Baltimore Evening Sun (6 September 1912): 6.

Two months and seven days since the Hon. Boomer Dickey’s portrait was last printed in the Sunpaper! Such is fame!

Anyhow, it’s better to pay them sewer rentals than not to have no sewers.

SOUND DOCTRINE

Fair to the city first. Then we can afford to be fair to the contractors. We cannot and will not be fair to the contractors at the expense of the city.--Mayor Preston to the Board of Awards.

The more them stuffers think it over the more they think a good lawyer is a better friend than a ward leader.

From the naif and rascally Sunpaper at this morning:

WILL TRY SHERIFF’S CASE

State’s Suit To Recover Fees To Come Up Soon.

Oh, pish, pish, my dear! Oh, la, la! Read the story under the headline. One of the four cases was to have come up in the Court of Common Pleas next Monday. It has been postponed again. Even when it is tried, if it ever is tried, the trial, I dare say, will be little more thin a solemn formality. Both sides look forward to subsequent jousting before the Court of Appeals. The last time the case was before the Court of Appeals it remained there nine months and two days. And the Supreme Court of the United States is still in the distance, a hospitable refuge, an eternal resthouse.

The State’s suit against the four ex-Sheriffs was filed on June 2, 1909, more than three years ago. In all that time it has never come to trial. Attorney-General Straus spent two and a half years fencing with the ex-Sheriffs’ lawyers--and then gave it up. Attorney-General Poe has been pursuing the pastime for more than eight months--with no result. Meanwhile the ex-Sheriffs hang on to the money. With interest it must now amount to more than $50,000. According to Article XV, Section 1, of the Constitution of Maryland, this money should be in the State treasury. But what is the Constitution beside a writ, an exception, a quibble of law?

So long ago as February 14, 1911--that is, 18½ months ago--Mr. Straus applied for judgments by default, on the ground that the ex-Sheriffs were making needless and intolerable delays. Such a judgment was actually entered against one of the defendants--the Hon. Paving Bob Padgett, to wit--but since then nothing has come of it. On May 25 of the present year Bob was still trying to have the judgment stricken out. On June 17 his application was refused--but he still has the money. Just how much it amounts to I don’t know, but the original suit against him was for $10,206.63.

No wonder that the American people, in the presence of such tedious clowning, bawl against the courts and talk wildly of recalling decisions. What is the aim of a court--to decide cases or merely to entertain lawyers? The layman examining this case against the ex-Sheriffs is apt to have his doubts. It is not, I believe, an unusual case, but simply an accidentally conspicuous case. There is no accusation of wrongdoing against either judges or lawyers. They have merely followed custom, floated with the tide, yielded to the system. An atrociously vicious and inefficient system. One that must be changed before long if the courts are to retain any measure of public respect.

That suffragette who denounced me last week as a scoundrelly woman-hater has not yet responded to my offer to marry her with bell and book, or, failing that, to deliver the Hon. Robert J. McCuen at the altar, bound, gagged and elegantly barbered. But from another suffragette, who states specifically that she is not the one who accused me, comes an impertinent declination of my offer, Thus:

There was a time when I might have loved [the Hon.] Mr. Mencken. To be more exact, that time was in the early part of the month of January of the present year, when he was handing out such soulful truths on the question of equal suffrage. But since then he has dealt so coquettishly with the question that I hesitate to enter the state of love, honor and obey with him.

Another foul and gratuitous slander! I was a sincere suffragist in January, and I am still a suffragist today. Nothing seems to me more ridiculous than the allegation that women are less fit to vote than men. Nothing seems to me more obvious than the proposition that their bad influence in politics would be exactly balanced and counterbalanced by their good influence. In all my life, I have never heard a single sound argument against giving them the vote.

But to approve the extension of the suffrage is one thing and to approve the suffragettes is quite another thing. Here in Baltimore, I believe, the latter have done the cause incalculable harm. They have obscured it with extraneous and irrelevant issues, they have tried to sentimentalise it, they have hung around its neck the burdens of petty spatting, paralogy and the split infinitive. No wonder we genuine suffragists curse and roar! No wonder we despair!

Not that I question the sincerity of these ladies and gentlemen. Far from it, indeed. They are giving their time and money to the campaign. They are doing their darndest. But that campaign, I believe, suffers a lot from their defective skill at fence. In brief, they argue badly in a good cause. And that is even worse than arguing well in a bad cause.

This, at any rate, is my impression at the present moment, the fruit of painstaking investigation and profound meditation. It is possible, of course, that I may be wrong. If I am, I offer my humble and heartfelt apologies.

Announcement from the estimable Hot Towel, that virtuous gazette:

DIVORCES obtained; charges reasonable; advice free. Address BOX A 5744. American office. 81tp

Another effort, it would seem, to boom and glorify Baltimore. Another measure of unselfish patriotism, of wise and honorable public service.

Keep your eye on the Salvation Amy! Burns pays the cornet!

Beware of blind men on street corners! Burns is up to every trick!

Rootin’ around in West Baltimore yesterday, Dan Loden discovered two more uncles and a second cousin. But he could find only two city jobs for the three, so the second cousin will have to keep on workin’ for a while.--Adv.