Tied Hands

Governor Adlai Stevenson, who for more than a year has been warring on slot machines in Illinois, last week threw a handful of lemons at fraternal and veterans' organizations and private clubs which keep slot machines on their premises. He said that such clubs operate 93% of the 1,783 machines in southern Illinois. Then, in a speech to the County Bar Association in Springfield, he went on to point a moral considerably more important than slot machines. "I know all the arguments about 'the slot machine in the country club is one thing and the slot machine in the corner saloon another,'" he said. "But I also know that the machine is against the law as it stands on the books; and I know that the citizen who violates the law in his country club or fraternal lodge is in no position to, and does not in fact, insist that his elected officers enforce the law in the corner saloon . . . Many of our most reputable and influential citizens sterilize their power and influence to demand and get faithful performance by their local officials. They have tied their own hands and stopped their own mouths."

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