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SIMS BILL HAS STRONG OPPOSITION House Committee Listens to Bi j Delegation in Arguments Against Pernicious Measure WASHINGTON I C May 20 At a hearing thi morning before the House Interstate and For ¬ eign Commerce Committee of which John K lsch of Wisconsin is chairman on the SimsSterling bill which would prevent the transmission of betting odds between states the measure was denounced as u further menace to the personal liberties of the American people and an invasion of state rights as well as a blow at the freedom of the press pressIt It was urged by some of the speakers that the proposed legislation would not accomplish what its promoters claimed it would abolish the handbook and that those behind it really aimed at the de ¬ struction of racing now pronounced an essential factor in military horse production by every gov ¬ ernment including our own In support of this contention there was read into the record by Secre ¬ tary Tims P Cromwell of the Thoroughbred Horse Association the opinions of Colonels Scott and Koch that without racing and its tests there would have lieen no horses of the type required for calvary service when the late war broke out They also iid that the government had embarked on a plan to produce a type and that in very instance thor ¬ oughbred sires were employed There was a short ¬ age of the sort of sires the work called for at the present time and that the securing of an increased supply was one of the problems confronting the National liemount Association which had the work in hand and whose membership embraced some of the most prominent citizens of the Fnited States Numerous letters of protest were read from pub ¬ lishers of newspapers and from breeders of thor ¬ oughbreds in various parts of the Union UnionA A J Carroll of Louisville Ky told the com ¬ mittee that the measure was offensive to the people of his state in which a majority of the thorough brvd horses reared in the United States were pro ¬ duced He explained in detail how the people of his state had fomulated laws governing racing and the speculation incidental thereto and that such legislation as that carried in the SimsSterling bills was an invasion of state rights and destructive to the fundamentals upon which the country had grown to its present prosperity prosperityArthur Arthur It Hancock one of the largest breeders of thoroughbreds in the United States with estab ¬ lishments in Kentucky and Virginia and himself a vicepresident of the National IJemount Association charged by the Federal authorities to further tho production of the type of horse so essential for a 1 vary spoke at length on the evils which would follow in the wake of such legislation He regarded it as tho entering wedge in a policy aimed at the dRstruction of a popular pastime for many of the best citizens of the nation and said that without the publicity which was an essential adjunct of any live industry or sport the people at largo would lose much of their interest in the breeding and racing of thoroughbreds He assured the committee fn conclusion that there was no real sentiment for the proposed legislation and said that the entire matter was one for state or municipal control controlThe The hearing was satisfactory to the delegation which met the committee and the situation looked better after the addresses by Messrs A J Carroll A 15 Hancock Maurice Galvin and II T Oxnard
