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PLAN ON AMBITIOUS SCALE KANAGEMENT AIMING TO HAVE HIGH-CLASS , MEETING AT CHARLESTON. Plant Being Constructed with View to Permanency of Racing as Winter Attraction in South Carolina President Points Out Benefits. Charleston, S. C. December 12. Palmetto Park I will Ik; the name for the big racing plant now in process of construction at West, near this city. by ; the Charleston Racing and Fair Association. It is the ultimate aim of the owners of the plant to make this track beautiful in every way itoseihle. .lust at present the site of the plant is anything hut a joy forever, with hundreds of laborers and , teams busily engaged in the race to put the track and buildings Into commission in time for the opening of the bis meeting on January 10, 1011!. The ; work of beautifying the grounds, however, will be taken up in the near future. It is proposed to place I the infield, that portion of the grounds enclosed by the track, in the hands of an expert landscape gardener. The gulley which at present takes up a ; major portion of the iutield, will be transformed from an unsightly hole into a winning sMit. covered with grass plots, Mower beds, small rivulets and lagoous. Work on the big grandstand is going ahead at a . rapid rate and will lie completed within the next three weeks time. The structure will he about 250 feet long and will have a seating capacity of i,0K, thereby making it one of the largest affairs of its kind in this section of the country. On the right of the stand will be erected the ollices of the association and the big paddock. The Consolidated Company will build a spur track from its .Meeting street line to the rear of the grandstand for the accommodation of the enthusiasts who will attend the meeting. The Atlantic Coast Line and Southern Railway will build a small union station near West for the heneilt of visiting patrons of the track. Plans for the fc.ir buildings are now being drawn and it is stated that construction of tho structures will begin with the completion of the race track proper. It is the intention of the association to arrange for a big fair here next summer on a large . scale. The enormous quantities of dirt which are being excavated by the laborers in the construction of the track and the facility with which the work is being dispatched, has aroused the interest of thousands of people who have visited the. coursu during the last three weeks. P. E. Hayes, of Louisville, Ky., Is tho engineer in charge of construction. He Is assisted by Engineer H. Schmidt. Engineer Hayes stated yesterday that, according to the original estimates, no less than 45,000 cubic yards of dirt will have to lie excavated liofore the race track proper is in shape for use. In the construction of the track must also he considered the building of two concrete culverts containing about 20 cubic yards of cement and concrete. At the present time over one-half mile of the track has been roughly graded and is now-ready for the linal dressing. One of the big concrete culverts has also been linisheil and the till over it completed. This till averaged a length of .MM feet and eight feet in depth. The second concrete culvert will be completed during the present week. In describing the dimensions of the track. Engineer Hayes made the following divisions: Starting from the judges stand, there will he 205 feet of straight track, followed by 1,327 feet on the west turn, which is a portion of a circle, having a radius of 430.7 feet. The hackstretch is l,i!15 feet in length and is followed by the east turn, winch lias a radius of 494 feet and a length of 1.523 feet, leaving for the homestretch 1,010 feet. The homestretch will be SO feet wide, and the hackstretch 70 feet. The turns -widen out from 70 to SO feet between the respective stretches. Tho till at the east end of the track averages AM feet in length, with a top width of !M feet, and an average depth of 11 feet. This will allow of a roadway outside of the track proper. The culvert now being constructed will have u horseshoe-shape sewer section, with a width of S feet and a height of 7 feet. This culvert will take care of the 1 tidal How and will lie built of the strongest material. While much in the way of construction still is necessary, "so much has already been accomplished that no doubt remains of the ability of the builders to be ready well before the opening date, January 10. A portion of the work that is being hurried along : is the construction of the stables. They are all. - built in large, roomy boxes, with wide overhanging : roofs that will give a covered walk for the horses 1 in inclement weather. Much of this work has already been finished and accommodation is had for such of the early arrivals as care to make the trip at this time. There will be between S00 and 1,000 stalls ready when the meeting begins. The grandstand will bo thoroughly modern in its 1 every articular and it is being built with an idea 1 of permanency. In the meantime the various stakes for the meeting, which close December 10, have already met ; with a liberal response from the horsemen, and 1 applications for stabling leave no doubt of the : patronage from the good stables. The Charleston News and Courier of Sunday last ; gave space to the following Interesting communication from John .Marshall, president of the Charleston Pair and Racing Association: "To the Editor of The Sunday News: Though I ; had the honor to siicnd the major part of my life in vour own profession, and incidentally to have tilled every editorial position, from that of the police court reporter to the acting managing editorship . on the paper over which you now preside, this i is, to the best of my recollection, the first communication . I have ever addressed to a newspaper. Noth-in" . short of the severest provocation could Induce me to enter into a newspaper controversy, and I nothing is further from my present purpose than the ! thought of engaging anyone in debate. The business 5 men of the city who are interested with me in the ! promotion of the Charleston Fair and Racing Association - and a very large number of others who arc i ardently desirous of seeing this great enterprise succeed, hnvo requested that I furnish the public : with a statement regarding our purposes, and some of the reasons which have prompted us to our present t undertaking. It is in responso to these requests, , and not In a spirit of defense or accusation, that t I solicit space for this letter. ,,,,.,, "It is, I believe, in Tom Jones that Fielding, , with quaint humor, bends one of his chapters: "To show that a man will write the better for knowing : something of the subject ho desires to write about. The novelists gentle railery has been repeatedly - recalled to my mind, while observing the unanimity with which the critics of racing have disclaimed 1 anv personal knowledge of tho institution against t wliich they sought to protest. The few critics who have resorted to denunciation and abuse will, of I course, give no heed whatever to a dispassionate statement of our case, but I am addressing myself : - : 1 1 1 ; 1 : ; ; . i . . I ! 