Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1917-09-03
BATLTIhORE:CITY ]
POLITICAL KAISER
Extracts From ssThe Unpublished
Booklet OF DR.. .,Elihu 5. Riley
CHE WILHELM OF MARYLAND"
William Pinkney Davis Replies To
William Preston
Carter.

IN his demeanor and a force and as
surance in his countenance that gave
a tinge of confidence and expectancy
&c his own immediate acquaintance,
and which revived even the fainting
hopes Of the anti-annextionists that
had never seen or had heard him be-
fore. Geld and apparently indifferent
10 the situation, Davis surveyed in ST
lence for a moment the interested and
awaiting audience Mr. NORWOOD
Call. expressing the average opinion
Of The annexationists about what this
young man might have TO say in
debate already won, as he thought,
viewed the unsophisticated temerity
of the juvenile orator with unmeas-
ured cynicism and mental ridicule.
Then the orator OF the anti-annexa-
tionists said:
air. Chairman, Ladies and Gentle
men: This is new drama to me. A
tableau never before presented to
mankind, the contradiction of six
thousand years of recorded history
has been presented TO US today when
the scarlet woman, reeking in the
filth and rottenness CT her own in
famous impurities, lifting in her. inn
pudent hands her braZen serpent IN
the wilderness, dares to put on the
snowy robes of righteousness and
deck herself with the orange blossoms
OF the spotless virgin, and offers to be-
come the savior and protection Of the
chaste and virtucus daughters of
Anne Arundel"
Then turning his face, glaring with
ill-conceived rage, William Pinkney
Davis walked towards William Prestoe
Carter, and demanded in a ringing
voice that shook the very gables of
the building: Where is your Vice
Commissions report on the state of
morality in the City of Baltimore
and its legion of open and secret dens
OF infamy? Why has ii not been pub
, lished Why was not truth told about
this beginning of the campaign TO
make your city free from its dens,
great and small, of hell and the grave,
that are running the integrity of young
men and the chastity of your women
in thousands of the homes in Balti-
more, and why were not these blazing
facts given to the public? Why was
this putrid report hidden away in
some friendly officials safe, and
now perhaps, destroyed? Why, | ask,
to save the reputation of your city at
large? No. Was this done to protect
the names of the hays and hounds
who maintain these apartments OF
perdition? No Was this public docu-
ment buried in the sepulchre of
charity to defend the characters of
the soiled doves and the unfortunate
women who make vice a trade2 No.
But it was done to cover the shame of
great host of leading men of a no.
BILE city, wearers of the cloth, pro-
fessional lights. of noted physicians.
learned lawyers and, probably, more
numerous than all, of the managing
politicians who play the part of the
small statesmen in the metropolis of
the State. 1t was consummated in
the successful effort to hide for them
and for their innocent families the
disgrace of a public exposure that
would show that those who, in the
day, were in the vanguard of reform,
| progress and religion, were, in the
shades of night, the denizens of the
haunts of death and perdition that
flourish in the magnificent. but be-
trayed city of Baltimore
Think of it. We pure and virtuous
men and women of the scandalous au-
dacity of the authorities of a city,
lustrous, indeed, in ancient song and
martial story, sending, clothed in the
garments CT Hades and Inferness,
the adulteresses, the libertines, and
the mistresses into the noble county
of Anne Arundel, and offering to take
us under their white wings and with
their dainty and spotless hands, guard
us safely from the sins of the flesh,
the world and the devil God forbit.
The effect of this pitiless and un-.
expected answer to Mr. Carriers last
argument for annexation, and pitiless
arraignment of section of the lead
ers of the annexation movement. was
to paralyze the mental processes in
the mind of the annexationists They
sat with widened lips and heard with
bated breath while the terrific phili-
pic was being delivered For mo-
ment even the anti-annexationists
were dumbfounded by the bitter in
vective-big with truth and potent
with fact. Then recovering from the
stinging words of their own advocate,
men, women, and even children of rea-
sons age. joined as one in the roar
ing tornado of applause, worthy of the
bitter and truthful accusation that
had amazed their opponents and had
sent new courage to William Pinkney
Davis to trim his pionions TO try
higher flights of oratory and loftier
attitudes of law and logic even to the
heavens of argument and eloquence.
Waiting for the waves of rolling and
repeated applause to calm, Davis said:
1T would be grave enough, indeed,
were the putrid story, so foul and
noisome, with the infamies of the ma
turalized and acknowledged citizen
ship of the demi-world, so horrible as
tc require, for common decency's
sake, the mantle of secrecy to be
thrown over its reexing and rottening
carcass, but what must be the wicked
ness of this cess-pool of pollution
this almost hopeless realm of foul
ness within the legal realm of beau
tiful Baltimore. where at its best this
representative of its potential ruling