1908

1908 WRAPUP

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

This survey of the 1908 Santa Rosa newspapers concludes with 94 articles, a tie with the momentous year of 1906 when the town struggled back to its feet after the great earthquake and fire. That’s no surprise because In some ways, 1908 was a more notable year; the immolation of the “hoodoo” car received greater national media attention than the disaster had two years before, and judging by search engine hits today, more people are interested in the 1908 tomfoolery of the squeedunks than the scandal of Santa Rosa’s shenanigans with cash and food donations after the quake.

Most significantly, 1908 was the year that Santa Rosa’s future was cast. It was Teddy Roosevelt’s last year as president, and a wave of political activism swept over America with cities such as San Francisco seeking to root out corruption and improve conditions. Here the local municipal elections became a referendum on whether Santa Rosa would maintain its status quo – as a town awash in saloons with a thriving underground economy of gambling and prostitution – or whether it would aspire to evolve into a more cosmopolitan Bay Area community.

One side of the ballot represented the Old Guard – primarily bankers and the men who owned most of the prime downtown real estate – who were being challenged by a coalition of reformers: Prohibitionists, voters deeply upset that the City Council recently had legalized Nevada-style prostitution, and progressives seeking to rid the city of political “bosses.” The reformers lost, but only after the town’s Democratic and Republican parties united to create a keep-the-status-quo “fusion” ticket, and after the fusion’s mayoral candidate played a political dirty trick on the morning of the election, promising something he wouldn’t (and couldn’t) deliver. And it didn’t help that the reformers were hammered ceaselessly in the Press Democrat by PD editor and Chamber of Commerce president Ernest L. Finley.

As both sides had vowed, the new City Council struck down the ordinance that had legalized prostitution, but with enforcement under the Old Guard’s control, the repeal had little teeth; only two brothels closed in the red light district. The trade just resumed operating as it had for the forty years prior to its brief legalization, again outlawed but sanctioned and hidden in the open, just two blocks from the courthouse. And the city was again raking in fines from illegal sales of liquor in the houses, and presumably resuming the monthly de facto arrests of the women for vagrancy to collect a steady income in fines.

Second place for the story with the most coverage in the 1908 Santa Rosa newspapers was the squeedunks’ preparation for the Rose Carnival. It was reported as a series of running gags that had a new development almost every day, such as the competition over which of the guys would be crowned “queen.” But the top story of the year in both papers was the construction of the Saturday Afternoon Clubhouse. It was newsworthy because it was so unusual in that era for a woman’s group anywhere to incorporate, purchase land and build a clubhouse, and important to local social scene because it provided the town with a meeting hall that could be rented by the public. Every detail of the planning and construction was reported in detail, and once it was finished, little items kept dribbling out that mentioned who had plastered the walls or wired the place for electricity.

For Mattie and James Wyatt Oates, 1908 was a year likely filled with melancholy and gratification. There was the wedding of Anna May Bell, the young woman whom the Oates’ clearly cherished as if she were their own daughter. In a string of blowout engagement parties in Santa Rosa, 200 guests crowded into (what would become known as) Comstock House, making it probably the largest party ever held here. That year Wyatt’s famed Civil War vet brother William C. Oates visited his baby brother for the last time. And Wyatt and Mattie together were instrumental in the building of the Saturday Afternoon Clubhouse, he incorporating the group and she as chairman of the building committee. Wyatt, who had developed an obsession for automobiles, purchased his first car, and the garage at Comstock House was surely built soon after. Other than that, it was a quiet year; they were rarely mentioned in the newspapers. Mattie visited a couple of friends and held a card party for the Married Ladies’ Club at her home. A small item on the front page of the Santa Rosa Republican that July read, “Judge James W. Oates has a neat little sign on his door, which reads: ‘Gone fishing: back Tuesday.'”

And finally, this was the year the Comstock family arrived, which could make my 374 blog posts preceding that announcement one of the most long-winded intros to a story since Wagner’s operas.

