Boy Genius

Nov. 8, 1907
Los Angeles

Mars F. Baumgardt is an interesting young man with an even more interesting project: a radio-controlled boat. Although many students’ projects are on display at the 30th Street School, including those of Mars’ brother Howard, it is the boat controlled by wireless telegraphy that interests The Times.

“As nearly as a layman in the rudiments of electricity can understand the proposition, the scheme is about as follows, in brief: The current sent to the boat by wireless is conveyed into a lower compartment, and is the means of setting a clock. This clock in turn moves two levels, sending the boat in a given direction,” The Times says.

Mars, 16, and Howard, 13, are the sons of B.R. Baumgardt, a noted scientist who was involved in establishing the Mt. Wilson Observatory. The entire basement of the Baumgardt home at 626 W. 30th St. has been turned over to the boys for a laboratory, The Times says, “their mother believing in allowing genius to have free swing.”


And what of Mars F. Baumgardt? A Proquest search turns up hundreds of later entries on the boy genius. In a few years, he was director of the W. A. Clark Jr. Observatory on West Adams and by the 1920s was a regular on radio station KHJ, discussing astronomy.

He was an optometrist by trade and an astronomer by avocation, as well as serving on the park commission in the 1930s. He died Nov. 25, 1950, at the age of 60. His brother Howard, below, a dentist, died in 1966 at the age of 71.



Bonus fact: His son, Mars F. Baumgardt Jr., was one of the backers of “Eraserhead.”

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

In Which a Ghostly Visitor Returns

March 15, 2007
Los Angeles

“Well, dear boy, I suppose you thought you were through.”

“Yes, I did.”

“And?”

“Good grief! Do you see this bridge over the Gold Line? It looks like it’s held up with hairpins and spit!”

“Saliva, dear boy. And what is the Gold Line?”

“Well, it’s sort of a streetcar, except it doesn’t run on the street.”

She leaned back in her ghostly chair. “And what did you think of our little year?”

“I was quite wrong, wasn’t I?”

She merely nodded.

“You could have at least told me.”

“Dear boy, you needed to find out for yourself.”

“OK, so there were movie theaters in Los Angeles.”

“Yes.”

“And there were comics in the paper.”

“Little Nemo is one of my favorites.”

“I couldn’t believe all the domestic violence. Awful stuff.”

“It was terrible,” she said.

“And getting a divorce was so difficult.”

“That was horrible,” she said.

“And the rotten doctors, the fakes and charlatans, dirty restaurants, the drinking and alcoholism. The exploding gasoline stoves.”

“Well,” she said chidingly, “you didn’t write very much about people who were nice. You newspaper folks never do.”

“Most of all, we haven’t changed very much, have we? I mean, look at our problems with transportation... with sanitation... with growth... with housing... immigration... ethnic discrimination... education... polluting the ocean. A century later, the Police Department is still pleading for more officers. It’s the same story, with different details, that we had in 1947.”

“And why do you think that is?”

“Ma’am, that’s a short question with a long answer. You could tell me, couldn’t you?”

“I could.”

“But you’re not going to, because I have to figure it out for myself, is that it?”

She nodded.

“I’ll miss all of you so much.”

“You know where to find us,” she said.

“Was it a kinder, simpler time?” I asked.

“Maybe in some ways, but mostly no.” And then she paused for a moment. “Go take a picture of your bridge. It hasn’t fallen down yet, has it?”

“Nope, it’s still there. Or at least some bridge is still there.”

I didn’t know what else to say: “Thanks for everything.”

“You are most welcome. And thank you.”

And then she was gone.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

An Independent Woman

March 5, 1907
Los Angeles

What shall we do with Emma? She’s gone off to New Mexico and married a Chinaman. Her horrified mother hopes to get the marriage annulled, but Emma is an independent-minded young lady.

Emma’s mother, Mary Culver of Monrovia, says she will do everything she can to undo her daughter’s marriage to Frank Chew, which The Times describes as “a sort of missionary revivalist,” noting that “Miss Emma had longings to help the heathen herself.”

Chew asked Culver for permission to marry Emma, but “it was bluntly refused,” The Times says. “Emma had a mind of her own and her answer was ‘yes,’ regardless of her mother’s wishes.”

Even worse, Chew could be an illegal immigrant and if he’s deported, Emma says she will be willing to go to China with him. She made this vow, even though she was warned that Chew would sell her into white slavery as soon as he got her to China.

Emma isn’t the only one in trouble. Members of the Chinese Baptist Mission are equally furious, saying that Chew borrowed jewelry from members of the congregation under the pretense of defending himself against deportation when in fact he used the money for his elopement.

In August 1907, Emma sent a letter from Hong Kong to her family, saying that their fears were baseless and that she and her husband had opened a day school where they taught English.

The next year, Emma mailed a photograph of her students and tried to recruit more women to come to China.

“With her husband, Frank Chew, she has established an English school which is attended by the sons of well-to-do, educated Chinese gentlemen. The Chews have prospered beyond their wildest dreams,” The Times says.

