Baltimore Evening Sun (12 June 1913): 8.

Proposed substitute for the Code of Public General Laws of Maryland:

1. It shall be unlawful for anyone, either in public or in private, to do anything objectionable to the Hon. Eugene Levering.
2. Any person found guilty of violating the preceding section shall be fined not less than one thousand dollars or imprisoned in the Maryland Penitentiary for not less than ten (10) years, or both.

3. One-half of all fines collected under the preceding section shall be paid to the Rev. Dr. W. W. Davis.

Snoutocracy, or government by the Lord’s Day Alliance.

From an ode to John Barleycorn by the Hon. William H. Anderson in the current American Issue:

He’s just around the corner, He’s just across the street; His voice is warm and comradely, His words are soft and sweet.

And so on and so on—ending, of course, with reviling and a warning. But isn’t there a suspicious eloquence in this ode? Isn’t there a lamentable admission of old John’s geniality, of his genuine kindliness, of his imperishable charm?

Standing of the clubs in the National Typhoid League for the week ended May 17:

New York.......................419 Cleveland........................320 Philadelphia...................407 St. Louis..........................305 Boston...........................388 Baltimore.......................265 Chicago.........................338 Pittsburgh........................242 ——— Boil your drinking water! Observe the return of Paving Bob! Weep with McCay McCoy! Swat the fly! ——— A DAILY THOUGHT. Why dost thou sell thy house? Because I cannot sell my neighbor.—Malay proverb. ——— What has become, by the way, of the Hon. Dashing Harry’s Senatorial boom? Four or five months ago it was in full blast, and all the hon. gent.’s private whoopers and ticklers, from the Hon. Sunday-school Field down to the Hon. Goose-grease Altfeld, were stoking the furnaces beneath it, and bringing up inflammables in buckets, and chasing away the villains who sneaked up with fire extinguishers. The Hot Towel printed a fresh canto of the Harriad almost every day, and the Democratic Telegram gave weekly accounts of the enthusiasm for the Great Martyr in the counties. For example:

During the last several weeks a number of leading and prominent Democrats, men of standing with the voters of the party and influence in its counsels, have strongly urged the selection of Mayor Preston for one of the Senatorships. Because of his popularity with the people and his ability to do things and get results [a reminiscence of July 2?] they believe he would make one of the best Senators the State has had for years. He is one of the ablest campaigners in the State, and with the Mayor in the fight they contend he would be a real factor in helping the entire Democratic ticket in the general election.

This on December 28. A week later came the following:

Seldom in the history of the city has the demand for a man to be a candidate for public office been greater than that which has developed throughout Baltimore for Mayor James H. Preston to run for the United States Senate. Without any effort on his part (!) Democrats during the past few days have taken up the Mayor as a candidate and started a fight for him.

A week later the Telegram hedged a bit. That is, it inserted a number of ifs and buts in its accounts of this great popular iprising. But on January 25, after the hon. gent. had sent his famous circular to the county bosses and his ingenuous offer of advertising to the county papers, it began to blow clarion blasts again. As witness:

For weeks sentiment has been steadily growing for the Mayor as a candidate in the counties, as well as in the city. Many of the Mayor’s friends have been besieged by county Democrats who sought to ascertain whether or not the Mayor will be a candidate.

And so on and so on. Again, on February 1:

Sentiment for him is growing steadily throughout the State. Every day most encouraging reports reach him and his friends from the counties. So for as the city is concerned, it is conceded, even by the Mayor’s enemies, that should he be a candidate, he will sweep Baltimore.

By March 15 the Telegram was announcing that the Hon. Mr. Preston was “occupying the centre of the political stage” and that the Hon. John Walter Smith was diligently wooing him and trying to make a deal with him. At the same time it was sneering at the Hon. Isaac Lobe Straus, the celebrated solaricide, for his sudden and incredible conversion to local option and the initiative and referendum. And so on, down through the rest of March and all of April. On the one hand, it was announced weekly that the honorable gent’s strength in the counties was growing mightily, and on the other hand the aspirations of Isaac were treated with a degree of levity bordering upon the downright bilious. In all this the dutiful Towel helped with assiduous greasings. Every time the licentious Sunpaper heaved a handful of gravel at the Harry boom the Towel rushed up with a fomentation of tallow and bears grease.

But then of a sudden the music ceased, the flags fluttered down, the buglers were shot and buried and a herd of charwomen began scrubbing up the grease. In brief, the Harry boom blew up. And what is worse, the Towel made a dramatic flop to Isaac and began bombarding him furiously with all its blubber guns. At the moment, if I make no mistake, it is anointing him for the lofty job of State leader—and not a word is it printing about the boom of poor Dashing Harry! Not once since May 1 has it had a word to say about the mad enthusiasm for him in the counties. Not once has it hailed him as the boss of Maryland foreordained. Not once has it let loose at him with the ram of its flock of ordnance—the great Long Tom of its battery—the famous vaseline mortar in E flat minor. Every bomb from that fearful piece has showered its musk and frankincense over the Hon. Isaac Lobe Straus.

Thus friends fall out and the vulgar are given something to gobble over. Why the rift in the graphite lute? What has happened to the eminent firm of super-Mahon, Towel and Company? Can it be that the old working agreement—a c. c. of witch hazel for every line of agate–has been abrogated, busted, torn up, made null and void? Alas, I fear so—and many correlative circumstances bear out the fear. Imprimis, the infernal Sunpaper, for all its crimes, has been getting of late a few juicy schnitzels of city advertising, to the loss and in contempt of the Towel. Zum zweitzen, the Hon. Bob Lee, chief valet to the super-Mahon, lately denounced the Towel by name at a public banquet. Think of it! Think of Bob denouncing the Towel! Think of the Towel being classed with such low, rapscallion sheets as the Sunpaper, the Even-

[But more of this scandal anon.]