Salt Lake Tribune | 1905-12-06 | Page 4 | The Gambling Problem

TBTE GAMBLING PROBLEM. The Tribune demands 'hat the robbing rob-bing gambling gamSfl In this city be losed up. Tt has designated the chief offenders In this direction, and calls upon the administrative officials of this city to do their duty under the law. They know thee resorts better than w an show thm. They know the law They knew thHr sworn duty. Thy are forsworn If they do not do It. There must he an end of this damnable damn-able robbery. Laboring men, minors, Oerks. trusted agents, are beguiled into gambling dens, are pllt-d with liquor and arc rrilib.-.l, with not oven the Ptn.ill chance of the one who coos agtlln8f the ordinary chancea of a gambling game, to win it Ls criminal robbery that is prepetritted upon them. It Isn't a game of chance that they play, for they have no chance whatever to win. Think of the case where a man, so lm-brutcd lm-brutcd as to steal and pawn his wife's wedding ring for about half Its value, and so Infatuated with the game, so enthralled en-thralled In the vice so alluringly held out to him, that ho resorted in the gaming gam-ing tables, and then think of his rc-morSS rc-morSS and anguish on losing it all! And think if the horror of the wife on learning of the depraved act which the man she has sworn to love, honor and obey, had committed, when she learned the awful fact! Who, unmoved with disgust and wrath, could think of such a case? Remember, also, the man who came here to engage In business, but who was enticed Into a gambling hell and robbed of all his ready money, so completely looted that he had to pawn his ov rcoal to get the money to take himself and his wife out of town. And realize, If you can, the loathing and shame thai wife must have felt over this terrible, outcome of what was a fair prospect of an honored and promising business life, and a career that promised such winsome outlook. Again, note the case of a boy of eighteen, who was lured into a den, and rohbeJ of his pitiful savings, accumulated accumu-lated through some years of toil and self-denial. Is It not enough to mak-the mak-the blood boll against the miserable scoundrels who perpetrated this abominable abom-inable outrage? These arc but a few cases of the great number of merciless, savage plu kings that have occurred within a brief time And backing It Is a hierarchy that controls con-trols the city absolutely, a negligent set of accomplices as city officials, and a police force that knows all the facts and lifts not a finger to enforco the law or succor the victims.