Defeating California Race-Track Gambling
By Editor
On page 9 we have an important article on the subject of race-track gambling in California, by Pastor J. E. Squires, secretary for California of the International Reform Bureau. We have not been able to do very much work in common with this bureau in the past, for the reason that it has had itself so closely bound up with Sunday legislation that we could not conscientiously do it. But here is an issue on which we can heartily unite. It is to defeat a measure that is aiming to bring race gambling back into California. So many of those who are working for laudable reforms and improvements seem persistent to mingle with these reforms some religious measures, like legislation compelling the observance of Sunday by civil law, that it is difficult to find anything on which we can unite. For while we would gladly work for the abolition of race-track gambling, and while we always do all in our power to eradicate the saloon, yet when it comes to working merely to close the saloon or to stop gambling on Sunday, we think that the plan is not only too narrow, but it is fundamentally wrong. We shall hope to keep this matter of the menace of the proposed race-track law before our readers, and we ask all to do all in their power to defeat it. Gambling that is "winked at" by the authorities and permitted to run contrary to law is certainly bad enough. But when it comes to having a law in California that will make certain forms of gambling a legal thing, it is so grossly wrong that every good man and woman should exert every influence at their command to defeat it.