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CROKERS IDEA IS FAVORED LOCAL OPTION PLAN DISCUSSED WITH INTEREST BY EASTERN HORSEMEN. Sentiment of Localities Where Racing Goos on Overwhelmingly in Favor of tho Sport Examples Pointed Out by Racing Men, New York. April 7. Richard Crokers suggestion of local option for racing, made just before lie sailed for Europe a day or two. ago. Is being discussed generally by turfmen and the universal opinion is that it would be a welcome solution of the many troubles that have been heaped on the sport within recent years. In every locality where racing has been legislatedout of existence the opposition to the sport has invariably come from sections remote from where the sport was carried on, and in almost every instance this successful opposition has been carried on by persons lcat interested and with the least knowledge of the sport they were destroying. It is pointed out by one member of a local racing association that the Agnew-IIart law passed by one vote and the vote of a man distantly removed from a racing section. The same condition of affairs wiped out the sport in Louisiana. There New Orleans, really the only vitally interested portion of the state, was iu favor of a continuance of racing, and In fact, the leading merchants and the hotel men made a vigorous light to save the sport that meant so much through the winter months. An effort will be made to. stamp out racing at Jacksonville, but with local option prevailing it would be Impossible at the present time. During the past winter an extensively advertised mass meeting was called to protest against the racing, aud in Jacksonville, where tlie sport was under way, only forty-flve persons were iu attendance at tho meeting. Later a petition was circulated by the antis in tie hope that it would show a sentiment against the sport and a house-to-house canvass of the city brought only 105 names. These two moves against the sport were not exploited outside of Jacksonville to any extent for the reason that both were suck dire failures. In the face of this condition It would seem that racing would remaiu secure iu the Florida city if it was only a question of local option. Saratoga is probably the best example that could bo offered in New York state of the justness of local option. At the Springs it is. certain that racing would prevail by overwhelming odds if the matter- was put before the voters, Of numerous turfmen and most of them membera of one or other of the metropolitan racing associations, seen yesterday not one was found who would not willingly stand by the will of the people in New York. All felt secure that local option would see a return of the racing to all its glory and an indefinite continuance of the sport. It was pointed out by many that under such conditions the people would be in a position to keep the sport clean and it would be the very best safeguard for the sport from every angle. August Belmont, chairman of tho Jockey Club, lias repeatedly said that If it was the will of the people tlsat there should be no raciug, he would give up his light for the sport, but he has never believed that it was the will ot the people. With local option the will of the people would be discovered much more easily than in any other maimer, and at the time Mr. Belmont niade that statement he was talking of the state at large and not or the localities that are most deeply interested and those receiving the greatest benefit from a continuance of tho sport.
