April 23, 1906 (Monday)

HANGING IN THERE: There's a new painting in the American Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. It's Theodore Robinson's painting of a girl and a cow. I think it's this one on the right. A brief article in the New York Times says it's "an unusually good example of this artist's work." It was a gift from William T. Evans. Several hundred visitors saw the painting yesterday.



MEATY ARGUMENT: Upton Sinclair surfaces in a recent copy of Everybody's magazine. According to a news report, the issue includes a reply Sinclair has made to meat packer Ogden Armour (right). Sinclair, of course, wrote "The Jungle," which exposed wrongdoings in the meat-packing industry. In this issue, he replies to Armour's contention that government inspectors ensure that meat is pure. "Mr. Sinclair's evidence as to the truth of this statement is pretty clear, pretty specific and considerably unpleasant to persons who are not vegetarians."

COOL CASH IS THE BEST CASH: Alfred Castle, a former Chicago banker, has wired some advice to San Francisco Mayor Schmitz. He warns that the officials in the quake-ravaged city should let the bank vaults cool off before opening the doors. If the air is still hot when the oxygen rushes in from the outside, everything could combust spontaneously -- and the money could burn. Castle says that's what happened after the Chicago fire of about 35 years ago.

April 22, 1906 (Sunday)

BRAINS OR BRAWN? Here's an interesting pitch in The New York Times. Coyne Trade School is trying to convince graduates of Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Columbia that riches lie in a job like plastering. Too many graduates are earning $1 or $2 a day. Greater things await the smart person who knows a trade: "$5.00 per day in your hand is worth forty libraries in your head."



LET THE GAMES BEGIN: The Olympic Games in Athens begins today. Most all events will be in the Panathenic Stadium(right), which is made of "snow-white marble," according the The New York Times. It's a very different looking arena than the one used in 1896. This seats 70,000 people. The Times is fairly confident of a certain result: "Among the athletes of other countries, there appeared occasionally a performance of especial merit in an individual event, but the Anglo-Saxons show a general proficiency that is astounding to the Athenians." Wonder how many medals those U.S. and English athletes will win.

TIP O' THE HAT: The summer games might be one sign of warm weather coming. There's another one, closer to home, according to The New York Times. The FIRST STRAW HAT of the SEASON turned up yesterday at Times Square. Here's the description: "It was worn by a serious-looking young man, who was attired in blue serge and a neglige shirt, in harmony with his headgear." When someone chided the man for being a bit ahead of things, the straw man replied, "To-day is as warm as many days in June will be. You outght to be wearing the same thing. The diffference between you and me is that I have the ocurage to assert my convictions on comfort and you haven't."

April 21, 1906 (Saturday)

UNDERGROUND: The earthquake and flames have exposed an underside of San Francisco's Chinatown (right) that baffles some observers. The disaster has exposed a warren of tunnels under the area. "Men, white men, never knew the depth of Chinatown's underground city," said W.W. Overton, an earthquake survivor who was interviewed in Los Angeles. He continued: "Now that Chinatown has been unmasked, for the destroyed buildings were only a mask, men from hillsides have looked on where its inner secrets lay. In places they can see passages 100 feet deep....They show depths which the police never knew."

MEDIA CRITICISM: One witty paragraphist has a little dig at some of the news coverage of the San Francisco earthquake:

"By filling up all the upper half of the page with large headlines some ingenious contemporaries have avoided the necessity of printing any great amount of San Francisco news."

A BOLD PREDICTION: The Hartford Courant isn't too worried about the possibility that people will be elected to the United States Senate by a popular vote. The paper says "it will never be adopted because it depends upon a constitutional amendment which must pass the Senate itself. That body will never destroy its own distinctive feature." The writer sounds so sure of himself (or herself). Wish there were a way to see if that kind of change will ever happen.

