Chapter VI (3)

The situation would be amusing did it not demonstrate the power of money. To the average mind it would seem as if the constitutional convention had barred all kinds of gambling, particularly gambling on race-tracks. Yet, under the fostering care of the Racing Trust, the volume of gambling at race-tracks is at least thrice as great today as it was in 1895. Before the convention met the Racing Trust was permitted to do business for five months in the year; now it does business for seven months. Under the Ives Pool law, which was wiped out as vicious, the tracks were limited to thirty days of racing; now the Jockey Club does as it pleases in the matter of dates. Under a law which is, upon its face, unconstitutional because it discriminates, the Racing Commission, a state institution, has the power to issue or refuse licenses. The Racing Commission is under the control of the Jockey Club, and the latter is the ruler of the racing associations. The Jockey Club, of which Mr. August Belmont is the head, is lord of all it surveys in the metropolitan circuit, to say nothing of the Bennings race-track, in which a majority of the stock is owned by Mr. Belmont. Racing began at Bennings on March 23, and its dates are not included in the seven months of racing in the metropolitan circuit.

In this circuit there are seven tracks, not counting the Buffalo track, which is controlled by the Racing Trust. The track at Morris Park, the most picturesque race-course in the United States, has been relegated to obscurity, as it was not owned by the Racing Trust, but was leased at an annual rental of $45,000. Belmont Park, which is owned by Mr. August Belmont, the head of the Racing Trust, has taken its place. The associations which are controlled by the Racing Trust are capitalized as follows:

Westchester Racing Association (Belmont Park) $1,500,000
Queens County Jockey Club (Aqueduct) 700,000
Metropolitan jockey Club (Jamaica) 550,000
Coney Island Jockey Club (Sheepshead Bay) 525,000
Brooklyn Jockey Club (Gravesend) 500,000
Brighton Beach Racing Association 300,000
Buffalo Racing Association 200,000
Saratoga Association for the Improvement
of the Breed of Horses 50,000
----------
Total $4,325,000

These figures were obtained from the Secretary of State, the Hon. John F. O’Brien. In any calculations that may be made the capitalization of Belmont Park should be eliminated and the rental of Morris Park, $45,000, substituted for $1,500,000, in order to show how thriving a concern the Racing Trust is. It will be understood, of course, that the capitalization of these concerns may be a trifle, just a trifle, higher than the actual value of the said tracks and appurtenances, except in the case of the Saratoga track, which was built solely “for the improvement of the breed of horses.”

For the right to do business on these tracks the Racing Trust pays, or is supposed to pay, to the state five per cent. upon the gross earnings of said tracks. Among the duties of the Racing Commission is the supervision of these receipts. The commission consists of Messrs. August Belmont, John Sanford and E. D. Morgan. Mr. Belmont is the president of the Westchester Racing Association (Belmont Park), and the largest owner of stock in the Racing Trust. Mr. Sanford is the power at Saratoga, and does not race until the season opens at the Spa. Attached to the Racing Commission is a State Inspector of Races. Until he was appointed to a position in the Internal Revenue Department the place was filled by Charles W. Anderson, a colored man. Reports of gross receipts are made to the State Comptroller by the racing associations and by the State Inspector of Races. It is not impossible that the latter official takes such figures as are offered to him, and it is difficult to imagine that he ever objected to them on the score of inaccuracy or any other score.

The reports of gross receipts made by the members of the Racing Trust to the State Comptroller for the years 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903 and 1904 are as follows (the figures were obtained from the State Comptroller, the Hon. Otto Kelsey):

1900. 1901. 1902.
Coney Island Jockey Club $494,895.06 $640,327.97 $820,184.18
Brooklyn Jockey Club 474,887.88 593,472.72 761,394.65
Brighton Beach 307,311.30 407,611.75 502,940.25
Westchester 323,041.23 432,187.86 571,178.79
Saratoga 137,248.21 272,612.24 359,342.40
Metropolitan
Queens 164,555.14 225,417.69 324,177.82
Buffalo 62,519.80
------------ ------------- -------------
Totals $1,901,938.82 $2,571,630.23 $3,401,737.89

1903. 1904.
Coney Island Jockey Club $903,128.84 $854,421.20
Brooklyn Jockey Club 790,054.07 731,559.26
Brighton Beach 559,348.00 626,837.10
Westchester 623,131.27 566,143.62
Saratoga 439,649.49 393,550.09
Metropolitan 355,270.70 307,396.03
Queens 282,900.88 218,729.16
Buffalo 60,857.63 106,489.05
------------- -------------
Totals $4,014,340.88 $3,805,125.51

