Baltimore Evening Sun (6 March 1912): 6.

Who will nominate Harry on the floor of the convention? The question seems to be disturbing the minds of the plain people, for I have received half a dosen proposals for its solution during the last two weeks. Probably the best of them is this:

Why not submit the thing to popular vote? That is to say, let a number of men be placed in nomination, and then let the people decide. Col. Jake Hook would be an excellent man for the honor. He can make a good speech, and he is one of Harry’s most sincere admirers. If you can see your way clear to tabulating the vote and to giving space to its daily progress, you will contribute your mite to Baltimore’s greatest triumph.

A very sapient suggestion, and one which I hasten to adopt. Below you will find a voting coupon. Insert the name of your choice, sign your own name, and then send the coupon to the office of The Evening Sun. The total vote will be published daily until April 1, when the result will be announced. Thus the coupon:

For the honor of placing the Hon. Mahoni Amicus in nomination as Democratic candidate for Vice-President of the United States, I vote for

The Hon. ....................... Signed ...........................

Merely as a suggestion, and without any intention of influencing the vote, I start the poll by giving the following gentlemen one vote each:

The Hon. Jacobus Hook............................................1
The Hon. Bob Lee.....................................................1
Hon. Aristides Sophocles Goldsborough..................1
The Hon. McCay McCoy..........................................1
The Hon. John Walter Smith....................................1
The Hon. Francis K. Carey.......................................1

My spies and tipsters at Annapolis send me news of great distress smong the lobbyists assembled in that fair city. Time was when these gentlemen were of almost disgusting opulence, for the stream of sumptuary legislation kept then constantly supplied with work and money, but that time, alas, is no more. The passage of the public service act cut them off from a large and steady revenue, and various other causes have contributed to their undoing. The six-for-a-quarter bill is no more; the 80-cent gas bill lives but in memory; the manufacture of theoretical railway charters ceases; even the brewers now refuse to loosen up. The pickings that remain are so meagre that they are insufficient to sustain more than two or three men. The result is bitter suffering in the corps.

Certainly the pathetic situation of gentlemen who were once so prosperous, and withal so liberal, must appeal to every humanitarian. It may be true enough that lobbying is now under the ban, but let no one forget that it was once a lawful and honorable calling, to which leading lawyers and well-known business men did not hesitate, on occasion, to engage. Those men who went into it at that time, professionally and in good faith, who dedicated their whole energies to its mysteries, and who now look to it for the support of their wives and children--to such men, it is manifest, our sympathies must go out. Robbed of their livelihood by harsh laws, they find themselves suddenly plunged from the heights of prosperity into the most abject poverty.

Why not a public subscription for their maintenance, at least until they can get other work? I shall be glad to appoint one of my Annapolis agents to receive donations of money and supplies and to distribute them discreetly. At the moment, I am informed, the greatest needs are for woolen underwear, chewing tobacco and groceries. In connection with the local Red Cross Society I have engaged the Mayor’s reception room at the City Hall for the accumulation of supplies, and anything sent there will be promptly acknowledged and forwarded. If enough cash is received, a carload of wheat will be sent to the sufferers.

What blight has fallen upon the spiritualist mediums of Baltimore? I remember the time when it was always possible to get a good one for an evening’s divertisement by the simple process of blowing a whistle--but here I have been advertising for two weeks and not a single first-class operator has bobbed up. Not that applicants have been entirely lacking. On the contrary, about half a dozen have dropped in to solicit my trade. But what a frowsy gang of obese apple-women and dipsomanic ex-embalmers! Three of them were in obvious need of baths, and one positively demanded pasteurizing. What I want, of course, is a performer of decidedly higher grade--one fit for taking into decent society and able to do all of the slate- writing and heavenly message tricks in a workmanlike and civilized fashion. In particular, I want one who can produce plausible messages from Andrew Jackson, Francois Rabelais and Robert G. Ingersoll. If any gentleman in the house will kindly favor me with the name and address of such a medium, I shall be glad to pay him 25 cents for the information. Furthermore, I shall be glad to guarantee the medium a collection of $3 a seance, in addition to the cigars and malt liquor.

The standing of the clubs in the National Typhoid League for the week ending February 10:

Pittsburgh...........................513 Philadelphia...........................064
St. Louis.............................291 Boston....................................000
New York..........................147 Cleveland...............................000
Chicago.............................137 BALTIMORE......................000

What! The Orioles tail-enders! Has it come to this? Can such things be? Oh, woe! Oh, lamentation!

Luckily, there is a silver lining to the cloud. The above percentages are calculated upon the returns of deaths. If we now turn to cases reported, the Orioles make a much better showing, to wit:

Philadelphia..............................1,290 Pittsburgh........................562
New York..................................1,111 Chicago...........................550
BALTIMORE..........................1,075 Boston.............................448
St. Louis.......................................727 Cleveland........................178

Here is hope. At the moment the Orioles are tail-enders, but a few weeks hence--who knows? There remains, however, much cause for discontent. The club suffers a batting slump. Its old easy superiority is gone. If it is to win the pennant this year, as it has done every previous year since 1885, it must show a sudden and radical reversal of form. The hypochlorite habit seems to be playing havoc with the boys. The drug weakens and palsies them. They are not the champions they used to be.

Proposed oath to be taken immediately by every good citizen of Baltimore:

I, ............................ do hereby solemnly promise and declare that I will confine my efforts to get money out of visitors, during the coming Democratic National Convention, to such devices and chicaneries as are approved by the prevalent commercial morality of this republic; that I will not resort to violence in any form or to the use of knockout drops or other deleterious drugs; that I will not pick pockets or set up three-card or shell games; and that in no case will I take more than $100 in any one day from any single drunken man.