The Press Democrat did a cross promotion with KSRO where a newspaper photographer would take a picture of someone during a "Man on the Street" interview. If your face was circled in the photo printed the next day you won a prize (in this case, a turkey) by identifying yourself. Press Democrat, Dec. 15 1937

KSRO IS ON THE AIR

January 23, 2021January 23, 2021 Jeff Elliott 1 Comment

The high school auditorium was packed that Sunday morning in 1937 with people from all over Sonoma county. Uniformed boy scouts ushered the last of the audience to their seats as an announcer hushed the audience. Promptly at 10:30, the speakers crackled to life with a recording of the Star-Spangled Banner.

Waiting at the microphone for the music to finish was a slight 67 year-old man in his customary three-piece suit. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. With the playing of the national anthem, station KSRO, voice of the Redwood Empire, takes the air for the first time.” He continued with the required sign on announcement before ending: “This is Ernest Finley speaking and I now turn this fine new radio station over to the people of the Redwood Empire for their use and enjoyment.”

Finley wasn’t really handing over KSRO to the public, of course – he was the sole owner of the station as well as the two newspapers in town, the Santa Rosa Republican and the Press Democrat, where he was also editor and publisher. The papers would promote the station which would promote the papers. So cozy was this little media empire that the broadcasting studios were in the PD building on Mendocino Ave.

After an invocation by the rector of the Church of the Incarnation and playing a recording of religious music, the live program continued with 15-minute salutes to Marin county and seven communities in Sonoma. Usually the mayor said a few words which were followed by music from someone in that town – there had been talent contests over the previous weeks to choose the artists. Santa Rosa was represented by a singer and Walter Trembley, harmonica virtuoso; Cloverdale sent Glen Bonham, imitator.

There were other live performances that day woven between recorded music before the big dedicatory program at 3:00, where the mayor of San Francisco spoke and the KSRO orchestra performed, along with others. The hour long program closed with an audience singalong.

And that was pretty much the end of the first broadcast day, September 19, 1937. The station signed off at 6PM, having only a permit to operate from dawn to dusk. This was typical of little commercial stations all over the country; night hours were only for the high power clear channel stations that could sometimes be heard for a thousand miles. With its 250 watt (!) transmitter, KSRO reached from San Rafael to Ukiah – but came in as far away as Eureka and San Jose when conditions were ideal.

By 1937 the radio market was well-established in the Bay Area. Probably any radio in Sonoma County could pick up the big stations in San Francisco such as KGO, KSFO and KPO (which became KNBR), which were network affiliates broadcasting all the popular programs we associate with the golden age of radio. During the day there were the soaps, including Vic and Sade, Our Gal Sunday and Ma Perkins; in the evening were the top shows such as Burns and Allen, One Man’s Family, Amos ‘n’ Andy, Gangbusters, Jack Benny.

(RIGHT: KSRO schedule for September 24, 1937; local programming highlighted)

Pipsqueak independent stations like KSRO instead relied on a mix of local programming and a transcription service (the one first used by KSRO was NBC’s Thesaurus, upgraded soon to World). A subscribing station would get 16-inch records that played at 33¹⁄₃RPM, which would provide fifteen minutes of content per side. Thus a station operating on the cheap could fill much (even all!) of its schedule using just an engineer and an announcer – who could also be the engineer – to read commercials and announce time/call letters. And as you see by this schedule taken from its first week of broadcasting, that’s pretty much what KSRO did at the beginning.

The problem with transcription services was that their offerings often… sucked. In its earliest weeks KSRO mostly played transcriptions of D-list musicians such as the Mountaineers hillbilly band (who apparently never made a record) and Robin Hood Bowers (somewhat known for a 1919 ditty, “The Moon Shines on the Moonshine”). The station also broadcast generic canned programs with titles like “Melody Time” and “Rhythm Makers.” It was music to do chores by.

Those transcription shows were mostly sustained (unsponsored, except promos for other shows or perhaps Finley’s newspapers) because KSRO didn’t have many advertisers at its outset. The first sponsor was mentioned only a few days before the premiere broadcast – the White House Department Store would advertise on the noon newscast.

Among other early live studio programs were 15 minute weekly shows by The Rincon Valley Ramblers, a quartet which entertained sometimes at lodge or club meetings, and “Songs of the Island,” with Hawaiian melodies sung by the Carroll Boys from Napa: Slip, Arky, Gat and Alky. There was the 30-minute “Mickey Mouse Club” on Fridays at 4, which resurrected the riotous live show that once commandeered the California Theater on Saturday afternoons (see “LET’S ALL YELL AT THE MICKEY MOUSE MATINEE“).

On weekdays the anchoring live show was the mid-afternoon “Time for Tea,” which was completely free form. There were usually announcements from women’s clubs, churches and the like, but you might also hear some kid scraping his bow across a violin string or squeezing an accordion. They sometimes did a “Name That Tune” type game show or brought in an elementary school class to do a spelling bee.

The popular morning “Breakfast Club” opened the broadcast day at 7 (sadistically, by beating a gong that nearly blew out your speaker) and received lots of mail because the host encouraged listeners to send in their birthdates to be announced on air. A farmer from the Sonoma Valley who wanted to sell his ranch wrote that he would come on the show and do his (presumably terrific) imitation of a calf and a squeaky clothesline in trade for commercials.

Gradually over the first couple of months their live programming pushed out more of the transcribed shows. KSRO was becoming a radio station that locals wanted to actively listen to instead of just being a source of ignorable background music.

Remotes were a large reason for the station’s success. They kept their portable transmitter busy; Evelyn Billing’s organ concerts on the grand instrument at the California Theater were always popular, although sometimes she played at the Chapel of the Chimes, which wasn’t exactly a venue where one expected to hear peppy dance tunes.

They broadcast SRHS and Petaluma High football games live from the 50 yard line; Sunday morning church services; KSRO was there for the opening of Rosenberg’s Department Store (now Barnes & Noble). They took the equipment to Healdsburg to cover their Veterans Day celebration: “If the weather is nice you will get a word by word picture of the parade, bands and all. If it rains you will probably get a drop by drop sound of a rainstorm in the Redwood Empire.”

Most of all, they broadcast live every weekday at 12:45 from the Exchange Bank corner downtown. The “Man on the Street” show was easily KSRO’s most popular program of 1937. The very first question asked: “Do you think Santa Rosa should have stop lights at downtown intersections?”

KSRO wasn’t the first radio station in Santa Rosa, however. Years before – as the radio era was just beginning – there was KFNV, broadcasting with a mighty five watts from March 1924 to October 1925, off on Sundays.

Lennard Drake – yes, that’s the spelling – and his wife Aimee, who ran the Drake Battery and Radio Shop downtown, convinced the publisher of the Republican (not yet owned by Finley) to provide space for an equipment room at the newspaper’s office on Fifth street. They put it together with the aid of local radio entusiasts and using gear unapproved by the government.

Programming at KFNV was mainly phonograph records, a player piano and anyone who drifted in to talk. Their only regularly scheduled program was the “Sunset Matinee,” a 6:30PM children’s program of bedtime stories by “dear oid Uncle Silas.” The Republican radio columnist noted Silas was the father of two and “I know for I have had the pleasure of seeing them” – which is such an odd thing to write that it makes one wonder if there were whispers about the doings over at La Casa Silas.

In 1937 Lennard was interviewed by the PD and said the station folded because of lack of sponsorship. “Radio was [considered] just a child’s toy, a fancy of the moment.” Aimee added, “no one, of course, in those days foresaw commercial sponsors.” Apparently the only advertisers were the Drake radio store and the Republican. (By 1937 the Drakes had dropped the radio business and were now selling electrical supplies, including fixtures and wiring for KSRO.)

A dozen years passed between the end of KFNV and birth of KSRO and in that time radio had become an essential part of daily life. By 1937 there were 28,000 households from San Rafael to Ukiah where the radio was on 3-4 hours during the day – all listening to commercials for stores in San Francisco, Oakland or Sacramento.

Not having a local station was also a big reminder that the North Bay wasn’t a full-fledged member of the Bay Area. Promoters and developers in Marin and Sonoma counties had pushed through construction of the Golden Gate Bridge primarily to draw tourists and increase property values; when it opened just a few months before KSRO went on the air, Finley spoke of the “untold advantages and development for Santa Rosa” the bridge would bring.

Likewise KSRO wouldn’t be intended only for locals seeking department store sales on tea towels. For those tuning in from the fringes of its reception area, it also would serve as an advertisement for Sonoma county itself – that this was a great place if you were thinking of buying a little chicken farm or looking to escape the city. The homey vibe of shows like “Time for Tea” were a panacea to the slick productions cranked out by the networks and big urban stations.

But Finley et. al. weren’t alone in viewing the region as an untapped market; when the Press Democrat Publishing Company filed for a broadcasting permit from the Federal Communications Commission in early 1935, there was already someone ahead of them in line.

Two men from Berkeley, Arthur Westland and Jules Cohn, had applied for a 100 watt station to cover Santa Rosa alone. They were pioneers in the radio biz and operated KRE in Berkeley, a station which dated back to 1922.

In February of 1935 the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce – always in lockstep with Finley and the PD – sent the FCC a telegram asking them to deny the Berkeley application because Westland had falsely told the Commission “there was no opposition to the proposal.” Two months later an FCC examiner recommended denying Westland and Cohn. The reasons, according to the PD, were that it was “not shown there was a substantial need for additional broadcast service in that area” and that any station was unlikely to be a viable business because there just wasn’t enough interest.

Yet that same April there was a formal hearing on Finley’s application. Presumably he and others attended that meeting in Washington, but it wasn’t mentioned in either newspaper at the time. Final arguments for the permit were made in October 1936, and a month later the FCC denied the Berkeley-ites and granted the license to Finley.

Both of Finley’s newspapers covered the 1937 build-out of KSRO obsessively. Readers saw photos of the antenna going up in the Laguna – it was at the corner of modern-day Finley and Leddy avenues – and the transmission “shack” built at its base (it remained there even after the antenna was moved close to Stony Point Road, but burned up in a 1968 fire caused by homeless squatters).

The papers also admiringly described the remodeling done to turn the second floor of the Press Democrat office into broadcast studios (alas, no photos). Since the rooms had to be soundproof there were no windows; there was a gee-whiz astonishment that they were to be air conditioned full time.

They hoped to be running by August 15 so they could broadcast remote from the county fair, but obstacles arose which were not explained. But a month later there was that ceremony where 750 people packed into the high school auditorium.

KSRO was now on the air.

Guerneville during the 1937 flood. Photo courtesy Sonoma County Library

The station may have continued down its uneventful path for years, slowly building an audience as it kept improving local programming. But before it was even three months old its coming of age moment arrived: People’s lives became dependent upon listening to KSRO.

In December 10-11, all of Northern California was saturated by ultra-massive rains. The PD called it “worst storm in all history” and “the greatest havoc ever wreaked in Sonoma County.” Unfortunately, we can’t compare it to other disasters because Russian River flood records are inexact before 1940 – but old-timers insisted it was the worst in 60-70 years. It was the damage caused by this flood that would eventually lead to the construction of the Warm Springs Dam.