COSTLY CAMPAIGNS: Speaking of politics, New York Congressman Sulzer has presented to the House a report that lists the amount of money spent on each of the presidential elections since 1860. Money, he says, is clearly playing too big a role in the election. An article in The Washington Post sums up Sulzer's position by saying "as Napoleon remarked about Providence being on the side that had the heaviest cannon, fortune smiled upon that party which had the biggest fund." (Wish the writer had given a quote for Napoleon's comment?) Sulzer wants the McCall bill passed, which requires detailed reports on the costs of presidential or congressional campaigns. The Republicans spent $4.5 million in the 1904 campaign; Democrats spent $1.25 million. It's enough to take your breath away. When will it stop?

April 20, 1906 (Friday)

EXIT STAGE LEFT: Some are wondering what happened to several members of the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York. Some of them were in the St. Francis Hotel, which was damaged in the earthquake in San Francisco. According to early reports, the artists lost virtually everything. As of this morning, their whereabouts are unknown. Among the missing is Enrico Caruso (right). The company has lost costumes, scenery and equipment. Director Nathan Franko thinks the stars have found refuge with friends.

THANKS FOR THE NEWS: An editorial in The Post-Standard in Syracuse praises The Associated Press for its reporting on the disaster in San Francisco. Here's how it begins:
"The miracle of our American efficiency in news-gathering and news-giving has never been more signally illustrated than in the speed and accuracy and fullness with which, all over this land, news concerning the San Francisco horror has been published."
Despite broken telegraph wires the news somehow kept coming from San Francisco, mostly via Oakland. Some papers have actually listed the names of the usually anonymous members of the Associated Press workforce in San Francisco. One headline accompanying the names reads: "Men who Risk Lives to Gather and Send News."


MAXIM(um) DEFENSE: Maxim Gorky's (right) interesting visit to the United States continues. His friend Leroy Scott has gone to some lengths to minimize the outrage some feel here about Gorky's arrival in the U.S. with a woman who is not his wife. Scott points out that Mrs. Gorky No. 1 is living reasonably happily in Russia and is, herself, with a man. The Times says she is now a "Mrs. Somebody-or-other-ending-in-vitch." The Times also says that Gorky is a bit hypocritical when he appears to be sensitive to the scolding he has received here: "Gorky has done a good deal of scolding himself, and he should not be seriously disturbed by that."

April 19, 1906 (Thursday)

QUAKE NEWS: The news out of San Francisco is absolutely stunning. According to early reports, an earthquake has left more than 500 dead and left nearly half the city in ruins. Fire is the big problem now. The water supply has failed. Dynamite is being used to interrupt the progress of the fire. The New York Times has produced an incredible issue, devoting numerous pages to yesterday's quake. One image on the front page was interesting (above). It shows how the shock waves appeared on a seismograph machine in Albany, about 3,000 miles from the quake. It took 10 minutes for the vibrations to travel across the continent. One article ("New York Stunned by Disaster News") describes how people in Manhattan, especially those from California or with relatives in San Francisco flocked to newspaper offices for any word of the tragedy. One particular bit of news brought relief, or, as the article says, "served to allay the fears of many who were anxious about relatives or friends in San Francisco." Here's the notice that had a calming effect:

"Nearly all the those killed or injured were men and women who lived in the cheap lodging houses of the city."

Will it be this way for all major disasters?

THE REPORTER'S TASK: The Associated Press had difficulty getting the word out about the damage. Here's a neat excerpt from an article that's on the front page of today's Times: "The Associated Press established a temporary station in The Bulletin editorial room. Then the latter place was closed, and this dispatch is written on a doorstep near Chinatown, the illumination of the burning buildings furnishing light for the writer."


MOVED BY QUAKE NEWS: One more thing on the earthquake. Today's Times has an ad that actually plays off the news from the earthquake (right). How quick is that. It's a little one-column add on column five of page 13. The heading is "Death by Milk Or by Earthquake?" The text is provocative enough:
"Jacob Riis says, "You can kill a man with a tenement as well as with an axe." So babies can be killed by bad milk as well as by earthquake or volcano. Thousands died last summer in New York because of inadequate inspection of milk."
The ad was placed by the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. Regardless of how good the milk tastes, I think this was in pretty poor taste -- using the earthquake as a springboard for the ad. But that's just me.

