Baltimore Evening Sun (5 February 1914): 8.

Cumberland is the latest of the Maryland towns to leap for the mourners’ bench with a confession of deviltries that even immoral Baltimore would blush to own. The Rev. Dr. Lee Starke, the same passionate evangelist who recently muck-raked moral Salisbury, is now in Western Maryland, and many sinful heads are falling before his sickle. According to the Cumberland Press he has found that Cumberland is full of a truly levantine levity. I quote:

Houses of prostitution openly ply the nefarious trade in buying and selling women; * * * these houses also sell beer; * * * whisky and alcoholic drinks [sic] are being sold on Sunday; * * * gambling is rampant throughout the city; * * * no serious effort is being made to molest the offenders by those in authority.

One more impressive argument against Home Rule for Baltimore. We are too sinful to run our own town. The laws under which we live must be made and executed by the shyster politicians who keep the lamp of virtue burning so brightly in the Maryland country towns.

A DAILY THOUGHT. There is no injury which men will remember so long, or resent so deeply, as that of being threatened into silence.--The Rev. Robert Hall.

Not a word from the Hon. Charles M. Levister, D. D., about the American Issue leg show. Not a word from the deacons. Not a word from the tempted clergy. Not a word, that is, direct--but my spies bring me news of ecclesiastical reprisals in prospect. Lay on, Tartuffes!

Meanwhile, the uplift gets another crack across the shins in the report of the directors of the Maryland Penitentiary for 1913, just out, for there the abhorrent Weyler is praised anew as “a falthful public servant” and regret is expressed that “a harsh and curious” fate has operated to rob him of a part of his just dues. Among the directors of the Penitentiary are the Hon. Frank A. Furst, the Hon. Charles T. Crane, the Hon. John T. Stone and the Hon. Richard Dallam. By the rules of the uplift it is now necessary to denounce these gentlemen as low-flung rogues and villains, probably in the pay of the Hon. Mr. Weyler. Any man, indeed, who stands against the prevailing Munyons and Lydia Pinkhams is ipso facto a bribe-taker and a scoundrel.

Incidentally, a casual inspection of the Penitentiary report reveals some curious things. For example, there is not a single bank cashier or bank president in the place. Most of us have been led to believe, by the Galahads who assault the Money Power, that all bankers are natural criminals, but here is a prison with not a single one on its register. Nor does it house a single clergyman, or a single journalist, or a single doctor, or a single Christian Scientist. The beaux arts are most unevenly represented. The painters number 13, and there are no less than 22 barbers, but not a single musician is behind the bars, not even a cornetist. One druggist, one school teacher, one lawyer, one printer and two insurance solicitors are there, but I fail to find a single dramatist or a single trained nurse.

Moral science is given a. severe wallop in the table showing the “habits and social relations” of the prisoners. By this it appears that only 62 of the 917 may be set down as heavy drinkers, whereas no less than 150 are total abstainers. Furthermore, it appears that 891 of the 917--or more than 97 per cent.--attended Sunday-school before they were snared. Can this be proof that the kaif is safer than the Sunday-school? If not, what does it prove? I confess that I am unequal to the answer.

The table of denominational affiliations shows that every one of the 917 prisoners confesses to some sort of faith. Of the 318 whites, male and female, 115 are Catholics and 107 are Methodists. Of the rest, all save 11 are also Christians. The 11 are Jews. Of the 599 colored prisoners, 351, or about 62 per cent., allege that they are Methodists. There is one Seventh Day Adventist in the prison, but I can’t find a single Christian Scientist, or a single Moslem, or a single atheist. There are 28 Lutherans, but only 16 Episcopalians, one of whom is colored. I find no Mormon, no Unitarian, no Buddhist and no member of the Salvation Army. But there is one Evangelical, whatever that may be.

It is interesting to note that the immoral city of Baltimore, with nearly 50 per cent. of the State’s population, has furnished but 33 per cent. of the native-born convicts in the Penitentiary. The exact figures are 564, 186 and 378. It would be interesting to hear from the Hon. Clayton C. Hill on this point. Do the figures support his contention that all virtue resides in the country and all vices in the city? Does he advocate liberating all the country crooks at once, that they may return to their homes and help to save us from our sins by their purchased votes? Let the hon. gentleman illuminate the subject with his virtuous sagacity.

How prohibition works “dry” North Carolina, as described by the Charlotte Observer of February 1:

The cold wave had its effect upon the Police Department, for practically the entire force was busy last night coralling “drunks” who had either misjudged the amount of caloric in the atmosphere or their own limited capacity. Several were brought in “limber,” some were at the fighting stage, while still others had on just a beautiful “jag” and didn’t care whether they were in a cell or out in the cold streets. But oh! sucb a head this morning. One of the officers remarked that they must be mixing their drinks, for it didn’t seem like straight whisky at all, but more of a general mixture of blind-tiger exports, with here and there a dash of real whisky. All of the white cells were filled by 9 o’clock and some even had as many as three inmates to the cell.

The Rt. Rev. Warren A. Candler, D. D., LL. D., bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, in the estimable Dallas Times-Herald of January 18:

The American mind seems to be infected with what may be called the superstition of the ballot. Many men, otherwise sane, are foolish enough to think reform can be brought about by the result of an election, and in consequence we are having all sorts of elections on questions which ought not to be in politics. These men ought to be reforming their own lives and those of their children, and then they would lack time to be clamoring for elections on all sorts of issues. We would not need many reforms if there were more religion in the homes of the land. Many woman also have fallen under the delusion that voting will reform every vice and establish every virtue in the earth. The plain fact is that where its has been tried it has not accomplished any such end.

The Hon. Dan Loden was in favor of Dr. Wilson’s Mexican policy before it changed, and he is still in favor of it since it has changed.–Political Adv.