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by MICHAEL EVANS .

NEEDED:
A Gambler’s

Anonymous

Gambling has left a trail of disaster and heartbreak across the
U. S., emphasizing the need for action against a national menace

For mem’ry has painted this perfect day
With colors-that never fade,

ARJORIE WALKED SLOWLY up the
M steps to the little bungalow in
Hillside, bracing her shoulders as
she fumbled in her handbag for the
key. Anyway, she thought, the rent
isn’t due for a week and Tom should
be able to get another job. After all,
he was a good salesman. People
couldn’t help liking his pleasant
smile and laughing Irish eyes.

Maybe this would be a lesson to
him—just as Mr. Brant, the dis-
trict manager, had told her. “I’m
sorry, young lady, that I can’t take
Tom back. But I warned him after
the last garnishment that if there
was another, he would have to go.”

She had pleaded with him, she
had even cried.

“No,” Brant said firmly. “Tom
fave me his word last time that he
would never make another bet. But
he didn’t keep that pledge any more
than the others. Maybe this will

And we find, at the end of a perfect day, APRIL, 1948

_ The soul of a friend we’ve made.

bring him to his senses at last.”
She knew that Brant was right.
Before they married, Tom swore
he would give up the bookmakers.
He meant it. But six months later
he came home one night, flushed
and excited. He made her close
her eyes and slipped a ring on her
finger—a big diamond solitaire.
“But, Tommy, darling,” she said.
“We can’t afford it!”
Tom laughed. “‘A fellow gave me
a sure tip on a race. I couldn’t re-
sist. It won and here’s your ring.”
Then there was the morning a
month later. She looked at the
dresser where she carefully laid her
ring every night. It was gone. So
was Tom. Frantically she called his
office, but he was out for the day.
When he came home that night
there was a cold look in his eyes.
‘All right,” he told her roughly, ‘‘so
I took the ring! I had to have it—to

35

pawn. Now go ahead and bawl
me out.”

She cried and went to her room.
Later, Tom came in and they talked
it out. He had been betting again.
Finally he had to pawn the ring
in order to pay the bookmaker.
“But this is my ataze he prom-
ised. ‘(Never again!”

How many oe had she Beale
that promise in the last six years:
She had lost track. Well, maybe

‘losing his job would do it. Mean-

time, she would have to figure out
some way of paying bills until he

’went back to work.

The story of this young couple
may sound like cheap melodrama.
But the truth is that this kind of

- story, with minor variations, is be-

ing repeated all over America every
day. The truth is that Tom is a
sick person. Yet few people realize
that gambling, like alcohol, may
be the neurotic symptom of a mal-
adjusted personality.
Let us, however, make one dis-
tinction plain. There are two kinds
of gambling. For millions of us,
gambling is just an occasional

amusement. We buy a chance on a.

new car, play poker or bridge for
low stakes. This is fun. But some
people are different. They can’t
stop betting for big stakes, no mat-
ter how many pledges they take.
What makes the problem even
more acute is that gambling, al-
most unnoticed, has grown into big

business. In some form, it reaches:

into almost every home in the coun-
try. You can walk down main street
in a small Kansas town and wonder
where to buy a drink—but you can
always find a drugstore selling
punchboard chances or a cigar
store with a poker-dice game. You

36

can pick up any phone in Min.
seaudlis or Pittsburgh and make a
bet on a basketball game—or call
long distance if you happen to live
out on the farm. res

Our national income is better
than $200,000,000,000 a year. And
a substantial percentage of all we
earntis being staked on races, dice,
ginrummy, baseball, basketball and
football pools, bingo, raffles, pinball
games, sweepstakes tickets, bridge
and poker. In addition, there is the
“numbers game,” a racket which
originated in Cuba and has become
big business, particularly in metro-
politan centers. a

A particularly vicious phase of
the “numbers game” is that run-
ners who collect bets hang around
schoolyards at recess time and en-
courage youngsters to wager lunch
pennies on a number. In some
Eastern cities, cases of actual un-
dernourishment have been uncov-
ered among children playing the
racket with their milk money.

ow MANY AMERICANS gamble?
One careful survey puts the
number of petty gamblers at 40,-
000,000. A Gallup poll found that
nearly one of three adults takes
chances on church raffles, lotteries
and bingo—compared to one in five
who a cards for money. Last
year, several million people went
to the races. How many of these
are neurotic addicts is not known,
but the number is constantly rising.
The effect of gambling on munic-
ipal and state governments and
police forces is such an everyday
phenomenon that it hardly merits
mention here. Nor is it just confined
to big cities like Chicago, where the
Capone gang used to reap as much

CORONE?
4

5
il
a

as $25,000,000 a year in gambling
rofits. :
But gambling not only corrupts
jndividuals and governments — it
reaches into industry. Last year
- three foremen and 16 workers were
fired and another 18 suspended in
an effort to prevent the spread of
betting hysteria at the Ford Motor
Company. Some 9,000 men and
women in one division were re-
ported betting $300,000 a month.
| At that rate, wagering in the River

Rouge plant would total $2,000,000
a month for 65,000 workers.

