SEC. 3. That section 3929, Revised Statutes, as amended, is hereby further amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 3929. The Postmaster General may, upon evidence satisfactory to him that any person or company is engaged in conducting any lottery, gift enterprise, or scheme of any kind offering prizes dependent in whole or in part upon lot or chance, or that any person or company is conducting any scheme or device for obtaining money or property of any kind through the mails by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, or that any person or company is selling, offering for sale, or sending through the mails any article, device, or thing designed or intended for the conduct of a lottery, gift enterprise, or scheme of any kind offering prizes dependent in whole or in part upon lot or chance, or any unfair, dishonest, or cheating gambling article, device, or thing, instruct postmasters at any post office at which letters or other matter arrive directed to any such person or company, or to the agent or representative of any such person or company, whether such agent or representative is acting as an individual or as a firm, bank, corporation, or association of any kind, to return all such letters or other matter to the postmaster at the office at which they were originally mailed, with the word "Fraudulent" plainly written or stamped upon the outside thereof, and all such letters so returned to such postmasters shall be by them returned to the writers thereof, under such regulations as the Postmaster General may prescribe. But nothing contained in this section shall be so construed as to authorize any postmaster or other person to open any letter not addressed to himself. The public advertisement by such person or company so conducting such lottery, gift enterprise, scheme, or device, that remittances for the same may be made by letters to any other person, firm, bank, corporation, or association named therein shall be held to be prima facie evidence of the existence of said agency by all the parties named therein; but the Postmaster General shall not be precluded from ascertaining the existence of such agency in any other legal way satisfactory to himself.'!

SEC. 4. That section 4041, Revised Statutes, as amended, is hereby further amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 4041. The Postmaster General may, upon evidence satisfactory to him that any person or company is engaged in conducting any lottery, gift enterprise, or scheme of any kind offering prizes dependent in whole or in part upon lot or chance, or that any person or company is conducting any scheme for obtaining money or property of any kind through the mails by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, or that any person or company is selling, offering for sale, or sending through the mails any article, device, or thing designed or intended for the conduct of a lottery, gift enterprise, or scheme of any kind offering prizes dependent in whole or in part upon lot or chance, or any unfair, dishonest. or cheating gambling article, device, or thing, forbid the payment by any postmaster to said person or company of any postal money orders drawn to his or its order, or in his or its favor, or to the agent of any such person or company, whether such agent is acting as an individual or as a firm, bank, corporation, or association of any kind, and may provide by regulation for the return to the remitters of the sums named in such money orders. But this shall not authorize any person to open any letter not addressed to himself. The public advertisement by such person or company so conducting any such lottery, gift enterprise, scheme, or device that remittances for the same may be made by means of postal money orders to any other person, firm, bank, corporation, or association named therein shall be held to be prima facie evidence of the existence of said agency by all the parties named therein; but the Postmaster General shall not be precluded from ascertaining the existence of such agency in any other legal way.

SEC. 5. No newspaper, post card, letter, circular, or other written or printed matter containing information, or statements, by way of advice or suggestions, purporting to give the odds at which bets or wagers are being laid or waged, upon the outcome or result of any horse race, prize fight, or other contest of speed, strength, or skill, or setting forth the bets or wagers made, or offered to be made, or the sums of money won or lost upon the outcome or result of said contests by reason of such bets or wagers, or which sets forth suggestions as to the odds at which bets or wagers should or may be made or laid, shall be deposited in or carried by the mails of the United States, or be delivered by any postmaster or letter carrier, and such matter is hereby declared to be nonmailable, and any person who deposits or causes to be deposited, or shall send or cause to be sent, any such thing to be conveyed or delivered by mail, shall be fined not more than $5,000, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both such fine and imprisonment.

Passed the House of Representatives October 12, 1921.

Attest:

WM. TYLER PAGE, Clerk.

Senator STERLING. I will submit for the record also House concurrent resolution No. 30, adopted by the House of Representatives of the Legislature of the State of Louisiana, memorializing Congress to prohibit the transmission through the mails or in interstate commerce of information concerning betting on horses. The resolution is as follows

[Act No. 17, House concurrent resolution No. 30, by Mr. De Paoli.]

A concurrent resolution memorializing Congress to prohibit transmission through the mails or in interstate commerce of information concerning betting on horse races.