Parts of Healdsburg were under ten feet of water and the deck of its railroad (Memorial) bridge was covered. Goats and calves were herded into a church near the town – and then had to be moved again a couple of hours later when the water reached the church. A two story house from Rio Nido was hurled against the Guerneville Bridge. Before the water reached the switchboard, operators at the Monte Rio telephone exchange were wearing hip boots and standing in 40 inches of water.

The Russian River kept rising, first three inches an hour, then four. Five. Electricity was out everywhere and phone service was spotty. Hundreds of families, hungry and cold, were huddled in upstairs bedrooms, in attics, on their roof and nobody knew how bad it would get or what to do – unless you had a battery-powered radio tuned to KSRO.

News bulletins from the station warned listeners to conserve drinking water because well pumps wouldn’t be working for days. There were phone interviews with mayors or other officials in many of the hard-hit towns, updating citizens on the latest conditions. There were road reports from AAA. In Geyserville, the director of relief work announced on KSRO that anyone needing help should fly a white flag from the top of their house. Soon a dozen or more flags were spotted by volunteers with binoculars watching from high ground and they directed rescue boats where to go.

Amazingly, no one died locally during the disaster – and KSRO surely must deserve some measure of credit for that.

(RIGHT: KSRO schedule for August 6, 1938; local programming highlighted. Capitalized shows were sponsored)

In the months that followed the local radio columnists mentioned the growing amount of fan mail being received by “KSRO personalities.” Live programming was now about half the schedule. Added to the schedule were popular new shows such as “KSROlling Along,” the “Italian Program With Guiseppe Comelli,” and the “X-Bar-B Cowhands.” The country-western band was a bit of a coup for the station as they already had a following, having been heard on a San Francisco station for six years before the group moved to the Russian River area.

Finally KSRO gained permission for evening broadcasts and as of August 1, 1938 it was now on the air up to 11 o’clock, midnight on weekends. As before, there was a dedication ceremony (this one featuring 21 year-old Miss Ruth Finley, “concert pianist”) and a short speech by Ernest Finley. He said, in part:

In inaugurating Station KSRO, we were pleased to call it the ‘Voice of the Redwood Empire.’ We feel that it has been just that. Every effort has been made to bring the various communities of the Redwood Empire closer together. Our survey shows that Station KSRO has a listening audience of 150,000 persons. This does not take into account Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, San Francisco or any of the cities about the bay, in many of which reception is fully as good as it is here.

In some ways that moment was as significant as the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge for Sonoma county. KSRO had brought all of us closer together via its news coverage during the flood. And although Finley was thinking of the promotional value of the station luring Bay Area residents, it also meant we could take part of our community with us when we went away.

As your car crossed the beautiful bridge and the northern counties slipped from sight behind the city hills, the signal might become crackly and drift in and out – but it would always be a steady beacon which would later guide you home.

"Night Time Now KSRO Time" Press Democrat, July 31, 1938 — “Night Time Now KSRO Time” Press Democrat, July 31, 1938

KSRO Orchestra. Santa Rosa Republican, September 18, 1937

"KSRO Greets You". Santa Rosa Republican, September 18, 1937 — “KSRO Greets You”. Santa Rosa Republican, September 18, 1937

THE ANTI-VAXXERS OF 1920

March 18, 2019March 18, 2019 Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

The past is just a story we keep telling ourselves.

That’s a throwaway line from a recent film, “Her” (good movie) and not entirely original; “[something is] a story we tell ourselves” first appeared around 1960 and has become exponentially more popular since then, as shown by Google’s Ngram Viewer. What makes this version memorable, however, is that it’s uniquely wrong.

History (for the most part) is a story we DON’T keep telling ourselves. We only talk about an event when it’s big and momentous or directly related to our lives in the here and now. A more accurate version of the quote would be, “The past is just a story we keep forgetting to tell ourselves” and as a result, we don’t learn from the past and find ourselves repeating it. History is not a guide to understand our march toward the future; history is a treadmill.

This article is part of a series on the 1920s culture wars, an era with numerous parallels to America today – and no issue has found itself resonating again as much as the anti-vaccination movement. I’ve written twice before about the “antis” of a century ago (here’s part one and part two) but to recap and expand:

The only vaccine that existed in the early 20th century was against smallpox (MMR, HepB, DTaP, RV or any of the other modern vaccines were decades away). Since 1889 California had required all children to present a smallpox vaccination certificate when they registered for school. Opponents lobbied Sacramento to pass a couple of bills repealing the law but governors vetoed the legislation both times. The state Supreme Court upheld the requirement in 1904 and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the same way the following year. Yet the anti-vaccinationists never gave up; they kept forming grassroots anti chapters, signing repeal petitions and writing letters. At the start of every school year some parents would keep their kids at home or protest to the school board – some apparently not over vaccine anxiety but because they couldn’t afford to consult a doctor. More on this in a moment.

At the same time a new anti-vaccine ally popped up in California: The chiropractors.

Over a century ago there were some three dozen types of physicians; some were licensed in some states, with many like Mrs. Preston of Cloverdale, operating in a gray area by claiming they were not really practicing medicine. Among the fields of quackery were eclecticism (adjusting the 12 “tissue salts” in the body), electropathy, homeopathy, hydropathy, vitaopathy, psychiropathy (apparently a combo of hypnotism with massage) and naturopathy.

Chiropracty stood out for several reasons, particularly because a treatment could result in immediate pain relief in some cases. They also had more training than other alternative physicians, spending a year at the Palmer School of Chiropractic in Iowa. But as noted in a 1921 exposé written by a member of the California state medical board, no applicants at the time were turned away and not even required to have a grammar school education. There was an emphasis on teaching salesmanship and how to use publicity, with the school running a large printing office to create newspaper advertising and pamphlets. The message they were selling was that chiropracty could cure any disease and conventional medicine was useless.¹

The first chiropractor appeared in the Bay Area in 1904 and one set up office in Santa Rosa five years later. By 1922 there were seven in the City of Roses, most of them clustered in the new Rosenberg building at the corner of Fourth and Mendocino. They distinguished themselves from quack healers using gimmicks and sold themselves as pioneers of a new wave of medicine embracing up-to-date technology – note the ad below for the “X-ray chiropractor.” They were men of science whose livelihood depended upon peddling notions that germs didn’t cause disease and vaccines were a hoax.

: George Von Ofen was not Santa Rosa’s first chiropractor but he was the most prominent by 1922, running these large display ads in the Press Democrat

Their basic text, the 1906 “Science of Chiropractic,” denounced vaccinations as dangerous and often lethal. (Don’t miss the long section on sales and marketing where students were promised they would make lots of money.) Written by chiropractics founder Daniel David Palmer – who had earlier claimed he possessed magnetic hands – the book was filled with dangerous misinformation. Smallpox was not contagious (he said it’s spread by bedbugs) and spinal adjustments could cure polio, asthma and cancers (which were caused by “too much heat produced by calorific nerves”). It spread fear about vaccines with its heart-wrenching photos of deceased children along with anecdotes from their bereaved parents and by making outrageous statements which were not remotely true, such as “[vaccination] has now been made a crime in England”.

It’s surely no coincidence the antis’ literature soon began to mimic his style. There was more hyperbole (a 1907 letter in the Santa Rosa Republican claimed “vaccination is responsible for more or less of leprosy”) and conspiracy-think: Doctors were trying to bamboozle people by using “cooked-up statistics,” all in order to perform a large scale experiment on the public and/or make themselves rich on fees from giving injections. To support their case, the antis followed Palmer’s example by leaning hard on unverifiable anecdotes and outright lying about events – see sidebar.

–

MR. TAYLOR’S DECEITS

The antis loved quoting experts, as long as they knew nothing about public health medicine or were comfortably deceased. The PD printed a letter in 1913 from Samuel Taylor of the California Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League which claimed to quote “noted physicians” such as Dr. A. Vogt of Berne University, who supposedly examined the records of 400,000 vaccinations and lost all confidence that smallpox vaccination worked. “Vaccination is a curse,” another doc supposedly said. Taylor never revealed he apparently rustled his info from pamphlets of earlier anti-vaccinationists and the supposed quotes related back as far as the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. This little assortment of dismal tidbits can be found reprinted in American newspapers through the early 1950s.

The Press Democrat letter was also notable because it closed with an anecdote which had nothing to do vaccination, but revealed a sophisticated understanding of how propaganda works:

Just a hint to parents. In Winnetka, Illinois, girls in the new Trier High School were compelled to submit to complete physical examination. They were taken to the gymnasium and stripped of all their clothing. In the presence of other girls they were examined. A request from their parents to excuse them, and a physician’s certificate were ignored. The Inspector and the school authorities held themselves superior to both parents and family physician. The girls were led to the gymnasium and compelled to submit. When a protest was filed on the ground that the Schools were free and no physical examination could be required as a qualification of admission, the newspapers published the story. The board of education met, and decided that the physical examination was not required for admission to the high school, which was public and free.

In truth, there was a complaint from one 16 year-old girl who signed up for a physical education class; she and about ten other girls were brought to the female instructor’s office and told to change into robes, as they needed to be checked for skin diseases before being allowed to use the swimming pool. The facts were altered to evoke a reader’s feelings of disgust and anger – emotions which are well-known for their success at leading to people develop strong negative opinions about something.² Taylor’s goal was to polarize the public’s views against schoolkids being “compelled to submit” to authorities for medical reasons.

While they always played the underdog, the antis rarely lost. In 1910 they won a surprise victory when a Superior Court judge ruled the vaccination law only applied to students in public schools; the decision caused excitement statewide with the Press Democrat printing the story at the top of the front page. (The judge also said there was no need for enforcement as there was no epidemic at the time, revealing his bias in favor of the anti-vaccinationists.)

Less than a year later they won a bigger prize. The state made vaccination optional, and any family with “conscientious scruples against vaccination” could opt-out as long as they submitted a no-consent form at the start of the school year. The new law declared any students not vaccinated would be blocked from attending only in the case of an epidemic.

Smallpox cases quickly began to increase. Over the next eighteen months there were 279 reported cases in the state with at least ten deaths (that was up to March, 1913; final statistics for that year alone show 800 cases and 15 dead). In Berkeley, five of the eight people who contracted smallpox died. Unbelievably, propagandist Samuel Taylor put a positive spin on this news: “The percentage was very small, about one case to every eight thousand inhabitants.” Not reassured, over a thousand UC/Berkeley students rushed to get revaccinated or receive their first vaccine.

Taylor, always a publicity hound, also pushed his way into the newspapers during a dramatic 1914 incident in Oakland. It was discovered that a conductor on the train coming from Oregon was infected and the cars were sidetracked before reaching the station. Oakland health officer Dr. Allen Gillihan, with assistants and police, boarded the train and forcibly vaccinated the 56 passengers. (Two mothers with small children refused and were not vaccinated.) Taylor made the papers by telling the press an assemblyman was going to introduce an emergency bill to have manslaughter brought against Dr. Gillihan should any of the passengers die because of the vaccine – although odds of which were nil.

