Miscellaneous Anecdotes No. 1

These are all from the Mt. Vernon Signal, May 04, 1917:

When women are paid wages that will enable them to support husbands in luxury, the millennium will be at hand.

One seldom sees a women on the street without a shopping bag.  That might be sufficient warning to bachelors.

When a woman says her husband is perfection it is a safe bet that she hasn't been married three weeks.

Henry Ford Libel Lawsuit Against The Chicago Tribune, 1916-1919

[June 22, 1916] -

FORD IS AN ANARCHIST

From the Chicago Tribune.

Inquiry at the Henry Ford offices in Detroit discloses the fact that employes of Ford who are members of or recruits in the National guard will lose their places. No provision will be made for anyone dependent upon them. Their wages will stop, their families may get along in any fashion possible, their positions will be filled, and if they come back safely and apply for their jobs again they will be on the same footing as any other applicants. This is the rule for Ford employes everywhere.

Information was refused as to the number of American soldiers unfortunate enough to have Henry Ford as an employer at this time, but at the Detroit recruiting offices it was said that about 75 men will pay this price for their services to their country.

Mr. Ford thus proves that he does not believe in service to the nation in the fashion a soldier must serve it. If his factory were on the southern and not the northern border we presume he would feel the same way. We do not know precisely what he would do if a Villa band decided that the Ford strong boxes were worth opening and that it would be pleasant to see the Ford factories burn. It is evident that it is possible for a millionaire just south of the Canadian border to be indifferent to what happens just north of the Mexican border.

If Ford allows this rule of his shops to stand he will reveal himself not as merely an ignorant idealist, but as an anarchistic enemy of the nation which protects him in his wealth.

A man so ignorant as Henry Ford may not understand the fundamentals of the government under which he lives. That government is permitted to take Henry Ford himself and command his services as a soldier if necessary. It can compel him to devote himself to national purposes. The reason it did not take the person of Henry Ford years ago and put it in uniform is, first, that it has not had the common sense to make its theoretical universal service practical, and, second, because there have been young men to volunteer for the service which has protected Henry Ford, for which service he now penalizes them.

He takes the men who stand between him and service and punishes them for the service which protects him. The man is so incapable of thought that he cannot see the ignominy of his own performance.

The proper lace for so deluded a human being is a region where no government exists except such as he furnishes, where no protection is afforded except such as he affords, where nothing stands between him and the rules of lie except such defenses as he puts there.

Such a place, we think, might be found anywhere in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. Anywhere in Mexico would be a good location for the Ford factories. [1]

Political Cartoon: A Bunch of Hot Air

The Sun, Jacksonville, FL, May 26, 1906

The above political cartoon comes from The Sun of Jacksonville, FL, printed May 26, 1906.  In this cartoon, President Theodore Roosevelt is caricatured with his trademark toothy grin.  Also notice on the ground are a big stick ("Speak softly and carry a big stick") and a pitchfork.  Benjamin Tillman, a US Senator, was known as "Pitchfork Ben."  According to Wikipedia, citing Time magazine from March 26, 1956, Tillman earned this nickname because he announced "his determination to go to Washington and plunge a pitchfork into the rump of President Grover Cleveland."

Here is an article from The Times and Democrat of Orangeburg, S.C., January 12, 1909, that is just one example of the exchange between Senator Tillman and President Roosevelt.

DONE FOR SPITE

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Roosevelt Links Senator Tillman With Land Grab Deal.

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BATTLE HAS BEGUN.

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President Gives Out Result of Secret Investigation -- Tillman Admits Having Tried to Obtain Land in West--Wanted Sections for Himself, Family, and Secretary. 

High-end Homes in Lincoln, Nebraska, 1902

This one is from The Courier of Lincoln, Nebraska, August 2, 1902...

Colonial Homes Now All The Rage 

Colonial architecture is just now the crying demand in Lincoln.  Architects say they cannot give the public at large enough of it.  And in fact the movement started in the east last year and the year before that.  Colonial styles are in vogue again and the chances are that more or less architecture of that sort will adorn Lincoln in the near future. 