“Every family in Hong Kong seems anxious to have its children learn English and the pupils themselves study the language eagerly.”

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnsich (AT) gmail.com

A Page From the Past

March 3, 1907
Los Angeles

Stroll into the Los Angeles Public Library on Central Avenue with me for a moment, over to the children’s section. The librarian says there are about 15,000 to 16,000 books, only half of what is needed, because about third of them are checked out every month.

The most popular titles are “Little Women,” “Little Men” and “Old-Fashioned Girl,” The Times says. Although the library has 25 copies of each book, it’s rare to find them on the shelves.

Among boys, Civil War stories are the most popular, “the Henty books, Barbour’s athletic tales, ‘Tom Sawyer’ and Dunn’s Young Kentuckian series of which there are a dozen copies each in stock,” The Times says.

“The children delight to search through the card catalogue and select their books,” The Times says. “It is interesting to watch the youngsters as they stand, pad and pencil in hand, and with a grownup air of importance, write down the names of the books they want.”

The story describes several young library patrons, but this is the one that stays with me:

“One of the constant patrons of the juvenile department is a tall, pale-faced lad who walks on crutches. A cruel accident so injured him that he is unable to attend school, but he has found an excellent substitute in the serious study of electricity at the library.

“He greedily devours everything he can lay his hands on about electricity. Day after day this delicate, white-faced boy pores over the books. He talks intelligently about induction coils, ohms, volts and motors.

“ ‘I intend to be an electric engineer,’ he declares as he limps away on his crutches. And the chances are that he will be.”

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

The Rising City

Feb. 12, 1907
Los Angeles

Imagine the surprise of Mrs. Robert Jackson, who was about to move into her new home on Vernon Avenue and discovered that the contractor had built it on someone else’s lot, next to the one that she owned. Fortunately, she was able to swap property with the owner, The Times notes. I suppose we should be thankful that builder didn't go to medical school.

And here’s where the city is expanding: Vermont Avenue Square and Alhambra.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

On the Frontiers of Medicine

Jan. 31, 1907
Los Angeles

Showing once again that Los Angeles is out of touch with Sacramento, local health officials are fighting an education bill that would lift mandatory smallpox vaccinations for schoolchildren.

Vaccinations were opposed for several reasons in the Legislature. Assemblyman Sackett objected to placing the burden of enforcement on schools. Assemblyman Percival, a Christian Scientist, apparently objected to the measure on religious grounds. Other opponents said the only reason health officials supported the shots is to protect their jobs.

“People do not realize what the repeal of the compulsory vaccination law would mean,” says health officer Dr. Powers. “If that law were not in force here we should need five health officers in place of one.”

“Those who question the efficacy of vaccination would do well to look over the records of the local health office and compare the amount of contagious disease 15 years ago with what exists today,” Powers says. “Our population is five times as great as it was then but there has been no increase in smallpox. To repeal the compulsory vaccination law means to invite a scourge of smallpox to come north from below the Mexican border and sweep the state.”

The Times notes that Powers and his aides are watching trains and hotels for visitors from Chicago, which has been suffering epidemics of diphtheria and scarlet fever. The anti-vaccination bill was defeated in February 1907.

Read more about smallpox in Los Angeles here.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

An Apostle of the Past

Jan. 28, 1907
Los Angeles

William Jennings Bryan stepped from the Owl train to be greeted by a long-waiting crowd.

“In appearance, Mr. Bryan has changed but little since he was last in Los Angeles,” The Times says. “In his manner, also, there has been little, if any, change, and he greeted his friends with the same fervor and showed the same remarkable talent for remembering names.”

From the Arcade Station, Bryan and his wife were transported by auto to the home of Nathan Cole on Pasadena Avenue. They took the Mt. Lowe railway and in the evening, he addressed a capacity audience at Simpson Auditorium in a benefit for the Lark Ellen Home for Boys.

At 47, Bryan was no longer the fiery orator of his youth, The Times says. Instead, he was a gentle idealist who “talked of the thousand little things that had found his favor on five continents, and a packed audience listened with almost breathless attention.”

“They liked the esthetic idealism of this older Bryan,” The Times says of the audience. “All along the many curving rows of seats, there was a leaning forward, as if to catch some word that had been lost, and a whispering sigh of regret.”

“In soft, sweet periods, reminiscent of ‘Gray’s Elegy,’ he lauded the age of belief, the age of dreams. Touchingly, he quoted from John Boyle O’Reilly, ‘For the dreamer lives forever, but the toiler dies in a day.’ ”

“William Jennings Bryan, making a simple discourse of so pretentious a subject as ‘The Old World and Its Ways’ showed himself still, as in the promulgation of strong beliefs that lie near his heart, the apostle of the past.”

The next day, there was a trip to Santa Catalina Island for the Bryans and 100 guests, followed by banquet hosted by local Democrats. Before leaving for Salt Lake City, he addressed the students of Polytechnic High School and attended a reception at the Chamber of Commerce.

