The Lottery Industry

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 202, 23 May 1936, Page 18

The Lottery Industry

THAT useful journalist, Mr. Westbrook Pegler, has chosen the moment when agitation for die establishment of legalized lotteries in this country at a new high point to report on the actual condition of the lottery industry in Dublin, the home of its glory (says the “Christian Century” (Chicago).

In the United States, Mrs. Oliver Harriman, of New York, having done her bit to legalize the return of liquor, is now leading a campaign to legalize a return of lotteries. And the post office authorities have in some way got the citrous idea that Mr. Alfred E Smith, jitii, son of New York's walking warrior, and bis fellow promoters of die "Golden Stakes ’ contest have deluded themselves into believing that Mrs. Harriman's campaign has already succeeded. Quite a bit of sentiment seems to exist in favour of legalized lotteries as a means of solving the nation's budget problems. In the main, it is the same sentiment that backed repeal as the way to balance the federal budget.

Before too many Americans swallow this stuff, however, it is to lie Hoped that they will read Mr. Pegler’s reports on what’s what at Dublin. There the returns from the Irish sweepstakes tire supposed to put the hospitals

on easy street, while solving the government's budgetary problems. All that seems to have been solved, however, lias been the financial worries of the three promoters who started this sweepstakes live and a half years ago and have since received about two million dollars each as their "take.” These three, named by Mr. Pegler, turn out to be a brother of England's leading bookmaker, an Irish politician and a Dublin gamble)' now deceased, whose estate continues to collect.

As for the hospitals, their share —which is by now supposed to total •-’.■>,000,000 dollars—is "frozen in the Dublin banks," and the doctors are howling that they cannot get enough to give even ordinary care to hospital patients. The Irish Free State authorities, after Mr, Pegler's report was published, announced that a commission had been appointed to investigate the whole matter and make recommendations Whatever the outcome, the fact seems clear that, with less than six years of life behind it, this Irish sweepstakes has managed to attach to itself the same suspicions that have always accompanied the lottery racket. Mrs. Harriman and her friends apparently forget that the lottery business had accumulated a history before it was thrown out of this country.