Baltimore Evening Sun (17 December 1912): 6.
The idol and ideal of the assiduous Towel: a vacuum surrounded by goose grease.
The Hon. Charles A. Jording, of the Twenty-second ward, at last night’s camp fire of the Job Hounds:
I think it is time for the Council to show that it has some intelligence.
Obviously, the Hon. Mr. Jording believes that the age of miracles has not passed.
The Hon. Bill Green, the ex-sheriff, has just lost his application for a new trial. But do not despair! Bill is still full of hope—and he still has the money!
Headline from the genial Sunpaper of this morning:
FOSSIL TREASURES HERE.
A delicate compliment, perhaps, to the estimable Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association.
The Concord Club is against cutting down Col. Jacobus Hook’s pickings, at least until after he has come across with the chairs.—Adv.
Moralist, n, a ticket-speculator outside the gates of Heaven.
Antagonistic remarks of the Hon. William H. Anderson:
- An individual who commits an offense carrying with it more than one year’s imprisonment is very likely to lie about what got him into it.
- Of the 12,000 prisoners in the Illinois penitentiaries * * * in 13 years, at least 85 per cent. * * * owed their predicament to the use of liquor.
- To interfere between husband and wife.
- To recommend a doctor.
- To tell the truth.
But maybe I err. Perhaps Rule No. 1 doesn’t work when it applies to crooks who blame Rum.
The Hon. James Harry Preston to the Job Hounds:
Both Mr. Field and I know the value and high character of the Council too well to make any reflections on them, individually or as a body.
A good cigar to the Hon. Mr. Field if he will say it over his signature, and without giggling.
The betting odds in the side-door kaifs, as reported by the Detective Department:
1 to 37,000 that the Hon. W. Cabell Bruce gets the senatorship.
The three most dangerous enterprises in the world:
Boil your drinking water! Cover your garbage can! Darn a man with whiskers!
Meanwhile, the thanks of all good citizens are due to the Police Board for keeping its head during the present outbreak of moral cavorting and bellowing. I have no means of knowing what is in the Commissioners’ minds, for I am a total stranger to all of them, but I feet confident, along with many other persons, that they will not permit themselves to be seared to death, however horrendous the bugaboos danced before them. Their dignified and effective reply to the demands of the Lord’s Day Alliance, that camorra of vicious busybodies, is sufficient proof of their courage. May they exhibit the same rare quality in their dealings with the vice crusaders! The public does not expect them to avoid mistakes; it merely asks them to avoid weakness and timidity. And at the moment they give every evidence that they will do so—that their decision in the matter of the social evil, whatever its nature, will be reached honestly and supported by intelligible reasoning.
I say that such courage as they have shown is rare. The truth is that it is almost unique in our recent history. Police board after police board has been assaulted and threatened by the advocates of a morgue Sunday, and board after board has shown its alarm by trying to enforce the law, or by disingenuously evading the issue. But this present board has resolutely refused to continue such mountebankeries, for all the whooping and browbeating of the moralists, and by that refusal its members have gained a clear title to public respect. The persons they have thus offended are extraordinarily violent and extravagant, and go to any lengths in the conduct of their jehad. It takes courage to stand up to such assaults when they are open, and more courage when they are underhand and unfair, as they usually are.
The important question for the board to consider, in the matter of the so-called vice crusade, is whether they want to let loose upon Baltimore the mad passions of a horde of impossibilists and fanatics. Are we to have a reasonable decorum in this town, or are we to have constant raids and alarums? Is the preservation of the public peace and security to remain in the hands of the police and the courts, or is it to be given over to a mob of frenzied extremists, running amuck as they will? Here is something for the Commissioners to ponder seriously. Let them ask themselves whether the average militant moralist is to be intrusted with the police power, whether he has common sense and is a reliable witness, whether the thing which inspires him is really a reverence for law or merely the enthusiasm of the hunter.
The present system, whatever its defects, is at least free from the grosser forms of public indecency and scandal. For some years past the police of Baltimore have handled the social evil in an admirably honest and intelligent manner. They have taken no graft, they have put no difficulties in the way of the woman eager to reform, they have levied no blackmail, they have prevented all open disorder and crime. The fact that various vice crusaders deny these facts, and bring infamous charges against the police by innunendo, is only proof of the general unreliability of crusaders. In all their so-called evidence, whether it relates to the white slave trade, social disease or police corruption, there is seldom more than 5 per cent. of truth. They exaggerate shamelessly and knowingly; they bring abominably false charges against decent men; they adopt frankly the methods of Sam Jones and the darky campmeeting; they put their chief trust, and often their whole trust in impudence, violence and noise.
Naturally enough, they impress many thoughtless and innocent folk. In particular, they gain recruits among a certain element of the clergy. Some simple-minded clergymen are honestly converted by their balderdash, and others are afraid to express a public dissent. But let it be said to the honor of the preachers of Baltimore that such naivete and such cowardice are by no means unanimous. On the contrary, I am convinced that the vast majority of educated and intelligent ministers have no faith in the present madness, and look with genuine alarm upon the threat of a saturnalia of raiding, reviling, posturing and woman-hunting.