Eighteen years later, Bryan and Clarence Darrow met in Dayton, Tenn., for the Scopes Monkey Trial. He died two days after the trial’s conclusion.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

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.”

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Born in the U.S.A.

Jan. 26, 1907
Los Angeles

Chin Man Can (or Kan) is in jail on charges of being an illegal immigrant. The young man says he is nothing of the sort, but unable to prove that he was born in San Francisco because all of his belongings were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.

Can says that when he was 13, the rest of his family left San Francisco to return to China, but that he stayed behind, attending Chinese school and learning English. After the earthquake, he came to Los Angeles, where he was arrested while working at an Ocean Park restaurant.

The Times defended Can, noting that his uncle was a wealthy San Francisco businessman, Ching Wing.

“Ching Wing has always been so enthusiastic an American that he has arranged to bring up his baby as an American boy, forsaking the language of his fathers, wearing American clothes, reading American books. It seems like a joke that one of his relatives should be arrested,” The Times says.

The Times wrote in an editorial: “Every right-minded American will resent the disagreeable experiences which have befallen Chin Man Can, who appears to be our fellow countryman. Let us hope that all will end well for him and that his heart will not become embittered because of his rough treatment. We trust he will live long and prosper in the land of his birth, which has the same regard for him that she has for all her children, of whatever race, color or creed.”

An anonymous headline writer was not so kind, nor was a reporter who wrote: “ ‘Me velly flond this country,’ Chin Man stated on the witness stand. ‘Family all go back to China. Me hide in wood yard in Flisco till they all gone. I likee mission school, likee ‘Melican ways, alle slame ‘Melican myself.’ ”

Although an inspector bolstered claims that Can had been smuggled into the country, testifying that he had frequently seen Can in Ensenada, a benefactor charged that the “Mexican ranger” was railroading Can to get the $300 bounty for turning in an illegal immigrant.

In 1913, while out on bail as his case was being appealed, Can was charged with belonging to a ring smuggling Chinese across the border. By then he was manager of the Quang Hing Lung Co. at 305 Marchessault St., and attending the University of Southern California.

His trial lasted into 1914 and testimony revealed that Can had adopted the names Frank Chan and W.H. Chan. He was convicted of trying to smuggle a boxcar of immigrants into the U.S. and although he appealed his case, no further information can be found in The Times.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

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.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

An Unfortunate Loophole

Jan. 18, 1907
San Francisco

In what is surely an embarrassing and awkward oversight, the California Constitution only prevents “Mongolian” children from attending white public schools when separate campuses have been created. The problem, legislators have discovered, is that the Japanese aren’t Mongolians and feel they somehow have the right to go to school with everyone else.

The case before the Legislature and San Francisco officials involves 10-year-old Keikeiki Aoki, who has been barred from the Redding public schools by Principal Mary A. Deane. In a unanimous ruling, the California Supreme Court has issued a writ ordering Deane to show cause as to why she should not admit Keikeiki to school.

Deane has responded that “she was acting under the law of the state and in pursuance of a resolution passed by the Board of Education that Japanese pupils cannot attend any public school except the Oriental school for Mongolians and Indians,” The Times says.

In an attempt to resolve the impasse, San Francisco City Atty. Burke is rushing to Sacramento to urge the Legislature to pass an amendment to the state Constitution substituting the word “Asiatic” for “Mongolian.”

“As the Legislature is unanimously against admitting Japanese children to the public schools, this amendment could be rushed through in a couple of days,” The Times says.

The proposed wording: “And also to establish separate schools for Indian children, Japanese children, Malay children, Korean children and all children of the Mongolian race. When such separate schools are established, Indian, Chinese, Malay, Korean, Japanese and all Mongolian children must not be admitted into any other school.”

Remind me again about how the past was a kinder, simpler time, please. I keep forgetting.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Another EBay Mystery

Jan. 15, 2007

Los Angeles

While making my daily check of EBay, I found another envelope from 1907, this one addressed to A. Victor Segno, 701 N. Belmont.

A brief check of Proquest reveals—what’s this? A major scam artist, self-help author and wife-stealer.

A. Victor Segno turns out to be the operator of the American Institute of Mentalism. Here’s how it works: Members agree to send Segno $1 ($21.30 USD 2005) a month. In return he sends out a “success wave” twice a day.

According to Segno’s literature: “The vibrations which Prof. Segno is able to produce in people, through being in harmony with their mentalism, is often felt by them, though thousands of miles distant, as a sensation similar to a slight electric shock.”

And a testimonial: “When I commenced taking the treatments with your club I was full of doubts as to the effects, but as I was anxious to be successful and had little to lose and all to gain I continued to take them. I have been a member less than two months and the following are the results:

“At the time I joined the club I was sick, but compelled to work and for very small wages. Shortly after I began to feel better. On the 7^th of this month my employer sold me his stock of goods on credit. By the 21^st I had paid $100 on the cost of the stock and on the 24^th I sold the stock for ($300 or $800) over the cost and reserved an interest in the business.

