Baltimore Evening Sun (19 June 1912): 6.

THE OFFICIAL FORECAST. [The Hon. the super-Mahon in the current issue of his weekly paper]:

When the showdown comes he [I] will be unanimously nominated for Vice-President.

[Continued from yesterday.] reductions will diminish what may be called the theoretical drinking rate by 50 per cent. But the actual number of visitors will remain as before, and the probabilities are that they will still average 10 drinks a day. Thus, even though the drinking rooms be crowded to suffocation in the rush hours, the number of visitors that can be adequately served will be reduced to 44,716.

Here, it is apparent, a serious situation becomes visible, for fully 100,000 visitors are expected to come to the convention and in addition probably 50,000 Baltimoreans will adopt their routine during the week. Thus we have 150,000 head of drinkers, with accommodation for but 44,716. What to do? The committee answers by showing that a number of factors will tend to mitigate and ameliorate the siege of bars.These factors it sets forth as follows:

(a) A considerable number of the visitors (estimated at 4 per cent.) will be teetotalers.
(b) Much of the demand for refreshment, particularly in the evening, will be transferred to places outside the convention area—for example, in the summer parks.
(c) The private clubs within the convention area will take care of hundreds.
(d) Many of the visitors and thousands of Baltimoreans will obtain their refreshment in the homes of the latter.
(e) Thousands of visitors will keep carboys in their hotel rooms, or devote themselves to the refreshments offered in the headquarters of the various candidates.
(f) Others will be overcome by the heat early in the week and thus drop out of the running.

The committee goes into all of these factors sapiently and at great length. Its report, in this part, is a masterpiece of close reasoning, but unluckily it is too long (about 34,000 words, beside tables, charts and blue prints) to be quoted in full. All I have space for is its general conclusion, which is to the effect that the various factors will decrease the pressure upon the bars to the following extent:

This makes 66.8 percentum in all. Deduct that from 150,000, the estimated number of visitors and Baltimore pace-makers and the result is 51,000—still nearly 6,500 more than 44,716. But this difference is disposed of when reference is made to the last provision of Chapter 281, Section 682 of the Acts of 1908, which authorizes the Police Board to grant a temporary license for the sale of liquor between the prohibited hours of midnight and 6 A. M. to any liquor dealer serving “any bona fide entertainment of any society, club or association.” Obviously, the Democratic National Convention is a bona fide association, and equally obviously the convention itself is a bona fide “entertainment.” The committee, therefore, recommends that the Police Board issue such permits to the 497 non-hotel drinking places in the convention area. This will give them five extra hours a night, which in turn will give 319,060 visitors a chance to get one drink each, or 31,805 a chance to get ten drinks each. And even if the maximum drinking rate, instead of remaining in full fuming and fury from midnight to 5 A. M. begins to fall off, or even ceases altogether, at 1 A. M., there will still be time to give 63,610 drinkers one drink each, or 6,361 drinkers 10 drinks each. Thus the difficulty practically vanishes and it appears certain that, barring an unexpected pestilence among bartenders, no visitor will go thirsty.

The subcommittee’s report is now in the hands of the printers and will be ready for distribution within a few days. It will make a bulky pamphlet of 218 octavo pages, including the charts and photogravures and the statistical tables of the official actuaries. This is the first time, it is said, that the drinking accommodations of a large American city have been examined scientifically. The subcom.mittee closes by denouncing those licentious local newspapers that have lately questioned the capacity of Baltimore’s barrooms, by declaring the Hon. William H. Anderson an evil and a dissolute fellow, and by advocating the nomination of the Hon. James H. Preston as candidate for Vice-President of the United States on the Democratic ticket.

Impatient note from An Old Subscriber:

What has become of the fund for bringing Mr. Anderson to the side of liquor? Who has the money? And how much has been collected?

The Anderson fund, I regret to say, has gone upon the rocks. When I started it with my modest $1,000 I thought that there would be an immediate and liberal response, for the theory that the Hon. Mr. Anderson was vulnerable seemed to be a favorite one among many Baltimoreans. But the event showed that the persons who were loudest in proclaiming that he could be hired from the dry side were least inclined to finance the luring, and so the whole plan went to pieces. The result is loss for all parties concerned. On the one hand. the kaif-keepers of Baltimore still have the honorable gentleman on their necks, and on the other hand the honorable gentleman loses $15,000 a year. Only time can show which loss is the greater.

Meanwhile, I am requesting the Hon. Jacobus Hook, treasurer of the fund, to return all contributions. And meanwhile, the Hon. Mr. Anderson, as if to prove his ardor anew, engages in fresh assaults upon the Hon. the super-Mahon and has already yanked from the recesses of that great statesman the usual bellows, the customary screams of rage, the familiar cataracts of tears.

And while the red fire is blazing and every loyal heart is bursting perhaps the Hon. McCay McCoy will be induced to give a glance to the abominable paving of Baltimore street, between Liberty and Howard.

Subscribe for the Democratic Telegram and die virtuous.—Adv.

Boil your drinking water! Cover your garbage can! Root for the Orioles! Weep for Harry! Swat the fly!

Put the fact that the Bible always groups publicans with sinners beside the fact that the Hon. Jacobus Hook is a publican and you have one more reason for the present lamentable decay of faith.—Adv.

The Hon. Mr. Roosevelt, it appears, is basing his campaign on the assumption that the American people abhor cheating at elections. O fatal assumption!