Mr. CRAFTS. I should like to have the committee, when they take that up, to perhaps study the matter with some expert testimony from Mr. Pringle and others, as to what amount of news could be published without its being used by the gamblers for their purposes. If there were no odds published in advance, if there were no tips on the races, if the results of the races were not published, there would still be this danger, that men who had gotten their tips in advance over the telephone would agree that they would go by the news in the papers, and they would look to see whether a certain horse had won a certain race, and pay their bets accordingly, just as they pay on a prize fight, by the announcement in the New York papers. There would be need to guard very carefully the publication of news that could be used and would be likely to be used.

Senator STERLING. Taking the terms of the bill as they are, do you not think they contemplate the publication of information, not as to what has happened, really, in the way of a race- the result of a race-but information or suggestions that will help people in deciding how to bet? But if a race is over, no suggestion as to how to bet on that race could be of value in that way.

Mr. CRAFTS, Mr. Chairman, these men are so shrewd; the prize fighters are nothing to these gamblers. They are the most ingenious violators of the laws that I have ever encountered in my work as a reformer, and we have got to watch against the publication, like the signaling of that woman that Mr. Young described. They can say, We pay our bets on the publication in the New York Times, or in the Washington Times, or whatever the paper may be." Of course, we have no objection to the publication of the fact that a certain horse won, any more in a running race than in a trotting race; but the law must be very carefully drawn. This bill was drawn by Mr. Walsh after having seen what he saw in the city of Washington here, prompted by what he saw of the young men in Washington. Mr. Walsh did that on his own account and not mine. We have got to avoid that danger; but we have no disposition to cut out any news that is of public interest, and we would only consider that matter of the publication of results afterwards, with a view to actually preventing that publication being used in gambling.

Senator OVERMAN. Would baseball and football be included in this act?

Mr. CRAFTS. Baseball and football will not be included in this act except as the newspapers should print matter that was used, through the mails, to promote gambling. Baseball and football betting is done mostly in pool rooms and in quiet ways.

I wish to say this, however, about news. There is some feeling among the newspapers "We have got to publish everything." Well, I do not know that the country would suffer very much if the horses used only for gambling were not included, and if their exploits were not published, we have so many other items of news. All the horses in the trotting races would be published, and all the other sports would be published. We should not miss the absence of the knowledge that a certain gambling machine on four legs had won out over others. In every way I think the publication of that news is likely to be harmful. However, we are only aiming to cut out the news in so far as it will promote gambling. If a horse is only a gambling machine, used for that purpose, if we can not prevent the gambling in any other way, we might go a point further than we would otherwise, because gamblers are such habitual law breakers; we might go a little further than we would desire in order to make sure that they would not use that as advice for gambling.

Mr. DAY. May I ask Dr. Crafts a question?

Senator STERLING. Yes.

Mr. DAY. You have said several times that racing is prohibited in 45 States. Mr. CRAFTS. No; excuse me, I have never said that racing was prohibited. I said that race gambling was prohibited. And there is nothing in that to prohibit gambling. It does not prohibit anything but gambling on horse races.

Mr. DAY. You say nineteen-twentieths of the racing is trotting horse racing?

Mr. CRAFTS. That is my information from Mr. Pringle, that the number of trotting races in this country is 20 times as great as of running races-I do not mean in days, but the number of meets. Here is a three-day meet, all over the country, of trotting horses. Thus, in the total, the gentleman's races, in which owners drive their own horses, is a far more important part of racing than running races.

Mr. DAY. Do you know of any one of those meetings where they have trotting races, where they do not bet?

Mr. CRAFTS. But it is private betting.

Mr. DAY. Do you know of any where they do not sell tickets and use the pari-mutuel machines?

Mr. CRAFTS. We know that some of them do.

Mr. DAY. Out of all those meetings, is there any one where they do not bet?

Mr. CRAFTS. Those races are precisely on the same level with the football and baseball, and so on. The thing we are after is the promotion of betting. We are not after the individual bettor, we are after the man who makes a living traveling from one State to another, making a living by betting on these races. It is the promoter we are after. When we put this in it was to prevent those lottery schemes from getting into the same boat as the running races.

STATEMENT OF MR. DEETS PICKETT-Resumed.

Mr. PICKETT. I have very few words to add to my remarks of last week and last year in support of the Sterling bill, Mr. Chairman, but it seems to me that some of the questions that have been asked here this morning indicate the necessity of stressing certain facts. In the first place, Mr. Chairman, I want to say that it is my understanding that we do not intend in any sense whatever in this bill to prohibit the reporting of the results of a race, or the reporting of any other legitimate news, but I think it will prohibit the reporting, after the fact, of bets that were made in that race, or odds that were made.

