Baltimore Evening Sun (2 October 1911): 6.

More activity at home; more publicity abroad:

[From the Washington Herald.]

CROTHERS URGES GORMAN TO QUIT MARYLAND RACE —— The Recount In Baltimore Shows Fraud At Polls.

[From the Philadelphia Record.]

FRAUD GIVES WHIP HAND TO CROTHERS —— Governor Will Make Machine Accept His Terms If He Calls Legislature. —— [From the Washington Post.]

ELECTION SCANDAL GROWS

Mayland Democratic “Machine” Is Insistent On Special Session.

The lesson for the day is the Eighth Commandment.

The American language, so loose, so lovely:

They ain’t got nothin’ on them parties what they kin handle ’em on.

The real motto of the Old-Fashioned Administration:

The public be d———d!

Come on, boys: the time is getting short! Three cheap but clean cigars to any reputable person, male or female, old or young, sane or insane, who will state publicly, on his, her or its word of honor, that he, she or it believes that Mahon’s intimate was actually elected in May.

The Hon. J. Albert Hughes still dreams that rosy, golden dream. But no doubt he will awake with a start at the coroner’s inquest.

From the gentlemen who now beg for sympathy and protest pathetically that they never knew that nothing wrong was being did—kind fates, deliver us!

From The Evening Sun of Saturday afternoon:

With the accused officials from the Tenth ward came William F. O’Conor, Democratic leader of that ward.

Enjoying a brief holiday, as it were, from his high duties of state at the Mayor’s office.

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

None of them guys won’t never go to no penitentiary. It ain’t nothin but them reformers shootin’ off their hot air ag’in.

Wegg is still hard at it, but what, oh what, has become of the eloquent Biggs?

Three years seven months and fifteen days more—unless—if—provided–in case–perhaps–!!

So far the grand jury has recounted the votes in about 60 of the 321 precincts and made presentments of 72 election officials. If this ratio of presentments to precincts is kept up throughout the city, there will be about 400 presentments in all. But we may well assume that the worst precincts have been covered, that the ratio will fall steadily. Certain prophets predict that the presentments will actually stop at 180. Let us be on the safe side and make the number 160.

Will it be possible to convict all of these men? Will it be possible to convict even those against whom the evidence seems clear and indisputable? Let us not be too sure of it. The clerks, it appears, are not involved prima facie. It is perfectly possible to imagine a stupid clerk or an indifferent clerk sitting through the whole comedy without suspecting that anything was wrong. And when it comes to convicting the judges, let no man underestimate the influences against that consummation—influences having their rise in friendship, in sympathy, in neighborliness, in the fear of offending politicians, in the almost universal American feeling that cheating at elections is not a crime at all, but merely a pleasant sport with humorous touches, like stealing barrels on election night.

The great masses of the plain people are not hot for this investigation. Unless, indeed, the spies that I have sent out are shameless liars, they are actually hot against it. The ward and precinct leaders assure all who will give them ear that the whole thing is a conspiracy of sore-heads and newspapers—the former moved by revenge, the latter by a desire to make a sensation, to “fill up space,” to “get something on somebody.” The motives of the grand jury are openly impugned. In brief, a counter-reformation is in full blast—and the evangelists in charge of it are specialists in rabble-rousing. As such they make no attempt to meet fact with fact. Their one appeal to to the emotions. And that is the way to convince, to move, to enlist the American people.

If there were but a score or so of prisoners, it might be possible to treat them so ordinary offenders against the laws. But when you put 160 men into the dock, all charged with the same crime and in the same community, you come dangerously near indicting a whole people. And if not a whole people, then the friends and friends’ friends of a people. I encountered, the other day, a group or six men discussing the scandal. One of them mentioned the fact that he was related to one of the accused judges and acquainted with two more. Three others in the group confessed that they, too, enjoyed such honors. Good jury material!

Let us overlook no single rescuer. For example, the Hon. Joshua Frederick Cockey Talbott. No sooner did the alarm bell ring than that brave old vamp came galloping down the York road. Mr. Talbott was the very man for the emergency. He has devoted all the years of a long, long life to the cause of clean politics. He has battled incessantly and effectively against political corruption in all its forms. Let us not forget to thank him for the aid he sought to give us in our hour of need. His advice to Governor Crothers, we way be sure, was that of a disinterested patriot, that of a man honorable and of honor, that of one who has always placed the good of the community above his own private advantage.

The battle-cry of those who yearn for swift release:

Preston? … Change!