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TENNESSEE RACING TROUBLE. That there will not be any racing in Tennessee for the next four years at least is the opinion of Captain James II. Bees of Memphis. The Now Memphis Jockey Club, he says, has decided to keep its track and grounds at Montgomery Park intact, but is willing to sell the steel grandstand. The anti-betting racing sentiment, which now has hold of tlie people throughout the state lirst originated with tlie holding of a mid-summer meeting at Memphis June 17, to July S, 1905. The business men of that city, theretofore, bad always contributed their financial and moral support to the spring meetings. But when the mid-summer meeting was announced, they not only withheld their financial support, but did everything they could in the way oT protest against the venture, even to the extent of forbidding employes from attending, which had never been done before. The antagonism spread to all parts of the state and became a political issue in flu? state election last fall. Governor Patterson, thought friendly to racing when elected, devoted a paragraph in the original draft of his Inaugural message attacking betting on race tracks as pernicious gambling, but was finally persuaded to leave it out of the message read before the legislature. "When the Foust anti-racing bill was presented to him for his approval, however, he immediately signed it. Captain Bees is of the opinion that there is little hope for racing during tlie next administration, no matter which party is victorious at tlie polls and that if racing is ever again permitted in Tennessee it will be cleanly conducted by Tennesseeaus on -Tennessee ideals and no summer, meetings or syndicate betting rings will be tolerated.
