Baltimore Evening Sun (14 May 1913): 6.

THE FREE LANCE

The Court of Appeals’ decision in the case against ex-Sheriff Bill Green may be “a decided victory for the State,”as the learned Sunpaper says, but it is certainly not a victory that makes any appreciable dent in Bill. His own appeal is still to be decided, and even if the court goes against him, he will be no worse off than he was last September, before his case went to a jury. The next jury may be more kind to him: it may actually render a verdict in his favor. And if it doesn’t, he will still have the privilege of appeal. In any case, he will be immune until autumn. It is now too late in the season to try the suit against him. The courts shut down in summer.

The other three ex-Sheriffs will probably go unmolested of the law until after Bill’s case has been settled. They will celebrate the fourth anniversary of the fee suits in full possession of the money. The first three suits were entered on June 2, 1909, by the Hon. Isaac Lobe Straus, then Attorney-General of Maryland. They were against Bill, George Warfield and Cousin George Padgett. The fourth suit—that against Paving Bob—followed on August 18. Since then the Hon. Mr. Straus has retired from public life, and is now engaged in moral endeavor. But the four suits retain all their pristine health and vigor. Only one of them has ever got before a jury, and that one was quickly rescued. The other three, after four years, are precisely as they were when they began.

During all this time the ex-Sheriffs have been drawing interest upon the State’s money, and leading the easy lives of Phœnician princes. Paving Bob, for example, has traveled to the Pacific Coast and back, stopping at the best hotels, seeing the good shows, collecting baggage labels and Indian arrowheads. In addition, he has indulged in such babylonish luxuries as the employment of the Hon. Sunday-School Field and the Hon. W. S. Bryan as his juriconsults and ghostly counselors. Meanwhile, the taxpayers have paid taxes four times, each time through the nose. Such is jurisprudence in this imperial republic.

So long ago as February 14, 1911—that is, 2¼ years ago—the Hon. Mr. Straus applied for judgments by default, on the ground that the ex-Sheriffs were resorting to needless and intolerable delays. On March 3, 1911, such a judgment was duly entered against Paving Bob. On May 25, 1912, he tried to have it stricken out. On June 17 his application was refused. But he still has the money. How much it amounts to I don’t know. The original suit was for $10,206.63. Interest on $10,000 for four years comes to $2,400. More than enough to pay for Bob’s trip to the Coast.

From an “appeal to the young men of Maryland” issued by the Democratic-Progressive League, whatever that may be:

XIII. We favor the suppression of vice and iniquity in all forms.

Number 13 of a long list of moral principles. But how is this suppression going to be accomplished? Perhaps the intellectual giants of the Democratic-Progressive League have discovered a means. If so, let them make it public, by all means. Immortality awaits them.

Counts in an indictment brought against me by some volunteer (and anonymous) grand juryman in yesterday’s Letter Column:

  1. At a marriageable age, but believes in bachelorhood.
  2. Believes in segregation.
  3. Believes in beer drinking.
  4. Believes in gambling.
  5. Believes in Sunday desecration.
  6. Believes in woman suffrage.

To which, on the advice of my counsel, I enter the following pleas:

  1. Previous jeopardy.
  2. Nul tiel record.
  3. Nolo contendere.
  4. Not guilty.
  5. Autrefois attaint.
  6. Guilty.

Harsh, harsh judgment of the immoral New York Sun:

What is the history of every private society organized [in New York] to hunt down criminals, to suppress vice, to enforce various statutes? Their agents have been notoriously corrupt, undependable and dishonest. Their characters have made the police shine as with goodness. Applied as a remedy, they have proved infinitely worse than the disease they were employed to cure.

Letter to the Sun from the Rev. Dr. W. S. Rainsford:

Without going as far as you do in your editorial article, and condemning the agents of such private societies as “notoriously corrupt, undependable and dishonest,” I do not hesitate to say that their inefficiency, bigotry, partiality and lack of intelligence, their incapacity to see and understand what should be and could be for the good of a great city’s life, led them often into mistakes of judgment and intrigues so grave as to be almost if not actually criminal. When this was the case the social power behind them shielded them from exposure and often from even public criticism.

The Hot Towel, for all its patriotic ardor, is not one to bear grudges. The following notorious “enemies to Baltimore,” despite their past crimes against Dashing Harry and “good government,” will be admitted to the Doomsday Book on payment of $100 a head:

Some of these sinister conspirators, in fact, have already been invited to come across. The Towel is a faithful friend: it labors diligently for a good customer. But when there is a conflict between an actual customer and a potential customer, it is discreetly in favor of both.

Sinister warning and invitation in the Maryland Suffrage News:

No great reform has ever been accomplished without the cost of personal sacrifice. No great victory has ever been won except at the price of courage and fortitude. The woman suffrage cause in Maryland needs brave soldiers to blaze the way to freedom. Will you be one of them?

The heading upon this clarion call is “The Baptism of Fire.” Can it be that the local suffragettes plan a campaign of terrorism? Are they getting acid ready for the letter-boxes, accumulating cobblestones, making bombs, hatching the kidnapping of Dashing Harry? I hope not. And if they are, I hasten to climb down with the best grace possible. Don’t shoot, dear ladies! I am with you, heart and soul! Three cheers for the suffrage! Tell me what I can do to please you, and I’ll do it forthwith!

If, as the anti-suffragists say, the men voters of today are capable of solving all public problems without feminine interference, then why not let them solve the problem of woman suffrage without feminine interference?—Paid Adv.