Found on EBay – Manly Hall

Posted on February 23, 2010 by lmharnisch

What is advertised as an autographed copy of Manly Hall’s collected writings has been listed on EBay. Bidding starts at $149.99.

Posted in books, Religion | Comments Off

Matt Weinstock, Feb. 23, 1960

Posted on February 23, 2010 by lmharnisch

Right Bows to Might

It happened at dusk on a Sunset Flyer, which travels from downtown L.A. to Laurel Canyon.

As Cynthia Lawrence boarded the bus, the driver gave her a check. This was wrong. A two-zone fare is in effect along the entire route and no checks are necessary. But in the submissive manner of commuters, she accepted it.

The bus roared into the dense Hollywood Freeway traffic. Midway to Western Ave., the turnoff point, the driver pulled to the side, stopped and started to collect the checks.

Seven passengers, accustomed to paying the fare without receiving checks, were caught empty-handed and the driver demanded an additional 7 cents from each. They demurred. Finally two shrugged and paid tribute. The other five refused. The driver resumed his seat and folded his arms. It was an impasse.

FIVE MINUTES PASSED, then 10, and still the busload sat locked in conflict. But not one uninvolved passenger attempted to persuade the others to pay. They sat united, commuters at the barricades, holding fast to the belief that 27 cents was enough and a free people must resist tyranny wherever it occurs, even on a freeway shoulder.

They exchanged unflattering comments about life under the MTA. One after another tried to reason with the driver but he was adamant. One small group plotted escape but gave it up. At length, four of the five, feeling an obligation to the others, grudgingly deposited the extra money in the fare box. But one, a girl, held out. Finally a distraught commuter, anxious for home and family, donated the 7 cents and the mobile person plunged on.

Next day Cynthia phoned the MTA to report the incident and learned that the company already knew about it. A nice lady also confirmed her opinion that there was no check stop on the freeway. Furthermore, she was told, the driver had been "confused" and would be "re-instructed."

But what, she asks, about the illegal profit of 49 cents?

ONE OF THE curious tribal customs in certain elegant residential sections is that people don't get very close. They know each other by sight but that's about as far as neighborliness goes.

No long ago Steve Gardner of Bel-Air went to a travel agency to arrange a trip to Mexico City. To his delight, the travel bureau man turned out to be a neighbor, a waving acquaintance who was going to Mexico City at the same time. They arranged to meet there and did and had a wonderful time. But since their return they rarely see each other. No reason — that's just the way things are.

SALES psychology surveys doubtless will show that people rise more quickly to the bait if the price of an article is $1.98 instead of $2, or $29.9 cents a gallon of gas instead of a simple, straight 30 cents. Many persons, of course, consider this practice a nuisance.

Well, this is to report that the dissenters are losing ground. A Redondo Beach barbershop offers haircuts for $1.29.

IN THE VIEW of Mrs. Mason Sanders of Pasadena, an ad for a stationery firm in the Feb. 1 Vogue represents a milestone in cool, oblique product plugging. It is a photo of a presumably Mediterranean courtyard with a row of statues of old Roman ladies, with a caption, "I'm turning the beach house over to you. Stuart and I will be married at his villa in Capri. Celeste." Below is a message, "When it comes to impressing first husbands, a stinging little note on Crane's paper does more for your ego than alimony."

Civilized is the word for Celeste.

DESCRIPTION

A buss is a motherly kiss

A buss is something that

you miss.

JOSEPH P. KRENGEL

AT RANDOM — The word payola, newly added to the language, isn't new at all in meaning. The Chinese got to it long ago with cumshaw. And apparently we're only in the early stages of the game. For instance, Joe Furst, who runs a speedometer shop on W Pico Blvd., calls a checkup a speedola . . . Although she is confronted continually with signs to the contrary, Virginia Donohue contends the original prime rib was Eve.

