A Most Remarkable Man

Jan 28, 1907
Los Angeles

“If my career seems strange to you, it seems stranger and more incredible to me,” Gen. Homer Lea once said. And indeed it was, for Lea’s life was the tale of a poor and badly handicapped boy’s adventures as a leader in an exotic foreign land.

His 1912 obituary in The Times begins: “His great work finished, the pitiful, wasted little body of the American boy who overthrew the tattered old Chinese empire lies silent in his home in Ocean Park. Gen. Homer Lea died yesterday.

“Thus ends one of the most extraordinary careers of modern times. Of a physique that would seem to have made a military life impossible, Homer Lea will pass into recollection and annals of men as one of the greatest—if not the greatest—military geniuses American has ever produced.”

A Jan. 28, 1907, article in The Times notes that despite the physical strain of taking part in the recent city elections, Lea has written several articles on the Chinese Exclusion Act for various magazines and adds that his first novel, “The Vermillion Pencil,” a critical work about Christian missionaries in China, is about to be published.

Who was Homer Lea? It’s a little difficult to tell.

“So much rot and twaddle has been written about him that I want to set down the simple facts as I know them and as he told them to me,” Carr said in Lea’s obituary.

Lea’s disabilities kept him from taking part in athletics, but he had a keen mind, Carr says, and took part in the debating societies at Los Angeles High School. Upon graduating in the Class of 1897, Lea went to Stanford with the intention of becoming a lawyer.

“He told me, one day long afterward, that he came to see in the course of his studies in Stanford that all the great careers of the world have been carved out with swords,” Carr said. “He decided that somehow and somewhere he would carve out such a career for himself. The obstacles did not daunt him as they would have another man. Nature had set him a very early lesson in the way of overcoming terrible handicaps.”

First, Carr says, he remembered reading about turmoil among the rulers of the Chinese empire. The next thing he knew, Lea was a prominent guest at Chinese banquets in San Francisco. “Then he slipped away and went to China,” Carr says.

There were many adventures. But with the empress, whom Lea opposed, securely on the throne, he fled to the United States. Carr says: “We all remember how he reappeared in Los Angeles after the Boxer rebellion and became the ‘man of mystery’ of this continent. He carried a little military ‘swagger stick’ which was beautifully engraved with a dragon and with an inscription denoting its presentation to ‘Lieutenant Gen. Lea’ by some Chinese viceroy.”

Lea spent the next six or seven years in study. “Every day he was to be seen out on the lawns of Westlake Park on an Indian rug, poring over works of strategy,” Carr says. “None of us knew what he was doing and to tell the honest truth, few believed in him. It was too incredible; to see the boy who sat next to you at school as the lieutenant-general in an Oriental army is altogether too violent an assault upon human probabilities to be taken at one dose.”

The skepticism was soon dispelled, however. An imperial prince arrived in Los Angeles and “reported for duty to Gen. Lea like a district messenger boy.” Carr says, “Later, when Kang Yu Wei, the former prime minister of China, came to Los Angeles, it was the same.”

“About this time, one of the most remarkable events ever seen on the Pacific Coast took place in Los Angeles Chinatown. Nearly all the young Chinamen cut off their cherished queues and formed themselves into an infantry company. It was drilled every night behind an enclosure in the Chinese quarter,” Carr says.

Lea and Kang soon left for a trip around the world, meeting with President Teddy Roosevelt, and then went to Europe.

Lea returned to Los Angeles and began writing “The Valor of Ignorance,” intending to “show that war with Japan is certain to happen some day and that the United States is utterly unprepared for such a conflict,” Carr says.

Carr reminisces about a breakfast he had at the Lankershim Hotel with Lea a year before the military leader’s death. Their third companion turned out to be Sun Yat Sen.

Lea left for China shortly after that, only to return with a fatal illness.

“In the course of newspaper life one gets to know many men of many manners,” Carr says, “but I have never known a more lovable, kindly, simple-hearted gentleman than Homer Lea.”

