The Woman's Word – On the Legalization of Gambling in Lebanon

With the coming of summer—every summer—there emerges in Lebanon's atmosphere a certain vital question with a direct bearing on the family; I mean the question of “gambling.” Hence it was the woman's duty to say her word on the subject—perhaps there is some benefit in the warning..

Certain people are pressing the members of the Chamber of Deputies and the government to permit the legalization of gambling in Lebanon this summer. The source of the pressure is the holders of private interests, men from whom the prohibition of gambling has withheld a tremendous source of livelihood... The twenty thousand liras that one of them earns in a single season is now met with grumbling and resentment, when they recall the hundreds of thousands that, in the days of plenty, used to pour into their coffers beyond counting...

I said that the war over gambling flares up at the start of every summer. After last summer's battle a law was issued providing for the establishment of a “casino” devoted to gambling, on the model of what exists in the great countries of tourism and summering, on condition that it stand fifteen kilometers away from Beirut; and the execution of the project was entrusted to the Commissariat of Tourism and Summering.

A source whose truthfulness admits of no doubt told me that a high official said to him last year: “Cut off my hands if I permit the legalization of gambling in Lebanon.” If this statement indicates anything, it indicates awareness, sincerity, and a sound understanding of the calamitous facts which gambling caused in the past, at a time when it was supposed to be accompanied by strict supervision permitting none to take part in it save foreign tourists and the moneyed class of great estates and vast incomes... So it was supposed to be; but the result came out the very opposite, proclaiming the ruin of an enormous number of Lebanese families whose average income does not exceed the meager government salary!

The battle is raging these days to permit the legalization of gambling, for the greed of some people knows no bounds... and the instruments of influence, material and moral, have come down into the arena to play their crooked parts...

Some say that the legalization of gambling will not extend beyond this summer, pending the completion of the “casino”—as though the success of the summer season in Lebanon hung solely on a quick enrichment reaped by a handful of people, even if this enrichment comes at the expense of the guileless official whose salary barely suffices to keep his family alive!

But the Lebanese woman, despite her doubts and fears, is certain that she has, in the person of His Excellency the President, a guarantee against the legalization of gambling. She sets great hope on him. His word is to her as if revealed, like the word of the prophets—above all when it aims at protecting her little kingdom and guarding it from every reckless storm that might raze its foundations utterly and bring it down in ruin.

The Lebanese woman, Mr. President—the wife and the mother—verily shudders at the word “gambling”; she is like one who has been stung by a snake and has come to fear the trailing of a rope...

And may both your hands be kept safe, signing nothing but what leads to building and construction...