“You no doubt will be glad to learn that since joining your club I have improved in health, supported myself and little baby girl and made over $1,000, and risen from a servant to be a proprietor. I have also secured a position as traveling agent for a Chicago firm at a large salary. It is wonderful to me.”

Busy though he was sending out success waves, Segno was able to write two books: “How to Live 100 Years” and “How to Be Happy Though Married,” available from the institute for $3 each. Later works included “Personal Magnetism,” “The Law of Mentalism” and “How to Have Beautiful Hair.”

Apparently Segno did a thriving business because in a few years he was able to plan a large estate at Belmont and Kane, which was featured in The Times. The letter, addressed to 701 N. Belmont, was presumable sent to the institution on “Inspiration Point” over Echo Park, although I can’t locate it now.

In 1911, however, Segno left Los Angeles, ostensibly to set up a similar school in Russia. Shortly thereafter, his longtime personal secretary, Mrs. Irene Weitzel, a recently married woman whom he had employed since she was a young girl, vanished on an alleged trip to Chicago to visit her parents.

In response to reporters’ questions about whether Segno had run off with his secretary, his wife, Annie Dell Segno, replied: “It isn’t true, unless my husband has lost his senses.”

“An official of the school admitted that Mrs. Segno is greatly perturbed and admitted that there had been talk about Segno and the girl for some months,” The Times says. “She said that when such stories came to her ears she had hotly denied them because Segno’s teaching and life stood out in her mind as everything ideal.”

A. Victor Segno and "success waves" in action, from one of his books.

Divorce eventually followed as Segno set up an identical scheme in Berlin. He returned to the United States about 1915 as the clouds of World War I formed over Europe. Thereafter, Segno vanished from the news while his ex-wife was mentioned in a 1923 story because she had married Harry T. Robinson, apparently a member of a robbery gang.

Thanks, EBay!

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

On the Frontiers of Medicine

Jan. 11, 1907
Los Angeles

A woman living on a hog ranch near the Santa Fe railroad crossing over the Los Angeles River contacted police after seeing dismembered human bodies in the old dumping ground near George Street.

Investigators dug through the dump, retrieving the body of a child that was nearly intact, along with bits and pieces of a man and a woman, including their skulls. In addition to the remains, police found books and papers traced to the University of Southern California Medical School.

“Whoever is responsible for the depositing of the remains on the garbage heap should be severely censured,” Coroner Roy S. Lanterman told The Times.

“It seems quite heartless enough to give up the human body to further science but when the students have finished dissecting the remains they should see that they are interred with the proper respect. I cannot understand the action of those responsible for sending the bodies to the garbage heap.”

For further reading on the sorry state of medical schools at the turn of the 20th century, read Abraham Flexner’s “Medical Education in the U.S. and Canada.” Note that in this era, doctors didn’t even need to be high school graduates.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Knocking at the Bar

Dec. 25, 1907
Los Angeles

There are precisely two African American attorneys in Los Angeles and their appearance against one another in court provides a bit of amusement for The Times. We can dispense with the news article and its unfortunate use of dialect rather quickly: Paul M. Nash was suing G.T. Crawford, an African American waiter, for attorneys fees after representing his wife in a divorce. Crawford was represented by Charles S. Darden.

Like most mainstream newspapers of the period, The Times rarely wrote about African Americans and stories always identified them as: “John Jones, Negro,” (or in this case, “Paul Nash, a colored man”) a habit that lasted well into the 1940s.

One of the rare occasions when The Times wrote about blacks occurred on the anniversary of Lincoln’s birthday in 1909, when the paper took stock of African American professionals in the city, counting five physicians, two dentists, five lawyers, a pharmacist, three newsmen and a veterinarian.

The story, which also mentions attorneys G.W. Wickliffe, I.D. Blair and W.E. Coleman, provides the following biographies on Darden and Nash:

Darden was born in North Carolina and graduated from Wayland Seminary. He attended Howard University, graduating from its law school in 1904. Darden settled in Los Angeles in 1905 after traveling through the U.S. and the Territory of Hawaii. “He has practiced before the United States District Courts and the State Supreme Court,” The Times says. “Mr. Darden has been promoter for several enterprises among the colored people and at present is president of an insurance company conducted for and by them.”

Nash was born in St. Louis, Mo., and attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., Harvard and Boston University Law School. At Harvard, “Mr. Nash became editor and publisher of two of the university publications and this was the first time this honor had been bestowed upon a Negro,” The Times says. Nash came to Los Angeles in 1905. “He has confined his efforts almost exclusively to civil practice and few lawyers have made the showing that Mr. Nash has in the same length of time,” The Times says.

There are times when history is ugly and this is one of those times. In August 1931, Gov. James Rolph Jr. denied reports that in filling judicial posts, he had selected Nash for the Superior Court, although he conceded that he was seriously considering Nash for an appointment.

In November 1932, Rolph said “he felt the selection of a Negro judge ‘would give the people of Los Angeles a chance to see if they want a colored judge.’ The judge would serve about four months,” the time remaining in the term of a judge who had been elevated to Superior Court. The Times noted that Fred Roberts, the Assembly’s only black legislator, was opposed to creating a court specifically for African Americans.

