Matt Weinstock, March 11, 1960

Posted on March 11, 2010 by lmharnisch

 
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“This Will Be Almost Painless”

A Peep by Wire

 
Matt Weinstock     This is to alert the ladies that the "Dr. Seaton" is busy again.  He phoned a lady I know the other day and in his pleasant voice said he was Dr. Seaton of the city health department.  He was making a nutrition survey, he said, and wanted to ask some questions.
 
    First, how tall was she?  She told him.  Was she overweight?  She isn't and said so but didn't like his familiar tone.  Then he asked her bust and hip measurements and she retorted that they were none of his business, although she is of movie star proportions, and hung up. 
 
    She phoned the health department and confirmed her suspicion.  There is no Dr. Seaton there, and the health department is not making a survey.  Furthermore, people were warned about the caller a month ago, when many such calls were reported.  Attempts were made to trace him at the time, but they were unsuccessful.
 
   

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Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, March 11, 1960

Posted on March 11, 2010 by lmharnisch

 
Marh 11, 1960, Mirror Cover

Deep South's Constant Sullen Hate, Contempt, Sadism Bared

Paul Coates(Second of two articles)

    John Howard Griffin became a Negro by choice.

    He did it with special pills, ultraviolet ray treatments and vegetable dyes.

    And he did it with the assurance that when the humility and scorn became too  much of a burden, he could resume his life as a first class white American.

    Yesterday, I told you how Griffin, an author and a native Southerner, began his fantastic six-week masquerade as a Negro and started his travels through the South.

He Wanted to Know

    I gave you his reason:

    To sort the fact from fiction about the oppression of the Southern Negro.

   

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Posted in #courts, Columnists, Countdown to Watts, Front Pages, Homicide, Paul Coates | 2 Comments

Jim Murray, March 11, 1980

Posted on March 11, 2010 by lmharnisch

March 11, 1980, Jim Murray

Jim Murray writes about Johnny Miller, for whom golf came easily until he hit his “wall of pain.”

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Westbrook Pegler, March 11, 1926

Posted on March 11, 2010 by lmharnisch

March 11, 1926, Westbrook Pegler

Before he emerged as a columnist on the national scene, Westbrook Pegler was a sportswriter. Here’s one of his columns about spring training by the Brooklyn Dodgers. And, frankly, he reads like a pretty fair writer.

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Hot Stove League, 1960

Posted on March 11, 2010 by lmharnisch

March 8, 1960, Hot Stove League

March 8, 1960: The Times published a month of these features in March 1960, so I’ve decided to string them out on Thursdays so they’ll last a good part of the year. Enjoy!

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Posted in Hot Stove League, Sports | 1 Comment

Governor ‘Powerless’ to Halt Execution

Posted on March 11, 2010 by lmharnisch

March 11, 1960, Times Cover

March 11, 1960: Gov. Pat Brown says he is powerless to interfere with Caryl Chessman’s May 2 execution … and a Los Angeles County official says U.S. automakers are resisting attempts to reduce pollution from car exhaust.  

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No Street Parking in Downtown L.A.

Posted on March 11, 2010 by lmharnisch
March 11, 1920, Parking
March 11, 1920: What Los Angeles is coming to without street parking in downtown, by Edmund Waller “Ted” Gale. The ban was adopted to ease the seemingly ageless problem of traffic. 

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Woman’s 15-Foot Hat Is World’s Largest

Posted on March 11, 2010 by lmharnisch
March 11, 1910, World's Biggest hat
March 11, 1910:  It took three days for Katherine Gessner to make the 15-foot Merry Widow hat out of crepe paper and cloth on a framework of bamboo and wire

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Matt Weinstock, March 10, 1960

Posted on March 10, 2010 by lmharnisch

March 10, 1960, Peanuts 

Lesson for Today

Matt Weinstock

    A group of firemen have been engaging lately in baffling exercises with the fire hose at the north end of Echo Park Lake and a lady who lives nearby says she is losing her mind with curiosity and wonderment.  They squirt water into the lake, then they place the end of the hose in the lake and pump water out.  "What are they doing," she would like to know, "filling the lake or emptying it?"

    Neither, lady, they're just practicing drafting, another word for pumping.

    Almost all water used in firefighting these days comes from hydrants and drafting is rare.  But firemen never know when they'll need to use it and it's part of the training.

    SUPPOSE THEY WERE SUMMONED to a brush fire isolated from an immediate source of water and had to tap a nearby swimming pool.  They'd have to draft, and to perform the operation they'd have to be sure the connections were secure and know how to avoid air spaces and vacuums.  Otherwise it would be like trying to suck a soft drink through a soda straw with a hole in it.

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Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, March 10, 1960

Posted on March 10, 2010 by lmharnisch

March 10, 1960, Mirror Cover

The book Coates is talking about is, of course, "Black Like Me."

DARING THE 'HATE STARE'

A White Man Turns Negro

Paul Coates

(This is the first of two exclusive columns on the remarkable story of a white author who turned "Negro" to get the facts on discrimination in the South.)

    Male, white, American.  Age 40.  Born, Dallas, Tex.  College graduate.  Married.  Three children.  Talks with slight Southern drawl.