It has taken me a calendar year to cover a historic year (once again), but I’m not as chagrined by this fact as before. My 1908 articles are generally longer and more deeply researched than previous years, thanks in part to the greater availability of online newspaper archives. I’ve also wandered farther afield to explore national issues that may not have much local significance for 1908, but will have growing importance in the times that followed, such as the xenophobic worry about Japanese spies preparing for a U.S. invasion and the beginnings of the “Red Scare” mania with false reports about terrorist attacks committed by anarchists and organized labor.

Having already read through the 1909 newspapers, I’ve encountered a couple of stories that present ethical challenges. It’s been my policy to not write about suicides; the papers at the time usually provided lurid details about that person’s death, and no one Googling Great-Grandma Gertie’s name should have to stumble upon an item describing her agonizing last minutes from having swallowed carbolic acid. But there are lots of other kinds of skeletons in closets hidden.

One concerns a local woman who died of an illegal abortion. This was more common in that era than you might think; when paging through the 1906 Register of Deaths looking for additional earthquake casualties, I came across another one in Santa Rosa. I feel it’s an important historical story to retell – particularly given the present debate over the issue – but would it would be appropriate to republish her name as it appeared in the papers, abbreviate it to her initials, or use a pseudonym? Complicating the issue further, her tombstone in the Rural Cemetery has an epitaph that takes on a new poignant meaning, knowing how she died.

The other case involves a revered family that has a direct ancestor convicted of murder. Apparently this deed was long ago scrubbed from family histories, and I believe the only way anyone could know about it is by stumbling across it as I did, reading scratched unindexed microfilm. There’s nothing newsworthy about the murder itself, aside from the genealogical significance of the murderer. Do I not write about it, deciding that the story falls under the “Googling Granny” rule? Or do I first ask the family for permission? The latter may seem like the high road, but it’s now a large clan, and I doubt there would be consensus. And that route crashes into establishing an absurd precedent of expecting to obtain a family or institutional O.K. before writing about any type of controversial historical material.

What would you do? Comments most welcome.

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THERE ARE ANARCHISTS EVERYWHERE

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

No anarchists were in 1908 Santa Rosa, but it seemed like they were under rocks everywhere else in America that spring as new incidents of terrorism kept roiling through the headlines. If you read the Press Democrat along with one of the San Francisco newspapers, here’s what you knew:

The terror spree began late February in Denver, when an anarchist gunned down a Catholic priest during mass. A few days later, it was reported nationwide that “Denver police are working on theory of a plot,” in part because a witness saw “two foreigners, apparently Italians, at the church, one of whom pointed out the clergyman.” Police discovered that the Italian killer was part of a gang of forty anarchists who had recently come to America, and men in six other cities were part of the plot.

On the very same day as the priest’s funeral, a young man rang the doorbell of George Shippy, Chicago’s chief of police. Shippy was immediately suspicious; the mayor had just banned famed anarchist Emma Goldman from speaking in Chicago, and authorities expected retaliation. The police chief grabbed the visitor and ordered his wife to search for weapons. A scuffle resulted and the chief’s adult son and chauffeur raced into the room. Shots were fired, and the son and driver were wounded. The visitor was struck by six bullets and soon died. Police quickly linked him to an anarchist group and a plot to also assassinate the mayor and captain of the detective bureau.

Rumors flew that the attacks on the Denver priest and Chicago police chief were part of a single conspiracy. In the weeks that followed, police were posted at Catholic churches in Chicago and elsewhere, and police chiefs in several cities received death threats.

The Secretary of Commerce and Labor directed immigration inspectors to work with local police to round up and deport suspected anarchists, a move applauded by newspapers nationwide. The Washington Post went furthest and called for “the scum of foreign countries” to be executed. The government suppressed an anarchist newspaper and President Roosevelt personally ordered the postmaster general to ban another publication from the U.S. mails. Teddy denounced anarchists as “the enemies of mankind” and their philosophy “an offense far more infamous than that of ordinary murder.”

