James Harold Romain

“ In the name of “liberty and equality,” a brave battle has been fought for individuality.187 Unjust and unwise interference by the state has been ably resisted. It is demanded that private judgment be released from the embrace of authority. The truth is, one man has no natural right to make laws for another. True, he may repel another, when his own rights are infringed, but he has no right to govern him. The individual is sovereign merely over himself, and not over his fellow-man. ”

“ Must he, then, live like the poor, he whose profusion, alone, is sufficient to maintain the poor? Expensiveness should be the thermometer of a private person’s fortune, as general luxury is the infallible mark of a powerful and flourishing empire.... Money is made for circulation. He who hoards it is a bad citizen, and even a bad economist. It is by dissipating it we render ourselves useful to our country and ourselves.” David Hume also thought the word of uncertain signification. He said: “The bound between virtue and vice cannot here be exactly fixed, more than in other moral subjects. ”

“ Nothing happens in this world without a cause. If we know the cause, we do not call it chance, but if we do not know it, we say it was produced by chance. If we see a loaded die turn its lightest side up, we know the cause, and that it is not an effect produced by chance; but whatever side an unloaded die turns up, not knowing the cause, we say it is the effect of chance. Yet, the morality of the thing cannot depend on our knowledge or ignorance of its cause. Not knowing why a particular side of an unloaded die turns up, cannot make the act of throwing, or of betting on it, immoral. ”

“ Untold wealth, a mine of diamonds, a palace, are baubles by the side of personal liberty. We recognize the supreme importance of this principle. We are willing that all men should be free—if they will only do what is best for them. We rejoice in the utmost liberty of opinion and action—if people will only do and say what is right. ”

“ We owe no thanks to law-givers as a class; for, since the most valuable improvements in legislation are those which subvert preceding legislation, it is clear that the balance of good cannot be on their side. It is clear that the progress of civilization cannot be due to those who, on the most important subjects, have done so much harm that their successors are considered benefactors, simply because they reverse their policy, and thus restored affairs to the state in which they would have remained, if politicians had allowed them to run on in the course which the wants of society required. ”

“ The rich and well-to-do may gamble, perhaps, but not the man of small resources. I ask, who has the right, for that reason, to say the latter nay? Not you, rich gambler in stocks and farm products; nor you, sir, who nightly gamble in the parlor of a comfortable home,230 or at the private club you assist in maintaining for that purpose. By what authority were you constituted the keeper of a less fortunate neighbor? All this aside, however, the suppression of public gambling will not deter any man from the pursuit, whether “rich” or “poor.” ”

“ Of the millions upon millions of acts of kindness and justice which go to make up civilized life, I take it that nine in ten would not be performed at all, if they were required by law.
John Stuart Mill has clearly defined the limit of individual “sovereignty”—as it is termed—and where the authority of society should begin. “Each will receive its proper share, if each has that which more particularly concerns it. To individuality should belong the part of life in which it is chiefly the individual that is interested; to society, the part which chiefly interests society. ”

“ The moral of “Candide, or the Optimist,” is, as interpreted by Smollett, that nothing is more absurd than the exercise of human reason; that nothing is more futile and frivolous than the cultivation of philosophy; that mankind are savages, who devour one another. This is cynicism, pure and simple. I cannot endure a creed so ghastly: a philosophy that suspects Socrates80 of incontinence, charges Epicurus with prodigality, accuses Aristotle of covetousness, and can say of Seneca that “he had but the single virtue of concealing his vices.” ”

“ In medicine, therefore, Exorcism is a thing of the past.
One aspect of the superstition still remains, as an obstacle to the progress of humanity; the possibility of legislating morality into men. Law-givers still cling to the power of “exorcism” by statute. Their blind creed is: “beatification and education by law.” “To them, laws are the cows, whose teats mankind should suck. To them, men are as dough, which their wisdom would knead.” ”