For the rest of the 1910s all was (mostly) quiet on the anti front – nothing more can even be found from the very vocal Mr. Taylor. “The number of parents who are conscientiously opposed to vaccination has dwindled from an alarmingly large number to practically none at all,” remarked the Press Democrat in 1919. That year over 500 children received vaccinations paid for by the Santa Rosa school district, so the expense of a doctor’s visit must have played a significant part in earlier protests. Dr. Gillihan – who became Santa Rosa’s health officer not long after the train vaccination – was now an inspector for the State Board of Health, and similarly vaccinated 1,800 in Chico in one week. There he was charged with battery over not having a parent’s vaccination consent, which shows there were still diehards.

And that brings us to the watershed year of 1920. The California ballot that year must have puzzled voters. Amid the usual assortment of items regarding taxes and bonds were two propositions which we would today consider feel-good questions. One seemed to oppose the torture of animals; the other stopped schools and the state government from discriminating against sick kids. Who could oppose things like that?

Although the items seemed harmless enough, on closer look a more distressing agenda appeared. Prop. 6 would have made vaccination entirely voluntary, turning it into a “don’t ask, don’t tell” issue for schools. Prop. 7 would block all medical research using animals as well as prohibiting smallpox vaccines because it required extracting serum from living cows.

We can’t be sure who paid to organize the signature campaigns to get these on the ballot, but from newspaper ads before the election there was backing from the usual American Medical Association foes, including Los Angeles chiropractors, the Anti-Vivisection Society and proto-libertarian national groups such as the American Medical Liberty League, which wanted absolutely no government involvement with medicine. And because this was during the hyper-patriotic culture war, ads and endorsements were wrapped in the flag and touted the issues as about “medical freedom.”³

(RIGHT: A deceptive ad from the antis intended to confuse voters. If it had passed, the new law would have blocked all means to stop an epidemic except via aggressive quarantines. Petaluma Argus, Nov. 1, 1920)

There were two other related propositions: Number 5 would create a state board of chiropractors to license themselves (something sought for years via the legislature or voters) and number 8, which regulated opiates and cocaine – curiously, it allowed doctors to prescribe the drugs to addicts, but any medicinal use required filing a report to the state pharmacy board.

A speaker from a public health group came to Santa Rosa and spoke on these four proposals, which he dubbed the “Quack Quartette.” His comments (transcribed below) explain the awfulness in all but the drug item. To that I’ll add only the perspective that the chiropractors had been pushing hard for their own licensing board since 1914, and it’s easy to see why; a report from the State Board of Medical Examiners found 2 out of 3 couldn’t pass an examination on basic anatomy.

The good news was that the anti-vaccination proposition lost by 56 percent (the chiropractor and vivisection amendments also failed to pass). The bad news is that the legislators still gave the antis their victory.

Changes to the state vaccination law in 1921 no longer required teachers to collect vaccination certificates or non-consent slips. If a child in the school district caught smallpox only those who were unvaccinated and exposed to the sick kid would be sent home for quarantine. As it was now impossible for the school to know who was vaccinated and who was not, what did they do? “Students, little Tommy has smallpox and everyone who hasn’t been vaccinated gets to stay home for two weeks. Can I see a show of hands?” That worked out swell, I bet.

There were now regularly thousands of cases every year in the state.⁴ California was fortunate that only the milder form of smallpox was found spreading. Sonoma county was extraordinarily lucky; the only child who became ill here in the early 1920s was a boy in Penngrove. “This is the first case of smallpox in this vicinity for some years and it is causing a scare because smallpox is rapidly gaining in the state owing to carelessness in vaccination and it is serious in several parts of California,” the Petaluma Argus remarked. “There is more smallpox now than for many years and it is increasing at an alarming rate while the illness is more severe than it has been for years and there have been numerous deaths.” That year 56 people died in the state, the highest since before the turn of the century.

There were no more anti-vaccination protests, of course; they had been given everything they ever wanted.

For those who embrace science and believe it’s not a good idea for people to unnecessarily get sick and die, this has been a depressing story – and it gets worse. Remember Dr. A. Vogt and the other vaccine skeptics from the 1870s who were quoted by Taylor in his letter to the PD? Today you can find many of those exact same quotes rehashed in brand new anti-vaxx books and recent websites – although now scrubbed of dates and any other historical context. Apparently Dr. Vogt is still gnashing his teeth over vaccines some 150 years after his heyday.

Maybe there are lessons to glean from the anti-vaccination squabbles of that era, but caution is needed; as a starting point, all of us should have some empathy for the antis prior to 1914 (well, all except for Mr. Taylor). Had I lived back then I might have felt leery about smallpox vaccination, but not because I believed vaccines were phony. There was a certain amount of risk in any doctor visit because medicine was then still in a generally barbaric state – no antibiotics, poor understanding of infection prevention and primitive test equipment for diagnostics.

Then there was often a question of whether any particular vaccination worked; that article about the 279 smallpox cases revealed about eight percent had been vaccinated, but not successfully. The failures could have been because the culture was dead, was low potency or the patient’s immune response was too strong. But it took a day or three and an expert eye to tell if a proper pustule had developed, which might mean another visit by the doctor. Also, an additional eight percent of the cases had been vaccinated in childhood but immunity in those vaccines lasted less than a dozen years.

And let’s concede some people really did die because of being vaccinated, although even the diehard antis never claimed there were very many (in New York state the ratio was reportedly five in a million in the late 1910s). They didn’t know how to sterilize the live animal serum extracted from cow/calf lymph glands until 1914 and the other vaccine source was using a fresh scab from someone with the disease – certainly a chance of infection either way.

Despite all those little risks, the odds of dying from the more aggressive form of smallpox was about one in four, so vaccination was always the wisest course for anyone thinking straight. But none of that mattered because the antis had a simple and effective counterargument – it just didn’t make sense to expose healthy people to a disease in order to prevent them from later getting sick. That’s the most common message repeated in their letters and pamphlets, often with the vaccine being scorned as “filthy,” “disgusting,” “rotten” and see above re: disgust being a most effective way to shape a negative opinion.

The anti groups and the chiropractors effectively won the fight through manipulating fears, but the irony was that the champions of vaccines had a much more powerful weapon of this type which wasn’t used – horrific photos of children infected with smallpox. Had these been as well circulated as the antis’ pamphlets, the public would have begged for mass vaccinations. Here’s an example, and I’m linking to a Snopes.com fact-check page to assure Gentle Reader this is not a pre-Photoshop fake image. On that page click through their link to the “Atlas of Clinical Medicine, Surgery, and Pathology” to see more, if you have the stomach.

Sometimes efforts were made to get these images into view, only to find them thwarted by antis. In June 1913 the Berkeley Board of Health wanted to post photos of smallpox victims at city hall but an anti councilman blocked the effort, saying it was “evident intention of frightening people into an adoption of the unprovable theory that vaccination prevents smallpox.”

All of this resonates with the anti-vaxx dilemma today. Scientists are continually publishing studies showing modern vaccines cause no harm (PARTICULARLY NO INCREASE IN AUTISM) but that information is ignored by those endlessly tormented by the fear in the air. I visited scores of anti-vaxx websites this week (there are reportedly about 500). Want to know what I found? Not reasoned arguments refuting the science studies – but stock photos of babies crying and cringing from a doctor while receiving a shot. Hello, emotional triggers.

And just as the Press Democrat innocently became an accomplice by printing the antis’ propaganda in 1913, today Facebook and other social media are complicit in spreading misinformation. As of this writing (2019) anti-vaxxers have gamed Amazon to push anti-vaccine books by swarming the site with bad reviews for pro-vaccine books.

Thus far the year 2019 is looking a lot like 1912 in the last century’s culture wars, when parents were increasingly opting-out of smallpox vaccinations – which led to the 1,100 percent rise in smallpox cases over the following decade. And now there’s a skyrocketing resurgence of measles because there are regional pockets where parents are likewise choosing to opt-out by claiming religious or moral exemptions. Will the unease of a few again outweigh the needs of the many?

If history is indeed a treadmill, brace for a near future where old childhood diseases come roaring back and common ones increase by over a thousand percent. To pretend that can’t happen is folly.

¹ The Chiropractic Problem; Dr. Charles B. Pinkham, Secretary-Treasurer, Board of medical examiners, state of California; American Medical Association Bulletin; January 1921

² How Emotional Frames Moralize and Polarize Political Attitudes; Scott Clifford; Political Psychology; 2018

³ Medical Liberty: Drugless Healers Confront Allopathic Doctors, 1910–1931; Stephen Petrina; Journal of Medical Humanities; 2008 (Nothing specific to California, but good background on the American Medical Liberty League and National League for Medical Freedom)

⁴ Smallpox Deaths/Cases per year, 1918-1925: 3/1016, 5/2002, 7/4492, 21/5579, 20/2129, 1/2026, 56/9445, 58/4921. California. Dept. of Public Health Biennial Report, Volumes 26-30

(ABOVE: Rally of the Anti-Vaccination League of Canada in Toronto, November 13, 1919. The “German born” sign refers to Germany making smallpox vaccinations compulsory in 1874. As this rally was held just a year after the end of WWI, the message is clearly intended to associate the public’s lingering hatred of Germany with vaccinations)

FIGHTING VACCINATION.

It is passing strange that Berkeley, a community of more than average intelligence, lying as it does in the very shadow of the university, is the center and hotbed of the anti-vaccination movement. There are, it is true, some other advocates of the spread of smallpox in other parts of the state. Santa Cruz has a small colony, and Los Angeles, which is the home of isms and schisms, only second to San Diego, has also a few friends of the dread disease; but Berkeley has the doubtful honor of being the center of the movement to prevent the stamping out of smallpox; and already, the primaries being over, has started once more to carry out its ideas at the expense of the health of the people of the state. Once more the fight for safety must be begun also.

The sole argument the antis have to offer is that some children have died from the use of bad vaccine, and that others have contracted serious diseases from the use of impure scabs. No one will deny either contention, and if it were simply a question of insisting that the best of vaccine should always be used and that the physician should be held responsible for the condition of the matter and of the instruments he uses, there would be no dispute over the subject anywhere in the state. But with the logic of fanaticism, the Berkeleyites insist that no one shall be vaccinated because some have died and others have been made ill as a result of carelessness. They insist that smallpox shall not be stopped: that all the children !n the state shall be exposed to danger and disfigurement because some few persons do not want their children protected. The vast majority of the people of the country, of the civilized world, believe in vaccination, and yet the infinitesimal minority, against all experience, against the well established facts in the matter, against every teaching of modern medicine, insist that the vast majority must suffer because of their disapproval and absurd theories.

Any student of history knows what a dread disease smallpox was for centuries. Any reader knows that it is a minor disease since the utility of vaccination was discovered. Here in California we have only one case of smallpox in five thousand cases of disease, and only one death in one hundred eases of smallpox. In a word, thanks to the thorough vaccination of the children and adults of California, the disease has practically been stamped out here, and yet a few fanatics insist that such desirable and wonderful results shall be destroyed, because once or twice impure vaccine was used.

It is time that the people of the state aroused themselves and let their views on this subject be known to their representatives in the legislature, or it is possible that again, as has occurred severnl times before, the legislature will pass a law repealing the one on the statute books, and an epidemic of smallpox will result. Only the veto of the Governor saved this state the last time the experiment was tried, and as neither of the candidates for the governorship have announced their views on the subject, it is safest to kill the propaganda when it first appears in the introduction of repeal bills in either house. This is not a trifling matter. It is a very serious one. and one that should be watched carefully and fought energetically.

