Two-fifths of all the crimes committed every year are estimated to be
attributable to race tracks. Five men have been convicted this year
of stealing money from the United States postoffice, and every one
of them confessed he lost the money at race tracks. The mania for
gambling is growing stronger, and as it grows the defenses of honesty
crumble away.
What may be called gambling thieves are not so numerous in Chicago as
in some other cities, for the reason that no race tracks are permitted
to exist in Cook county. But there are many gambling swindlers in
this city. A large proportion of the men in the county jail are there
because gambling wrecked morals in them, and hardly a week passes
that does not find at least one person before the courts charged with
robbery because money was wanted to bet.
This is not all of the injury that gambling does to the community.
Because the state's attorney's office and the police have not
suppressed gambling the city is full of sharpers who make their living
out of men foolish enough to think that they can get rich by betting
on horse races, faro or roulette. These sharpers are an organized band
of law breakers, preying on society, disorganizing it as far as is
possible, their whole existence a menace to decency and order.
The passion for gambling can probably never be eradicated from human
nature. But civilization should be able to prevent rogues and rascals
from profiting by it in the way usual in Chicago. Professional
gamblers--professional swindlers, should be sent to the penitentiary
and kept there. There should be some means under the law to send all
such to the penitentiary and keep them there.