T. Baker, an eminent business leader of Baltimore and president of the Maryland Anti-Race-Track-Gambling Association. He could not come here, and he has asked the treasurer of the association to come and present their views. Maryland is one of the three States that allow licensed gambling. The three States are Maryland, Kentucky, and Nevada. Nevada is a very trifling matter, but the two States that are especially interested to be heard here are Kentucky and Maryland.

Let me say for Kentucky that I was there last summer, and in Louisville I had 1,100 people, on a warm summer evening, come out to hear a discussion of the national effort to help Kentucky, and those 1,100 unanimously, without a single dissenting vote, asked Congress to pass interstate legislation to help Kentucky. A large majority of the people are on the right side and wish to obtain redress, because they feel that the State is gambling: and when the Nation has taken the necessity for it out of the way they will prohibit this gambling, just as Louisiana immediately prohibited the lottery, although they were not bound to do it, when the opportunity to exploit the whole Nation was taken away.

In Kentucky, I may say, they have the pari-mutuel system. I believe there will be an argument made here that that machine is fair; that there is not the same objection to machinery because it is not so liable to cheat as a bookmaker; but that makes the evil greater by making it seem to be safe, and we believe that the gambling machine is more dangerous than the gambler for that reason, because it increases the amount of gambling by making it seem to be safer.

Now I will call on Mr. Davis, of Baltimore, of the firm of F. A. Davis & Sons, the treasurer of the Maryland Anti-Race-Track-Gambling Association, to address you.

STATEMENT OF MR. E. ASBURY DAVIS, OF BALTIMORE, MD.

Mr. DAVIS. I represent an association that was formed in Maryland about four years ago by a number of our common business men to make an attempt, through our legislature, to defeat race-track gambling, that has been permitted for years at our tracks, bringing into the State of Marland a very undesirable element from the whole United States which crowds our hotels and the street cars, and means of communication between the city and the track.

In addition to that it has been the cause of many defalcations, and has introduced among our young men the custom of gambling.

I was very much interest d in two defalcations that occurred in our own firm, and that makes me feel the necessity of using whatever influence I may have to stop the working of that scheme in the State of Maryland under a legal status.

Senator STERLING. Wer these defalcations trac able to race-track gambling? Mr. DAVIS. Yes sir. These men did not go to the race track at all. but they were betting in the pool rooms and in handbooks that were going about the city. At two sessions of the legislature we made a very strong fight. In both cases we had the majority of the State pledged to do away with the race-track gambling.

Now. I want to sav in conn ction with this, emphasizing the point Dr. Crafts made, that there is no spirit in our State of doing away with the racing of hors s. That is a perfectly legitimat sport and on that every man with red blood enjoys, but it is the gambling fatur attached to it that is injuring the good name of our State.

ว

We have had in both sessions of our legislature an absolutely clear majority pledged to do away with it but unfortunat ly the people attending the race tracks had some means of converting some of our friends at the last moment means that I would not care to stat in public. At any rate, the measure was defeated.

At the last session of the legislature it was lost by one vote, and that was done also by a method that I would not care to describe among you gentlemen as you sit here to day. But, to show the desperate devices in which that matter was handled. I will say that the vote was taken at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and there was one m mber from on of the counti s who had a son ill in a hospital at Baltimore, and about 11 or 12 o'clock there was a t lophon message came from Baltimore that this man's son was desperat ly ill, or dying, I do not know which it was. and he must come to Baltimore. When the man arrived in Baltimore he found no message had been sent and there was nothing particularly the matter with his son. They had figured that that one vot was n cessary to prevent the passage. Fortunately, we were able by very swift action to get that man back to Annapolis by five minutes of 4 o'clock. Then they found that another man had been spirited away, and he was not seen for three days. I cite that to show you that in our State we have a very strong sentiment against race-track gambling, and we are very sorry to have to admit that our good State is used for the dissemination of this information that is corrupting and injuring

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the moral fiber of thousands of young men all over the country, and I claim that as good citizens of this country we must do everything we can to stop our young men from gambling. There is a certain natural instinct for men to gamble, but it is certainly wrong for the State of Maryland or any other State to grant a legal status to the most unfair form of gambling that exists. We stop card playing and we stop the We arrest him, and yet we little boy of 10 years of age that shoots craps on the street. allow a man to go around to the races or pool rooms with handbooks and gamble, when the victim loses not only his own substance, but in many instances he is taking the substance and property of an employer, and it puts it on a little different stage when we see that the State has given it a legal status.

If it is not taking too much time, I would just like to state one or two cases of my own observation. We had a young man who was a very successful salesman. Senator STERLING. What is your business?

more.

