LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: CURB PROFIT-MOTIVATED FEW

To the Editor:

When will it end? Once again it's being implied that Cape's most pressing problems can be mastered with more finances. It seems like every time we turn around we're told government needs more money for this and that project to improve our lives. Then we're graciously informed that riverboat gambling will supply the necessary funds to realize these plans.

The problems we face in public education, for instance, won't be solved by an estimated additional $360,000 per annum. Again, the problem isn't a lack of capital. George Will wrote recently that "between the 1972-73 and 1992-93 school years, a 47 percent increase in spending on public education for grades K-12 coincided with a 7 percent decline in school enrollment and a 35-point decline in SAT scores." Educational problems seem to have more to do with content, dictated by the state, than funding.

One of the reasons behind gambling is the attempt to prove that one can beat the odds and thereby "beat the system." It's an effort to prove autonomy from subjection to laws of probability. Centuries have proven that prosperity comes by hard work, thrift and savings. Now the popular notion seems to be making the quick buck or trying to get something for nothing. Many people are willing to hazard anything of value upon the uncertainties of an unpredictable future event.

Gambling isn't solely a type of entertainment, but can breed a whole lifestyle. George Will writes again, "Gambling fever reflects and exacerbates what has been called the fatalism of the multitudes." The more people believe in the importance of luck, chance, randomness, fate, the less they believe in the importance of stern virtues such as industriousness, thrift, deferral of ratification, diligence, studiousness." This belief has never produced a strong, stable economy and won't produce one for the future.

The ministers in the area are presently, and have been historically, by a great majority against gambling. The argument goes back to beliefs about private property. The Bible teaches that man is a steward and not sovereign owner of what God has made. He owns the Earth and everything in it, including finances, and governs everything according to His law. He will hold us accountable for the use of His resources.

Of course, not everyone who gambles is a pathological gambler. But addictions to gambling do occur and are documented. These weaknesses of certain individuals will be exploited by the opportunity to gamble in our own back yard.

The commission of the review of the National Policy Toward Gambling revealed in its 1976 report, "Legalization of gambling increases public exposure to more types of gambling, reduces negative attitudes toward the other [illegal] types of gambling and encourages wider participation."

Rufus Kin writes in "Gambling and Organized Crime," "Society can never interpose effective sanctions to guard the individual from his own frailties and indulgences. But society can and should intervene at every point when sanctions are necessary to curb the activities of profit-motivated entrepreneurs seeking to exploit the weakness of their fellow man."

Please give a positive vote of confidence to Cape's future. Vote "no" on Nov. 2.

Fred W. Poston

Cape Girardeau