Feb. 23, 1960, Abby

Posted in Columnists, Comics, Matt Weinstock | Comments Off

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Feb. 23, 1960

Posted on February 23, 2010 by lmharnisch

Democracy Guards Everyone's Rights

A few days before Gov. Brown's reprieve of Caryl Chessman, the Mexico City newspaper Novedades carried the front-page headline:

Puede Salvar La Vida de Chessman

Un Testigo Deseubierta por Novedades

Translated, it said Novesdades had discovered a witness who could save Caryl Chessman's life.

Unfortunately for the condemned man, however, the facts of the story didn't bear out the headline.

A Novedades reporter had interviewed an ex-schoolmate of Mary Alice Meza, the girl whom Chessman is repeatedly accused of having driven insane.

The schoolmate — now living in Mexico City — told the reporter that Mary Alice was mentally ill long before Chessman's assault on her, supporting the statement with some rambling, incoherent letters she had received from her onetime close friend.

Apparently the editors, having heard the cry that Chessman "drove a girl to the insane asylum" so often, felt that by disproving the claim they had significant new legal evidence to aid the condemned man.

Of course, they didn't.

All they did was disprove a piece of misinformation which had been disproved several times before, but which — because of both ignorance and its value as anti-Chessman propaganda — has been repeatedly revived as fact.

The Novedades story is a perfect example of the hysteria — local and international — the case has caused.

The facts have long since been buried in an avalanche of phony charges, false clues and invented issues. Charges, clues, and issues dragged out of the basement not just by those who want to see Chessman die — but also by those who have become so unrealistically and emotionally involved in the case that they'll take it as a personal family loss if he is executed.

Last week, a frantic woman telephoned me from Ft. Worth, Tex., pleading that I publish information which could "save Chessman's life." She knew the real story — she said — "about the man they say Chessman beat up. I can get him as a witness."

Some of Chessman's avid followers are more cunning. Also last week one sent me an intriguing anonymous letter detailing his association with an transient named Franky at the time of the Red Light Bandit's attacks.

During the time, he said, he has unsuspectingly lent his car to Franky, who — he pointed out carefully — was always trying to engage him in conversation about the Red Light Bandit's activities.

It was after the transient had left town, he continued, in studied bad English, that he discovered Franky had replaced his white spotlight with a red one.

"My wife and I found our clear spotlight in the trunk," he added, "and some things belonging to difren womans in the car besides some papers with the red light bandit stories."

He didn't go to the police, he said, because he had a record and didn't want to become a suspect. Instead, he waited 12 years to tell the press — anonymously.

Even the foreign press, which has cried loud and long over Chessman, took Brown on because it didn't like the reasons he gave for the reprieve.

Tired of Foreign Press

Personally, I'm as tired as anyone of having the half-informed foreign press tell us how to handle the Chessman affair.

I'm also inclined to agree with State Atty. Gen. Mosk that our own State Department might spend its time more effectively by informing the foreign press of the true facts of the Chessman case, than by trying to crawl out from under the unjust criticism by sending implied recommendations to Sacramento.

Posted in #courts, Caryl Chessman, Columnists, Paul Coates | Comments Off

Charles Lane, the Classic ‘Stinker’

Posted on February 23, 2010 by lmharnisch

Feb. 23, 1980: The Times profiles character actor Charles Lane (d. 2007). “The great old days, a lot of them, stunk,” he says. Lane also says Frank Capra “is the most talented man we ever had.”

Posted in Film, Hollywood, Obituaries | 1 Comment

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Posted on February 23, 2010 by lmharnisch

Feb. 23, 1961: Hedda Hopper says, “Warren Beatty has sex, youth, talent and ambition.” I would think she might have phrased that a bit differently.

Posted in Columnists, Film, Hollywood | Comments Off

Dodgers Begin Spring Training

Posted on February 23, 2010 by lmharnisch

Feb. 23, 1960: The champions of the baseball world, the Los Angeles Dodgers, opened spring training and Times sportswriter Frank Finch apparently viewed it as a heavy assignment.

