Baltimore Evening Sun (26 April 1913): 6.

The plupious super-Mahon on Paving Bob’s humane loan to the Hon. Mr. Houston:

Oh, yes [oyez?], he had a perfectly legal right to make the loan, but this is a question of propriety, not legal rights.

Solemn words by the greatest living authority upon propriety. An utterance ex cathedra by the vice-president of the Calvert Bank.

Profound remarks of the Hon. Aristides Sophocles Goldsborough, the Hon. the super-Mahon’s private platitudinarian and tickler in the current issue of the Municipal Journal:

Nobody denies the value of a “don’t” where to do the thing objected to would be injurious. [Applause.] Nobody denies the importance of heading off anything wrong. [Cheers.] A community that stops every time somebody yells “Stop!” will never move very fast. [Yells of “Lay on, old top!”] Every important proposition carries with it a certain measure of venture and uncertainty. [Huzzahs.] Nobody can ever gauge with perfect precision the ultimate results of any undertaking. [Vociferous plaudits.] There is nothing in the norld easier than resolution making. [“Hear! Hear!”] The way to do it is to do, not to kill time trying not to do. [Long-continued clapper-clawing and screams of mirth.]

Exit Samuel Smiles, D. D.! Down goes Dr. Orison Swett Marden! Good Aristides takes the cruller, the biscuit, the palm, the silver medal, the zinc halo and the Richard K. Fox diamond belt.

Mayor Rudolph Blankenburg of Philadelphia in The Sun of August 19, 1912:

The curse of the American nation is the politician who has turned contractor. His ring is kept alive with the people’s money; his power over city officials gives him every opportunity to be a grafter. When a political organization is in the contracting business it does not nominate a man to be Mayor who will favor the City, but one who will favor the organization. Pity the city that is governed by contractors! Pity it until the people, slow to realize, finally awake! Ah, it is true that corrupt municipalities go in for many improvements because the opportunity for graft is in every improvement. The more improvements, the more the contractor gets. Our [Philadelphia] politicians who controlled the nomination and election of a Mayor were contractors doing business with the city. * * * When the time came to nominate a man for Mayor, a man was picked out, not for his fitness, but because he could be absolutely depended upon to do what the contractor-politician told him. The contractor wanted a Mayor who would allow the appointments of city officials to be dictated by the contractor. Why? It is easy. The contractor who was doing business with a city department wanted to own that department head. He wanted to own also the little employes whom the department head appointed. Most of all, he wanted to own the inspector who was supposed to inspect for the city the work done by the contractor. * * * With an inspector who can be told “Forget it” when he finds something wrong it is easy to mulct the city. Very easy. That used to be a common word in Philadelphia–“Forget it.” It was thundered at any inspector who tried to do his duty for the city.

Since his election, Mayor Blankenburg has been engaged in a gallant effort to knock out Philadelphia’s old gang of political contractors. Naturally enough, he has met with violent opposition in the City Council, that stronghold of stupidity and worse. He has been bitterly attacked by the politicians and by the dishonest newspapers. At the moment an elaborate campaign against him is under way.

On April 17, the Hon. the super-Mahon went to Philadelphia as the guest of gentlemen interested in this campaign. They wanted to produce testimony that the political contractor was a slandered innocent. They wanted to strike a blow at Mayor Blankenburg. They wanted to confuse and mislead the public by showing that the Mayor of another large city was against him. They sought a star witness.

The Hon. the super-Mahon accommodated these sweet-smelling patriots. He made an eloquent speech before the Clover Club, defending the men denounced by Mayor Blankenburg. He gave it as his opinion that there was “no man in the country more unjustly maligned” than the politician-contractor. He said he thought that the politician-contractor did more “for the development of a municipality and the prosperity of the people than all the college professors and highbrows together.” In brief, he delivered the goods. He handed Mayor Blankenburg a hot one. And then he came home and denounced the decent newspapers of Baltimore for their protests against Paving Bob Padgett.

How prohibition works in Denton, as described by the esteemed American-Union of that fair town:

“On Saturday evening, passing from Everngam’s store to the postoffice,” said a gentleman on Sunday, “I saw five drunken white men. There should be something done about this.” The gentleman is one of the town’s oldest citizens. He can remember, no doubt, when whisky was sold in Denton. and was one of the voters who helped to vote it out of the town and county. The majority is supposed to rule in this country, and yet many people will tell you that we are compelled to put up with as much drunkenness and rowdyism now as when liquor was sold in the town. Why? Because we allow the liquor dealers of Baltimore and other cities to dump the stuff from every train. To sell to our citizens what we do not permit them to buy at home, and not only the drinking class of our town, but many from the country come to town on Saturday nights, get their jugs and stagger up and down our streets.

How prohibition works in Oklahoma, as described by the Bartlesville Enterprise:

Take Oklahoma City, for instance. There is a small army of State enforcement officers there, but they have never made a success of closing the joints. In Oklahoma City today there are * * * no less than 100 places * * * where intoxicating liquors are sold. Some of the State enforcement officers are sincere men, but there are others who are unprincipled, who would stoop to any act for filthy lucre. It is a matter of common knowledge that certain enforcement officers have accepted money from joint men. * * * They have been known to sell confiscated whisky to other bootleggers–mostly negroes. In one instance, an enforcement officer was accused of stealing whisky from a bootlegger’s cellar and selling it. * * *

Boil your drinking water! Cover your garbage can! Pay your mite to help save besotted Baltimore!

Let Col. Jacobus Hook look to his parnassian laurels. Prof. Willard D. Corey, the staff poet of the “101 Ranch” wild-west show, entered Baltimore upon his snow-white charger this morning, and will call upon the Colonel in a day or two and formally challenge him to a bout in rhyme. Professor Corey is the author of the State song of Arizona, “One Little Drink Ain’t Half Enough,” and was the diamond belt in the great poets’ contest at Laramie, Wyo., in 1884. He has a high opinion of Colonel Hook’s poetic gift and looks forward to a close and stimulating combat. Professor Corey will appear at each and every performance of the “101 Ranch” and will play the A clarinet in the grand street parade, cavalcade and procession of snorting mustangs.--Adv.