Baltimore Evening Sun (6 November 1913): 6.

A glance down the county returns shows that the Hon. Wiliam H. Anderson suffered a much severer walloping on Tuesday than appeared at first blush, and that all the odds are now against the passage of the local option bill, even with denaturizing amendments. It will take but 51 votes in the House of Delegates to knock it in the head--and fully 58 are visible upon the face of the returns. A few of these, of course, may be won over by the subtle satanic arts of the Hon. Mr. Anderson, but enough will probably stand pat to hold the pass against the boozebounds. Such, at least, is my belief at the moment--a belief considerably molded and mellowed by hope. If the event proves me wrong, I shall be glad to recant, apologize and set up the grape juice.

The Hon. Mr. Anderson seems to have met particularly hard punishment wherever he made a particularly hard fight. For example, in Prince George’s county. There he set up an infernal din against the Hon. Bill Holmead, Democratic candidate for the State Senate. He denounced Bill as “a straight liquor man, the president of a prize-fight club and the crony of the liquor men,” and reviled his followers as “prize lighters, cock fighters, dog fighters and gamblers.” And by the same taken, he greased the Hon. Frank Carmody, the Republican candidate, without stint, hailing him as “a clean, straight-out, high-grade man” and calling upon the “moral element” to vote for him en masse or be forever damned.

Well, what happened? Simply this: the Hon. Mr. Carmody got 1,806 votes and the immoral Holmead got 2,408! In brief, the Anderson campaign of bellowing and abuse did Holmead immensely more good than harm. He carried the county by a majority but a few votes short of the Hon. Blair Lee’s, and actually polled more votes than Lee. Only one other candidate on the ticket, indeed, polled a larger vote. That man was the Hon. Tom Claggett, one of the Democratic candidates for the House of Delegates. By a strange coincidence, the Hon. Mr. Claggett was the only one of the four Democratic candidates to draw Anderson’s fire. He was denounced as a “wet” and accused of having the spport of the mysterious and awful “liquor ring,” and Democrats were advised to scratch him. But instead of scratching him, they elected him by the largest majority rolled up in the county.

Much the same thing happened in Harford. There the artillery of the Hon. Mr. Anderson was concentrated upon the Hon. Tom Hopkins, candidate for the House of Delegates. He was denounced as the nominee of “the Vandiver-Fahey liquor race track gambling ring, which is the Harford county annex of the Baltimore city liquor ring,” and it was pointed out that he voted “wrong” in the last Legislature. What is more, his family was brought into the case, and accused of being “tied up with the liquor traffic.” But when the votes were counted it was found that Tom had 3,008 of them, which was 1,189 more than the nearest Republican. The “moral element” had stepped on a cake of soap.

The other pet targets of the Hon. Mr. Anderson in Harford were the Hon. Jim Archer, candidate for the State Senate, and the Hon. Noble L. Mitchell, candidate for the House. The Anti-Saloon League supported Jim in the primaries, and so enabled him to beat the Hon. Walter Preston, a brother to our own Dashing Harry. But Jim began to kick over the traces after he was nominated, and soon Anderson was yelling for his scalp. Openly accused of planning to pull the teeth of the local option bill, he made no public denial. And yet, for all the ensuing whooping and billingsgate, he beat the Anti-Saloon League candidate by a good majority. So did Mitchell, who was accused of being “tied up with Bob Crain.” Mitchell, in fact, actually led the legislative ticket.

I pass over the result in Montgomery lightly, as almost too tragic for discussion. There the Hon. Mr. Anderson made a fight of unparalleled and almost unbelievable ferocity, and there he was beaten hands down by the Hon. Cy Cummings and Dr. Eugene Jones. In Anne Arundel, though he fought much less savagely, he was defeated just as badly. He was against the whole Democratic ticket, and cautionod the Sunday-school superintendents and political preachers that “anything is better than to elect Democrats in Anne Arundel this time.” But the whole Democratic ticket went through with a bang, and the leading Democratic Legislative candidate got almost four times as many votes as the Republican tail-ender. Two men picked out for extra excoriation by the Hon. Mr Anderson--to wit, the Hon. Ben Watkins and the Hon. Joe Stewart–were both elected by handsome majorities. Stewart, in fact, was the second man on the ticket, and got 1,330 more votes than the Hon. Blair Lee.

So in Queen Anne. There the chief mark of the Hon. Mr. Anderson was the Hon. Gene Dudley, candidate for the House of Delegates. Contrariwise, his first favorite was the Hon. Harry Skipper, a Republican. Day in and day out he denounced Gene and greased Harry. Day in and day out he called upon the “moral element” to do their duty. But when the votes were counted it was found that Gene had 1,828 of them and Harry but 1,305. In brief, Gene won by a majority of 523, which was just 10 more than the majority of the Hon. Blair Lee in the county.

But enough! Go down the line for yourself, and see how many foes of the forward- lookers won on Tuesday--the Hon. Gus Howard, in Howard; the Hon. Bill Dobson, in Talbot; the Hon. Ivan Sayres, in Carroll; the Hon. Wash Wilkinson II, in St. Mary’s; the Hon. John Mudd, in Charles; the whole Democratic ticket in Baltimore county. Here and there, of course, Anderson won a considerable victory, even a victory against odds. But how he figures a majority for local option is beyond my present comprehension.

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