Baltimore Evening Sun (10 April 1914): 6.

First the Hon. Josephus Daniels cashiers old Vice-Admiral Jack Barleycorn–and now the staff of The Evening Sun announces a “dry” banquet on the fourth anniversary of the paper! The first dry newspaper banquet ever held in Christendom! Blow, blow, thou wintry winds! Break, break on thy cold grey stones, O sea!

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.

What a week in Munich would do for the Rev. Dr. John Roach Straton! How it would mellow and dilute him! What sweet and balmy ideas it would give him! And for the Rev. Dr. Charles M. Levister, the beyond-Osler! And for the Rev. Dr. W. W. Davis, press agent for Back River! And for my distinguished friend the Rev. Dr. Kenneth G. Murray, the moral statistician! And for the Rev. Young Cochran, the modern St. Angustine! And for the Hon. Eugene Levering, the genial chief of the Boy Snouts! Yes, even the Hon. Mr. Levering would be improved by Munich, such is the magic of the town!--Norddeutscher Lloyd Adv.

Some anonymous Socialist, inflamed by my doctrine that the late Karl Marx was the Munyon of political economy, makes a loud demand in today’s Letter Column for a list of the uplifters that I have never denounced as quacks. “Uplifters,” perhaps, is not a safe word: so many undoubted charlatans have grabbed it that all honest folks now fight shy of it. But if this nameless sub-Marx really wants a list of the men who labor diligently, intelligently and unselfishly for the betterment of humanity in Baltimore, then let him begin with a roster of the clergy of Baltimore, and strike off the names of all those rev. gents who devote themselves to peanut politics, or who are notorious press-agents, or who go gunning for “calls” in order to have their salaries raised, or who perform any other such familiar mountebankeries in or out of the pulpit. Those that remain will be the honest strivers, the genuine uplifters. I have never uttered anything but praise of them. Neither has anyone else.

And if this shrinking feeder upon “surplus values” and “class wars” wants to extend the list, let him take a roster of the physicians of Baltimore and expurgate it in the same way. And after the physicians, let him go through the lawyers. And after the lawyers, the business men. And so on down the line. The genuine uplifters are those who devote themselves, honestly and faithfully, to the work that is before them, the men who try to do the nearest good, the patient laborers in the vineyard. The fake uplifters are those who neglect that nearest good in order to snout into things which do not concern them, and which they do not understand, and in which the sole product of their whooping and roaring is profit for themselves.

After all, the world is beautiful. Anderson is perfect, and Spatenbräu is perfect. Each continent has its boast and pride.--Adv.

Conclusions reached after 42 years of incessant meditation, aided by daily consultations with eminent serpents of sagacity:

9. The hardest job in the world is that of a clergyman. If he preaches a scheme of life that is actually livable, he is condemned as a compromiser with evil, and if he preaches a scheme that is ideal, and hence unlivable, he is condemned for not living it himself. No other man is watched so closely, or judged so harshly. And not only are the judgments upon him harsh, but they are also wholly unfair. He is expected to have sympathy for every human weakness, even the worst, and yet to show no human weakness himself, even the least. Imagine a grown man, perhaps with sciatica, Mexican mine stock and a mother-in-law, who is forbidden to utter so much as a single damn! Imagine a man whose material rewards in his profession are exactly in inverse proportion to his sincerity, his industry and his enthusiasm! Again, recall this staggering fact: the clergyman is the only professional man who cannot, in decency, abandon his profession. And yet, being founded wholly upon faith, without any support whatever in exact knowledge, it is precisely the profession which exposes its practitioner to the most insidious doubts. A lawyer who begins to doubt the law may switch to business or politics, and still hold up his head. But a clergyman who is unfrocked, even at his own request, remains a suspicious character to the end of his days.

These, at least, are my honest views. If I err I shall be very glad to apologize.

Meanwhile, I remain the Original Billy Sunday Man, and defy the whole moral element to dispute it. I have the proofs in black and white, and when Dr. Sunday arrives the benefits will be mine. The Original Billy Sunday Man in every town leads a charmed life: he alone enjoys immunity from the slings and arrows of outrageous exhorting. While the old deacons are being put to the torture, and the kaif-keepers are being torn limb from limb, he sits upon the platform twiddling his thumbs, a smile of peace upon his face. He assists as bottle-holder at the slaughter of the pharisees, himself unscathed. He is a dead-head in the band-wagon.

Needless to say, I rejoice in these high privileges, and shall endeavor to repay Dr. Sunday by giving him sound and secret information about the rest of the local uplifters. In my studio there is a cabinet that bulges with such stuff. I have the complete records of all the forward lookers, supported by Bertillon measurements, finger-prints and affidavits. Some led sinful lives in their early days; others were vastly more virtuous then than they are today. Much of this material I have refrained from printing because of a patriotic respect for the postal laws; more of it out of a humane consideraftil for respectable and innocent relatives. But Dr. Sunday has no such qualms. When he cuts loose the hair comes out in bunches. When he lands on a Tartuffe, he knocks the tar out of him.

Unless all signs fail, Back River will be merrier this summer than ever before. My old friend the Rev. Dr. W. W. Davis has been advertising its levantine attractions in all the Sunday-schools, and so it is sure to be visited by many snouting parties. Those who go to sniff and deplore will stay to relax. The moral element will be insidiously undermined. Let a forward-looker try it twice and find that he is not murdered, and eftsoon his feet will be on the table and he will be ready for the toboggan.--Adv.

Ah, Anderson, old top, how we miss thee! Come back! Come back!

Ten thousand dollars cash for the name of an uplifter who has never made a cent out of it.--Adv.

Boil your drinking water! Sing the Musca domestica! Beware of uplifters with something to sell!