The reader will notice the exactness with which the racing associations make up their gross receipts—the “twenty cents” of the Coney Island Jockey Club, the “nine cents” of the Saratoga “Association for the Improvement of the Breed of Horses,” and so on. The reader will notice, also, that the gross receipts for last year were $209,215.37 less than those of 1903, though the press was unanimous in declaring that last year’s racing was the greatest, which means the most profitable of all years. The five per cent. paid to the state last year by the Racing Trust amounted to $190,256.27. This five per cent. is “the penny in the dollar” alluded to by Mr. Edward Lauterbach in his address to the constitutional convention. But ridiculously small as it is, why does the Racing Trust give it to the state? Simply as a sop to the rural legislator and his constituents. The dweller in cities may lack some or many of the virtues, but when it is necessary to find the highest plane of parsimonious hypocrisy one must needs pay a visit to the rural districts. This five per cent., which smacks so much of Iscariot’s thirty pieces of silver, is divided among such agricultural societies as give annual fairs, and to farmers’ institutes. Ostensibly it is intended for the improvement of agriculture; in reality much of it is given as purses for trotting races at the said county fairs. Without the support of the rural element the Racing Trust would not have succeeded in getting the adoption of the Percy-Gray racing law.

The profits of the Racing Trust are enormous. Take the Coney Island Jockey Club, for instance. Mr. Leonard Jerome, who was a sportsman who never made money out of sport, built the Sheepshead Bay track at a cost of $125,000. The grounds of the Coney Island Jockey Club belong to the people and were filched from them by an act of the Legislature. Improvements were made since the track was built, but the actual legal belongings of the Coney Island Jockey Club are worth far less than the amount of the capital stock, which is $525,000. The gross receipts of the club for last year, as reported to the State Comptroller, were $854,421.20. Of what did these consist? It was said that the attendance on “big days” last year numbered from 40,000 to 50,000. Put it at 35,000, and the money taken in for admission, boxes and clubhouse seats and boxes and for “field” admissions would amount to about $80,000. Then there are the bookmakers. On more than one day last year there were 120 members of the Metropolitan Turf Association in the ring. They paid $57 each for the privilege of “laying the odds.” Back of them were a hundred layers who paid $37 each. There were fifty others who paid $27, and as many more who paid $17 each. Programs to the number of 40,000 at ten cents each make $400. Then there are the bar and restaurant privileges, the commissioners and many other means of income, so that the income of one such day could not be less than $100,000.

There were thirty days of racing at Sheepshead Bay last year. The attendance, according to the daily press, was “enormous,” “record-breaking,” “large” or “highly satisfactory.” The “highly satisfactory” days were the smallest of the season, which shows the difference between English as it is understood by “sporting” writers in the daily press and those who are able to distinguish the difference between fact and fancy. If the average daily attendance were not more than 12,500, it and the other sources of revenue would mean about $35,000 per day.

Thirty days’ racing at $35,000 per day $1,050,000
Expenses of all kinds at $10,000 per day 300,000
--------
Balance in favor of the club $750,000

The sum of $10,000 per day will cover all the expenses, including added money, at Sheepshead Bay. According to such calculation and taking the club’s figures of gross receipts as correct, the result would be like this:

Receipts for thirty days’ racing $854,421.20
Expenses for thirty days’ racing at $10,000 per day 300,000.00
-----------
Balance in favor of the club $554,421.20

These figures show that the profits of the Coney Island Jockey Club for _thirty days_ of racing are more than the full amount of its capital stock. Some years ago, when racing was conducted on a smaller scale, this stock paid 56 per cent. per annum. Unless a lot of money is packed away in a reserve fund, the stock should pay dollar for dollar now, and the state still gets the “penny in the dollar.”

Much of the income was contributed by the chief factors at a race-course—the men who own and race horses; and one of the most interesting features of a race meeting, to members of the Racing Trust, is the fact that the men who own the horses are racing for money contributed, in great part, by themselves. The money added by the racing associations is often less than the amounts furnished by owners of horses that have been entered for a race. Much stress is laid upon the fact that $2,601,160 was won in purses last year on the tracks of the metropolitan circuit and Bennings. This amount, large as it may seem, was so distributed that very few owners paid much more than expenses, while a far larger number lost much money. Four hundred and thirty-eight stables or owners were among the winners, and a glance at the following table will show that the losers were in a large majority.

