Baltimore Evening Sun (27 February 1912): 6.

Trees budding. Perambulators. Purple neckties. Shoppers. Bock beer. Spring!

ROUND 2.

Anderson pushed the fighting from the tap of the gong and quickly brought Young Cleveland to the ropes. A straight to the neck and a left hook to the ear seemed to jar the latter greatly, and he devoted his main efforts to protecting himself. Following a short clinch, in which Young Cleveland hung on, Anderson landed four times on the head. Another clinch. In the breakaway Anderson swung to the jaw and Young Cleveland went to his knees. At the count of six he was up again, and proceeded to a game of hugging, which brought forth hoots from the gallery. When the referee separated the boys, Young Cleveland landed two brisk wallops upon the ribs, but Anderson countered with a terrific right straight to the neck, and Young Cleveland went down again. At the count of four the gong sounded and Young Cleveland was assisted to his corner by Jake Hook and Bob Lee. The claret enveloped him in its carmine mists and he seemed to be badly winded. Anderson, on the contrary, was apparently in very good condition. Anderson’s round.

Suggestion from some blackhearted foe to the true, the good and the beautiful:

Why not a public subscription to buy a gold-tipped rooster feather for the Hon. Jake Hook? If he is to continue tickling the super-Mahon, he should certainly be equipped with proper tools. Let me start the thing going with $5 cash.

An excellent suggestion. And it’s a pleasure to add $100 to the fund. Let the gold tip be diamond-studded.

From an article in a local paper, describing the ice-jam in the Patapsco Valley:

The noise made by the ice moving like a thief in the night is louder than ever before.

Which suggests the inquiry: If a thief in the night, disdaining tradition, makes as much noise as an adult stone-crusher, how much noise does a footpad make?

Lexicographical note by the Hon. Daniel Joseph Loden, J. P., ret.:

A Democrat is a party man who eats his soup with a spoon, not with a fork.

And who uses a wad of aseptic cotton to soak up whatever the spoon misses.

Good old Dan! A fellow of parts, believe me. So far as I know, the only absolutely honest politician in Baltimore. You never hear of Dan emitting balderdash. His preference is always for the cold facts, and he commonly sets forth those facts in an extremely good-humored and amusing manner. Do you remember his Lehmann’s Hall speech in the autumn campaign—how he described the nomination of the super-Mahon in the cellar of 23 West Saratoga street? Well, that was typical of Dan. The rest of the so-called “leaders” were then tryIng to convince themselves and the public that the nomination of the super-Mahon was the fruit of an irresistible public demand—that the people bawled for him—that it would have been impossible to nominate anyone else. But Dan told the truth—not maliciously, not in any effort to hurt the super-Mahon, but simply because the truth ever comes handiest to him.

The trouble with the average politician is that he is a hypocrite. He is always trying to make the public believe that his intentions are altruistic and noble. He depicts himself as a man harassed by cares he would willingly lay down—as one thrust against his will into crushing and thankless labors—as a pathetic victim of newspaper libels—as a pure spirit foully accused. Even when engaged in the enterprise of scrambling for jobs, he tries to give it a patriotic color. That is to say, he seeks to make it appear that the incumbents are scoundrels, and that he is thus performing a highly creditable public act in routing them out.

But not so Dan. No one ever heard him let loose any such nonsense. He will tell you frankly, if you ask him, that he considers public office the legitimate reward of political activity. He will argue that the very same incentive moves reformers and politicians alike—that is, the thirst for spoils, in glory or actual money. He will clear away all the sentimental rumble-bumble about democracy and show you the essential fact about it—the fact, to wit, that it makes government a battle between two opposing gangs of men, one of which wants to get what it hasn’t got and the other of which wants to hold on to what it has got. And he will present his arguments and its lesson in a perfectly straightforward and unashamed way, without trying to woo you with hollow words and without trying to convince you that he himself is an angel.

For such a man as Dan Loden it is possible to have a good deal of respect, however much you may wish his particular brand of politics were impossible. He doesn’t try to make anyone believe he is something that he is not. He is not a fake-martyr. He is not a bogus reformer. He doesn’t wave the lily-white flag with one hand and reach out for the spoils with the other. His number is always plainly visible. He wears no false whiskers, no hero’s chemise. And in the administration of such public offices as he has held, it may be said frankly that he has shown himself to be fully as faithful and conscientious a man as the average virtuoso of virtue.

The super-Mahon! The super-Mahon! The earliest of the also-ran!

The betting odds in the downtown kaifs, as my circulating wine-bibbers bring them in:

10 to 1 that Anderson sends the super-Mahon to the mat before the 10th round. 1,000 to 1 that Bob don’t lose nothing.

Thousands of dollars to make Baltimore as garish at night as the front of a moving- picture parlor—but not a darn cent for typhoid!

What has become, by the way, of that appropriation of $25,000 for the Harry Committee?

Only 32 days more of flubdub and fol-de-rol at Annapolis! Then the boys will go back to work and the rest of us will feel safer.

The radiations of the City Council having been reduced to 500 volts, it is now considered safe for citizens to enter the City Hall without wearing clothes-pins.