Baltimore Evening Sun (16 February 1914): 6.

The Rev. Dr. Charles M. Levister, press agent of the Anti-Saloon Leg, broke into The Evening Sun on February 12 with an editorial from Collier’s Weekly alleging that Coatesville, Pa., had been turned into a young heaven by prohibition. At the same time he challenged me to meet and dispose of its so-called “facts.” I accept the challenge with the greatest pleasure. Before me lies a pamphlet entitled “The Truth About It,” issued by the Hon. Charles Williams, a citizen of Coatesville and director of the Chesco Bureau of Statistics and Publicity there. This is what he says of the general situation (page 6):

Coatesville * * * is more wet than it has ever been in its history; more liquor is being and has been sent into Coatesville and consumed than ever before; the hotels in their palmiest days never dispensed as great a quantity as has been shipped in by freight, trolley and express since the hotel bars were closed.

And this is what he says of the effects of prohibition on business (pages 5, 6 and 7):

When you said business conditions in Coatesville were better in 1913 than in 1912 by reason of the absence of licensed hotels you told an unmitigated falsehood. * * * Aside from less than a dozen prohibitionists among them, the business men of Coatesville, without exception, make an opposite statement. * * * More than 150 business men have signed license applications within the last months. * * * The former business of Coatesville is being done in Lancaster and elsewhere, and the farmer trade has diminished to almost a minus quantity.

And this is what he says of the allegation that the Coatesville savings banks are bursting with money (page 7):

The oft-repeated claims of increase in deposits in Coatesville banks are unfair and based upon falsification and evasions of the truth.

And this is what he says of the allegation that the local taxes have been reduced by prohibition (pages 7 and 8):

The reduction in taxes was made solely because the county was free from debt, and there was a balance in the trsaury. * * * The debts of Chester county were paid and the treasury balance accumulated during the period when the liquor licenses of the county were in force. * * * The tax rate in so-called dry territory is as high as in territory where licenses exist, and in some instances much higher.

And this of the allegation that prohibition has decreased crime:

There were 71 criminal cases from Coatesville in 1911, 74 in 1912, and 81 in 1913.

So much for Coatesville. I am still waiting to hear what the Rev. Dr. Levister has to say about Sinful Salisbury.

TWO CHALLENGES. 1. To the Rev. Dr. John I1. Yellott, of Belaitr, to deny on his honor that he wrote a letter signed “Clergyman” in last Wednesday’s Evening News. 2. To the Rev. Dr. C. D. Harris, to give me the same space in the Southern Methodist that he got in The Evening Sun.

The Hon. Jack Cornell, chief snouter of the Pentz Society, whose astounding false testimony before the Judiciary Committee of the State Senate I exposed Saturday, also told the committee that clandestine houses of prostitution in Baltimore have “decreased over 75 per cent.” since the inauguration of the Soper-Niles-Ammidon vice crusade. This was equally untrue. On the contrary, clandestine prostitution has increased in Baltimore since that crusade, and the man best qualified to judge--to wit, Mr. Grgurevich, the Federal white slave agent here, has frequently borne testimony to the fact.

But let us not be too hard upon the Hon. Mr. Cornell, or take him too seriously. He is employed by the Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte, the Hon. Eugene Levering and the rest of the misguided vice crusaders to provide the sort of “evidence” that they believe in and enjoy, and he is not to be blamed, perhaps, for performing the unpleasant duties of his job with diligent enthusiasm. But what are we to think of some of the persons who went to Annapolis with him, and publicly supported him in his emission of rubbish? What are we to think, in particular, of two members of the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Medical School--Dr. Florence Rena Sabin, associate professor of anatomy, and Dr. Guy Le Roy Hunner, associate in gynecology? Is it compatible with academic honor for persons holding such positions to lend their aid, even in ignorance, to attempts to deceive and mislead a committee of the State Senate of Maryland?

The latest issue of the University Circular shows that the medical faculty of the Johns Hopkins comprises 130 men and women. Of these there are just five who have come before the public as advocates of the theories and methods of the Pentz Society. But the professional vice crusaders, as everyone knows, have made the most of this meagre support, and the inference has been cunningly held out that it is representative of the university. In view of this it may be well for the other members of the faculty to give serious consideration to two questions. The first is whether or not such involvement of the university in a stupid, disingenuous and dangerous enterprise is helpful to its good repute at home and abroad. The other is whether or not it is proper for members of the faculty, appearing publicly as such, to lend their support to misrepresentations so shameless and so gross that they are at once exposed and denounced in the newspapers.

In regard to the Hon. Lawrence Turnbull’s remarks in today’s Letter Column, I can only thank him for his charitable assumption and lament his disinclination to pursue further the question he has raised. The charge that I assault honest and intelligent reformers, and so give support to evil, is one that is often made in the Letter Column, but seldom by a reputable man, honorably signing his name to it. I dispute this charge. My objection to the vice-crusaders, the prohibitionists and all the rest of the mad Munyons is precisely that their remedies will make evil worse, and in that objection I have the highest backing, lay and clerical. Some of these gentlemen are merely ignorant, but others are downright dishonest. In either case, they are dangerous to the public welfare, and their menace is in exact proportion to their public position and influence.

Prepare, beloved, for the grandest vice crusade of them all! When Philadelphia was “cleaned up” seven women of the Tenderloin were driven to suicide. Let Baltimore beat that record!

Salisbury, Crisfield and Cumberland have stepped up and confessed, and Highlandtown and Westport are already in the cage. Bit by bit the evidence accumulates that Baltimore needs these moral county towns to save her from herself.—Adv.