– Sacramento Union, September 24 1910

VACCINATION TO BE PARENTS’ OPTION
Senate Bill Passed in Assembly Which Removes Obligations Placed on School Children

Vaccination furnished the topic of the nearest approach to a fight in the Assembly Wednesday in the course of the passage of the few bills whose authors had energy enough to call them up for consideration when they were reached on the file. But even this near approach to a clash between the members of the lower House failed to furnish more that a slight diversion from the routine of the day. with but eight dissenting voices, Senator Hurd’s bill (Senate bill No. 655) was passed by the Assembly and sent to the Governor for his approval of its provisions removing the requirement of vaccination as a condition of admission to the public schools of the State. The bill makes vaccination of children optional with parents.

… Assemblymen Schmitt and Chandler were the only open opponents of the bill in the discussion prior to its passage. Chandler declared that “there are a few old women down in my district who are against vaccination, but I am in favor of it and will vote against this bill.” Schmitt declared that he would vote against the bill in question because of his fear that its passage would lead to the ultimate repeal of all legislation pertaining to vaccination.

But Joel lost his motion to continue consideration the bill, and it came the final vote of 58 to 8…

– Press Democrat, February 24 1911

VACCINATION MEETING IS RIOT
Aged Stepfather of Health Officer Benton Hissed for Defense of Physician
Police Chief Restores Order When Session of ‘Antis’ Grows Too Stormy

[California Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League meeting in Berkeley
story ends by noting five out of nine smallpox cases in Berkeley were fatal]

– Oakland Tribune, January 31, 1913

CALIFORNIA ANTI-COMPULSORY VACCINATION LEAGUE STATE HEADQUARTERS
Berkeley, California, Jan. 20, 1913

The citizens of Berkeley have been thrown into a deplorable condition by an over zealous Health Board, after the discovery of eight cases of smallpox. The percentage was very small, about one case to every eight thousand inhabitants. So insistent were these officials for WHOLESALE VACCINATION, they threw the people into a panic, thereby causing a withdrawal of several hundred pupils from certain schools. Thereupon the School Board deemed it wise to close ALL schools. However, that did not prevent them from insisting upon a wholesale vaccination of school children and teachers. Articles that they caused to be printed so excited the parents that even people who had an aversion to vaccination were terrified into having their children vaccinated.

They have boasted that they would destroy our League in Berkeley, the city of its birth. THE IRON HEEL OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION in the part two weeks has ground harder and deeper than in the past nine years of the League’s existence. Our Treasury is depleted. Briefs carrying our case against the University of California to the Appellate Court amounts to $104.90. Three lawyers’ fees, $150. Besides paid advertisements in local papers, literature, stamps, etc. There is no officer connected with our League receiving any salary. The life of our League is at stake. Can you assist us financially? If so do so at once. Interest your friends in our League, your city may be the next to be visited by an epidemic.
Very earnestly yours,
SAMUEL TAYLOR

CASES OF SMALLPOX GROWING RAPIDLY
Twenty-Seven in Sacrarnento Since January – Other Cities Suffer Same.
TWENTY-SEVEN THIS YEAR
Secretary of the Health Board Charges Increase to Anti-Vaccination Idea,

During the year 1911, when the effect of the compulsory vaccination law could still be felt, the number of smallpox cases in Sacramento was limited to three.

In 1912, following the repeal of the compulsory feature of the law and the substitution of one requiring the exclusion of unvaccinated children from the public school only when smallpox existed in the particular school or district to which they belonged, the numbers of cases mounted to twenty-nine.

For the two and a half months of the year 1913 there have already been twenty-seven cases reported in this city. If this ratio is maintained the total for the year will reach 130, or more than forty-three times as much as in 1911.

Smallpox is not exactly epidemic, but there is an alarming increase in the number of cases, and according to the reports of the state board of health the experience of other cities in state is not unlike that of Sacramento.

HIGH DEATH RATE.

The recent outbreak in Berkeley had fatal consequences for five out of ten persons who contracted the disease within one circle of focus, originating from one person, and there were thirteen cases altogether. In Imperial Valley, four out of eighteen persons died, when the disease was introduced in one of the valley towns.

In almost all of the cases the patients had either not been vaccinated or not successfully vaccinated. Of 279 cases of smallpox reported in the last year and a half there were 228 where the patient had not been vaccinated, 22 not successfully, 22 successfully in childhood, from twelve to fifteen years previous, 2 where the victim had previously had smallpox and 5 where there had been successful vaccination.

These figures are presented by Dr. W. F. Snow, secretary of the state board of health, who was asked yesterday to back with data the statement that there is an increased and increasing prevalence of smallpox in California and to account for the phenomena.

“They are no doubt directly traceable,” said Dr. Snow, “to the modification of the compulsory vaccination law and the agitation that has been going on insistently against vaccination. During 1907 and 1909 a very active campaign was conducted against compulsory vaccination and it finally resulted, in 1911, in the repeal of the law and the substitution of the present one.

INCREASE OF EXPOSURES.

“Letting down the bars has of course produced an increasing population of unvaccinated, and the more unvacclnated there are the greater the opportunity for contamination and contagion. This danger is increased by the fact that the population of the state is increasing all the time, which, with the new ramifications of commerce, results in a larger proportion of exposures.

“When a disease has once been well under control it takes time for it to become re-established, and that is what is occurring with smallpox. There seems to be no apparent reason why, now that the gate is open, smallpox cases will not go on increasing in numbers. It is not putting it too strongly to say that if we had compulsory vaccination we wouldn’t have smallpox.” Dr. Snow says also that an alarming incident in connection with the disease is that the confluent type, the most violent and loathsome of all, is becoming more prevalent. In recent years this form of the disease was almost unknown.

– Sacramento Union, March 15 1913

MUST PRODUCE CERTIFICATES
Requirements of Students Attending School Here Next Monday Morning

Health Officer Jackson Temple stated yesterday that in order to prevent disappointment when the schools assemble after summer vacation next Monday, the pupils will be required to show vaccination certificates, or else certificates showing that their parents have conscientious scruples against vaccination, or else they will not be allowed to attend school.

The law requires that the Board of Education furnish the certificates setting forth conscientious scruples against vaccination which will be handed to their children to be taken home for signature, by their parents. In the case of any infectious disease breaking out in a community the children who have been vaccinated will be allowed to attend school and those who have not will have to remain home.

Dr. Temple further stated that Santa Rosa had been freer from cases of smallpox than possibly any other city of its size in the State and at the present time there is no case in the city limits.

– Press Democrat, August 20 1913

MEDICAL FREEDOM AND VACCINATION

Wednesday morning the Press Democrat published the announcement that Health Officer Jackson Temple, M. D., would demand either a vaccination certificate or one setting forth the fact that a child’s parents had conscientious scruples against vaccination when the schools reassemble again next week.

Wednesday morning the following communication from the Santa Rosa Branch of the American League of Medical Freedom was handed in at the Press Democrat office with a request for its publication:

“Compulsory vaccination has been abolished by the California Legislature, and those who do not wish to have their children vaccinated have only to fill out a blank similar to the following, and the child is then not required to submit to vaccination.

“In case of a smallpox epidemic the school board have the power to exclude from school all un-vaccinated children coming from the district only in which the cases are found.

“Sample of Exemption Certificate…

“…I hereby declare that I am conscientiously opposed to the practice of vaccination and will not consent to the vaccination of ___________
Signed Parent or Guardian _____________.

“The following citations are from noted physicians and from records taken from the past experience where vaccination has not proven a preventive. These are only just a few of conclusions cited from a large number of physicians…

“…Sorry, but space will not permit, we could keep you reading all day on just such data that is against vaccination. A similar theory to that of vaccination is medical inspection of school children. Compulsory treatment will be next wanted by a great many of the M. D.’s.

“Just a hint to parents. In Winnetka, Illinois, girls in the new Trier High School were compelled to submit to complete physical examination. They were taken to the gymnasium and stripped of all their clothing. In the presence of other girls they were examined. A request from their parents to excuse them, and a physician’s certificate were ignored. The Inspector and the school authorities held themselves superior to both parents and family physician. The girls were led to the gymnasium and compelled to submit. When a protest was filed on the ground that the Schools were free and no physical examination could be required as a qualification of admission, the newspapers published the story. The board of education met, and decided that the physical examination was not required for admission to the high school, which was public and free.”

– Press Democrat, August 21 1913

VACCINATION MADE SAFE BY SCIENCE The anti-vaccinationists are about to lose their strongest argument. Their most telling objection against vaccination has long been that it was impossible to get absolutely pure vaccine matter; notwithstanding the greatest precautions, like the use of calves kept under specially sanitary conditions, the lymph obtained would not infrequently contain deleterious germs. According to the German Medical Weekly, however, a way has at last been found for sterilizing lymph so thoroughly that its purity can always be relied upon. This has been accomplished by Prof. E. Friedberger and Dr. B. Mlronescu, who have availed themselves of the well-known principle that the ultra-violet rays of light are destructive of bacterial life. The virus is put into small tubes of quartz-glass, which are then exposed to the ultra-violet rays from an electric lamp. In 20 or 30 minutes there is not a live germ left in them.

– Sacramento Union, July 19 1914

VACCINATION ORDER IS BEING RIGIDLY ENFORCED

The desks of the principals were piled high with vaccination certificates at the high school Monday after a campaign among the students, in which a certificate dated not earlier than 1907 was compulsory with the alternative of a note from the parent or guardian to the effect that they were opposed to the treatment. Dr. Jackson Temple, the health officer, was a busy man and in spite of the bruised arm which he sustained in Sunday’s accident and wore in a sling moved among the mass of students with a pleasant smile.

– Press Democrat, September 15 1914

Dr. Gillihan Defendant in Battery Charges

Dr. Allen F. Gillihan. an inspector for the State Board of Health, who was formerly stationed in Santa Rosa, is facing battery charges in Chico as the result of his activity in enforcing vaccination among school children during a smallpox epidemic in that vicinity. He denies having forced vaccination where there was objections, however.

– Press Democrat, March 1 1919

PARENTS CONVERTED TO SCIENCE Over 500 children have been vaccinated by Dr. Juell, the school doctor, so far this year. It has been discovered since the vaccinating is done in the school and without charge that the number of parents who are conscientiously opposed to vaccination has dwindled from an alarmingly large number to practically none at all.

– Press Democrat, October 19 1919

THREE AMENDMENTS GIVEN OPPOSITION, ONE FAVORED
Sonoma County Public Health Association Talks of New Laws at Meeting Here Yesterday in the City Hall.

“Don’t close the door of hope for cancer victims, now or in the future. Don’t undo all that has been done for the restriction of tuberculosis. Don’t deprive the choking child of the diphtheria serum, without which his gasping must be futile, without which be must be snatched by death. Don’t, please don’t tie the hands of the physicians. Don’t make futile all of their efforts for the alleviation of human misery. Don’t throttle education in the State of California. And above ail else, don’t make suffering little children the victims of a misplaced sympathy for mice, rabbits, guinea pigs and the like.”

