Baltimore Evening Sun (18 December 1913): 6.

The Hon. the Bentztown Bard in the estimable Sunpaper:

Into the heart of the misanthrope and cynic the light of the season of love and childhood sheds a ray which wakens them from their gloom and doubt and bitterness, helping them to realize that in the great world of humanity there is sunshine still, and laughter, and the gentle, tender mercies of heart and mind that make life better and sweeter for us all.

True enough. Such is the undoubted effect of Christmas. But will the Bard deny that exactly the same effect is also achieved by Pilsner?

A DAILY THOUGHT. Der Mensch ist, was er isst.—Ludwig Feuerbach.

The departure of the Hon. William H. Anderson will leave a large, jagged cavity in the politics of Maryland, and take away much of the spice and savour from the prevailing theology, and from the communal divertissement and recreation. In brief, he will be missed—which is more than could be said of nine other emigrants out of ten. In the midst of a Commonwealth of dubs and the me-toos, of joiners and uniform-wearers, of play-actors and platitudinarians, he has stood out as a truly distinguished man. Put him beside any other acknowledged leader of the moment—for example, the Mayor of Baltimore or the Governor of Maryland—and at once his enormous superiority becomes evident. He has gone further in five years than any other man has ever gone in 20, and he has done it against greater odds. When he came among us he was the butt of all the barroom scaramouches, and the majority of so-called politicians regarded him as beneath their notice. He departs for pastures new with a large number of these erstwhile scorners docilely eating out of his hand, and with the rest of them painfully aware, even in the moment of victory, that they have had a hot tussle with him.

Personally, I haven’t the slightest belief in the Hon. Mr. Anderson’s cause, nor in the good faith of most of his followers, but I have more than once called attention to the surpassing cleverness of the man, and it is a pleasure to do so once more. The job that he undertook was obviously beyond the reach of native talent. After nearly a generation of agitation and turmoil, the cause of prohibition was plainly on the verge of ruin. The best leaders it could muster were easy marks for any politician who chose to have fun with them. They had no cunning and they had no sense. Then came the Hon. Mr. Anderson—and in less than five years he had organized every county in the State, brought every effective dry trooper directly under his command, and pushed the local option bill so close to passage that the politicians suffered the worst scare of their careers. Such a feat called for a man of the highest energy and sagacity, and such a man was the Hon. Mr. Anderson. The boozehounds will swallow many a keg of hypochlorite before ever they look upon his like again.

Of all the qualities that helped him to get as far as he did, I am inclined to think that the most valuable of all was his capacity for taking punishment. The moment he set foot in Maryland an organized effort to get his goat was inaugurated, and it kept up unceasingly down to last election. His past was searched with spotlights and microscopes; he was scientifically tempted to lose his head; he was led into countless pits and ambuscades; herrings innumerable were dragged across his trail; he was pricked and irritated day in and day out; there were even attempts to lure him into fisticuffs, and so into public disgrace. But all this baiting failed to shake him. No clout was ever so staggering that it kept him from striking back; he never bit at the poisoned bait so temptingly set before him. From first to last, he kept his eye on his number. Even at the end, with the ground suddenly yanked from under him and his heels describing a parabola through the red-hot air, he still held a firm grip upon himself and emitted no pathetic yell, and was not above snickering at his own disaster.

Most of the more ill-natured attacks upon the hon. gent., I daresay, were inspired by sheer resentment of his unprecedented toughness. To the professional politician the average “moral leader” appears as nothing more formidable than a harmless mountebank, a flabby bladder of wind, a fellow too puny and ineffective to be taken quite seriously. But here was one who conducted his jehad with all the ferocity of a menaced ward leader, and what is more, with all the tricks. He knew the game; he was a politician himself. He could take a beating, and he could administer a beating. Naturally enough, the discovery of gifts so secular in one so pious caused consternation, and equally natural, it was at once assumed that the dishonesty which went with them in other politicians also went with them in Anderson. But, as I have said, the proof never followed the accusation. It is very curious, indeed, to remember how much was said (and whispered) of Anderson’s hypocrisy and avarice three of four years ago, and how little is heard upon the subject today.

If the hon. gent’s departure means a serious and perhaps fatal setback for the snoutish Anti-Saloon League—and I assume that it does, for even another Anderson, if he can be found, will be a long while getting to where this one has left off—if the Anti-Saloon League, as I say, is hamstrung by this bereavement, then the majority of sane and patriotic men will not repine. But meanwhile, and in parting, let no one forget the positive good that Anderson has done, for all his violence and for all his failure. He has smoked out and exposed the worst of our political charlatans; he has made the professional politicians feel and understand the full force of an aroused public opinion; and, best of all, he has made the opposition turn to virtue as to the one practicable escape from him. The liquor business is cleaner in Baltimore today than it has ever been in my time. I believe that the impulse to this belated cleanliness came from without, and that it had its origin in the devastating onslaught of the Hon. William H. Anderson.

Sympathetic description of the average wife and mother by the Hon. Edna Annette Beveridge in the Maryland Suffrage News:

A woman stupidly contented with uselessness, thinking only of her own vanities, gratifying only her own weak appetites, purposely ignorant of circumstances and existing evils around her.

A set of the works of J. Fenimore Cooper to the Rev. Dr. W. W Davis for any evidence, however ridiculous, that orchestral concerts on Sunday afternoons would promote atheism and carnality.—Adv.