Big as these problems are, the
human tragedies are even greater.
The list of suicides, wrecked fami-
lies, children condemned to near-
starvation, lost jobs, divorces, heart-
break and ruined lives is endless.
For the grim fact is that gambling
can hit anyone, anywhere.

Last winter, in St. Petersburg,
Florida, a widow from Iowa ar-
rived with $100,000 — proceeds
from the sale of her farm. She in-
vested $20,000 in a rooming house
and settled down. A favorite St.
Petersburg pastime is shuffleboard.
The widow started playing with a
retired Army colonel as partner.

In shuffleboard tournaments the
players usually bet on themselves.
By February the widow was betting
as much as $500 on a game and
losing quite often. By April she
pad lost her $80,000 nest egg and

ad mortgaged her house. In an-
other month she had lost the house,
and a few days later took an over-
dose of sleeping pills.
~ Why do things like this happen?
Why do shrewd, intelligent. indi-
viduals deliberately put their for-
tunes in jeopardy?

There is a famous gambling ca-

APRIL, 1948

See

sino in Las Vegas, Nevada, that
caters to Hollywood stars and other
celebrities. It is all glitter and color,
soft music and elegance. Most of
the men and women are in evening
dress, and in front of them on the
tables, thousands of dollars change
hands on each spin of the roulette
wheel. Everywhere there is an at-
mosphere of regal luxury—but the

most fascinating sight is the faces -

of the players.

At one table you see a pale, steel-
jawed man, a professional gambler.
He bets steadily, his eyes narrow
slits which watch the wheel. Beside
him is a promising young starlet
from Hollywood, blonde and hand-
some. You can see her knuckles
whiten when she clutches the table
as the wheel spins.

A few places down is a birdlike
little woman in her sixties, whose
evening dress went out of style be-
fore the war. She has a small note-
book in which she carefully makes
notations after each spin of the
wheel. From time to time she places
a small bet. Win or lose, she jots
her “system” in the book.

Further down the table js a tall

Westerner who has come into town
from his ranch for the evening. He
clumps his bets down loudly and
you can hear his laugh when he
wins. Pretty soon he stalks off, an-
nouncing loudly that he is going to
find a poker game where he “can
get a little action.”

You can see those same faces at
your local movie theater on
“Screeno” night. Those just there
for an evening’s amusement are re-
laxed, carefree and detached. Those
infected by the gambling germ are
gripped .by excitement, obvious or
suppressed. They are persons pos-

37

sessed—in the clutch of forces be-
yond their control.

Listen to the comments of a New
Jersey bookmaker, a quiet, intelli-
gent man with a family, who has
run a conservative bookmaking
business for 20 years.

“Most of my regular customers
are business and professional peo-
ple,” he says. “They get a kick out
of betting and can afford to spend
what they lose. But my problem is
with the plunger.

“I bats dentist who had bet
with me for years. All of a sudden
he started to bet very heavily. I
tried to discourage him because I
knew he was getting in over his
head. But he veal age sm
when I pointed out that it cost me
a lot rin my business—$100 a
week for protection, another $100

for racing results, plenty more for

hones, clerks and accountants. I
told him I paid all these bills—and
still made money on the bad judg-
ment of people like himself.

“But he kept on plunging, until
I told him I wouldn’t handle his
bets any more. He got hysterical,
but I wouldn’t argue. I suppose he
shopped around and found another
commissioner.”

One common denominator runs
through all these stories. People
addicted to gambling do things
which no person in his right mind
would think of doing. Not long
ago, a successful writer for popular
magazines lost $100,000 in a Tia-
juana gambling establishment.
Why did he toss away five years
savings? His explanation was that
he felt sure he could win a million
dollars and retire to a hacienda in
the Yucatan.