A week later, Rolph abandoned plans to name a black judge, saying: “In good faith, when the question was presented to me I believed it could be amicably adjusted. But it is evident that it cannot.” Rolph, citing President Coolidge, said: “I believe the people will have to establish the precedents. It is not for me to establish the precedents.”

In 1933, Nash ran for Municipal Court judge against Francis D. Adams and Clement D. Nye, the winning candidate, who was backed by The Times.

The record on Darden is even more obscure. In 1911, The Times noted that he was named to the executive committee of the National Negro Bar Assn., and hoped to organize a Los Angeles bar among the eight black attorneys practically locally. He is mentioned in 1916, when he helped incorporate the Fraternal Order of Beavers. And in 1933, he brought a lawsuit after hitting an escaped horse on the highway between Oxnard and Camarillo, charging that the owner was negligent in not keeping the animal confined.

Paul M. Nash, 3211 W. 17th, died Jan. 26, 1937, at the age of 67., and was cremated. Although he had a paid notice, The Times did not run an obituary on him.

Charles Sylvester Darden died March 12, 1954. He was 74. His death was never mentioned in The Times.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

L.A. Rising

Dec. 15, 1905
Los Angeles

Anybody who sets out to study the development of the city’s neighborhoods can expect to do lots of driving. My recent travels have taken me to an obscure area of South Los Angeles to look for 1907-era houses mentioned in the Dec. 8 issue of The Times: one in the vicinity of 4615 Wesley Ave. and another around 124 W. 52nd St. (Bonus fact: Broadway in that area used to be known as Moneta).

I’ll post some pictures later. The buildings on Wesley are a mix of single-family homes and two-story apartments. As for preservation, you might as well call this neighborhood Stucco Heights.

The Dec. 15 issue pays another visit to South Pasadena and as these buildings involve a short walk rather than a long drive and time is short; well, you get the idea.

The Times says: “South Pasadena, just to the northeast, crowded by the bustling life of the great city to the south and penned in by the no less prosperous Pasadena on the north is one of the best examples of a suburban city.... South Pasadena has more handsome homes within the same area, about a mile and a half square, than any other similar place in the country. There are several modern business blocks also being erected, and a new library building.”

The Times notes 299 building permits in South Pasadena in the last year with a total valuation of $357,036 ($7,327,653.44 USD 2005).



One of the buildings noted is the First National Bank of South Pasadena at Mission and Diamond, now home to an antique store. And then there’s the library, where people are out doing Tai Chi every morning. I’ll post pictures when I get the film developed. We are old school around here....

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

No Christ in Christmas? Good Lord!

Dec. 14, 1907
Los Angeles

The madman who calls himself the superintendent of the Los Angeles schools has touched off an absolute firestorm of anger by ordering teachers not to mention Christ during Christmas pageants or other festivities.

“The town was agog with it yesterday,” The Times said. “It was the talk among both ministers and laymen of the 200 and more churches in Los Angeles.”

The order produced what a teacher called “a pagan celebration.” The Times said: “One little girl went home crying and said to her mamma: ‘We’re not to sing anything about Christ; there might be some little children there who do not believe in Christ, and so we’re not to sing anything about Him.’ ”

The superintendent’s order was not written, but made in a statement during the Dec. 5 meeting of school principals. An anonymous school official told the paper: “He said we were to make [Christmas] an occasion of good cheer; that the city schools are not Sunday schools. He did not say it in so many words, but the interpretation of myself and practically all the principals was that we were to see to it that no reference was made to Christ.”

“The supervisor of music in the city schools rose to her feet and stated that she did not know that such was the position of the managers of the schools; that she had been explaining ‘The Messiah’ to the children, not thinking it possible that there could be any objection to it, and she wished to know what she should do.

“To this the superintendent made reply: ‘Well, you must use nothing that will give offense to anyone.’ It was apparent all the way through what he meant to convey, and many principals, like myself were almost afraid to say anything yesterday.”

The Boyle Heights Men’s Meeting issued a resolution, calling the order “unnecessary, uncalled for and therefore a gratuitous insult to the faith of a great majority of the patrons of our schools” and urged the board of education to ensure that such an affront never occurred again.

The Times raged in a news story, describing the offense: “That the superintendent of the Christian schools of a Christian city in a Christian nation should unwarrantably forbid the teachers to make the Messiah a feature of the exercises celebrating His birthday—that the Christ significance must be left out of Christmas in exercises not a part of the legal school curriculum, but coming after the close of school—it was this that aroused the Christian people of Los Angeles to indignation.”

The superintendent replied, charging the newspaper with false accusations, explaining that there was feud between him and Gen. Otis of The Times. The superintendent, in editing a guide book for Los Angeles, had edited the general’s essay on “industrial freedom” so that it was suitable for print. Otis retorted that “no one should edit his material but himself.”

