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CATHOLIC LOTTERY AT ST. LOUIS!
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Lottery To Raise Thirty Thousand Dollars for Catholic School---
Priest Spigardi and Italian Catholics Allowed to Violate the Lottery
Law---The Prosecuting Attorney "Not Inclined to Act!"
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BY H. GEORGE BUSS.
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(From The Menace, No. 82, for September 9, 1912.)
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Priest Caesar Spigardi and his Catholic followers are proving themselves superior to all American laws and to the anti-gambling and lottery statutes of Missouri at St. Louis!
This priest, Spigardi, has originated and is rapidly carrying out one of the most gigantic lottery schemes that has ever disgraced the grand old state of Missouri---and in utter defiance and contempt of our plainest statutes. These Catholic swindlers are heralding and advertising far and wide their lottery which will be held at the "St. Borromeo's Romish Church Fair" at the Jai Alai building in St. Louis, November 24th. The prizes are to be awarded entirely by chance.
Numbered tickets or lottery coupons (see reproduction herewith, page 157) are being sold in saloons, cigar stores, and every other public place possible all over the city of St. Louis by this wily priest and his choice collection of fellow-lawbreakers. We also strongly suspect that the United States mail is being widely used for the distribution of these lottery coupons. This is being investigated even as you read
these lines. If such proves to be the case, a federal prosecution of these foreign swindlers will follow.
We have in our possession one of the printed letters with which Priest Spigandi sends in every case three of these sanctified lottery tickets. The letter is as follows:---
"Dear Sir:---
I beg your pardon for sending you three tickets of my Fair. In doing so I don't mean to give you any trouble. If the tickets are not of any use to you, you may destroy them; if you prefer to use them, besides having a probability to get the First automobile or the Dorris or the Ford or any other of the fifteen prizes, you will contribute to a good cause, because I will use the proceeds of the Fair to pay for the building of the school for my Italian children. If you use the tickets send back the coupons.
Very respectfully yours,
"FATHER C. SPIGARDI."
Notice the apologetic, servile, cringing tone of this circular advertising this religious lottery scheme. Why, the very first line of this "letter" is a confession of guilt! But, notice, just a few lines further on comes the cunning appeal to the cupidity and to the gambling instincts of the dupes, who are to pay a dollar for each of these lottery tickets.
Again, if these lottery tickets were not many of them mailed, why the necessity of any letter to accompany them? Shall we force Spigardi to explain in open court?
You will notice that the lottery ticket bears a numbered coupon. The plan is that at 10 o'clock on the evening of November 24th, the usual lottery "drawing" will take place and holders of the "winning
numbers" will be given the prize. The following prizes are offered by these Romish gamblers at this fake Catholic "fair;" three automobiles, one piano, one organ, a man's suit, one gas range, a woman's hat, a woman's watch, a man's watch, eight pictures.
The aggregate value of these prizes is claimed (Catholic claim) to be eight thousand eight hundred dollars, winners to have their choice of taking either the prizes or the cash!
The priest in charge of this lottery, Spigardi, advances the rather curious defense that he "does not consider it a lottery because it is not being conducted for personal profit but for charity!" (?)
This priest, Spigardi, cooly claims that he expects to clear thirty thousand dollars by this lottery swindle and that he is going to build a parochial school with this money, (!), where he distinctly says the "teachers" will be "Sisters of the Sacred Heart"---all of Italian parentage!
But what saith the law? Section 4771 of the Missouri statutes.
"Any person who shall sell or expose to sale or cause to be sold or exposed to sale, or shall keep on hand for purposes of sale, or shall advertise or cause to be advertised for sale or who shall print, or publish such advertisement or shall aid or assist, or be in any way concerned in the sale or exposure to sale of any LOTTERY TICKETS, OR ANY SHARE, OR PART OF ANY LOTTERY TICKET IN ANY LOTTERY OR DEVICE IN THE NATURE OF A LOTTERY within this state or elsewhere, and any person who shall advertise or cause to be advertised the drawing of any scheme in any lottery, or shall print or publish such advertisement and shall be convicted thereof in any court of competent jurisdiction
shall for each and every such offense forfeit and pay a sum not exceeding one thousand dollars."
Under this law this priestly gambler, this pseudosanctified purveyor of lottery advertisements is GUILTY and he should be prosecuted at once! St. Louis federal and state authorities say that this scheme IS A LOTTERY and that they have only deplayed prosecution to make proper complaint. Circuit Attorney Jones said just recently that Priest Spigardi is VIOLATING THE LAW but that he (Jones) was NOT INCLINED TO ACT IN THIS CASE because of the charitable purpose for which the proceeds are to be used!
Ye Gods! And yet the famous old Louisiana lottery was forever closed although its PURPOSE was far more worthy than building Romish schools over our land wherein to teach sedition and treachery to our government! And yet the James Boys died as outlaws, in spite of their "worthy" purpose of robbing the rich and giving to the poor! St. Louis citizens, Guardians, force this Catholic-scared Circuit Attorney to do his plain duty!
Assistant Attorney Rosskopf, of St. Louis, gave utterance to this significant hint the other day. "The main reason why the state has not acted in cases like this is that no one has ever appeared at the Circuit Attorney's office to prosecute."
Public sentiment and indignation are running high in St. Louis against this disgraceful and glaring defiance of all law by these foreign Catholics. But mere protest will not do. We must impress upon the loyal and law-protecting citizens of St. Louis that this sentiment must be focused---that this case must be made a concrete example---that this priest must pay the penalty which the law provides, a thousand dollar fine "for each and every such offense!".....
The decent, American citizenship of Missouri demands
If you will do this, if you will follow prosecution with prosecution, and follow each case to the end, you will either bankrupt this foreign hierarchy in St. Louis, or you will put this one particular black-petticoated Catholic grafter behind the squared bars where he will no longer be a menace to our laws and our free institutions.
Get on guard in St. Louis---prosecute this Catholic priest as the common swindler that he is!
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When Luther drove the last nail into his thesis on the door at Wittenberg, he struck a blow for religious freedom that sounded through the world. We need another Luther---a strong, able, fearless leader of men, to fling out a challenge to that power which is plotting day and night, and employing all the agencies within human reach, to effect the religious conquer of this continent. We need a Luther to show Rome in her true colors as the misleader of men, the obstructer of divine truth, the falsifier of history; the enemy of every form of education, religious and secular, the arch-plotter of the ages. We need a Luther who will carry through this country, in the press and the pulpit, the might and power of a divine mission to apprise men of the menace of Catholicism, which would take from them their birthright, supplant their independence with servitude to an alien power, proselytize their children, and anathematize their marriage laws, and render illegitimate the progeny of every protestant domestic union. It will be strange if, in the whole array of Protestant churchmen, there should not be found one man equal to the occasion and prepared for the emergency. ---The Christian Herald, July 10, 1912. |