Baltimore Evening Sun (15 May 1911): 6.

Let us claw a headline from The Sun of July 8,1909, to wit:

WAR FOR TRADE BEGINS.

City Forms Commercial Army To Invade The South.

Mr. Whitnney Sounds Tocsin.

Captains Of Manufacture Gather And Outline The Campaign For Made-In-Baltimore Goods.

Below this headline the great plan was set forth in detail. A publicity fund of $50,000 a year was to be raised. A vast invasion of the South was to be undertaken—not by lowly drummers, but by the exalted heads of firms, the very barons and margraves of Hopkins Place. Permanent exhibits of Baltimore goods were to be established in Jacksonville, Savannah, Atlanta, Richmond, Mobile, Nashville and Vicksburg.

The town rocked with eloquence. Tears of joy ran down the cheeks of strong men. Enthusiasm, beginning pianissimo, rose to fortissimo appassionata, and became almost pathological in its fury.

That was on July 7, 1909. On July 12, 1909, a hot wave struck the town. By August 1, 1909, the whole thing was forgotten.

An anti-vivisectionist is one who strains at a guinea pig and swallows a baby.

Novels worth reading this summer: “Fortunata,” by Marjorie Patterson; “The Broad Highway,” by Jeffrey Farnol; “The Prodigal Judge,” by Vaughan Kester; “The New Machiavelli,” by H. G. Wells; “The Married Life of the Frederic Carrolls,” by Jesse Lynch Williams.

A few good books that are not novels: “The World of Dreams,” by Havelock Ellis; “Masks and Minstrels of New Germany,” by Percival Pollard; “Diminutive Dramas,” by Maurice Baring. New plays worth reading: “Justice,” by John Galsworthy; “Don,” by Rudolph Bester; “What the Public Wants,” by Arnold Bennett; “The Doctor’s Dilemma,” by George Bernard Shaw. All of these are to be had in book form.

Excellent poetry: “Provenca,” by Ezra Pound.

Is there any prohibition of swearing in the Bible? I don’t mean perjury or blasphemy but ordinary swearing. If there is, I have constantly missed it. Let Mr. Wegg, or some other master text-searcher, answer.

For each man kills the thing he loves.—
The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Especially the music-lover.

More synonyms for beard:

Patriotism and pedagogy are plainly behind the “See-America-First Campaign.” It must be patent, indeed, that the Baltimorean who has been to Chicago to see the stock yards has gained vastly more culture than the Baltimorean who has been to Paris to see the Louvre. The Rocky Mountains, though they are mere mountains, and have neither historical associations nor decent hotels, are indubitably fully 250 feet higher than the Alps. And compared to Niagara Falls, with its artistic signboards and its elegant souvenirs, what are the lakes of Killarney, the dales of the Tyrol, the Norwegian fjords, the isles of Greece? Certainly no sane man, having to choose between Zanesville, Ohio, and Siena, Clarksburg, W. Va., and Munich, Bangor, Maine, and Venice, will fail to choose Zanesville, Clarksburg and Bangor.

But how will Baltimore, as distinct from the country in general, benefit by this proposed abandonment of the spring rush to Europe? Will the See-America-First crusade fill our fair city with tourists? Against my will I find myself doubting it. The Easterner, setting out to traverse his native land, will infallibly journey westward to the Yellowstone and the Yosemite, to the flower gardens of Los Angeles and the tenderloin of San Francisco. And the Westerner, coming eastward, will first head for Washington, and then, having drunk his fill there, he will head for New York.

Will either of these wayfarers drop off in Baltimore? Why should he, indeed? We have here a fine old town, but is there anything remarkable about it? What will the Minneapolis man find here that he cannot find at home? Druid Hill Park, perhaps, and the cobblestones and a code of blue laws that would disgrace Oswego, N. Y., but persons with money and intelligence enough to travel do not commonly waste their time upon public parks and street pavements and the flies in legal amber. What they want to see is something new and astonishing, something fantastic and unearthly, something they cannot see at home—a Matterhorn, a Montmarte, a British Museum, an Acropolis, a White House, a Broadway, an Unter-den-Linden, a Mona Lisa, a Vatican, a Goethe-Haus, a Hofbräuhaus—people strangely garbed, buildings strangely built, a novel landscape, an exotic civilization.

These things we I can’t offer the American tourist. If he is familiar with Chicago or Milwaukee or Cincinnati or Kansas City or Cleveland or Buffalo or New Haven or Hartford or St. Louis, there is nothing in Baltimore that will give him the slightest thrill. All of our American commercial towns, in truth, have a depressing sameness. Dresden and Rome, London and Paris, Amsterdam and St. Petersburg, seem as unlike to the American as his mother-in-law and the Venus de Medici, but he cannot, for the life of him, see any essential difference between Baltimore and Philadelphia. A few abnormal towns arrest him—Washington on account of its parade of marble dignitaries, New York on account of its vastness and its pin-wheel gayety, San Francisco on account of its magnificent sinfulness. But the rest simply bore him.

No; the See-America-First gospel will not save us. It may carry a few dollars to Washington and a few more to New York, and it will undoubtedly increase the business of the transcontinental railroads, but it is not likely to overcrowd our Baltimore hotels. As a matter of fact, a See-Europe-First propaganda would probably profit us far more. The harbor of New York grows more and more congested; there is a chance that we may get, in time, a good share of its transatlantic passengers business; already one of the big lines favors us with a new and extremely inviting ship. It is estimated that the tourists who sail from and arrive at New York spend fully $50,000 a week in the New York hotels, year in and year out, and another $50,000 in the New York shops. If we can ensnare some of that trade, it will be money found. But what shall we gain by trying to ruin it?

H. L. Mencken