Baltimore Evening Sun (25 February 1913): 6.

After denouncing local option at their kaffeeklatsch on Saturday, the 42 surviving members of the Prohibition party in Maryland endorsed the vice crusade. It is also indorsed, by the way, by the anti-vivisectionists, anti-vaccinationists, zoophiles, eugenists, Emmanuel Movers, perunists, suffragettes, Blue lawyers, moral mutilators, anti-tangoers, vegetarians, prima donna ecclesiastics, amateur popes, theatre censors and weeping wiskinskis.

THE WOMAN HUNT.

Six months ago there was a a wild demand on the part of Chicago reformers that the segregated district be broken up. Well, it was broken up--and now we are receiving complaints from residential sections that the vice army has invaded.--Mayor Carter H. Harrison of Chicago.

That talent for solemn buffoonery which is the Hon. the super-Mahon’s greatest gift is revealed once more by his circulation of petitions among street cleaners and ward heelers, calling upon him to save Baltimore by going to the United States Senate. Engaged for months upon his campaign--cross-examining pot-house statesmen as to their attitude, inspiring oleaginous articles in the Hot Towel, issuing vague and bullying threats to the decent newspapers, holding his bar’l under the noses of the country editors, juggling jobs, courting the improvement associations, fiddling at banquets, posturing before the women’s clubs, hiring agents and tub-thumpers, practicing the look of an intellectual giant, bawling for Woodrow Wilson, denouncing Satan Anderson--engaged for months past in such ardent clowning, assisted by a huge staff of press agents, greasers and pediculidae, he now essays to convince the public that he is a reluctant and blushing fellow, that his sole thought is for dear old Baltimore, that he will not stand for the Senate save in response to a spontaneous and frenzied public demand.

What is the secret of the man? Is he the greatest humorist since Rabelais or is he utterly devoid of humor? Examine any one of his more conspicuous mountebankeries and you will find it explicable upon either ground, but upon no other. For example, his campaign for the Vice Presidency. Either he is so full of animal spirits that he is able to step back and laugh at himself, heartily and uproariously, even when suffering the sharpest humiliation, or he has no more sense of humor than a vice crusader. Which is it? I give it up.

But whatever the answer, I presume to enroll myself among the humblest of the hon. gent.’s supporters and well-wishers. He may be over-noisy at times, he may show a constant bad taste, he may comport himself more like a side-show spieler than a statesman--but he always given a good entertainment. The audience never goes to sleep while he is leaping the elephants and going through the hoops. When he performs upon the great contrabass syllogism in B flat windows are broken at a distance of 30 miles. When he struggles into his martyr’s chemise and rattles his zinc halo sympathetic freshets go roaring down a thousand streams.

His sigh is a hullaballoo, His whisper a horrible yell.

And, in particular, he shines at the noble science of murdering the newspapers. When he lands upon them, something gives. When he merely makes faces at them, they break out into hectic rashes. Murdering the newspapers is no new invention. It has been practiced for years and years. It has produced great professors, virtuosi, genii–Blease, Lorimer, Dowie, Ruef, Sam Jones, Bailey, Billy Sunday. But not one of these has surpassed the super-Mahon. Not one could teach him a new hold, a new bellow, a new route to the solar plexus. Not one could weep as he weeps; not one could whoop as he whoops. He is the Beethoven of the science. He has lifted it to the dignity of what the learned Sunpaper calls the bozarts. And he makes his virtuosity pay.

Moralists’ guide to “The Follies of 1912,” on view at the Academy of Music this week:

• 8.25—Enter 22 chorus girls wearing tights.
• 8.26—Enter six in hip boots.
• 8.37—Bert Williams lights a cigarette.
• 8.44—Enter an actor impersonating one suffering from the fumes of rum.
• 8.53—Bert Williams takes a pull at a jug.
• 8.55—Encore.
• 9.01—Grand turkey trot by the entire company.
• 9.04—The tango.
• 9.05—The grapevine.
• 9.06—The bunny hug.
• 9.12—Bacchanal.
• 9.27—Enter 20 girls in bathing suits.
• 9.30—Enter six without skirts.
• 9.34—Williams lights a corncob pipe.
• 9.40—More girls in tights.
• 9.51—Several in hobble skirts.
• 10.02—A Strauss waltz.
• 10.18—Enter two Chinese acrobats in undershirts.
• 10.19—Two without undershirts.
• 10.32—Williams lights another cigarette.
• 10.41—Grand finale. Tights. Cigarettes. Bathing suits. Tango

Standing of the clubs in the National Tuberculosis League, for the week ended February 1:

Baltimore.........................555 Philadelphia.................303 Boston...............................402 Pittsburgh.....................280 Chicago.............................367 St. Louis.......................247 New York..........................364 Cleveland.....................196

These averages are computed, not on the basis of cases reported, but on the basis of deaths reported. Note the relative position of Cleveland, which passed Baltimore in population in 1910.

Abolish cigarettes and there would be no chorus girls. Abolish chorus girls and there would be no theatres. Abolish theatres, and there would be no immorality. Abolish immorality and there would be no vice crusaders.

CORRECTION Readers are requested to call attention to any errors appearnig in the columns of the Free Lance.

To the Editor of The Evening Sun: Sir–I can stand almost anything from the Free Lance, but his suggestion the other evening that once upon a time I had smoked half a cigarette puts me in serious danger. Many long, long years ago my father promised that if I arrived at the age of 21 without doing certain things, among which was included the use of tobacco, I would be given a gold watch, and I have been carrying this watch for a good many years (no matter just how many), and I fear that this “hitherto unpublished scandal” might by some unlucky chance find its way beyond the confines of the State and be believed and I be called upon to give back the watch, and since I have quit the practice of law and engaged in Anti-Saloon League work I could not afford to buy another one so good. I solemnly protest against being expoused to say such danger. William H. Anderson, Superintendent, Anti-Saloon League of Maryland.