Senator STERLING. Look at the language. That is the reason that I asked Dr. Crafts for his construction of this language. [Reading:]

"No newspaper, post card, letter, circular, or other written or printed matter containing information, or statements, by way of advice or suggestions"

Now follows the important part—.

"purporting to give the odds at which bets or wagers are being laid or waged.'

It does not refer to a thing in the past-that language does not-nor prohibit it, in the terms of the bill. But these statements or this information must purport to give the odds at which bets or wagers are being laid or waged, after the opening of the race.

Mr. PICKETT. It seems to me your interpretation of that is correct; unless the courts would hold that the reporting of the bets or odds would be information for the future performance of those horses. Of course a great deal of these dope sheets is based on what they call past performances.

Senator STERLING. Would not the expression "are being laid" govern that? Mr. PICKETT. That is very possible. I am just giving my impression.

Mr. CRAFTS. But it says in the second clause or setting forth the bets on wagers made, or offered to be made." That is in the second line.

Senator STANLEY. Then it says in line 3, Mr. Chairman, "or the sums of money won or lost."

Mr. PICKETT. It does not prevent the reporting of the result. It does not prevent the telling what horse won or what horse came second or third. It simply prevents gambling information, whether past or present. I am not a lawyer, and I will not attempt to say. I just give my impression.

The second thing I want to bring out, Mr. Chairman, is the extent of this thing. If you walk down Pennsylvania Avenue until you get to the Washington Post building, and go to the news stand there that is right by the entrance to the Washington Post building, you can buy, I should say, 15 or 20 publications giving tips on the races; and when I say that I do not mean newspapers devoting perhaps a column to advice, but I refer to publications devoted wholly to advising men how they should lay their bets on the races. Sometimes these publications are in small newspapers and give only the one best bet, as they call it, for the day, and they sell from 50 cents up to as high as $10-sucker stuff," it is called on the street-and the young men who buy that information as a general thing have not $15 in their pockets, and what they do have they borrowed from sister or mother.

Mr. WHITEHEAD. This witness does not seek to convey the impression, does he, that the Washington Post does this?

Mr. PICKETT. No; I was just locating this newspaper stand as being near the entrance to the Washington Post. I might say that if you go around the corner and go two blocks you will find another news stand where there are probably as many such papers for sale.

Senator STERLING. There is a second call from the floor of the Senate, and I think we will have to go up and answer to our names.

(At this point the subcommittee took a recess for five minutes, at the conclusion of which time the subcommittee resumed its session.)

Mr. PICKETT. I might have said, referring to these newspapers, that if you had gone up to Ninth Street and gone up two blocks, you would probably have found another stand there that sells a number of these tip sheets; and then if you had walked a few blocks this way or that way, you would have found another one. I think it is an absolutely safe statement, too, that you would have absolutely no trouble whatever

in laying a bet on the races at New Orleans or Havana, or Tia Juana, or wherever they happened to be in session.

Senator OVERMAN. The profit from the tip sheets is apart from the actual betting itself?

Mr. PICKETT. Yes; but it is the foundation, largely, of it. A great deal of the handbooking that is going on in Washington is a kind of amateur handbooking that goes on in barber shops and places like that, and is based on these tip sheets, where there is advance information, and upon the results published in the gambling news, of course.

Mr. Chairman, I think that the newspapers have a right to be very jealous of any seeming interference with the r right to handle the news fully and freely; but there is a great deal of information which can not be now published in the papers as news. Just as an instance, you noticed, perhaps, that in New York the other day this birth control meeting was broken up. They could report that birth-control meeting, but if they were to report in the r news any of the language of the speakers by way of reporting the meeting, it would immediately become unmailable. It could not go through the mails.

I am sorry that Senator Overman is not here to hear this. Another th ng that I want to stress is this: The question was asked whether any lotteries were going on in the United States at the present time, and whether this bill is needed in that particular. The Post Office Department does show undoubtedly that lotteries are going on in the United States very extensively to-day. In Pennsylvania recently the Cuban lottery was found to be operating there. We have pools on clearing-house receipts, pools on baseball results, pools on everything except the weather. Not only that, but other kinds of gambling are going on to such an extent as to indicate a great national tendency. I was in a department store in Detroit the other day and my little girl called out to me, "Daddy, come here; here is a roulette wheel just like we saw at Interlaken." There was a little wheel that revolved, and you threw a little pea around it. That could be used for gambling. It is the duty of the Government, so far as lies within its power of interstate commerce, to eliminate gambling. Senator STERLING. Of interstate commerce?

Mr. PICKETT. Yes.

Senator STERLING. I supposed that was the purpose and meaning of sections 213 and 215 of the Criminal Code.