Mr. DAVIS. Wholesale tobacco. He was a salesman for us on the streets of BaltiHe had been successful with us for a number of years, and had a very nice family. By some means he got into this gambling at Laurel, and in the course of about year he was $1,800 short in his accounts. We did not want to ruin his family. Usually it is the case that the people who suffer are not the fellows who take the money, but somebody else. We made every effort to try to stop that fellow and try to bring him back and break him of this habit of gambling, and make a man of While we did not him, but the fascination proved to be so strong that he could not stop, and in six or eight months he was right back, doing the same thing again. prosecute him, the result of it was the breaking up of his family, and the loss of his good name in the community, and he had to leave the community. He had no means for this going to the races had ruined the man. They had a construction of the law in the State of Maryland that said that man had a perfect right to go down there and gamble his money. The point I want to make is that the people outside of Maryland, I am sorry to say, regard this as very reprehensible upon the part of Maryland, and we, as the people of Maryland, have to sit still and bear it. These people gave to the State $62,000 'ast year as a sop to the people, to allow this to proceed; but I believe there are, in fact, good men and good women in Maryland who are not going to allow money to come in to the State through the continuance of a practice that is absolutely wrong, inherently and in principle. I would hate to think that the State of Maryland did not have enough good citizens to wipe this off our statutes.

Maryland, as I say, is the base from which a lot of this matter that appears in other As Dr. Crafts told you, this does not stop the publication of States is disseminated. business news items. This says only that you can not send out the advance information which is, as he says, being used from Maine to California in forming this system under which these bets are made in every little town and hamlet in America. I certainly hope you can realize the importance of this.

It may interest you to know that in the Pimlico meeting, which I think lasts 15 days, there was more money passed through the pari-mutuel machines than the entire capital stock of the banks of Baltimore. People who are not acquainted with it have no conception of the amount of money passing through these channels, taken on these race tracksfrom useful occupation. Men who are of

Senator OVERMAN. What is that machine? Will you explain that?

Mr. DAVIS. You will have to ask somebody else for that. I never saw one, and do But it is a fair game, if there can be such a thing. I am not not want to see one. familiar with the working of the machines. Dr. Crafts may be able to tell you, but I do not know. But I do know this, that there is a whole lot of money left at the race tracks for somebody else who does not do an honest day's work, and that is the thing that I think these gentlemen want to stop. We want to fix it so that whatever a man gets, he will get honestly, by the use of reasonable and proper effort, and not by gambling. I have never been able to understand how anybody can differentiate between the forms of gambling. All forms of gambling are wrong, and we ought to do everything we can to stop the dissemination of information that makes a man a gambler.

Senator STERLING. You say you are the treasurer of an association formed for the purpose of combatting this evil, as you call it?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.

Senator STERLING. How many constitute that association?

Mr. DAVIS. It is difficult for me to tell you the exact number, because I would only know by the way of contributions; and it is not necessary for a man to be a contributor in order to be a member, but taking every signer, I would say that at least 4,000 people represent our association.

Senator STERLING. In and about Baltimore?
Mr. DAVIS. In every county in the State.

We have every county fairly organized.

Senator STERLING. To what extent are the business men of Baltimore represented in contributions?

Mr. DAVIS. The contributions have been made by some of our most representative men in Baltimore. The lists have never been absolutely published, but this is done by our real, representative men in Baltimore, men who are anxious to have the good name of our State saved, and to stop this betting and gambling evil.

The very fact that there are 45 States of the United States admitting that it is a wrong thing to-day means that those who combat that assumption are wrong. I can not think that 45 out of 48 States are wrong.

Senator STERLING. Are these people in your association there at Baltimore business men, merchants?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, nearly all merchants. There are probably a very small number of professional men and the rest are merchants, representative men of Baltimore. Senator STERLING. Are there any other questions to be asked this witness. If not, that is all.

Mr. CRAFTS. Mr. Chairman, there is a question that has been asked by Senator Overman, and I will ask Mr. Pringle to tell us just what the pari-mutuel machine is, so that it may be in the record.

Senator OVERMAN. I have never seen it. I have never heard of it before.

STATEMENT OF MR. H. N. PRINGLE-Resumed.

Mr. PRINGLE. Perhaps there is some other gentleman in the room who can do this better, but I will say that the pari-mutuel machine is a device like a cash register. There has to be somebody to operate it, of course. It is not automatic like a vending machine.

These machines sit in a row, perhaps 40 of them, and here are $2 machines and here are $5 machines and here are $20 machines, and at some tracks they run up to $100 and $150; but if you want $100 you can get five twenties. Then there are combinations of 15, etc.; and there are smaller and different denominations. It makes the process of betting perhaps five times as expeditious, or at least several times as expeditious, as ordinary bookmaking, where the book is passed back, and writing has to be done. These machines cost several hundred dollars. They are used in many places. They are used all over the world, in Australia, in the Argentine Republic, and in France, and on all the mile tracks in Maryland and Kentucky; with a combination with bookmaking at some of the tracks, perhaps, like in New York. With the pari-mutuel there are no tickets and they do not have oral betting.

