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I - f 1 ■ s 1 i ,, " " J • ■ f • I r . - f . ; i • I • . . HALL BILL NOW IN DOUBT Friends of Racing Appear Confident That Maryland Measure Will Meet Defeat. HALTIMOKH. Md.. March 27.— While the Hall anti-betting bill missed the house by a heavy ma - jority. and while the report of the senate finance committee would indicate passage of the bill by the latter body, opponents of the measure seem to retain conviction that the bill will not pass. What are the grounds for that conviction, uuless they are the faith that the governor will veto the measure and that it will subsequently fail of the three-fifths majority necessary to override the veto, has never been made plain. It may indeed be the governors veto that opponents of the Hall bill are banking on. From the early days of the session there has been the rumor that the racing associations would not make an active fight, against the Ball bill, tlieir lethargy being based on the belief that the governor would veto the measure. Such a report, like the majority of Annai olis rumors, may be credited or repudiated according to the bias of the listerners. So far as known Governor Ritchie has not in- dicated what course he will pel sea, should the Hall bill be presented to him for signature. The Be*" erno: did not refer directly to the racing issue in his budget: he merely wrote in the budget S712.000 a year as revenue from the race tracks to the State of Maryland. Put. if the . general assembly by passing the Hall bill cuts out this annual 12,000 the governor may feel that the resulting fiscal prob-i Icm is for the legislature and may not feel called upon to attempt to solve that problem by a veto. Chairman Mcintosh and Mr. Biggs of the Kenat • finance committee in tlieir minority report attack the- Hall bill on the two counts upon which it has so feeeaeatlf been indicted, viz.. that the measure. if passed, would seriously cripple the states ffh-t ances and that it would make for "unlimited. Wi-1 regulated" racing and au increase in the betting evil. So far as the financial objection is concerned. it is made nothwithstanding that the majority rc-i port of the finance committee recommends an amendment which would make the Hall bill effective June .!0. 1023. instead of June 1. 1022. The second count in the minority report, though it has been sufficiently urged, has apparently never appealed to the anti-race track gambling associa- l ion and of the proponents of the measure with sufficient force to warrant, them in favoriug amend- incuts which might remove such an objection. As to prohibitiag all racing for- stakes, except at bona fide county fairs, as is inovided in the ParraH bill, the association is against such a prohibition, according to president William Silver. The Hall bill is expected to come up iu the senate, tomorrow.