At the end of March came the worst violence yet, as a card-carrying anarchist tried to throw a bomb into a crowd of policemen who were maintaining order in New York’s Union Square following a “desperate socialistic riot.” The explosive went off in the bomb-maker’s hands instead, maiming him fatally and killing a bystander. Identified as a “Williamsburg Anarchist” (a section of Brooklyn said to be a hotbed for socialists and anarchists), the police searched his rooms and found letters from famed anarchists Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman. To many, this was proof of a wide-reaching terror conspiracy against the United States.

Those were the facts as you believed them from reading the newspapers available in Santa Rosa, March, 1908. But here’s the believe-it-or-not twist: By the end of the month, every single actual link to the anarchist movement was proven false.

* The man who murdered the Denver priest said in a rambling first statement – translated from Italian, since he spoke no English – that he killed the Catholic priest because he really, really, hated Catholic priests: “I have grudge against all priests in general…my only regret is that I couldn’t have shot a whole bunch of priests in the church.” He told authorities that if he hadn’t been apprehended he was intending to visit four other churches and kill the priests there. Was he an anarchist? In another statement, he explained his political views were guided by the elderly shoemaker whom he had served as an apprentice in Sicily: “I had been inclined to anarchy, but I never understood its teachings thoroughly.” The reporter also noted “his talk is not coherent and he is evidently inventing stories as he goes along–stories that do not fit together.”

* In Chicago, the coroner found that police chief Shippy had killed his would-be assassin in self defense. The jury heard no testimony that the deceased was an anarchist, despite stories that had appeared in the press describing in great detail his role in a conspiracy (San Francisco Call headline: “CHICAGO REDS IN BIG MURDER PLOT”). Shippy said he had premonitions that someone would try to kill him, and testified that he was suspicious of the man because he thought he saw the bulge of a weapon under his coat, and “he looked to me like an anarchist…there was overspread his face the most vindictive look I ever saw upon a human countenance.” (According to the New York Times’ coverage, another reason for suspicion was because “[he] apparently had dressed himself for death. He wore black clothes and overcoat, a new hat, and clean linen, all of fairly good quality.”) No evidence was presented that the bullets that wounded Shippy’s son and driver were shot by the visitor and not Shippy himself, firing wildly. The reason for the visit remains a mystery today, but the best explanation was that Lazarus Averbuch, a Russian Jew, was planning to return to his homeland and wanted to ask the chief of police for a letter stating that he was not a criminal, as was the custom when leaving a European city. Chief Shippy did not return to his position and resigned two months later. He died in 1911 from syphilis, the final stage of which can result in hallucinations and paranoia.

* The Union Square bomber was not connected to the demonstration earlier that day, when mounted police had brutally suppressed a crowd of up to 25,000 who had gathered to protest the desperate unemployment situation. (Because of the 1907 bank panic, unemployment in New York state had reached 36 percent, with 200,000 estimated to be out of work in New York City alone.) The bomber instead was a 19 year-old Russian immigrant who had lived in the U.S. most of his life and who had a grudge against police because he had been recently clubbed by an officer. “The police are no good,” he said before he died of his wounds a month later. “I hate them. I am sorry that I did not make good…It was the police that I wanted.” The incriminating letters found in his apartment from anarchist leaders turned out to be mimeographed fund-raising appeals.

But not many knew that the anarchy conspiracy was bunk; few papers at the time ever published followup articles to correct errors, no matter how whopping. The public was left with the assumption that a dangerous cabal of murderous anarchists was plotting an ongoing campaign of terror. In truth, by 1908 the winds of anarchism had mostly blown through in America, with only six newsletters nationwide – and one of them lasting only a single issue. Of that dwindly group of true believers, only a tiny sliver still advocated violence as a means to an end. No one was deported under the Secretary of Commerce and Labor’s anarchy crackdown edict.

