Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1912 — "School” for Poker Playing Should Be Abolished. [ARTICLE]

"School” for Poker Playing Should Be Abolished.

If, as Mayor Meyers stated at the citizens meeting at the court house Sunday, there has been and is a place being conducted in Rensselaer where young boys are taught ( to play poker, it would seem that all good citizens could unite on the proposition that it should be put out of business and the man who has been at the head of the “school” punished. It has been current rumor for some years that such a place was being conducted here, and the opinion seems to prevail that the young boys who were, recently arrested and fined for poker playing got their preliminary instruction at this place.

Mayor Meyers said that both he and his city marshal had been criticised for trying to enforce the law by a man of mature years, a man of family, who would go behind locked doors and teach or learn boys to play poker. We do not recall whether he also stated that this man was a member of one of the Renselaer churches or not. Now it would seem that this open charge of the mayor ought to be investigated. If true, the culprit should be punished; and if untrue he ought not to rest under the charge. The fallen woman who heflps to rob young and innocent girls of their virtue is no worse than a man who will do what the mayor charged had been done right here in Rensselaer. These charges,

understand, are not made by The Democrat, but were made by the mayor of your city at an open meeting where perhaps three hundred citizens heard them. The matter ought not to rest with the mere making of the charges. Your boy, perhaps, dear reader, has or may be led into an unlawful and demoralizing habit that is said to be worse if anything and more difficult to break loose from than the drinking habit, if nothing is done to put a stop to this school of instruction.