitution may be driven
nder cover, but never eradicated un-
| the Biblical millennium comes, and
ght now it seems as far off as it
,or mae Co If a humhIe guhscriher |