Baltimore Evening Sun (21 October 1912): 6.

THE FREE LANCE

Can it be that the Hon. Eugene W. Chafin, Prohibition candidate for President of the United States, is the long-sought Wet Hope?

The sweet, sad music of the platitudinarians:

Remark of the Hon. Bob Crain on reading the Hon. Eugene W. Chafin’s Andersoniad: Har! Har! Har! Har! Har!

Col. Jacobus Hook spends an hour of every afternoon standing at Charles and German streets, admiring the Hansa Haus and humming the old German folk-song, “Ach, Muenchen, wie bist du so schoen!”--Adv.

Another good way to reduce the cost of sewer connections would be to hang an occasional plumber.

And just as Young Anderson squared off for that wallop which was to send Kid Crain over the ropes, one of the boys in his own corner floored him with the water bottle.

The estimable Democratic Telegram, it appears, is not only without conscience, but also without shame. So hunkerous and virulent is its yearning to take away from the Hon. Samuel Summers Field, LL.D., the feudal style or appellation of “Hon.” that it lays down the absurd and scandalous doctrine that all titles go by law, and that mere equity can neither grant nor abrogate them. I give up, as hopeless, the effort to convert so unyielding and ignorant a gazette. But in departing from it, let me ask it one last question. Let me ask it to point to that chapter or verse of the Public General Laws of Maryland which bestows the title of “Hon.” upon the Mayor of Baltimore.

Is there, in point of fact, any such verse in the Code? Of course there is not. In the eyes of the law, the Mayor of Baltimore is plain James Harry Preston, even without the “Mr.” He has no more right to a title, in law, than Prof. Alexander Geddes, has minnesinger. But where the law thus fails the benign science of equity comes to the rescue. It is indecent that so eminent a man as the Mayor of Baltimore should have no title. The ancient instincts of the human race are all against it. Immemorial custom cries out in protest. And so the title of “Hon.” is bestowed upon the Mayor by unanimous consent, and equity ratifies and legalizes the choked voice of a just and reverent people.

The law? Pooh! The law wriggles along in a narrow rut, visible only to the sharp, rat-like eyes of barristers and jurists. It deals with rents, torts, writs, subpœnas, damages and such-like trivialities. But equity soars to purer, more luminous strata. Its concern is with points of duty and honor. Does the law require a man to kiss his wife? To be sure it does not. All it presumes to lay down is that he shall not bite her. But equity puts the obligation to kiss her upon him, whatever his distaste for the task, and if he is an honorable man he will not fail. No penalty, of course, is provided for failure, but that very lack of a penalty is ten times as significant and mandatory, to a man of honor, as any mere penalty could be.

So with titles and their bestowal. That the Hon. Mr Field is indubitably honorable the Telegram freely admits, and even insists upon with eloquence. But the Hon. Mr. Field cannot force it to go furtner. He cannot apply to a court of law for a mandamus; he cannot sue it for withholding from him his just dues. Well, here is where equity comes to the bat. By the very fact that the Hon. Mr. Field has no remiedy in law, the Telegram is bound by equity (i.e., by decency, by virtue, by honor) to give him his “Hon.” My one hope is that, putting aside its vain sophistries and equivocations, it will do so forthwith. If, on the contrary, it still refuses, I hereby denounce it as a gazette sans honneur aber mit reproche, a dissolute and diabolical print, a journalistic Anderson.

From the Sunpaper’s report of last Friday night’s convocation of boomers:

At the close of the banquet [the Hon.] Edwin L. Quarles suggested that it would be well to have a committee appointed by [the Hon.] Mr. Dickey to study the means which Baltimore may take to get its just share of the business with South American and Central American ports which will come through the canal. A resolution empowering [the Hon.] Mr. Dickey to appoint a commttee of 10 business men for this purpose was carried.

What! Still another committee! Another child of boomery, with Dickey for its pa and Quarles for its grandpa! Another posse of embalmers! Haven’t we had enough, in all conscience? Is this multiplying of committees to go on forever? Is Baltimore never to escape? We yell for mercy, messieurs! Let us up, if you have hearts! Don’t maul us no more.

Seriously, hasn’t this ridiculous piling up of endless committees gone on long enough? Since the fire of 1904 no less than two score have been solemnly organized and inaugurated, with the same prominent Baltimoreans on all of them. Not one of them has accomplished anything. Not one of them, so far as I can make out, has even tried to accomplish anything. The net result of the activity of all of them, added together and multiplied by ten, is exactly nil. The beaches of boomery are strewn with their bones.

If there is need for investigating South American trade, why can’t one of the existing agencies do it? Is the Chamber of Commerce unfit for the job? Can’t the Honorary Pallbearers spare one of their hired men? Why appoint another and supererogatory committee? Why give the professional committeemen of this harassed and boom-boomed old town another chance to pose in the limelight, and get their pictures in the Sunpaper and eat their predestined banquets and go through their immemorial mummery? Haven’t we had enough of that piffle, and to spare? Isn’t it high time to organize a committee against committees?

The boomers have appointed another committee. The committee will appoint sub-committees. The sub-committees will appoint sub-sub-committees. The sub-sub-committees will appoint sub-sub-sub-committees. The sub-sub-sub-committees will appoint sub-sub-sub-sub-committees. The sub-sub-sub-sub-committees will appoint sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-commit- [Etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., u. s. w.]