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PHILOSOPHY OF EDWARD CORRIGAN. While in New Orleans last week, Edward Corrigau talked with considerable freedom of the non-racing condition there and through the Picayune said: "City Park racing plant will not be disturbed in any way if what I hear are the views of my associates in the ownership of the place are correct, for r share with many others the belief that the drastic legislation which practically kills racing here for the time does not represent the will of a large and powerful element of the best people of New Orleans. "I am going to devote my time now to looking after my racing interests, here and elsewhere. The City Park race track property, I figure, would bring something like ,000 an acre if it were cut up and sold, but I hope it can be put to better uses than the making of mere building lots, and nothing is further from my fancy now than to consider such a thing. No. I wont say whether I would keep or sell out my interests here. I cannot discuss that part of it. As for a moral wave sweeping this state, liowever, and putting a stop to racing for all time here, that is absurd. "Where are tbe crowds who generally throng the city at tills season? Your college boys in football games, boxing contests between second-raters, theaters, charming climate, novel sights and other attractions have they filled the hotels and board-houses and brought you many winter visitors? "Yes, I know racing has been frowned on at St. Louis, Chicago, Memphis and other points before New York and New Orleans, but I candidly believe it is a fad that will ultimately cease. "For myself, I will continue to take an interest in racing whenever good sport is offered although I never intend to race another horse, as I believe I have done my share of it, and need not be burdened with the worry and care of playing the role of owner any longer. Some people believe that the bookmaker-owner has done much to breed distrust in racing and cause the legislation which makes it a losing game, and many will say that persons being interested in the race track running horses there did it. I have never been a bookmaker, and have not bad an interest in a book for over twenty years, but I really do not believe that either of the theories I have named is tenable. I did not sell out my horses because I was afraid that my interest in any race track and the ownership of horses racing there would cause suspicion, either. "There isnt a sport but what a little crookedness may creep in at some time or tbe other, but I do believe that racing, as conducted in New Orleans during the past few years, has been as clean as any I ever saw. There have been outbursts of criticism, and no doubt many a luckless bettor bemoaned his losses, but the race track tout. who steers the unsuspecting onto something good, persuades the victim to wager, say, 00. and then cries, The jockey pulled him if the horse doesnt win. has been responsible for the majority of the crookedness heard of in reports published or spoken. "I never knew more than a scant few men who were bookmaker-owners and attempted to fix the way their horse finished, and I have known and now call to mind many whose delight over their horses winning was great. It is natural. The horse gets to wanting to lead the procession, and its a bad citizen indeed who tries to arrange so his horse cant win. As for the people interested in race tracks owning horses running at such plants, they are anxious to win. of course, but there are few so unsportsmanlike as to attempt anything unfair. There are too many people watching them, even if they were inclined to trj- It. "In the lirst place, I do not think tills is any excuse for closing the tracks, lieeause nobody forces any race-goer to bet. Detectives and guardians of the law show touts little courtesy, and it is seldom that anyone is asked to lay a wager. But the truth of tbe matter is the race track has to bear the sins of a lot of other things for which it is not to blame. How many of the defaulters lose their employers money at race tracks? Why. very few. Gambling on margins and holding all-night sessions at the card table, faro wheel or with fast women cause more defaulting than all the race track gambling ever heard of. Yet. you will find in niaiiv cases where careers have been wrecked by this fast life that the mam will try to throw all the blame on the race track. A more respectable place Jo admit losing money. The ministers should lie spiritual advisers and not politicians if they would keep our veneration and respect, but the times are developing strange things. The moral wave, so-called, is not a moral wave, for I fail to see the moral side of it, and everyone knows thrre are a. hundred practices which are many times worse for the morals of a community that the simple privilege of backing ones opinion at a horse race."