Senator OVERMAN. Say races are going on in Maryland and Kentucky, do they use them in other States?

Mr. PRINGLE. I was told at the 15 days' meet at Reno, in Nevada, where the betting is legalized, that they use both the tickets and the pari-mutuel.

Senator STERLING. What Senator Overman means is, do they use these machines in one State for the betting in another State where the race track is and the races are going on.

Mr. PRINGLE. In another State?

Senator STERLING. Getting information from the papers, do they play these machines in other States?

Mr. PRINGLE. You mean at these tracks?

Senator OVERMAN. Yes.

Mr. PRINGLE. I have heard once, at Green Point in 1880, of a man who played as a gambler a mile or two away from the track. I do not believe that now exists anywhere away from the track with the pari-mutuel machines. I do not know of that being done anywhere except in this one instance and at Toledo prize fight in which Dempsey wrested the championship from Willard. There pari-mutuel machines were used. That is the point mentioned in the bill here. At a prize fight they were actually used.

Mr. CRAFTS. The gambling away from the tracks is done by the handbook men, who go around quietly and go into stores and meet men at their noonings and get their bets, and by pool rooms where they bet; and they have a notoriously bad name.

Senator OVERMAN. And do you mean to say that when a race is going on in Maryland a bookmaker down in North Carolina, in one of our towns, is going around taking bets?

Mr. CRAFTS. Yes; a great deal of the gambling, nine-tenths of the gambling, is off the track; so that the gambling on the tracks is the smallest part of it. That, this bill does not necessarily touch. They have racing, for instance, half a mile across the line in Mexico. The gambling of all the Mexicans there is not enough to pay for the horse feed. The gambling profit is made by this system of sending the news out

through the telephone and telegraph, and through newspapers and tip sheets. So that the gamblers in 45 States where they have no gambling get their inspiration and inducement from those publications.

Cur next speaker is a man who is pastor of a church in Brooklyn, Mr. S. Edward Young.

Senato" OVERMAN. Could you furnish me or the committee with any newspaper that has in it this advance information that you have been speaking of? Could you furnish me a newspaper showing it? I would like to know about it. I do not read that stuff.

Mr. CRAFTS. It is in the newspapers, but you do not turn to that column. Senator OVERMAN. I would like to have you get for us a paper with that in it. Mr. CRAFTS. Very well. Here is a paper called "Racing Form." The New York Times would have only a co'umn or two o" perhaps three columns on racing. The New York Telegraph is mainly a gamb'ing sheet.

Mr. PRINGLE. There is the form [indiciting). There are six or seven races on the card there, and here in this column is the opening, here is the closing, and here is the high and in this column the low, on the straight; and then here are quotations on the place and to show, over here, and the jockey's weight.

On the puri-mutuel there is the two dollar one, as you see the amounts put in there indicating.

The sa ne thing in a shorter form is found in the daily papers. It is given in these papers with more completeness and fullness. Probably your North Carolina papers will give it with sufficient fullness.

Mr. WHITEHEAD. May I make a statement for Senator Overman's benefit?
Senator STERLING. Yes; you may.

Mr. WHITEHEAD. It has been emphasized that the bill here before the committee prevents advance information. The bill prevents subsequent information also; it prevents information at all times, either before or after. We might as well have the full facts presented to the committee.

STATEMENT OF MR. S. EDWARD YOUNG, OF BROOKLYN, N. Y., PASTOR BEDFORD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PRESIDENT OF BROOKLYN CHURCH FEDERATION, PRESIDENT OF SOCIETY FOR PREVENT ON OF CRIME, OF NEW YORK CITY.

Mr. Young. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, in addition to what Dr. Crafts has said may I say also that I represent no opposition to the racing, keeping, or enjoving of good horses. My father was a preacher, and preached on a salary of $650 a ver a missionary out in the mountains-but he owned a $500 horse, and I learned as a boy that a very devout man could worship in the house of God, and on the way home not be willing to take the dust of anyone else on the road.

Senator OVERMAN. When I was a boy there was a preacher who used to stop with my father, and he always had about the best horses in his part of the country. I used al as to enjoy nis horses.

Mr. YOUNG. I may add that there is no day in the year when my humility was put to so great a test as when I was privileged to ride with the staff of my regiment on the finest horse that they could furnish.

I called yesterday on a gentleman who has been connected with my church, vho organized, among other things, all the Childs' resturants all over the country, a very important New York busin ss man. He said what Dr. Crafts has quoted. He has owned horses all his lif, fin trotting horses, and he said that no man was so opposed to horse racing and to the betting on races stimulated thereby, as are the ov ners of valuable horses for trotting. He said that trotting horses are bred for sport, and that running horses are for gambling.

