Curbing Our Lottery Fever

Not being a Washington writer, physician, lawyer, university professor or anything else of consequence, I cannot expect space equal to that accorded to Peirce, but I can wish that you will print a letter response.

The column is a scarcely-disguised advocacy of prohibition from gambling. While some of his suggestions have some validity from a view of public economy, e.g., the business of advertising, the gist of the article is that people, especially poor people, don’t know how best to spend their money.

However arrogant this and other expositions on the subject are, including The Times’ own editorial hostility to lotteries, its greater sin is smugness. Has not Peirce ever heard of a simple thing called hope ? When you’re down, perhaps down and nearly out, hope goes a very long way. And it is not the same thing as an unreasonable expectation.

Let comfortable people with discretionary funds engage in the random but holy process of stock trading; let those who wish to do so buy lottery tickets.

DENNIS J. WHALE

Thousand Oaks