Baltimore Evening Sun (21 September 1912): 6.

The boomers! The boomers! They’re after us ag’in! And soon they’ll drive us nutty with their patriotic din!

The Havre de Grace Home Guard presents the classical combination: on the one hand, professional politicians; on the other hand, professional prominent citizens. Again, it solemnly ratifies the classical doctrine: that a good profit justifies all things. We of Baltimore cannot afford to laugh. Have we forgotten Rasin’s “business men’s” committees, the innumerable “perfumery” committees, the Mayor’s Advisory Committee? Have we forgotten the cry raised against every effort to get a reasonable decency into the government of this town--the cry that it “hurts business” and “keeps investors away”?

No; Havre de Grace is no worse than Baltimore--no worse than any other American community. And no better. So long as the dollars roll in, the people there will find excuses for the sharp tricks whereby Governor Goldsborough was deceived, and justification for the gamblers and blacklegs who chiefly profit. A man who can pay double-board will remain a. high- toned gentleman to the end of the chapter. The “leading merchants” will argue that rating is moral so long as Havre de Grace sells the hay that the horses eat.

But if the visiting sports should tire of being trimmed, and demand a return to the normal Havre de Grace board rate of $4 a week? If they should suddenly begin to buy their hay, not in Havre de Grace, but in Baltimore? Alas, gambling and the making of thieves would then lose all their virtue! The white brow of innocence would be sicklied o’er with the vermilion cast of sin! The “leading merchants” would change their tune. Havre de Grace, instantly suspicious of home breeding experiments, would develop a swift and virulent crop of Parkhursts and Comstocks.

Well, well, don’t be too quick to sneer at the “leading merchant.” He is not a pleasant fellow to contemplate, true enough, but after all, his failings are merely the failings of the rest of us. Thoughtful Americans, growing pessimistic, are too apt to assume that the hypocrisy of avarice is a purely American vice, that the folk of other nations are not such shameless hogs for the dollar. Let them read “An Enemy to the People,” by Henrik Ibsen, and take comfort. Hypocrisy, in truth, is a universal human trait. One may even argue that it is the master trait, the essential man-trait, the one trait that separates us absolutely from all other animals. Even the most sincere man, I fear, makes a poor showing beside the average dog.

Meanwhile, what of Pimlico? If Havre de Grace is such a sink of iniquity, is Pimlico a moral Chautauqua? Let us hear some argument on that point. Let us put the higher police authorities on the stand and ask them how many young men Pimlico bounces into jail each year. Let us find out just how much the breed of horses has been improved by the long-continued experiments there.

Tip for the Maryland Anti-Vivisection Society, the rabble-rousing, the recrudescent:

Prof. Dr. Paul Ehrlich lately admitted, under oath, that salvarsan was a dangerous remedy for dandruff.

From “How to Conduct a Magnetic Healing Business,” by Prof. H. C. Murphy, president of the American Institute of Science, of Nevada, Mo.:

The best months in the year for the magnetic healer are November, December, January, February, March, April and May. The best of these are December, February, March and April. (page 82.) You are not prohibited by law from using the word “Professor” before your name. The only thing necessary is that you profess to be experienced or expert * * * (Page 169.) There are several little tricks in dealing with a bank you should avoid. Kiting checks is one of them (Page 194.)

Let me recommend this excellent little manual to all medical freedomists. It is full of sage counsel as to advertising, doctor-baiting and the evasion of laws against quackery, and in addition it offers a complete course in psychotherapy. I bought it in a Park avenue second-hand book store for 15 cents, and shall be glad to lend it gratis to any interested professor.

The betting odds under the Havre de Grace grandstand, as reported by the Greater Havre de Grace Committee:

6 to 1 that Governor Goldsborough gets it where the tax bailiffs got the scythe. 25 to 1 that the B. & O. never pays no fine for smoking out the Peabody Heighters.

Some anonymous correspondent, addressing me as “Old Sport,” takes me to task for advocating woman’s suffrage on the one hand and denouncing universal manhood suffrage on the other. But am I really inconsistent here? I think not. I am in favor of woman’s suffrage, not because I think that women are more intelligent than men, but because I think that they are not less intelligent than men. If male numbakulle vote, why shouldn’t female numskulls vote? If the gentlemen of the Tenderloin vote, why shouldn’t the ladies of the Tenderloin vote? Is there any reason to believe that the average prostitute is less intelligent or less honorable thou the average ward heeler?

Personally, I doubt that either prostitutes or ward heelers should vote. I am in favor of making the right to vote a right to be earned by hard effort and not a right conferred by mere breathing. I believe in voting by divine right no more than I believe in ruling by divine right. A hereditary franchise is just as ridiculous and just so obnoxious as a hereditary crown. But inasmuch as the majority of Americans hold to a contrary conviction, there is certainly no absurdity in urging them to show the courage of that conviction. Why stop half way? Why give the vote to male citizens and withhold it from female citizens? Why assume so gayly that the average man is intelligent and the average woman a fool?

Kid Price has practically completed his training at Young Bellais’ roadhouse and all is now in readiness for his bout with Young Anderson at Salisbury on September 21. Wednesday morning the Kid and his handlers will board a torpedo boat at Bellais’ watermelon docks on Marley crick and proceed via the Magothy river and the Chesapeake Bay to the scene of carnage. Later in the same day a string of barges laden with sports will leave Havre de Grace, and other craft will sail from Baltimore, Annapolis and other sporting centres.

Beware of handbooks, vice crusaders, laparotomists and bartenders! Burns plays all those games!

Put ye no trust in Adam-Zad, the Burns that walks like a taxicab chauffeur!

Boil your drinking water! Cover your garbage can! Swat the fly!