I used to rank among my friends a gentleman that everybody knew in the horse country, Capt. S. F. Brown, of Pittsburgh. I conducted his funeral service "hen he died. He always took the view that the minute gambling got into it, the best interests of horse raising were imperiled.

I think, too, that it would help to clear the atmosphere to understand that the object of this bill, the purpose of those who are supporting it, is not to finish at one fell stroke all forms of gambling in this country. We recognize that there might be some invasion of public liberty in something of that sort. The main object is to reduce the amount, or eliminate as much as possible, of the commercializing, and the promotion of gambling: promoting gambling merely to make money, by men who have no interest really in good horses.

Isually the pivotal point is the bookmaker. He is usually a criminal, usually a man who has been in prison. Many of them have been in prison many times. He

is a hardened lawbreaker. It is usually he who is the pivot of the whole thing, and what he does is made a means of intelligence throughout the country to stimulate gambling all along the line.

Senator OVERMAN. Have not most of the States prohibited bookmaking?

Mr. YOUNG. Forty-five have, but under the present arrangement the news can be carried for bookmaking to all of the States.

I suppose we all know that we are in the midst of a gambling mania. There has never been anything like it-the numberless devices on every side. My taxicab driver the other night had a new device that I never saw before. He and the other fellows were gambling just in the minute or two that they were waiting.

All kinds of devices now are being used, but we find the most stimulus to that, or one of the great stimuli, is news brought from the race tracks; what is coming and what is doing. I will speak in a moment of my own visits to the race tracks and what 1 witnessed of bookmaking. I suppose that the psychology of gambling, the psychology of its character disintegration, is one of the most-shall I say-fascinating of studies. It does disintegrate character-that is my testimony as a preacher-more rapidly than any other vice that I know of.

The motive for gambling is for me to get what you have without giving you any quid pro quo. It is for me, without a stroke of labor to get what you have without giving you anything whatever in return. Of course, you may consent to it if I am gambling. This is a theoretical statement, as we say in military matters. You may consent to it, but that does not make it right for me to do it, no more than if I consent to fight a duel with you, that makes it right to fight the duel. In one case it is that I propose to take your life if I can, if you do not get mine first; and in the other case it is that I propose to take your money if you do not get mine first.

Gambling is, in its essence, absolutely dishonest and immoral. It is not constructive. It has nothing for society, it has nothing for anybody else, it has nothing for me except to take what I do not earn in any sense whatever, if I can get it 1 rst, before you take it away from me. The history of this fascinating vice is that when a man gets started at it it is almost impossible for him to stop. Recorder John W. Goff, recorder of New York City, whom you all know by name, at least, for 40 years was familiar with the criminal proceedings in New York City. For, I believe, two full terms he was Recorder of New York City. He told me a few days ago that of all the vices, gambling is the most character-disintegrating; that when a man gets into it once there is almost no rescue for him. He told me about his visit to Monte Carlo. Mr. CRAFTS. Will you turn a little more to your right so that these newspaper reporters will get this?

Mr. YOUNG. I want them to get it.

Mr. CRAFTS. Go ahead.

Mr. YOUNG You will find, if you go to Monte Carlo-I have not been there, but Recorder Goff has been there--that they bear this testimony to the peril of gaml ling. Monte Carlo is the greatest gambling place in the world, but no citizen of Monte Carlo is allowed to gamble. Every citizen of Monte Carlo is forbidden, under the heaviest penalties, to ever gamble himself; for the government of Monte Carlo, through these channels, has learned that nothing ruins the character of a citizen like gambling. That is the universal testimony.

Senator STERLING. But Monte Carlo is desirous of receiving all the funds it can from gambling, although they prohibit their own citizens from gambling?

Mr. YOUNG. It is an enormous bookmaking scheme. I do not say that bookmakers never gamble themselves. However, it is an immense book making scheme set to fleece people who can be fleeced.

I went down to Jamaica on a trip this last summer and we kept in touch with the races day by day. I went to Aqueduct race track once and I observed the gambling there. For instance, I got on the train at the Pennsylvania Depot and there I saw the tipster sheets. I have counted about 20 of those tipster sheets.

Senator OVERMAN. What is this paper called “Racing Form"? I am something of a greenhorn on this and I like, with my own eyes, to make sure.

Mr. YOUNG. That is the Morning Telegraph there [indicating]. The tipster sheets, some of them, spend a great deal of their time in denouncing the rascality of the others; and, after some experience, I believe every one of them is right in denouncing the rascality of the others.

Senator STERLING. By "tipster sheets" you mean what? You use that term in a generic way, to include all papers that are publishing gambling news?

Mr. YOUNG. So far as I understand, this is a sheet that tells men how to bet on horses. It advises, here, as to race No. 1; gives the horse. It states which horses are running, describes them a little, and says, "Advise play Rainbow," or whichever one they advise. Sometimes they say in the second race there are such and