Baltimore Evening Sun (15 July 1912): 6.

Trouble for two more brave butchers of s contumacious press—the Hon. William Lorimer, of Illinois, and the Hon. Cole L. Blease, of South Carolina.

The following cablegram, received this morning, explains itself:

Mencken, Sun, Baltimore Collect $7.25
Advise soon as possible date colonel hook’s arrival have appointed herr geheimrat steuereinnehmer volkmann chairman reception committee please rush four photographs colonel for use in local papers hope he will consent make speech regards doctor loopold skaal
Kraus, burgomaster

Reports from Olympus have it that when certain Senators voted against the Hon. Mr. Lorimer on Saturday, on the ground that a man elected by the use of money was unfit to sit in the Senate, the whole sanhedrin of gods burst into yells of mirth, and half a dozen were so vastly tickled that they fell shrieking to the diamond-studded floor, and had to be attended by Dr. John W. Aesculapius.

The Hon. Cole L. Bleease to the frailheads of South Carolina:

The dirty skunks of that committee are not hurting me. They are trying to besmirch * * * the name of South Carolina.

’Twas always thus, from childhood’s happy hour. Every effort to get a modest and reasonable decency into the city government has “hurt” Baltimore. Every attack upon mountebanks in office has had the same effect. When, two weeks ago, 20,000 Baltimoreans hissed the super-Mahon off the stage, it was a high “tribute” to the super-Mahon, but an “insult” to the State of Maryland.

M’CAY-M’COY

[The Hon.] Mr. McCay [McCoy] is one of the few department heads who address the Mayor as “Harry.” Like Dr. John Turner, he is a frequent and welcome visitor at the Mayor’s house.—The Sunpaper, July 13.

According to the Hot Towel, which is always well-informed about such matters, the super-Mahon is about to remove Dr. Robert A. Warner, superintendent of Sydenham Hospital. No doubt every jobless political pathologist in town is already hot after the place, which pays $2,500 a year and is thus a far juicier plum than most. But the logical candidate, it must be obvious, is not to be found among these disengaged aspirants. He is, on the contrary, a man now safely anchored to a job, after nearly a year of false hopes, ardent reachings and bitter bafflements—and, what is more, he is a man who has made good in that job. Need I say that I allude to Geheimrat Prof. Dr. John Turner, Jr., author of “The Physiology of the Human Body and Hygiene” and general-arzt to the Loch Raven waterworks?

One must go far to find a better man than the geheimrat. He is, indeed, almost ideally fitted for the place. An anatomist of international reputation and a contributor of many important discoveries to medical science, he is also a graceful and fluent writer of the American language and an extraordinarily acute and effective defender of the super-mahonic, or old-fashioned theory of government. The corrupt and licentious press of this town seen him as a foe to be feared. Like the super-Mahon himself, he has the ear of the trusting and ammoniacal common people. They love and revere the man because they know his worth.

Moreover, the geheimrat would bring to the Sydenham job those social graces it now so pathetically demands. A graceful society man, a master of etiquette, the invariable life of the party, he would make existence at the pesthouse one grand, sweet song—an endless round of courtesies and amenities. Dr. Warner has failed there. He lacks the more effulent polish. He is without the geheimrat’s enormous social experience. A simple doctor, devoted to attending his patients, he falls down miserably as host.

Let us all hope, therefore, that the geheimrat will get the job, which pays much better than his present post. Sydenham Hospital stands in sore need of reform: there has been turmoil there too long. Dr. W. P. Morrill, who preceded Dr. Warner, was a contumacious and disorderly fellow. When campaign assessments were levied upon his trained nurses, he kicked the wiskinski out and indulged in lamentable profanity. And Dr. Warner, it now appears, has been guilty of other such offenses, not to mention again his deficiencies as an entertainer. What is needed is a man both suave and scientific, a perfect amalgam of Ehrlich and Harry Lehr. Luckily, such a man is at hand. He is Geheimrat Prof. Dr. John Turner, Jr., author of “The Physiology of the Human Body and Hygiene” and at present (but temporarily, let us hope) surgeon-general and arch-physician to the Loch Raven waterworks.

Whether or not Back River was in eruption last night I can’t tell you, for the man I hired to go down there and find out stopped off in Highlandtown to escape the storm and was overcome by the fumes of malt liquor and so got no further. But I assume that the familiar deviltries went on, despite all the meteorological uproar—that hundreds of young persons broke the Blue Laws by dancing on the Sabbath, that other hundreds succumbed to the lascivious shooting galleries, popcorn stands and loop-the-loops, and that thousands filled their arteries with beer. However, I may be wrong—the estimable Lord’s Day Alliance, aided by the county constabulary, may have put on the lid—and I therefore make no report.

Meanwhile, it is a pleasure to note that the Hot Towel has taken to massaging the Hon. Joe Goeller, proprtetor of Hollywood Park. In yesterday’s issue it printed an excellent wood cut of him and gave a free reading notice to Hollywood, which it described as having “increased wonderfully in popularity” of late. Take off the lid and popularity follows. The common people are opposed to Blue Laws—and quite properly. They want to spend their one day of rest as they choose, and not as some self-appointed committee of moralists orders.

Let every good citizen second the praise of the assiduous Towel. The Hon. Mr. Goeller has made Hollywood an extremely attractive resort, and, what is more, he has made it wholly orderly and decent. There is, indeed, no summer park in the suburbs which shows less disorder on a busy night. It is a standing answer to those virtuosi of virtue who hold that dancing is the overture to all known vices and that a man with two bottles of beer in his system is a natural murderer.

Boil your drinking water! Cover your garbage barrel! Beware of fake Pilsener!