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JUDGE MURPHY ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR MEETING AT HAWTHORNE COMMENCING SEPTEMBER 30 AND CLOSING OCTOBER 13 WORK ON COURSE TO BEGIN NEXT WEEK Joseph A. Murphy, who has been in the city since the close of the Maple Heights meeting, yesterday formally announced that twelve days of racing would be given at Hawthorne commencing September 30 and closing October 13. The meeting will close cn Friday, so as not to conflict with a one-day meeting of the Onwentsia Club. Judge Murphy spent Sunday at the track, in company with Thomas Carey, the present owner of the property, from whom the club has leased for five years with an option of purchase. The work of rehabilitation was carefully mapped out. The government supplies will be off the property in ten days and the buildings are to be sold the fifteenth. Formal possession will be given the club September 1, but the government has given permission to start work at once and a small force of men is at work now putting the fences in shape. By the middle of next week a big force will be at work. The track will be plowed up and regraded; the roof on the stand repaired and the entire plant painted and reburnished. There arc 5C0 stalls available for use now, most of them in good order. "We are building for permanency," said judge Murphy. "Wc have picked every inch of the road and will continue to do so. We have formed a corporation which will be the holding company and will take care of the improvements. Our papers will be filed within a week. "The racing proper will be in the hands of the Illinois Jockey Club which already has a charter from the state. The coming meeting will be a club proposition purely and only members and invited guests will be allowed in the grounds. The membership for the present will be limited to 2,000, with annual dues of S50, which will admit member and ladies to the twelve da3rs of racing. "This fund of 5100,000 will be placed in a special account for purses and stakes and the expenses of the meeting. No purse less than ,000 will be offered and some attractive features will bs arranged. Already a number of cups and trophies have been offered for the features. The best officials available will be secured. The racing will be under the rules of the Kentucky commission, except where local usage prevails. "The Illinois Jockey Club will take no recognition of betting. Our attornsys have given us a written opinion and we have the verbal opinion of some of the leading attorneys of the city, members of our club and well wishers, that if we take no recognition of betting and do not set up places where people are suffered or permitted to come together for the purpose of betting that we cannot be charged with keeping a common gaming house, even if private wagers are made on the races. "We are told that if wc are keepers of a common gaming house then the Cubs and Comiskey Parks, every football game, the State Fair and every county fair and practically every sporting event are common gaming houses within the meaning of the statute. This is too dangerous a doctrine to establish. "No one will deny the right of 2,000 reputable citizens to gather to see some racing. What their constitutional rights are after they assemble will be determined later."