April 18, 1906 (Wednesday)

SHAKEN: The morning papers missed it, but the San Francisco earthquake, which struck about 5 a.m. California time today, filled the pages of afternoon newspapers across the country. Here are examples from Syracuse, N.Y., and Oakland, Calif. Some telegraph workers are risking their lives to get word to the outside world. A report that was filed at 10:15 a.m. Pacific time (about five hours after the quake), praised the men trying to move information, saying, "The Postal Telegraph operators who are at their posts are taking their lives in their hands as the building is collapsing and the fire within half a block."

BIRTHDAY FOR BEN: They're celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. The four-day celebration opened last night in Witherspoon Hall. In honor of the occasion, Andrew Carnegie conferred yesterday an honorary doctor of laws degree on Miss Agnes Irwin, the dean of Radcliffe College. She is a great great granddaughter of Franklin. Carnegie made the presentation on behalf of Scotland's University of St. Andrew's. He noted that this is only the fourth time in the 500 years of St. Andrew's history that the school has granted the degree to a woman.

IMMIGRANTS ON HOLD: Ellis Island has become a bit of a choke point for immigration. The place is equipped to handle about 5,000 immigrants a day. Because of the recent influx, there are about 16,000 waiting in steerage of various ships moored in New York harbor.

RUMORS IN RUSSIA: The Washington Post notes that rumors were flying around St. Petersburg on the 16th -- that someone in the royal family might have died. The rumor began because police went through the city taking down flags that people had put up outside their homes for the holidays. Many thought that this was being done because of a tragedy and that the government was withholding a formal announcement until after the holidays. That isn't the case. Evidently, the prefect of police had given people permission to put up decorations for the holidays but neglected to list FLAGS as one of the decorations he permitted. The police, therefore, went about their work, according to one article, "on the old theory that WHAT WAS NOT PERMITTED WAS PROHIBITED." They told homeowners to take the flags down.

REMEMBER BOOTH: The Players Club in New York City has raised $6,000 to build a monument to the actor Edwin Booth. The group wants to set up a committee of 100 to pull this off. No decision has been made regarding the appearance of the memorial. Will any decision ever be made? I mean, a committee of 100? That's absurd. Can this possibly work? Wonder if it such a statue will ever be built.

April 17, 1906 (Tuesday)

MAXIM(um) EXPOSURE: Some in Russia are a little irked over the incredible reception that Maxim Gorky has received in this country. An unnamed “high official” made this statement:

“He is certainly a writer of talent, perhaps even a genius, and much that he says regarding the conditions in Russia doubtless is true; but it should be made clear that his object is not reform but revolution.”

The official also wanted people to know that his traveling companion, Mme. Andreeva, (she's on the left in the photo here) is not his wife. (Some papers spell it Andreleva.) Evidently, he’s been living with her since he separated from his wife three years ago. On the passenger list on the ship she was listed as Mme. Pleshkoff or Pleshkov, the author’s real last name. The manager of the Hotel Belleclaire in New York City was alarmed at reading that the two were not husband and wife. He asked them to leave the hotel. They are now staying in apartments at 12 Fifth Avenue. Forget about the distinction between revolutionary or reformer. Most people in America seem likely be more worked up about the distinction between husband or boyfriend.

RELICS IN SPRINGFIELD: Reaction to the lynchings in Springfield is widespread, even if it does nothing to save the lives of the three men who died over the weekend at the hands of an out-of-control mob. One editorial is called “A Missouri Disgrace.” It points out that the reaction is too late. This sentence, if true, paints a chilling scene: "In this case [the reaction] did not set in until time had been given for the Sunday school children of Springfield to carry away specimens of the charred wood which had burned the flesh of the negroes.”
Reportedly, four of the weekend lynchers are in jail.