Baltimore Evening Sun (9 November 1911): 6.

Only 1,287 days more! But time enough! Time enough!

The Hon. the super-Mahon to the burghers assembled in Mann’s Hall, November 2:

I know where Arthur Gorman stands. Gorman is with me.

Ah, woe! Ah, repining! A bad, bad man to be with!

Boil your drinking water! Send your money to the boomers! Wait for the big show in the City Hall!

The Voice of the People, as the smoke brings it in:

Them boomers won’t never put nothin’ over on Harry Preston. Sonny may have got a wallop, but one wallop don’t hurt Sonny none.

Remark of the Hon. Daniel J. Loden, as reported in The Evening Sun:

You get word to him that he’d a —— sight better get out of bed and stay on the job.

So even good old Dan is to be edited, purified, denaturized! Another of virtue’s crimes! Dan is a forthright, a plain-speaking man. When he swears, he swears. Why try to convert him into a Rollo? Why disembowel his parts of speech?

Now appear soothsayers with the news that the ruling camorra has been overthrown, that a stinging and fatal rebuke has been administered to the Hon. John J, Mahon and his merry men, that we are free at last from their abhorrent clutches. In proof whereof the corpses of the Hon. Robert H. Carr and the Hon. J. Albert Hughes are hauled upon the stage and their wounds exhibited. The bugle sounds taps. An inspiring and affecting scene.

Unluckily for those who gloat, it is only play-acting–and pretty obvious play-acting at that. If you think, indeed, that the Hon. John J. Mahon is scotched, or that his business as a dealer in jobs and legislation is ruined, then you think something that is true only in a purely figurative and fanciful sense. As a matter of fact, the honorable gentleman and his associates are still in business at the old stand, with a fine stock of marketable goods, and though that stock is not quite so large as it might have been had the Hon. Arthur Pue Gorman, Jr., the Hon. Robert H. Carr, the Hon. L Albert Hughes and the rest of the brotherhood triumphed, it is still large enough to tempt all the firm’s regular customers and to give a political living to every partner.

Forget not, O soothsayers, that the Hon. James Harry Preston is still Mayor of Baltimore, that all the haruspices favor his continuance as Mayor of Baltimore until the Tuesday next after the first Monday in May, 1914, a period of 1,287 days and nights, and that so long as he continues Mayor the ruling camorra will not cease to rule. True enough, there may be differences, even duels and homicides, within. the Council chamber. Frank Kelly may be heaved out of the window, a shapeless and pathetic carcass; theis understrapper or that my have his mouth pried open and his system filled with BN shot; the Hon. Mr. Mahon himself may lose his blood and his sceptre to the Hon. the super-Mahon, his creature, confidante and rival.

But, whatever the changes in the directorate, the corporation itself will remaln unchanged. A camorra headed by one boss is identical in all essentials with a camorra headed by any other boss. Whether the Hon. Mr. Preston acts as agent for the Hon. Mr. Mahon or as agent for himself, it’s all one. We are assured, whatever the event, that the Preston administration will be thoroughly old-fashioned, which means that it will be devoted chiefly, if not entirely, to the welfare of those persons who make politics their trade.

Altogether, there are 5,000 jobs under the city government of Baltimore, and every one of them, you may rest assured, will be awarded in such a manner that it will contribute to the strength of the camorra. The department heads in the City Hall have been deftly chosen with that end in view. Such rebels against camorral authority as Fendall, Quick and Numsen have been discharged for their contumacy. The administrative boards are now all safe and sane. Those department heads who hang over from Mahoolian days have kissed the book. The way is thus clear for doing business in the old-fashioned manner. The prosperity of the ruling camorra is certain—and whether that camorra consists, at the end of three years, of its present members, or of entirely new members, or of the Hon. Mr. Preston alone, is a detail of no importance. A camorra is a camorra. You may change its personnel, but its eternal principles and its eternal pertume will remain.

Had the city ticket won on Tuesday a few more jobs would have been added to the stock, but not enough to excite a wholesaler. Had the State ticket won, and had the Hon. Mr. Gorman justified the Hon Mr. Preston’s incautious advance notices, there would have been something more–a share of the State jobs, to wit and in particular, the Liquor License and Police Boards, with their tempting camorral possibilities. As it is, the camorra must concentrate its attention upon the 5,000 city jobs and upon the promising crop of city contracts—not as much as it hoped for, perhaps, but yet enough to keep it busy.

The Liquor License and Police Boards, I am told, are still held to be reachable, though not actually reached. Perhaps the city delegation at Annapolis, which seems in the main to be safely camorral, may be induced to raise once more the old cry of Home Rule. Perhaps the peasant members may be induced to lend ear, to weep sympathetically, to come forward with their ayes. If so, the two boards will fall into the hands of the ruling camorra–and it will be the gainer to that extent. But the Hon. Phillips Lee Goldsborough, of course, stands in the way of that consummation. Let him stand! The thing is not necessary: the game can be played without it.

Once more The Sun is ruined. This must be the eighth or ninth time since 1895. The last time was in the spring, when the Hon. the super-Mahon done the deed. The Hon. the super-Mahon is a great success as a ruinationist. So were his predecessors.

A little study in comparative orthography:

American English. Annex................................................ Annexe Cider.................................................. Cyder Connection........................................ Connexion Color................................................. Colour Harbor............................................... Harbour Honor................................................ Honour Labor................................................. Labour Jail..................................................... Gaol Tire.................................................... Tyre

All that remains is for the Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association to pass resolutions.