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out of Maryland and into the orbit of Arkansas and Tennessee, Mississippi and the more flea-bitte* Virginia. Time and again the whole State has been menaced by
- the peculiar swinishness of its
- boozing-dry politics, and now it Z holds us all up to the contempt ~of the nation and the world by -taging a public obscenity worthy
- of cannibals." £ "The remedy for the situation,
- Mr Mencken says, 'is not to bel--low but to educate." H "It is needless to deny the -writer's libelous allegations. Suf-~ fice it to say that be is talking j r through his hat. It is very pro--bable that he has not visited our
- shores lately unless in the com-
- pany of Communists who could Z and would introduce him to the -people in their own strata of life. -If it is from these probable as-
- sociates and compamons of Mr. -Mencken that we are to receive "the education which he says is
- sorely needed down here, we pray -to God that we spend the rest
- of our days in ignorance.
- "Baltimore has for years been -erying for the right to govern it-Z self and we agree that it should
- be accorded that privilege. We -think its Sunday laws, tis liquor
- laws or any other purely local -matters should be left entirely up Z to its own citizens, regardless of Z the views of the majority of the
- county representatives in the Gen-
- eral Assembly.
- "So do we believe that the Z same privilege should be extended Z\ the citizens qf the several counties
- of the State. We have a local
- option law that we believe is good
- but good or bad, it is what we Z want and Baltimore should have "no concern in it. We think that -we have intelligence on the bench,
- Mr. Mencken to the contrary, notwithstanding, and if our "enlight-_ ened" neighbors in the city of I Baltimore will play in their own -back yard justice will be properly : administered by this same bench.
- "All of Maryland is proud of -Baltimore, but in its confines are
to be found Bolshevics, Communists and the scum of the earth. If it wants this kind of populace to swell its population it is welcome to them, but the Shore will
not tolerate them or their theories."
"Chirps" In Worcester Democrat Pocomolke:—
Well, Sir, that feller Mencken bust loose again in the Monday edition of the Evening Sun. Gosh I'll bet he was glad he had something to write about. I know, mighty well, hew 'we colyumists' (how's that?) are put to it sometimes to fill up space, and he welcomed that little fracas in Del-Mar-Va as a sparrow welcomes a crumb on the surface of a snow-clad earth.
"Gee! but he knows a lot about the people of the good old Eastern Shore. One might think he lived here all his life; and r,hen, again ,one might think he couldn't live here more than five or ten minutes, if he had the temerity to show up on this side of the big ditch. Still, I don't know; when you come to consider his lampoon of the Sho' in the ffore-mentioned sun paper, and thkt interesting cartoon with which "The Sun" illuminated its editorial page on Saturday Last, it would be easy to conclude that both the lampooner and the cartooner h< e in their mental and moral co1 stitu-tions the makeups of prett' good Eastern Shoremen when it ornes to lynchings. I'll bet bo are cussin' the luck which • *ed
them from getting theii in
the rope that swung !1-
liams" to a tree. Ho e-
lieve both could have r '.h
glee around the bonfir en
flesh could easily ha^. ed
a barbecue was on Id
have eaten the flesh r-
cass, and smacked th ;r
the fine avor of the g w
that little concepitor y
in line with the ver bv Mencken in his di ;
the people of this « worse than a lync: depiction by the i
swinging body, re sympathetic natui :
which could have i i. .1
the materialization on-
even as an architect in
the reduction of hi1; a
building of wood and
"Really, that Man is
so stinkin' rotten, 'he
buzzards would ligl if
he ever came over 7 n
they would light of r
of sudden death i h
as pecked out an r
what sort of bot mated , before it
present incarnation. You know
Wordsworth said:
'Our birth is but a sleep and a
forgetting; The Soul that rises with us, our
life's Star,, Hath elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar.'
