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MARYLAND LAW REVIEW

[VOL. 42

ordinance. It applies to every house.64

In addition, the ordinance prohibited negroes from using residences on
white blocks as a place of public assembly and vice versa.65

On December 17, 1910, City Solicitor Edgar Allan Poe issued an
opinion declaring the ordinance constitutional. He opined that the or-
dinance was within the state's police power "because of irrefutable
facts, well-known conditions, inherent personal characteristics and in-
eradicable traits of character perculiar [sic] to the races, close associa-
tion on a footing of absolute equality is utterly impossible between
them, wherever negroes exist in large numbers in a white community,
and invariably leads to irritation, friction, disorder and strife.66 He
determined that this ordinance was permissible under the fourteenth
amendment to the U.S. Constitution because "a State has the right
under its police power to require the separation of the two races wher-
ever the failure to so separate then [sic]  injuriously affects the good
order and welfare of the community.67

Mayor J. Barry Mahool signed the ordinance into law on Decem-
ber 20, 1910. The occasion was a ceremonial one. Two pens were used
in the signing — one was given to Dashiell and one to Councilman
West. The pen was a "favor" which Dashiell announced he would
"treasure . . . from every point of view.68- West got into the spirit of
the occasion by announcing that he would have a copy of the ordinance
framed and hung in his home.69

It is easy to understand racist Dashiel's pride of authorship, but
from today's perspective, Mayor Mahool's support is enigmatic. This
experiment in apartheid is at best a sell-out to Baltimore plutocracy,
and at worst an invidious denial of housing to Baltimore's blacks. Yet
Mahool, who is remembered as a champion of social justice,70 eagerly
signed the ordinance without apology.

— At first it seems anomalous that a member in good standing of the
Progressive Movement — which advocated the elimination of slums as
the breeding ground for crime, disease, and poverty — would enthusi-
astically support a law designed to worsen Negro housing conditions.
But in a broader historic context it makes sense. Progressive reformers

 64. Id. at cob. 5-6.

65. Baltimore, MA, Ordinance 610 (Dec 19, 1910).

66. Memo from Edgar Allan Poe to Mayor J. Barry Mahool, Baltimore City Archives,
Mahool Files, File 451 (Dec. 17, 1910).

67. Id.

68. Letter from Milton Dashiell to Mayor J. Barry Mahool, Baltimore City Archives,
Mahool Files, File 406 (Nov. 26, 1910).

69. Baltimore Sun, December 20, 1910, at 7, col. 7.

70. J. CROOKS, supra note 7, at 102.