Baltimore Evening Sun (12 October 1912): 6.

THE FREE LANCE

THE SUNPAPER TAKES THE PLATITUDE PRIZE.

Today’s prize for the juiciest, loveliest platitude of the week goes to the Right Hon. the Sunpaper for the following:

Say what you will about the homely platitude, it is, nine times out of ten, the expression of a truth.

The prize, a pair of black pallbearers’ gloves, of the Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association 1912 model, awaits the Sunpaper’s order and will be handed to its representative on demand. The committee makes honorable mention of the Hon. Mr. Wegg, the Belair Savonarola, for the following:

Human nature, like the poor, is always with us.

And of the Rev. Dr. Oliver Huckel for the following:

While there is life there is hope.

And of the Hon. Aristides Sophocles Goldsborough for the following:

The welfare of the city, as a whole, demands some consideration.

Next week’s prize will be an authentic hair from the Galways of the late Samuel Smiles, LL.D., the greatest platitudinarian since Shakespeare.

The committee, in its report, gives high praise to the estimable Sunpaper’s prize-winner. It says:

Here we have a platitude of the very highest quality, a genuine platitude de luxe for it not only states a univered truth, admitted by all and utterly untrue, but it also adds a meaningless reservation, the true test of a really juicy platitude. The “nine times out of ten” gives it the prize. No platitude can wholly satisfy the connoisseur save it show such a reservation. “While there is life there is hope” is an excellent platitude, but “While there to life, so it is said, there is, in 97½ per cent of cases, hope” is a master-platitude.

All Prominent Baltimoreans, leading lawyers, Old Subscribers, newspaper editors and ministers or the gospel are invited to take part in next week’s competition. There are no entrance fees and no vexing conditions. The mere publication of a platitude is sufficient evidence of a desire to compete. Valuable prizes will be offered week by week. Among those already arranged for may be mentioned:

The jury’s verdict in the case against ex-Sheriff Green is approved by all connoisseurs of jurisprudence, for it opens the way for appeals by both sides. The ignorant layman, of course, will wonder why the matters at issue can’t be laid before the Court of Appeals at once, and a decision obtained within a week. Alas, the layman is an ass. Courts do not move with such violence--at least, not in Maryland. A juicy case is like a juicy steak: it deserves to be lingered over. Time must be allowed for the due smacking of lips, the throwing at bones to the house-dogs under the table, the interjection of polile persiflage. Judges and lawyers are paid by the day.

The present case will be argued at the January term, probably in February or March. A decision will follow toward the ides of April, or perhaps in the autumn. Then there will be another trial, with another appeal afterward. Meanwhile, the cases against the remaining ex-sheriffs will gather cobwebs and a fine bouquet in the catcombs of the Courthouse. And meanwhile the ex-sheriffs themselves will continue to devote the interest on $50,000 of the people’s money to their private victualing and automobiling.

Such is the course of justice in our fair State. If it takes the State itself so long to get its money, imagine the situation of a private litigant! Think how efficiently the courts must protect the poor man! Tomorrow or next day you yourself may be in the courts, bawling pathetically for justice. Take the prospect to bed with you and make it the subject of your liquorish and enchanting dreams.

The Hon. Aristides Sophocles Goldsborough to the City Club:

Mr. S. S. Field, the City Solicitor. * * *

Last week, as I reported at the time, the Hon. Mr. Goldsborough was giving Mr. Field the feudal title of “Hon.” But no more. The bilious Democratic Telegram complained to the Mayor about it and Aristides was brought to book. Now the Hon. Mr. Field is plain Mr. again. Such are the rewards of those who serve princes!

What have the anti-vivisectionists, those sentimental and insatiable liars, to say of the award of the Nobel prize to Dr. Alexis Carrel, of the Rockefeller Institute? A year or so ago they were attacking Dr. Carrel with their heavy artillery, accusing him of all sorts of incredible cruelties and bringing up charwomen and elevator men as expert witnesses against him. But now he gets $39,000 for his successful experiments in suturing blood-vessels and transplanting organs--all of which experiments were performed upon animals. Can it be that the trustees of the Nobel fund are also scoundrels? Or can it be that they refuse to believe the balderdash of silly old women, male and female?

That correspondent of the Sunpaper who names the. Rev. Dr. William A. Crawford-Frost as the most likely Wet Hope in sight takes unwarranted liberties with the name of an estimable clergyman, but setting aside such personal considerations, his suggestion is not without merit. If the Hon. Satan Anderson is ever knocked out, the job will not be done by a politician, nor even by a leading lawyer. It is too easy for him to attack and rout such follows. The public, having no confidence in them, is willing to believe anything he says about them. When he argues that they are not to be trusted, that they blow hot and cold, that they are gentlemen of incurable chicane, his case is won before he begins. No sane man would venture to deny such charges. Their truth is self-evident.

What is needed, therefore, is a man less obviously sinful. An honest bartender might answer, for bartenders are commonly men of virtue and honor, but a clergyman would be far better. The public is always disposed to believe in the bona fides of a clergyman, just as it is always disposed to question the bona fides of a politician. Will the Rev. Dr. Crawford-Frost volunteer? And if he declines, will some other reverend brother step up? The Hon. Mr. Anderson must be disposed of forthwith or we shall have local option in 1914. Who will let his gore? Who will achieve his goat?