Baltimore Evening Sun (15 July 1913): 6.

From “Germany the Germans,” by Price Collier, page 217:

The German cities are * * * spared the confusion which is injected into our politics by a fortunately small class of reformers, with the prudish peculiarities of morbid vestals men who cannot work with other men, and who bring the virile virtues, the sound charities, and wholesome morality into contempt.

THE NEW IOKANAAN
I * * * claim to be the agent of a Divine power.—The Hon. William M. Anderson.

The Rev. Dr. Kenneth G. Murray, the moral statistician, in the Sunpaper:

A recent editorial in one of our evening papers advocated as a solution of our vice problem a return to segregation. I desire to ask where that segregation is to be located. * * * I desire to inform the public it shall not be located on or near the location of Fayette street Methodist Episcopal Church. * * *

Affecting stuff, but not very convincing. What was the Rev. Dr. Murray’s sensitive congregation doing when the present Western Tenderloin was established? What protest did it make during all the long years of that Tenderloin’s growth and prosperity? Why should its present death-bed repentance put burdens upon other congregations--congregations that have always kept their neighborhoods clean? What better place for a segregated district than where it has been tolerated for generations? What better church for its neighbor than one that has so assiduously connived at its existence?

This cry of the Rev. Dr. Murray’s is an echo of that made against Watson street a few months back by the Rev. Dr. Edward Niles, pastor of Second Presbyterian Church, at Baltimore and Lloyd streets. According to Dr. Niles’ own evidence, his church was standing fully 40 years before the first disorderly house opened in Watson street. It was standing during all the time that congregation grew up and flourished there. But it struck no blow for years and years. And when at last it awoke from its long sleep it put all the burdens of its sloth upon others--in the first place, upon the women of Watson street, and in the second place upon other and more diligent churches.

The sudden rise of moral fervor in such grotesquely supine and recreant churches is not apt to make much impression upon sensible men. Churches, like individuals, are, to be judged by their works and not at all by their protestations. When the pastor of a church that has been alert for righteousness protests against the invasion of its field by law-breakers, he is heard with respect and attention. But such complaints come with bad grace from the Rev. Dr. Murray. Before he damns the police for allowing a segregated district to occupy practically the whole of his parish, let him first explain why his predecessors in the apostolic succession consented to it. Reformers, like litigants, must come into court with clean hands.

The Hon. Thomas Francis Farnan, prefect of police, in the Sunpaper:

Baltimore is no village. It is a large, prosperous city. It has more than 500,000 population. In a place like this you are bound to find violations of the law here and there.

More proof that the Hon. Mr. Farnan is hunkerous, incompetent and sinful. The new morality, once it gets going, will stamp out all violations of the law. Every one of our 500,000 people will become as virtuous as Dr. Donald R. Hooker, even as virtuous as the Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte. Once we are governed by old maids armed with telescopes, we shall all begin to sprout wings.

A DAILY THOUGHT.
Take it easy; nothing is as important as you think it is.—Henri Bergson.

The Hon. William H. Anderson, pilloried by an outraged populace for his astounding attempt upon the virtue of the friars minor, takes refuge in an endless maze of defenses and denials. At the start, as connoisseurs will recall, he sought to make it appear that the whole thing was a joke, and that he concocted it for the purpose of leading me into ambush. In the American Issue of June 29 the following amazing headline, in the largest type he ever uses, sprawled across the first page:

Free Lance Finds “Mare’s Nest” and is Caught for a Sucker.

But this explanation, of course, was so absurd that it failed to fool even the Hon. Young Cochran, so the hon. gent. began making others. Let me recall a few of them:

1. That the proposal could not have been immoral, for “a large number of the pastors have expressed their intention of accepting it.”
2. That it was not, in point of fact, secret, for it had been preceded by a mysterious (and probably mythical) letter to the church boards, making the same proposition.
3. That “the letter in question was susceptible of an entirely honest and decent interpretation.” (The hon. gent., however, failed to state this interpretation.)
4. That the offer could not have been a bribe, for fellow-servants cannot bribe one another and the hon. gent. was as much an “official agent” of the churches as the rev. fathers he tempted so devilishly.

All of these defenses having been blown up by a calm and dignified marshaling of the facts, the hon. gent. now comes into court with a sort of knock-kneed plea in confession and avoidance. That is to say, he admits, at least by inference, that his letter was open to reasonable disapproval, but argues that he did not write it! It was “multigraphed and mailed,” he says, “while the superintendent was off the field getting a little rest in another State.” Blame the office boy! The cat being away, the kittens tried to catch mice—and the mice bit off their ears!

Well, well, let it go! I am not one to press the hon. gent. too hard. I leave him to his throbbing conscience and to that inevitable retribution which overtakes all sinners. Soon or late, I hope and believe, he will stand up and confess, and his tears will wash away his crime. Do not misjudge him, friends. If you knew him as well as I do, you would know that there is virtue in him at bottom. His offenses against the punctillio do not reveal his true character. If he stands in the dock today, let the blame be put upon bad company. Compelled by the exigencies of his sinister art to associate daily with Sunday-school superintendents and such-like riffraff, it is no wonder that he occasionally slides over the shadowy line which separates the just from the unjust.

Boil your drinking water! Wait for Anderson’s next explanation! Cover your garbage can! Sign the new Harry petition! Swat the fly!

Rhinocracy: the despotism of the hyperesthetic nose; government by snouters.