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1 PUBLIC UPHOLDS RACING COMMISSION. Refusal to Grant License to New Benges Track Considered Best for Interest of Turf. New York, January 13. — Two weeks ago the Baltimore County Racing Commission, of which Duane H. Rice is chairman, and Dr. M. J. Cromwell and J. Edwin Griffith are associate members. registered emphatic disapproval of the scheme afoot to overdo racing in Maryland by notifying the promoters of the projected new track at Benges that the commission would not license another racing enterprise in Baltimore County. The commissioners hold that the Maryland laws of 1912. which placed racing in Baltimore County under the direction of a special commission, give them discriminative authority in the matter of licensing tracks, new and old. and they declare they are ready to fight for their authority in the courts to which the Benges promoters threaten to appeal. Since their original declaration of two weeks ago the earn* Miss loners have given a second hearing to the Binges folks, but. I am reliably informed, nothing brought out at that hearing is likely to cause them to change their minds. It is not apparent to the commissioners that the worthy, and, in view of the Increasing necessities of national defense, essential industry of horse breeding in Maryland will best Ik- served by the creation of new tracks in Baltimore County, or elsewhere in Maryland, under moribund or obsolete charters. They believe that by sponsoring semiannual sessions of racing at Bowie. Havre de Grace find Pimlico and an autumn meeting of one months duration at Laurel, along with the minor fair meets at Marlborough. Timonium and other places. Maryland is doing its full share toward the encouragement of horse breeding. They are convinced that another semi-annual meeting in Baltimore County, or anywhere else in Maryland, would tend to create a sentiment against racing that, ultimately would bring disastrous consequences upon the indispensible national industry dependent uikjii a continuance of its "popularity. Enough Race Tracks. The best legal thought in Maryland supports the contention that the Baltimore County Commission, has. and should have, authority to prevent the indiscriminate operation of tracks, as purely commercial or speculative ventures, and the thoroughbred breeders of the state are convinced that it would be unfortunate for the fast growing breeding industry of Maryland, and of the country generally, if the courts should fail to sustain the commissioners in their effort to keep racing at and about Baltimore within reasonable limits. Four big trucks and half a dozen half mile affairs are a lot for a community of about 1.000.000 — Washington being part of the metropolitan area in which Baltimore is situated — to support New York, with a. 000. 000 and tributary population of 1,500,098 more nereis thi Hudson Itiver in New .lers.y, maintains only four iracks — Jamaica. A-nie-duct. Belmont Park and Empire City — and has no mop- racing each year, measured by days, than have Baltimore and Washington. Press Against It. The Commissioners have the undivided support of the influ. -ntial press of Baltimore City, which has always been consistently friendly to legitimate racing and coldly indifferent to ill-considered and fanatical clamor against it. The hostility of the Baltimore press to tin extension of racing in Maryland was epitomized :n an editorial in the Evening News that appeared a few days liefore the Com-missMirers proclaimed their opposition to the Benges i nterprise. Ill- New, said m subst.iiici : The Itaci-ig Commission may. or may not. see fit to grunt one. , r 1 otli tie proposed andartliklntS a license. But the tracing fraternity which docs, we presume, share wita the publu th- pleasi-re cf a moderate amount of racing, for the sake of the sport and witaout regard to the bookmakers end of it. is surely taking just tin- steps most likely to lose for them even this pleaiue. It would be unfortunatt were racing completely banned here. But between banning it entirely and becoming increasinglv o.t-rsi-rfeited with it there is little chance for a mistake in choice."
