United States (Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Scranton, and Hazelton) have originated indirectly by the financial inducements of these agents and distributors of gambling devices. The British Premier, Ramsay MacDonald, in a pamphlet on gambling, says that the Government ought to place various checks on this growing evil of gambling and that an effective restraint is the exclusion of this business from the mails. Our Federal Government has gone only so far as to close the mails and interstate commerce to lotteries then in operation; but, every week, tons of lottery material for future lotteries, such as baseball pools, clearing-house pools, and other drawing schemes, use the mails and interstate commerce. I show the Post Office and Post Roads Committee a photograph of 10 tons of lottery materials, ready for the parcels post and express, and in packages varying from a pound to the size of a tea chest, which were seized at one establishment, with the confiscation of $50,000 worth of the most modern printing presses in the adjoining room. If it pleases the Congress to enact this measure, in harmony with all existing State legislation, it will greatly diminish the difficulties of enforcing State laws. No longer will mailed inducements and secret agents cause installations of gambling implements twice as fast as city and county officials can seize them and deal with the offenders. I also show the committee 15 photographs of huge seizures and destruction of gambling implements in as many different States and cities, where public officials in good faith are endeavoring to deal with this problem of gambling devices, which corrupt the young and partially thwart the purpose of the school, church, and home. After the Federal law against the Louisiana lottery, 18 States enacted constitutional amendments forbidding lotteries, and nearly all States passed statutory restrictions on the same, showing the profound influence of wholesome legislation by our Federal Government. I have here an interesting package of 11 catalogues marked "Private," "Confidential," "For the trade only," etc., which offer cheating devices such as marked cards, loaded dice, 10 kinds of hold-outs, shiners, secret retards to wheels, plugs, and knee springs. Swindling mechanisms are provided for nearly every gambling device. One catalogue reads: "These special dice are filled in such a manner as to make the numbers 4, 6, 8, and 10 come up more often than they ordinarily would. The dice sound and roll natural and will give the shooter a small percentage when used on a hard, smooth surface". Another catalogue says: "This line work, placed in the upper right corner, reading ace to deuce, is a poplar number easily visible to the initiated, but is mighty hard to be detected." Gambling murders in great numbers are the direct and inevitable results of these gambling frauds. This proposed legislation was voted by the Senate of the Seventieth Congress and by the House of two previous Congresses. It has been repeatedly urged by the Post Office Department and printed with commendation in several annual reports of the Postmaster General. We have not sought the opinions of the police departments of the United States on this bill, but I subjoin a letter from a single department. DEPARTMENT OF POLICE, February 28, 1930. DEAR SIR: In reply to your letter of the 20th instant, regarding bill known as S. 1446, an act to prohibit the use of the United States mails in connection with any gambling paraphernalia, please be advised that this department is in favor of such an act being passed by our Representative in Congress, and we also wish to go on record as saying that if the source of supply of all gambling paraphernalia can be erased by the enactment of law, this is the natural and lawful thing for us to do to prohibit gambling within the various States throughout the Union. You are privileged to use this letter for whatever purpose it may serve in bringing about any reform to the best interests of our people. Very respectfully, R. E. STECKEL, Chief of Police. By J. FINLINSON, Assistant Chief of Police. The financial magnitude of three items coming under this bill, punch boards, slot-gambling machines and pool lotteries on baseball, stocks, and clearings, aggregate about $375,000,000 a year in our country. The manufacturers of gambling devices (four-fifths of this business in Chicago) will tell you how their gambling machines do not cheat the players, or that each one has a built-in or attached vender for gum or mints and therefore it is not a gambling machine. When a $15 vender is attached to a $100 slot-gambling machine, what does common sense say as to the real intent of the manufacturer, who claims that the machine is made for vending? In the case of Moberly v. Deskin (169 Mo. App. 627, at p. 678) the court, in speaking of a pretended legitimate slot machine device, said: "In no field of reprehensible endeavor has the ingenuity of man been more exerted than in the invention of devices to comply with the letter but to do violence to the spirit and thwart the beneficent objects and purposes of the law designed to suppress the vice of gambling. Be it said to the credit of the expounders of the law that such fruits of inventive genius have been allowed by the courts to accomplish no greater result than that of demonstrating the inaccuracy and insufficiency of some of the old definitions of gambling that were made before the advent of the era of greatly expanded, diversified, and cunning mechanical invention." Other cases of the same class are the following: Alabama, Cagle v. State (1922) (18 Ala. App. 553, 93 So. 206).1 Indiana, Ferguson v. State (1912) (178 Ind. 568, 42 L. R. A. (n. s.) 720, 99 N. E. 806, Ann. Cas. 1915C 172).1 Kentucky, Welch v. Com. (1918) (179 Ky. 125 L. R. A. 1918C, 651, 200 S. W. 371).1 Louisiana, Tonahill v. Molony (1924) (156 La. 753, 101 So. 130). 1 Maine, Lang v. Merwin (1905) (99 Me. 486). 1 Maine, State v. Googin (1918) (117 Me. 102, 102 Atl. 970). Maryland, Gaither v. Cate (1929) (Md. App., 144 Atlantic 238). 1 New Jersey, Pure Mint Co. v. Labarre (1924) (N. J. Eq., 126 Átl. 29). 1 New York, People ex rel. Verchereau v. Jenkins (1912) (163 App. Div. 512, 138 N. Y. Supp. 449). 1 North Carolina, State v. Lipkin (169 N. C. 265). 1 Rhode Island, State v. Certain Gambling Instruments of Samuel O. Paul (128 Atl. 12). 1 South Carolina, Griste v. Burch (1919) (112 S. C. 369, 99 S. E. 703). 