A middle-aged Indiana woman

38

was brought into court for neglect- |
ing her children, Asked why she
spent all her time in bingo parlors
and “screeno” theaters, she said:
“Something gets a hold on me. I
begin to get excited. Every day |
am sure that I am going to win,
Then, if I lose, I feel sure that next
time I will win.” :

Recently, the assistant teller in
an Illinois bank was found short
$5,200 in his accounts. He had be-
longed to a poker club—a small
game” with a 25-cent limit so that
“nobody will get hurt.” One night
he had bad luck and kept ince
ing his bets, trying to recoup Dis
ae Next as he had a stack of
1OUs and took $50 out of the till,
planning to replace it on payday:
You know the rest . s «

HY DO PEOPLE DO IT? The prob-
Wiem is one of the most interest-
ing in human psychology—and one
of the least studied.

Dr. Edmund Bergler of New
York, one of the few psychiatrists
who have analyzed the problem,
calls the gambler a neurotic person
—a person who cannot control his
conduct. Bergler advances the star-
tling conclusion that gamblers, un-
consciously, really want to lose.
Naturally, no gambler will admit
this. But if you study a dozen case
histories, you will find that almost
always there was at least one point
at which they could have quit while
ahead of the game.

But they nee do. They go on
until they have = it r=

ergler compares the neurotic gam-
bee toa nanetKy child who defies
his mother by saying, ““Look, I m
spilling my cereal on the floor”’—
-and then waits expectantly to be

ami

cna

spanked. Apparently the child—

~ and the gambler—get pleasure out

of “feeling bad.”

This applies equally to the Des
Moines housewife who loses her
week’s grocery allowance playing
bridge and to the tough-lipped St.
Louis mobster who bets his roll in
a back-room dice game. Neither is
ever Satisfied. Eventually both lose.

John Scarne, the New York ex-
pert on gamblers and gambling,
says flatly that the gambler never
gives up. “‘Sure,” he says, “I know
plenty who have ‘quit.’ I see them
going around with long faces be-
cause they have lost all their money.
But they have only quit temporar-
ily—just until they can get more
money to play with.”

What is the fascination of gam-
bling? Fundamentally, it seems to
be a combination of fear and hope.
Suppose you are playing Blackjack.
You get two cards and they total
14. Your point is 21. You decide to
take another card. If you get a face
card, it will “‘bust”’ your hand. But
you “feel”? that it will be a seven.

You watch the dealer drop the
card. You pick it up carefully. You
look at it cautiously. It is a seven!
Suddenly you feel very powerful.
Actually, pure chance gave you the

- seven. Nothing you did changed the

sequence of cards in the deck. But
now that you have drawn the seven,
your feeling is akin to omnipotence.
You have controlled events !
This is very exciting business in-
deed, and the gambling operators
eighten the excitement. Why are
children attracted by pinball
sames? Because of flashing lights,
Sputtering noises, moving figures—
and the chance of winning ‘“some-
thing for nothing.”

In the gambling houses of Las

_ Vegas and Palm Beach, the same

principles are applied — luxury,
deep carpets, money stacked care-
lessly on the tables, perfume and
music. At the fabulous Brazilian
hotel at Quitandhina, the ceilings
were recessed like bowls so that
the whir of the roulette wheel and
the click of the chips would re-echo
through the room. The stage was —
set for money . . . for winning . . .
and losing... .

It is plain that the rules for tempt-
ing gamblers are well understood,
but the problem of rehabilitating
the psychotic gambler has thus far
been almost untouched. Dr. Ber-
gler has discovered that gamblers
seldom, if ever, seek professional
treatment. Occasionally, they are
persuaded to see a consultant or
psychiatrist, but they make difficult
patients because they see nothing
really wrong in gambling away
their weekly pay check.

One obvious suggestion has been
made. Since Alcoholics Anonymous
has achieved such great success with
psychotic drinkers, why not a
“Gamblers Anoriymous” for psy-
chotic gamblers? There may be
merit in the idea, but both gam-
blers and psychiatrists express grave
doubts. One gambling professional
laughs at the idea.

“I know what would happen,”
he says. ““You would get some fel-
lows together to talk about gam-
bling and the first thing you know,
one of them would happen to have
a pair of dice in his pocket and
they would wind up shooting dice
until the sun came up.”

A psychiatric specialist is equally
pessimistic. “Alcoholics Anonymous
works because the members recog-

39

nize that they have a. problem.
They want to be cured. But the
gambler doesn’t think of himself as
sick. He doesn’t recognize the fact
that he has a problem.”

