Baltimore Evening Sun (7 March 1912): 6.

Whether the Hon. Bob Crain and the Hon. William H. Anderson regard each other more biliously or less biliously than the Hon. the super-Mahon regards both of them–here is a problem that must flabbergast and enrapture the roving psychologist.

The way them stuffers is laffin’ an’ crackin’ jokes these days a person would almost think they was a minstrel company.

Contributions to the fund for the relief of the starving lobbyists at. Annapolis:

The United Railways and Electric Company.................................................$5
The Consolidated Gas Electric Light and Power Company...............................10
Cash....................................................................10
______ $25

In addition, I have received the following contributions of supplies:

1 quart bottle of green Chartreuse.
1 keg of sauerkraut.
290 loaves of bread.
1 dress suit.
5 blankets.

These supplies were forwarded to Annapolis by the 3 o’clock car this morning and were at once distributed by my agent. He telegraphed as follows at noon:

The position of the lobbyists has been made doubly acute by the failure of Tuesday’s raid upon the Public Service Commission and by yesterday’s heavy snow. Many or them, turned out of the hotels which were once so eager to entertain them and their guests, spent last night on the campus of St. John’s College. When I visited the campus this morning I found them numb with cold. I at once engaged a colored man to make coffee for them, and at 7.30 o’clock steaming cups were distributed, along with modest rations of rye broad and salt herring. Total cost: $3.85.

The need of further relief is urgent. If enough money is promptly forhcoming, it will be possible to send most of the lobbyists home, where their families and friends can take care of them. The rest must be maintained here until the spring opens, when it will be possible to get work for them on farms near Annapolis.

Had success crowned the effort to emasculate the Public Service Act on Tuesday, their position would have materially improved, for various persons stood ready to advance them funds against their new prospects. But the defeat of the raid left them friendless and despairing. According to a reliable informant, their average earnings, since the beginning of the present season, have been less than $4 a week. Unless something is done for them at once, a number of them, I fear, will starve to death.

I suggest that a special appeal be made to the charitable Chinese of Baltimore. The people of Maryland have always been prompt to contribute to the relief fund when famine has threatened China, and the lobbyists themselves have not been backward. Now that the tables are turned, an opportunity offers for the Chinese to show their gratitude. Even if they do not care to subscribe money, they may at least volunteer to do the lobbyists’ washing free. The linen of some of the latter is now in a truly deplorable condition. And while it is being washed, they will need kimonos or barrels. Let both be sent promptly.

If the Legislature ain’t got no money to give to them Johns Hopkins professors, why don’t they try to get an appropropriation outen the ex-Sheriffs?

Just what will be accomplished by the current crusade against the hotel-keepers of Baltimore, in the matter of their convention rates, remains to be seen. My own private impression is that, after all the excitement has died down, things will be as they are. The whole available accommodation at every first-class hotel in town was engaged for the convention weeks ago, and no legislative action, however drastic, can reduce the terms thus agreed upon. The Constitution of the United States, if my solicitors advise me correctly, expressly forbids any such invalidation of contracts. The man who had agreed to take a room at $25 a day must infallibly pay the $25 or sleep elsewhere. Even the Legislature cannot help him.

Meanwhile, however, the controversy is giving Baltimore a lot of very valuable advertising. I meant it literally. Once the impression gets about that we are an alert and energetic people, that we have a high degree of commercial sapience, that we neatly and swiftly trim the stranger within our gates—that soon will we begin to enjoy a real boom. Hitherto we have suffered from our reputation for old-fashioned hospitality. Folk have regarded us a bit pityingly, as too stupid to get on in the world—and have gone to New York and Chicago, where no man with a roll escapes, to spend their money.

That guy Anderson may be an awful bug, but so is a hornet.

At noon today the vote in the plebiscite for the election of a spellbinder to place the Hon. the super-Mahon in nomination on the floor of the Democratic National Convention stood as follows:

The Hon. Francis K. Carey.......................................64
The Hon. Bob Lee....................................................47
The Hon. Jacobus Hook...........................................20
The Hon. Omar Hershey..........................................18
The Hon. McCay McCoy......................................... 8
The Hon. Trauty Trautfelter..................................... 6
The Hon. Artistides Sophocles Goldsborough......... 2
The Hon. William S. Bryan...................................... 2
The Hon. John Walter Smith.................................... 1
The Hon. Eddie Hirsch............................................. 1
The Hon. John M. T. Finney, M. D. ........................ 1

Herewith the voting coupon, which is to be sent, when filled out, to the Judges of Election, in care of The Evening Sun:

For the distinguished honor of placing the Hon. the super-Mahon in nomination as Democratic candidate for Vice-President of the United States, I vote for The Hon. ..................................... (Signed).......................................

Now comes news that Jake has accepted the chairmanship of the militant Committee on Nuisances of the Mount Royal Improvement Association. Is this a confession or a threat of suicide?

Only 26 days more of law-making and law-breaking at Annapolis! Then the harsh business of plowing the rocky fields, of planting the succulent corn, of valeting the horned cattle.

The betting odds in the downtown booze rings, as my ambling dipsomaniacs bring them in:

10 to 1 that Anderson gets Harry’s goat. 100 to 1 that Bob Padgett ain’t scared of losing nothing. 1,000 1 that Jim Trippe gets a nice soft job.

If that collar on the average Baltimore seidel keeps on getting higher, we’ll soon have local option de facto, whatever its failures de jure.

Which somehow recalls the fact that the Hon. Mr. Joesting has yet to reveal the name of that School Board bravo who was “going to” throw a reporter out of his office—but thought better of it in time to save his hide.