Baltimore Evening Sun (18 March 1914): 6.

Entry under the heading of “Live Wires in Baltimore” in the estimable Hot Towel:

CEMETERIES. Beautiful Oak Lawn. Eastern Av. Ext. St. Paul 3823–Back River 5.

A DAILY THOUGHT.
No photographer could make a living taking pictures if he made them look just like you.—The Rev. Billy Sunday, D. D.

The Hon. Hi Gill has just returned to office as Mayor of Seattle, after having been recalled by the the forward-lookers in 1911. Hi was recalled for refusing to take a hand in a vice crusade, and his chief of police, the Hon. Charles Wappenstein, who similarly refused, was punished by being railroaded to jail. Now Hi gets his revenge by a masterpiece of low, backward-looking humor. That is to say, he has appointed the Hon. Austin E. Griffiths chief of police, and bidden him to rid Seattle of the social evil--if he can!

The joke lies in the fact that the Hon. Mr. Griffiths is an eminent Seattle uplifter, and ran against Hi for the Mayoralty as the candidate of the Seattle Ministerial Association, a body of clerical press agents and wire-pullers not unlike our own Ministerial Union. For months and months he wooed the voters of Seattle with the tale of the miracles he would accomplish if he were elected Mayor. Now he will have a chance to accomplish them as chief of police--and all wrong-thinkers are lying back comfortably, and waiting for the loud laugh. Poor Griffiths, in truth, is in for a parlous time. His days of happy, carefree burbling are over; it is now up to him to do something.

The Seattle vice crusaders, of course, rejoice in his appointment, for it will give them a lot of excellent sport, at least for the moment. And no doubt they will soon be sending out the usual bulletins about the “cleaning up” of Seattle, and professors elsewhere will be using them to inflame the “moral element.” But the people of Seattle, of course, will know the truth, just as the people of Chicago, Detroit and Atlanta know it today, and that truth will be very uncomfortable for the new chief of police.

The subtle scheme of the Hon. Mr. Gill is good enough to be tried elsewhere--for example, here in Baltimore. Why not make the Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte chief of police, and let him show how easy it is to “clean up” a large city? The Locrian plan commends itself: fine him $100 for every prostitute discovered in town after six months and $1,000 for every disorderly house. For years and years he has been denouncing the police and the courts for failing to put down the social evil. It would be highly instructive and intensely aniusing to see him doing it himself.

I nominate the Hon. Mr. Bonaparte rather than some other crusader simply because he has had more experience in enforcing the laws. We all know what a notable success he made of trust-busting as Attorney-General of the United States–how he sacrificed everything, including even political friendship, to the majesty of the Sherman act. And he is further fitted for the office by the fact that he once owned--or at least managed as agent--two houses used for highly dubious purposes. The story of his efforts to get rid of his tenants is one to wring the virtuous tear. For all his virtuous enthusiasm he found the law inadequate to give him relief, and so he had to proceed by a method as ingenious as it was extra-legal. Let him try the same method as chief of police-- and face the ensuing damage suits and political revenges.

Incidentally, it is interesting to note certain remote effects of the late vice crusade in Atlanta--a crusade which, according to one of its gladiators, was “more fun than a fleet of airships.” This crusade, which was managed by the usual book peddlers, male old maids and sforzando preachers, kept the police so busy that they had no time for other work, and so Atlanta began to enjoy what the local newspapers called “a wave of crime.” The public indignation arose thereat, and there were loud demands for blood. The police responded by grabbing the handiest man and trying to railroad him to the gallows. He was the Hon. Leo M. Frank.

The Frank case is now invading the newspapers of the entire country, to the great glory and benefit, one may be sure, of Atlanta. Bit by bit it is becoming apparent that the accused was denied all his common rights, that evidence in his favor was suppressed, that his trial was a hideous farce. Thus the causes thereof, as described by the Atlanta correspondent of the American:

The Police Department was in bad repute because of the failure to solve several important cases. The Atlanta newspaper called on the Police Department, in bold type, to avenge the murder of the girl, to catch the criminal had convict him. The Police Department had to do something.

One of the important things to remember in the Frank case is the part that sensational preachers, no less than sensational newspapers, played in it. These noble men of God, having tasted blood in the vice crusade, were ripe for an even larger demonstration of their powers. They found it in the Frank case. The accused was a member of a strange and contumacious race, with small respect for the new perunas. It was horrible that such a person should live in moral Atlanta, practicing his levantine crimes. So the pulpit joined heartily in the uproar against him, and with loud whoops he was started for the gallows. The uplift was vindicated. Atlanta was purged of sin.

Let it be said to the credit of the clergy of Atlanta that there are decent men among them, and that they now appeal for sanity and justice. Such men, of course, are to be found everywhere. But in times of public hysteria, of reform by orgy, of “moral” saturnalia and blood-letting, their voices are drowned out by the harsh, staccato yelps of the peruna-mongers and mountebanks. It is only after the debauch has spent itself and comparative quiet is restored that they can make themselves heard.

The Rev. Dr. Charles M. Levister, shamas of the Anti-Saloon League, to the Evening Sunpaper:

I have in my possession letters from more than 50 of the leading physicians and surgeons in this State, many of whom, no doubt, studied under Dr. Osler, who are outspoken in their opinion that alcohol is a habit-forming, irritant narcotic poison, and that its use in any quantity has a degenerating effect upon the human system.

Well, then, why not print the names of these super-Oslers? In point of fact, have they any actual existence? Or are they merely angelic figments of the moral imagination? I offer Dr. Levister 80 cents cash for the name and address of one physician of good repute who will say exactly what he would have us believe the whole 50 say.