Governor Ritchie's Clipping File on Lynching
msa_s1048_1_and_10-0532

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Governor Ritchie's Clipping File on Lynching
msa_s1048_1_and_10-0532

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Shores of Maryland, but when it is remembered how close the Eastern! Shore is to the doors of two of the greatest cities in the world, Philadelphia and New York, it is hard to believe that the loss of mental stimulus and spiritual exaltation, which the Eastern Shore suffers from not being nearer to such an abode of intellectual power and seraphic sinnessness as Baltimore, can be quite so pronounced as Dr. Mitchell seems to think. "At any rate, the situation is certainly not likely to be mitigated, in a social, political or economic sense, by assailing the mental and spiritual character of the whole people of the Eastern Shore, converting the Eastern and Western Shores of Maryland «nto warring camps, and making the Chesapeake Bay even wider than it now is. Recalls English Descent. "I do not agree with the convictions of the Eastern Shore about prohibition, but of these convictions, inspired by the grave abuses which undeniably attend excess in strong drink, it can at least be said that, unlike most political convictions, they are entirely disinterested. I think, be sides, that too much sectarian prejudice exists on the Eastern Shore as well as in other kindred communities, but I do not forget that its people are of pure, almost unmixed, English descent, and that a certain amount of sectarian prejudice is inseparable from that descent. "Nor, if sectarian extravagance, which I condemn, no matter from what source it emanates, is to be charged to the people of the Eastern Shore, can it be rationally asserted that it is limited solely to the religious sects predominant on the Eastern Shore. ""I do not know whether Dr. Mitchell deems the Eastern Shore to be backward in an economic sense or not. He must; for thrift and mental backwardness are rarely found associated. Suffice it to say that the idea is laughable. Praises Towns On Shore. "Some years ago, I took occasion to say, in a public address at Salis- bury, that I believed that Saulsbur.. was the biggest town of 10,000 inhabitants in the world. It has a hotel that would be creditable to a population of 100,000 souls. It has a fire depart ment worthy to be part of a metro ipoliitan fire department. Its i main street, at times, is so crowded with vehicles that one has to pick his way cautiously across it. ""Few more attractive little town3 than Snow Hill, Princess Anne, Cam bridge, Easton, Centreville, Chester-town and Denton are to be found any. -wher'e. The fields that surround them bear every evidence of studious and intelligent tilt. Their hotels hold out every measure of comfort that the wayfarer can reasonably expect in centers of their restrictc-d scope. One cannot move along the roads that led up to them without being struck with the heavy burden of transportation that trucks are unceasingly carrying over these roads; and their well-stocked stores, and the numerous motor cars parked, or in motion, on their streets, are unmistakably indicative of brisk activity. "I am not a native of the Eastern Shore but I esteem it one of the fortunate circumstances of my life that I should have sprung from the same family stocks as its good people. No kinder, more courteous, more hospi table, more intelligent, more moral more God-fearing people, as a whole have I ever met. If they have any special infirmities worthy of criticism, these infirmities are so inextricably interwoven with their splen d\id pergonal andj domestic virtue that I, at least, have no inclination to distinguish the one from the otherr.'