Baltimore Evening Sun (17 January 1912): 6.

Platitudinous piffle from yesterdy’s evening edition of the admintstration’s masseur:

A STARLET. How easy it is to destroy authority in a community when you wrongfully attack the rights of an administrator, simply because you do not see or understand his line of duty. Brave, indeed, is he who can rise above the clamor of the populace. To give way under such duress is sure to be taken as an admission of bad government. The superior man, though, knows how to improve his opportunities. Just as the mariner trims his sails to the favorable winds and brings his ship safe into harbor. Felix.

To which may be added, by way of polite comment:

ANOTHER STARLET. To defend legitimate authority when it is under fire, to say a good word for the man who is misjudged and misunderstood, to speak for charity and peace and good-will—that is one thing. But to play the lackey and the sychophant, to fawn and flatter without shame, to bawl absurd hallelujahs and for hire, to feed a preposterous vanity at the expense of honest worth, to deal at wholesale in apologies and false pretenses, to give aid and comfort to the sworn foes of that common decency in government for which brave and honorable men have been battling for years, to prance at the whistle, to blubber at the crack of the whip—all that is quite another thing. And what is more, the people of sense in this town are well aware of the difference between tho one thing and the other thing. Super Felix.

In the Letter Column of today’s Evening Sun you will find a letter from the Hon. Henry A. McMains, D. O., corresponding secretary of the League for Medical “Freedom,” Maryland Branch—the first reply he has ever ventured to make to my repeated requests that he substantiate his statement that a number of educated and undoubted physicians—that is to say, holders of M. D. degrees from first-class and “regulur” medical colleges—are members of that absurd camorra, along with its Christian Scientists, osteopaths, osseocaputs, vegetarians, anti-vivisectionists and other such unconscious comedians.

The Hon. Mr. McMains made the said statement in a letter to The Evening Sun dated November 17 last and I at once challenged him to come forward with his evidence. On December 6, hoping thus to encourage him, I offered him a cheap but aseptic.ciaur for each and every name of an allopath in good standing on his rolls. On December 8 I repeated the offer; the day afterward I increased my bid to two cigars; on December 14 I went to three, on December 16 to four, on December 22 to five, on December 29 to six, and on January 1 to seven. Since then I have repeated the last offer almost daily.

Now, at last comes the Hon. Mr. McMains with his long-delayed reply. It is an unqualified declination of my challenge, and as excuse for that declination he submits the following asseverations:

1. That some of the allopaths who “belong” to the League for Medical “Freedom,” Maryland Branch, are also members of the American Medical Association—i. e., the “Medical Trust”—and that if the fact of their membership in the league became known, they would be expelled from the association and so suffer professional damage.

2. That certain others, while not members of the association and so not subject to expulsion, would be damaged by my own hot scorn and reproach.

Such is the preposterous answer of the Hon. Henry A. McMains, D. O. What he says, in effect, in his first asseveration, as the astute reader will quickly see, is that his alleged allopaths have no more courage than so many rats. Firmly convinced that the American Medical Association is a trust organized for the deliberate purpose of poisoning and robbing the American people—see any speech by any League for Medical “Freedom” rabble-rouser—they yet belong to that abhorrent trust, submit to its mandates, pay its dues and conceal the fact of their opposition—all for purposes of personal welfare and revenue. That is to say, they sell their common honor. That is to say, they are hypocrites and mountebanks. That is to say, they are cowards and boobies.

As for me, I don’t believe a word of it. The members of the League for Medical “Freedom,” I am firmly convinced, are mistaken in 99 per cent. of their public statements, and in fully 50 per cent. of tose statements self-interest and error are inextricably mingled, but that they are conscious and deliberate liars I do not presume to maintain. I prefer to look upon them simply as well-meaning and amiable persons who suffer from nothing worse than a constitutional inability to weigh evidence accurately. Some of them believe that cancer may be cured by reading out of a book; others that all, or nearly all, diseases may be cured by massage; yet others that a guinea pig is more valuable than a baby. These beliefs are errors, but it is no crime to fall into error. But it is a crime to live or act a deliberate lie—and that crime I do not charge to the freedomists, no matter what the Hon. Mr. McMains may say.

Accordingly, I return his asseverations for repairs and offer him a further chance to prove the truth of his statement of November 17. That to to say, I offer him seven cheap but clean cigars if he will state publicly over his signature and on his word of honor as a man that there appears upon the roll of the League for Medical “Freedom,” Maryland Branch, the name of a single allopath who holds the degree of doctor of medicine from any American medical college on the American Medical Association’s first-class list and is a member in good standing of the said association. I do not ask for the name of this allopath, I merely ask for the Hon. Mr. McMains’ personal word of honor. And if for any reason he hesitates to accept this challenge, I hereby change its terms. That to to say, I propose the appointment of a committee of three men, one to be named by me, one by the Hon. Mr. McMains and the third to be selected by the other two, to inspect the roll of the League for Medical “Freedom,” Maryland branch, under a pledge of secrecy. If this committee reports to me that it can find one member who meets the conditions laid down above, then I

[Probably continued tomorrow.]