Baltimore Evening Sun (29 January 1914): 6.

With refer

1. That the transfer of Captain Field from the battle of Louisiana to the Portsmouth Navy Yard was not a part of the penalty imposed upon him by the court-martial, but was a routine transfer made by the Secretary of the Navy and in no wise reflecting upon the Captain professionally.
2. That the Hon. Mr. Niles’ appeal to the Secretary of the Navy, made with the support of the Hon. John Walter Smith, was not for a reduction or modification of the sentence of the court-martial, but merely for a clear indication of the lack of connection between it and the transfer.

It is a pleasure to record these facts. I was misled by a Washington dispatch in The Sun of last Sunday. In excuse, though not in justification of my error, I may say that the statements and inferences in this dispatch had not been corrected, either by Captain Field or by Mr. Niles, two days afterward. But Mr. Niles assures me that I was wrong to assume that Captain Field sought “Executive clemency,” as I stated, and so I withdraw the statement unreservedly and apologize to both.

A SANE SUNDAY

Sunday is a day not only of prayer, but also of rest, of innocent recreation and pastime, and of healthful diversions which are profitable to mind and body. Sunday should not be a day of gloom, sadness and melancholy.—Cardinal Gibbons.

The Hon. Clayton C. Hall, rehearsing the stale arguments against Home Rule for Baltimare city in the Evening Sunpaper:

It is sometimes necessary to seek the pure, clean air of the country in order to escape from the smoke, the mists and the exhalations of the city.

Can it be that the Hon. Mr. Hall actually believes such buncombe? What ground has he for holding that country folk are more virtuous than city folk, or that politics in the country is cleaner? Is the illegitimacy rate higher in Baltimore, or in, say, Frederick county? Which has the more brothels, in proportion to population, Baltimore or Salisbury? Which has the more foul and degrading drinking places, “wet” Baltimore or “dry” Crisfield? Is it imaginable that the principal ctizens of Baltlmore would ever grab for the profits of race-track gambling, as those of Havre de Grace have grabbed? Is it imaginable that the clergy of Baltimore would permit themselves to be cowed into silence, as their brethren of Harford county have been cowed? Does the Hon. Mr. Hall hold up the police of Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties as models for our own police to follow? If he wanted to find a judge who was also a political boss in active practice, would he go into the counties or come to the city? If he wanted to buy votes in Annapolis, would be stop short with the city delegation? If he wanted to buy votes in a Senatorial primary, would he seek them in Baltimore or on the Eastern Shore?

In the name of all that is decent and honest, let us have an end of this puerile slandering of the city. The Hon. Mr. Hall proves that the police force of Baltimore, under the Home Rule that prevailed just before the war, was inefficient and corrupt. But why does he conceal the fact that the same thing was true of all the other police forces of that day, regardless of their method of control--that it was a time of disorder and unruly passions, of gang fights and organized crime, of all the turmoils that inevitably precede and follow a civil war? Certainly, he is not so foolish as to maintain that the restoration of Home Rule would bring with it another such era. Besides, has he forgotten the fact that, despite the Police bill of 1860, the police force of Baltimore remained corrupt all through the 70's, and on into the 90's, and even down to 1895? If State control was so potent for virtue, why did it take 35 years to make the constabulary honest? Was the movement which worked that change a country movement? Is the Hon. Mr. Hall unaware that the majority for the Hon. Lloyd Lowndes and decent government was 60 per cent. larger in the city alone than in all the counties combined?

My spies at Annapolis bring me news that the suffragettes are making a noble effort to collar the mothers’ pension bill. This measure was first brought forward by Capt. John Logan, of the Volunteers of America, and among the men who have joined in advocating it are the Rev. Herbert Parrish and Rabbi Charles Rubenstein. It is thus favored with support which amounts to a proof of its reasonableness. Nothing could be more unfortunate than for members of the Legislature to assume, by reason of the suffragettish attempt aforesaid, that it is merely another one of the man-slaying bills that the suffragettes advocate. It has, in point of fact, nothing whatever to do with the suffragette endeavor to harass the recalcitrant male and get into the newspapers. It is a sound and intelligent measure, and it deserves serious consideration.

Salisbury dispatch to the estimable New Republic, the new Aniti-Saloon League organ:

[The Hon.] F. Leonard Wailes, president of the Salisbury Law and Order League, declares that all has not yet been told, by any means.

Great guns! Can it be possible? Then what will become of the hard-earned reputation of San Francisco, the fair fame or Gomorrah, the lofty pre-eminence of Crisfield?

That Western Maryland doctor who whoops against vaccination will find food for thought in the report on smallpox in Germany in the year 1910, just published in the estimable Public Health Reports (Vol. xxix, No. 4). It shows that there were but 236 cases of the disease in the empire during the year, and that 105 of these were among foreigners, chiefly Russians. Thus the death rates among those successfully vaccinated and those not vaccinated at all:

In other words, the chances that a successfully vaccinated man will die, even supposing him to fake smallpox, are less than one-third as great as the chances that an unvaccinated man will die. What is more, the character of the disease among those who recover is milder among the vaccinated than among the unvaccinated. Of the latter, 43.2 per cent. of the whole number had it in its more severe forms—this without counting those who had it so badly that they died. Among those vaccinated once, the proportion of severe cases dropped to 22.8 per cent., and among those vaccinated twice or more,to 17 per cent.