CLICK or TAP on any cartoon to enlarge. The label on the middle cartoon reads, “undesirable citizens”

In those days the Press Democrat didn’t offer much coverage of national news events except for a paragraph or so on the front page; for the attacks blamed on anarchists, the PD offered four short items, an op/ed reprinted from another paper and the three inflammatory editorial cartoons shown here. No updates corrected the wildly inaccurate earlier stories, but again, that was typical. Readers nationwide were left with the muddled impression that anarchists, certain immigrants, organized labor, and anti-clerical fanatics all fit under the same umbrella of “Reds.” Most dishonest of all was trying to also wedge in the large Socialist Party – the PD’s wire story about the Union Square unemployment protest called it a “desperate socialistic riot…of the anarchists,” for example. The main threat the Party posed was to the Democratic/Republican status quo, as over 420,000 ballots were cast later that year for the Socialist presidential candidate, about three percent of the popular vote.

If scholars wanted to pinpoint the beginning of the Red Scare that consumed the remainder of the American 20th century, March 1908 would be a good choice. (This was also the year that there were fears that Japan was planning to invade.) The country was so riven with fear of anarchist bogeymen that the Indiana town of Wawaka (pop. 800) received a letter demanding $750 or the whole town would be blown up. The letter was signed “Anarchists.” Unbelievably, this obvious prank was taken seriously.

Make no mistake: The phony anarchist scare was entirely the fault of yellow journalism and not an actual threat. Nor was it a scheme by the government, police, church, or politicians to demonize the “Reds,” although each of these groups made stuff up or repeated rumor as fact. But at the same time, those organizations benefited by channeling the public’s fear into more popular support for violent police suppression of protest and free speech by reformers. And that in turn generated more headlines about the lurking Red Menace. A classic analysis of this period, “The Search for Order,” sums up how the country became more divided as a result:


“Straws in the wind appeared everywhere around 1908. Critics who had only grumbled about national reform earlier now cried “socialism” and “communism.’ Organized labor received particularly heavy abuse, with each hint of violence reported as the first gun of civil war…the various organizations that brought unionists and businessmen together for conversation and adjustment were dying from disuse. In grays rather than purples, the atmosphere surrounding labor relations darkened a bit year by year.”

RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER READING

America, 1908 by Jim Rasenberger

The Anarchist Scare of 1908 by Robert J. Goldstein

The Search for Order, 1877-1920 by Robert H. Wiebe

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carnival1

A LOVELY DAY, A MONSTROUS SWAN

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

If your town must have a reputation, it’s not bad being known as the place that throws the best parties. From before the Civil War to beyond WWI, the festivals at Healdsburg were frequent and famous, drawing crowds of thousands even in horse and buggy days.

The Santa Rosa papers treated these events like hometown affairs, showering the preparations and celebration itself with the kind of laudatory attention given the town’s own Rose Festival. Who would be named queen, and who would be her attendants? Was a marching band coming from San Francisco? Santa Rosans wanted to know these details because they were sure to attend in force. Despite being the largest town in the area, there wasn’t much to do in Santa Rosa; the town didn’t even have a single public park. Yes, there was the Grace Brother’s beer garden at the corner of Fourth St. and McDonald Ave. but that was privately owned so it wasn’t always open, and worse, suffered from decades of neglect; the 1908 fire map reported structures were “old and dilapidated.” If you liked roller skating or swimming the skating pavilion and pool were open most of the year, but such options fell far short of a true park, where kids could frolic as the rest of the family stretched out and picnicked on grass or shore. For those primal Victorian-era pleasures, Santa Rosans took the electric trolley to places like Graton, where thousands waved the stars and stripes at the 1906 Fourth of July. Or they rode the train to fruit or gardening celebrations held at Cloverdale or Healdsburg. it was a bit like Sonoma County was burdened with a wealthy uncle who just expected he could drop by unannounced upon his poor relations to mooch a holiday dinner.