Finch spent a lot of space discussing the pounds carried by several Dodgers, including World Series hero Larry Sherry.

"Sherry, who weighed in on opening day last spring at 194, has ballooned to 208, thanks to a diet of creamed peas and chicken on the winter banquet circuit," Finch wrote.

Finch also charted other pitchers—or as Finch called them, "first-line flingers"—including Don Drysdale (218 pounds, from 214) and Johnny Podres (down to 192 from 196).

Manager Walt Alston also announced some rules for the team during its stay at Vero Beach. No swimming in the Atlantic Ocean but golf after practice was permitted.

"I'd rather have them playing golf than sitting around in their rooms playing poker," Alston said.

–Keith Thursby

Posted in Dodgers, Sports | Comments Off

Does L.A. Want the Lakers?

Posted on February 23, 2010 by lmharnisch

Feb. 23, 1960: Minneapolis Lakers owner Bob Short was ahead of his time.

Reading comments made by Short to a group of basketball writers, one could assume he owned a team in 2010 rather than 1960. After all, he was trying to move his team and had a spot all picked out, but he still felt the need to play hard-to-get.

Short desperately wanted out of Minnesota and given the Dodgers' success in L.A., the city looked like a sure thing. But among Short's issues were the proposed rent at the Sports Arena was too high, he wasn't sure the league fathers would approve the deal (it was not his decision, poor guy) and he wanted the Lakers to be wanted. Seriously.

"It's apparent that he would like some form of an official invitation from the city of Los Angeles," Mal Florence wrote in The Times.

I doubt he was holding L.A. hostage, but what silliness. As St. Louis Hawks owner Ben Kerner said, "There shouldn't be any fuss about L.A. being a good sports town. … The NBA should come to Los Angeles."

–Keith Thursby

Posted in Downtown, Lakers, Sports | 2 Comments

Times Calls for Chessman’s Execution

Posted on February 23, 2010 by lmharnisch

The Times calls the gas chamber “a sanitary disposal mechanism that a civilized society is constrained to set up to shield itself from the contamination of criminal psychopaths.”

Feb. 23, 1960, Chessman Case

Feb. 23, 1960, Chessman

Feb. 23, 1960: The Times runs letters in response to its editorial in favor of Caryl Chessman’s execution, echoed by Bruce Russell’s cartoon showing justice held captive.

Posted in #courts, art and artists, Caryl Chessman | Comments Off

Police Urge Ban on Women Drivers

Posted on February 23, 2010 by lmharnisch

“The Saddest Scene,” by Clare Briggs.

Feb. 23, 1920, Women Drivers

Feb. 23, 1920: Los Angeles is the deadliest city in the nation for pedestrians, The Times says. Solution? Ban women drivers because women account for more than 30 percent of the fatalities, says Police Capt. James McDowell. Of course, using that logic, banning male drivers would eliminate nearly 70 percent of the deaths, but nobody had the bad manners to bring it up.

Posted in LAPD, Transportation | Comments Off

Youth Kills Family Friend in Struggle for Gun

Posted on February 23, 2010 by lmharnisch

S. Levy, the operator of a theater at 414 E. 1st St., says he was fined over a sign he placed on the sidewalk after complaining about the amount of time Officer Gamash was spending with his cashier.

Feb. 23, 1910: Dan Todd, the night watchman at the city dump, is shot while struggling with Edward S. De Turk over a revolver.

Posted in #courts, Homicide | Comments Off

Found on EBay – Streetcar Items

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch

1909 Streetcar Map

The Pacific Electric Railway routes radiated from downtown like the spokes of a wheel, as one early transportation engineer observed. What's this? A subway to Avalon?

A recent post referred to the dangers of streetcar crossings. These photos provide a view of the four tracks in question, which led into Los Angeles. The images are from an issue of Traction Heritage that has been listed on EBay. Bidding starts at $4.95.

