Baltimore Evening Sun (2 May 1913): 6.

THE FREE LUNCH

Lost in the excitement: the super-Mahon’s milk-fed senatorial boom.

THE HON. S. S. Field.

[From an editorial in yesterday’s Evening News.]

Mr. Field * * * was not acting as the taxpayers’ attorney. He was not engaged in probing the motives of Padgett in lending Houston money. He was not engaged in ascertaining to what extent Padgett had succeeded in placing his own men in the City Engineering Department. He was not there to probe any of the questions the public is asking itself. Drawing a salary from the city of Baltimore, his attitude was that of a private attorney employed to protect a politician contractor from the consequences of an act against the city’s interest.

The Venerable Wegg, Bishop of Havre de Grace in partibus infidelium, puts me to the torture in today’s Letter Column for the sin of contumacy. The Venerable Wegg is one of those brave fellows who do their fighting from behind chest protectors and false whiskers. Let me make him an offer. If he will come out from his ambush and do business under his own name, as I do and as all the men he presumes to defend do, I shall be very glad to meet his accusations. But so long as he joins the courage of the gazelle to the holy fervor of the ass, I hope to be excused from discussing any question of personal ethics with him. Such discussions, I submit, are not carried on profitably with persons so little gifted with common fairness that they hide behind pseudonyms.

GREAT REFORMERS

The Hon. S. S. Field, attorney for Padgett. The Hon. Stevenson A. Williams, attorney for the Havre do Grace “horse breeders.” The Hon. Samuel E. Pentz, attorney for dubious saloonkeepers.

The Padgett case, like all other such melodramatic affairs, gives plain promise of ending gloriously upon the note of high comedy. The Hon. the super-Mahon, having gone through the motions of excoriating Padgett, now seeks to divert the public from the underlying issue by raising his old bellow against the Sunpaper. If you are interested in such mountebankeries, you will find the first canto of his complaint in this morning’s issue of the Hot Towel, which prints whatever he orders it to print and kisses his hand to boot. The Sunpaper, it appears, is a “wet blanket.” Upon what? Upon the little games of Padgett, Field, McCay McCoy and the super-Mahon? Again, it is one of “the city’s enemies.” Why? Because it helped to dump the superMahon’s fat into the fire?

But don’t laugh at the poor old Hot Towel. The greasing business has been difficult of late. The August Customer has been in constant and violent motion. And don’t laugh too quickly at the super-Mahon. He has got away in the past by bawling out the Sunpaper, and he may get away again. It sounds brave, and even virtuous. It convinces the common people. Best of all, it diverts their minds from other and more pertinent matters. In the present case, It may make them forget that McCay McCoy, after violating the charter to help Padgett, is still holding his job--that S. S. Field, Padgett’s lawyer, is still “representing” the taxpayers against Padgett--that three of the five members of the Boards of Awards are still eager to save Padgett from further harm--that the City Engineer’s department is still chiefly manned by men who owe their jobs to Padgett.

In six months, it is highly probable, Padgett will be laying asphalt again, perhaps under a new name. And if not Padgett, then some other politician-contractor. The super-Mahon has laid down the doctrine, with all his customary roaring, that politician-contractors are public benefactors. He has argued over and over again that the newspapers which object to them are “the city’s enemies.” What is more, it is likely that he actually believes it. As he himself has said, he is “old-fashioned” in his faith. He holds that it is perfectly proper to turn public office to private advantage, and he does it boldly in the matter of the Calvert Bank.

It is perfectly possible, of course, that he may be jockeyed into bouncing McCay McCoy, as he was jockeyed into denouncing Padgett. The man is not at all clever: he is an easy mark for his so-called “enemies.” But though McCoy McCoy may go, the sweet aroma of McCay McCoy will linger. He is the perfect Preston job-holder. He represents, with mathematical accuracy, the Preston theory of civilized government. According to that theory, he is a noble public servant, even a martyr. As he himself has said; “we stand frankly for the organization. We will take care of the men who voted for us.” And not only of the “men who voted for us,” but also the politician-contractors who rounded them up and beat them into line.

Padgett is far from dead politically. If the super-Mahon resumes the nursing of his Senatorial boom, or decides--as seems more probable--to run for Governor, he will need good Bob. And needing him, he will have to provide a quid pro quo. In addition, he will need various other “leaders,” many of whom have something to sell to the city. The city will buy. Don’t let anyone fool you about it: the city will buy. And the gentlemen who will “inspect” the things bought will be highly satisfactory to the sellers. This is the “old-fashioned” scheme. This is the Preston scheme.

The estimable Democratic Telegram of this week presents a crude wood cut of the Hon. Wilbur Franklin Coyle, showing him wearing his new toupee; boosts the Hon. Eddie Hargrave for Sheriff; accuses the old-fashioned School Board of “either bigotry or timidity inconceivable”; praises “Hänsel und Gretel”; denounes the learned Hot Towel for stating that the Hon. W. D. Groner, of Norfolk, Va., is still alive, and argues that the corner loafers and ward heelers sent to the Legislature from Baltimore have been “uniformly as good men as could be obtained.” On Page 16 it prints a cubist cartoon showing its staff poet [apparently the Hon. Jacobus Hook] pursuing a literary critic with great ferocity. An entertaining issue of an always sagacious and instructive gazette.--Adv.

The super-Mahon, McCay McCoy and S. S. Field--the three Sunday-school superintendents--the heavenly triplets--Faith, Hope and Charity.

The more Dan Loden hears about it the more gladder he is he ain’t in it.--Adv.