OWNERS AND WINNINGS

Herman B. Duryea $200,043
James R. Keene 164,940
E. R. Thomas 151,210
Sydney Paget 133,441
Newton Bennington 104,210
John A. Drake 99,480
S. S. Brown 82,472
R. T. Wilson, Jr. 69,115
John E. Madden 55,830
Goughacres Stable 50,084
Thomas Hitchcock, Jr. 44,540
W. B. Jennings 34,605
M. L. Hayman 34,330
John Sanford 33,435
W. B. Leeds 32,320
L. V. Bell 31,520
J. W. Colt 23,130
Waldeck Stable 23,050
M. Corbett 22,445
J. L. McGinnis 21,400
Andrew Miller 20,155
Frank Farrell 19,980
W. C. Daly 18,495
“Mr. Cotton” 18,135
“Mr. Chamblet” 17,605
P. Lorillard 17,290
J. E. Widener 16,970
C. F. Fox 16,810
A. L. Aste 16,705
S. Deimel 16,605
J. McLaughlin 16,490
E. W. Jewett 16,165
August Belmont 15,745
Columbia Stable 15,317
W. Lakeland 15,220
Boston Stable 14,765
H. T. Griffin 14,555
F. R. Hitchcock 14,405
J. G. Greener 14,200
Albemarle Stable 12,895
T. L. Watt 12,755
E. E. Smathers 12,695
N. Dyment 11,900
U. Z. De Arman 11,080
Oneck Stable 10,600
John J. Ryan 10,515
W. M. Sheftel 10,515
W. L. Oliver 10,425
P. J. Dwyer 10,382
Joseph E. Seagram 9,305
Mrs. J. Blute 9,305
David Gideon (9 horses) 9,230
H. C. Schulz 8,910
W. F. Fanshawe 8,775
J. L. Holland 8,765
C. E. Rowe 8,475
F. R. Docter 8,440
J. W. Schorr 8,295
R. H. McCarter Potter 8,060
National Stable 7,805
J. C. Yeager 7,720
H. J. Morris 7,600
Fairview 7,405
T. D. Sullivan 7,335
Frederick Johnson 7,260
Chelsea Stable 7,090

In addition to the foregoing, 155 stables won between $1,000 and $7,000 each. Some of these stables had as many as a dozen starters who “figured in the money.” Stables or owners to the number of 217 won between $100 and $1,000 each. Of this number fifty-four were in the $100 class. The average winnings for the 438 stables were $5,938, which sum tells a doleful tale for a majority of them, as the expenses of one thoroughbred and its owner for a year cannot well be squeezed into $5,938, unless the horse’s diet is restricted to hay and the owner lives at a Mills hotel. Mr. Keene’s winnings were $164,940. That amount about paid his racing expenses for the year.

All of which, I think, goes to prove that the Racing Trust is more anxious to make and increase enormous profits than to improve the breed of horses. And everybody is aware that such enormous profits are made only by violation of the Constitution of the state, and that, while gambling in poolrooms and elsewhere has been made difficult and dangerous, no effort has been made by the authorities to interfere with it on the tracks of the Racing Trust.

_Dependence_

Not that there are not “other eyes
In Spain” as bright as yours can be,
But that no eyes in all the world
Can ever seem as bright to me.

Not that there are not lips as sweet
Kissed daily by each separate wind,
But that no other lips to me
Can seem so sweet, can be so kind.

Sweetheart, I own myself your slave
Because you own yourself my thrall;
I—with so little, dear, to give;
You—who so gladly give me all.

REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN.

_What Buzz-Saw Morgan Thinks_

BY W. S. MORGAN

Paternalism is preferable to infernalism.

When the gentleman with the cloven hoof collects what is coming to him there won’t be many bag barons left.

The Beef Trust does business on a sliding scale; the price they pay slides down, and the price they sell at slides up.

A pauper lives off the public, and so do those who make their money through special privileges granted them by law.

As Bryan is losing prestige with the people he is becoming more popular with the plutocrats.

The United States Senate should be rechristened and called the Corporations’ Cuckoo’s nest.

The way to make the cuss-toady-ans of public interests more amenable to our will is to have ready an Imperative Mandate lariat.

Yes, the trusts are in the people’s pasture, and they got in over Republican and Democratic fences.

It is better that a whole lot of business shall be “hurted” than that the trusts should continue to rob the people and be a standing menace to free government.

The Governor of Kansas is right; building a state refinery is not Socialism; it is competition, just what the Populists stand for.

The trusts also have “big sticks.”

The Standard Oil Company has outlawed itself and ought to be “swatted” off the face of the earth.

The bandit bag barons are going to have some hard sledding from now on.

If the concentration of wealth means the destruction of the republic, then the people have a right to stop the concentration of wealth.

The fact that the trusts are now in control of the railroads is another reason why the Government should own them.

