Baltimore Evening Sun (28 February 1912): 6.

ROUND 3

At the stroke of the gong the boys clinched and the re-referee had great difficulty in separating them. Young Jackson, apparently in fear of Anderson’s gloves, hung on. When, finally, they were pushed apart, Anderson let drive with a right straight to the neck, which sent Young Cleveland to the ropes. But before Anderson could reach him for another, he recovered himself and ran to the other side of the ring. Cries of “Fake!” from the gallery. When the boys got together again, there was a moment of light sparring. Then Anderson landed, in quick succession, five left hooks to the side of the head, followed by a straight to the nose, which knocked Young Cleveland down. He arose at the count of seven and was floored again. When he got up the second time the boys clinched, young Cleveland holding on as before. After separation by the referee, another clinch followed, and then another. A second before the gong struck, Young Cleveland was forced to the ropes by a very low straight. Once in his corner, he arose from his chair and made faces at his antagonist. Meanwhile the hall was in an uproar, and cries of “Fake!” and “Frame-up!”were mingled with demands that the police stop the bout. Anderson’s round.

In today’s Letter Column you will find a bitter letter from the Hon. Samuel E. Pentz, counsel of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, in which he attacks me for favoring the current Vice Crusade with a few light snickers. Unluckily, I remain unconverted by the Hon. Mr. Pentz’s remarks. When he says that the society he represents is opening fire upon the so-called social evil, cherishes a hope of getting rid of this “disgrace entirely,” then I reply “Oh, la, la!” And when he says that disorderly houses are not licensed in Baltimore, and offers in proof the fact that the law provides for no such licensing, then I reply “Oh, la, la!” again.

The fact is, as everyone knows, that the laws of Maryland deal with the social evil, not intelligently, but merely morally. That is to say, they utterly prohibit it. But inasmuch as this prohibition can no more stop it than the idiotic Blue Laws can stop the sale of chewing gum on Sunday, it becomes necessary for the police to deal with the matter in some practicable fashion. The device they have worked out is that of licensing. Keepers of disorderly houses get permits from the police captains and are subject to rules and regulations laid down by those officials. Once a year they are rounded up and brought into court and there they are “fined.” That “fine,” of course, is really a license fee. It has three good effects. One is that it puts every disorderly house in town upon a public record. Another is that, by the possibility of adjusting the “fine” to the character and conduct of the place, it provides a ready means of punishing house keepers who resist or evade police regulation. The third is that it greatly simplifies the work of the police.

That it would be a good thing if the social evil could be wholly stamped out in Baltimore, I am prepared to admit for the sake of argument. But that any such thing is possible I unqualifiedly deny. And in support of that denial I offer the experience of every large city in Christendom and the testimony of every serious student of the matter. At last night’s meeting of the Vice Crusaders one of the spellbinders told how he and others had “cleaned up” Chicago. Rubbish! Chicago is no more “cleaned up,” in any intelligible sense, than New York. Certain associated evils have been separated, perhaps, from the sovial evil, but the latter remains. In Baltimore those associated evils—robbery, white-slave trading, etc.—are held down by the license system. And Baltimore is four times as clean as Chicago.

The Hon. Mr. Pentz makes two further statements. One is that the license system has “not restricted these houses to a few neighborhoods.” The other is that the social evil is “constantly growing” in Baltimore. The former statement has a touch of truth, but at bottom it is entirely untrue. Of the 300 disorderly houses in Baltimore, fully 260, I should say, are in restricted neighborboods—and the rest are conducted so quietly that few are aware of their existence. The second statement is likewise both true and false. The social evil, true enough, may be growing in Baltimore, but the prosperity of the actual disorderly house is declining. The causes of this change are very complex and obscure, and I can’t go into them here.

Meanwhile, let me reiterate the opinion that the participation of professional moralists in the discussion of the problem will not help to its solution. It is essentially a problem for practical men—men who esteem a harsh fact far more than they esteem a sonorous platitude. The present licensing system, I freely grant, is not perfect. But if it is ever to be improved, it must be improved by a square facing of the whole truth, and not by a pious emission of half-truths and rumble-bumble.

Sat what you will ag’inst Al Owens, anyhow you gotta admit he skeered them stuffers some. But Bill Broening don’t even skeer ’em.

The proposal to buy, by public subscription, a gold-mounted rooster feather for the Hon. Jacobus Hook, tickler-in-ordinary to the Hon. the super-Mahon, seems to be meeting popular approval. The correspondent who made it opened the subscription with $6, and I myself, in an expansive moment, added $100. Up to noon today the following additional subscriptions had been received:

Cash......................................................................$1
J. S. ..................................................................... 5
An Honorary Pallbearer........................................10
Employes of Tax Department...............................16.75
Gay Street..............................................................10
D. J. Loden............................................................. 5
R. C. S. .................................................................. 5
Omar Hershey........................................................10
Nurses at Sydenham Hospital................................. 1
_______ 63.75
Previously acknowledged....................................105.00
Total to date.......................................................$168.75

With so much money already in sight, I have taken the liberty of engaging a leading firm of jewelers to make a design for the mounting of the feather. That mounting will be of 18-carat gold and the settings will be diamonds and emeralds. The whole will be inclosed in a handsome morocco case bearing the coat-of-arms of Col. Hook in hammered silver.

Only 31 days more of amateur lawmaking at Annapolis! And then a sudden halt, and a benign hiatus of 21 months!