"Mencken's soul, if he has one, must have come from a hyena, a rattlesnake, or a skunk. There must have been present at his birth, a flock of leather-winged bats, a nest of rattlesnakes, a swarm of hornets ,and a colony of toad-frogs—all contributing to his special form of life. There must have been some such scene attending his later existence as portrayed by the immortal William where the witches concoct a charm made up of poisoned entrails, fillet of a fenny snake, eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat, tongue of dog, adders fork, worm sting, lizard's leg, owlet's wing, scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, witches' mummy, maw and gul, root of hemlock ,liver of blaspheming Jew, gall of goats, slips 1 of yew, nose of Turk .Tartar's i lip, finger of birth-strangled babe, i and all cooled with baboon's blood. With this ,his h- 'as smeared,
good and pier; nJ Behold! the creature in it .' form. Will
somebody name it?
"But after al1 V ~ifnation may be similar to Mr' which bobs up when a person Uics to kill himself by taking too much poison; the dose has the opposite effect: the would-be suicide lives. So all this crazy stuff that flows from the pen of Mister Mencken, intended to make you shed angry tears, has the opposite effect—it is to laugh. So carry on, Mr. Colyu-mist, and let me suggest you prepare one of your interesting effusions for the next Annual Dinner of the Eastern Shore Society of Baltimore City. I'll guarantee you an invitation, and in reach of your hand there will be a glass of poisoned wine. Drink it, so that your spirit may take flight and find lodgement in some corporeal encasement which will not take on the semblance of man. You'll be more fVtlv housed."
The Federalsburg Times:—
"The Baltimore Evening Sun, in its issue of December 7th, published a very obnoxious editorial entitled "Eastern Shore Kultur" in which the Eastern Shore of Maryland was styled as the "forlorn" section of the State, inhabited by a mass of "morons."
"The article, which was eny>rT-writed by H. L. Mencken, left
nothing unsaid in its attack upon the ideals and institutions of our famous peninsula. It condemned the Methodist Church, it condemned our stand on prohibition, it called us "a lush stamping ground for knavish politicians," it called our leaders "ninth-rate men," it called the Eastern Shore the "land of tin-pot revelism." Even the bench was railed upon, and as for preachers and newspaper editors, they were let off by being referred to as "clowns."
"It is only natural that every Eastern Shoreman would take offense at such statements. We are of the opinion that the worthy gentleman who wrote the article has never visited the Eastern Shore; his article shouts his ignorance of conditions here. It has been our observation that the person who so hastily reaches such untrue and unjust conclusions is the one in fault and_ not the people he is railing against.
"The injustice in the article is plainly evident, when he refers to this section as the lond of 'poverty.' But then how was Mr. Mencken to know that the very next day after his article appeared, that one town alone in this poverty-stricken area was to cancel $76,000 worth of business from Baltimore. Certainly, it is plain to all that the gentleman simply didn't know what he was talking about wIilii he mentioned "poverty."
"And, if the rest of that State believes all of what was in that editorial, which insinuated that the rest of Maryland would be better off without the Eastern Shore, then we are ready and willing to sever what broken ties may remain with the Western Shore and Baltimore City and form a State of our own across the bay.
"We are certainly not proud of everything Baltimore City has done, and we are just a trifle tired of its meddling in our affairs.
"What a splendid State this Del-Mar-Va Peninsula would make. A rich country, close to city markets, but far enough away to avoid its contamination, and its political influence. A unified people with common interests, ideals. and aspirations. What a great "FREE STATE" we could have— a state with more than half a million peonle, with no domineering large cities—fourteen rich and nrosoerous counties in the best scetion of the United States." Chestertown Transcript:— "If the purpose of the Balti-
more City press, in referring edi-torically, by cartoon and special articles to the lynching which took place at Salisbury on Friday night of last week, was to tear down and create hatred and prejudice between the Eastern Shore and Baltimore City, that purpose has been accomplished. It has destroyed that bond of friendly and business relations which progressive citizens of both sections have been working for years to increase It has separated by a gulf much larger than the Chesapeake Bay the two sections which are in the same state who meet together in the legislative halls at Annapolis to enact Legislation for the good of the State as a whole. We cannot believe that the attitude of the Batlimore City press is the attitude of the people of that city, if it is not, let them show that they are as incensed as are the people of this section. Can it be the affair in Salisbury that has caused such condemnation of the Eastern Shore ? This again is hard to believe as we believe the last lynching before the Salisbury affair was in a suburb of Baltimore City. We believe that the lynchings in that section adjacent to Baltimore will number two to one of those of the Eastern Shore. No, it is not the recent affair but an outburst of prejudice which has been harbored against a people who live and stand up for the traditions of Maryland and who refuse to accept the teachings of those who are trying to tear down the principles on which our country was founded. It is very apparent that the articles were written by men who were ignorant of the facts in the case and who are also ignorant of the class of people who live in this section."
