Baltimore Evening Sun (27 September 1911): 6.

More activity at home; more publicity abroad:

[From the Philadelphia Record.]

GORMAN MACHINE ACCUSED OF FRAUD

Baltimore Grand Jury Impeaches Democratic Organization In Drastic Report

Nomination And Election Of Mayor Preston Involved By The Disclosure.

[From the Washington Herald.]

BALTIMORE JURY BEGINS RECOUNT

Primary Frauds Sought In The Fourth Ward.

[From the Washington Post.]

URGE LEGISLATIVE INQUIRY

Maryland Democratic Leaders Want Vote Fraud Charges Sifted.

Governor Crothers Asked At Con- ference To Call Special Session, And May Do So Today.

[From the New York Times.]

BALLOT CONSPIRACY CHARGE

Court, On Grand Jury’s Petition, Or- ders Primary Election Recount.

The lesson for the day to from Article XXXIII, chapter 114, of the Public General Laws of Maryland.

From the apologia of the assiduous Biggs (Sept. 21):

Mayor Preston today, if seeking re-election, would be successful by a large majority.

And it would be just as real as that he got in May.

The situation brings forth the usual virtuous flubdub. Eminent barristers go into court and try to launch processes so obviously illegal that the very charwomen of the temple of justice laugh at them. Democrats of self-confessed distinction—professional prominent citizens—Himalayan magnificoes—force the Governor to call an extra session of the Legislature, that the primary ballots may be recounted, that the so-called election may be “investigated,” that the gaping crevices in the law may be repaired with putty.

Pooh, pooh, dear hearts! Why not get down to cases? Why not ask the Legislature to knock out Preston and the Mahon camorra at one blow? Why not ask it to repeal the charter, establish the commission form of government in Baltimore—and put the following commissioners into the City Hall:

George N. Numsen (president). Thomas G. Hayes. Roger W. Cull. John T. M. Finney. Edwin G. Baetjer.

This commission might hold office until an election could be held—say until next May. And then it might be renominated by petition and run against a strictly old-fashioned ticket—for instance:

James Harry Preston (President). Frank Kelly. Bob Padgett. George N. Lewis. Sonny Mahon.

In brief, why not seize the bull by the horns? Why give us music when we really need chloride of lime? Unless you favor us with a ripper bill, senors, we are going to have Prestonism and Mahonism for three years seven months and eighteen days longer. And the taste of that medicine already tortures our tonsils!

The following unofficial appointments were not in the yellow green bag:

Prime Minister—The Hon. Bill O’Conor. President of the Board of Public Works—The Hon. Bob Padgett. Procurator-General of the Unholy Synod—The Hon. Sonny Mahon.

But though they weren’t in the yellow green bag, they stand all the same.

Come on, Professor Joesting: tell us the name of that dare-devil who “was going” to throw a reporter out—and then changed his mind.

The Voice of the People, as the hot siroccos waft it in:

Now you just watch them Republicans in the Water Department. Nobody ain’t goin’ to run Preston out; he’s too slick for them reformers.

Still swelling—but one with a needle approaches!

J. Albert Hughes! J. Albert Hughes! Whichever way she jumps—you lose!

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the foremost public gazette of the Mississippi Valley:

Baltimore is being talked about * * * because one of its commercial associations filled 2,000 bottles with printed lists of its advantages and threw them into the Atlantic, so that they would be strung out from the Chesapeake Bay to Cape Cod. This was an experiment, otherwise spoken of as a “stunt.” It is so far successful that it has resulted in having Baltimore mentioned in connection with its bottled virtues for a day or so. To that extent it is notoriety, but is it advertising?

The Post-Dispatch answers its own question. It has no faith in bottles and none in stunts. It says:

The most successful stunts are always likely to be the worst advertisements. If the president of the Baltimore Commercial Association (Advertising Club) were to begin turning handsprings in the street, announcing his own merits or those of Baltimore at every turn, it would attract attention, but who will argue that it would be the real advertising which inspires confidence and helps those who do not know each other personally to co-operate in business?

Go to, good Post-Dispatch! You are out of date—out of the movement—a killjoy—a knocker! Don’t you know that any publicity, however absurd, is bound to sell our goods? Don’t you know that the American people, everything else being equal, always buy their undershirts and theri parlor carpets from that city which best amuses them?