p. 10 | Gambling by I. H. EVANS

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 16, 1908

Gambling

By I. H. EVANS

I. H. EVANS

Most people know what the word “gambling” means. Webster thus defines the word: “Gamble; to play or game for money or other stake.” It is taking chances in a game, or play, and in modern times is also applied to taking chances in speculations in stocks, grains, mining interests, and other industries, with the hope of receiving large returns.

Gambling is a stimulant almost as exciting as intoxicating drinks. The interested parties, who have made the stakes, seem to forget the lapse of time, and often are lured on step by step to the very precipice of financial ruin.

Gambling may be indulged in for the mere pleasurable excitement of gaining or losing. I have seen brokers and their agents on the stock exchange in Wall Street, flip twenty-dollar gold pieces as boys flip pennies, passing them back and forth without apparent regret. But this is not the rule. Generally, the venture is staked with the strong hope of actual gain. There are few who are indifferent to whether they gain or lose. Often those who have lost in their speculations commit suicide, or are driven to insanity.

Strange as it may seem, both men and women are addicted to the vice of gambling. Nor is it confined to the wealthy, or even to those in moderate circumstances; often the very poor stake their all on the results of a game or a race.

A few weeks ago on the streets of Colon, I saw many men and women selling lottery tickets. These tickets cost ten cents each. It was a “chance” for the winner to obtain a large reward for a small investment. I watched to see who were the buyers of these lottery tickets. All classes seemed to be equally interested. From the bare-footed, bare-headed servant girl, who, on her return from the market with a heavy basket of vegetables on her head, invested a dime for a ticket, to the well-dressed, intelligent citizen, there were purchasers of these lottery tickets in abundance. Of course, the investment was purely a game of “chance,” and where one might gain, ninety-nine must lose.

A few years ago I was in the city of Mexico on Guadalupe day, the great national church festival of that country. Tens of thousands of peons and citizens from all parts of the republic of Mexico had come to pay their tribute of respect to the patron saint, Guadalupe.

In front of the cathedral, there were many booths erected, in which all manner of gambling devices were in full swing. There were hundreds upon hundreds of people of all classes gathered around these gambling devices. Peons and peasants were staking their last centavos on the turn of the wheel. Stacks of money several feet high were piled on tables at which sat well-clad men and women, betting, gaining or losing, as the case might be. One poor old peon woman, barefooted and rudely clad, who had lost her last centavo, gave vent to her feelings in bitter tears, wringing her hands in her despair.

Does the professed church ever stop to think how very near the gambling line it often leads its devotees? Does it ever think how many seeds of games of chance it has sown in the hearts of its young people, and how it has enticed them year by year to invest their money in “grab-bag” socials, church “lotteries,” church “fairs,” and the like, where every cent gathered for the church is won from the purchaser by selling him simply a “chance”? And if the professed church of Christ itself indulges in this kind of gambling, can it be wondered at that young men and women move on from the simpler lines of gambling to those which have larger stakes, with more questionable conditions attached to them?

But there are other ways of gambling in these modern times than simply betting on horse-races, on games of cards, or on the turn of the wheel. There has developed in our day a system of financial speculation, where the chances of gain or loss are as great, and almost as sure, as the games at a regular gambling table. This speculation is not confined to any one commodity, nor any one line of business. It is almost universal, covering nearly every phase of agricultural and manufactured products.

Stocks paying large dividends are thrown upon the market. People who are getting but four or five per cent for their money, when they read of these large dividends become restless and dissatisfied with their meager returns, and buy these stocks and bonds. Almost invariably they are led deeply to regret their unwise move. Many who are anxious for greater gains than they are receiving, invest their money on misrepresentations made by promoters. People of small means and limited business experience should keep themselves aloof from schemes so much advertised in newspapers, and in financial magazines. Many of these articles and advertisements are paid for at a high rate by these promoters, simply to entice and ensnare those who seek riches without labor.

Mining stock is often offered poor people, purporting to be stock in a mine “in the West,” “in Alaska,” or “in Mexico,” with great promises of large dividends in the near future. Scarcely one person in a hundred who puts money in these mines, ever receives back so much as the principal from the investment.

Poor people, especially Seventh-day Adventists, should keep out of the stock market. Let promoters and speculators carry their own bonds and dispose of their own products. Cement companies, food companies, land companies, railroad corporations, trolley lines, mining companies, and promoters of other schemes should be given a wide berth, so far as we are concerned. Those who have a little money saved on which they expect to live during their natural life should be very careful to husband their resources, and invest their means in securities wherein they will not suffer loss.

God’s cause is not a speculation. An investment in it will bring to the investor better returns than gold bonds, or stocks in worldly schemes. Generally, real estate, on proper terms, is safe security for money loans; but those who look for the Lord’s return must be sure their funds are not tied up in speculative stock companies, whose value depends on shrewd manipulators.

The time has come when the financial investments of God’s people should be in the cause of God, and in such things as we know will not cause us to lose the little means God has committed to our keeping.

Takoma Park, D. C.