The Cambridge Banner—
"Having fired a number of blasts at this paper, its editor, and the people generally on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, The Sun-papers have now turned us over to the tender mercies of Mr. H. L. Mencken, and Mr. Mencken, in Monday's issue of The Evening Sun proceeds to tell us what he thinks of us individually and collectively and, apparently he does not think much of us.
"We feel rather complimented that to Mr. Mencken should be given the job of putting the final touch on this fair community. In fact we recall that several years ago he wrote something along the same line (possibly worse) about the Presidents of the United State, beginning with George
have no basis on which to stand. The political complexion of the article, drawing attention to the disparity of population between the Eastern Shore counties and Baltimore City and the representation in the Legislature of our State as a consequence, makes us all the more determined in our opinion that the safety of the commonwealth depends upon the maintenance of the proportion in question, and that one Eastern Shoreman is not only worth three or four, but worth three or four thousand such men as Mencken, both their State and to their communities.
"The Eastern Shore stands by the record of its people past and present. It still believes in and practices the principles our forefathers enunciated and practiced in the Legislative halls and on the field of battle, more deeply imbedded in our hearts and in our minds and in our souls by the action of our people in the last great War, that America is for Americans, first, last and all the time, that local self-government is our inalienable right, that Democracy must continue to be ,as it has been in the past, the foundation upon which the Temple of freedom, and righteousness and of liberty rests, and we affirm our belief in the justice, conservatism, right-thinking morality and intellectuality of our institutions and of our people, to which may be added that something a Gracious God has blessed them with above all others, and which is exemplified to the stranger and wayfarer as well as friends and acquaintances in the serenity of their homes and the conduct of their affairs
"And we condemn, with all the power that in us lies, the filth .that permeates the article appear-; ing in the Sun, by the flow of 'which the writer endeavored to | inundate, desolate and lay waste | a fair ,and happy and prosperous | Country.
"In choosing between the principles enunciated by the Judges on our Bench, the Ministers in our pulpits, the laborer at his task, the people in their homes, and those principles so aptly translated into words by Mr. Mencken in the Batlimore Evening Sun, we thank God again and again ,that we are Eastern Shoremen, proud and happy to be known as such wherever men may congregate and wherever Angels mfv sing their Anthems to the living God."
The Observer, Baltimore:—
victims have no spokesman, unfortunately."
And closing with that part of
The Marylander and Herald
Editorial That Meneken
did not like:—
"Salisbury's reply to the interference in Shore affairs of men and women of the ilk of Mencken, Ades, Mays, Labor Defense League, and all other Anarchist and Communist groups, composed for the most part, of men and women from the lowest strata of the mongrel breeds of European gutters, may not have been such as to merit the applause of the better-thinking people, but at any rate, it was to say the least effective and convincing. The Shore's reply to continued attacks by the press of Baltimore City. may be expected to prove equally convincing.'
Baltimore Association of Commerce Pasces These Resolutions:—
"Baltimore owes much of that which is best in its own citizenship to the Eastern Shore, and ties of blood and of affinity and the possession of a common heritage and history are a lasting bond between the two areas. We are confident that the citizens of the Eastern Shore will appreciate the fact that the eitizens of Baltimore cannot control the contents or comments cf the newspapers.
"The members of the Association of Commerce share the entirely justified indignation of the people of the Eastern Shore that the serious crime of the relatively few has been used as an excuse or opportunity for indisV criminate denunciation of the people of an entire section."
Baltimore Firm Condemns H. I,. Mencken and Baltimore Evening Sim:—
"To Our Many Friends On The Eastern Shore: We take this means of publicly condemning tiie article of H. L. Mencken in The Evening Sun of December /th, and expressing our disapproval of the attitude of the Baltimore Sun , toward the people of the Eastern Shore, the Galloway James Co.,^Adv. in Baltimore Sun. ¦ ¦¦".• •'
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