Baltimore Evening Sun (4 October 1911): 6.
Only three years, seven months and 14 days more! But will we be able to stand it?
Why not an Association for the Suppression of Prominent Baltimoreans? Isn’t the present moment a propitious one for ridding ourselves of that curse? The same old names bob up eternally. The same “leading” lawyers come to the front every time the body politic is doubled up by its perennial neuroses. The same “well-known” business men serve incessantly upon the same old public committees—committees which seldom most and never do anything. The same old frauds sit upon the stage, radiating respectability, whenever the organization has a ticket to put over. The same old platitudinizers favor us with their advice whenever the chance offers, and most of them make the chance when it doesn’t offer.
Isn’t it high time to undertake the cross-examination and assaying of these tedious Tuppers and Poloniuses? Many of them have been at it for years. Why not a systematic effort to get rid of them? Why not a public trial of them, one by one? Let each one come into court and tell us what he has actually done for Baltimore—what be has done of his own volition, without suggestion or urging—what he has done in the face of opposition. And let each one tell us, in turn, what ground he has for believing that his opinion about anything under the sun is worth a hoot to anyone. We have taken these solemn donkeys seriously for years. Now let us take them a bit more seriously—as seriously, for example, as we take the man who tries to sell us something.
The newspapers, of course, are to blame for the existence of many of our worst posturers. I once heard a reporter, far gone in liquor, make a bet that he could create a new “prominent Baltimorean” in four weeks. He picked out a nobody at random—a business man as obscure as it is possible for any human being to be. He wrote about that nobody for four weeks—printing his opinions, alluding to him constantly as “prominent” and “well known,” suggesting him for various high offices. He won the bet. His man became a “prominent Baltimorean”—and remains a “prominent Baltimorean” today.
But whatever the genesis of these solemn comedians, isn’t it high time to apply the acid to them? The way to do it is to organize a sort of vigilance committee—a permanent court for the trial of pretenders. Let that court summon the whole gang before it, one by one, and inquire into their claims. Let it weigh their public utterances. Let it judge their public services. Let it–
But stay! Isn’t it a fact that the members of the court, of the whole committee, would themselves become “prominent Baltimoreans” straightway? Alas, I fear so. And fearing so, I murder the scheme in its cradle! Baltimore will never escape! Not poppy, nor mandragora, or all the harsh bichlorldes of the world will ever cure us of that fearful plague!
Boil your City Councilman! Watch your drinking water! Dodge your taxes!
The standing of the clubs in the National Typhoid League, printed in this place from time to time, is based upon the number of cases reported during a given week. Let us now make another calculation, using deaths instead of cases as its basis. Baltimore, it will be seen, still leads:
| Baltimore | .............. | 161 | New York | ............. | 033 | |
| St. Louis | ................ | 058 | Boston | .................. | 029 | |
| Philadelphia | .......... | 051 | Chicago | ................ | 0__ |
This for the week ended September 9. It will be noted that the percentage of Baltimore is greater than the combined percentages of the next three cities, and almost as great as that of the next four. Your chances of dying of typhoid in Baltimore are three times as great as they would be if you lived in St. Louis or Philadelphia, five times as great as if you lived in New York or Boston, and 12 times as great as if you lived in Chicago. In only one American city of above 100,000 population, so far as I can discover, is the individual’s risk greater than in Baltimore. That city is Nashville, Tenn. There the ratio of cases to population is considerably lower than in Baltimore, but the death rate is slightly higher. ——— Here are comparative figures from various foreign cities, based upon deaths during the last week reported:
| Athens | ................. | 160 | Vienna | .................. | 000 | |
| Montreal | ............. | 155 | City of Mexico | ..... | 000 | |
| Carlo | ................... | 072 | Munich | ................. | 000 | |
| St. Petersburg | ...... | 063 | Amsterdam | ........... | 000 | |
| Dublin | ................. | 049 | Leipzig | .................. | 000 | |
| Frankfurt-a-M | ..... | 048 | Christiania | ............ | 000 | |
| Moscow | .............. | 040 | Hongkong | ............. | 000 | |
| Paris | .................... | 025 | Liverpool | ..............000 | ||
| London | ................ | 004 |
Meanwhile the First Branch City Council of Baltimore passes resolutions praising Mahon’s friend, scrambles for city jobs, embarrasses Cardinal Gibbons by its stupidity and makes an ass of itself in general—and the matter of combating typhoid in Baltimore languishes. Dr. Bosley’s favorable report on typhoid vaccination has been before it for two mouths. Nothing has been done. ——— From The Evening Sun of yesterday afternoon:
A number of Baltimoreans will accompany the Fifth Regiment when it leaves on Saturday for Atlanta, and will help to boost Baltimore. Mayor Preston expects to make the trip.
As Exhibit A, so to speak. Let us Shope that he will take Mahon, Padgett and O’Conor with him, and so strike the Atlantans dumb with envy.
On second thought, why not take the School Board too? If this is to be a boosting trip, why not carry our prize exhibits? Has Atlanta a Joesting, a Biggs?
Take documents as well as heroes! Fill a trunk with engrossed copies of the 78 presentments, of the minutes of the Board of Awards on the day of Padgett’s triumph, of the Prestoniads of Biggs and McCay!
Some suave reporter speaks of the Hon. William F. O’Conor as “the original Preston man.” Nonsense! The original Preston man was the Hon. James Harry Preston. He was the first to discover the merits of the Hon. James Harry Preston—and pretty soon be will be the last to admit them.
The tax rate must be kept down! And in order to keep it down the Appeal Tax Court raises assessments to the limit, water rents are to be increased and a multitude of special taxes are devised. Laugh, good friends! We are the goats!
The Voice of the People, as the incandescent zephyrs bounce it in:
I don’t believe in no penitentiary for them fellers. But the skeer won’t do ’em no harm.
Let us have any kind of new charter—so long as it is not a new charter satisfactory to the super-Mahon.