Whereas subsequent to the prohibition of bookmaking on race tracks by Louisiana and other States, handbook betting has become a pernicious and demoralizing form of gambling, tempting young and old of both sexes, exercising a corrupting influence over American youth and manhood, often leading to great crimes and wrecking many homes; and

Whereas the State of Louisiana has enacted legislation denouncing handbook betting as gambling, punishable by fine and imprisonment; and Whereas enforcement of such legislation is rendered difficult, if not impossible, by reason of the fact that there is no inhibition against the interstate transmission by telegraph, telephone, express, and postal service of information concerning horseracing, including entries, form charts, betting odds, tips, and similar sinister suggestions essential to the successful operation of handbooks; and Whereas the suppression of this vice is therefore a national problem, not one with which the States individually may deal successfully, a problem on all fours with that of the Louisiana lottery, the destruction of which was only made possible by congressional action in 1891, denying it the use of the mails and express service for the transmission of its tickets and the results of its drawings; and

Whereas Louisiana and other States in which this evil has found lodgment and daily increases its ramifications are entitled to the support of the National Government in their effort to suppress it for the protection of the weal of their several communities: Therefore be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana (the Senate concurring), That the Senate of the United States be memorialized to pass the act which has passed the National House of Representatives, which will forbid and penalize the transmission by telegraph, telephone, mail, or express or other medium of interstate transportation of form charts, entries, betting odds, tips, and other methods of suggestions, since it has been demonstrated that the only effective method of combating such an evil, as evidenced by Federal laws relative to lotteries, is action taken by the Federal Congress.

Resolved further, That the secretary of state is hereby directed to immediately transmit to the United States Senate and to the Louisiana delegation in Congress certified copies of this resolution.

R. F. WALKER,

Speaker of the House of Representatives.
HEWITT BOUANCHAUD,

Lieutenant Governor and President of the Senate.

Approved, November 4, 1921.

A true copy.

JNO. M. PARKER,
Governor of the State of Louisiana.

JAMES J. BURLEY,

Secretary of State.

Senator STERLING. The order of procedure will be to hear first those who favor the enactment of this legislation. As I understand, Mr. H. N. Pringle has the matter in charge on that side for the day. Anyhow, we will hear Mr. Pringle now.

STATEMENT OF MR. H. N. PRINGLE, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL REFORM BUREAU, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. PRINGLE. Mr. Chairman, H. R. 6508 proposes to bar from the mails gambling devices, advertisements of the same, and announcements of bets, betting odds, and winnings on gambling, as a provision for checking. if not entirely stopping, the embezzlements, larcenies, forgeries, and defalcations, and also affrays, assaults, murders, and other crimes which spring from the dishonesty that is common in gambling or from the heavy and unexpected losses that result from gambling. This bill is

fair and reasonable, inasmuch as it does not attempt to interfere with gambling or gambling implements, in a State or locality, or from one locality to another inside of the State, except as the United States mails might be used for that purpose. Section 5 in no other way restricts the legalized gambling at race tracks in Kentucky, Maryland, or Nevada, or in a few other States where turf gambling is promoted in violation of the law. Section 5 does not attempt to enforce State laws, or to interfere with such regulations as a very few States have granted in favor of race-track betting, but merely to prevent 3 States, which legalize gambling from projecting their lawlessness into 45 States which do not legalize it largely by means of the United States mails.

Senator STERLING. Do any of the 45 States prohibit it, Mr. Pringle? You say they give no permission; do they prohibit?

Mr. PRINGLE. Yes; 43 States prohibit turf gambling by statutes and two by injunction process. In Illinois, for example, Hawthorne and Washington tracks were closed by threat of injunction when Carter Harrison was mayor of Chicago, and no jockey club track has conducted racing in Illinois since then.

There is a misunderstanding in the public mind, and possibly by some Members of Congress, in regard to what racing is. Our friends on the other side often use the term "racing." What is meant by that term? Their language would indicate that they refer to running races exclusively, such as you may find in the racing calendar issued by the Jockey Club, No. 18 East Forty-first Street, New York, where under the racing dates for the year is a subcaption "Meetings sanctioned by the Jockey Club"; and in this list are about 13 tracks at all of which promoted gambling by professional bookmakers takes place.

My reference is not to occasional bets, such as one may witness at any horse trot or ball game, but to the operations of men who follow the horses in many States and make it their occupation to conduct betting, taking a dozen or even one hundred bets on a single race, serving all comers and always laying against the horse in order to take the long end of the bet.

Senator STERLING. What relation has that, Mr. Pringle, to what I have heard termed "bookmaking" at races?

Mr. PRINGLE. It is a form of the old-style bookmaking, with card-board tickets. But now tickets are not issued, and this form is called "oral betting." You can see it now at New Orleans. The bookmaker receives from the players little slips on which bets are written. He puts these in his pocket, and at the close of each race he takes out those bets for $20, $50, $100, etc., and hands them to another man who goes into the grandstand, perhaps, and sorts them all over, and records the bets; and thus the bookmaker knows just now much each patron has laid, and whether his deposit is sufficient for bets on the next race. The pay-off for winners may be just outside the gate after the last race or under the grandstand the next day.

