Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1943-02-07
National Lotteries
and Their History
BIZ Frederic J. Hdskin.

With taxation plaguing the lawmakers
on Capitol Hill, the subject OF ma
tional lottery has been revived. The
lottery question came up during the
last session of Congress when three bills
designed to establish q national lottery
were introduced soon after this country's
entry into the global war.
Lottery bills were frequently offered in
Congress during the depression decade
Of the 3Os. In 1884 the House Ways and
Means Committee held hearings on
lottery bill, but it never reached the
floor of the House. Now, however. with
an ever-increaslng need to keep the till
of the Treasury filled, Congress and the
public may have an opportunity to con-
slider the lottery method of helping to
raise funds for expenses of the country
during the war.
A primitive method Of capitalism to
luu the underpaid and the out-of-work
into the feeling that. by the expenditure
OF a few pennies, they may wake up to
find themselves near millionaires. the
lottery is an integral part of the financial
machinery of some 80 foreign govern
! selling of lottery tickets forms an in
escapable part of the daily pageant.
! There are the whining cry and the sibl
| liant whisper coming from the lame, the
twisted, the widowed, the very young
and the very old selling tickets.
| For better understanding of this curl
Gus spectacle, glance at the long
! oF No
ment is revealing, for it has several
curious angles and relationships. Dis
regarding allurlng sldelghts, such as
| the fact that the word comes direct
from the Italian. and means game of
chance, it is found that lotteries formed
part of the amusement of the Roman
Saturnalia. Moreover Nero delighted in
it to the extent OF putting up slaves and
| houses as prizes, and Italian states in
the 18th century offered merchandise
| decorated with certain lottery features.
Catherine de Medic took the lottery
to France, where the first letters patent
for it were issued by Francis l in 1889.
Then 1t spread to England and over the
rest of Europe and became so popular
as a means of raising money that every
thing from roads to the War of the Span
ish Succession was financed in that way.
England repaired her harbors with lot
terry money and built stone bridge over
the Thames as France built one over the
Seine.
All through the 18th and 18th CEN
turtles the lottery fourished. 1t was, as
the English novelist, Henry Fielding,
said, "a taxation upon all the fools in
creation" but it served its end in getting
money from people who would not have
been induced to pay direct tax money for
government schemes for colonial expan-
sion. home Improvements and foreign
wars.
That there are no lotteries of any real
importance in this country at present
is a matter cuStomarily accounted
triumph for Anglo-Saxon morality or
Puritan virtue, or both, by those who do
not believe in them A closer exanina-
ton, however, makes one wonder II the
credit can be entirely assigned on so high
a plane, or if economics did not have
| hand in it.
Whatever the Pilgrim fathers thought
OF lotteries when they landed at Plym-
outh, their august descendants who as
sembled in ITS to hold the first Ameri-
can Congress, authorized national one.
BY 1920 lotteries were legalized in al
most every State, and Virginia, toward
whose colonizing an English lottery had
been held 200 years previously, had
granted patents to some 10 OF them.
In Puritan Boston the traffic was said
to amount to 81 100000 year. similar
situation prevailed in New Hampshire.
and Pennsylvania became such q center
OF lottery activities that the streets of
Philadelphia are said to have been over
| run by lottery Offices. When the Penn
| sylvania lottery business was suppressed,
the operators took chances In lotteries Of
Delaware, Maryland Virginia and
Rhode Island. 1t was during this era
that Harvard College benefited by lot
terry.
The suppression Of the Italian gam
bling game in this country was brought
about largely by various private societies
formed for that specific purpose, just as
the Anti-Saioon League and other CO.
operating agencies were formed for the
| abolition of alcohol some years ago. In
deed. the pamphlets OF the period bear
a curious resemblance to the literature
OF the prohibition era. The reasons
given and implied for its recommended
Punishment show the same curious mix
ture OF sentlmentallty, morality and eco
Monies that prevailed in the latter
| crusade.
That it was not solely Puritan morality
| which was responsible for the suppress
sion of the lottery is best shown by the
fact that several of the most important
European countries moved toward the
same end at about the same time. Bel
GUM led the way in 1880, and France
followed in 1882, after the orgy of Ma
poieonic lotteries had come to an end.
| Sweden abolished lotteries in lS4l Eng
land in 1860 and Switzerland in 1865.
| So successful were the anti-lottery
campaigns Of century ago that the lot
terry became, except in certain alien
sections, moral leper so far as the
upright and responsible people of the
country were concerned. Louisiana, to
be sure, did not charter its lottery until
1853 when 1t needed money so sorey
| after the Civil War, but the influence
| that brought about the scheme was
French and Spanish rather than Anglo