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KENTUCKY TO BE ON GUARD Friends of Racing to Keep Close Watch on the "Reformers." Some Pertinent Facts In Connection "With the Introduction of Pari-Mutuels and the Crusade Against the Sport. LEXINGTON, Ky., February 2.1. The zero hour for racing in Kentucky was reached and passed last Thursday afternoon when the senate of the general assembly voted 24 to 14 to retain the pari-mutuel method of betting at the race courses as a lawful institution from which the state shall continue to derive certain appreciable revenues. It was not because of these revenues solely that the pari-mutuel exemphion clause was not eliminated from the gambling acts of the Commonwealth, but because it has been made clear that mutuel pooling makes for morality. It was shown in the speeches at the hearing before the Kentucky statutes committee of the senate "Wednesday, and before the senate itself on Thursday, that the pari-mutuel exemption was written into the statutes more than thirty years ago as a moral measure and that it continues to be such and more necessary at this time. Becognizing the fact that without betting there will be little racing and that without racing there will be no thoroughbreds or standard-bred horses from which the replenish the lighter animals for needs of the army and for general purposes, the lawmakers of the previous generation undertook to safeguard racing and at the same time to minimize gambling by privileging the track owners to institute the pari-mutuel system at the race courses during the hours of racing thereon. Bookmakers, securing control of the race tracks, abrogated that law by abolishing the use of the pari-mutuel machines and returning the slates and sheets of the bookmakers with the heavier, though not visible, percentage against the public. Under bookmaker-ownership and bookmaker system the tracks became a menace rather than a benefit to the horse breeding industry, and a group of Lexington men, headed by Desha Breckinridge, editor of the Lexington Herald, wrote and secured the passage, in 1906, of the act creating a state racing commission to control and regulate racing. COMMISSION UPHELD. The first commission, of which the late Col. Jack Chinn, who fathered the bill in the senate, became chairman, restored the pari-mutuel system and successfully defended their action against the attempt of Cella, Adler and Tilles, then owners of the Latonia and Douglas Park tracks, to retain book-making, the court of appeals at Frankfort and the United States district court at Cincinnati upholding the commission and declaring the constitutionality of the pari-mutuel law. Helm Bruce, of Louisville, was attorney for Cella, Adler and "Tilles, and he began and has since carried on the crusade by which it is intended to repeal the pari-mutuel act, which would bring to the tracks the "oral system" of betting, with no restrictions or regulation by the state racing commission and would Continued on twelfth page. KENTUCKY TO BE ON GUARD Continued from first page. deprive the state of the revenues it now receives in the form of a daily license tax of ,500 for each track. Mr. Bruce first had the assistance of Rev. Lockhart, of Louisville, experienced in reform work as an anti-saloon leaguer, and they operated under the name Churchmens Federation. Then he secured Rev. M. P. Hunt, a Baptist minister at Louisville, who had been prominent also in the fight against saloons. The group was extended to take in preachers and politicians in every section of the state and they operated under the name Anti-Race Track Gambling Commission. Mr. Hunt set about to elect a sufficient number of the members of the two branches of the legislature to repeal the law, and to him was attracted that former skillful politician, Percy Haly, sometimes referred to as "the general without an-army." Bruce, Hunt and Haly sought further to extend the "reform movement" by backing congressman Albne W. Barkley for the Democratic, gubernatorial nomination. Barkley declared for the repeal of the pari-mutuel act. The late congressman J. Campbell Cantrill stood for the retention of the mutucls. Cantrill won by over 9,000 majority. On tho Republican side the same force persuaded George Colvin to stand for the gubernatorial nomination on a pari-mutuel repeal plank and Charles I. Dawson defeated him before the state convention of his party. GOVERNOR FIELDS ATTITUDE. Upon the death of Cantrill, the Democratic party chose congressman William Jason Fields to be the nominee for governor. He, regarding the pari-mutuel question to have been settled in the primary and the convention, declined to make any response to Dawsons calls for an explanation of his position, tho Anti Race Track Gambling Commission having transferred its support to Dawson. Both Dawson and the Anti-Race Track Gambling Commission knew, or could have known Fields attitude on the subject, fcr he stated it all through the ninth congressional district while he was campaigning for Cantrill. He held, and still holds, that the supporters of the pari-mutul act are on the truly moral side of the question. Fields won-by approximately 50,000 majority over Dawson and it was felt by the friends of racing that that was answer sufficient