An economic principle that does not rest upon a moral basis should receive no support from honest men.

Every applicant for a special legalized privilege is an enemy to good government.

It is the men who are always hammering at the doors of legislation for special privileges that want “something for nothing.”

The greatest power in the world is that which controls the volume of money, and the Republicans are talking about turning that power over to a few private buccaneers.

When the very rich men are called by their right names there will not be such a scramble to get rich.

It is to be hoped that in this fight with the trusts and railroad corporations that “big stick” of Teddy’s will not prove to be a stuffed club.

If Uncle Sam wants to mix his credit with anybody’s let him mix it with that of the farmers. Their security is better than bonds.

More that half of the men in the United States Senate wear corporation collars.

If all the big thieves were sentenced to jail we should have to turn the little thieves out in order to make room for them.

I challenge anyone to point out a single instance in this country where the national bankers have made a recommendation in the interests of the people. It is always a jug-handled proposition in their favor.

One of the biggest pieces of foolishness in this old world of ours is for Uncle Sam to make free money for the bankers to loan, and then borrow that same money for his own use.

Unless there is some change made in the manner of selecting United States senators, that body of corporation attorneys would better be abolished.

So insignificant was the last Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party that a great many voters have already forgotten his name.

The country is now ready for the election of United States senators by the people instead of the corporations, but that body of august lawmakers will block every effort in that direction.

If there is no other way to prevent corporations from violating the law they should be denied its protection, just like other outlaws. A dose of that kind of medicine would soon bring them to their milk.

The decision of the North Sea Commission seems to be based upon the principle (if it has a principle) that a naval commander has a right to fire at anything that frightens him.

If the packers didn’t steal their immense fortunes from the people, whom did they steal them from?

A “reasonable rate,” as interpreted by the railroad companies, is all the honey except barely enough to keep the bees from starving to death.

There has already been a good deal of water squeezed out of Standard Oil stock; now, if some process can be brought forward that will squeeze the water out of the oil the company sells, it will be better yet.

The great trusts have shown that they have no regard for “vested rights.” They have “frozen out” the smaller concerns without mercy. Why, then, should they object to a little of the “freezing” process, if the Government or states decide to go into the oil business on their own account?

If the Socialists insist on turning the world over at one flip, like turning a pancake, before they can start the show, they are following a mighty cold trail. If they are willing to go by the usual road of evolution there is no reason why they and the Populists should not work together, for awhile at least.

The man who is wholly controlled by sentiment is not fit to vote. Voting is a business proposition and demands both intelligence and good judgment.

It seems to be the policy of lawmakers in this country to grant special privileges to the rich and powerful, and to permit them to impose upon the weak, and this condition will remain just so long as men will submit to being robbed.

The men who prate most about “vested rights” and “law and order” are the ones who violate them most.

When the Government thought the express companies were charging the people too much for the transmission of money it went into the money-order business itself. What was the result? Why, the express companies had to come to the rate established by the Government or get none of the business. It was purely a matter of business, and that’s the way to do it.

It was the “battle-scared” bag barons that discredited government paper money during the Civil War between the states. Yet it is from these men that we hear most about “national honor” and “public credit.” They are the same class of men of whom honest old Abe Lincoln said: “They ought to be hanged”; and the country would have fared better ever since if they had been.

Nearly every civilized nation in the world owns all or a part of its system of railroad and telegraph lines, and they have no disposition to turn them over to private corporations. The United States alone permits a few wealthy buccaneers to levy taxes on the people which no government would dare do. An increase of three cents per bushel on corn alone means a tax of fifty millions of dollars to the men who produce that cereal.

Until recently the national bankers paid the Government one per cent. on the money the Government loaned them. Then they claimed that it was too much to pay for the use of the money and the credit of the Government, and Congress reduced the rate to one-half of one per cent. But the banker has no conscientious scruples about loaning this money to the people at eight and ten per cent.

The railroad companies admit that they violate the law by granting rebates, but set up the claim that if they did not do it they would lose their share of the traffic. It is a very singular plea. It is not half as just as the one that a man steals because he is hungry, or because his wife and children are suffering for the necessaries of life. “We violate the law because somebody else does,” say the railroad companies. Suppose that every criminal would set up the same excuse for the commission of crime. And ordinary criminals have a better right to make that plea in palliation for their crime than the trusts and corporations have. If, as they admit, the railroad managers are so dishonest that one must violate the law because another does, if there is no way to restrain them except to turn the whole matter over to them, and permit them to pool their earnings so that one thief can watch the other thieves, it is about time to abolish the whole system of private ownership and for the Government to take charge of the lines of transportation. The railroad companies make out the worst kind of a case against themselves. They admit that there are enough law-breakers among them to demoralize the whole system.