Another issue of Traction Heritage listed on EBay includes a map of Pacific Electric Railway routes, c. 1909, shown above. Bidding starts at $4.95.

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Matt Weinstock, Feb. 22, 1960

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch

The Chessman Furor

Sometimes it is difficult to understand what motivates people. Example: Last week's frenzy over Caryl Chessman.

The case has been blundering around for 12 years, picking up a great deal of legal momentum. But except for zealots on the subject of capital punishment, pro and con, not many people seemed to care. A survey a few months ago doubtless would have shown the major reaction was boredom.

But as the execution date neared last week people were gripped with excitement. Would he or wouldn't he? They debated violently, mostly without knowledge of the legal intricacies of the case. Petitions were circulated in the universities. Bets were made in barbershops. The political implications and the international aspects of the case became known. It was almost as if the future of civilization hung on the outcome. It even knocked the Finch case off the main banner lines.

IT ALSO BECAME a gag, as dramatic events inevitably do. Someone kept calling the newspapers and saying in a sobbing voice, "This is Caryl Chessman — help me!" — and hung up. A wry fellow remarked, "I blame it on the Dodgers. They got people used to this cliff hanger stuff. Now people have to have it and they don't care where they get it."

Other more sincere people pleaded with powerless editors and columnists to "do something" to prevent a terrible injustice. The fact that criminals get the gas all the time and that Chessman is a relatively low bracket criminal made no difference.

Perhaps the best answer to the agonized conduct was a crime reporter's comment many years ago on this current phenomenon, characteristic of L.A.: "You can wake up in the morning and the sun will be shining and the birds will be singing and suddenly at 2:43 p.m. as you are walking through the Civic Center you get the feeling that the sidewalks are about to buckle and dead cats will be flying through the air and the leprechauns have taken over."

NOW AND THEN, when atmospheric conditions are right, or rather, wrong, police calls from Nashville, Tenn., or some such place can be heard over the police and fire radio, jamming local broadcasts.

Well, E.L. Montague sends along a clipping from his hometown paper, the Berrien County Record. Buchanan, Mich., with a complaint about us.

Every October the loud, clear voice of a woman broadcasting traffic conditions here starts overwhelming the Buchanan police frequency, sometimes for six or eight hours a day. The jamming lasts until May. And you know what the Berrien County Record calls this golden voiced lady? Los Angeles Rose.

ONLY IN MALIBU — Every time the cleaning man stops to pick up or deliver clothes at a beach house a large collie viciously challenges him. He has barely missed being nipped several times.

The other day the lady said the dog had been given a rabies shot and was unhappy about it. "But at Least," she comforted, "when he bites you now you know you'll be safe!"

A SOUTHERN Pacific employee who was working nearby when an Army helicopter with six men aboard made an emergency landing in the L.A. River bed due to a partial power failure asks a posy for its pilot, Thomas Cruz. Afterward, Cruz was asked why he hadn't landed in a parking lot in the area instead of precariously clearing high tension wires. He said he was afraid there might be someone in a car.

AT RANDOM — Did you hear about the Las Vegas schoolboy who was told by his teacher that he'd made 100 in arithmetic? "Let it ride on the next term," he said . . . Nothing is sacred. An East L.A. store has a picture of Michelangelo's "The Last Supper" on display and as two men walked by and glanced at it Al Diaz heard one say, "I wonder which one had the Diner's card?" . . . At SC's audio-visual department, pay TV is referred to as Fee-Vee.

Posted in Columnists, Comics, Downtown, Matt Weinstock | Comments Off

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Feb. 22, 1960

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch

William Pelley Still Haunts Us

William Dudley Pelley looks like any other elderly man, but the assumption dissipates itself when he opens his mouth.

His hair is gray; his face, lined; his manner of speech, halting, uncertain.