“ In my opinion, gaming is not a sin. In what is your judgment superior to mine? Moreover, I defy you to demonstrate a wager is wrong, per se. If you find this impossible, I am free to repudiate your dogmatism. To know, also, that gaming is not prima facie sinful, we have but to define it.
The lexicographers define a gamester as “one who plays for money or other stake;” and gaming “to be the use of cards, dice, or other implement, with a view to win money, or other thing, wagered upon the issue of the contest.” ”

“ In the realm of morals, man is to be guided only by the decrees of God, if known. For those who recognize the Bible as His word, the way is clear. Aside from this, the path is dark and uncertain. But nowhere in either the Old or New Testament, is gambling forbidden. Not a word did Moses or Jesus utter against it, as a general principle, or in any of its particular forms. What is commanded by God is our only test of right and wrong. Theology is of man, and yet it is a fact that gambling, in itself, is not inconsistent with the profession of any creed in Christendom. ”

“ It has been asserted that gambling is a vice. I deny that such is the case. The proposition cannot be established, as an absolute principle. If a man chooses to risk his money, on a game of cards, he has a perfect right to do so, in the abstract,204 and no man, or any body of men, has a right to forbid him. “It is his money, and he has a right to do what he chooses with it. He has a legal right to put it in a gun and shoot it away, or burn it up, or risk it on a game of chance, or make any other disposition of it, and no man, or body of men, has a right to interfere.” ”

“ Modern society is so burdened by an enormous and complex overgrowth of law, that the necessity for its existence is now a prevailing notion, to the end that men may be kept in order: that, without the oppressive institution, people would not follow a systematic life. On the other hand, all observation of civilized races discovers the directly opposite. The instinct of man is to regularity of life, and law is but a result or expression of this. “As well attribute the organization of a crab to the influence of its shell, as ascribe the orderly life of a nation to the action of its laws.” ”

“ I surrender to the behests of philosophy as fortified by the deductions of science. Years ago it was argued by Comte that, in social order, the higher must subordinate itself to the lower. That the organic finds itself controlled and limited by the inorganic world, and man has to work out his destiny in submission to all the necessities, physical, chemical and vital, which are pre-supposed in his existence. ”

“ If the practice is neither a crime nor a trespass, then it is not rightfully subject to public regulation. I have demonstrated to the candid judgment that, of itself, gambling is not essentially wrong. I insist that, at least, in the absence of fraud and chicane, it is neither sinful, nor criminal.223 To gamble with another is not to assault his person or property by main force. To wager or bet upon the laws of chance, deceit aside, is not to kill, maim, rob, or cheat your fellow man; the players freely participate in the hope of gain or for amusement. ”

“ If we are brute and barbarous, the fate takes a brute and dreadful shape. If we rise to spiritual culture, the antagonism takes a spiritual form.... The limitations refine as the soul purifies, but the ring of necessity is always perched at the top.
None greater than these may be found in the noble realm of speculative thought. They are unequalled by few, if any. The whole field of modern science, also, is in accord with their deductions: Teaching that nature is an inevitable sequence, and that all phenomena, material and mental, are linked together by an inevitable connection. ”

“ It cannot rightfully invade the realm of ethics, as such. Crime is theoretically a direct injury to the public, and trespass, a direct injury219 to the individual. A vice, on the contrary, is the inordinate gratification of one’s desires and passions. The primary damage is to one’s self. In contemplating the nature of a vice, we are not conscious of a trespass on the rights of others. Vice does not fall within the police power. Expressed in the language of Mr. Tiedeman, “the object of police power, is the prevention of crime—the protection of rights against the assaults of others. ”

“ One word defines the field of economy, expediency.” So far as it is a science, political economy is cold and selfish; “budded on monopoly values.” Judged by such a standard, gambling would be right, if expedient.
Yes, but is not gambling a destructive luxury? Is it not a wasteful expenditure of money? I answer, what is luxury, and is it always an evil? Roscher well says: “The idea conveyed by the word is an essentially relative one.” Every individual calls all expenditure with which he chooses to dispense, a luxury. The same is true of every age and nation. ”