Healdsburg’s festive traditions began in 1857 with the “May Day Festival and Knighthood Tournament,” which was quite Renaissance Faire-ish, complete with jousting and other competitions from days of yore. (“Healdsburg’s Festivals and Parades” by Hannah Clayborn is the primary source for much of my information on the background of these events, along with “Splash from the Past” by Holly Hoods.) The year following Santa Rosa’s first Rose Festival in 1894, Healdsburg shifted likewise to a floral fest; while there were still men in armor clanking about the sidelines, the local paper reported that 5,000 were drawn to the town to witness the mile-long pageant of elaborate floats.

The last street flower parade was held in 1904, and was followed by an incident that might have gotten dangerously out of hand. The Windsor Herald published an anonymous poem titled, “In Healdsburg” that poked fun at the town in a most unfunny way. Besides calling the residents “an anarchistic bunch” – a potent insult for the day – there was a racial slur against the queen of the festival, Isabel Simi, the 18 year-old daughter of an Italian immigrant. (That same year, this young woman found herself the manager of the Simi Winery when her father and uncle unexpectedly died.) Healdsburg was outraged, and an effigy of Ande Nowlin, editor of the Windsor paper, was burned in front of the Union Hotel. In fact, they were so outraged that they saved part of the effigy to burn again the following day, when a crowd that stretched beyond two blocks participated in a mock funeral for the editor. “There was no doubt as to the excitement and feeling of resentment the lines had caused in Healdsburg,” the Press Democrat understated.

Perhaps fearing that festival mania had become a bit too manic, it was four years before there was another Healdsburg extravaganza. The 1908 Water Carnival was worth the wait.

The concept of an event centered upon the Russian River was not new; Gaye LeBaron wrote there were earlier “Logger’s Picnics” in 19th century summers, with lotsa log rollin’ and wood choppin’ fun. Monte Rio held a “Venetian Water Carnival” in 1907, complete with a parade of decorated boats. But the Healdsburg Water Carnival raised high the bar; with more than a generation of experience hosting such blowout events, the Healdsburgers put on quite a show. A brass band greeted arriving trains and led visitors to “Lake Sotoyome” (now Memorial Beach, but with a higher water level set by the dam). San Francisco’s Olympic Club performed a high diving exhibition from the railroad bridge, there was a firemen’s tournament with competing departments from Marin and Sonoma Counties, and a concert by the San Francisco firemen’s band. After dark there was a grand ball on a dance floor by the beach, fireworks, and a midnight farewell as the orchestra played “Home, Sweet Home.”

(RIGHT: The lost Van Gogh, “Carnival on the Water at Healdsburg”)

But ah, the centerpiece. The grand water parade was truly grand; the floats – now literally floating – were larger and more stately than anything that could have been pulled by horse or motorcar down Main street. On one float Dr. Morse’s wife, Bertha, posed as Cleopatra; on another the festival’s queen and maids of honor – check out the elegant feathered hats – were surrounded by giant artificial water lilies. The Rosenberg and Bush department store presented a float with “Swastika good luck emblems.” And then there was the “Monstrous Swan” entry from banker E. B. Snook, the secrets of ifs artful construction sadly now lost.

The water carnival made the old street parades seem rather flat, and gone were poor sightlines from the crowded sidewalks. Spectators could watch the water parade from the riverbank, from the railroad bridge above, or even from a boat, making themselves a bit of background in the show. The many surviving photographs of the 1908 and 1909 water carnivals also differ in being unposed. In every picture are seen people in motion – boats being pulled or rowed into position; a man in derby leaning forward from the prow of a rowboat for a closer look; a dozen or more kids packed tightly together on the edge of a dock, their toes dangling barely above the river. These are scenes that suggest paintings by great impressionists such as Monet or Van Gogh, and there are some photos that make one ponder what Seurat’s “La Grande Jatte” might have looked like if viewed from the riverside, while riding in a rowboat garlanded deep with California poppies.