A few weeks short of his 70th birthday, he's the physical image of a man on the decline. But his mind — his strange convictions — haven't been dimmed or changed by age or prison or the sapping of the powers he once held over thousands in this country.

It has been said that had Hitler won World War II, William Dudley Pelley probably would have been the ruler of the United States.

Intelligent, informed men speculated on that possibility — with strong trepidation — when Pelley and Fritz Kuhn shared the spotlight as the pro-Nazi strong-men of our nation some 30 years ago.

Kuhn led the goose-stepping German-American Bund.

Pelley had his Silver Shirts, a private army patterned after Hitler's Brown Shirts, which spread into 22 of our states and was purported to have an active membership of 45,000.

Pelley began building his empire in 1932 and gave its avowed purpose as saving America, but he admitted to a Senate investigating committee in 1940 that if his organization had achieved its goal, he probably already would have been in charge of the American government.

Two years after that, Pelley was convicted of criminal sedition and sent to federal prison, where he served seven years of a 15-year sentence.

His army destroyed, since his release he has lived in comparative obscurity. But it's not, apparently, an obscurity of his own choosing.

I met Pelly for the first time the other day, when he was here in Los Angeles on a visit from his home in Noblesville, Ind.

Currently, he told me, he heads an organization known as Soulcraft Fellowship.

"It's a spiritual group," he said, "with the purpose of acquainting the rank and file with extrasensory perception."

Every week Pelley holds a seance (although he doesn't like the term), tape-records it, and distributes the tapes at $10 a reel.

"I've been in contact with all of the Constitutional Fathers," he told me. "I've talked to 65 departed people — men like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson. I've had more bona fide history taught me by these men than anyone could ever get out of books."

I asked him what these men had told him, and the old man's answer was strangely reminiscent of his hate harangues of the '30s.

"There's definitely an anti-Jewish feeling among these departed souls," he said. "That's their personal feelings, understand. They're very careful what they say. You have to know how to interpret the full meaning of their remarks."

The ghosts of Wilson and McKinley and Washington had now become voices in a campaign of anti-Semitism. The vague "Jewish plot" was Pelley's battle cry in the old days. Today, it's still with him — but he's much more careful how he phrases his accusations.

"The American Jew likes me," he told me. "American Jews say, 'We'll get a square deal from Pelley.' They're eager to get the truth about their own relationship with the Gentile world.

"The poor devils," he added, "don't want anything more than the right information."

He 'Died' in 1938

Pelley told me that he first became aware of his ability to contact the dead in 1938, when he actually "died" for seven minutes. In recent years, he said, Franklin Roosevelt — whom Silver Shirt Pelley used to accuse of permitting the Jews to change our Constitution — has been trying frantically to come in on Pelley's frequency.

"I won't talk with him," he said. "He wants to talk to me, but I don't want to talk to him."

It's interesting, I think, that age hasn't softened the bitter convictions of William Dudley Pelley. It has just cause him to transplant them from the military Silver Shirts to the strange plan of the spirit world, where — as he himself points out-even the ghosts are privately anti-Semitic.

Posted in Columnists, Paul Coates | Comments Off

Women and Power in Hollywood

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch

Feb. 22, 1980: Is it possible to say “Michael Cimino’s upcoming film, ‘Heaven’s Gate.’ ” and not shudder? Producer Joann Carelli has exactly one credit on imdb after “Heaven’s Gate,” “The Sicilian.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch

Feb. 22, 1959: William Shatner was in “The World of Suzie Wong?” I had no idea.

Posted in Columnists, Film, Hollywood | 1 Comment

Angels Borrow a Page From the Dodgers

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch

Feb. 22, 1970 : The Angels were starting their first full season under the control of several ex-Dodgers and unlike what Mike Scioscia and his former Dodger teammates have done for the franchise, the first try at borrowing from the Dodgers didn't work out so well.

