Baltimore Evening Sun (9 February 1912): 6.

Whatever the merits of the Quarles-Dickey charter otherwise, its provision for legislating the Hon. Mahoni Amicus out of office in 1913 is obviously unfair, disingenuous, oblique and indecent, and so it will richly deserve the defeat it seems certain to meet at the hands of the faithful ward heelers and honest peasants at Annapolis.

The Hon. Mr. Amicus, when he stood before the people of Baltimore as candidate for his present high office, expounded his plans and principles without the slightest attempt at concealment. He admitted frankly that he was against the merit system, that he was against all scientific pedagogy in the public schools, that he was thoroughly in favor of political manipulation and chicanery. He made, time and time again, the specific promise that he would appoint only political bravos of his own faith to public office. He engaged himself, on his word of honor, to rout out every existing exponent of what reformers commonly denominate good government.

Standing upon this platform, in the open light of day, the Hon. Mr. Amicus won the enthusiastic support, not only of pothouse politicians and other such vermin, but also of many Prominent Baltimoreans—of whom, perhaps, the Hon. Francis King Carey may serve as an affecting example. And what is more, he was triumphantly and indubitably elected, and in the face of extremely violent newspaper attack; for if the actual vote he polled, barring artificial encores, was probably less than a majority of all the votes cast, it was still plainly a majority of all the votes cast by white men.

Well, how has he carried out his promises? Has he tried to do what he said he would do, or has he sought to escape the doing? Certainly every fair man must admit that he has made an honest endeavor to keep faith. Now and then, true enough, the pressure of his environment has forced him into certain compromises and temporizations. In the Fire Department, for example, he has yielded a bit to the merit system. In various other departments he has kept competent men to jobs that are loudly demanded by incompetent men. But on th whole, it must be confessed that he has done his best. The public schools are now happily rid of all intelligence; most of the city departments are in charge of either lackeys or professional politicians; the ward executive is restored to his old dignity and potency; we are having a genuine Old-Fashioned Administration.

But are the boomers satisfied? Do they admit the good intent of the Hon. Mr. Amicus, despite his occasional failures and half-failures, and praise him frankly for trying to carry out his platform pledges? Not at all. On the contrary, they hatch a conspiracy to discredit him, to undermine him, to legislate him out of office. Because they themselves, as individuals, voted against him and abhor his principles, they seek to obfuscate and defy the plain fact that the majority of white voters of Baltimore voted for him, and remain with him, almost to a man, today. And in doing all this they lay themselves open to that just wallop which is undoubtedly coming to them.

Even assuming that the Hon. Mr. Amicus is a dangerous man, that his theory of government is erroneous, that four years of him will be sufficient to debauch the public service almost beyond remedy—even assuming all this, it is yet no more than fair that he be permitted to serve out his full term. The people eleted him with their eyes open and for better or for worse. If he makes, at the end, a wise and useful Mayor, then they should get the whole benefit of it. And if he makes, on the contrary, the worst Mayor Baltimore has ever had, then they should be forced to bear it. It would be wrong to rob them of the possible benefits of his wire-pulling, and it would be equally wrong, if not actually more wrong, to save them from the probable damage.

In brief, the so-called recall scheme, whatever its form, is bound to be evil in its effects. It relieves the voters of a community of the bitter consequences of their own folly, and so it encourages them to make experiments, to try out dubious and dangerous candidates. Under it, they feel that they can afford to take a chanlce, for the candidate who turns out badly can always be deposed from his job. And so safeguarded, they run amuck. Instead of weighing candidates carefully, they shoot dice. And instead of suffering, later on, the natural penalty of that imbecility, they seek relief in another imbecility.

If it be true, as many of his enemies declare, that the Hon. Mr. Amicus was elected, not on his platform, but on his tears—that his affecting protests against newspaper persecution aroused sympathy for him and so got him votes enough to win—then it is all the more important that he be permitted to serve out his term, and not only serve it out to the end, but also without legislative interference. That is to say, there should be no revision of the charter, or, at all events, no revision in the direction of curtailing or conditioning his powers. For if the voters of Baltimore elected him emotionally, then it is highly important that they learn, once and for all time, how costly it is to let emotion sway judgment.

That lesson, if the Old-Fashioned Administration is only bad enough to teach it and rub it in, will more than offset the degradation of the schools, the restoration of the job-broker and the pollution of the public service in general. Such evils can be remedied. They are, in their very nature, temporary. The dismissal of a score or more of reactionaries and sycophants will end them. But the lesson itself will stick. Next time the voters of Baltimore go to the polls they will go with dry eyes. The sobs of a martyr will melt them no more. They will have graven upon their hearts the capital fact that it is dangerous to reason by emotion. They will have made escape from that sentimentality which is the worst curse of democracies, as it is of individuals.

Let us, then, have an end of all this effort to legislate the Hon. Mr. Amicus out of office, either actually or by tying his hands. We elected him with our eyes open and he deserves his fair chance. He is on the level. He is not doing anything today that he promised not to do in his campaign. No man could make a more gallant effort to carry out his pledges. If, as some say, he is doing damage to Baltimore, then Baltimore deserves to suffer and bear that damage. To turn on him now, after electing him by free choice, would be to display a degree of cowardice, of insincerity, of bad sportsmanship impossible to a self-respecting people. Let us play the game according to the rules. Let us show the world that we are not a crowd of cry-babies.