    These are the statistics that describe John Howard Griffin.

    And with them, as his lot, his heritage, he became a successful citizen of the United States.  He was a respected man of comfortable means.

    Then, last fall, he changed one of his vital statistics.

    He became a Negro.

    Through pills, ultraviolet ray treatments and dyes, he changed the color of his skin.  That's all he changed.

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Willie Davis, April 8, 1959

Posted on March 10, 2010 by lmharnisch

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Robert Hilburn on 38-Special, Rush

Posted on March 10, 2010 by lmharnisch
March 10, 1980, Rush
March 10, 1980: “Bearable by most standards, 38-Special was a godsend next to headliner Rush,” Robert Hilburn says. 

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Hedda Hopper, March 10, 1945

Posted on March 10, 2010 by lmharnisch

March 10, 1945, Hedda Hopper

March 10, 1945: Hedda Hopper has lunch with Clark Gable … and quite a few other folks.

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Price Tag on an All-Star Infield

Posted on March 10, 2010 by lmharnisch
March 11, 1970, Billy Buckner
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March 10, 1970: How much would an all-star infield cost these days?

The Times' Ross Newhan heard what the Reds' assistant scouting director thought of young Dodgers Bill Buckner, Bill Grabarkewitz, Bobby Valentine and Bill Russell.

"I'll give $3-4 million for that infield," Rex Howen said.

What would $4 million get you on a baseball team now?

–Keith Thursby

 

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Lawmakers Defeat Attempt to Ban Death Penalty

Posted on March 10, 2010 by lmharnisch

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“I’ve Got to Live With Myself!”

 March 10, 1960, Cover

March 10, 1960: The Senate Judiciary Committee kills Gov. Pat Brown’s effort to repeal the death penalty. Although Caryl Chessman is the pressing issue in the question of capital punishment, his name is never mentioned in the hearing.

Police Chief William H. Parker "called Brown's bill a step in a trend of loosening criminal law which he feared would lead to the abolition of the prison system and the complete relaxation of restraints on criminals."

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Nuestro Pueblo

Posted on March 10, 2010 by lmharnisch
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Oct. 7, 1938: Joe Seewerker and Charles Owens visit 942 Yale St. (Google maps’ street view shows the lion is long gone). The original run of “Nuestro Pueblo” concluded last year. I’m going back and picking up the ones I missed the first time.

Posted in art and artists, Downtown, Nuestro Pueblo | 1 Comment

Joseph Scott on the Evils of Frenchwomen

Posted on March 10, 2010 by lmharnisch

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March 10, 1920: Attorney Joseph Scott attacks the morals of  Frenchwomen in closing arguments in the divorce case of Frank Van Camp, head of Van Camp Sea Food Co.  Scott represented stenographer Ruth Cruzen, who was named by Van Camp’s wife, Euphrasia, as the other woman in their divorce.  

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Pasadena Raids Illegal Stock Exchange

Posted on March 10, 2010 by lmharnisch

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March 10, 1910: A speeding streetcar takes a curve too fast at 7th and Alvarado, jumps the tracks and goes tearing into what’s now MacArthur Park. If it hadn’t run into a telegraph pole and a pepper tree, it might have ended up in the lake, The Times says.

And on the jump, Pasadena police raid a bucket shop,  stock exchanges that were banned because they traded on margin. The Times says that such operations had been driven out of Los Angeles with raids in 1908.

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Matt Weinstock, March 9, 1960

Posted on March 9, 2010 by lmharnisch

March 9, 1960, Abby

Board Meeting

Matt Weinstock

    The hostess at a house party in Santa Monica happened to mention that she had a late model Ouija board,  and several surprised guests, who thought the boards had gone out with mah-jongg, insisted that it be produced and be put to work.  They said some vital questions needed answering.

    A table was cleared, two ardent disciples of the occult placed their hands on the frail board, asked questions, and let it run amok.

    Ouija gave the following answers:

    1- Nixon will be the next President.
    2- Kennedy will be the Democratic nominee.
    3- Chessman will not be executed.
    4- Gov. Brown will not be re-elected.
    5- The Dodgers will not win the National League pennant.
    6- Kansas City will win the American League pennant with the White Sox second.

    At this point, F.C. Neumuth, one of the guests, reports, Ouija became tired and uncooperative and made no sense whatever.

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Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, March 9, 1960

Posted on March 9, 2010 by lmharnisch

March 9, 1960

Father, Son Talk Over the Slaying of Seven

Paul Coates

    In his 57 years, stolid Ralph Whitney never made a more difficult phone call. 

    He placed it late yesterday afternoon from the quiet Pomona Valley community of Upland to the West Palm Beach, Fla., County Jail.

    That's where Dennis, second youngest of Whitney's 10 children, was.

    This was to be the first conversation between the father and his son since the 17-year-old youth went off on a cross-country murder spree that stupefied the nation.

    But the call — which we had arranged for him to make from the offices of the Upland News — got off to a bad start.  The drawling deputy who answered gave it to the father straight.  "That kid killed seven people," he said.  "I ain't going near him to bring him to the phone."

    But another deputy eventually did.  Dennis said hello into the speaker and the strange exchange between the father and his confessed-killer son began:

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