“ It took boys and girls, at the tenderest age, out of the world, confined them in religious houses, refused them the joy of the flesh, and the joy of the eyes, and the pride of life, barred the gates of every terrestrial garden, mortified their desires, kept them occupied with prayers and contemplations, and so tried to starve nature to death. ”

“ What are the true limits of State power in relation to appetites and propensities? Are sumptuary laws effectual? Does history, as the philosophy of example, justify such enactments? Can the law eradicate innate tendencies? Can character be transformed by statute? Is it possible to legislate morality into mankind? What should be the policy of statesmen and reformers in the realm of morals? If it is not possible to extirpate the passions by law, how may they be regulated, directed, educated and purified? ”

“ Every man who has to work for his living at all, every man who has to depend in any way, on business for wealth, has to trust to chance, in many respects. So that all men, in some degree, more or less, have their characters modified by this peculiarity of their environment. The inherited tendency of each one of us towards gambling, in some one or other of its multitudinous forms, is undoubtedly strengthened in this way. ”

“ That gambling is “necessarily and essentially” injurious to society, I deny. As a pastime, it is innocent, as a principle of action it permeates the business world. If an amusement, it may be abused to the detriment of certain individuals, but the abuse of a thing, innocent in itself, does not make that thing a crime. When an occupation,224 it is but natural that the laws of chance should operate unevenly: to the advantage of some and to the disadvantage of others. Uniformity of success in affairs is impossible. ”

“ In a word, the phases of luxury are so variable and extensive that it is equally unjust and impracticable for the state to discriminate unfavorably.
The gambler is said to be idle and non-productive: that a quid pro quo is not given for what he receives. What is meant here by idleness and non-production? Does it signify that labor is the proper basis of exchangeable value: the only just source of what is called wealth? If so, the condemnation includes all who obtain wealth without working for it. ”

“ The law can no more destroy the natural inclination of the mind, than it can make “one hair white or black.” If an evil (which in the absolute sense I deny) , it is not to be prevented by legislation. It is no more possible, by direct effort, to change the gaming proclivity in man than to stem the torrent, or check the eternal progress of the glacier. The growth of centuries, down it moves through the years in an irresistible march. Absurd seem all our demonstrations ”

“ Their noble steeds all caparisoned for war, both wandered up and down through the world, defending the fair and protecting the weak. Betimes they chance to meet where stood in majestic beauty a bronze statue of victory. In her right hand the goddess clasped a sword, while in graceful pose her left rested upon an ægis richly wrought in the precious metals. ”

“ What is self-existent must be from eternity, and must be unchangeable; but as to all things that begin to be, they are not self-existent, and therefore must have some foundation for their existence without themselves.” Spinoza urged that “In no mind is there an absolute or free volition; but it is determined to choose this or that by a cause, which likewise has been fixed by another, and this again by a third, and so on forever.” ”

“ Everywhere is presented an appearance of comfort and rich cultivation. Yonder, Mount Albanus towers to a height of 3,000 feet above the sea. Looming majestically above its topmost peak is the Temple of Jupiter Latiaris. The grandeur of mighty Rome is at our feet, a splendid and stupendous panorama of temples, amphitheatres, basilicas, palaces, circuses, baths, arches and aqueducts. Such was the spot dedicated to Fortuna by the ancient Prænestians. ”

“ For my purpose, as a question of law, the real question is whether a man may dispose of his own as he chooses? If so, then he has a right to wager it on a game of cards, or at dice; and it is absurd to treat as criminal another man who may join in with him in gaming, as an antagonist. ”

“ But, generally, men are rational creatures, and do not depend upon games of chance for a living. The credulous men are relatively few who rely entirely upon the outcome of chance in games as a business; and those few are at least on a par in wisdom and ethics with the millions who gamble in future prices of stocks, grain, and other commodities. “Ah! but you forget,” rejoins my critic, “that in other pursuits a man produces something by his industry, or contributes to that result indirectly, whereas in gambling nothing is produced.” ”