Mr. PICKETT. I do not know what you have in mind, but I suppose it is just what I have in mind conc rning this bill.

Now, th third thing is the ext nt of the evil r sults of this kind of thing. I some time ago clipped th shadlin s from the notices which went over the entire country. Here was a man who shot his wife because he lost all of his mony in pool-room betting, and so forth and could not support her any longer, and rather than see her live in pov rty. he shot hr.

Her is a man who killed another in a controversy over gambling.

Lit rally, blood is flowing all over this country to day becaus of the ext nt of gam bling. So this matt r should not be consid r d, in the ordinary s ns of th› t_rm, a reform matt r. It should be consider d. rather as a police matt r, and I am glad that in this particular cas it originated with Mr. Walsh, whom nobody on earth would accuse of b ing a r former and I am glad that it has the backing of almost every police chief of every important city in the United Stat s who says that he needs legislation similar to this in order to deal with matt rs of crime solely: not that he is cone rn d as to the morals of the p ople of his city, but that he is consid ring the law and order of his city. It is a police matt r. and should be consider d as such. Now. I b liv sine r ly that the newspap rs of this country would w lcome this legislation. The only way we could find out would be to send a questionnaire to th m. and it is too lat, of cours, to do that but I b li ve there would be a 99 per cent favorablr turn from the nwspapers of this country: because here is the situaion: Take our local situation. Suppose the Washington Times gives this kind of advanc information and suppose that the Washington Post do s not: the Washington Post will find itself in a situation where it has to give that information in order to compet. They all have to do it in order to be on an equal basis with their competitors. But if they wer put upon an equal basis wh re non of them could publish such information I bli v ev ry last on of them certainly would welcome such legislation as r lieving th m from a necessity of doing som thing which they know demoraliz s th⚫ community.

I think that is all I hav to say, unless I can answer any questions that might clear things up; but I also want to say that if it wr true that all the Stat s prohibit d racing, it would not affect this publication of advance information on racing at all,

because gambling is still going on at Tia Juana, and places like that, and there would be just as much handbooking on races as there is to-day.

Senator STERLING. Are there any questions to be asked Mr. Pickett by anyone? If not, that is all, Mr. Pickett.

Mr. CRAFTS. I do not want to be misunderstood, Mr. Chairman, in what I said about the possibility of suppressing even the news of who won a race, that that is merely an academic menace, and if necessary, that might be done. It is not in any way provided in this bill. Here is the only thing about after a race is run, the prohibition of the publishing of the amounts of money won or lost by reason of such bets, wagers, and so forth. There is absolutely nothing to prevent publishing the name of the horses that won. There is no prohibition except as to the money that is lost or won I think that is extremely clear.

Now, Mr. Miller, if you have a word to add, please do so.

STATEMENT OF REV. O. R. MILLER-Resumed.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, a gambling wave is sweeping over our country like It is worse after the World's War, as it always is after every some devastating scourge. Moral conditions and moral standards have war. We are in the aftermath of the war. We all recognize that fact, always been lowered after every great war in our country. and as the State superintendent of the New York Civic League, I have had much to do with this fight.

We cooperated with Gov. Hughes a dozen years ago in that great victory, and we are thoroughly familiar with conditions there; but let me say that we urge the passage of this bill, first because the United States Government should cease hindering the States in the enforcement of their own laws. That is exactly what the United States Government is now doing.

When 45 States prohibit race-track gambling, and the Government then says, "We will allow these tip sheets and these papers, with a whole page or more or part of a page-giving odds, bets and tips on races to be carried to every country town far and near which is to decide the races, the Government is hindering, and Blackstone, I believe it is, says that it is the business of Government to make it easy to do right Our Government in this regard is doing the opposite. and hard to do wrong. Second, we urge the passage of this bill to cut out this advance news, because in thousands and tens of thousands of towns you will see just what you see down here in front of the newspapers of Washington, an excited, feverish crowd every day watching the results and the odds; and we know that many of them pay off according to the odds published in the papers. Through these pool rooms they may bet, many times, and be paid off; but they do not know whether a pool room manager is giving them a raw deal or a square deal. But if they look into a morning paper like the New York Telegram the next morning, they can see whether the odds were as they were claimed on the third race at Havre de Grace, or some other place, and see whether they are done. If there was not some official way by which these people could find out whether they were or not being given a square deal by the gambler, thousands of them would not bet. They would say, "We will not let this fellow give us the odds and then pay But they can say, "We will see to-morrow morning us or not if we win, as he likes." in the paper whether the odds were as he claimed they were. Third, we urge the passage of this bill because many country towns are being debauched everywhere in reach of larger cities that print this news.