As for what was construed as an order, the educator said: “I did make a request, which from year to year has been made in the city and which, I understand, is made in practically every city of the land that the teachers should, in arranging their exercises remember that the public schools are secular schools and that only those forms of religious reference which give offense to no one have any place in them.” He also cited the California Constitution’s ban on the use of public money for a sectarian or denominational school.

The superintendent survived this crisis and lasted three more years at the Los Angeles schools. In 1918, he was inaugurated as head of the Los Angeles State Normal School, the beginnings of what became UCLA. Eventually a campus building was named for him.

And when Ernest Carroll Moore died in 1955, he was eulogized by The Times, which once called him “erratic and untruthful” with “long, dull, callous ears,” as a distinguished educator and scholar.

Moore resigned as UCLA’s provost in 1936 so that “I can spend my last days in teaching.”

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Whereabouts Unknown

Dec. 8, 1907
Los Angeles

I’ll apologize now, for this is an account with more questions than answers; a story of heartbreak and hope without an ending.

The Times features three members of the Schiffman family who are Jewish refugees from Baku, Russia (now part of Azerbaijan): Sigmund, the father; Benjamin, the 15-year-old son, and Emella [or Emelia], the 10-year-old daughter. The Schiffmans have been brought to Los Angeles as part of the Galveston Plan, in which Jews were taken to Galveston, Texas, for dispersal throughout the West because New York was overcrowded.

Although Sigmund is quite a scholar, speaking German, Russian, Polish, Greek, Latin and, of course, Hebrew, he is making a living as a door-to-door salesman. Benjamin, according to The Times, has had to abandon his education to work in tailor shop. “He is a faithful worker but his youthful spirit rebels at the change from study to ‘rubbing clothes,’ ” The Times says.

Emella is described as “one of the prettiest Jewish maids who has ever come out of Russia.” She is attending the California Street School, where she is studying English. So far, her knowledge of the language is limited to a useful American phrase: “Hurry up.” However, she is quite expressive in German and when told that The Times wanted to take her picture, said: “I must be a very important personage for the newspaper to desire my picture.”



The elder Schiffman tells of the horrific conditions in Baku at the hands of the Cossacks. “All people in Russia have the greatest fear of the ‘Black Hundred,’ ” he says, “which is not a single hundred but bands of the lowest and most brutal Cossacks, nightly let loose to work their will upon any person supposed to have thought adverse to the government. They lie around, stupid and asleep in the daytime. In the evening they are plied with vodka and drink-crazed, brutalized, are set to raid homes. They enjoy government immunity for any deed committed.”

What became of the Schiffmans? We simply have no record of them. Not in The Times, not in online public records—nowhere. Perhaps they changed their names or perhaps they left Los Angeles.

All we do know is that the local Jewish organizations, B’nai B’rith, the Hebrew Benevolent Society, the Jewish Women’s Foreign Relief Association and the Jewish Sisterhood helped them. Sigmund Schiffman was supposed to address a group about “Governmental Conditions and Methods of Persecution in Russia,” but The Times apparently did not cover his talk.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmailcom

The Confession of Morris Buck

Dec. 7, 1907
Los Angeles

“I asked if she received the letter. She said she had. I asked her if she would loan me a sum of money to be paid back monthly and I was going to open a bakeshop.

“She said that she had so many—several calls for money, that she didn’t see how she could loan me any and she says: ‘Why can’t you work?’

“I said I had been working but I never got anything ahead to start up in business. She says: ‘Have you any relations? Can’t you borrow any money from Will?’

“He is my brother. I told her that he was poorer than I was.

“I told her I was different from the others.

“She says: ‘You wait here’ and she went in the hall and she came out again. I was standing up.

“She came over toward me and I says: ‘Who did you ring up?

“She says: ‘I rang James, the coachman.’

“At the same time, she placed her hand in her vest and I moved to the left....

“As soon as I saw her hand in her vest I turned to the right and I pulled my gun and I says: ‘Throw up your hands.’

“And she says: ‘Put down that gun’ and she turns and says ‘Go back, he has got a gun’ and she would not put her hands up.

“And I says: ‘Would you strike an old man?’

“And she says: ‘Yes.’

“I says: ‘Would you put me into an asylum?’

“And she says: ‘Yes.’

“And I pulled the trigger and she hollered: ‘Help!’

“I pulled the trigger the third time. It only went off twice. I pulled it twice and then I pulled it the third time and it wouldn’t fire. I was about two feet from her. I was afraid of my own life. I didn’t see any weapon that she had. But I didn’t want to take any chances.”

.... “She fell and I said something over the body. I don’t remember what.

“Then I went toward the railing and I saw a lot of men in the road and I put the gun up to my head and I said: ‘Gentlemen, must I blow it out?’

“Nobody said anything that I could hear. I said: ‘Gentlemen, it relies on you.’

“Somebody says: ‘Who has got a gun? Shoot him.’ And then somebody says: ‘Give me the gun.’

“I was sitting down on the rocking chair. Then I got up and I says... I was sitting down and says: ‘Don’t any of you shoot. Let an officer take charge of this.’

“Then they says: ‘Kill him. Hang him.’

