Baltimore Evening Sun (12 September 1913): 6.

The Hon. P. H. Engle, of Belair, in the estimable Sunpaper:

Taking Belair as an example, I should say that the whole country has gone absolutely crazy about the so-called “tango” dances. * * * They are demoralizing our young men, and I hesitate to imagine their effect upon the young girls of our vicinity.

And where is Wegg, moral Wegg, archdeacon and chorepiscopus in those parts? Is his stern voice heard in the Belair dance halls? Does he grab the terpsichorean devil by the horns? Not at all. Wegg is too busy with the vice cruaade in Baltimore and the “horse-breeding" experiments at Havre de Grace!

A DAILY THOUGHT. To the dirty-minded, all things are obscene.—Arthur Schopenhauer.

More than a week has passed since Hon. Isaac Lobe Straus last bit an ear off the Sunpaper. Dull, dull days!

The more the results in Montgomery county are studied, the more it appears that the Hon. William H. Anderson bit into a sour, sour lemon down there. Consider, for example, the adventures of the Hon. Cy Cummings, of Chevy Chase, the celebrated arch-traitor to local option. Two years ago, his cloven hoof being still undiscovered, the Hon. Mr. Cummings was supported for the Legislature by the Hon. Mr. Anderson. He ran fourth among the four men nominated, leading the fifth (that is, the first unsuccessful man) by but 13 votes. But this year, with the Hon. Mr. Anderson denouncing him as an offense to Almighty God and calling upon all Christians to vote against him as a pious act, he ran third, and led the fifth man by 377 votes. In brief, the Hon. Mr. Anderson’s fine frenzy seems to have been worth 364 votes to him.

The experience of the Hon. Eugene H. Waters, of Germantown, was much the same. Two years ago, indorsed by the Hon. Mr. Anderson, he ran third on the ticket. This year, with the Hon. Mr. Anderson against him, he ran first, and led the fifth man by no fewer than 1,016 votes. This fifth man, by the way, was the Hon. Alfred Wilson, president of the Montgomery County Anti-Saloon League. Despite the fact that the “moral element” was solidly behind him, he was given a drubbing in the primaries, and will not represent Montgomery county in the halls and barrooms of legislation at Annapolis. Obviously, the Montgomery countians are not as “moral” and “forward-looking” as certain slanderers made them out.

But what will the Hon. MM. Cummings, Waters & Co. do in the general election? Cummings first. Two years ago his majority over the leading Republican, the Hon. Mr. Trazzare, was 342, but he bore the handicap of the Hon. Mr. Anderson’s support. This year, relieved of that handicap, he should be elected by 342 plus 364, or 706, which is almost exactly the majority of the Hon. Mr. Waters in 1911. As for the Hon. Mr. Waters himself, he should lift his old majority of 698 to well over 1,000.

Incidentally, it is amusing to note that the suffragettes fought the Hon. Mr. Cummings almost a ssavagely as the Hon. Mr. Anderson fought him, and with just as ludricrous results. They held anti-Cummings meetings in every town and hamlet in the county, and brought in eminent outside talent to help beat the hon. gent. For example, the Hon. Moses E. Clapp, a Senator in Congress from Minnesota. The Hon. Mr. Clapp made a rip-snorting speech at Poolesville on the evening of August 30, in the course of which he kept his foot on the vice pedal and discoursed darkly about alliances between recalcitrant politicians and commercialized vice. But all in vain! Cy got the votes!

Suffragettes throughout the State contributed money to the anti-Cummings campaign. A subscription list was opened by the Maryland Suffrage News on August 2, and thereafter it denounced and reviled dear old Cy in every issue. Once it compared him to the Hon. Henry E. Schoenewolf. Another time it called him a “creature”—a very harsh word among suffragettes. On August 9 it yelled for his extinction, and argued that his candidacy was an offense to “decent women.” On September 6 it hinted mysteriously that “a considerable amount of money” was being used in his behalf, and called for suffrage money to overcome it. And on August 16 it argued that “the blush of shame should suffuse the face of the Hon. Blair Lee,” his sponsor.

But, as I have before remarked, Cy went through with a bang. And what is more, he seems to have had a high old time on the way. On August 19, for example, he went to a suffragette meeting at Cloppers and proceeded to heckle the Hon. James Wesley Bryan, M. C., of Seattle, Wash., an imported ear-bumper there and then exhorting. The guarded account in the Suffrage News of August 30 seems to show very clearly that James Wesley did not enjoy the interruption, nor did he attempt to make intelligible answers to Cy’s embarrassing questions. One can imagine the fury of the assembled suffragettes! Hands reaching for hatpins! Glares! Hisses! The denaturized, pianissimo swearing of perfect ladies!

Ehue, what a world! Its one excuse is its comedy. Imagine the devilish doings at the coming session of the Legislature, with the Hon. Mr. Cummings, the Hon. Jim Dawkins, the Hon. Lloyd Wilkinson and other such gladiators in the ring, and the Hon. Mr. Anderson discharging malicious animal magnetism from the gallery! Believe me, I wouldn’t miss it for a house and lot. I have already engaged board at Annapolis and shall stick to the end. And meanwhile, I am drawing up a bill for a legislative investigation of the Anti-Saloon League, with particular reference to its receipts and expenditures. Is it true, as I hear, that the Coffee Trust is backing it?

Ah, that the Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte would confess, crave, pardon and promise to sin no more! But the wish, alas, is not father to a thought. The bold, bad example of the Hon. William H. Andereon has made all our moralists brazen. Instead of leaping to the mourner’s bench, they defy the lightnings and do it again. Let them beware the day of reckoning! Let them think upon the retribution that awaits them, like a cake of soap upon a dark stairway!

Boil your drinking water! Send your pennies to the Lord’s Day Alliance! A cheer for Dashing Harry!

The worst is yet to come! Wait until the Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte begins laying down the law to Dr. Goldsborough’s Vice Commission!

Meanwhile, the Hon. W. W. Davis, D. D., has had another very successful season in the Sunday-schools and another very bad season at Back River.