Baltimore Evening Sun (6 March 1913): 6.

The Penitentiary Board’s reply to the report of Dr. Goldsborough’s Penal Commission puts into admirably succinct and convincing form the chief objections to that singularly extravagant and ridiculous document. If Warden Weyler had been given the task of preparing the report himself, he could have achieved nothing more likely to make sympathy for him. Its whole tone is intolerant and unfair; it is full of absurdities and inconsistencies; the animus behind it is visible in every line. In brief, it must stand for many years as a warning against the evil consequences of newspaper hysteria. It leaves the reader amazed that so violent a stump speech should ever be put forward as the serious decision of a quasi-judicial body.

Not, of course, that it does not point out genuine evils and abuses. It would be strange, indeed, if a commission so ardent should fail to unearth defects in so large and complex an organism as the Penitentiary. Here in The Sun office there are also many things that might be improved, and some of them are so obvious that a blind man could see them. The roaches are too numerous; the ventilating system is preposterous; the heat on summer afternoons is unbearable; the job presses on the top floor shake the whole building, interfering with literary composition; the rewards of industry are from 40 to 99 per cent. too low. What is more, there is graft. Two-thirds of the literati here caged use office stationary for their private correspondence; I myself have lifted copy paper, postage stamps and Munsey’s Magazine. Worse still, there is debauchery. The newsboys in the cellar play bridge whist between editions; I have seen an editorial writer in liquor; prize fighters and ward heelers frequent the news rooms.

But all this proves no more than that The Sun is a human institution, and that, being human, it is imperfect. So with the Penitentiary. The commission proves that bedbugs got into some of the cells, to the discomfort and horror of the Moorish rapists resident there. It proves that the unspeakable Weyler snatched from the sewers nearly 20 tons of bread crumbs, at 20 cents a ton. It proves that he sometimes bought junk from the prison scrap-pile, paying cash for it. It proves that, on one occasion, at least, he forgot to pay up $9.80 and had to be reminded. It proves that he employed convicts to make two suits of clothes and a few chicken coops for his personal adornment and divertisement. It proves that he allowed his charges to buy perfumed soaps and other such babylonish luxuries. It proves that he allowed them to paint their cells as they fancied and to put in rugs, chairs and other comforts. It proves that the matron of the woman’s section dosed her guests with “home remedies,” to their great delight and satisfaction. It proves that many prisoners left the institution with less than $10 in their jeans--forgetting the money they sent home in advance. It proves that the Penitentiary death rate is high--forgetting the fact that two-thirds of the inmates are negroes. It proves that cuffing up is a painful and unpleasant process.

All these things it proves abundantly, chiefly by the evidence of crooks pardoned as a reward for their testimony. But many other things it doesn’t prove–and some of them, by a curious coincidence, are the things brought forward with greatest fuming and fury at the start of the so-called inquiry. What has become, for example, of the insinuation that Warden Weyler got a share of the profits of prison contractors? What has become of the dark hints of prisoners tortured to make a show for him? What has become of all the other oblique and preposterous charges against him, mysteriously current in this town at the time Dr. Goldsborough took fire?

Nothing is heard of them now. What is heard to a farrago of abuse and self-contradiction. Warden Weyler is accused, on the one hand, of treating his charges too harshly, and on the other hand, of indulging them too much. He is denounced for favoring the contract system, which allows them to make money for themselves, and denounced for not letting them make more. He is accused of buying junk from the scrap pile, and on top of the accusation it is insinuated that he didn’t buy it. He is accused of withholding medicine from sick convicts and of allowing them to be medicated too much. He is accused of intimidating witnesses and is then condemned on the evidence of witnesses who got pardons for testifying against him.

Let the public decide this celebrated cause. Let it get the report of the Penal Commision, read it carefully and then test and judge it by the rules of evidence, the doctrine of probabilities and the standard of common sense.

Standing of the clubs in the National Typhoid League for the week ended February 8:

St. Louis........................480 New York..........................354 Baltimore.....................412 Philadelphia.......................294 Chicago.........................388 Boston................................268 Pittsburgh......................355 Cleveland...........................160

The Hon. R. T. H., putting me to the torture in today’s Letter Column for my “attack upon the flag of our country,” reveals a characteristic habit of moralists, professional patriots and all other such pious windjammers. That is to say, he first indicts me for something I have not done, and then proceeds to convict and hang me on his own bogus evidence. The fact is, of course, that I have never uttered a word, either in print or by word of mouth, against “the flag of our country.” I am too patriotic to do it, and what is more, too discreet. What I have presumed to cackle at is the Hon. Francis Scott Key’s song, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” And my objection to “The Star-Spangled Banner” is precisely that it is unworthy of the flag it celebrates--that it makes the judiciois snicker at the very times when they should be breaking into the cold sweat of patriotism--that it debauches and degrades the little children who are forced to learn and sing it.

In this view, of course, it is possible that I may be wrong. If so, let the evidence be forthcoming. Let half a dozen competent critics go on the stand. Let them defend “The StarSpangled Banner” if they can. And meanwhile, let all mere pietists and sob-squadders stand back. No one is going to be impressed by the manufactured proofs of such puerile slobberers, and no one is going to mistake them for intelligent men, nor even for genuine patriots. That brand of patriotism which they preach is too pifflish to be the last refuge of scoundrels. But it is an admirable first refuge for donkeys.

The betting odds at Westport, as reported by the Society for the Suppression of Vice:

2 to 1 that Harry gets away with it. 1 to 10 that Isaac sticks.