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Introducing Miss White

Jan. 24, 1907
Los Angeles

Meet a tough little lady who gave her life to helping the poor, needy children of Los Angeles. She built a church and school starting with a nickel donated by a newsboy, left it all and began again in a tent when the presiding minister turned out to be a crook, and then regained it all. She spent most of her later years fighting with state authorities to stay in operation. Her name is Belle L. White.

White was preaching as early as 1897 at the Pacific Gospel Union, working with needy children in the neighborhood east of Alameda Street. But in a few years, when the Gospel Union decided to give up working with youngsters, White split off and formed her own school at 6^th Street and Mateo.

She began with a small, roughly constructed building and raised a larger Mission-style structure called the People’s Church. White was joined by the Rev. T.G. Atteberry, who was soon in debt. There was further controversy about him: “He has actually begun to jump with the Holy Rollers,” The Times says, “they who serve the Lord with ragtime songs and cakewalk accompaniment, and his institutional church at 6^th and Mateo streets has become the lodging house, meetinghouse and general headquarters of the ludicrous bunch of fanatics.”

White continued to have faith in Atteberry when everyone else had abandoned him. “She is a sincere friend of Atteberry and last night fought his battle like the valiant little woman she is,” The Times says. “She pleaded and wept for him, declaring it was her belief that he is simply the victim of circumstances, that he is honest to the core and will pay every dollar owing on the People’s Church, though she says her work is now completely separated from it.”

And in January 1907, the church wanted to ordain her. “Los Angeles is likely to have the only woman preacher in the country in active charge of a congregation,” The Times says. The paper carried an announcement that White was to be ordained, but there is no further information about it.

Information on White remains sketchy. The institution at 6^th and Mateo continued to operate, and by 1909 was known as the nonsectarian Belle White Children’s Home. In 1912, the Belle White Home moved from 588 S. Mateo to the Eastside home of former Mayor Hazard at 3701 Eastside Blvd., which had been remodeled as an orphanage.

In 1914, she was investigated on charges of running the home for personal profit and accused of neglecting the children. Later that year, the state Board of Charities and Corrections stripped the home of its license. White defied the ruling and vowed to stay in operation. She challenged the state board to arrest her, and when it didn’t, she continued caring for the children.

The next year, she incorporated and was again investigated by the state Board of Charities and Corrections, which among other things wanted her to restrict admission to either boys or girls and to have a board of directors including men and women. In 1917, there were further charges against White, saying that she operated a boarding home rather than a charity and White conceded that in some instances relatives paid the children’s expenses. It continued to operate as late as 1926, then vanished from the historic record, as did its namesake, Belle L. White.

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Uh-Oh

Dec. 10,1907
Los Angeles

Mayor Arthur C. Harper happens to be in all sorts of trouble. He’s telling the newspapers that he has had enough of politics and won’t seek another term. The district attorney is trying to shut down the local red light district and eventually these efforts will reveal allegations of City Hall corruption involving Harper, Police Chief Kern, a police commissioner, a police captain named Broadwood and Nicholas D. “Nick” Oswald, one of the biggest leaders of the city’s underworld.

The 1909 Broadwood case is complicated (he was found not guilty, by the way, despite accounts of payoffs from the earnings of Los Angeles bordellos) and in researching the mayor’s life, I came across the following incident.

The word “homosexual” is a rarity in The Times, appearing exactly twice in editorial content between 1900 and 1940: a 1912 review of “The Candle and the Flame” by George Sylvester Viereck; and a 1939 health column by Dr. William Brady.

So what does the paper do when “purity squad” raids the former mayor’s home, 1128 W. 28th St.? Like this, from Feb. 1, 1920:

“Twenty Los Angeles men, some said to be prominent in social and business circles, were arrested last night by police at a stag party in the home of former Mayor Harper and were booked at the police station on the charge of social vagrancy.