This was the appeal of Celeste J. Sullivan, secretary of the California League for the Conservation of Public Health, to the audience assembled in the council chamber of the city hall Tuesday afternoon; an audience, by ths way, that entirely filled audience section of the room and overflowed into the section reserved for the council members. The meeting where Mr. Sullivan spoke was the annual assemblage of the Sonoma County Public Health Association, and it attracted representatives from various portions of the county…

“…That No. 5 promises the appointment of a special board of examiners for chiropractic physicians and thereby opens the way for the appointment of at least twenty-seven other special boards of examiners for the various other similar cults in the state, is the special argument advanced against it.

“No. 6 is a blow not at vaccination, which in this state is not compulsory, but it aims a death blow as well at inoculation and medication of every kind and would irrevocably tie the hands of the state board of health, making that board absolutely powerless. Further arguments advanced against it by Mr. Sullivan are that if passed it would jeopardize the lives and health of our children by permitting absolutely no disbarment from school or any other public place of persons afflicted with communicable disease, thereby giving no leverage in arresting any epidemic.

“No. 7 aims to make illegal all experiments on live animals. It would absolutely check ail advance in surgical and biological experimentation, stop laboratory work in our universities and colleges, our medical schools and even our high schools, do away with the possiblity of manufacturing not alone preventative serums of all character, but as well strike a death blow to anesthesia and through this to human surgery. Not alone that, but it would put an absolute stop to all experimentation made in the interest of our farm animals, hogs, chickens and cattle.”

“Does California want that?” asks Mr. Sullivan. If we overlook entirely the human element and put the lives of guinea pigs before those of little children, are we willing to go back to the loss of millions of hogs annually? And in reference to the charges of cruelty, the speaker made it plain that the laws of this state are in absolute accord with the requirements of the humane societies, which demand the administration of an anaesthetic in every instance before experimentation. Furthermore, all experimentation laboratories within the state are at all times open to the public.

In connection with this amendment. Mr. Sulivan drew attention to the fact that it will prohibit the killing of tubercular infected cattle, except in the course of a regulation meat supply. ”Do we want this in California?” he further asked of his audience.

No. 8 deals with the curbing of of the drug menace. The last legislature passed the measure and the governor placed his signature to it, showing how our lawmakers feel in the matter. On this measure a “yes” is urged….

– Press Democrat, October 13 1920

VACCINATION BILL VETOED BY SENATE

Despite opposition and the absence of ten members, the Senate late today passed. 23 to 7, Senator Crowley’s bill to repeal the compulsory vaccination act and to place control of small pox in the hands of the state board of health. Nelson and others objected to the section of the bill stating that “the control of small pox shall be under the direction of the state board of health, and no rule or regulation on the subject of vaccination shall be adopted by school or local health authorities.”

– Press Democrat, April 6 1921

Dr. H. F. True Tells of New State Vaccination Law

Dr. Herbert F. True. Director of the Los Angeles School Health Department, in explaining the new state vaccination law which went into effect in California on July 23. makes the following statement for the guidance of parents, teachers and school officers:

“In event that a case of smallpox develops in a school district, the only persons who will be excluded from school will be the patient and other residents in his home. Persons who have been exposed by these other residents who have not been vaccinated will not be excluded as heretofore. This will mean a great saving to the schools, in that the attendance will not be cut down every time a remote exposure occurs in a school.

“If, however, smallpox becomes very prevalent in the district, the Public Health Officer may order the entire closing of the school to all persons, no distinction being made between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

“Teachers will not be under the necessity of filing vaccination cards with the schools, nor will they have to require vaccination or opposed-to-vaccination cards from the pupils.”

The law which Dr. True refers to, and which, as he says, removes the distinction formerly drawn between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, so that the unvaccinated now have the same freedom in attending school that the vaccinated enjoy, was enacted by the California legislature at its last session, and reads as follows:

“The control of smallpox shall be under the direction of the State Board of Health, and no rule or regulation on the subject of vaccination shall be adopted by school or local health authorities,”

– Press Democrat, August 18 1921

SMALLPOX CASE AT PENNGROVE

Norman Johnson, the seven year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Gus Johnson, is ill at his home at that place with a pronounced case of smallpox. The home has been quarantined by the county health authorities and the school was closed Thursday and will reopen on Monday morning.

The county health authorities announced formally today that the school children who are not vaccinated between now and Monday morning will not be allowed to attend school on that day or until they are vaccinated…It is thought that there will be more cases as many children have been exposed to the disease…

This is the first case of smallpox in this vicinity for some years and it is causing a scare because smallpox is rapidly gaining in the state owing to carelessness in vaccination and it is serious in several parts of California. There is more smallpox now than for many years and it is increasing at an alarming rate while the illnes is more severe than it has been for years and there have been numerous deaths.

– Petaluma Argus, June 12, 1924

VACCINATION BANNED AT BURNSIDE SCHOOL

Parents of the Burnside district have refused to allow their children to be vaccinated in the drive being made by Sonoma county health authorities. Not one student in the school was vaccinated, the parents having declined to have the children undergo the treatment. – Press Democrat

– Petaluma Argus, November 22, 1924

THE BATTLE FOR SANTA ROSA HIGH

November 15, 2017November 15, 2017 Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

After its old high school burned down, Santa Rosa had the will to quickly rebuild a fine modern school and soon was ready to break ground. Then suddenly the project was stopped indefinitely, thanks to a rich old crackpot with a lawyer, a famous name and a big chip on his shoulder.

This is the second part of the story of Santa Rosa High School’s rebirth; see part one for details about the terrible 1921 fire and the threat it posed to the town. But this is also the tale of Sampson B. Wright, who filed a series of lawsuits to block the new school. The stalemate led to community leaders calling an unprecedented town meeting to fight back.

Despite the loss of their school, it seems that a spirit of optimism energized Santa Rosa teenagers in the months right after the November 15, 1921 fire. Yeah, classes were scattered in halls and churches all over town, but it was only temporary and heck, was probably kind of an adventure to many.

But after a winter of dashing through the rain, Roy Heyward, the 1922 student body president, wrote in the yearbook that kids were becoming demoralized: “The classes are so broken up that there is no unity. Some students do not see their friends for days at a time and under these conditions they are bound to lose interests in school activities.”

Now flash forward to the next winter as the children were still making their 20 minute dashes to classes. In January, 1923 – the height of a bad flu season – the Press Democrat reported, “The exposure and trying conditions to which the teachers of the Santa Rosa high school are being subjected is proving a heavy tax to their health and strength.” The PD continued:

The study hall and five recitation rooms are located in the Congregational church with poor light, ventilation and accommodations for drying out wet clothing. Two other classes are located in the Methodist Episcopal church where the conditions are not much better. Four classes are housed in the old Mailer hall on Fourth street and five in the old Mailer warehouse at Fifth and Mendocino avenue. This is made of corrugated iron and is not warm or comfortable in such weather as is prevailing at present.

And if that wasn’t depressing enough, everyone knew that during the following 1923-1924 winter the faculty and students would either still be slogging through downtown puddles or shivering in temporary canvas tents. It was as if they had been woefully transported into the bleak world of Scrooge’s Christmas Yet to Come.

How had this happened? The path forward had seemed so certain, so safe; the day right after the fire, members of the board of education and chamber of commerce began to negotiate with Rush and Bertha Todd, who owned a large spread on the north end of town. They had recently sold part of it to be the future home of the Junior College. Except for keeping a few acres around the baronial “old Ridgway mansion” on the corner, they agreed to sell the town all the land it wanted for the future high school. An option deal – no money involved – was announced two weeks later (for more, see “RIDGWAY’S CHILDREN“).

The stars were also aligned to make the new high school the crown of our public education system. Just that summer, the state legislature finally recognized that an education beyond grade school was essential and a local high school had to be part of the school system. Grammar school districts now could be annexed under a local high school district, and that’s what also happened here immediately after the fire; a meeting brought together supervisors of the 25 rural school districts around Santa Rosa and along the Russian River. It was agreed their kids would come to Santa Rosa for high school and the little districts would have a voice on the new school board – as well as contributing some of the district tax money to pay for the education and upkeep of the buildings. So far, so good.

All that remained was to raise enough money to build the school. For reasons never explained, Santa Rosa first asked voters to approve bonds for two new elementary schools – as noted in part one, the Lincoln and Fremont schools were considered firetraps. Early in April 1922, Santa Rosa voted in favor of those bonds by an astonishing majority of 27 to 1. Again, good news – it showed the pubic enthusiastically supported new schools.

Now came the high school vote a few weeks later, in mid-May. On top of the $241,000 just approved for the grade schools, voters of the City of Santa Rosa high school district were being asked to approve another $375,000 to pay for the property and new building. Taken together, the bonds were worth about $9 million in today’s money – a steep commitment, given that the population of 1922 Santa Rosa was as small as modern Cloverdale.

Even though it looked like the bond would easily pass, the town campaigned hard. There was a big Chamber of Commerce dinner and gushy articles can be found in almost every edition of the Press Democrat. “High School Is To Have Museum Worth Thousands,” read one PD headline, promising that Jesse Peter, a respected amateur archeologist, would donate his collection of artifacts to the school for a “museum of anthropology devoted to the Sonoma county Indians.” (The collection went to the Junior College instead.)

There was a big parade with floats and over 2,000 students from fourth grade through junior college marching downtown on the eve of the vote. From the descriptions in the paper, it was one of those heart-tugging moments worthy of a visit the next time you take the time machine out for a spin.

The various clubs and classes were represented; as reported by the PD, “The cooking classes of the high school with their aprons and working utensils added an interesting touch to the parade and showed that the growing generation was assured of some good cooks, to say the least.” They were followed by the ag students, some carrying a fruit tree while others wore “spraying outfits” to fend off their classmates “dressed to represent large destructive insects hovering about.” The event ended in front of the courthouse, where everyone watched girls from the elementary schools dance around three May poles.

The next day, the bonds passed 16 to 1.

A week later, Sam Wright announced his first lawsuit.

The nicest thing anyone can say about Sampson B. Wright is that he was a fool. You can bet residents of Santa Rosa called him worse things between 1922-1923. Far, far worse.

Besides approving the bonds, the same ballot asked voters to pick a location for the future high school and the Todd property was the overwhelming favorite, 20 to 1. The other option was the Leddy tract, about 2½ west of Santa Rosa, close to Highway 12 and just east of Fulton/South Wright Road (there’s still a Leddy avenue there). There originally was a third choice offered by the Wright family on the west side of Fulton/South Wright Road – probably the current location of the Wright Charter School – but it was withdrawn from the running by Sampson before the election, with no reason given.^*

In his lawsuit to block the high school’s construction, Wright’s attorneys crafted a legal roadblock made from top quality bullshit. It was argued that the new state law allowing elementary school districts to be annexed by a high school district was unconstitutional. Why? Because it ceded some decision-making powers to a county’s superintendent of schools rather than its board of supervisors. At its core, this was a classic nuisance suit, coyly intended to harass the school district and/or bollix everything up for months, years, maybe decades, as appeal followed appeal in the court system’s higher echelons.

The crazy thing about his Quixotic war was that Wright didn’t seem to care about that trivial constitutional issue; nor did he have objections to kids receiving high school educations (all his children did) and he wasn’t opposed to selling bonds to build the school. The thing that really, really ticked him off was that it was to be on the Todd property.