I am glad to say for their credit that there are a great many small cities in our State of New York, and elsewhere, where they do not publish this news--cities of 10,000, 20,000 or 30,000, perhaps, where they do not publish it--and even in the city of Albany

Senator STERLING. You mean in the local papers?

Mr. MILLER. In the local daily papers. They do not publish it. But in the city of Albany one, at least, if not more, of the papers does publish this news; and if even one publishes it, they can send it for 200 miles away up to Plattsburg or Malone, and the people who bet in the pool rooms of Plattsburg and Malone and Ogdensburg Of course, at Ogdensburg they would probably get a Syracuse can get these papers. or Buffalo paper, if they printed this news, as such papers usually do. But they get the news, and they catch those that are liable to temptation, that are liable to place their money, and they keep them in a state of feverish excitement.

Let me say, there are country towns where I believe there is practically very little of this, because they do not get any daily paper that publishes the official odds. If we cut out the printing of the official odds of the day before, we will stop it in many places where it now exists.

The gentleman referred to the fact that this law is not enforced in many places. Of course that is true. I do not know of any law that is enforced. There is a murder committed every day, on the average, in New York City, and there are several hundred thefts every day, and nobody advocates a repeal of those laws because they are not enforced. There are great race meets on the race tracks of that State; but there are probably 50 of the 75 race tracks where they do not officially allow that thing. We do not say that a few fellows sitting in the bleachers or sitting in the grand stand may not say, "John, I will bet you $5 the bay wins in this race.' We do not claim there is no betting, even in those country towns where the county agricultural fairs are held and where the racing is usually held for two, three, or five days.

Senator STERLING. And you do not claim that this bill would prohibit bets of that kind?

Mr. MILLER. No, sir; that is not what we are after. We are after stopping the newspapers as published in country towns from making it hard not to gamble and easy to gamble.

Senator STERLING. Are there any other questions to be asked Mr. Miller?
Mr. CRAFTS. Mr. Chairman, we now yield to the other side.

Senator STERLING. Is there some one here to appear for those who are opposed to the bill?

STATEMENT OF SENATOR AUGUSTUS O. STANLEY, OF KENTUCKY.

Senator STANLEY. Mr. Chairman, the New York Times, the New York Herald, the New York World, the New York Telegraph, the New York Tribune, the New York Evening Telegraph, the Evening World, the Evening Sun, the Evening Globe, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Washington Post, and various horse-breeding associations represented by Mr. Dinsmore, the horse-breeding associations of Kentucky, all desire and request me to state that they desire to be heard upon this bill, and it will facilitate your hearings if these people have an opportunity to find out what has been said, an opportunity to know the arguments that have been made in behalf of this bill, especially in behalf of the section which was added in the last hour of debate, about which I am advised comparatively few Members of Congress knew anything at the the time of its passage, and which is far-reaching in its power and in its scope and heavy in its penalties. Time will be saved by giving these people an opportunity adequately to prepare their statements.

I am advised by these various papers that they are not before this committee as proponents of gambling. I may say, by way of digression, that in my opinion if the daily press, these great means of disseminating information, were actually and in fact copartners, colleagues, particeps criminis with blacklegs, bookmakers, and the like, this country would, indeed, be in a most pathetic position.

I believe that these great papers, the great metropolitan press of this country, are a great aid to the work that the ministers of the gospel do in proclaiming a high standard of spiritual and moral excellence. In war and in peace these great papers have been an aid to the Government; and now, on the whole, I believe they are on the side of morality and that their influence upon the public is beneficial.

It is necessary, of course, for papers to print the news. The paper does not necessarily become the ally of uncleanness when it reports marital infelicities or the prevalence of the social evil. It does not become the ally of the gambler when it publishes the fact that bets have been made, any more than it becomes an ally of the murderer when it reports that human life has been taken.

These papers wish an opportunity to speak not in behalf of gambling or gamblers, but in behalf of the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech.

Mistaken efforts have been made, Mr. Chairman, by good and holy men, devout, disinterested, for thousands of years, in suppressing any speech, the proclamation of any doctrine, that was heretical or dangerous to established orthodoxy or to the established church. The experience of the churches has shown that such a blow at the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech was not conducive to the spread of the Gospel of the Nazarene; and I say that these great papers wish an opportunity now briefly and, as they claim, conclusively to show that the gambling evil, and it is an evil which all wise men must deprecate and all good men must abhor, is not best remedied especially by a government of delegated powers, this evil is not best remedied by an unwarranted restriction of the freedom of the press or freedom of speech. And I hope, for that reason, that the chairman will fix a time within, say, two weeks or some such matter, as we have statements that it will take some time to compile, especially from the horse-breeders' associations.