to the demand of the IIunt-Haly-Bruce combination for repeal of the law, but they would not see it that way and several bills were introduced, one, the Bennett bill, under a trick title. Mr. Bennett is the representative from Webster County and he and others who have come to be known as "insurgents" and ob-stuctionists," are members of the committee of law enforcement. Bennett asked that his bill be referred to this committee, and it was so referred. Without any indication in its title that it referred at all to pari-mutuel pooling it was brought out by the committee, reported favorably and passed by a vote of 5G to 38, these insurgent Democrats having entered into a trade with certain Republicans to defeat two "ripper" bills that would, if passed, deprive a number of Republicans in Louisville and Jessamine County of positions they now hold. This deal is alleged to have been engineered by Percy Haly, but it had a backfire that has blown him into political oblivion again. The "regular" Democrats have passed both of the "ripper" bills, Haly being able to deliver only six of the "insurgent" Democrats to the Republicans who so confidently accepted the promise of a few hours before, and the senate has killed the Bennett bill. The passage of the Bennett bill through the house served to arouse the breeders of thoroughbred and trotting horses and the racing interests generally and within a week they successfully demonstrated that public opinion is with them regardless of tho fact that the preachers in the group backing the Bennett repealer had worked overtime damning the pari-mutuel system ; accusing the Kentucky Jockey Club of pernicious political activity though they were themselves more deeply engaged in that tiling than were the stockholders of that organization, and in getting petitions signed to be sent to Frankfort from all parts of the state, which commonly is known as "putting the pressure on the lawmakers." Senator Robert C. Simmons, of Covington, as chairman of the committee to which tho bill was referred when it reached the senate Wednesday afternoon, February 13, announced that he would accord a hearing to both sides on February 20, and people from all parts of the state flocked to Frankfort. Those against the bill greatly outnumbered the proponents, and the speakers against tho bill put up unquestionably the better arguments. Rev. Thomas L, Settle, rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd Episcopalian, of Lexington, who stated that he had voluntarily appeared as an opponent of the bill because by experience, upon the race courses in his younger days and by observation of the betting on the track in New York and in Kentucky, he is aware that though he declared himself to be opposed to gambling in all forms the pari-mutuel system is more moral than either the bookmaking or the "oral" system, which latter has been held to be lawful in the states where it is used. Rev. Settle said : "The pari-mutuel machine is tho greatest muzzier of crooks that I know of." He told Dean R. L. McCready, of Louisville, a fellow Episcopalian minister, who had previously spoken for the repealer, that he Settle knew that he was doing a saving thing for his McCreadys boy when he asked the senators not to repeal the pari-mutuel act. He, of course, was not able to make the Rev. McCready see it that way. The preachers on the other side were most unkind to Rev. Settle. They thought he had done a horrible thing in, as they put it, "coming to Frankfort to defend legalized race track gambling," but the majority of the senators and people present thought he had done right. They told him so and thanked him for his manliness and courage in stating his honest convictions. He presented a picture that would be worth thousands to a "movie man had there been one to get it into the film, as he stood there in sincere and eloquent appeal for clean sport and the salvation of the souls of men and women -anil for the preservation of the thoroughbred horse "the Kentucky thoroughbred horse, such as my only boy, my only boy. rode when he gave his life upon the battle field in France." One of the speakers for the proponents of the Bennett bill declared : "We have the race track gamblers on the run and we are going to kill the pari-mutuels." It was commented then that claiming was the best thing the Hunt-Haly-Bruce crusaders could do, and so it has worked out. They have said that they do not intend to quit until they have accomplished their purpose. The breeders and their friends and the owners of the tracks and their friends arc answering this with the declaration that they now will organize in earnest and fight tlicm as they have never been fought before. The movement for organization began tho day the Bennett bill passed the house. It is to be an organization of and for men and women who believe that the people of these United States have under the Constitution thereof some rights yet remaining that fanatics and bigots will be compelled to respect and that Kentuckians especially shall continue to have their racing with betting under the pari-mutuel system at the race courses and that their horse breeding industry shall not be destroyed by preachers in combination with politicians and gamblers who despise the mutuels.