1 All these cases and the Missouri case, cited above, are State appellate court cases. At a recent court hearing in Washington, D. C., when a temporary injunction against city officials interfering with a distributor's slot gambling machines was dismissed, a representative of the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. testified that, during eight months 1,318 slot machine slugs were removed from a single pay telephone, representing a loss of $65.90. A larger item of loss by the gambling 1 Indicates a "vending" machine case. devices affected by this bill is juvenile gambling with the following accompaniments: (1) Stealing money from home to play the machines; (2) diverting money for grocery purchases and pretending that it was lost; (3) going hungry at school and using the luncheon allowance to play the machines; (4) joining boy gangs of robbers to get money for gambling; (5) snatching purses for the same purpose. Mr. BORAH, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany H. J. Res. 253] The Committee on Foreign Relations, having had under consideration H. J. Res. 253, to provide for the expenses of a delegation of the United States to the sixth meeting of the Congress of Military Medicine and Pharmacy to be held at Budapest in 1931, reports the same with the following amendment: After the word "Budapest" in line 9, insert the following: "or such other place as may be determined upon." As amended, the committee recommends that the resolution do pass. House Report No. 903 is attached hereto and made a part of this report. The Committee on Foreign Affairs, to which was referred House Joint Resolution 253, to provide for the expenses of a delegation of the United States to the sixth meeting of the Congress of Military Medicine and Pharmacy to be held at Budapest in 1931, having had the same under consideration, reports thereon with the recommendation that the resolution do pass without amendment. The passage of this resolution is recommended by the President in his message to Congress of December 13, 1929, as follows: To the Congress of the United States: I commend to the favorable consideration of the Congress the inclosed report from the Secretary of State, to the end that legislation may be enacted to authorize an appropriation of such sum, not exceeding $10,000 for any one meeting, as may by the President be considered necessary for the expenses of participation by the United States in International Congresses of Military Medicine and Pharmacy. HERBERT HOOVER. THE WHITE HOUSE, December 13, 1929. S R-71-2-VOL 2- -70 The PRESIDENT: DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, December 12, 1929. At the request of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of the Navy, I have the honor to recommend that the Congress be asked to enact legislation authorizing the appropriation of such sum, not exceeding $10,000 for any one meeting as may by the President be considered necessary, for the expenses of participation by the United States in International Congresses of Military Medicine and Pharmacy. There is inclosed a memorandum from the Secretary of War setting forth the reasons why official participation by the United States in these congresses is considered desirable. Communications from the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of the Navy, drawn up in similar phraseology, indicate their concurrence in the proposal. As a matter of convenience, a tentative draft of the desired legislation is inclosed herewith. Respectfully submitted. H. L. STIMSON. MEMORANDUM CONCERNING A JOINT RESOLUTION TO ENABLE THE PRESIDENT TO APPOINT DELEGATES TO REPRESENT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AT INTERNATIONAL CONGRESSES OF MILITARY MEDICINE AND PHARMACY, AND TO PAY THE EXPENSES OF SUCH DELEGATES WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, October 10, 1929. The Association of Military Surgeons of the United States was organized in 1891 for the patriotic purpose of keeping alive a knowledge of military medicine, a special branch of medical science, which, in time of peace, is quickly forgotten. In 1903 the Congress of the United States gave it a charter, and in recognition of its national importance provided an advisory board for it composed of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Surgeons General of the medical services connected with these three departments. Since that time it has acquired a certain international status, as invitations to attend its annual meetings have been sent out annually through the State Department to the nations having diplomatic representatives at Washington to send representatives to the annual meetings of the association. Many distinguished medical officers of other nations have attended these annual meetings and have shared their knowledge and experience with our own medical officers. In 1921 the King of the Belgians, recognizing the importance to humanity of preserving and standardizing the dearly bought experiences of the World War as regards the rescuing of the wounded in battle and the preserving of the armed forces from disease, called an International Congress of Military Medicine and Pharmacy, which met at Brussels in July, 1921. Twenty countries sent official representatives to this Congress, and its results were so valuable that other meetings have been held as follows: The second international congress was held at Rome in 1923. Twenty-nine countries were officially represented. The third international congress was held at Paris in 1925. Forty countries were officially represented. The fourth international congress was held at Warsaw in 1927. countries were officially represented. Thirty-one The fifth international congress was held at London in 1929. Thirty-nine countries were officially represented. The sixth international congress will be held at Budapest in 1931. At the first three of these congresses the United States had no official representation, but for the congresses at Warsaw and at London the President asked the authority of Congress to send official delegates and to make an appropriation to cover their expenses. Unfortunately legislative delays have prevented such an appropriation both in 1927 and 1929. It is believed that the humane and beneficent purposes of these congresses should be supported by the United States and that it should participate officially in them without such participation being dependent on the private initiative and generosity of individuals. The Association of Military Surgeons is earnestly desirous that Congress should authorize proper representation of our country at these congresses so as to show our interest in the subjects considered, which are of great importance to humanity and to the efficiency of the military service, and also to enable the association to keep abreast with the advances in military medicine and the prevention of epidemic diseases. O |