Sept. 13, 1917: I thought I’d take a little detour to 1917 after visiting the Southwest Museum the other day to go through Charles Lummis’ materials on the 1910 bombing of The Times. You may recall that “Charlie” Lummis was The Times’ first city editor.

One thing I came across was  correspondence between Gen. Harrison Gray Otis (referred to as the Chief or  the Old Chief) and Lummis over a column titled “I Guess So.” Lummis was being paid $25 [$414.61 USD 2009] per Sunday column and shortly before Otis died in 1917, he agreed to pay Lummis $20 [$331.69 USD 2009] for another installment of “I Guess So” that would run midweek.

After Otis died, Harry Chandler withdrew the agreement, explaining after a long series of protests by Lummis that the government had imposed wartime restrictions on newsprint, noting that newspapers were weighing whether to cut the comics, rotogravure sections and anything else that wasn’t news.  

I have no idea as to the artist on this editorial cartoon, which is unsigned. Edmund Waller “Ted” Gale was the usual editorial page artist in this era, but he always signed his work.

Lummis’ entire column is on the jump –- plus an editorial against saloons. The Times says it doesn’t oppose serving liquor with meals and calls “bone-dry prohibition” a failure. But the “stand up  and take a drink bar” should be closed, it says.