Your ShelfYour Projects

DAKOTA’S DISGRACE

14%

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 3, 1890

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 16, No. 9.

Read the full edition

“DAKOTA’S DISGRACE.”

By Editor

A BILL to charter lotteries in North Dakota passed the Senate of the State, and it was thought would pass the Assembly; but the Lower House, alarmed by large public demonstrations, and under strong pressure from the Federal Government, it is supposed, were forced to postpone the matter indefinitely, as they did not have a sufficient majority to pass it over the governor’s veto. It is, however, a sad commentary on the times in which we are living when a chosen body of the people’s representatives can take such actions as did North Dakota’s Senate. It is a disgrace to the new State that matters should go as far as they did go. The following from the New York World, under the above heading, we commend to thoughtful people everywhere; we can but wonder, however, how much influence church fairs had in educating these North Dakota legislators:—
“The new State of North Dakota makes a most unpropitious start in giving countenance to a scheme for paying the expenses of its government from a chartered lottery.
“The State might, with equal morality, try to escape taxation by chartering highwaymen to rob stage-coaches or railway trains. It would be even manlier to go into partnership with gambling establishments, after the manner of the prince of Monaco. People who play at roulette are commonly either habitual gamblers or rich fools who are willing and able to pay for the excitement of losing money.
“But lotteries are the depleters of the poor. The wage-earners and persons with small salaries buy tickets in the desperate hope of bettering, by a lucky chance, a lot which seemingly has no other promise of improvement. Wherever lotteries are tolerated, there is blight, mildew, and decay. The miseries of the poor are augmented. The managers grow rich and use their wealth to still further corrupt the government and demoralize society.
“Louisiana is the only State in the Union where this form of robbery is sanctioned by law. Does North Dakota wish to form herself on the model of Louisiana?”