The public has heard a good deal about legislation that would discourage capital from being invested in the state enacting the legislation. It has been said that the passage of laws calculated to regulate the business of large corporations would have the effect of driving them away. Kansas just now is giving us an object-lesson along this line. The laws recently passed by the Legislature in that state are perhaps the most drastic in their nature ever passed by any state for the control and regulation of corporations, yet the prospect is that more capital will go to that state than ever before. Although the state is now engaged in building an oil refinery, there are several other independent refineries projected, with a good prospect for more to come. It is evident that capital has not as much to fear from the people, when it is legitimately invested and operated, as it has from the arrogant aggressions of such enormous concerns as the Standard Oil Company that will brook no competition. If capital will be satisfied with a fair profit it has nothing to fear from the people, while, on the other hand, independent concerns that operate legitimately in any line of business have much to fear from the great trusts that have been built up through favors granted them by railroads and municipalities.

_Flying the Kite_

HUDSON—Do you think they will be able to get along on $10,000 a year?

BUDSON—They ought to. With that much money they should manage to run in debt for another ten thousand.

* * * * *

The rich man may defy the laws of the land and keep out of prison, but when he gets dyspepsia from eating things out of season he realizes that he can’t defy the laws of nature.

_The Heritage of Maxwell Fair_

BY VINCENT HARPER
_Author of “A Mortgage on the Brain”_

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS

Maxwell Fair, an Englishman who has amassed a colossal
fortune on ’Change, inherits from his ancestors a remarkable
tendency to devote his life to some object, generally a
worthy, if peculiar one, which is extravagantly chivalrous.
The story opens with Fair and Mrs. Fair standing over the
body of a man who has just been shot in their house—a
foreigner, who had claimed to be an old friend of Mrs. Fair.
Fair sends her to her room, saying: “Leave everything to me.”
He hides the body in a chest, and decides to close the house
“for a trip on the Continent.” Fair tells the governess, Kate
Mettleby, that he loves her; that there is no dishonor in
his love, in spite of Mrs. Fair’s existence, and that, until
an hour ago, he thought he could marry her—could “break the
self-imposed conditions of his weird life-purpose.” They
are interrupted before Kate, who really loves him, is made
to understand. While the Fairs are entertaining a few old
friends at dinner, Kate, not knowing that it contains Mrs.
Fair’s blood-stained dress, is about to hide a parcel in the
chest when she is startled by the entrance of Samuel Ferret,
a detective from Scotland Yard. He tells her that he, with
other detectives, is shadowing the foreign gentleman who
came to the Fair house that day and has not yet left it. He
persuades Kate to promise that she will follow the suspect
when he leaves the house and then report at Scotland Yard. As
soon as Ferret is gone she lifts the lid off the chest, drops
the package into it, and, with a shriek, falls fainting to
the floor. Mr. and Mrs. Fair run to her aid. On being revived
Kate goes to Scotland Yard, where, in her anxiety to shield
Maxwell Fair from suspicion, she inadvertently leads the
detectives to think that a crime has been committed at the
Fair house. The two detectives are piecing together the real
facts from the clues she has given, when Ferret is summoned
to the telephone by his associate Wilson, whom he had left on
guard in the home of the Fairs.

“Hello, Wilson!” He began speaking to his distant lieutenant. “Yes—yes. No? By George! Yes, yes. Good, good! With you in ten minutes.”

He hung up the receiver and to Sharpe’s impatient gesture replied: “Wilson says the quarry is up. Mendes the Cuban has just left the house, with Thorpe following to see where he goes. And now there’s the very devil to pay. Wilson is hot on the trail. So I’m off.”

“If anything goes wrong, call me up,” said Sharpe, keenly enjoying the play of the big fish that he would have safely landed by a day or two.

“Right you are! Ta, ta!”

Ferret lost no time in reaching the Fair mansion. The guests were still at dinner and he could see no trace of excitement from without. Wilson reported in detail the sudden appearance of the Cuban, his hurried flight up the street with Thorpe at his heels—and all quiet inside.

“Who the devil fired that shot, and at whom was it fired, and what did pretty Kate mean by her stammering protests that no crime had been done? Was the saucy little minx deeper after all than they thought?” asked Ferret of himself. He must have a good look at that library—that was the key to the thickening mystery. So he stole up the stairs, but before he could investigate the fatal library he heard the family coming up from dinner and fled to the attic, passing Kate’s door, which stood ajar, and through which he saw her on her knees with her face buried on the bed.