The first we heard on the issue from Sampson B. Wright came just before the bond election, when a lengthy letter rant appeared in the Press Democrat. Alas, he was responding to something from Hilliard Comstock, president of the board of education, which appeared in the Santa Rosa Republican and that edition of the newspaper has not survived.

Wright insisted that the Leddy property was the only good option, waving off the many obstacles to the project because it was out in the unincorporated countryside. No matter that kids would have to take the electric train to school (“railroad officials well know how to transport children”) or that there was no city water or sewer hookups (“an abundance of water can be had on the Leddy tract by pumping”). All that mattered to him was that (A) the land was cheaper and (B) it wasn’t in Santa Rosa.

His particular obsession about the Santa Rosa location concerned the Noonan stockyard and slaughterhouse four blocks to the west (about where highway 101 crosses West College). The smell from there would be so awful, he wrote, that the city would have to condemn the property and reimburse Noonan $250,000, paid for by a huge tax increase. At the same time, he argued – with remarkable mental agility – that runoff from the school would damage the meat packing plant. Wright was “reliably informed that Mr. Noonan is not going to tamely submit to present drainage conditions,” he stated.

The next day, a letter from the Noonan Meat Company appeared in the PD denying all of Wright’s claims. If there was to be any runoff from the Todd property they would welcome it: “we could use the water on our pasture.” Neighbors closer to the slaughterhouse than the proposed school had never complained about odors, and they closed with an endorsement for the bond and the Mendocino ave location.

Even after his lawsuit stopped construction plans, Sampson B. Wright would not shut up about the awful, terrible, no-good high school plan approved by the voters. He handed out a printed circular filled with his nutso ideas, because that’s what unhinged people did before Twitter was invented.

Printed in full by the Press Democrat on May 27, the transcript appeared after the graduating class of 1922 was reduced to holding ceremonies at the blocked off Humboldt street between Benton and College. Wright’s handout still charged there was a plot afoot to funnel public money to the Noonans: “As soon as the high school is located on the Todd site there will, I expect, be complaint against a certain property and then we shall be asked to contribute $250,000 on that score.”

His screed filled a full column in the Press Democrat, printed in the smallest type. It was crammed with numbers – distances, valuations, projected expenses down to the penny. It was a spittle-flecked manifesto dripping with his rage to prevent the “saddling upon us of a young university under the disguise of a high school.”

The only reason Wright had any credibility was because the Wright name was still widely known and respected in the early 20th century. His father, Winfield had been one of the richest men in the county, owning great swaths of land between the coast and Santa Rosa; Winfield’s 1892 obituary says he had about 4,500 acres but in the preceding years he was spotted regularly selling hundreds of acres to his only son, Sampson. It would be a safe guesstimate to say the Wrights owned 6,000 acres of prime Sonoma county farmland. Everywhere you find the Wright name on some place today is because of Winfield, and until it was torn down in 1923, the enormous Wright dairy barn at the corner of Stony Point and Sebastopol Road was a county landmark known to everyone.

The Wrights were an intriguing family; Winfield’s first wife, Sarah, was the granddaughter of mythic American hero Daniel Boone. Anyone who has toured the Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery has probably noticed the unusual tombstone for Davis Wright, a “Colored Boy” – although the child was probably never a slave, he was a member of Winfield’s father household. That man (also named Sampson) was a slave owner in Missouri just prior to joining his son in California, when Davis would have been about a year old. Indefatigable researcher Ray Owen has more background on that story.

Our antihero, Sampson Boone Wright, was born in Santa Rosa in 1854, a silver spoon tucked into his little baby mouth. According to his profile in the Honoria Tuomey county history, he was in his early twenties when he “conceived the notion that it would be profitable to drive a flock of sheep through to the grazing lands of Texas,” which is such a ridiculous idea it suggests he was dropped on his head during infancy. “This he did amid difficulties that may better be imagined than described.” I’ll bet.

If you asked Sampson who he was, he would have told you he was a dairy rancher and a stockman, a respected breeder of prize hogs and a horseman with a stable of race-winning trotters. All true – but from 1876 until his death, it appears he was always party to some lawsuit or another. Most were apparently run-of-the-mill disputes related to the vast amount of property he inherited, but some reveal him as a quarrelsome man who was quick to file lawsuits out of spite. Here are just a few of the lowlights:

1903: After the county drilled a well on the side of a road to supply water to sprinkler trucks, Wright presented the road commissioner with a demand to be paid $50/day – over $1,500 today – because they were using “his” groundwater. The suit went to the state supreme court twice before the county won six years later.

1908: Four years after a court settlement allowed the electric railroad line a right-of-way across Wright family land near their famous dairy barn on Stony Point, the railroad sued because workers for the Wrights were throwing manure from the barn over their fence. The Wrights contended the tracks were in the wrong place all along.

1909: Wright sued to stop the phone company from erecting telephone poles along the road next to his property.

1916: Years earlier, Wright’s stepmother hired a girl to live with her as a helper. Jarena Wright came to regard the young woman as if she were her own daughter and gifted her 140 acres. Immediately after his stepmother died – even before the funeral – Wright sued to recover title to the land.

1926: Wright sued to stop the dredging of the sandspit at the mouth of Russian River, claiming that the river bar was needed for him to drive cattle back and forth across the river. He did not own any land on the north bank and had no right to move his cows there. Bonus: He also sued to block the highway 1 bridge across the Russian River.

Starting around 1919, however, Sampson B. Wright began devoting his energies to a new project: Being the angry taxpayer fighting the Board of Supervisors. He formed first the “Tax Payers Protective Association” and then the “Sonoma County Economy League.” In truth, he was the president of the League of Grumpy Old Men.

In a memorable 1923 showdown, Wright and his anti-tax buddies stormed the Supervisors meeting to insist the county shut down its auto garage and fire all the mechanics. “When asked to name a way in which the county cars can be cared for they had nothing to offer.”

Just like his verbose rant against the high school location, he wrote many other lengthy letters to the local papers demanding decisive action on whatever injustice happened to offend him at the moment. One of the Healdsburg newspapers commented,

It would be comical, were it not somewhat pathetic, the way newspaper offices are besieged every day by their friends, urging them to “roast” this and that: to see to it that and that is done in the city or county: to start this and that kind of movement to correct evils in the state government. These friends actually believe that it is the newspaper’s business to handle all these affairs.

A final Wright lawsuit worthy to note: In 1924, his second wife filed for divorce on grounds of extreme cruelty – particularly because he refused to allow electricity in their house.

By that year electricity was no longer a luxury; besides lighting, electric kitchen appliances, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, space heaters and radios were common. Nor was power unavailable because the Wrights were far out in the country; they were then living in a cottage on Garden street off of West Third.

Add that to his opposition of the county owning cars and trucks, telephone poles along “his” road and a bridge over the Russian River; a picture emerges of a man who is not merely a skinflint, but someone held in the grips of fogeyism – disliking anything that didn’t exist in his Victorian-era youth.

An early 1920s “school auto-bus” (image courtesy Sonoma County Library)

His fight against the high school shows this anti-modernism clearly. Key to shuttling kids from the rural districts to the centralized Santa Rosa high school were these new things called a “school auto-bus.” That circular Wright was handing out fixated almost entirely upon the transportation costs of operating a schoolbus fleet. His solution was to first build a high school on the Leddy tract, which Santa Rosa kids could reach by the electric trolley line. For the others, his plan was outlined in the circular’s title: “Build High Schools in Rural Districts.” Wright wanted to construct “three or more schools in the outlying districts,” which children could reach by foot, bicycle or horse. Building more local high schools would be much cheaper in his mind simply because it eliminated all transport costs. Never did he consider that more teachers would be needed in that scheme – or maybe he did, because, you know, teachers work for free. (Snark aside, teachers did almost work for free at the time, earning an average of $2.50/day.)

Press Democrat cartoon, March 20, 1923

We pick up again the Battle of Santa Rosa High in February 1923, about nine months after Wright filed suit and threw everything in limbo – the bond offering was suspended, talks with architects were canceled and even contingency plans to cobble together some temporary buildings were stalled. As expected, Wright lost in court here and everyone was awaiting a decision from the state supreme court.

Wright stayed uncharacteristically mum until the Supervisors decided to put the bonds up for sale anyway. As he was at that meeting (naturally) the cranky bear awoke and began defending his cause. They couldn’t sell the bonds until the supreme court weighed in, he protested, so their vote that afternoon was illegal, the bond election was fraudulent, and so the purchase of the Todd property was also a crime.

With that outburst, Sampson B. Wright had accused the top officials of Sonoma county of breaking multiple state laws, including criminal conspiracy, election fraud and felony misappropriation of public funds. Given that the guy had such a history of filing frivolous lawsuits and had such deep pockets he always refused to settle, you can bet that there was a moment of silent contemplation as everyone wondered: How far is this lunatic willing to go with this?

Board of education president Hilliard Comstock finally spoke up and “…expressed his resentment on behalf of the board against the insinuation that they had been guilty of fraud,” as reported in the PD. Comstock also diplomatically jabbed him by making the point that if the bonds couldn’t be sold, Mr. tax-hater would force them to raise taxes to build temporary buildings.

The crisis came a month later, in mid-March 1923.

Two things happened almost simultaneously: The supreme court threw out Wright’s lawsuit on the grounds he had no standing in the case – at the time he was living at the family ranch within the Analy school district, which was not annexed under Santa Rosa.

Wright was clearly expecting that decision and was ready to immediately fire back with a new and more ambitious lawsuit. This second action was filed under the name of his adult son, Girault, who did live in the Santa Rosa school district, and this time he wasn’t suing over a dry point of order about the state constitution. The new suit charged the bond election was “unlawful and fraudulent” and the board of trustees – which he saw as a bogus group invented via “said pretended election” – conspired to break the law by using public money to buy the Todd property. In other words, he indeed pulled the trigger and accused county officials of crimes that could send them to jail.

The next day the Press Democrat blasted Wright with the front page cartoon shown above and an emotional editorial, “Stand Out of the Way!” It had been over a dozen years since editor Ernest Finley took such a hard personal swipe at anyone local, much less a man of such great wealth:

…Unless the people follow his plan, they will never have a new high school if he can prevent it. In wintry weather our children can continue to plow back and forth between improvised quarters and in summer they can sweat and swelter in draughty fire-traps. Families can decline to locate here and continue to move away, disgusted at what appears to be our lack of public spirit and want of appreciation regarding educational necessities. All these things mean nothing to Sampson B. Wright, if he can only have his way…

Finley’s editorial was dead on; Santa Rosa was facing the possibility that no high school could ever be built as long as Sampson B. Wright lived. There would always be another suit to come, another appeal after that, particularly now that there were complex criminal charges and not merely constitutional minutiae.

A meeting for the entire community was called for March 20, the first – and to the best of my knowledge, only – town meeting to discuss a public crisis in Santa Rosa. Interest was such that the location was moved to the largest auditorium in town, the Cline movie theater (corner of 5th and B streets).

Fury at Wright was so great that the citizen’s committee organizing the townhall warned “the meeting will not be of a radical nature, and that no suggestion of violent measures will be countenanced.”

That night the movie house was packed; on stage was a lineup of men who would speak. The meeting began with everyone rising to their feet and singing “America the Beautiful.”