The other kind of racing, which is ignored by our opponents in their presentation, includes about 800 organizations for trotting or pacing, which neither promote gambling or permit it. These legitimate and law-respecting organizations for trotting are thirty-six times more numerous than the running races for promoted gambling. Here is volume 36 of Wallace's Yearbook, which contains about eight times as much material on the records and pedigrees of horses, and their performances, as are found in the largest annual publication on running horses of the jockey clubs. The latter class of tracks number scarcely 40 in all of North America.

Senator STERLING. Is it your claim that the trotting and pacing races in the book to which you refer are legitimate, and there is no objection to them?

Mr. PRINGLE. Yes. I never heard a representative of these 800 trotting associations objecting to legislation against race-track gambling. Possibly 1 per cent of trotting associations have permitted bookmakers to operate on their grounds, as at North Randall, Ohio, and Hagerstown, Md.; but I will challenge the opponents of this Post Office bill to name one jockey club track in the United States which has no promoted betting by bookmakers or pari-mutuels, or to name one track for running races under the jockey club management which has continued racing where antibetting legislation has been enacted and enforced, at any time during the past 20 years.

These 800 trotting associations pay out thousands of dollars for officers to prevent gambling. They throw the gamblers out and keep the gates open.

We appealed to this committee and to the Senate to enact this bill to protect the country from such financial injury as was mentioned in my opening statement, and to prevent such violent and criminal acts as occur in connection with race-track betting, and to stop the projection of data on gambling odds and gambling winnings into 45 States, which have enacted antibetting laws but are powerless to stop or hinder what goes in the mails, however unjustly it may conflict with State laws. For ex

ample, here is a letter addressed by Jack Ford, of Louisville, Ky., to a man in rural New York, importuning the latter to buy each day a betting tip on a southern race track. Such circulars are now mailable.

"Pending handbook cases number 86," is the caption of an item in the Washington Star of June 3, 1921. The North American, of Philadelphia, on August 31, 1920, has the headlines, "Accuse trust company man of $300,000 embezzlement." The re spondent testified that he lost it on the races at Havre de Grace and Saratoga.

Senator STERLING. Do you offer any of those for the record, Mr. Pringle?

Mr. PRINGLE. Yes; if it is the wish of the committee. This matter of embezzlement has been so serious in Louisiana that the constitutional convention of 1921 passed resolution No. 146, of which I will read one paragraph. [Reading:]

"Be it resolved by the constitutional convention of Louisiana, That the Congress of the United States be memorialized to pass an act which will forbid and penalize the transmission by telegraph, telephone, mail, or express or other medium of interstate transportation, of form charts, entries, betting odds, tips, and other methods of suggestions, since it has been demonstrated that the only effective method of combating such an evil, as evidenced by Federal laws relative to lotteries, is action taken by the Federal Congress."

The United States ought to rise to the moral level of the great majority of States in regard to gambling legislation.

The first four sections of this bill harmonize with the laws of every State in the Union in regard to gambling implements, loaded dice, marked cards, controlled wheels, friction retards, and electrical devices, which sections 1 to 4 would exclude from the mails, and in 45 States section 5 would harmonize with the State legislation pertaining to race-track gambling; and in the other three States, with which it does not harmonize, it would merely require the gamblers to keep their bets, odds, winnings, and tip sheets out of the United States mails.

We ask that the United States Government shall enact such legislation against promoted gambling as it long ago enacted against one species of gambling, the lottery that it shall cease offering the mail service for uses of fraud and vice and end the confliet which now exists between State laws and Federal laws.

Senator STERLING. Mr. Pringle, this bill amends sections 213 and 215 of the ('riminal Code. Can you say in what respects it changes sections 213 and 215?

Mr. PRINGLE. They close the mails to devices of fraud and gambling, and to letters, catalogues, and circulars about the same. At present no gambling is excluded from the mails, except lotteries, which have been set up for the sale of tickets. Mr. William H. Lamar, former solicitor of the Post Office Department, told me that over 4,000 protests are received annually from people who request action against such dealers, on the assumption that the legislation proposed by this act already has been enacted.

I have a list of 102 companies of firms or individuals, with all the way from 800 employees down to a single worker, whose exclusive business is the manufacture of gambling devices, and 46 of these establishments are in the single city of Chicago. All these factories now send their catologues, lists, and circulars in the mails.

Senator STERLING. Partially. I have asked the stenographer to insert in the record sections 213 and 215 of the Criminal Code and sections 3929 and 4041 of the Revised Statutes as they stand to-day. We can then readily compare the present statute with the provisions of this bill and see what changes are made.

(The sections of the laws referred to will be found on pages 5 and 6 of this day's hearing.)

STATEMENT OF MR. WILBUR F. CRAFTS.