Healdsburgers revived the water carnival in 2011, and are planning an even greater event on July 14, 2012. Float applications are now being accepted, although the first guideline is a notice that one particular design is reserved: “The Swan is taken. (we have a series of engineers and very brilliant people creating a replica – sorry).” Ed Snook would be so proud.

(Photos courtesy Sonoma County Library)

 

THOUSANDS OF LOYAL SUBJECT PAY HOMAGE TO FAIR QUEEN WINIFRED
Success Smiles on the Healdsburg Carnival
Day and Night of Pleasure for Everybody–Beautiful Illuminations of City and Lake–The Prize Winners–Fireworks Display–Queen Opens Ball

Fine weather, the presence of thousands of merry people, a firemen’s tournament, coronation of a gracious sovereign, grand pageant on Lake Sotoyome, aquatic sports and dancing in the day time, and magnificent illuminations up town, and on the lake, a splendid display of fireworks on the water, and a grand ball at night, with plenty of band music and entertainment at all times, made the first annual water carnival which was the glory of Healdsburg on Saturday a triumphant success.

The Ladies’ Improvement Club, the Healdsburg Chamber of Commerce and all those who contributed to make the water carnival a success must have felt happy and well repaid for their effort by the crowds that congregated within the gates of the ever loyal city to the north. People came from far and near to attend the pageant. They were all pleased and compliments were bestowed on all hands. It was a proud day for Healdsburg, one long to be remembered.

At early morning the people began to flock into the city. Hundreds of people arrived from Mendocino county and northern Sonoma on the special train from points north. From the south two big trains carried hundreds more. Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Cloverdale, Ukiah, Geyserville, Sebastopol, and all way points contributed well to swell the crowd. All roads led to Healdsburg, and from ten o’clock in the morning when the parade formed at the depot and marched up town until the last strains of “Home, Sweet Home,” had been played by the orchestra at the close of the grand ball at midnight in the city and lake rang with merriment.

In the firemen’s tournament in which the Petaluma, Healdsburg, and Mill Valley teams competed, the first prize was won by the Petaluma department, under Chief Meyers. Healdsburg was second and Mill Valley, third. Petaluma captured another prize, her float being awarded first premium.

Of course the main feature of the afternoon was the coronation of Queen Winifred, which took place on the royal barge on the lake. It was a pretty coronation scene. The band played, the people cheered, and Queen Winifred’s joyous reign was auspiciously inaugurated.

Queen Winifred’s maid of honor were…

[…]

Following the coronation came the parade of gaily decorated flats, rowboats, canoes, etc. The floats were of striking design. The Healdsburg Woman’s Improvement Club Float, “Cleopatra,” met with hearty recognition at the hands of the assembled throngs. On the float Mrs. Edgar Morse represented Cleopatra…

The Petaluma float, representing “California,” garlanded with a wealth of California poppies, won first prize. The float representing a large white swan, in which the Misses Snook were seated, entered by E. B. Snook, won second prize. Other notable floats were entered by the Woodmen of the World, the Odd Fellows and Rebekahs of Healdsburg. In the row boat division in which there were many entries, the one representing “Water Lilies,” in which the Misses Tully rowed, won first prize, and the boat entered by Joe Miller took second prize. The Healdsburg Red Men, in true Indian costume, paddled canoes and were given much attention. The water parade was a big success…

[…]

At night–and Healdsburg people can justly feel proud of this feature–the plaza and business center of the town was brilliantly illuminated with strings of vari-colored electric globes. The City Hall was outlined by clusters of lights. In addition the business establishments were prettily decorated. In the plaza, the firemen’s band from San Francisco gave a concert in the first part of the evening. Thousands of people witnessed the fireworks and illuminations on Lake Sotoyome. The Healdsburg band played for the concert and dancing on the platform on the lake. The grand ball was opened by Queen Winifred.

Here’s to continued success and progress for Healdsburg. And here’s a prediction that the second water carnival next year will be an even greater success than the first.

– Press Democrat, August 16, 1908

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