5 ! - i : t , t , : - 1 t I to the larger public, whose memlers are, I am convinced, earnestly desirous of knowing the truth concerning matters they have recently heard so widely discussed. The misinformed hearsay to which they have leen treated recently might well have confused, it it did not actually prejudice, their better judgment. "A suspension of final verdict until the people of Charleston have seen for themselves the kind of racing mv association proposes to provide, together with its "iniluence uion the business and morals of this community, is surely not an unreasonable request to make. "I regret exceedingly to trespass upon your space, but the matter is of such large consequence to ourselves, and to this community as a whole, that perhaps von will permit me to make a few statements in detail. To begin with, the Charleston Fair and Racing Association is very largely owned, and is actually controlled, "by Charleston men. Two out of its three officers and four out of Its seven directors, are gentlemen living in this city and identified with its business life. These gentlemen are convinced that their enterprise will turn the tide of tourist and other travel in our direction: that it will direct the attention of millions of people to Charleston, and that it will bring to the city a vast volume of money that will distribute itself in every channel of our business life. In conjunction with the racing itself they hope ultimately to conduct here a fair on a scale that have never been surpassed, if it has ever been duplicated in the south. Through this medium Charleston may be brought into intimate contact with the people of every city and town in the state, and there may Ie dispelled the unfortunate differences that have so often separated South Carolinians. The often repeated assertion that racing has been rim out of every other place in America is, of course, wholly Hiifounded in fact. In the United States racing is a valued and popular sport in Kentucky Maryland, Virginia. Utah. Montana. Idaho and Oklahoma. In Canada there are great tracks and associations at Montreal, Toronto, Ilmilton, Fort Erie, Windsor, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver and Victoria. In this catalogue no account is taken, of course, of mere fair ground racing, for that is in vogue in every state in America. I am speaking here of just such enterprises as that which is now rapidly taking shape at Wests. "I wish to call the attention of those who have been informed that a race track is a menace to the business and morals of a city to these interesting facts: Racing was an institution at New-Orleans for sixty years, at Memphis for twenty-two years, at St. Louis for forty years, at Chicago for twenty years and at New York for seventy years. Yet each and all of these places is commercially more prosperous than Charleston; and I doubt if any one of them when size is taken into consideration is conspicuously more immoral than we are. If it is true that racing has been discontinued att those places, it is also true that it is about to be revived at some of them by the fact that the Coney Island Jockey Club, of which W. K. Vanderbilt is the controlling spirit, has issued entry blanks for the running of tho Futurity next year. "It goes without the saying that in one particular, at least, the racing of horses does not differ from all other enterprises there arc legitimate racing corporations and there are illegitimate racing cor- porations. That tho racing at the track of the Charleston Fair and Racing Association will 1m; conducted on the highest plane is guaranteed by the character of the business men who control the stock of the corporation, by the character of the ollicials who will be in charge of the conduct of the sport and hi the class and standing of the turfmen who are sending their horses here to race. "And just here permit me to register a most earnest protest against the intempo-rato and unfounded wholesale traducing of race track patrons that has recently loon indulged in by some ill-in-. formed persons. Where the race track will bring one objectionable person hero it will bring scores who-are entirely without reproach. If it docs not do this it will quickly fall of its own weight. The patrons of race tracks are the rich, idle, sport-Iov- ing class of America. When I was in New York the other day, almost every man I met said he saw he could get good racing in Charleston this winter, and two out of every three of them asked whether good golf was also to lc had hero. Now. tho golfer is frequently a bore, but he is very infrequently a bad or a dangerous eitlztn. "Quite a number of objectionable characters are usually to be found where race tracks are. Rut the same gentry are to bo found wherever an exposition is being held wherever, in fact, there is a large concourse of people. All that I desire to say in this regard is that the races will bring to Charleston thousands of the nicest people in America whom all of us have longed to see in Charleston, for the reason that we are convinced that, once having been here, they will come again, not only to see the races, but to see the city itself and to know her people, "I have taken so much of your space that I find myself compelled to omit many things I had desired to mention. The success of the races means the investment of outside money in enterprises here, the need of which is universally admitted. Among these I shall only mention a large hotel and an equally large apartment house, the plans for both of which are now being prepared. "I have lfcen so frequently asked how many people are likely to be attracted here by the races and how much money they are likely to spend, that I had best conclude this regrettably lengthy column- nicalion by saying I should imagine there will alii ways be from four to five thousand strangers in the city, and that there will bo exicnded here by the visitors anil horsemen during tin winter anywhere from one and one-half to two and one-half millions of dollars."
