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of gambling on the part of the State, its
political subdivisions or other citizens. I
assure you that my position today is in my
mind at least consistent with the previous
positions I have taken in this Convention
and in an attempt to keep out of the consti-
tution the irrelevant, the trivial, the unen-
forceable.
It seems to me there are two issues pre-
sented here today. Originally I thought
there was only one, the narrow issue we
discussed before the Constitutional Con-
vention Commission. Namely, shall the
present prohibition in the Constitution
which prohibits the state from grant-
ing a lottery, that is conducting a lottery
itself, or having private persons conduct
it for it, be continued?
Now, I think, the issue is a fairly simple
one. My own personal opinion is it is an
anachronistic prohibition, one perhaps that
was justified in history in a day when
people did not trust their legislature but
the whole thrust of this Convention and
the whole reason of evolution of the his-
tory of this State is the development of a
legislature that we can trust. If state lot-
tery is as poor as the opponents say, I
agree that they are at least on New Hamp-
shire experience. If they are that bad as
revenue raisers, if they are, as my friend
Delegate Chabot said, a form of retro-
gressive taxation, then I suppose the New
York Legislature will soon abolish it. Our
legislature hopefully would never adopt it.
But to put it in the constitution as thou
shalt not, seems to me completely un-
necessary.
However, the issue that disturbs me is
the one that really evolved on the floor
today in the question period. As I under-
stand the explanation of the new language,
suggested by the Committee on Finance, it
would not only bar the legislature and the
political subdivisions from conducting a
lottery, but would also bar any private
group from conducting whatever is classi-
fied as a lottery. There is no question in
my mind that bingo is a lottery. A very
strong argument to that effect was made
by my good friend Rufus King in Bender
v. Anne Arundel Count}/ recently in the
Court of Appeals. A great majority of the
states holds bingo is a lottery. I suggest
any dog racing, bookmaking, off-track bet-
ting, raffles, prize grab machines, card
games with betting, spinning wheel, pin-
ball machines, and so forth, are lotteries.
Certainly in any intelligent definition of
lottery all these categories of gambling
.activity would be prohibited in the consti-
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tution. I am not debating the fact that
maybe they should be prohibited but they
should be prohibited by the legislature
which would have flexibility to deal with
the situation so as to permit those forms
of gambling which were thought tolerable
and to prohibit those forms which were
thought not tolerable, but to put this pro-
vision in the statute with the legislative
history that has accompanied this as a
result of the debate today seems to me to
really open the door, as Delegate Finch
put it, for the professional gamblers to
come in.
I agree with my friend Delegate Price
that perhaps the morals of society today
are in some areas at least in a process of
disintegration but I suggest to you nothing we put in any constitution can stop that.
The Weimar Republic had the fanciest
phrases about democratic procedure but it
shortly was destroyed.
THE CHAIRMAN: Your time has ex-
pired, Delegate Scanlan.
DELEGATE SCANLAN: I urge you
then to take this opportunity where you
failed several times in the past to eliminate
something. That remedy has no place in
the constitution.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Sherbow.
DELEGATE SHERBOW: I yield three
minutes to Delegate Mentzer.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Mentzer.
DELEGATE MENTZER: Mr. Chair-
man, I do not believe we are being asked
to vote against bingo. I believe we are con-
sidering whether we should vote against
the conducting of a lottery by the State or
its political subdivisions as a source of
governmental revenues and I am against
this. It is quite ironic that the rock-ribbed
State of New Hampshire was the first in
this century to have a state law for lot-
teries. New Hampshire has always pro-
jected a state image of thrift and self-
reliance and virtue.
They did this admittedly as a means of
shifting their tax burden to other tax-
payers in other states, and they have not
been successful.
The proponents of the lottery law in
New Hampshire said they would raise four
million dollars. Never did they raise three
million dollars and now they are not even
raising two. The law was passed in 1963;
the figures for 1964 were $2,700,000. They
dropped in 1965 to $2,500,000. Last year
in 196(5 the state distributed to the public
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