More about Santa Rosa in the summer of 1925. See INTRO for overview and index.
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Another joy in reading the old newspapers is regularly finding nutso ideas that Serious People claimed were absolutely true or were about to happen, no doubt about it. Gentle Readers today are left scratching their heads wondering if the editors completely believed this stuff or were just presenting it as something for subscribers to cluck about over the breakfast table. July 1925 was typical with three real corkers:
The Ku Klux Klan said it was planning to create a nationwide radio network. The article pointed out that there were already evangelical and political groups with affiliated stations (or a single high-power superstation) but this would the first time an organization would would control all broadcast content. It’s difficult to interpret how seriously the Press Democrat this news. In those years many in the North Bay were Klan kurious and thought they were probably another fraternal society not much different than the Freemasons or Odd Fellows. A committee of geologists and mining engineers announced the U.S. had passed peak oil production in 1923, and we would henceforth be importing all of it until we invented a new synthetic form of it. |
It was reported about a year ago that extensive plans for a system of stations throughout the country were under consideration by the Klan but the difficulty of obtaining wave-lengths caused temporary abandonment of the project. More recently the matter has again come before the Klan with several of the higher officials strongly supporting it. Among the states suggested as possible homes for the Klan are New Jersey, Indiana, Texas and several other of the southern commonwealths.
The Klan chain of stations, if the plans are carried out, would be unique in the United States broadcasting field. Also several fraternal, religious and political organisations maintain a single plant at their headquarters. No body of this nature has ever considered a group of stations that would cover all or a section of the country.
The expense of such a group of plants, together with the cost of maintenance and operation, is ordinarily held to be prohibitive and many klansmen, supporting the general movement to get on the air are expected to urge that a single station be erected to serve the Klan. (July 3)
SAYS PRODUCTION OF OIL REACHED PEAK 2 YEARS AGO – Assert that the oil fields of the United States probably passed their ultimate peak of production in 1923, the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America, in a special survey made public today, declared the country must look to increased oil importations and then to the development and use of substitutes for oil products.
Petroleum products apparently have entered upon a final phase of slow and gradual decline, with consumption increasing more rapidly than supply, said a report by a committee of geologists and mining engineers to R. M. Catlin, president of the society…
…Only two oil pools in the United States are now producing over 100,000 barrels a day – the Long Beach in California, and the Smackover in Arkansas – the engineers found. Not all the big pools in the country have been discovered, they explained, but the probability is that the record output of 1923 will not be exceeded unless several large undiscovered pools or new producing sands in old districts are brought to peak production within a single year. (July 12)
ATHLETIC GIRLS LOSE FIGURES EXPERTS SAY BUT IS IT IMPORTANT – Dr. Robert Stolz, state superintendent of physical education, in his annual report to the State Board of Education, said that athletics and boy games are ruining the feminine figure. He went so far as to request that girls in public schools and universities be prohibited in indulging in essentially masculine athletics. To basket ball, outdoor and indoor baseball, handball and certain track and field events, Dr. Scholz attributed the present lack of feminine symmetry and balance.
This report brings up the question as to what is the “perfect form, nobly planned.” Perhaps Dr. Stolz knows, but to the unofficial observer of womanly charms, the form divine is as shifting as the sands of the desert. What is today, tomorrow is not. The curves of yesterday are straight-lined today, yet feminine charm persists, and there is no noticeable decrease in the records of marriage and birth registrations.
The official observer may know, but he cannot prove his case by the past decade, because it has been no longer ago than that, that boys games for girls became the general rule on the school grounds and in the gymnasiums. In that ten years the graceful curves of the feminine form have been gradually drawn into a cylindrical tube, bifurcated at the bottom, and topped by an inverted saucepan.
Deploring the entry of young women into athletic contests and certain track activities. Dr. Stolz voiced his objections thus: “The emotional and physiological needs of women differ from those of men and should be developed along other lines than the present tendency, or women will lose their femininity. Feminine symmetry and balance of figures are in danger, if girls continue to indulge in strenuous athletics.” (July 26)