Baltimore Evening Sun (23 October 1913): 6.

THE FREE LANCE

Wherever the Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte is, there is a burbling Fount of Justice; wherever Dr. Goldsborough is, there is a Chautauqua.

THE SNOUTERS. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies.–II Thelassonians, iii, 11.


From the Apologia pro Vita Sua of one lost to virtue:

Monday. Two cups of coffee. Two glasses of Würzburger. One seidel of Münchener. Tuesday. Two cups of coffee. Wednesday. Two cups of coffee.


Editorial note in the estimable Democratic Telegram:

We have followed with both interest and pain the reports that the Free Lance has given us concerning his bibulous habits * * * and we have been pained to see the inordinate quantities of coffee he consumes. In the matter of alcoholic beverages he has been almost abstemious. He might have indulged a little more in light wines of beer or good whisky--American, Scotch or Irish--with pleasure to himself, if not with profit. But the coffee which he drank was rank poison and we are surprised that he should permit his grossest appetites to get away so far with his judgment. We now know whence arises the saturnine streak that sometimes characterizes him. * * * But we hope that he will soon reform in this respect and indulge in less dangerous and corrupting potations.

Nevertheless, coffee is defended, and even praised with hot ardor, by eminent moral counsel. The rules of The Evening Sun forbid the boosting of commercial enterprises, and so I mention no names, but it must be obvious that a beverage good enough for the president of the Society for the Suppression of Vice to sell must be quite good enough for an ordinary sinner to drink. I have, true enough, an enormous mass of medical evidence that caffeine is deleterious, but I prefer the word of one Heaven-kissing moralist to the word of all the Oslers and Ehrilchs unhung.

Incidentally, caffeine ties been splendidly defended of late by my excellent friend of late by my friend the Rev. Dr. C. D. Harris, editor or the Baltimore Southern Methodist. Dr. Harris praises have been specifically heaped upon coca-cola, but everything he has said about coca-cola is also applicable to coffee. On half a dozen occasions of late he has printed eloquent editorials in the Southern Methodist upon the virtues of this beverage, and the result, so I hear, has been a considerable increase of sales among the “moral element.” Time and again he has blown up the libels contained in the American Medical Association’s scurrilous book on “Nostrums and Quackery.” But the Hon. William H. Anderson, strangely enough, diligently eschews both caffeine and alcohol. His favorite drug is the bacillus bulgaris, which he takes in copious drafts of buttermilk. His wildest dissipation, reserved for Sundays and legal holidays, is to heat up a rasher of bread pudding with a squirt or two out of the bay rum bottle.

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

Even money that the Hon. William H. Anderson puts it over. 1 to 4 that the Hon. Tom Parran goes to Washington.


It is now six weeks since the most contumacious of grand juries brought in its report exposing the lawless Society for the Suppression of Vice and denouncing the vice crusade. During that time not a single Baltimorean of position, saving only the gentlemen actually stung by the report, has come forward with an objection to it. There is not the slightest sign of that “public indignation” of which the crusaders discoursed so darkly during the jury’s last sittings. The only persons visibly indignant, indeed, are the Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte, the Hion. Alfred S. Niles, the Hon. John L. Cornell and the Rev. Kenneth G. Murray, all of whom know well enough, deep down in their secret hearts, that the jury treated them very gently, and even charitably. Perhaps some later jury--who knows?–may tell the whole truth, and so make the town rock with mirth.


But why has the jury’s report not brouggt forth the bellows which the Hlon. Mr. Bonaparte and his fellow virtuosi seemed to look for so confidently? I give you three guesses. As for me, I make but one--to wit, because practically all of the sensible folks of Baltimore think that the jury made an honest inquiry and came to sound conclusions. A few well-meaning but misinformed clergymen, true enough, have passed vague resolutions of criticism, but not a single lawyer has lifted his voice, and not a single physician, and not a single business man. Opinion among all these classes of men is almost unanimously against the vice crusade. It is difficult, indeed, to find one man, not personally involved, who favors it.


This is notably true of the physicians, whose conclusions, it must be plain, are based on special knowledge. The fact that Dr. Howard A. Kelly is a conspicuous advocate of suppression has let maby persons to suppose that he voices opinion at the Johns Hopkins, but Dr. Kelly himself has made no such representation, nor is he under any such illusion. Unless I am gravely misinformed, the majority of his associates dissent from his views very widely, and are thoroughly convinced that hysterical virtue is even more dangerous than tolerated vice. At all events, not more than four or five of them have ever given him any public support, despite his diligent efforts to convince and enlist them.


Meanwhile, Dr. Kelly is the only man who thinks it worth while to present any intelligible argument in favor of the crusaders’ position. The rest of the propagandists confine themselves to bluster, bosh, and braggadocio. The Rev. Dr. Murray issues his solemn threats and anathemas; the Hon. Mr. Cornell pleads earnestly for the continuance of his own salary; the Hon. Mr. Niles reiterates his sophistries while admitting frankly that public opinion is against him; and the Hon. Mr Bonaparte, pursuing his invariable custom, seeks to scare off opposition by calling vile names and by posturing before the public as a sublime and infallible magnifico, whose mere dignity and awfulness are sufficient answer to the hard facts of other men. Such is the vice crusade today. As for me, I begin to suspect that it is sick.


Dr. Goldsborough on his plan for a State press bureau:

If I can get the Legislature to act favorably on my plan the entire State will be benefited, I know. * * * I shall place at the head of the bureau a capable man.

Definition of “capable man”: a professional jobholder from the Eastern Shore.