"Epidemic"

Every now and then, what the newspapers call an "epidemic" breaks out in the U.S. One season it will be influenza; another season, student suicides; another season, inventions for television or color cinema. This month, gambling scandals were the national "epidemic."

In New York, the opening of another horse-racing season at Saratoga Springs brought forth free-spending crowds, who entered the resort's perennial gambling rooms, which then were viewed with loud alarm by political opponents of Governor Smith, who thereupon equally loudly demanded that the Gambling be stopped, together with the Vice that was reported in conjunction. A Manhattan newspaper (Evening Post) soon reported more Gambling and Vice in another New York county (Suffolk). It described a discreet, highly expensive casino on an island near Montauk Point, L.I. The games were said to be "fourth largest in the U.S.," smaller only than the games at three unnamed places in Florida. The casino, named the Montauk Island Club and operated by the hotel syndicate which is glorifying Long Island's cool tip, promptly closed its doors, much to the regret of summer-bored Wealth and Fashion at nearby Southampton. The Evening Post (Republican) reported that the club had had to close down once before this summer--when it was ordered investigated by Governor Smith, who had heard about it during the week he spent at nearby Hampton Bays (TIME, Aug. 13). The hotel syndicate, among whose directors are Vice President George Le Bontellier of the Long Island R. R. and Motorman Walter Chrysler, demanded that the Evening Post prove that it had seen what it said it saw.

In New Jersey, possibly as a sympathetic reaction from the New York excitement, the Rev. Marna S. Poulson, Anti-Salooner, announced that Newark was "wide open," especially as to gambling in Newark's Chinatown.

In Louisiana, St. Bernard Parish, a riverside neighborhood below New Orleans, was the scene of shooting, clubbing, screaming, money-grabbing, hacking with axes, punitive bonfires. Huey P. Long, youthful, tempestuous, theatrical, newly-installed Governor of Louisiana, had been busying himself with whirlwind reforms in various departments of the State, when he heard that two St. Bernard gambling houses had dared to reopen despite his warning. He issued and personally taxied with an order to the Adjutant General to call out a raiding party of the National Guard. The offending establishments, facing each other in the same street, were the Jai-Alai* Fronton and the Arabi Clubs. The guardsmen approached. A lookout fired a shot of warning. The guardsmen entered, clubs swinging. Soon the gambling paraphernalia was ablaze, illuminating a fine antigambling chapter in Governor Long's precocious record.

In California, or just off its coast at Long Beach, the Johanna Smith, onetime lumber ship, dropped anchor a month ago. Last week the United Press discovered it. Aboard were 13 gaming tables, 38 slot machines and a cash girl trained to give 18 quarter-dollars in exchange for a $5 bill. "Guests" were being taken aboard from the shore in speedboats, 40 at a load, 25-c- for the ride. The exposure published by the United Press seemed to be motivated by the alleged fact that the Johanna Smith's operators had thus far entertained some 10,000 persons, had profited $100,000 over a single weekend. No liquors were served on board of what the tickets described as "the Dancing and Eating Boat," but the games, said the United Press, were sadly crooked. A Johanna Smith soliloquy, delivered aboard her at 3 a. m. by Louis Wolheim, famed as hard-boiled "Captain Flagg" in What Price Glory? and now a cinemactor, was reported as follows: "The roulette is bad, the poker, twenty-one and chuck-a-lick worse, but the prize albatross these guys hang around a neck is at the craps table. A game of chance? Huh!"

*Jai-Alai (pronounced "hi-a-li")--fast Spanish mixture of handball, lacrosse and court tennis. Long popular in Cuba, jai-alai has invaded the U. S. as far inland as Chicago, where a high-grade fronton with imported professional players affords urbane North Siders polite outlet for their betting instincts.