The nation . lotteries were afavorite means of raising revenuefor worth-while projects — to buildbridges, roads, town halls, , Yale, Columbia and otherearly universities were financed intheir first years partly by proceedsfrom lotteries. But the lure of cheapmoney, something for nothing, wasthen, as now, deeply corruptive. 3U5 Rackets began to flourish. Lotterytickets were counterfeited and sold bythe thousands to a deceived public;professional operators wormed theirway into the management of legallotteries and filched their funds; busi-ness protested that the gamblingfever siph
The nation . lotteries were afavorite means of raising revenuefor worth-while projects — to buildbridges, roads, town halls, , Yale, Columbia and otherearly universities were financed intheir first years partly by proceedsfrom lotteries. But the lure of cheapmoney, something for nothing, wasthen, as now, deeply corruptive. 3U5 Rackets began to flourish. Lotterytickets were counterfeited and sold bythe thousands to a deceived public;professional operators wormed theirway into the management of legallotteries and filched their funds; busi-ness protested that the gamblingfever siphoned off money that shouldbe spent by the people for theirlegitimate needs and injured all the Revolution, manystates discovered that only greedyprofessional promoters seemed to bederiving any real benefit from thelotteries. In 1819 the New York Leg-islature conducted a probe and founddefalcations in three lottery officesamounting to $109, The in-vestigating committee reported it felt. the system is so radically viciousthat it could not be controlled bylegislation. A Pennsylvania commit-tee discovered similar abuses, cameto the same conclusion and urgedthat this blot be wiped away andlotteries never again used in Penn-sylvania as a method of finance. By1833 virtually all lotteries through-out the United States had beenabolished. The post-Civil War era saw a re-vival of the lottery gambit. Severalstates, especially in the war-rackedand ruined South, legalized lotteriesas a means of raising revenue forworth-while purposes. Once more thecycle of abuse, scandal, corruption,reform began. In this second roundof unfortunate experience, Louisianabecame the most glaring example of 306 the vices of legal gambling. TheLouisiana Lottery Company wasgiven a charter effective January 1,1869, to run for twenty-five company was exempt from tax-ation. It operated under a charityfagade, pledged to contribute $40,000annually to the New Orleans Char-ity Hospital.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, bookidnation191jul, bookyear1865