As the start of 1970 spring training approached, The Times' John Wiebusch interviewed General Manager Dick Walsh, a longtime Dodger official, who promised a fresh start and a new approach.

"The training camp that will open in Holtville Monday will be I think quite unlike any previous Angel training camp," predicted Walsh.

"I can guarantee this will be a businesslike camp, a camp that is run on order—like the Dodgers do at Vero Beach."

Too bad that this era turned out to be perhaps the most chaotic in team history. But all that would come later.

–Keith Thursby

Posted in Dodgers, Sports | 2 Comments

Chessman Won’t Escape Gas Chamber, Prosecutor Says

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch

Feb. 22, 1960: Atty. Gen. Stanley Mosk (d. 2001), a future state Supreme Court justice who personally opposed the death penalty, predicts that Caryl Chessman will be executed at the end of his 60-day reprieve.

Posted in #courts, Caryl Chessman | Comments Off

14 Illegal Immigrants Seized in Railway Car

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch

Feb. 22, 1910: Thomas A. Montez is accused of helping smuggle 14 Chinese men who were found in a boxcar loaded with staves. The cost of being smuggled into the U.S. is about $250 [$5,707.53 USD 2008] each, The Times says.

And boxer James Jeffries is in Los Angeles before heading to the San Francisco area April 1 to train for his next fight. Remember that on the Fourth of July, 1910, Jeffries was defeated by Jack Johnson, who became the first African American heavyweight world champion.

Posted in #courts, Sports | Comments Off

Chinatown to Make Way for Union Station

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch

Feb. 22, 1920: Guy W. Finney, the author of “Angel City in Turmoil,” touches on the Chinese massacre of 1871 in exploring the changes ahead for Chinatown, which is being moved to make way for Union Station.

Union Station didn’t open for 19 years, but large municipal projects move slowly in Los Angeles. In fact, the concept of a union terminal was proposed by Charles Mulford Robinson as early as 1907 and plans to eradicate Chinatown and Sonoratown date to 1906 under the “City Beautiful” philosophy. Never heard of Charles Mulford Robinson? You can thank him for straightening out Spring Street and placing City Hall there. He also advocated lining the city’s streets with jacarandas.

Here’s an interesting quote explaining one reason for putting the depot in Chinatown: Richard Sachse, chief engineer of the Union Station project, says: "Probably the most important argument in favor of the Plaza site is the fact that it is adjacent to the future north and south subway."

What’s this? A subway?

Aug. 11, 1918: Yes, a subway. The Times reports a plan to build one in downtown Los Angeles to reduce traffic congestion.

Posted in Architecture, Transportation | 1 Comment

Hearing on the Gas House, Part 2

Posted on February 21, 2010 by lmharnisch

DSCF1892

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Sept. 8, 1959: This is the second part of a transcript of testimony by “Holy Barbarians” author Lawrence Lipton before the the Los Angeles Police Commission on the Gas House, the Beat hangout in Venice. Part 1 is here.

Posted in art and artists, books, LAPD, Nightclubs | Comments Off

Found on EBay – Manly Hall

Matt Weinstock, Feb. 23, 1960

Right Bows to Might

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Feb. 23, 1960

Democracy Guards Everyone's Rights

Charles Lane, the Classic ‘Stinker’

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Dodgers Begin Spring Training

Does L.A. Want the Lakers?

Times Calls for Chessman’s Execution

Police Urge Ban on Women Drivers

Youth Kills Family Friend in Struggle for Gun

Found on EBay – Streetcar Items

Matt Weinstock, Feb. 22, 1960

The Chessman Furor

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Feb. 22, 1960

William Pelley Still Haunts Us

Women and Power in Hollywood

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Angels Borrow a Page From the Dodgers

Chessman Won’t Escape Gas Chamber, Prosecutor Says

14 Illegal Immigrants Seized in Railway Car

Chinatown to Make Way for Union Station

Hearing on the Gas House, Part 2

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