Baltimore Evening Sun (7 August 1913): 8.

The Hon. D. Henricus Maximus to the estimable Job Hounds on August 6, 1912:

[The Hon. Charles H.] Grasty’s morning and Evening Sun have repeatedly published and republished and reiterated alleged statistics of the number of cases of typhoid in this and other cities, trying to advertise our city far and near as unhealthy. And time and again this calumnitor of Baltimore has published in his morning and Evening Sun that the drinking water is no better than if we took it out of the gutter (!); a vile falsehood, because by actual chemical [sic] test our water is better than that of the great majority of the cities of our country.

The Hon. Sunday-school Field, LL. D., in the Municipal Journal of July 4,1913:

The [Evening] Sun [has] publish[ed] in the Free Lance Column falsehoods about the impurity of our water supply and exaggerations in regard to the prevalence of typhoid fever in our city.

Headline from the official Hot Towel of this morning:

ALARMED OVER TYPHOID FEVER ---- HEALTH DEPARTMENT SENDS OUT GENERAL WARNING. ---- DANGER IN MILK AND WATER ---- Former Should Be Pasteurized and the Latter Boiled--Commissioner Gorter Frankly Admits That This “Will Be a Typhoid Year,” and Seeks All Publicity Possible to Warn Citizens.

Official warning issued yesterday by Drs. Gorter and Jones:

We earnestly call attention of the people to the fact that as much care as possible should be taken by them during this typhoid season, not to take unnecessary risks. In order to insure safety * * * they should see to 9it that if they use city water for drinking purposes IT IS BOILED BEFORE USING. * * * It looks as though this year will be marked as a typhoid year.

How now, Sam, old top? Who is the gay deceiver, thou or muh?

The Hon. William H. Anderson, with characteristic casuistry, tries to prove in today’s Letter Column that the prohibition in force in Maryland on Sunday is really not prohibition at all, but merely “regulation.” Idle nonsense! Webster defines prohibition as “the forbidding by law of the sale, and sometimes the manufacture, of alcoholic liquors as beverages.” Whether such prohibition is in force part of the time or all of the time, it is still prohibition--and we have it at Back River on Sunday. Also, we have a dramatic and highly amusing demonstration of its futility. It is no more effective than a law forbidding June bugs would be effective.

What is more, this prohibition gets a very favorable test there. Its deliberate violation is performed, not at secret speakeasies, but at open bars. The snouters who favor it and seek to enforce it have all the odds in their favor. They don’t have to go gumshoeing for blind pigs, as their pious brethren do in Kansas, Maine and Georgia. Big signs, plainly painted, lead them to the booze. But despite this enormous advantage, they are wholly unable to stop its sale. They have snouted and spied down there for at least 25 years, and still the dance goes on. They know very well, indeed, that their enterprise is hopeless. If they keep it up, it is only for the sake of the sport. For exactly the same reason the vice crusaders keep on chasing prostitutes. They are spiritual Nimrods. Their joy is in the pursuit.

The Hon. Mr. Anderson’s discussion of Maine newspapers is inept, inaccurate and disingenuous. He knows very well that the Bangor Weekly Commercial is a far more influential paper than the Portland Express. He also knows that the combined circulation of the Maine dailies opposed to prohibition is at least double that of the Maine dailies in favor of prohibition. But does one expect frankness from the Hon. Mr. Anderson? Alas, no! He is, I am convinced, a straightforward and moral man at bottom, but long association with snouters, wiskinskis, tear- squeezers, malignant moralists, brummagem archangels and snide preachers has fatally stained the lily whiteness of his congenital virtue.

Like many another reader, I daresay, I have been sorely puzzled by the Rev. Herbert Parrish’s argument for so-called old-fashioned charity in Tuesday’s Evening Sun. Just what is it that Mr. Parrish advocates? On the one hand he admits that organized charity does splendid work in detecting frauds, and that mushy sentimentality has worked havoc in England, and yet on the other hand he seems to regard that sentimentality as the only sort of charity worthy the name. In other words, he seems to be intellectually against it, but emotionally wholly in favor of it.

I suspect that Mr. Parrish greatly misunderstands the purpose of such organizations as the Federated Charities. It is not their aim, as he seems to think, to prevent wholehearted giving, but merely to prevent professional pauperism. They do not stand in the way of the charitably inclined; on the contrary, they encourage the impulses of the charitably inclined. All they actually do is to combat the deliberate swindling of such persons. They warn the almsgiver against frauds; they seek to break up organized begging. But it is certainly unfair to accuse them of conspiring against the suffering poor. Their whole effort, indeed, is to save for the worthy the money that is now so riotously wasted upon the unworthy.

The vice crusaders, having “saved” Chicago three separate times since 1909, will soon have a chance to do it again. According to the New York Herald of last Monday, Mayor Carter H. Harrison is being besought to re-establish segregation, and has appointed Chief of Police John McWeeny to report on the matter. The late campaign of “suppression” has scattered prostitutes all over the city, and householders are raising a row about it. What is worse, the public parks have been turned into brothels.

On a smaller scale, we are getting a taste of the same medicine in Baltimore. On the one hand, an organized pack of purifiers, aided by a complaisant Police Board, is gradually closing all the old assignation houses; on the other hand, this same pack of purifiers is shedding salt tears over the increase of immorality in the parks. When the parks close, the fun will grow faster and more furious. Such is moral snoutery. Such is government by archangels in black gloves. Such is the New Thought.