Baltimore Evening Sun (16 March 1914): 6.

The Lexington (Ky.) Correspondent of the New York Sun, on the defeat of woman suffrage in the Kentucky Legislature last Friday:

The legislators were apparently tired of voting for measures backed by women. * * * So when the suffrage bill was offered they proposed decisive amendments, made all manner of fun of it, and then voted against it.

And yet the Just Government League of Maryland continues to “work” for the suffrage by swallowing all the new perunas the moment they are put on the market and by trying to ram them down the weary gullets of the lawmakers. Every new one is the long-awaited sure cure, and every man who doesn’t down it at once is a scoundrel!

A DAILY THOUGHT. Some homes need a hickory switch a good deal more than they do a piano.—The Rev. Billy Sunday, D. D.

Prohibition, as we all know, is sure to convert Baltimore into a heavenly desert, despite the fact that it has failed to do anything of the sort in Savannah and Atlanta. And the “suppression” of racetrack betting, it now appears, is sure to stop the busting of fools in Maryland, despite the fact that it has failed to do anything of the sort in New York. New York passed a rigid anti-betting law two or three years ago, to the tune of loud whoops by the “moral element.” But has it stopped betting at the New York tracks? Look at the New York Telegraph tomorrow morning and see for yourself. There you will find the form charts for Belmont Park, Saratoga, Jamaica and Aqueduct side by side with those for Charleston and Juarez. Law or no law, bets are being made every day, both at the tracks and by the handbooks.

Even if all the tracks in the United States were shut down next week, and it were made a hanging offense to run a horse race, the handbooks here in Baltimore would continue to do business. Nothing that we can do will ever stop the racing at Juarez and in Canada, and so long as it goets on news of it will be sent into the United States, and so long as news of it is sent in the folks who like to gamble will continue to bet upon the resorts. There is still plenty of room in Mexico for more racetracks, and yet more in Cuba, and, if the worst comes to the worst, there is nothing to prevent betting on the English races by cable. The only thing that “suppression” will ever accomplish in Maryland, indeed, will be to rob racing of all its genuine sporting interest and make it a gambling business pure and simple.

But still the uplifters bounce into the ring with their furious prohibitions and fill the newspapers with their old, old arguments. The American people seem to have an infinite capacity for swallowing that sort of stuff. The name on the bottle is changed every few days, but it is always the same old peruna—the same old sure cure for all the sorrows of the world. One dose of it will give the Seventh Commandment the force and effect of the law of gravitation; two doses will abolish alcohol, empty the insane asylums and tear down the jails; three doses will make it impossible for fools to indulge their folly. Heap big medicine! Step up, gents, and take a swig! It is a sure cure: we have the word of the Rev. Dr. John Roach Straton for it!

The estimable Democratic Telegram of this week adorns its first page with an effective poster of the Hon. James McC. Trippe (not Joseph, as the immoral Sunpaper insists upon calling him). In its literary section it advocates the hon. gentleman’s Home Rule bill, says a kind word to the Texas Rangers and prints a sapient article entitled “How the Tango Has Taken Hold.” The Mon. S. M. Wood is still editor of the Telegram, but it be hoped that he is getting rich hand over fist, as the Hon. George Arnold Frick did before him.—Adv.

The uplift has just received a crack over the knuckles in Virginia, where the Legislature has tabled the Kenyon bill, and thus killed it for two years. The usual desperate effort was made to pass it, the virtuosi of virtue bringing up all their orthodox “expert” testimony, including that of our own Dr. O. Edward Janney. But instead of having the customary walk.over, they encountered intelligent and effective opposition, headed by Dr. Douglas Freeman, a member of the State Board of Charities and Corrections; Dr. L. T. Price, a Richmond specialist, and the Hon. J. W. Drake, Jr., of the Richmond bar. These men, supported by public opinion, defeated the archangels and spoiled the woman hunt. For two years, at least, the social evil in Richmond will continue to be handled by the police, and not by volunteer snouters.

From Annapolis my spies now send news of a similar disposition of the Kenyon bill. Two weeks ago its passage seemed certain, and all the local snouters were getting ready for a high old time, but Dr. George Walker’s objection killed it. Dr. Walker made an excellent impression on the lawmakers, which is exactly what the Murray-Cornell-Hooker committee failed to do. With the $5,000 that the Legislature promises to give him, he should be able to make a really scientific investigation of prostitution in Baltimore. It will be the first ever made anywhere. In all other cities the so-called vice commissions have been run by professional moralists, and they have made only the most superficial inquiries. This explains the idiotic nature of their reports, and particularly of the Chicago report, perhaps one of the silliest documents ever printed in the world.

Effects of the Rev. Dr. Billy Sunday’s bout with the devil in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., as described by Brann’s Iconoclast for September, 1913:

The [police] record reveals the fact that Wilkes-Barre was 30 per cent. worse the month after Bill left than the month before she was saved.

AND here are some sample headlines from the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader of August 12, 1913:

WOMEN CONFESS THEIR SHAME WIFE NO. 1 ARRESTS HUSBAND WHEN SHE LOCATES WIFE NO. 2. GAY OLD LOTHARIO FINED FOR HIS FUN. WHITE SLAVE GIRL SEARCHED FOR.

To which the editor of the Iconoclast appends this melancholy reflection:

No one could tell from reading the local news that Bill had ever saved Wilkes-Barre.

But he will save Baltimore, though he failed in Wilkes-Barre, just as probibition will work in Baltimore, though it has failed in Atlanta.

The big show will come when Dr. Gorter’s vaccinators tackle the fair gladiators of the Maryland Anti-Vivisection Society.