Baltimore Evening Sun (1 April 1914): 6.

Col. Jacobus Hook is not only the greatest Baltimorean who ever visited Munich, but also the greatest Münchener who ever lived in Baltimore.—Adv.

A DAILY THOUGHT. The man who votes for the saloon is pulling on the same rope with the devil, whether he knows it or not.—The Rev. Billy Sunday, D. D.

The estimable Maryland Suffrage News degenerates very sadly in interest, but shows constant improvement in sense. A week or so ago, as I reported at the time, it printed a singularly prudent article by the eminent vice-crusader, Dr. O. Edward Janney—an article so prudent, indeed, that it was a devastating argument against Dr. Janney himself. And this week, the whole of one page and part of another are covered by a truly excellent article by the Hon. Margaret L. Sewall—a coherent and convincing piece of reasoning, written in sound English. Who this Miss Sewall may be I don’t know, but I earnestly counsel all other suffragettes to study her logic and her style. She has something intelligible to say, and she says it clearly and persuasively.

Such authors, if more of them can be found, will give the Suffrage News a new standing, and make it a potent missionary for the suffrage. But at the same time, of course, they will diminish its capacity to entertain us vulgarians. It was most amusing a year or two ago, in the mad, glad days of its vice-crusading, when a new peruna was advocated every, week and Dr. Donald R. Hooker achieved his memorable feats of moral statistics. A complete file of the Suffrage News during that period is one of my cherished possessions. I wouldn’t trade it for 500 tickets to the circus. It is an encyclopedia of sentimental mush, a storehouse of innocent mirth. In years to come it will bring a big price in the auction room.

But, as I say, the appearance of such contributors as the Hon. Miss Sewall puts an end to all that happy, care-free comedy and lifts the suffrage cause in Maryland to seriousness and dignity. This change is further helped by a pronunciamento just issued by a committee of five eminent suffragists—a pronunciamento declaring for “persuasion, not threats” and “reasons and facts, not emotion,” and advocating an educational test for woman voters. The whole tone of this paper is in marked contrast to the hysterical, uncompromising tone that the Suffrage News so long revealed. There is not a word in it about white slaves, not a word about the Rum Demon. No promise is made that woman suffrage will wipe out sin. Nothing is said about sex hygiene, searchlights in the parks, Back River, the cigarette, the Royal Family or the Wassermann reaction. In brief, these fair ladies throw all the old stock company of hobgoblins overboard, and buckle down to the suffrage.

From the estimable Sunpaper’s “list of letters remaining in the Baltimore Postoffice March 20,1914":

Menklin, H. C. Uplift, The.

Offer to the Rev. Dr. John Roach Straton: I will claim the Menklin if you will claim the Uplift.

If you missed the editorial of the Rev. Dr. C. F. Thomas in The Evening Sun of last Monday, you missed a clear statement of the case against the uplift by a clergyman whose sharp common sense and high degree of professional efficiency are obvious to everyone. The chief point made by Dr. Thomas was this: that the prosperity of the uplift depends very largely upon the shameless and imbecile exaggerations of its gladiators—in brief, that they make a good living by fighting rats as if they were hyenas. This is a sound indictment. The true uplifter is essentially quackish in all his words and acts, and. like his ancient brother, the quack medical, he always begins business by giving his victims a good scare.

If it is prohibition that he is seeking to sell, he seeks to make it appear that every adult male in the community has one foot in a drunkard’s grave. If it is sex hygiene, that virtuous garbage, he strikes terror to the credulous by discoursing darkly about a mythical pestilence of syphilis, and by arguing that practically all the diseases of women are caused by the cold-blooded scoundrelism of their husbands. And if it is a new and bogus consumption “cure,” he always begins by hinting that every little cough is a sure sign of tuberculosis, and by twisting medical testimony to show that nothing known to the regular doctors will cure it. Such is the habit of the quack in all his protean guises. His whole case is grounded upon a misrepresentation of the facts.

The present “moral” uplift in Baltimore runs perfectly true to the type. In order to justify a low-comedy “revival,” turning public worship into a cheap clown-show, its press agents seek to convince all of us that Baltimore has become a rival to Sodom and Gomorrah, and that the entire population will be swiftly translated to hell unless it is saved by force. That this is idiotic nonsense is patent to everyone who knows anything of other cities; that it is an insult to the hard-working, self-effacing pastors of the community is too plain to need pointing out. These pastors labor day in and day out for right living as they sea it, and their influence is visible in the good order, the decent home life and the general well-being of this town. That evil still exists in the world is not their fault, nor do they vainly beat their breasts and tear their hair over it. They are servants of the God they believe in, and not critics of Him.

What the iplifters really demand is that the normal, healthy-minded clergy and laity of Baltimore should cease being what they are, and become what the uplifters themselves are. This pretension to moral and spiritual superiority is inseparable from their holy war. It is, however, wholly unsupported by the known facts. They are by no means the archangels they pretend to be. More then one of them, indeed, might learn a profitable lesson in the rudiments of Christianity from the average bartender.

Accuse the Hon. D. Harry all you please, anyhow he’s a better loser than this Hon. Champ Clark.—Political Adv.

Less than two weeks more! And then the return to civilization!

Hofbräu! Linsensuppe! Löwenbräu! Bohnensalat! Fransiskanerbräu! Schmierkäserkuche! Pschorrbräu! Rinderbrust mit Meerettig! Spatenbräu! Kartoffel Klösse! Hackerbräu! Sauerbraten! Salvator! Laschsschinken! Maiwen! Schweinesrippen! Kulmbacher! Usw!