“The school condition in Santa Rosa is intolerable. The people are incensed and they have a cause to be,” began William F. Cowan, the attorney who chaired the meeting. He recapped the purpose of the state law and the vote on the bonds. From the Press Democrat we learn he went on for “considerable of an address” before coming to the point:

“In the series of conferences held this afternoon and this morning,” Cowan said, “everyone concerned met in a spirit of harmony, with the result that a method was suggested whereby the bonds may be sold and the work of construction begun without further delay.”

Suddenly it was over. Three hours earlier, Wright had agreed to drop his new lawsuit in principle. “Then a burst of applause broke out. It was realized that the fight had been won,” the PD reported.

Wright did not attend but his attorney was there and told the crowd he was unapolgetic. His client did not seek to delay construction of the high school, but felt he had “certain rights in this manner.” Okay, sure, whatever makes you feel good about yourself.

Because of the unexpected settlement, the meeting ending early, so they lowered the house lights and everyone enjoyed a silent movie. The next morning’s Press Democrat offered a screamer headline: “NEW HIGH SCHOOL ASSURED.”

Wright said a few weeks later he was filing yet another lawsuit against the bond sale, but apparently nothing came of it. Hilliard Comstock later estimated all the delays from Wright’s first suit cost the district $65,000.

And now, the happy ending: On November 21, 1923 the cornerstone was laid, complete with a copper box time capsule, and on December 29, 1924 the doors were opened to students for the first time. After all the chasing over town to make classes during the previous three years I’m sure the kids had an appreciation for the building we can’t grasp today. Even a basic service like a school cafeteria must have seemed a joy to them and 300 crowded in for the first lunch, where they could choose swiss steak for a dime or “weenies and hot rolls” for 7¢ – dessert was apple pie, brick ice cream or “Arctic Cakes” for 6¢. Chocolate cake was just a penny more.

^* It was later said that another possibile high school building site was at/near the current location of the Santa Rosa Plaza, which would have blocked development of the mall and/or highway 101. That location was never under consideration.

TOP: 1926 photo (Sonoma County Library) BOTTOM: 1925 photo (SRHS Foundation)

CO-OPERATION FOR HI SCHOOL IS PROMISED

Grammar School Districts Annexed For High School Purposes – Promised Representation on School Board

Hearty co-operation of the outlying grammar school districts in the extension of the high school system and enlargement of its work was assured as the result of the conference between the directors of the Santa Rosa chamber of commerce, the Santa Rosa board of education and trustees of the rural school districts held at the rooms of the chamber of commerce last night. It had been shown that both the local school authorities and the chamber of commerce were on record to provide for district representation on the high school board of education as quickly as the necessary steps could be taken.

The meeting was well attended and a thorough discussion of the problems was held, in which the outsiders showed their kindly spirit and willingness to do their part in providing for suitable school system centering in Santa Rosa if given their rights of representation and assurance that there was no intention of forcing them to be taxed without representation.

LAW OUTLINED

President Wallace Ware presided at the meeting, which lasted two hours. District Attorney Geo. W. Hoyle was present and gave a resume of the law and steps leading up to the recent act of the supervisors in adding 25 rural school districts to the Santa Rosa districts for high school purposes and the steps which remained to give them their proper representation on the board of education.

DIRECTORS MEETING

After the conference the directors of the chamber held a session in which the matter was again gone over, and Hilliard Comstock was named a committee of one to see that the work of clearing up the school problem is pushed forward as rapidly as possible.

District Attorney Hoyle is at present engaged in a thorough search of conditions, law and decisions bearing on the case in answer to queries propounded by the school authorities, and as soon as this is ready it will be submitted, together with the opinion of the attorney general. It is hoped this will open the way for immediate action in securing a union high school board…

– Santa Rosa Republican, November 23, 1921

SCHOOL PARADE FOR BONDS WILL BE ON MONDAY

At 2 o’clock Monday afternoon a parade boosting school bonds consisting of the high school, Junior College and the elementary students will start from the Congregational church and march west on 4th street to Davis street. Superintendent Jerome Cross has appointed Miss Alice Koford as grand marshal of the parade as a reward for her work in making it possible.

The students will carry large banners on which are printed slogans for boosting the bonds. A number of cheers have been worked up by the students and will be given every alternating block.

The formation of the parade will be as follows…

– Press Democrat, April 2, 1922

SCHOOL BONDS VOTE BETTER THAN 27 TO 1

Santa Rosa’s $241,000 school bond issue was carried in the election yesterday by 3,082 to 113.

This is believed to be the largest majority ever accorded any issue in Sonoma county, and speaks eloquently of the overwhelming sentiment for new schools here…This is a remarkable growth in sentiment over the figures of two years ago, when the bonds carried by approximately 4 to 1. At that time, however, there was by no means the elaborate organization working for the bonds that was built up for the campaign ended yesterday…

– Press Democrat, April 5, 1922

SCHOOL BONDS TO BE PUT UP FOR SALE NEXT WEEK

No time is to be lost by the board of education in replacing the ramshackle Fremont and Lincoln school buildings with the moder structures Santa Rosa proved it wanted at the election Tuesday…It is the tentative plan of the board to begin the tearing down of the old schools the day following the end of the term. Time will be made the essence of the contracts and the new buildings ready for occupancy, completely appointed when the September term begins…

– Press Democrat, April 6, 1922

$375,000 BOND ISSUE FOR HIGH SCHOOL ON MAY 18TH

District to Vote at Same Time on Choice of Three Proposed Sites; Wright Property and Leddy Tract on Sebastopol Avenue Offered in Addition to 30-Acre Todd Property

The voters of the City of Santa Rosa high school district, which includes the Santa Rosa grammar school districts surrounding the city, at a special election May 18, will be asked to authorized a $375,000 bond issue for the purchase of a site and the erection and equipment of a high school building and improvement of the grounds.

At the same time the question of a sight will be submitted to a decision of the voters. On the same ballot with the bond proposition, but as separate and distinct proposals, will be listed three sites from which the voters will be asked to select the one wanted for the new high school building…

…It is felt by the board that the Todd property is the most acceptable owing to its being so centrally located to all the main arteries of travel from the surrounding country and as convenient, if not more so, for the town people than any other site which could be secured for school purposes.

The Leddy tract and the Wright property are both within a very short distance of the west line of the district which separates the Analy high school district from the Santa Rosa district and are off the main traffic highways through the country.

THE PRICES

The trustees have been offered each of the various Wright properties at various prices raging from $350 to $1250 an acre. This includes the Esther Wright, the Sampson Wright and the Girault Wright tracts. The Leddy tract is offered at approximately $1,000 an acre…[The Todd] property is held by the trustees under an option at $1000 an acre or a total of $30,000. The option expires June 1.

– Press Democrat, April 23, 1922

WRIGHT TRACT IS WITHDRAWN

Sampson B. Wright has withdrawn his property facing the Sebastopol highway from the list of possible sites for the new district high school.

Announcement to this effect was made Wednesday. It leaves only the Leddy tract, alson on the Sebastopol highway, and the Todd property facing Mendocino avenue, for the people to vote on at the election May 18.

– Press Democrat, April 27, 1922

DRIVE FOR HI SCHOOL IS ON

Committee Dispels Confusion About Location of Todd Site; Many Bodies Represented

Two meetings were held here yesterday for the purpose of planning active campaign work in behalf of the high school bond issue…At both meetings it was brought out that some confusion had arisen over the name “Rush B. Todd site,” some believing that this referred to the Todd district. The committee and school authorities are anxious to have it understood that the proposed site is the old Ridgeway [sic] property at the northern edge of the city on Healdsburg avenue…

– Press Democrat, May 10, 1922

RURAL SCHOOL TRUSTEES FOR HIGH SCHOOL BOND

Representatives of 16 Districts Attend Chamber of Commerce Dinner, and All Are Enthusiastic in Approval of $375,000 Issue to Be Voted on May 19.

Representatives and trustees of 16 school districts, both in and near Santa Rosa, voiced unanimous approval Thursday night for the high school bond election to be held May 19 and for the Rush B. Todd site in Healdsburg avenue for the location of the proposed school…

…A great number of the most prominent architects in the state have been interviewed by the school board in regard to the construction and price of the proposed school buildings. [City Superintendent Jerome O.] Cross stated, and in ever instance the architects recommended a class “C” type building. This is very plain in architecture, it was stated, but one that gives the best of service for a school building.

Regarding the proposed location of the school on the present Todd property, or what is known as the former Ridgeway property, and the conflict that is arising over this location due to the Leddy tract on the Sebastopol highway being offered at a lower figure, Cross explained that not only is the Todd property the exact geographical center of the district, but it has the advantages of city water, electricity and gas, fire protection and sewage system. The price of this land as offered to the board is $1000 an acre, a price that is cheaper than many unimproved tracts of land in other communities.

The Leddy tract was offered at a much lower figure, but being so far out of the city limits, some two and one-half miles, it would mean a large expense to bring the necessary water, light, gas, sewage, and so forth to this location. Another bad feature, it was pointed out, was the fact that it would cost several thousand dollars to level the Leddy tract sufficiently to build on it…

– Press Democrat, May 12, 1922

Editor Press Democrat:

Major Comstock quotes me incorrectly. I said: “Major Comstock told me that unless the deal for the Todd property could be closed by June 1st, 1922, the chamber of commerce would lose $500 cash bond put up.”

That statement surprised me because it was apparent that the chamber of commerce would find a way to protect the option. But if I be given false premises my conclusions are likewise apt to look a bit unreasonable. He told me the option would expire on June 1st, 1922, and that as to a renewal, Mr. Todd would be difficult. The signing of the $4000 note seems of minor importance.

The major first denies that he ever signed any such note and then seems to qualify that statement by saying: “I have no individual responsibility whatever in connection with the Todd property.” Mr. Walter Price attended a meeting between certain members of the chambers of commerce and representatives of the Santa Rosa realty board. He states that at this meeting certain gentlemen from the chamber of commerce wanted the real estate board to underwrite absolutely 34 acres of the Todd property and to agree to take over the other 29.65 acres in case the voters refused to accept the latter as a site for the new high school.

Mr. Price has verified his former statement to the effect that at that meeting it was freely stated that three members of the chamber of commerce — one of whom being Major Comstock had acted as a committee for that body and had signed the note referred to for $4000. He also says that while Major Comstock did not attend that meeting the other two (2) members of that committee were present. So it may be that technically Major Comstock is not personally liable in this matter.

There is one objection to the Todd property as a high school site which should eliminate it from consideration. It is the fact that it lies within the lines of the southwest winds which sweep over the Noonan slaughter house and corrals during almost every day during the summer and fall. It is incomprehensible to me that sponsors for the Todd property, especially the high school trustees, should have failed to note and direct attention to this objection.

Again if the school be located there about the next move will be a condemnation proceeding against the Noonan plant to compel its removal and then $250,000 or more will have to be provided by the tax payers with which to pay damages to the Noonan company.

This will mean a tax of $1.92 on every $100 on the 26 school districts and if the 25 outside districts withdraw from Santa Rosa it will mean a tax of $3.84 on every $100 inside Santa Rosa. Moreover the Noonan plant to be destroyed might be appraised at $030,000. [sic]

Drainage from the Todd lands is over the Noonan property and I am reliably informed that Mr. Noonan is not going to tamely submit to present drainage conditions.

