Times Calls for Chessman’s Execution

Posted on February 23, 2010 by lmharnisch
 
Feb. 20, 1960, Chessman

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 on Times Calls for Chessman’s Execution

Police Urge Ban on Women Drivers

Posted on February 23, 2010 by lmharnisch
Feb. 23, 1920, Briggs
“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 on Police Urge Ban on Women Drivers

Youth Kills Family Friend in Struggle for Gun

Posted on February 23, 2010 by lmharnisch
 
Feb. 23, 1910, Shooting
March 5, 1910, Shooting 

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 on Youth Kills Family Friend in Struggle for Gun

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?

1908_trolley_tracks_slauson
1908_trolley_tracks_amoco 		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.

Posted in Transportation | Comments Off on Found on EBay – Streetcar Items

Matt Weinstock, Feb. 22, 1960

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch
Feb. 22, 1960, PeanutsFeb. 22, 1960, Peanuts

The Chessman Furor

Matt Weinstock

    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."
 
image     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.
 
::
 
Feb. 22, 1960, Chinatown     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 on Matt Weinstock, Feb. 22, 1960

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

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch

 Feb. 22, 1960, Mirror Cover

William Pelley Still Haunts Us

Paul Coates    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.
 
Feb. 22, 1960, Chessman    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."
 
Feb. 22, 1960, Chessman    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 on Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Feb. 22, 1960

Women and Power in Hollywood

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch

Feb. 22, 1980, Joann Carelli  Feb. 22, 1960, Joann Carelli 
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 on Women and Power in Hollywood

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch
 
Feb. 22, 1959, Hedda Hopper 
 
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, Angels  

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, Times Cover 
Feb. 22, 1960, Chessman 
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 on Chessman Won’t Escape Gas Chamber, Prosecutor Says

14 Illegal Immigrants Seized in Railway Car

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch
 image 
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 on 14 Illegal Immigrants Seized in Railway Car

Chinatown to Make Way for Union Station

Posted on February 22, 2010 by lmharnisch

 
Feb. 22, 1920, Chinatown 

image

 
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, Subway Aug. 11, 1918, 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
 DSCF1891

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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.

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Jim Murray, The Marrying Kind

Posted on February 21, 2010 by lmharnisch
 
Jim Murray, Feb. 21, 1980

 
Feb. 21, 1980, Jim Murray  

 
Feb. 21, 1980: Pro golfers really, really love their old clubs! Ask Lou Graham.

Posted in #Jim Murray, Columnists, Sports | Comments Off on Jim Murray, The Marrying Kind

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Posted on February 21, 2010 by lmharnisch
 
Feb. 21, 1959, Hedda Hopper 
Feb. 21, 1959: Hedda Hopper says, “When the Navy’s Blue Angels took Janet Leigh for a ride in one of their jets she didn’t realize what a special occasion it was.”

Posted in Columnists, Film, Hollywood | Comments Off on A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Legislators Debate Chessman and Death Penalty

Posted on February 21, 2010 by lmharnisch
Feb. 21, 1960, Caryl Chessman
Los Angeles Times file photo

Feb. 21, 1960: Caryl Chessman, center, after receiving a stay of execution, with attorneys George T. Davis and Rosalie Asher.

Feb. 21, 1960, Chessman

Feb. 21, 1960, Chessman

Feb. 21, 1960, Chessman

Feb. 21, 1960, Chessman

Feb. 21, 1960: A 60-day stay of execution for Caryl Chessman so the Legislature can weigh the death penalty carries political implications for Gov. Pat Brown, whose hopes of entering the presidential race might be affected by accusations that he is “soft” on crime. Vice President Richard Nixon says he supports the death penalty, but notes that he isn’t speaking specifically of the Chessman case.

Posted in #courts, Caryl Chessman, Photography, RFK | Comments Off on Legislators Debate Chessman and Death Penalty

Waiters Go On Strike

Posted on February 21, 2010 by lmharnisch
image 

Edmund Waller “Ted” Gale on the waiters’ strike.

Feb. 19, 1920, Tipping

Feb. 21, 1920: The Times satirizes a strike by members of the Southern California Waiters Assn. who wanted a raise of $1 a day [$10.66 USD 2008] and rejected restaurant operators’ offer of 50 cents a day.  The Times said waiters at first-class restaurants earned $7 to $8 a day in tips, or up to $85.28 USD 2008. 

Bonus factoid: The Times opposed the evils of tipping in a Feb. 19, 1920, editorial.

Posted in art and artists, Comics, Food and Drink, Nightclubs | Comments Off on Waiters Go On Strike

Philadelphia Transit Strike Touches Off Riots

Posted on February 21, 2010 by lmharnisch

Feb. 21, 1910, Philadelphia Riot

Feb. 21, 1910, Philadelphia Riot 

The Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co. declared the strike over April 5, 1910.

