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Delegate Roger.
DELEGATE ROGER: Mr. Chairman
and ladies and gentlemen, I sincerely hope
that you will take out of the constitution
this ban against lotteries. First of all, I
feel that it has no place in the constitution.
In the second place, there is no prohibition
of other sins we have in the constitution.
Why pick this one out and say we are
going to have a ban on lotteries.
In my opinion there are many reasons
why the people of Maryland should have
an opportunity to decide for themselves
where they should have it, and the best
place to do it is through the General
Assembly.
THE PRESIDENT: Any other delegate
desire to speak in support of the section?
Delegate Bamberger.
DELEGATE BAMBERGER: Mr. Chair-
man, I share Delegate James' concern that
this does cause continuing pressure on the
legislature. I also share Delegate U 1 rich 's
concern about private lotteries.
What has particularly bothered me about
this, and I hope that the chairman of the
Committee on Finance and Taxation would
respond to this, was when we adopted this
on second reading, Mr. Clarence Miles, the
chairman of the Governor's Commission
studying; gambling and crime in this State,
somehow or other read this provision to
mean that we had authorized the operation
of private lotteries. That has bothered me,
and I think it has bothered some other
delegates.
I hope Delegate Sherbow would respond.
I did not understand that. I have never
heard that particular problem debated on
this floor.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other
delegate desire to speak in opposition?
Delegate Hardwicke.
DELEGATE HARDWICRE: Mr. Presi-
dent and ladies and gentlemen, all of the
reasons that have been advanced for keep-
ing this plank in this constitution it seems
to me are highly fallacious. First of all it
is said that lotteries are evil. All right,
maybe they are. Then why not collect all
of the things that we think are evil and
put a plank in the Constitution about them
and forbid them. Why pick out this par-
ticular item? How much time did we have
in our committees to demonstrate whether
it was evil or not? How much do we know
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and how much has been provided for us
individually to show us?
Secondly, the legislature would be under
pressure. All right, let us pick out all of
the things that would put the legislature
under pressure and forbid those in the
Constitution.
I submit that we have not attempted in
any area to pick out the evils. We have not
tried to protect the legislature from pres-
sure. This is an exceptional thing that is
asked of us here, and there is no reason
advanced for the exception.
Now, let me say this, we are in our
closing hours of this Convention. Think
back in your minds of the things that you
would like to have seen in this Constitu-
tion which have been knocked out by those
people who say it is not proper for a con-
stitution to contain them. Think back. How
many things have you lost on that argu-
ment? And I urge you, where you have lost
the things that you have wanted on that
argument, the argument ought to be ap-
plied straight across the board, and non-
constitutional things, things not of con-
stitutional stature, should be omitted from
this document. That is the sole test.
If you were in the legislature, yes, I
would be here urging you to vote against
lotteries. This is not a legislature. This is
a constitutional convention. It has no busi-
ness in the constitution.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Gleason.
DELEGATE GLEASON: Mr. Chairman
and fellow delegates, I am frankly amazed
that there are forty-four people in this
assemblage who would take what I con-
sider a very likely possibility of throwing
away four months of work to drop out of
the constitution at this time something
that has been in there for decades and
decades. I think that perhaps we are for-
getting one fact that Chairman Sherbow
mentioned when this matter was before us
on second reading. We sit here today with
the adoption of this constitution with a
new principle governing local governments.
That principle is one of shared power. No
longer do we talk of lotteries in connection
with our state government, but we must
consider lotteries in connection with powers
shared equally with the state government
by twenty-four counties of the State.
We do not need time on this issue. We
have gone through a decade of time on slot
machines in the State of Maryland, and by
golly, if you think this is not an issue that
every minister, every clergyman in the
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