Again, Bingo

Liberal U. S. Catholics, who do not mind joking (among themselves) about some aspects of their Church, have a gag to the effect that the next great saint in the calendar will be St. Bingo. Although church games have been forbidden by certain bishops and archbishops (latest: Boston's William Henry Cardinal O'Connell), Bingo has been the material salvation of many a poor Catholic parish. The Catholic excuse for Bingo is that, lying within the fairly broad limits of non-sinful gaming, it furnishes recreation for honest people. But the game is a headache to many a U. S. judge and policeman. Last week the Wisconsin Supreme Court declared that Bingo is a form of lottery, hence illegal. A Bingo test case was scheduled for trial in Buffalo. In Cincinnati, Police Chief Eugene T. Weatherly last week issued an eminently readable report on Bingo in Cincinnati during the past year.

Last summer Cincinnati's Protestant leaders demanded that Bingo be outlawed. Catholics, backed by ruddy, white-crested Archbishop John Timothy McNicholas, stood up for it. The city council compromised by requiring police authorization of Bingo parties, limiting prizes to 25% of the gate, with a maximum of $100 a prize (prizes had gone as high as $1,000). But even under these restrictions, Bingo packed them in. Nearly 2,500,000 players paid nearly $2,000,000 at 2,289 parties during the year, ran up a profit of about $1,500,000 for 30-odd Catholic churches and a scattering of secular societies (such as the United Negro Improvement Association, the Military Order of Lizards). Just one Protestant church, St. Paul's Lutheran, tried Bingo, gave up after netting $27 at one party. Biggest Catholic take: $219,913.91 (gross) from one party a week at St. Augustine's Church, in one of Cincinnati's poorer sections.

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