Clearly, all the evidence now
available indicates that no short-
cut solution to “gambling fever” is
likely to be found. Psychotic gam-
bling is a disease—just as serious as
psychotic drinking and possibly
more widespread. Certainly it is
less generally recognized as a dis-
ease. The gambler who can’t quit
is suffering from a deep-rooted per-
sonality maladjustment. His con-
duct should not be excused with
remarks that “‘gambling seems to
run in the Jones family,” or that

“after all, he isn’t hurting anybody -
but himself.” f i

The remedy, first of all; is to”
recognize that the psychotic gam-
bler is not a normal person. He
must be persuaded that for his own
good and that of his family, he re-
quires treatment—professional

care. In most cases, this is a difficult |
battle to win, but once the victim
has been persuaded to consult a
specialist, the first and most 1m-
portant barrier has been cleared.

However, after the treatment

starts, do not expect miracles. Psy-|
chiatrists frankly state that gam-
bling is one of their more difficult |

problems. Time is one of the great |
aids—time and understanding. _

C

be

LincoIn’s Most Remarkable Victory

N THE DAY OF THE presidential
O election in 1864, when Gen.
George B. McClellan was running
against Abraham Lincoln, the
Confederates were hoping against
hope that Lincoln would be de-
feated, for McClellan had called
the war a failure.

Authorities at a prison camp
in South Carolina, where 10,000
Northern prisoners were incarcer-
ated, decided to take a “bean
vote” among these Union soldiers,
thinking it would give them some
indication of how the Yankees
were voting. Bags of dried beans
were distributed to the helpless,
hungry Northerners with instruc-
tions to drop a black bean in the

voting bag hung just inside the
stockade if they were for Lincoln,
and a white bean if they favored
the election of McClellan.

40

Just before the voting began, the
Confederate colonel in charge of
the stockade announced to the
prisoners: “If a majority of votes . —
is cast for McClellan you will get
extra rations today.”

Then the Union prisoners—
shrunken shadow-shapes of men,
hundreds of whom took sick and
died every week—were marched

to the bean-casting bag. Many —

were too weak from hunger and
disease to cast their votes.

But when the votes were counted,
the Confederates found that the
promise of extra rations was not
enough to change the allegiance
of those Northern prisoners, even
when they knew their “bean vote”
would have no influence on the
outcome of the real election. Mc-
Clellan got only 1,500 votes while
Lincoln received more than 6,000!

—Tue Rev. Puivip JEROME CLEVELAND

CORONE

Desay of te
Lneing Debuluntes

by LAWRENCE LADER

You've probably never heard of Meyer Davis,
yet he’s America’s best-paid dance maestro

lon
’ tors. Y,

we Davis, WHO HAs supplied
the music for Presidents, bank-

} ers, debutantes and dowagers for

the last 35 years, is the greatest

paradox, both social and economic,

among our orchestra maestros.
Other leaders like Gene Krupa or

| Tommy Dorsey achieve popularity

through the radio and juke boxes.
Davis plays only at exclusive private
parties where a mere 75 guests may
be dancing to his 100-piece orches-

| tra, While Krupa’s and Dorsey’s

bread-and-butter depends on mil-

| lions of ardent worshipers from
Glens Falls to Keokuk, Davis’ fans

are mostly confined to the imposing
mansions of New York, Philadel-
ees Washington, Newport, Bar

ag and Palm Beach.

€ has never been mobbed b

Pobby-soxers on a theater stage -
Catured in a Hollywood offering.

= never even been stopped
€ street by autograph collec-
et Davis’ fortune was amassed

| While most of today’s top bandsmen

Were still j 1
wy ay in knee pants, and he will

still be adding to his
APRIL, 1948

hoard when most of them retire.

Small as they are in numbers,
Davis’ fans are unabashedly de-
vout. They look upon this genial,
ruddy-cheeked man of 55 as a god |
of the rumba, fox trot, waltz and
tango. The demand for his music
is SO great during the Eastern debu-
tante season that he often plays at
three or four places in one night.

Davis’ admirers want him so
much, in fact, that he is paid more
for a single night’s work than any
other orchestra leader in the busi-
ness. In 1946, he received $12,500
from Peter A. B. Widener ILI. For
another Widener party a few years
ago, the fee was $10,500; Ralph
Beaver Strassburger has paid him
$10,000, Clarence Geist $7,500.
With a gross income of more than
$50,000,000 in the last 35 years,
Davis is easily the top money-maker
in the dance-music world.

Why Davis, who is almost un-
known outside of Park Avenue or
Philadelphia’s Main Line, should
receive $12,500 a night while “big-
name” bands like Krupa’s or Dor-

41