Houses built after this plan are very plain.  There are no intricately shaped panels, no places for dust to accumulate.  Of course all such residences are furnished with everything in the shape of modern  conveniences but  the exterior  is made nearly as possible after the style of the old New England farmhouses.  

Indeed architects from New York are even now traveling throughout New England copying plans of the ancient mansions.  These they picture on paper and go back to the city to reproduce these structures for the homes of the wealthy. 

Hundreds of these homes can now be seen in the most fashionable quarters of all the large eastern cities.  Gradually the style travels westward and the colonial boom has full sway in Lincoln. 

In  this city the popular price for a comfortable home is $5,000.  Real estate, plumbing and fitting the interior of the house are items not included.  With paving, a good lot, up-to-date plumbing and a spacious lawn such a residence costs about $12,000.  In Lincoln it has been found out by dear experience that it is not profitable to invest much more than this sum in a house.  For this reason the prices run about $5,000 for the material plans and construction of the building. 

Porches go back to classic styles.  They are plain and the pillars are as  nearly as possible the dimensions of those of the ancient masters.

Landmarking the Oregon Trail

From the University Missourian, Columbia, MO., January 3, 1911

RAISE $500 TO MARK SITE OF LONE TREE

Nebraskans Would Perpetuate Memory of Oregon Trail Landmark 

MOVEMENT IS NATIONAL 

Pioneer’s Retracing of Old Highway Results in Congressional Bill

Lincoln, Neb.—The county commissioners of Merrick county have recently decided to raise $500 to mark the site of the “Old Lone Tree,” that famous landmark of the old Oregon trail, near the site of Central City, Neb.  This tree was a huge cottonwood, remarkable not only for its size, but for the fact that it was the only tree on the north side of the Platte in any direction.  The grateful shade of the “Old Lone Tree” made this spot a favorite resting place for the occupants of the white-topped prairie schooners traversing the dusty plains.  This action in Merrick county is another indication of the rising tide of interest in marking the historic spots of the west.  Nebraska has already begun to take its place among those states which have already marked the famous historic sites within their borders. 

Was Much Used Route. 

During the years that followed the finding of the Oregon trail pathway to the northwest, traders, trappers, goldseekers, soldiers, missionaries and colonists plodded over the long road by hundreds and thousands.  Along it, surged for years the advance tide of a nation’s traffic, but with the building of the railroads the old highway, no longer used, became obliterated, and in a few short years its very whereabouts will be forgotten and its course a subject of unending disputes.

Four years ago, an old man of more than eighty years began a movement for permanently marking the route of the Oregon trail, and since that time the matter has grown into a national affair.

This old man was named Ezra Meeker, well-known to many Nebraskans, who have been interested in the work and hopeful of its results.  He started from his home in Payallup, Washington, in January, 1906, and retraced, in a prairie schooner drawn by a yoke of oxen, the journey that he had made from the Missouri river over the Oregon Trail in 1852.  He spent a year on the road.  Everywhere he stopped and urged the people whose fathers and grandfathers had followed the Oregon Trail as pioneers, to erect monuments and markers so that all memory of the greatest historic highway in the world might not be lost in oblivion.  When he reached Independence, Mo., he did not end his journey there, but, still driving his oxen, and his quaint old-fashioned wagon, part of which passed over the long road so many years before, he slowly marked his way on to Washington, D.C., to place his plan before congress.

Frontier Woman's Trials in Nome, Alaska

From The Times Dispatch, Richmond, VA

November 4, 1906 

Woman's Trials in Nome, Alaska

Suffered Years of Hardships.  Nursed Strangers and is Repaid With Interest. 

LOS ANGELES, November 2--In a store window at Fourth Street and Central Avenue is a collection of Alaskan curios that are the property of a little woman who also possesses piercing blue eyes and chin that denotes fierceness and determination.  She is Mrs. Marie Riedselle, the first white woman to brave the hardships of the Klondike in the search for gold. 