“Seven of the men, including the host, Joseph Harper, 24 years old, are alleged by the officers making the raid to have been gowned in feminine apparel.”

After a few paragraphs, the paper says: “According to Police Sergeant Gifford and the officers of the ‘purity squad’ who conducted the raid, a degenerate orgy was in progress when they entered the house.”

The men were taken to jail as they were dressed, meaning that some of them spent the night in women’s clothing. Early the next morning, The Times says, the dresses were taken into evidence, so some of the men were given bathrobes and others draped themselves with jail blankets. Of the 16 arrested, four were released to the Navy (they were in uniform, The Times said) and eight were held in custody because they tested positive “for infectious disease.” And yes, their names or pseudonyms, addresses and occupations were published.

When asked about his son Joe, the former mayor said: “The only party he has given lately that I know of was given by him on Halloween night. His mother was present that night and among the guests during the evening, so I know nothing wrong took place.”

One of the sailors said: “I came in for my liberty and met a fellow at a downtown street corner. He asked me if I’d like to attend a nice party with dancing and girls and refreshments and said for me to bring some of my friends along.”

The Times said: “The sailors declare they did not know for a long time that the ‘girls’ were men and when they did learn of the fact, some thought it was just a good-natured masquerade ‘stunt.’ ”

A later story says: “All the men are charged with lewd and dissolute conduct. Seven were dressed as women and the police say their acts were such that the charges against them can be upheld in court.”

Police said that officers learned about the party several weeks ago. “Arrangements were made to have some of the officers in the house,” The Times said.

“The raiding officers in plain clothes gained entrance to the house and mixed with the strange guests. Several other officers climbed into the house by way of a rear window and concealed themselves beneath beds. After watching the ‘party’ for over two hours, whistles were blown and the raiding party rushed into the residence.”

Two months later, the case against the "Lady Men" was dismissed.

Bonus fact: One of the earliest occurrences of “gay bar” in The Times appears in a Oct. 15, 1953, story about the extortion trial of Jimmie Tarantino and refers to a bar on Market Street in San Francisco.

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A Page From Dickens

For some time, the teachers at the Casco Street School had been concerned about the pupils from the nearby Christian Orphanage. But finally the problems became too great to ignore.

“One small boy, an especial pet and a delicate child, was found, one cold, rainy morning, filling his blouse with the filthy scraps of bread from the garbage pails in the rear of nearby residences. He was so hungry. ‘Aunt Ada’ had sent him to bed without any supper because he was naughty and she had slapped him in the morning because, like Oliver Twist, he had asked for more mush,” The Times said.

The Miss Ada in question was Ada Bisbee, a member of the local Women’s Christian Temperance Union who ran the orphanage at 1724 Kent, part of the Florence Crittendon Home for Unwed Mothers. (Recall that this was an era when abortions were illegal and Margaret Sanger was charged with obscenity for sending information on birth control through the mail).

Bisbee, who had taken over after a much-beloved Flora Sallee, denied that there was anything wrong after a confrontation with school Principal Gertrude Horgan.

Horgan found the plight of the orphanage youngsters so dire that she fed them all after discovering that their packed lunches consisted of two crackers and an apple. That would be all until dinner—if, indeed, Bisbee allowed them to have dinner, for they were often sent to bed hungry as punishment.

“The teachers held an indignation meeting. It was raining and all that could be procured in the shape of food were a number of loaves of bread and some molasses and such a feast was held in the school that day that the teachers will never forget. It was painful, they one and all assert, to see the wolfish hunger with which the children devoured the food.”

One of the older girls at the orphanage said she complained that fish being served to the children was spoiled, only to be rebuked. “Why did you say anything?” Bisbee reportedly said. “The children would not have noticed it.”

“Very soon the children were ill, presumably from spoiled fish,” The Times said.

School authorities contacted the superintendent for the home for unwed mothers, A.C. Jeffers, who dismissed claims of harsh treatment.