An abundance of water can be had on the Leddy tract by pumping. The City of Santa Rosa pumps water. Why not pump on the Leddy tract?

The railroad officials well know how to transport children and they will have guaranteed in writing that they will transport them. An objection to the Leddy park on that score seems puerile.

Major Comstock declares that transportation to the Todd property will be refused to the 383 students living inside the limits of Santa Rosa and that it must be allowed if Leddy park be selected, Then parents generally in town should vote for Leddy park in order to let their children ride.

The major says that in order to transport 383 school children a year on cars at 12 cents each day the cost will be $13,788. According to my calendar there are 52 Saturdays and 52 Sundays in a year. Usually there are 60 days summer vacation, 14 days around Christmas and other holidays to interfere with school attendance might amount to six days and institute week five days, a total probably of 189 days. Deduct these from 365 and there are 176 days left. At 12 cents the cost of transporting one student 176 days would be $21.12 and 383 would cost $8,088 — 5,700 less than Major Comstock figures. Major did you cause this statement, $13,788 as the cost to appear, two times in the Santa Rosa Republican through error or was that done advisedly?

It is well to note that the present high school trustees may not live always and admitting that they will so live they are not going to be able to control the situation. If Santa Rosa is to make a city a growth of two miles along the electric car line is not much of a growth.

I am urging all voters to support the Leddy park tract for a high school site and to oppose the bond issue as submitted. In submitting a bond proposal for a high school the trustees should be those who can function for the entire 26 districts sufficient time should be allowed for people to be registered 30 days before election and every schoolhouse should be a voting place. It is claimed that these trustees want to be fair and yet a large percentage of the people living in outside districts are disfranchised so far as this bond election goes.

A new call should be made and in asking for that amount of money should be stated which is to be spent in improvement of the grounds, the amount to be spent on insurance, the amount to be spent on furniture and apparatus, the amount to be spent in the purchase of a lot and the amount to be spent in the construction of buildings. A statement upon these points outside the proclamation does not bind any one nor is that the law.

– Press Democrat, May 13, 1922 [paragraphing added for clarity]

High School Is To Have Museum Worth Thousands

STATE UNIVERSITY TO AID IN ESTABLISHMENT OF FINE EDUCATIONAL FEATURE HERE

By HERBERT W. SLATER

When the Santa Rosa High School District acquires its new, strictly up-to-date school building, we are promised a very valuable accessory in the form of a museum, rich and complete in anthropology.

The acquisition of the museum has been made possible largely through the effort of Jesse Peter, graduate of the Santa Rosa high school of some years since, who is a recognized anthropologist and is by profession a civil and mining engineer. He returned from Alaska a short time ago to again take up his residence here…

…Here is what Mr. Peter has to say:

“Santa Rosa and Sonoma county have long felt the need for an historical museum and from time to time a museum of one kind or another has been talked of. One of the features of the new high school and junior college will be a museum of anthropology devoted to the Sonoma county Indians. This is a unique educational feature in California schools and is capable of far-reaching scientific results…The faculty of the department of anthropology of the University of California has generously offered and assistance within their power to make the Santa Rosa high school museum a success…

– Press Democrat, May 13, 1922

High School Site Offered Free Would Permit Pupils To Travel On Li’l Gondola

Not to be outdone by others who have high school sites on hand, Messrs. Gray and Gremott Saturday came forward with the offer of a site absolutely free of charge!

The property is a tract of 20 acres, described as being “only 20 minutes from the court house by Duesenberg Special or 70 minutes on a bicycle.”

Having sold all the balance of their sub-division, the two public-spirited citizens have no ulterior motive in offering this site, it is said. The property is on the Petaluma-Sebastopol highway and only a quarter of a mile from the electric line.

There is a beautiful lake on one end of the property, which could be used for bathing in the summer and boating in the winter. During the latter season this lake is said to become somewhat enlarged, so that the high school on that site might present the appearance of a Venetian villa, or something like that.

The generosity of the owners of this property is to be commended, and doubtless some adequate expression of thanks will be prepared by the women’s auxiliary of the chamber of commerce.

– Press Democrat, May 14, 1922

HIGH SCHOOL PUPILS TO MARCH DOWN 4TH TODAY TO URGE BONDS

The schools of Santa Rosa assisted by several from outlying districts who are in the high school district will stage a demonstration this afternoon at 3 o’clock in favor of the high school bonds. A parade will be held with the pupils from the fourth grade up participating and there will be a number of interesting features in the way of floats and various displays…

– Press Democrat, May 18, 1922

WRIGHT ATTACKS SECTION OF NEW HIGH SCHOOL LAW

Considerable interest was aroused yesterday morning by the announcement that Sampson B. Wright plans to attempt, through litigation, to delay the construction of a new high school here.

It is understood that in Wright’s opinion Section 1734b of the political code, under which elementary districts may be annexed to high school districts, is unconstitutional. Wright’s contention is reported to be that the State legislature erred in attempting to delegate certain power to county superintendent of schools together with a single supervisor, rather than to the board of supervisors as a whole… [section of 1921 law cited]

– Press Democrat, May 26, 1922

TWO CITY HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS ILL; CLASS ARRANGEMENTS CAUSE EXPOSURE

Miss Ellen F. Deruchie and Miss Edith Troxell of the high school facility were laid up Wednesday by illness and it is not expected the former will be able to return to work for several days at the best. The exposure and trying conditions to which the teachers of the Santa Rosa high school are being subjected is proving a heavy tax to their health and strength.

A visit to the high school Wednesday showed under what difficulty both teachers and pupils are working since the destruction of the old building the night of November 15, 1921. At the present time the school is divided among more than half a dozen buildings scattered over many blocks which must be traveled between each class during the day either by the teacher or pupils.

The Junior College with eight recitation rooms in the Masonic Temple is the most comfortably provided of any of the schools with one class in the Labor Temple adjoining. Two bungalows are being used and several class rooms at the Annex in conjunction with the junior high school classes which overcrowds that building making good work exceedingly difficult.

“I can truthfully say that the teaching corps has proven highly efficient and loyal under all the handicaps,” said Principal E. H. Barker in commenting on school conditions in Santa Rosa. “The school is maintaining a high standard despite the great lack of accommodations and proper equipment and both teachers and pupils are showing the right kind of spirit. It will not be to our advantage, however, if a number of the best teachers accept positions another year where they can have better accommodations, but we must expect to meet such conditions, as there is a demand for teachers in places having the best of facilities.”

– Press Democrat, January 25, 1923

Stand Out of the Way!

After having failed in one attempt to set aside the will of the people as expressed at the polls, Sampson B. Wright again brings suit to prevent the construction of a new high school here. The present suit is not brought in his name, but it is his, nevertheless.

The question of building a new high school to replace the one destroyed by fire was submitted to public vote and the bonds carried by a tremendous majority, but Mr. Wright steps in and says, “No.” Unless the people follow his plan, they will never have a new high school if he can prevent it.

In wintry weather our children can continue to plow back and forth between improvised quarters and in summer they can sweat and swelter in draughty fire-traps.

Families can decline to locate here and continue to move away, disgusted at what appears to be our lack of public spirit and want of appreciation regarding educational necessities.

All these things mean nothing to Sampson B. Wright, if he can only have his way…

…It is probably Sampson’s Wright’s contention that outlying districts should not be taxed to keep up a hight school in Santa Rosa. He favored the construction of a new building under the consolidated district plan as long as he though it could be located out of his way. He fought hard for it, and even made public tender of part of his property as a site–at a price.

Then when the people voted on the question and decided to build the structure in Santa Rosa, the central point, he recanted and became a bitter opponent of the whole idea. The thing looks bad, but let that pass. Let’s consider the point he now raises.

Should the outlying districts be taxed to build and maintain a new high school, or should Santa Rosa build it and pay for it and maintain it for the benefit of the outside districts? That is all there possibly can be to the question back of Wright’s suit…

..The people have said what they want, so let Sam Wright stand out of the way!

– Press Democrat editorial, March 16, 1923

Now For a New High School

Sampson Wright’s suit questioning the validity of the bonds vote a year or more ago for the construction of a new high school has been withdrawn, and the probability now is that within the next few weeks actual construction of the much-needed building will be under way. This is good news, and the outcome of recent efforts will be welcomed by the community generally.

Any citizen has the right to bring suit in our courts where he believes his interests are jeopardized. Nobody questioned the right of Sampson B. Wright to test the law on this high school question, or object if he believed the law was not being followed properly. The trouble with Mr. Wright’s suit was that under the procedure employed, a necessary and vital improvement was retarded. Nothing could ben done to replace a high school that had been destroyed by fire, although its speedy reconstruction was absolutely necessary. Under the terms of the agreement just reached, the work of rebuilding will begin at once and the legal points raised by Mr. Wright will be fought out later. This method of procedure should have been adopted in the first place. It might have been induced long ago, if the community had united and made its demand to that effect sooner. The outcome of this matter affords a striking example of the power of united public sentiment when properly and intelligently directed. Nothing can withstand it.

– Press Democrat editorial, March 27, 1923

WRIGHT TO SUE AGAIN

A new suit, directed against the sale of $375,000 worth of bonds for the construction of the Santa Rosa high school building, is to he filed by Sampson B. Wright, a rancher residing west of Santa Rosa, he announced Wednesday.

“It is the only feasible plan right now,” Wright, plaintiff in the former case, declared. Nor will a bill, passed hy the legislature, validating the existence of a Santa Rosa high school district, block the way to bring such a suit, Wright explained, “The legislature,” he continued, has no right to pass any retroactive measure. The suit, brought previously, questions the constitutionality of the law creating such high school districts.

“When I signed the stipulation in the dismissal of the last suit, it was on the understanding that I should sacrifice none of my rights in the case.”

The necessity of re-advertising for bids is set up by Wright as the reason for the latest attack on the construction of the high school building.

– Healdsburg Tribune, May 3 1923

2,500 TURN OUT FOR RECEPTION AT NEW SCHOOL

New Educational Building Proves Delight to Visitors

Santa Rosa appeared to have turned out en masse last night for inspection of the new half million dollars High School building erected on the Redwood highway at the northern city limits on a 30-acre campus and occupied for the first time yesterday.

Despite the storm, filly 2500 patrons of the school with the children gathered at the new building and spent several hours inspecting the rooms and facilities provided for the care and education of the children of the community.

Members of the high school faculty and board of education with their wives acted as a reception committee. Each room was decorated in some manner and all contained potted flowers. Miss Helen G. Cochrane, supervisor of music in the high school rendered an impromptu musical program in the music room during the evening with some of her pupils. The program consisted of choral work duets, trios and solos as well as instrumental number and proved quite an attraction to many. This was the only attempt at entertainment during the evening…

…Judges, lawyers, bankers, business and professional men and women, ranchers, laborers and retired men and women and even whole families of Chinese mingled and exchanged felicitations over the possession of such a wonderful plant for the district work. All were delighted with the convenience, the adaptability and compactness of the structure. One visitor here from the East, who took a great interest in examination of the structure on leaving remarked to the writer, “Never before in all my life have I seen such a magnificent school for a city of this size. It is simply wonderful.”

– Press Democrat, December 30, 1924

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