Eight years ago Mrs. Riedselle made her first trip to Alaska.  She was an osteopathic physician, living in New York, when she first decided to try her luck at mining.  From there she went to Seattle and purchased a miner's outfit.  Eskimo dogs and the few bare necessities.  For two years she lived at Dawson City, nursing, doctoring and studying, but without getting nearer to the gold mine. 

"I determined that I must get to Nome at all costs," she said in recounting her experience.  "I got to Nome, and there my chance came.  I heard of a young fellow who was supposed to be dying with pneumonia.  His partner had done all he could for him, but had failed to relieve his suffering.  I arrived just in time, and together we nursed him back to health. 

"Out of gratitude they took me into partnership in a claim they had just staked out in Eldorado, sixty miles from Nome. 

"The hardships of that winter were terrible.  Many times we had nothing to eat for days at a time.  One partner was sick and the other far away from us most of the time.  We had years of hard work, but we found a rich claim, and I am back in civilization for a time.  My visit here is to be brief, as one has to fight always for that which he would keep in Alaska, and some of my property is now in litigation." 

The dogs are splendid animals, and Mrs. Riedselle's constant companions.  For weeks at a time she has depended solely upon them for friendship.  In the collection in a suit which she treasures as the finest ever seen in Alaska.  It consists of a long coat, or "parka," made of reindeer skin, with hood and cuffs of longer fur and a border of tiny squares of light and dark furs, forming an Indian pattern, and a pair of deerskin trousers and matelocks made in Siberia from finest skin.

The Iconic Toothy Smile of Teddy Roosevelt

From The Day Book, Chicago, Illinois, January 10, 1916:

An Aztec T. R.

This statue was carved centuries before the real T. R. ever bared his teeth.  The figure was an Aztec diety and in its day was worshiped pretty much as thousands of this country now worship our own Teddy.  The statue was unearthed in the City of Mexico.

The Supposed Sandford-Goebel Duel

Those from the Commonwealth of Kentucky are likely familiar with William J. Goebel, the Kentucky Governor who was assassinated a day before being sworn into office.  This article is not about his assassination, but rather about a duel that Goebel had with a fellow named John Sandford, which followed Goebel throughout his career.

SANDFORD-GOEBEL DUEL. 

A True Account of the Famous Killing. 

Malicious Misrepresentations Set at Rest by the Statement of Coroner Tarvin.A Clear Case of Self-Defense. 

The Hartford Herald, Hartford, KY., Wednesday, October 11, 1899 

A great deal of talk has been indulged is about the killing of Mr. John Sanford by Senator Goebel several years ago, and a number of people have essayed to state the case who were in no wise familiar with the facts.  Senator Goebel has been pictured as a cold-blooded murderer, and many persons are under the impression that he shot Mr. Sandford down without any provocation whatever.  The following statement will disabuse their minds of this fallacy.  It was a most unfortunate affair from beginning to end, but not unlike many another difficulties in Eastern Kentucky, where feuds have been lamentably common and duels not a rare occurrence. 

At the request of friends and in order to get a true statement of the difficulty between Sanford and Goebel, of which so much has been written and said, Mr. B.S. Morris, of Henderson, wrote W.W. Tarvin, then and now the coroner of Kenton county, asking him for the facts.  Mr. Morris received from Coroner Tarvin the following reply: 

“Office 912 Madison Avenue—Telephone No. 4050—Residence 114 E. Fifteenth street—Coroner of Kenton county, Ky., W.W. Tarvin, M.D. 

“Covington, Ky., Sept 25, 1899.—BS. Morris, Esq.—Friend Buck: Yours of the 22d received and I’ll try to give you the information you desire, as you are correct in supposing that I was coroner at the time of the Sanford killing, and that I held the inquest in that case. 

“I am unable to state the cause of the beginning of the enmity between Goebel and Sandford, as opinions differ widely.  Some say it was because of a proxy at a convention; some that it was on account of the law Goebel had passed reducing the tolls of a turnpike in which Sandford was a stockholder; and some that it was because Goebel was instrumental in having the city funds removed from Sandford’s bank and deposited in another bank. 

