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DELEGATE VECERA: I take it you
are advocating that we remain silent on
the particular point.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Delegate Dukes.
DELEGATE DUKES: That is correct.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
The Chair recognizes Delegate Pullen.
DELEGATE PULLEN: Could you tell
us the reasons why our ancestors put this
prohibition in the Constitution in 18(57?
Experience? Morality or what?
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Delegate Dukes.
DELEGATE DUKES: As I recall such
studies we did in the Committee and such
as I did myself privately showed that at
the time the prohibition was first placed
in the constitution a good deal of shenani-
gans were being played in the legislature
and by the legislature in terms of private
grants to individuals to run a lottery. At
the time the grant was first placed in the
Maryland Constitution, it is my opinion
and my observation on what I have read
that the only intention at that time was to
prohibit grants to private individuals and
not to prohibit the State itself from con-
ducting a lottery or its political subdivi-
sions. It is only by the opinion of the
attorney general that we now have the
restriction and the interpretation that the
State itself may not engage in lottery. I
think the purpose was to prevent private
grants to private individuals.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate Pullen.
DELEGATE PULLEN: Would those
same reasons hold for the Constitution in
1854 and in 1850 and are those reasons
.sound today as they were then?
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate Dukes.
DELEGATE DUKES: I do not think it
was sound then.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Delegate Pullen.
DELEGATE PULLEN: Would you mind
elaborating upon your reasons on that other
than what you have told us already?
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate Dukes.
DELEGATE DUKES: Yes, sir, I will be
glad to do so. I do not think the constitu-
tion is a place where we shall try to say
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you shall or shall not try to do a number
of things which I consider to be the duty
of the legislature. I feel a number of items
that we have passed already probably fall
in that category. Some I voted for, some I
voted against. Some I voted for only be-
cause others had passed and I wanted to
be consistent.
I can give you a list of half a dozen
other things already that I do not think be-
long in the constitution. This easily is one
of them. I think it is very clear that if we
put this ban in the constitution, it stands
out like a lone pine tree on a hill among
all the sins that go on in the State.
We simply would have made an an-
nouncement that means nothing whatso-
ever, we will have picked out an isolated
consensus of evil, I suppose, by the group
that has been sent down here and we will
not begin to touch on all the myriad other
things that we could probably also reach
a consensus on that should be banned in
the constitution.
I think it is silly to pick out one.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Delegate Pullen.
DELEGATE PULLEN: You say that
this prohibition was put in the three Con-
stitutions to correct an evil that those
people thought existed in those days. Is
that a correct assumption?
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate Dukes.
DELEGATE DUKES: I do not know
that I used the word "evil". I agree that I
am a spokesman of evil. I do not know the
word in that time. However, I know it was
something that they thought should not be
going on. I assume that the people who
passed the Constitution at the time the ban
was first put in had a practice going on in
the State of Maryland which they wished
to outlaw. They did it in the Constitution.
I would say it should have been done in
the legislature even then if it was a thing
that should have been barred.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate Pullen.
DELEGATE PULLEN: Nevertheless,
they did it?
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate Dukes.
DELEGATE DUKES: Apparently so.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
The Chair recognizes Delegate Ulrich.
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