Baltimore Evening Sun (19 August 1913): 6.

The Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte in the estimable Evening Sunpaper:

If they [the members of the grand jury] have time to spare * * * * it can do harm for them to recommend as citizens any changes in the existing law which their experience as grand jurors leads them to think advisable; but the value of their recommendations [as to dealing with prostitution] will depend, not on their official position, but on their personal qualifications for a task which belongs peculiarly to experts.

In other words, to Dr. Donald R. Hooker, the Rev. Dr. Kenneth G. Murray, Dr. O. Edward Janney, the the Hon. Summerfield Baldwin, of Warren, Md.; the Hon. Eugene Levering (that wise and saintly man!) and to the Hon. Mr. Bonaparte himself. Unfortunately for the Hon. Mr. Bonaparte and his friends, the members of the present grand jury show a capacity for distinguishing between a hawk and a handsaw. They know the difference between the vapid bosh of Dr. Hooker and the hard and practical experience of Mr. Grgurevich, the flambuoyant proclamations and defiances of the Rev. Dr. Murray and the honest efforts of Captain Logan, the sonorous platitudes of the Hon. Mr. Bonaparte and the calm judgment of the police captains, the members of the Supreme Bench and the vast majority of practicing physicians. And unless they have far less courage than they seem to have, they are not going to forget these differences when they come to draw up their presentment.

The Hon. Mr. Bonaparte’s argument that regulated disorderly houses are places of evil is denied by no sane man. But what of unregulated disorderly houses? Are they better or worse? His friend and mentor, the Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, whom he follows on the prostitution issue as he did on the Harvester Trust issue, closed up the regulated houses in New York. With what result? With the result, according to the New York World (certainly no apologist for “rings” and other such monsters!), that the streets of New York were filled with women, and that all the poorer residence sections were contaminated, and that the police were turned into grafters.

The Hon. Mr. Bonaparte and his fellow Boy Scouts are full of pious and disingenuous criticisms of the system which such able and honest men as the late Judge Phelps devised, but what of their own system? Do they seriously maintain that it will stamp out prostitution in Baltimore? If so, they they shut their minds to all logic and common sense, and to the plain experience of New York and London, Philadelphia and Chicago. All of these cities have been “cleaned up” by self-appointed archangels, and all of them are in 10 times worse condition than Baltimore ever was under segregation.

I fear that the Hon. Mr. Bonaparte’s appeal to “experts” is very unfortunate for his cause. Once the people of Baltimore begin comparing the men who are in favor of regulation to those who are in favor of dispersion, they will decide in favor of regulation in short order. On the side of regulation are the chief police officials, the judges of the Supreme Bench, the police magistrates of longest experience, the vast majority of physicians, and the Federal white slave agents throughout the country. On the side of dispersion are the professional uplifters and wholesalers of buncombe—the Leverings, Hookers, Murrays and Bonapartes. There are the opposing litigants, gentlemen. Take your choice between them.

The betting odds in the kaifs, as reported by the police:

Even money that the Hon. Goose Grease Altfeld rolls up at least 1,000 majority in the First ward. 1 to 17 that the Hon. William H. Anderson gets the Hon. Blair Lee’s goat. 1 to 6,000 that the Hon. Isaac Lobe Straus is elected a Senator of the United States. 9 to 1 that Bob comes back.

The Woman’s Protective League of Denver, which is on the trail of Judge Ben. B. Lindsey, that affecting pet of the Chautauquas and lady uplifters, sends out some interesting stuff about his actual services to the cause. The press agents of the uplift picture Ben as Denver’s Savonarola. He is the one honest male citizen in the town, the bulwark between the working girl and the “liquor interests.” He battles day and night (in the press sheets) for the down-trodden youth of the Colorado metropolis.

But the truth is, it appears, that virtuous Ben is seldom in Denver at all. Since July 8, for example, he has been circulating through the States of Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland wooing the ears and pocketbooks of the rural Chautauquans. Last Monday he performed at Westminster; today he is at Penn Yan, N. Y.; before August ends he will visit Montrose, Tunkhannock, Carbondale, Homesdale, Stroudsburg and other such intellertual centres. And during the year 1912 this is the number of days he actually served in his world-famous Juvenile Court:

January 3 July 15 February 21 August 1 March 6 September 21 April 19 October 14 May 18 November 21 June 9 December 11

Total: 153 days. The rest of the time he was telling about it—at so much a speech! It pays to lift them up! A few years more and no sane man will work for the “liquor interests.” The usufructs of moral endeavor will be far more attractive.

If you don’t read the Maryland Suffrage News you miss the most ingenious, amusing, impertinent, vociferous, ladylike, virtuous, entertaining and ferocious weekly paper tn these States. It costs $1 a year, delivered to your door. It is worth $1 an issue. I have never seen an issue worth less than 20 cents.—Adv.

From a wedding notice in the genial old Hot Towel:

The band played Lohengrin’s “Wedding March.”

Well, why not? True enough, the late Mr. Lohengrin didn’t actually write it, but he was its first and worst victim.

Four months ago the Hon. William H. Anderson seemed to have the Rum Demon down and out. But of late the corpse has begun to show strange signs of life. Its eyes flicker; its ears wag; once or twice it has sneezed. There is hope!–Liquor Ring Adv.

The Hon. Trauty Trautfelter has formally dedicated his great talents to the cause of the Hon. Goose Grease Altfeld, and thereto he pledges his life, his fortune and his moving-picture parlor.—Adv.

Th Hon. Dan Loden is in favor of all inquiries and investigations. Nobody ain’t got nothing on him, nor never won’t have.—Adv.

Vice crusaders, typhoid, D. Harry, mosquitoes, malaria, boomers, suffragettes, policewomen–poor old Baltimore!