“And I got up and I pulled my gun. I had two guns. And they says: ‘Look out, he has got another gun.’

“I stepped back and I run. I jumped over the rope on the side porch and run to the next corner. I must have lost my other gun. It dropped out of my pocket. I ran down on 4th Street and then down as far as Westlake.”

... “I run into the ice cream parlor and I says; ‘There is a fellow after me.’ And I says: ‘Close the door and don’t let him in till an officer comes.’

“And he says: ‘We know it. Lean over’ and she [he?] shut the door. And an officer came and brought me here.”

Morris Buck was convicted in the Jan. 27, 1906, slaying of his former employer, the wife of Charles A. Canfield, an oil executive and partner of E.L. Doheny, at the Canfield home at 8th and Alvarado. According to The Times, Buck shot her once after she refused to loan him $2,600, and her young daughter screamed and ran into the house. The wounded woman wrestled with Buck as he shot her again.

Buck claimed that he was insane, having once been kicked in the head by a horse. He had been held in the mental ward at the County Hospital for two months in 1903, but the insanity plea was rejected as a ruse.

An expert on Bertillon criminology said: “Buck is one of the most interesting criminals I ever saw. I do not believe he is insane; he is, in my opinion, a low degenerate from the effect of vicious personal habits.

“His eyes are dull and perfectly lifeless; his lower jaw lops open and his scrawny, limp body seems to be giving away at the knees. It seems as though there is not a drop of real life in him.”

The criminologist warned: “If that man is ever hanged you can be prepared for something horrible. I have seen men of just his stamp hanged—weak degenerates. Awful! They break down and are dragged to the gallows weeping and sobbing like children and are held up to have the noose put on.”

In fact, Buck went quietly:

“This morning, he awoke early, and after dressing himself in the clothes in which he was to be executed, he ate a hearty breakfast,” The Times says. “Father Callopy remained with him until he was declared dead.”

“A few moments before the time set for the execution, the warden entered the condemned cell and read the death warrant. Buck’s hands were then strapped to his sides and the march to the gallows was begun at 10:50. Warden Hoyle took the lead, then came the priests, chanting prayers for the dying and following came the condemned man, a guard on each side.

“He then stood upon the trap. Guard Albrogast placed the rope around his neck, drew the black cap, the signal was given and his body dropped.

“Below the trap stood the prison physician, Dr. Stone, and Dr. Galehuse of San Rafael. In 14 minutes, the condemned man was declared dead. The body was cut down and placed in a prison coffin.”

In an interesting footnote, five of Canfield’s children received $500 a piece from her estate. Another woman named Hattie Elizabeth Bryant or Dorothy Canfield was given $5. “It is not my desire that she be recognized as one of my children,” Canfield’s will said. Years later, it was revealed that Dorothy was a foundling taken in by the Canfields.

In 1911, Canfield’s son, Charles, fled to Mexico after passing worthless checks. His father said: “I don’t know where he is and I don’t care.”

In 1917, the five Canfield daughters, as trustees of $100,000, sought to sell their late father’s real estate to establish a school for girls.

In 1933, daughter Daisy Canfield Moreno died when the car in which she was riding plunged off Mulholland Highway on her way home from a late-night party at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

In 1972, the Canfield Foundation dissolved, giving $700,000 to Mills College and $1 million each to Pepperdine and Stanford.

And nowhere, in any of these news stories, do we learn Mrs. C.A. Canfield’s first name. It is almost beyond belief.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

In the Line of Duty

Dec. 3, 1907
Los Angeles

Officer Patrick Lyons had been on the force for four months when he was shot in the head while trying to arrest two robbers a little after 11 p.m. at Central Avenue and 14th Street.

There’s no picture of him in The Times, and news stories say nothing about his past or his family. His superiors at University Station said the 30-year-old officer, who lived at 720 E. 5th St., had previously worked as a special patrolman and was “a most promising young policeman.” We know far more about the killer, Daniel Meskil, and his companion, Rolla Robe. They had barely met before they began the holdups that would climax in Lyons’ death.

Meskil arrived from Chicago a month earlier and had just rented a room at 933 S. Broadway when he shot himself in the left hand trying to catch a heavy revolver he knocked off a table. At the Receiving Hospital, doctors amputated portions of his index finger and thumb.

Investigation showed that Meskil had been the terror of the Nebraska town where he had grown up, inflicting violence on his family. He was frequently in trouble with the law and had served time in reform school. Meskil said he once killed a man by knocking the victim down a cliff, simply because he felt like it. A few days before the slaying, Officer Roller had searched Meskil because he looked suspicious. “For that I made up my mind to kill you just as soon as I got an easy chance,” Meskil said during his trial.

Robe, a union plasterer, said he met Meskil on Nov. 30 at the Arizona poolroom on Main, which served as the union hall. Meskil asked him to have a drink “and we went out and had several drinks, eight or 10, and Meskil paid for them because I was broke,” Robe said.

