"Inherent Instinct"

Reporting for an interdepartmental committee on stockmarket regulation, wide-eyed Assistant Secretary of Commerce John Dickinson told President Roosevelt last January: "It must always be recognized that the average man has an inherent instinct for gambling. ... If the speculative instincts of our people could be turned into other channels, this instinct might be satisfied without far-reaching economic consequences which come from widespread public speculation in the stockmarket."

In Congress and in three State Legislatures last week other legal channels for public speculation were being surveyed. Representative Edward A. Kenney of New Jersey was preparing for hearings this week before the House Ways & Means Committee on his bill proposing a billion-dollar national lottery whose proceeds would pay all veterans' compensation and pensions. One who did not believe in legitimizing the gambling instinct was sandy-headed Representative John J. O'Connor, from Manhattan's Lower East Side. "After all." said he. "the Treasury could make a lot of money issuing licenses to bawdy houses, but it just can't be done."

Meantime in Albany the New York State Legislature got the gambling fever. A resolution was introduced to repeal lottery restrictions, possibly paving the way for a lottery, said to be backed by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, by which New York City can raise $28,000,000 to balance its budget. At the same time the Senate passed a bill legalizing betting at New York race tracks.

Also infected was Ohio, before whose Legislature lay a bill to make lotteries lawful. And the fact that the executive council of the Legislature of prudish Kansas was favorably considering a lottery bill seemed a potent augury that the U. S. might yet make gambling, like liquor, come out in the open and pay its

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