“At any rate, after the feeling first started, it grew steadily and the fact that some of Sandford’s closest friends where identified with the faction which always opposed Goebel, did not help matters any, and Sandford said that he would rather kill Goebel or be killed. 

“But to come down to the actual cause of the killing.  The daily Commonwealth had for several months been publishing articles ‘roasting’ Goebel at every opportunity, and Goebel was informed that John Sandford was the author of those articles.  In fact, if I remember rightly, Goebel was shown the original copies, and they were in Sandford’s handwriting.  At last, probably exasperated beyond endurance, Goebel wrote and caused to be published, in a little weekly sheet issued every Saturday, an article in which he referred to Sanford in several terms, and that was the immediate cause of the meeting. 

“On the day of the encounter, about 1 o’clock, Goebel and W.J. Hendricks, at that time Attorney General, were coming up town together, and on Fifth street met Frank Helm, president of the First National bank, and as Hendricks wished to get a check cashed, they all three continued out Fifth and up Madison avenue toward the bank.  As they came in the vicinity of the bank they saw John Sandford standing at the foot of the steps leading into the bank, with one foot on the lower step, and leaning upon the railing at one side.  Sandford was leaning upon the railing with his left arm, with his right hand in his front pants pocket.  The three (Goebel, Hendricks and Helm) came up to the foot of the steps and halted.  Helm spoke to Sandford, who responded, and after a reminder from Helm, Sandford spoke to Hendricks, held out his left hand, with his right still in his pocket, and shook hands with him.  Then, turning toward, Goebel, who was standing three or four feet from him, with his overcoat over his left arm and his right hand in his front pants pocket, Sandford said, ‘I understand that you assume the responsibility of that newspaper article.’

“Goebel answered promptly, ‘I do,’ whereupon Sandford withdrew his right hand from his pocket, holding a revolver, thrust it forward quickly toward Goebel’s abdomen and fired, the ball cutting through Goebel’s coat and lower edge of his vest.  Goebel made one step backward, dropped his overcoat and withdrawing his hand (right) from his pocket, also holding a revolver, threw his band up and fired the first shot.

“My jury was composed of six good citizens, one an ex-sheriff (acting), one the principal of a district public school, and one who has since served a term as president of the board of aldermen and is now county assessor, and the other three were honest, reliable workingmen; and that jury brought in a verdict that the shot was fired by Goebel in self-defense. 

“The county judge, a Republican, held a preliminary examination and discharged Goebel, as the evidence showed that Sanford had threatened to kill Goebel and had drawn and fired first.  Two attempts were made to indict Goebel, but the grand juries refused to return true bills each time.  Hoping this is a clear explanation of a very unfortunate matter, I will close with best regards.  Yours truly,
“W.W. Tarvin, C.K.C., Ky.”

  

Anecdote: Amusing Jury Decision

Mt. Vernon Signal
Mt. Vernon, Ky., Oct 28, 1898

A story is told of a trial for assault in the State of Arkansas.  In the course of the trial, a club, a rail, an ax handle, a knife, and a shot gun, were shown as the instruments with which the assault was committed.  But it was shown that the assaulted defended himself with a revolver, a scythe, a pitchfork, a chisel, a handsaw, and a dog.  The decision of the jury was that they'd have given a dollar a piece to have seen the fight.

Anecdote: Breakfast in Kentucky

The Most Famous of All Kentucky Breakfasts

A steak                                                          A man

1 quart bourbon whiskey (bottled in bond)      A dog

The man throws the steak to the dog and drinks the whiskey.

This is from the book Out of Kentucky Kitchens by Marion Flexner, originally published in 1949.  Some pages of the book are available on google books, here.

Flexner, Marion. Out of Kentucky Kitchens. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2010.

Article Describing Midwifery In New York, 1915

Because Economic Conditions Demand Her, the Midwife, a Relic of Hygienically Dark Ages, is Being Developed Into a Scientific, Ministering Angel.

