Baltimore Evening Sun (28 November 1913): 6.

Balance sheet of the Sunpaper-super-Mahon Christmas tree fund:

Needed for expenses $5,000.00 Collected to date 2,514.09 Amount yet to be collected $2,485.91 Days remaining 27 Amount to be collected each day $92.09 Amount collected yesterday 0

A DAILY THOUGHT, Once the deed to done, praise it.—Henrik Ibsen.

An officer of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on Judge Gorter’s decision against the society:

I predict that once competitive bidding is established, dishonesty at the shelter will be rampant, thieving of valuable dogs will be inevitable, and torture and suffering will be the natural result of the new conditions.

But suppose no bids are asked for? Suppose the work of disposing of diseased and homeless animals is restored to the Health Department, where it properly belongs? How then? Does the society maintain that Dr. Gorter would countenance dishonesty, that he would engage in the stealing of dogs? Let the gladiators of this ridiculous organization climb down off their high horse. Baltimore will get along without them. It will even get along better without them. The Health Department will attend to the dog business cheaply and effectively and without any of the hair-pulling that has marked the career of the society.

Napoleon, at Elba, still sent picture postcards to his marshals. The Hon. William H. Anderson, with both legs fractured and his eyes as black as ink, still issues orders to the hedge clergy. His latest, dated November 24, requires them to assemble in Baltimore on the morning of December 10 for a free trip to Washington. The purpose of that trip will be to convince “the President, the Secretary of State and both houses of Congress” that the common people demand a prohibition amendment to the Constitution of the United States. To that end, it is proposed to assemble a committee of 1,000 admitted saints, and to hurl it upon the battlements at both ends of Pennsylvania avenue.

According to the Hon. Mr. Anderson’s order, a copy of which has been sent to me by one of my clerical spies, “Maryland, because so close, will have a much larger allotment in proportion to population than any other State.” Every one of the docile friars on the hon. gent.’s list is ordered in report for the trip, and each is further ordered to bring one layman. In case no layman will go–i. e., in case there is no prohibitionist in the rev. brother’s church–an effort will be made to fill his place with the surplus talent of another church. The expenses of laymen as well as of clerics will be paid by the Anti-Saloon League–that is, by the Hon. Young Cochran & Co., moral bankers and brokers.

What becomes of all the Hon. Mr. Anderson’s rumble-bumble about letting the people decide? What becomes of the sacred principle of local option, the palladium of our liberties? The people decided clearly and vociferously on November 4. They rejected the hon . gent. and his sophistries by a majority of more than 40,000. And now, less than a month after, his white chemise of martyrdom turns into a split skirt, revealing the cloven hoof! He is now in favor, not of local option, but of prohibition! The rights of the people be darned! They have decided to remain wet, but the archangels will make them dry! What is vox populi compared to the consecrated bar’l of the Hon. Mr. Cochran?

Thus the fundamental insincerity and hypocrisy of the Anti-Saloon League sluggers and financiers is made plain. When I argued a year or so ago that the cry for local option was all buncombe, and that Cochran & Co. were really in favor of prohibition, the Hon. Mr. Anderson shivered with virtuous horror. But now the proofs are spread upon the minutes. The archangels are in favor of the people only so long as the people dance as they whistle. The moment the dance halts they proceed to tackle the laggards with clubs. They get their fun, not by convincing the people, but by driving them. They are not teachers, but sportsmen.

That anonymous mountebank whom I caught at false pretenses Wednesday now attempts to justify his lack of common decency by lying again. That is to say, he alleges that he can’t get a square deal from The Evening Sun--that his puny balderdash, if he signs his name to it, will be misrepresented by “those who wield the mighty sceptre of the press.” Strange that this complaint never comes from moralists who actually do sign their names! Strange that the Hon. William H. Anderson, for one, has publicly and voluntarily testified to The Evening Sun’s fairness! Strange that no complaint of suppressing their arguments has ever been made by the Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte, the Rev. Dr. Kenneth G. Murray, Dr. Howard A. Kelly or the Rev. Dr. J. F. Heisse! Strange that the only accusations of that sort that are ever heard come from persons who think it honorable to question other men’s honor from behind masks!

From a letter to the editor of the estimable Sunpaper:

There is no question that the public will heartily commend the efforts of Dr. George Heller, in the City Council, to restrict the promiscuous sale of bichloride of mercury. * * * The State of New York has had such legislation for some time.

Bosh! Bichloride of mercury is on public sale at every drug store in New York city. As in Baltimore, the buyer is compelled to sign his name in a book, but otherwise there are no formalities. If any statute resembling the absurd Heller ordinance is on the books, it is but one more dead and decaying law. Baltimore has enough such laws already. To add another one, founded upon a fallacy and wholly unenforceable, would be to spread further the growing conviction that the statute book is no more than a work of unconscious humor, composed by demagogues and ignoranti.

What has become of dear old Wegg, bishop of Havre de Grace in partibus infidelium? Certainly, the common people miss the deep reverberations of that voice crying in the wilderness. Let him bust loose again! He holds a unique record: he has never been right in his life. But he gives a good show! He diverts and stimulates!

Lost, strayed or stolen: The Moral Education Drama Society. Probably busted: The Greater Baltimore Committee. Suspiciously pale arounnd the gills: The Star-Spangled Super-Mahon Exposition. Dead and buried: The Factory Site Commission.

Meanwhile, there are holes in the Hon. William H. Anderson’s theory that he is directly inspired by Heaven.