“Meskil seemed to have plenty of money and said he got it by holding people up, and that the Los Angeles police were easy, and he asked me to join him in getting a place that night and said I need not be seen. I told him I was not in that business but at last I said I would join him as I was broke.”

More drinks followed, and Meskil went into Hoegee’s hardware store, where he bought an old Colt Bisley .45 with an outdated box of black powder cartridges. Then they went to hold up Gerleman’s market at 813 S. Central Ave., where Robe used to work, only to be run off when the owner’s daughter yelled “Here come two policemen!”

The men fled in the market’s horse-drawn wagon, which they crashed trying to avoid a streetcar, then went to a winery at 14th and Central. In scooping money from the cash drawer, Robe scattered dimes all over the floor and Meskil forced him to pick up the money, saying: “Damn you; if you do a job like that again I’ll kill you.”

Lyons was standing across the street and saw the men. Winery owner Arthur Grosser said he heard Lyons order: “Throw up your hands. Give me that gun or I’ll kill you.” As Lyons searched Robe, Meskil drew the Colt .45 and shot the officer. Grosser said he saw Lyons “lying on the sidewalk with a gaping wound in his forehead, one eye shot out and the blood was running in a thin stream to the gutter.” The men fled, although Robe was quickly captured.

During the autopsy, investigators recovered fragments of the bullet, which shattered when it hit Lyons’ skull. By weight, police determined that it was too heavy to have been from Robe’s .38, but had been fired from a .45. Because of the old, caked grease on the bullet fragments, investigators determined that it was an obsolete military cartridge and soon located receipts from the sale at Hoegee’s store, the only place in town where such ammunition was sold. A search was begun for a man missing a left index finger and thumb.

Walking his beat the next day, Officer Anthony Connelly noticed a suspicious stranger watching a game of checkers in a poolroom at 7th Street and Central. Making sure he had his pistol ready, Connelly asked to see the man’s left hand, which was in a pocket. “What the hell business is it of yours?” the man asked.

As soon as Connelly pulled out the man’s left hand, Miskel drew a pistol and the men fought, but Connelly was able to jam his hand against the hammer of the gun so that it wouldn’t fire. “Billiard cues were scattered about the room and everything breakable had been broken,” The Times said. Meskil’s fight for his life ended when Connelly yelled at one of the men to help and someone cracked Meskil on the head with a pool cue.

The men were convicted of Lyons’ murder. Robe was sentenced to life in prison and Meskil was sent to the gallows. It was sometimes thought that Meskil would undergo a jailhouse conversion as he was frequently visited by gospel singers and ministers. “One day a preacher asked Meskil to pray with him in the jail office,” The Times said. “They both got down on their knees and the murderer arose with tears streaming down his face.”

“I never heard about that before,” Meskil said. “And that is as near conversion as he ever got,” The Times said.

At San Quentin, Meskil became known as one of the hardest and toughest men, often attacking his cellmates. There were the usual appeals and for a time it looked like Meskil would not be executed. But then a final date was set.

Before he could be hanged, Meskil tried to commit suicide by escaping from his cell and jumping from the roof. He spent the last months of his life dying by inches in constant pain with “tuberculosis of the spine” as a result of breaking his back.

“He shrieks in agony until given opiates,” The Times says.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Roving to Monrovia

Nov. 24, 1907
Monrovia

The Times real estate section takes a look at what was then the distant suburb of Monrovia, 22 miles from downtown Los Angeles. The writer notes the increasing use of concrete and stone, explaining that the cost of lumber is forcing builders to use other materials. The writer also notes the broad, shaded verandas of three featured homes as well as the outlines of their roofs.

The story highlights the home of B.R. Davisson on East Orange Avenue, H.M. Slemmons (or Slemon) on North Myrtle Avenue and the home of John C. Rupp at Ivy and Greystone, built for $6,500 ($133,403.21 USD 2005).

Without exact addresses, it would be difficult for me to locate the Davisson and Slemmons homes, but I took a pleasant drive out to Monrovia recently to look for the Rupp house and was happy to find
that it is still standing and in beautiful condition. In fact, it was nice to discover that the neighborhood has quite a few well-maintained historic homes; a contrast to the condition of the houses I located in Pico Heights.

I had a brief chat with the homeowner who gave me a tour of the grounds. He said that Rupp, a financier, built the home for his wife, but that she decided it was too far from Los Angeles and wouldn’t live there. That’s apparently true, because Rupp put the home on the market in 1911.

Note that the ad for the home mentions a solar heater. I have no idea what this was and the homeowner didn't know anything about it. Obviously a subject for further research.

The homeowner also mentioned the Monrovia Old House Preservation Group, which has a website and offers a self-guided tour. I cannot vouch for these folks, but it does sound interesting and the area has some lovely old homes.

To get to the Rupp house, take the Foothill Freeway and get off at Santa Anita in Arcadia. Turn north and go to Foothill Boulevard and then turn right (east) and then left on Ivy. The home is at 269 N. Ivy. While you’re there, look at the large stone house on the northeast corner, built in 1894. I’ll post some pictures when I get the film developed (we’re old school around here).

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com