Baltimore Evening Sun (30 December 1913): 6.

THE FREE LANCE

The six “greatest” Marylanders, in the order of their probable notoriety 500 years hence:

  1. Edgar Allan Poe.
  2. Johns Hopkins.
  3. Ottmar Mergenthaler.
  4. Jesse W. Lazear.
  5. Roger B. Taney.

  6. John Wilkes Booth.

The six greatest living Marylanders, in the order of their actual distinction:

  1. William H. Welch.
  2. Lizette Woodworth Reese.
  3. Charles J. Bonaparte.
  4. Dvaid J. Lewis.
  5. Basil Gildersleeve.
  6. Upton Sinclair.

Dr. Welch has revolutionized medical education in the United States, and inspired the most valuable research work ever done in this country.

Miss Reese is the greatest lyric poet ever resident in Maryland, not excepting Poe.

Mr. Bonaparte is one of the few living American politicians who are also intelligent men.*

Mr. Lewis is the only Maryland Congressman who has ever achieved a fundamental reform in our institutions.

Dr. Gildersleeve is the greatest living Grecian.

Mr. Sinclair has written the best novel ever done by a Marylander—to wit, “Love’s Pilgrimage”—and, if he ever shakes off his Socialist obsession, will do work of the first rank.

A DAILY THOUGHT.
Plainly stated, that which the majority applaud is, next to the thunder of a voice, the imposing thunder of a name.—Theodor Fontane.

A punch bowl? More appropriately a punching bag!

Now that Christmas is gone and forgotten, it is in order to protest against the ancient custom of celebrating the day by filling poor men with turkey, cranberry sauce and campmeeting hymns. Why should the miserable down-and-out be forced to swallow Salvation Army theology with the one square meal he gets all winter? If Christmas is a tine for charity, why not be genuinely charitable? That is to say, why not give the down-and-out the sort of frolic that he would give himself if he had the money?

I throw out no more than the suggestion. Let it stew and germinate in charitable hearts during the year 1914. And let it be hoped that, when Christmas rolls around again, some man of money will hire a hall, lay in 50 kegs of beer, spread a table with first-class free lunch and invite the poor fellows of the lodging houses to be innocently merry–not good or smug, not pious, but merry. The rest of us do not celebrate the season by hiring kill-joys to harangue us. Why should the pauper be forced to submit to that gross insult and injury?

I make this proposal in all seriousness. The fact that a man is penniless is no proof that he is unintelligent. He may regard the Boothian theology with just as much impatience as you and I regard it; he may object just as much as we would to playing Exhibit A to a crowd of booming drum-beaters and sulphur-burners. If he deserves charity at Christmas, let it be charity without a string tied to it, charity involving no criticism of him--in brief, charity conforming to his habits and philosophy. I am myself on the verge of bankruptcy, but I hereby pledge $25 to a genuine Christmas fund next year--a fund to give poorer men the sort of Christmas that they will actually approve, understand and enjoy.

Partial list of the sure cures now being merchanted by the Munyons and Lydia Pinkhams of the New Thought:

ANOTHER DAILY THOUGHT.
What is called inspiration is the mere haphazard of carelessness and incompetence.—George Henry Lewes.

The Hon D. Bachrach, with the blind enthusiasm of the crusader, clings resolutely to his Single Tax fallacies in today’s Letter Column. And not only to his fallacies, but also to his down-right phantasms. For example, he repeats all over again his singularly unconvincing answer to my question regarding the unearned increment of a house that increases in value. What I asked was: How would the community in general get any benefit out of this increase under the Single Tax, which specifically forbids the taxation of houses. His answer, given yesterday, was that “our busy tax assessors would soon have it in the tax bill,” and today he adds “under the present system of assessment.” But what he forgets is that I am speaking of the Single Tax and not “the present system of assessment.” Who would get the profit under the Single Tax?

As for the rest of his argument, it is as full of holes as a fly-screen. For example, he argues that one of the chief effects of the Single Tax would be to compel landowners to erect “better” buildings. But how would the erection of “better” buildings benefit the man who pays rent? Would he pay more rent for them, or less rent? I leave the answer to the professors of mathematics.

The Hon. William H, Anderson in the American Issue:

In one respect the Free Lance is doomed to disappointment. His idea that nobody can be found to carry on the [Anti-Saloon League] work is a great mistake. He underestimates moral sentiment. Moral movements do not go backward.

How about the “moral movement” against the Salem “witches”? How about the Puritan movement against the Quakers? The movement to prevent the running of street cars in Baltimore on Sunday–circa 1865? The movement against Sunday concerts in the parks? The Hon. Eugene Levering’s mad, glad, sad jehad against “September Morn”? More pertinently, how about the Good Templar movement of the early 50’s? What happened to it?

*Intelligence, of course, has nothing to do with morality, and is, in fact, its antithesis. Thus the fact that the Hon. Mr. Bonaparte pursues devious ways in the pursuit of various dialectic recreations is no evidence against his sense. He stands head and shoulders above the general because of the obvious fact that he is not deluded by the sophistries of democracy. Next to the Hon. Elihu Root he is probably the nearest approach to Alexander Hamilton that we have today.