Baltimore Evening Sun (27 June 1912): 8.

THE FREE LANCE

THE OFFICIAL FORECAST. [The Hon. the super-Mahon in his weekly paper:] When the showdown comes he [I] will be unanimously nominated for Vice-President.


And if not by the delegates to the Democratic National Convention, then, at least, by the Hon. McCay McCoy, the Hon. Bob Lee, the Hon. Aristides Sophocles Goldsborough, the Hon. Honest Bob Padgett, the Hon. Jacobus Hook, the Hon. Public Man Biggs, the Hon. Daniel Joseph Loden, the Hon. John Turner, Jr., M. D., the old-fashioned schoolmarms and the stockholders of the Calvert Bank.


Meanwhile, without venturing into the realms of actual prophecy, I advise every thrifty sport to get into the betting. If I could publish all the secret information that my spies bring me, there would be a mad rush to put money on the Hon. Mr. Preston.


The standing of the clubs in the National Typhoid League for the week ending June 1:

Boston.........................280 New York............................090
Baltimore....................214 Cleveland.............................071
Philadelphia.................161 Chicago...............................068
Pittsburgh....................150 St. Louis..............................038


Thus the Orioles yield to the Emmanuel Movers and the pennant goes glimmering! But turn from cases reported to deaths reported and at once the essential, the lasting, the traditional superiority of the birds is visible again, thus:

Baltimore...........................357 Philadelphia........................064
Pittsburgh............................187 Boston................................000
Cleveland............................178 Chicago..............................000
New York............................085 St. Louis.............................000


What one forthright and determined man can accomplish with his throttle thrown open was demonstrated again yesterday morning when the Hon. Robert Crain made his dramatic a capella raid on the Hoffman street ticket speculators. Complaints against these gentlemen had been coming in for two days, but they continued to flourish almost unobstructed. The police, after driving a few of the more offensive of them from the streets, decided that there was no warrant in law for pursuing them into their offices, and the official doorkeepers at the convention, if not actually partners in their business, at least showed little heat against them


Then, of a sudden, entered the Hon. Mr. Crain, steaming at 35 knots and with black smoke belching from his funnels. In two minutes he had found the chief speculators, scared them stiff, taken their tickets away from them, chased them off the reservation and riddled them with staggering discharges of invective. A loud, turbulent and perhaps anarchistic proceeding. A man careless of Magna Charta and the writ of habeas corpus. The law failing, he passed a law of his own--and at once enforced it with the full military and naval strength of his 250 pounds.


Let Baltimore not forget the peculiar talents of the Hon. Mr. Crain when swift and heavy work is to be done hereafter. He is the one man who emerges entirely triumphant from the present proceedings. While the boomers issued their eternal proclamations and appointed their interminable committees, and arranged their inevitable banquet, he brushed them aside, spat upon his hands and got the money. And then he turned the armory into the best convention hall ever seen in America. And then, when the time came, rest a bit and take the spotlight, he kept on working with arms and legs. A rushing and impatient man, perhaps somewhat harsh, perhaps somewhat ruthless. But at all events a man who does his appointed work with superb efficiency. Put him beside the whole corps of boomers, boosters, “live wires,” resolution passers, press agents, banqueters and honorary pallbearers and you have a picture of the Matterhorn surrounded by an archipelago of warts.


The sub-committee on drinking facilities of the Municipal Democratic Convention Committee issued the following bulletin at noon today:

At the height of the drinking last night there was spare room in almost every bar in the convention area for at least 20 per cent. more drinkers. Baltimore’s barrage, in brief, is standing the strain splendidly, and the visitors all profess themselves to be delighted. The average space allotted to a drinker is larger than any other convention city has ever offered, and a higher rate of delivery is maintained day and night. At midnight 1,432 bartenders were on duty. Between 8 A. M. and 9 P. M. the ten test æsophagometers to the convention area recorded 2,079 drinks, which indicates that the total consumption between the hours named was 532,000.

Sixth installment of an auto-interview written, composed and done with a pen by the Right Hon. Geheimrat Professor Dr. John Turner, Jr., author of “The Physiology of the Human Body and Hygiene,” former prosector of anatomy in the faculty of medicine and chirurgy at the University of Maryland, medical superintendent and arch- physician at the Loch Raven waterworks, surgeon-in-chief of the Democratic National Convention, anæsthetist and pediatrician to the Eleventh Ward Democratic Club and medical privy councilor to the Right Hon. the super-Mahon:

“Listen, Reporter: big, broad-minded men see mistakes, but they see merits too. Did you ever listen to a great orator? He flings mistakes right and left, but pshaw! Mencken--you poor little worm and ink waster–he also hurls chunks of Abyssinian meat too, and they outbalance the errors. Talmadge did this, and if you were near enough to him he would also expectorate all over you. He had ideas, man, to impart. What did he care, in his haste, about a few mistakes?” [Continued tomorrow.]


Letters urging this or that masseur for the tallow championship continue to pour in. The Democratic Telegram, mindful of the Hon. Jacobus Hook’s past oiling of the super-Mahon, argues for him eloquently, but other authorities declare for the Hon. Public Man Biggs, the Hon. McCay McCoy, the Hon. Geheimrat Prof. Dr. John Turner, Jr., the Hon. Francis K. Carey, or the anonymous but insatiable oleagintst of the Hot Towel. Many correspondents suggest that the matter be submitted to a plebiscite, but I myself hold that the Hon. the super-Mahon should decide. After all, he is the man tallowed, and therefore he should be a fair judge of the technique and ardor of the tallowers. Let him then award the honor where it is due. With that honor will go a visible prize–to wit, an artistic medal of graphite--which will be provided, at the cost and expense of the Hon. William H. Anderson, that acidulous and diabolical fellow.


Why not invite Colonel Roosevelt to hold his convention in Baltimore? We have the hall, we have the bands–and the liquor the Democrats are not drinking will keep.


Come on, Col. Pabst! Let us see the color of your Mueuchener!