Baltimore Evening Sun (17 October 1913): 6.

Et tu, Stovey! Sic transit gloria the uplift! One by one they are snared by ambition and leave the plain people sweating on the stone pile! A few months more, and the Hon. D. Bachrach will be the only one left!

THE SMUTHOUNDS. And withal they learn to be idle; wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not not.–1 Timothy, v, 13.

Communication from an estimable gentleman of our fair city:

I shall be glad to subscribe to the Anderson banquet. The fellow has licked us; let us show him that we are not crybabies. But what about the refreshments? Is it your understanding that we are all to drink grape juice?

Certainly not. Grape juice, or even ginger pop, for the Hon. Mr. Anderson and the other virtuous guests, but the usual pharmacopœia for the rest of us. The hon. gent does not carry his rage against the Rum Demon so far that he wishes to withdraw its consolations from those accustomed to them from infancy. Beside, that is an old and humane custom which allows a condemned man to a bottle of California chanpagne on the evening before his hanging. I vouch for the Hon. Mr. Anderson: he will not have the hotel raided on such a night.

I speak of other virtuous guests: I mean specifically the gentlemen who have given the hon. gent. aid and comfort during his long campaign against romance and gemüthlichkeit. A banquet in his honor would lack a lot if it lacked the presence of the Hon. Young Cochran, his fiscal agent. And then there is the Hon. Charles Levister, chief of his theological bureau; the Hon. Mr. Levister is an old pupil of mine, and I am proud of his feats of hagiology. In addition, one recalls such valiant aides as the Rev. Dr. John Roach Straton, the Hon. J. Bibbs Mills, the Hon. and Rev. “Cy” Keen and the Hon. “Tom” Parran. All of them should be at the guest table.

As for the oratory, I suppose that the principal harangue of the evening will be delivered by the Hon. Mr. Anderson himself. But on the part of the hosts, there should be at least one speech by Col. Jacobus Hook and another by the Hon. Lloyd Wilkinson. The Hon. Mr. Wilkinson has but lately exhibited his gifts among us, and not only his gifts, but also his geniality. He is not a man to nurse grudges. His address at the Lyric was quite as much a speech of congratulation as a speech of condemnation. He made a hit with the boozehounds, and they will be delighted to hear him again. No need to say that Colonel Hook will also do himself honor. He is never more eloquent than in the role of peacemaker.

From an editorial in the Baltimore Southern Methodist entitled “With Our Compliments to the Free Lance” and showing the suave literary style of the Rev. Dr. C. D. Harris:

We must confess we cannot understand his caustic strictures upon men of this community of the highest integrity and character. Must men who are actively interested in the moral betterment of the city and State be held up to ridicule and scorn?

The objection of a critic who deserves respect–but is he quite fair? I question it. When a man comes before a community with a new pill for the cure of its malaises, and particularly when he proposes to administer it by force of arms, the thing for the community to determine is not whether the man himself is pious and honest, but whether the pill will actually cure. If the probabilities are all against it, then it is the duty of every good citizen to denounce the quack, and that duty increases in direct ratio to the cittzen’s opportunities. I have no apologies to offer for howling from my own private stump. I am paid to howl; I enjoy howling; it makes me feel virtuous to howl.

The fact that a quack happens to be respectable is no defense of his quackery. The more respectable he is, the moe dangerous he is. If the Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte were an obscure shyster, his public advocacy of pharisaical and unenforceable laws would be of no consequence. But it happens that he is a man of the highest position and dignity, the bearer of a great name, a powerful maker of public opinion, and therefore his errors are of very serious consequence indeed, When he tries to enforce them by the mere weight of his authority, disdaining all honest opposition and grossly libeling its spokesmen, it is an agreeable business to show that vastly weightier authority is ranged against him. And when he tries to prevail by the sheer violence of his whoops, then it is a pious act to whoop even louder.

No word of abuse has ever been printed in this place against any man who sought to persuade people to his honest opinion by fair and honest argument. But there is a tremendous difference between honest persuasion and violent and ill-natured browbeating, and that difference I shall continue to point out from time to time. The objection to the moralists whom the Rev. Dr. Harris defends is not only that they are wrong, but also and more especially that they are intolerant, pharisaical, cruel, ignorant, vindictive, vituperative and disingenuous. In brief, they try to overcome their opponents, not by proving them in error, but by calling them scoundrels. That is a fault so discreditable that it wipes out all the credit of their holy zeal. It is a fault that their pastors should beat out of them with clubs. They should be taught manners before ever they are allowed to teach the rest of us morals.

I give so much space to the Rev. Dr. Harris’ accusation because I regard him as an honest man, and hence one among many. What is more, he is a sinner and thus my brother. I myself once caught him in sin, and he frankly admitted it. This lifts him above all suspicion of personal interest. I hold no brief against any moralist save the bogus archangel, the lofty sniffer, the manhater, the pharisee, the bichloride tablet. Let me call on the rev. gent., then, for the name of one gentleman, not obviously of that fair brotherhood, whom I have ever attacked unjustly, and to whom I have ever shown discourtesy. Let him produce one lone honest moralist with authentic wounds.

Boil your drinking water! Mallet the sclerotic, senile fly! See Bob come back!

One day’s boozing of a Baltimoralist, for the archives of the Anti-Saloon League:

Thursday. Two cups of coffee. Two bottles of rice beer containing more than 3 per cent. of ethyl alcohol by volume.