“When the affair was reported to A.C. Jeffers yesterday he declared that Miss Bisbee is a good disciplinarian but not nearly as severe as his own mother was, and to his mind she makes an excellent matron,” The Times said.

“Yesterday, a delicate, shrinking little fellow, who has to be encouraged to say a word of his own accord, came to school with a long cut on his neck. The watchful eye of the principal saw it. The child said a man at work there [at the orphanage] struck him with a rawhide whip because he refused to do something he was told.”

As a result of Horgan’s complaints, the children appear to be eating more, but she has incurred the wrath of Bisbee, who is said to be taking out her anger on the children.

Casco Street School was renamed Rosemont Avenue School in 1912. The campus is located at 421 N. Rosemont Ave. Gertrude Horgan died in 1919 after a short illness. No record can be found of Ada Bisbee or A.C. Jeffers.

Orphanages in Los Angeles, 1907: Los Angeles Orphan Asylum, Christian Orphanage, Boys’ and Girls’ Aid, South Pasadena Home, Catholic Orphanage, Boyle Heights Home, Victoria Home and Volunteers of America.

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Bright Young Faces

“Who was the first man?” asked the teacher of an American boy.

“Washington,” was the reply. He was reminded of Adam and observed: “Yes, if you count foreigners.”

Henrietta B. Freeman paid a call on a schoolroom somewhere in Los Angeles in March 1907. She didn’t say where, nor did she give the teacher’s name, just that the teacher was a woman.

All Freeman says about the classroom is that there was a blackboard. For visual aids, the teacher had picture cards: a boy fishing, riding a bicycle and rolling a hoop; a girl washing her doll’s clothes in a tub, using a bar of soap.

There’s little more information about the students, except that there were 30 of them, ranging in age from 7 to 14. A few of them are identified: Onya, Ivan, Josefina and Leah. A Russian girl wears a handkerchief over her flaxen braids. The one thing in common is that none of them speaks English.

It was time for the music hour when Freeman arrived, so the teacher began singing a tune to her students: “Loo, loo, loo.”

“Instantly, every child in the room began to imitate the teacher, and within an astonishingly short time the hum of voices, at first discordant and out of time and tune, rose rhythmically and evenly and within three minutes every child had caught the air and was “loo-loo-looing” away with all his might,” Freeman says.

The teacher wrote the numbers 1 through 8 on the blackboard to represent the scale and in 10 minutes, Freeman says, the students knew that 8 meant the highest note and that 4 meant “fa.”

Next, the teacher began singing words to the song. Holding up a pencil, she sang: “Put away your pencil.” Then, as she demonstrated, she sang “Hands up. Hands down. I have two eyes. I have two ears. I have one chin.”

The language hour was next. The teacher put the picture cards on a rail below the blackboard and asked each student to pick his or her favorite and then talk about it. What was the boy or girl in the picture doing? What are the colors? “One little Spanish lass managed to lip out ‘girl has one soap,’ before the lesson was over,” Freeman says.

Freeman apparently made quite an impression on the youngsters during her visit. When they were told that she worked for The Times, one boy asked if she drew the pictures of Buster Brown.

It’s always interesting to see a woman’s byline in the newspapers of this era and especially so in Freeman’s case. She frequently wrote as Sydney Ford and it was under this pen name that she filed stories for The Times, which sent her on an 11-month trip around the world in 1910.

Forty years later, at the age of 90, she told The Times: “ ‘Miss Freeman,’ she declared with emphasis on the Miss. ‘And don’t you call me an old maid--I never made the mistake of getting married--I’m just a bachelor girl.’ ”

Her key to longevity, she said, was: “Don’t worry. Live cheerfully. Have your friends. Trust in God and say your prayers. And when it’s time--just go.”

Because of printing problems, many of Freeman’s stories about her around-the-world tour are illegible. Fortunately, they were gathered in a 1912 book “Journeying Around the World.”

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