 Feb. 21, 1910, Philadelphia Riots

Feb. 21, 1910: Striking transit workers in Philadelphia dynamite a streetcar and burn or wreck two dozen more. Many strikebreakers brought in from New York are beaten by mobs, which also attack police officers.

March 13, 1910, Editorial

March 13, 1910: The Times editorializes against the Philadelphia transit strike and attacks AFL founder Samuel Gompers, who was called a “labor despot” in  an accompanying story. All of this helps set the stage for The Times bombing in October 1910.

Posted in Front Pages | Comments Off on Philadelphia Transit Strike Touches Off Riots

Found on EBay – Williams and Walker

Posted on February 20, 2010 by lmharnisch

williams_walker_dora_ebay 1898_0501_mcintyre_heath 
May 1, 1898: Williams and Walker share the stage with McIntyre and Heath at the Orpheum. 

“Dora Dean,” a song by Bert Williams and George Walker, has been listed on EBay. Many people are familiar with Williams and Walker but don’t realize they had a connection to Los Angeles and performed here many times. Bidding starts at $24.99.
Posted in Music, Stage | Comments Off on Found on EBay – Williams and Walker

Matt Weinstock, Feb. 20, 1960

Posted on February 20, 2010 by lmharnisch
Feb. 20, 1960, Comics

“Please! My Life Is in Danger!”

 

Mediator in Middle

Matt Weinstock     The smoldering dispute between newspapermen and TV reporters over coverage of interviews almost broke out again this week at the press conference for labor Secretary James M. Mitchell.  Newspapermen contend subjects freeze when they see the cameras and are not as relaxed and responsive as they would be without them.  They prefer separate sessions, either before or after the cameramen have had theirs.  TV men insist on combined sessions and have walked out on Nelson Rockefeller and Gov. Brown, who don't.

    When the cameras moved in on Mitchell, who was aware of the clash, he quipped, "I'll be glad to offer my services as a federal mediator in this dispute — at my usual fee of $100 a day."

    It wasn't necessary.  The paper boys had a new strategy — the silent treatment.  They just sat there.  Usually they ask most of the intelligent questions and the TV men make the most of the answers.

image     Finally one TV man asked, "Are you fellows going to ask any questions?"

    "Go ahead," a newspaperman replied, "get your show on the road."

    Afterward the paper boys held an exclusive press conference with Mitchell in another room.

::


    EASILY THE most casual robber of the week was the young man who came into the Jill and Jean cafe at 311 S. Spring St. around 4 p.m.  Wednesday and ordered a cup of coffee.  As he sipped it he asked the waitress if she had a paper sack.  She said no, so he went out and got one from the newsboy at the corner.  He returned, had another cup of coffee, then went into the back of the place.  He handed Jim, the cook, a note stating, "This is a stickup" and marched him up front and instructed him to put the money from the cash register in the paper bag.  Apparently he had a gun concealed in his pocket.  He escaped with $120.

::

   HOE DOWN
Seed catalogues excite me!
Such bursts of gorgeous
    color!
Gardens of my friends
    delight me;
Digging mine is duller.
        MARGARET MAHAN

::


    A POSSIBLE explanation of the collapse of the L.A. Rams last season comes from Charles W. Lomas of UCLA's English department.  It is contained in an article in the university bulletin stating that two veterinary scientists at Davis have been given a $60,500 grant to make a three-year study of epididymitis, a disease of rams.  The article goes on, "California rams are already hard hit.  Of 10,000 rams examined, 25% were infected."

    So that's what it was, epididymitis — not fumbleitis.

::


    THE OTHER DAY just before rehearsal for Bob Hope's Feb. 23 TV show, Onnie Whizin Morrow got on an elevator at NBC in Burbank with a load of scripts for the participants.  A dignified, gray-haired man, the only other passenger, offered to help her, and she gratefully handed them to him.  As they got out and marched along the corridor several persons exchanged greetings with him.

    "You seem well acquainted here," she said.  "Whom do I have to thank for helping me?"

    "Just thank your ex-governor," the ubiquitous Goodie Knight said.

::  


    FOOTNOTES — A special showing of "The Snow Queen" will be held Monday morning at the Fox Wilshire Theater and studio people are hoping for sunshine — so they can have a load of snow on hand for the youngsters.  It will be the synthetic kind, made by the machine that makes the fluffy stuff out of ice.  But rain would spoil everything . . . Evan Thomas nominates as the best of the saloon signs that one over Hussong's cantina in Ensenada: "If you drink to forget, please pay before drinking" . . . Harmon J. Purvin nominates as the jerk of the month whoever stole two containers from the Junior Bootery in Lynwood, one containing money for the March of Dimes, the other for the City of Hope.
   
Feb. 20, 1960, Abby

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