Baltimore Evening Sun (4 August 1913): 6.

Rudolpf, the oberkellner at the Franziskanerbräuhauptausschank, has ordered a new celluloid collar in honor of Col. Jacobus Hook’s visit.—Adv.

How a poor Italian woman was trapped by a policewoman, desscribed by the American:

Mrs. Faber, in the Italian language, told her that she had a very sick friend and wanted to buy some wine. At first the woman was a little doubtful whether or not to sell it, but finally she consented.

The New Thought in policing? First induce an ignorant woman to violate the law by playing on her sympathies, and then lock her up! But where is the jury that will convict on such evidence?

Progress of the uplift in Shippensburg, Pa., as described by the Shippensburg Chronicle of last Saturday:

The Church of God will hold its annual S.S. picnic at Meadow Park on August 5. * * * At 2 P. M. the following races will take place:

Peanut scramble. Nail-driving contest for girls. Chicken fight.

A DAILY THOUGHT. Force is no remedy.—John Bright.

The grand jury will miss much of the true inwardness of the current vice crusade if it fails to take a look into the doings of the so-called Society for the Suppression of Vice, perhaps the most pertinacious and impudent of all our local clubs of archangels. This is a private organization and it is run by less than half a dozen men, but of late it has been exercising all the powers of a governmental agency, including some that are far more in harmony with Russian law than with American. It would be interesting for the grand jury to find out just how it acquired such singular and despotic powers, and in just what manner they have been exercised.

For example, how did the society get command of a special squad of policemen, paid out of the public treasury but obeying the secret orders of its spies and agents? And by what authority were these policemen told off to lay ingenuous plots against other policemen, apparently for the sole purpose of satisfying the private revenges of the said spies and agents? There may be warrant in the law for such doings, but up to the hour of going to press my barristers have been unable to find it. My resources, however, are not sufficient for me to command the loftiest legal talent. The grand jury could seek better advice, including that of certain gifted juriconsults connected with the society.

As an example of how things have been done of late, I refer the inquest to a series of raids in the Western Tenderloin on the evening of Saturday, March 15. These raids were upon furnished-room houses on Arch street, and several wagonloads of men and women were nabbed. The day before they were made, orders issued from police headquarters that all of the furnished-room houses in the Western district should be closed within 30 days, and those orders were transmitted to the keepers thereof. But within 36 hours came the raids.

Why? Wherefore? To what end? These houses had been in operation for years, and the 30-day notice was perfectly in accord with police procedure. The same sort of notice had been given to the keepers of disorderly houses in Watson street and Rogers avenue, and all of them had duly closed within the time named. What is more, no complaint had come from professional moralists against this fair warning. Even the Rev. Dr. Edward Niles, so far as I know, regarded it as proper and just. But the women of Arch street, assuming the good faith of the police, were nevertheless raided. Why?

The answer, I suspect, is to be found in certain threats made by an agent of the Society for the Suppression of Vice shortly before the raids. This agent announced quite frankly that he was going “to put it over” a police official who had failed to show proper subservience to him—and he duly “put it over.” That is to say, the raids were made over the head of that official, and to his embarrassment and injury. He was made to appear before the public as having neglected his duty. His actual offense was that of carrying out the orders of his superiors.

I doubt that any fair man will defend such proceedings as reasonable and just. It would be a dubious and dangerous proceeding, under the most favorable imaginable circumstances, to farm out the police power to private persons, and to allow them to use it to the injury and demoralization of the regular police. In the case of the Society for the Suppression of Vice it is plainly outrageous. That society includes men whose antagonism to all policemen who refuse to support their tuppenny moral schemes is violent and notorious. To arm them with weapons against those policemen, to enable them to wreck their private grudges under cover of the law—such a clear misuse of the police power must be obnoxious to all good citizens.

But even supposing the principle to be sound, these men have abundantly shown their unfitness to exercise authority over others. Their management of the society itself has been marked by an almost incredible stupidity, and in their relations with the public they have been anything but frank. It is competent for the grand jury to inquire into the doings of such an organization, and to express an opinion, by presentment, regarding its method of operation and public usefulness. The people of Baltimore have a right to know just who is governing them, and at what cost to them. It is their privilege to investigate, by their lawful representatives, all agencies which presume to regulate their affairs without their knowledge or consent.

So far, by the way, not a single one of the moral colossi who accepted the Hon. William H. Anderson’s secret terms has had the courage to come out into the open and defend him. Such is brotherhood!

How prohibition works in Georgia, as described by a Baltimorean now at Thomasville:

Savannah has 250 near-beer saloons, and liquor is sold to all of them. Here in Thomasville you can buy all you want. The state of Georgia, getting no revenue from these places, now owes $1,500,000 to its school teachers. Nearly every house in Thomasville is well stocked.

From an article in the Pittsburgh Christian Advocate, quoted with apparent approbation by the estimable Baltimore Southern Methodist:

The average Sunday-school is a travesty as a religious institution.

The signal, let us hope, for a general cleaning-up. Confession must go before reformation. Would that the Hon. William H. Anderson showed the same leaning toward a better life!