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; ; ! ! 1 . 1 l SEVERS FROM HAWTHORNE Judge Murphy to Devote Himself to New Washington Park. . Says 3Incli and Important Work Is Necessary Before Chicago Racing Is Definitely Restored. Joseph A. Murphy, who has been in the city for several days, announced before leaving for Bowie and New Orleans yesterday afternoon that he had withdrawn entirely from the management of the Hawthorne race track and would devote what time he had in Chicago to the creation of a new plant commensurate with the size of the city. He stated that he might still remain as presiding steward at Hawthorne. In discussing the local racing situation he said: "Those who believe that the mere experimental meeting at Hawthorne insured the perpetuation of racing in Chicago are misinformed. The work of reviving the sport has merely begun. It cannot be built on Hawthorne alone. The wealth and fashion of Chicago never went to the old Hawthorne, nor will they go to the new one. When I was a resident of Chicago I knew its temper welL It wanted either the best in everything or it did not want it at all. With my thumb on the public pulse in the last few days, I find that the temper of the city-has not changed a bit. Chicago wants racing, but it wants the best racing that can be had and it wants a great Derby. An American Derby cannot be run at Hawthorne. It would be like staging Mary Garden and the Chicago Opera Company in a movie house. I have received the greatest encouragement in the proposition to create one of the show places of the world in Chicago, with a great Derby as the center setting, and this project will be pushed to a successful conclusion. STAND ON LEGISLATION. "My personal judgment is against pressing legislation for a racing bill at alL Of course, if. there should be a spontaneous offer from the legislature of a bill throwing proper safeguards around racing, I would welcome it But if the passage of a bill necessitated the surrender by competent officials of any of their powers to keep racing clean, or if other means were used in the passage of a bill other than legitimate propaganda, I would be unalterably opposed to it. A racing bill might become a liability instead of an asset. "Personally I do" not think we need it We took the bold stand this fall that a mere request to place a commission where there was no proof that the commission was actu- ally placed was not a violation of law. There were some arrests, but there were no convictions and, in my judgment if the mat- ter ever reaches the Appellate Court, it will hold that the State must prove the actual completion of the placing of a commission be- fore a conviction will lie. "Of course, I realize that some public ofll- cial might in the interim put us to considerable inconvenience, but the last election in Chicago showed that the trend of public opinion is sharply away from repression or oppression, in office or out of it I believe the public officials, even if they differ with our construction of the law, would permit us to reach the Appellate Court without making any grandstand plays on us. With this principle established we could build racing from the ground up. If we have nothing from the legislature, there will be nothing for the legislature to take away from us every two years. We would be immune from persecution by meddlesome reformers, and the vari-r oua reform associations would be compelled to seek more fertile ground for their activities."
