Baltimore Evening Sun (17 March 1914): 6.

The principal causes of crime, as subscribed and sworn to by various uplifters:

Rum 99% Gambling 30% The tango 10% Sunday violations 10% The red-light district 40% The trusts 50% The Sunday-school 10% Divorce 10% Cigarettes 35% Cocaine and caffeine 20% Newspapers 60% Total 365%

A DAILY THOUGHT. In moderation, wine, beer and spirits may be taken throughout a long life without impairing the general health.–Sir William Osler, Bart., M. D., LL. D.

Incidentally, a lot of uplifting schemes are getting lost in the shuffle. What has become of the crusade against pool parlors? What of the war upon the cigarette? What of the cocaine excitement? Have the forward-lookers forgotten the tango, and all its hideous fruits? Is Dr. Kenneth G. Murray’s sanatorium for the chemically impure still open? When is he going to make good his threat to shut up the Western Tenderloin? And wasn’t there some talk, two or three years ago, of a curfew law? Who stopped on it? Again, why have the police stopped raiding soda-water fountains and cigar stores on Sunday? What made them give up the mad, glad jehad against the delicatessen stores of East Baltimore street?

Yet again, there is theatre-censoring: a sport royal. What was the name of that Dogberry who assayed to take the Alma out of “Alma, Wo Whonet Du?” Where are the right-thinkers who got into such a virtuous lather over Gaby des Lys? One of the Ziegfeld Folly shows was in town two or three weeks ago--and not a sound was heard, not a funeral note! Dost recall how the Hon. Eugene Levering denounced “September Morn”? Yet the Rokeby Venus got past last week--and not a whisper! Six months ago all the archangels were damning the grand jury for advocating segregation. Yet segregation survives to this day--and not an eye is rolled!

Can it be that the uplift runs in waves, in fashions; that the whoop of today drowns out the whoop of yesterday? Can it be that virtuous horror is a self-limiting disease? Alas, ’twould seem so. Back in 1911 it was generally agreed among virtuosi that the moving-picture parlors are dragging the whole community to gehenna, but nothing is heard about them today. Then it was the turn of the dance halls: today they are forgotten. Then there was a yell for searchlights in the public parks to snout out courting couples: today it is still. Then the county cops were egged into raiding Back River and Highlandtown: a fine advertisement for today’s revelries. And, finally, the clerical press agents began censoring the newspapers--a hot and glorious business, soon over.

What has become of the Moral Education Drama Society? The Men and Religion Forward Movement? The campaign to rescue medical students from sin? The war of extermination upon loan sharks? Who remembers the O’Dunne penal commission and its loud demands that the Hon. John F. Weyler be jugged for his crimes? What has become of the Hon. William H. Anderson’s skull-and-crossbones law? What has become, indeed, of the Hon. Mr. Anderson himself? And where is the Hon. Isaac Lobe Straus? And the local option bill? And the Kenyon law? What has happened to the Salisbury vice crunade? The Crisfield crusade? The Cumberland crusade? Why are there no more raids at Westport? Who turned the limelight off Dr. Janney? Dr. W. W. Davis? Dr Guy L. Hunner? The Rev. Dr. Franklin Bryan? The Hon. Jack Cornell? Who let the gas out of engenics? Sex hygiene? The mutilation of the erring? Why is the slit skirt forgotten? Huccom woman suffrage to step on that cake of soap?

The Rev. Dr. C. D. Harris in the estimable Southern Methodist:

The Free Lance * * * has repeatedly given the impression * * * that he will not be allowed space in the Southern Methodist to defend his theological honor. We challenged him to make good his statements by quoting any utterances of ours to substantiate them.

The same amiable gentleman in the Southern Methodist of February 19:

The Free Lance formally applies for space in the Southern Methodist for defending his theological honor. * * * This is not an unreasonable request, as we were granted space in The Evening Sun. * * * In reply, we shall say, if the Directors of our paper will consent, we shall agree, etc., etc.

Well, have the directors ever consented? If so, Dr. Harris has printed no news of it. Meanwhile, he tries to distort my polite willingness to wait for their decision into evidence that I am a liar. Such is the “moral” morality! Such is the dialectic habit of the archangels! I blush for my venerable friend. A bartender would be ashamed to stoop to such childish tricks.

But on the chance that the directors will eventually consent, I have composed and forwarded to Dr. Harris a copious and moving epistle. The question of my theological honor is scarcely mentioned in it: I have swallowed and forgotten that insult. But I think it will please and instruct the readers of the Southern Methodist (if the directors ever consent!) to read so prudent a discourse on the rum evil. They have listened patiently to the wind music and the ballyho: now they will have an opportunity to see the actual monster in the tent. Incidentally, I formally forgive Dr. Harris for all his libels and obfuscations. As clergymen go, in these sad days of the uplift, he is very virtuous.

More witnesses in support of the Rev. Dr. Charles M. Levister’s “proofs" that moderate drinkers are all murdered by the art and that Dr. Osler is an ass:

Prof. Dr. Rudolph Schmoos, of the University of Narrenhausen--One drop of alcohol, injected directly into the heart, will kill the strongest man. Dr. Arabella Snodgrass, professor of psychotherapy in the Munyon College of Medicine and Music, Zanesville, Ohio--Alcohol has no place in the All, despite the similarity in names. The boozer is out of tune with the Cosmic Vibrations. Old Dr. Bunk, president of the Kansas Anti-Vaccination League--Osler is a pathetic victim of outworn medical delusions. If vaccination will cure smallpox, why is it that it will not cure dandruff? Mrs. Millicent Muldoon, D. C. S., first reader of the First Christian Science Church at Red Wing, N. D.–Rum is a delusion of mortal mind. Why drink highballs when the Truth is free? Dr. Alexander Schnitzgloz, professor of osteopathy at Heidelberg–I have seen a healthy medical student floored by one fass of Münchener. It is just as dangerous to drink one fass a day as to drink 20. Bock beer caused the Franco-Prussian War.