Baltimore Evening Sun (10 June 1913): 8.

Confidential letter from the moral Anti-Saloon League to the clerical bravos who have helped it in its holy war:

Now is OUR turn to DO SOMETHING for YOU. We have asked your help many times. * * * The League staff appreciates the spirit of loyalty and co-operation manifested by the pastors of Maryland generally. Their help in * * * getting letters written to legislators, State and national, and particularly in sending in voters’ lists, has been invaluable. Therefore, it is a joy to us to be able to do something that shows how much we appreciate all this. The inclosed sheet tells you all about the great [Anti-Saloon League] convention at Columbus in November. * * * Who would not want to attend such a meeting? * * * But we know that many pastors cannot well spare the $30 or $35 necessary. We also know that most churches are WILLING to do this, but that few will think of it unless somebody suggests it. We understand that of course you cannot ask it, and that you do not want to hint about it. THAT IS WHERE WE COME IN. If you will send us CONFIDENTIALLV the name of the secretary of the proper board or committee, we will write a personal letter to him to be brought up for official action, urging that your church join with the others of the State and send you to Columbus. We will of course protect you by making it clear that you did not even indirectly suggest this. Also, likewise in strict confidence, please send us the name of some prosperous layman, a good friend of yours, who is able to pay the expenses himself if need be.

An interesting, instructive and edifying document. The Anti-Saloon League is run by shrewd and practical men. They have estimated very accurately the true moral horsepower of their clerical allies. They know very well that a consuming rage against the saloon is not at all incompatible with a pious itch for honest graft.

A DAILY THOUGHT. The women, woven, built and kneaded up Of hydrogen, of azote, of oxygen, Of carbon, phosphorus, chlorine, sulphur, iron, Of calcium, kalium, natrum, manganese. —John Davidson: Fleet street.

From Sidney Lanier’s noble ode to the Johns Hopkins University, written for the fourth Commemoration Day exercises, February, 1880:

Bring large Lucretius, with unmaniac mind. Bring all gold hearts and high resolved wills To be with us about these happy hills— Bring old Renown To walk familiar citizen of the town— Bring Tolerance, that can kiss and disagree.

But enough, enough! What would poor Lanier have thought of Prof. Donald R. Hooker, or Trustee Eugene Levering!

Bilious note from a correspondent with a grouch:

Don’t waste your time trying to dig up the dead Weyler et al., for instance. Give us something about the terrible distress of the Hot Towel since it is no longer able to grease the Hon. Dashing Harry. It seems to me that it was really unfair for the good old Sunpaper to corner the grease market just because it desired to lubricate the Hon. Wilson, the Hon. Swann, and the late lamented Konig, who was vaselined to death. Indeed, so bare has the local market become of lubricants that the other papers have had to send elsewhere to get sufficient supplies for the Hot-Air Convention of Truth Tellers. By the way, did you note this morning that Bernheimer has cut the price on city stock? And have you noticed that Harry has relented and given first page ads to the Sunpaper as well as the Towel? These are some of the things we would like to hear discussed by the Free Lance so as to refute the charge of some of the knockers that the Free Lance is not really free.

My one and sufficient defense against all these vague complaints is that it is very difficult to discuss the obvious. So long as the Sunpaper confines its greasing to Woodrow, Sherlock and Luke, there is nothing profitable to be said. As well wag tongues over the news that Col. Winfield Peters is still opposed to the niggero. But let the Sunpaper slap a pat of cocoa-butter athwart the fevered gills of D. H.—let gratitude for that first-page ad. take the form of a sudden salvo of goose grease and oleomargarine—and it will be a pleasure and a duty to call attention to the fact in suave, sarcastic terms, with a suggestive elevation of the eyebrows, and a faint, contumacious clicking of the tonsils.

All persons who are curious about the lives led by white slaves, but lack the courage to invade their bastiles personally, are advised to spend $1.30 for a copy of “Commercialized Prostitution in New York,” by the Hon. George J. Kneeland. The Hon. Mr. Kneeland, if I make no mistake, was the author of all the more entertaining portions of the famous report of the Chicago Vice Commission, and is thus an expert of considerable eminence among the moral cognoscenti. But the report of the Chicago Vice Commission was forbidden the mails by some prudish Dogberry in the Postoffice Department, and so it has always been a hard book to get at. I myself, for example, was able to obtain a copy only by representing myself to be a reformed policeman. In his new volume, however, the Hon. Mr. Kneeland is on safer ground, for the Hon. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., introduces him, and he is published by the Century company. In consequence, there is little chance that the overzealous G. P. O. will interfere with him.

The Hon. Mr. Kneeland is full of curious anecdotes about while slave traders, who are organized, it appears, in small groups, over each of which there rules a king. One of these kings has his throne in a delicatessen store on Seventh avenue, and his highly respectable family lives upstairs. Thus, with mathematical detail, the Hon. Mr. Kneeland describes the average king:

A large, well-fed man about 40 years of age, and 5 feet 8 inches in height. His clothes are the latest cut, loud in design, and carefully pressed. A heavy watch chain adorns his waistcoat, a large diamond sparkles in a flashy necktie, and his fat, chubby fingers are encircled with gold and diamond rings.

In brief, this composite king looks like a bartender on a holiday, and if the Hon. Mr. Kneeland is to be believed, is almost as sinful.

Much other strange, levantine information is on tap in the book, and I commend it with confidence to all persons interested in the new art or science of vice crusading, and in particular to those advanced clergymen who believe that the best way to combat vice is to describe it in high, astounding and specific terms. Young John has put up the money for three other volumes, and they will appear at intervals. The first will deal with the social evil in Europe, and the second will treat of the Continental police system, and the third will be devoted to conditions in those American cities that have not hitherto enjoyed the honor of being accurately platted by local talent.