Baltimore Evening Sun (14 February 1913): 6.

One million dollars cash for any evidence, not palpably satirical, that men in general are as foolish as the suffragettes.

THE WOMAN HUNT

We cannot wipe out the evil, but we might keep it within bounds by careful and wise legislation. * * * I do not believe that the best results will be obtained by simply scattering these women in all directions.–Police Justice Henry Ulrich.

The Hon. L. T. in The Evening Sun of yesterday:

What sense is there . . . . in forcing a law-abiding citizen . . . . to submit to this violation of his person [compulsory vaccination] in order, as it is claimed, to protect his neighbors from possible contagion, when under the hypothesis of the efficacy of vaccination they have a sure and simple means of protection by submitting themselves to the kindly offices of the learned and skillful health wardens?

An objection frequently raised by the ignorant, but not one that bears examination. The truth is, of course, that no competent authority argues that vaccination produce complete and certain immunity, despite the constant assumption of the anti-vaccinationists and their attendent clowns that this is the medical theory. All that educated physicians claim for it is that it reduces the vulnerability of the individual, that it makes him measurably less liable to contract smallpox. He may still actually contract the disease, and even die of it, just as he may contract it and die of it after he has once had it and got over it, but if he is properly vaccinated his chances of doing so will be less than they were before. In exactly the same way a man who systematically hardens himself will be less likely to contract pneumonia in winter than a man who takes no precautions whatever. He may actually die of pneumonia, despite all his effort. But among a hundred hardened men there will be fewer deaths than among a hundred soft and vulnerable men.

Now, inasmuch as vaccination is thus not an absolute protection against smallpox, but merely a relative protection, it becomes plain that the individual will be further protected if the actual smallpox around him is reduced. This is one of the ends that the Commissioner of Health seeks to attain by a compulsory general vaccination. He wants to reduce the risk that the intelligent must run by contact with the ignorant. And his second and final purpose is just as simple. He wants to save the city the expense of caring for a large number of smallpox patients, and the scandal of having them to care for. It is cheaper and more civilized to vaccinate. And so the unwashed are being vaccinated. The washed need no attention: they have seen to it themselves.

The case against the unspeakable Weyler, burglar of bread crumbs, is now so complete that it must convince every man with tears to shed, but no harm would be done by reinforcing it, and so I suggest that the pardoning of a few more negro crooks would help. Nothing more effectively awakens the “better instincts” of a black scoundrel. At one stroke he is converted into a respectable blackamoor, even into a moralist. His heart begins to bleed for the downtrodden erring. Himself purged forever of all taint of sin, he devotes himself, on the one hand, to pleading for the persecuted rapist of his own race, and on the other hand, to denouncing piously the white taskmaster. Range such an archangel beside the dreadful Weyler, whose sole claim to respect is that he has served the State faithfully for half a lifetime. Compare the characters of the two men; welgg their talents for veracity; put the lofty dignity of the one against the low crumb- burgling of the other. Ask yourself if Weyler is even to be heard in his own preposterous defense, with so much virtue and nobility against him.

Astounding remark of the Hon. H. August in the Letter Column:

The smug ones [clergymen of Baltimore] are too afraid of the rich members of their congregations to speak out on such subjects [e. g., the meagre wages paid working girls], while they have an open season all the year round for hounding unfortunate women.

Can you imagine any more unjust and ridiculous libel of ardent and fearless men? Need I pile up proofs that the fashionable preachers of Baltimore are as brave as lions, as assiduous as beavers? Not only do they denounce the gorged sinners of their flocks from the pulpit, thunderously and by name, but they also proceed to overt expulsions and excommunications. The result is an enviable and perhaps unparalleled purity in the pew. In all Baltimore, I dare say, you will not find a single Sunday-school superintendent who is also a political buccaneer, with his eyes rolled to heaven and both paws in the public till, Nor will you find a single plate-pusher who employs girls at $3 a week, or who fights child labor laws, or who swears off his taxes, or who has important and secret business at Annapolis when the Legislature is in session, or who opposes all effort for decent government on the ground that it hurts business.

Such rodents and pediculidæ of civilization are unknown in Baltimore. They have been cleaned out by an alert and valiant pulpit. The moment a new one tries to nose his way into the sanctuary, he is dectected, bawled out and sent flying. The result is, of course, that the fashionable clergy of Baltimore have to exercise their talent for invective in other ways. Hence their present interest in the scarlet lady. She to remote from their actual arenas of expostulation, true enough, but the virulence of her sinning makes up for its spatial distance. Besides, she is racy. She is naughty. She has the charm of the improper. And so she draws better houses than the gnawed bones of exegesis.

Within the last week I have received no less than eight anonymous letters making charges of gross treachery against my distinguished friend, the Hon. Robert J. McCuen, the greatest bachelor of profane history. Four of the tipsters say that he is courting a widow lady in Washington. D. C.; the others have it variously that she is an opera singer, a lady-embalmer or one of the season’s debutantes. I seize the opportunity to reiterate my faith in the Hon. Mr. McCuen. He is the one bachelor whose good faith I never doubt. Most of the others, if they are not obviously too penurious or too decrepit to marry, are the victims of unrequited affection--in brief, sentimental frauds. But the Hon. Mr. McCuen is young, rich and adamantine. Not Venus herself could make him do more than snicker politely and beckon for his bouncer.

Boil your seidel! Cover your mass! Swat the foam!