Mr. CRAFTS. Mr. Chairman.

Senator STERLING. Dr. (Crafts.

Mr. CRAFTS. I was detained at another meeting, and asked Mr. Pringle to open this hearing and continue until I could get here. To expedite the speaking, as we must get back to another meeting at 12.30, I will introduce speakers for the act and assign allotted time to each one.

The only part of this bill on which there seems to be any controversy is section 5. The other sections we favor, and if they are opposed we shall be glad to discuss them, but those here to-day on both sides are interested chiefly in section 5.

This section is in substance this: That no newspaper or other printed sheet containing tips on the races information by which gambling may be promoted and facilitated-shall be allowed the privileges of the United States mails. In other words, that the United States Government will not facilitate the promotion of gambling.

This will shut out of the mails all newspapers that print the tips on the races, and all of these special "tip sheets," as they are called, which are sold at a large price in many instances, and have become the incitement of great evil in this country. This section

would make into law a good deal of what we ask for in the Sterling-Sandlin bill, which was favorably reported three times in the House, and was approved also by a subcommittee of the Senate, and has been asked for by strong delegations not only from the other States, but from Maryland and Kentucky, two of the three States-Nevada being the other-in which gambling is legalized, and from which the other 45 States are invaded. Cuba, Kentucky, Canada, Maryland, Mexico, and Nevada are the centers of the enemy, from which they go out to get the money of the other States and demoralize them in the interests of their race gambling affairs. We shall not have achieved all that we want if we get everything in this bill; but we shall get, perhaps, as much as we ought to expect in one law. I have found that we have to take moral legislation by installments. I have been here, promoting legislation, for 26 years, and I very soon learned that we get reforms on the installment plan, one step at a time. This will be a good long step. We are not disposed to add the amendments which have been somewhat talked of in the papers of the country, forbidding interstate race gambling by telephone and telegraph. That would be legitimate, but that amendment or any other would throw the act into conference and perhaps cause a long delay.

So we ask the Senate to pass this bill as it stands, without any amendment.

It is one good, big installment of what we need in this country to suppress the gambling which has become a tidal wave since the World War. Everyone who looks out on life thoughtfully will see that we have more gambling than even during the days of the Louisiana lottery, because of the war. It is becoming a menace to business and to morals, inclining men to idleness. In every way it is a public curse. Boys are getting into it. Betting by boys in colleges and schools is becoming a serious matter. Mr. Walsh gave the reason for introducing section 5 as an amendment to this antilottery bill. He was led to put that in by seeing a great number of young men in the National Capital idling about the gambling centers, where tips are sold and results published. Some people have supposed that the International Reform Bureau stirred him up to it. I am glad to give Congressman Walsh full credit. The newspapers have been cursing me, and I should be glad of the curses if I were entitled to them: but this is one of the cases where Mr. Walsh, without any suggestion from the outside, with no suggestion or request from the churches or elsewhere, so far as I know, offered this bill on his own initiative, because of what he saw in Washington, in order to check the great, crying evil of gambling.

Opponents of this bill will charge we are violating the freedom of the press, but there is no provision in this bill to cut out any news that will not promote gambling. There are certain horses that are nothing but gambling machines. They are not of use for anything else. In the World War it was not the horses raised in Kentucky that stood the rough service. It was the horses, as we were told by a Government officer in a House hearing, that had "roughed it" on the plains. The horses that stood the test in the Army long-distance tests, recently, were not horses that were bred to quality through race gambling. They were horses of another, rougher type. When it comes to a half-mile run, these gambling machines on hoofs make great speed. They are of very little, if any, real use. But the horses that can stand the long run and the long march and do the real service in war are horses that have had no part or lot in this gambling game.

I will now introduce the research secretary of the Methodist Board of Public Morals, Mr. Deets Pickett, who has been giving a great deal of time and study to this matter. He was formerly from Kentucky, and therefore a master of this subject.

Senator STERLING. Before Mr. Pickett proceeds, I want to say that I overlooked one thing at the conclusion of Mr. Pringle's statement, and that is, to ask as to whether anyone wanted to ask any questions. Senator Stanley, do you care to ask any questions of Mr. Pringle?

Senator STANLEY. No; I am here merely as a spectator. I do not care to say anything.

Senator STERLING. I will say that Dr. Crafts, or any authorized attorney here representing any interest, is privileged to ask questions. If there are no questions to beasked, we will proceed with Mr. Pickett.

STATEMENT OF MR. DEETS PICKETT.

Mr. PICKETT. Mr. Chairman. I represent the Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Washington, D. C.

Dr. Crafts has said that I was formerly from Kentucky. I am still from Kentucky, Mr. Chairman, and expect to be until I go to heaven. if I am so fortunate as to get there. I am very proud of the fact.