New York Times, Thursday, February, 18, 1915

By Jeannette Young Norton

The midwife is here to stay.  Tradition and economic condition have made her a necessity, and the New York Health Department has been forced to recognize her.  Ignorant, dirty, careless, superstition, she may have been in the past, but since the Bureau of Child Hygiene has taken charge of her training, the midwife has become careful, clean and efficient, and midwifery is ranked as a legal and honorable profession.

It was just four years ago that an attempt to better the midwife was initiated with the establishing of the Bellevue Hospital School for Midwives.  Dr. George O'Hanlon, general medican superintendent of Bellevue an Allied Hospitals, was placed in charge.  It has been through Dr. O'Hanlon that many good ideas have been taken from the best schools of the kind in Europe and put into practice here.  He is in sympathy with the profession of midwifery, and believes that the midwife fills a place in the households where she is desired that no physician or nurse could occupy.  And so the midwife is here to stay.

As part of the work of the Child Hygiene Bureau, the midwife situation had to be met and dealt with by Dr. S. Josephine Baker, the department's physician."

Dr. Baker then went on to explain why the midwife was a necessity, and why the physician and the trained nurse could never take her place.

1882 Article About the Life of Jesse James

The Bourbon News 

Paris, Bourbon County, Kentucky: Tuesday, April 18, 1882.  

[Picture] Jesse James, The Bandit.  From the last photograph he had taken.  

The cut of Jesse James in this issue, was kindly loaned us by James J. Burns, editor of the Flemingsburg Democrat, who is not only a sprightly editor, but an accomplished wood engraver.  He copied it from a cut in the life of Jesse James published some two years ago.  The original photo was taken while the bandit was a guest at one of the principal Long Branch hotels, about the year 1870. 

The Dead Bandit. 

Jesse James was the son of a Baptist preacher of prominence and eloquence in his day.  The father was a native of Logan county, this state, and the mother, whose maiden name Zerelda Cole, was born in Woodford county, about half way between Versailles and Lexington, where her father kept a hostelry known as “Cole’s Tavern.”  On the death of her father the widow removed to the neighborhood of Stamping Ground, in Scott county, among her relatives, and there the future mother of the greatest bandit of modern times grew from childhood into girlhood, and from girlhood into womanhood, and there was married, in 1840, to Rev. Robert J. James.  In the subsequent year their first child, Frank, was born in Scott county.  In 1843 the Jameses removed to Missouri, setting in Clay county, where Jesse was born in 1845.  Mrs. James was a handsome, vivacious, devil-may-care girl, careless of good or evil report.  Tall, large-framed, and full of animal life, she was a universal favorite among those of the opposite sex, and her marriage to a clergyman was one of those surprises she was fond of indulging in.  Her hair was black as the raven’s wing, her eyes black and piercing.  Her temper was quick and fiery, her tongue sharp and cutting, and her enimity deadly and enduring.  She was constant and faithful in her friendships, and her hatreds were hot and undying.  She is now an exceedingly large woman, her hair sprinkled with gray, her eyes still keen and piercing, her temper as ungovernable as ever, and in all her ways, walks and talks, a fitting dam for such ferocious cubs as her two sons.  Her husband was a meek and humble-minded man and she made his life a hell, from which he finally fled to California, where he found the peace of death in 1851.  A few years afterwards the widow was married to Robert Mimms, whom she speedily harassed into the grave, and was succeeded in the connubial harness by Dr. Samuels, a prominent physician of Clay county.  To her is attributed the evil life led by her sons.  She upheld them in their career of crime, applauded their dare-devil deeds, and at all times extended them succor and protection.  All the affection in her nature is centered in them, and, while hard, and cruel, and vindictive toward others, she was ever the soft, loving, indulgent mother toward her children.  They inherited her own fearless spirit, and she gloried in them.  Deeds that filled the world with horror and heaped upon their names denunciation and detestation, she hailed as heroic and worthy of songs of praise and the hero’s wreath.