Baltimore Evening Sun (18 August 1913): 6.

THE FREE LANCE

The Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte, LL. D., to his fellow-archangels of the Progressive State Central Committee:

The Progressive Party has dropped from its ranks a few venal, self-seeking politicians.

All persons who clap on their hats and run are “dropped.” All persons who begin to sicken of the Progressive bosh are “venal” and “self-seeking.” All persons who refuse to swallow the pink pills of the political Cagliostros are ruffians and scoundrels, and their very presence in the world is an insult to “forward-looking” men.

Such is moral endeavor in all its sublime branches. Every man who objects to the dispersion and hounding of prostitutes is a libidinous fellow, a seducer of working girls, a secret trader in white slaves. Every man who protests against the hypocrisies and lunacies of prohibition is an agent of the “liquor interests,” a sharer in the “$1,000,000 corruption fund,” a profligate, lawbreaker and sot. Every man who refuses to accept the theology of the “Jubilee Songs” is a blasphemer and atheist. Every man who dares to laugh at a clown in the,pulpit is a foe to religion, good order and righteousness.

It is the highest duty of a decent citizen, in these days of the uplift, to regulate his whole life according to the inspired prescriptions of self-appointed “experts.” If he doesn’t take his politics from the Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte, he is a rogue and grafter. If he doesn’t regulate his private conduct by the orders of the Hon. Eugene Levering, he is a voluptuary. If he doesn’t foreswear the open barroom and do his drinking in blind pigs, as commanded by the Hon. William H. Anderson, he is a spy and beneficiary of distillers, an advocate of drunkenness. And if he attempts to take recreation on his one day of rest, in defiance of the Rev. Dr. W. W. Davis, he is a criminal and hell-hound.

Such is the uplift. Such is government by a self-perpetuating sanhedrin of Munyons and Lydia Pinkhams. Such is the way to salvation under a moral snoutocracy.

A DAILY THOUGHT. Liberty by permission Is slavery. Only tyrants and slaves live where any sane adult can be precluded from receiving even the most odious opinion about the most obnoxious subject, expressed in the most offensive manner by the most despised person.–Theodore Schroeder.


Say I’m weary, say I’m sad, say that health and wealth have missed me, say I’m growing old, but add–I have settled the ancient feud between the Bentztown Bard and Prof. Alexander Geddes! For 22 years these minnesingers hve hated each other, consumed by bilious envies and rivalries. Today they shake hands, fraternize, call each other “Old top,” take a julep together. And I did it–did it by my suave arts–did it at my private expense and motion–did it with mint and mellow words. Now Geddes writes dithyrambs in praise of Bentz, and Bentz drops the grateful honey into Geddes’ eye! Pax potior bello!


Far be it from me to swell up with virtue, but I must confess to extreme satisfaction in this hand-made truce. I feel as righteous as the Hon. Eugene Levering, almost as righteous as the Hon. Summerfield Baldwin, of Warren, Md., that heaven-kissing giant of rectitude. I have done a pious act. I have made the world better. I have furthered the cause of peace and brotherhood. I have made harmony between discordant and belligerent men. Let the recording angel make a note o’t.


The Hon. William Collier, of Riverdale, Md., on the degeneration of the press during the last 20 years:

There was a time when the newspapers co-operated with the home in the proper training of daughters. * * * That was before the newspapers were edited by the Hearsts, the Mutts, the Dingbats and the Menckens.

Oh, the pious, the innocent, the golen days of the Breckinridge-Pollard case.

Revised list of gentlemen who think that the Sunpaper has gone to the demnition bow-wows:

The Hon. Dashing Harry, LL. B. The Hon. Sunday-School Field, K. T., LL. D. The Hon. McCay McCoy, C. E. The Hon. Isaac Lobe Straus, LL. D., C. P. The Rev. F. R. Bayley, S. T. D. The Hon. Aristides Sophocles Goldsborough, LL. B. The Hon. William Collier, C. P., of Riverdale, Md. The Hon. Paving Bob Padgett, K. T.


Scriptural texts for the edification of the Hon. Charles M. Levister, the Rev. Dr. F. R. Bayley et al.:

Therefore, God give thee of the dew of Heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine.–Genesis, xxvii, 28. He will also bless * * * the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and they wine.–Deuteronomy, vii, 13. Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man?–Judges, ix, 13. Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.–1 Timothy, v, 23.


True enough, there are texts in the Bible discountenancing the excessive use of wine, and even some that counsel the prudent avoidance of such beverages altogether. But the Hon. Mr. Levister, if he really wants to collect Anti-Saloon League texts, he will find far more of them in the Koran than in the Bible.


The Hon. Norman Hapgood, in the first issue of Harper’s Weekly under his editorship:

Some dozens of letters have come to us all at once asking us to be fair in the vivisection controversy and to give “both sides.” Some of these letters inform us that the writers will subscribe to this Weekly if we are fair, but not if we pursue a course hostile to the anti-vivisection crusade. We have no intention of giving both sides. On the contrary, the support of the cause of scientific medical progress will be one of the things to which we shall be energetically devoted. We shall no more give both sides of the argument on experiment than we shall give both sides of the question of whether the household fly shall be encouraged in the dining room, or sewers emptied into the city reservoir, or swamps kept for the breeding of mosquitoes, or smallpox patients permitted to ride on the street cars. We shall be extremely bigoted on the subject, and shall hope that the day will soon come when cancer will be added to the great diseases that have yielded to investigation.


Respectfully referred to the fair fictioneers of the Maryland Anti-Vivisection Society. Can it be that even uplifters, Progressives and “forward-looking” men are deserting them? Can it be that the archangels join the blood-sweating allopaths against them?


Boil your drinking water! Forward the vice crusade! Wait for the next savior of the masses to get caught!