Sept. 5, 1907 (Thursday)

NAVY WILL CIRCLE THE GLOBE: Today's New York Times reports, based on information from "a high authority," that the U.S. Navy's battleship fleet will travel around the world. About 16 battleships are expected to make the trip. The Navy wants people to know, however, that the Atlantic coast will not be left unprotected -- a number of new ships will be commissioned in 1908 and will be ready to defend the coast, the report says. The article does not give a date of departure. Some admirals have been on the Pacific coast, evaluating how the fleet can be maintained in those waters in the future. Everything is reportedly rosy regarding Japanese relations on the West coast, according to Admiral Cowles. The article paraphrases him as saying "he was agreeably surprised to find that there was NO evidence at any point, NOT EVEN IN SAN FRANCISCO, of ANY ANTI-Japanese feeling on the part of the white people of the Pacific Coast." He must not have been reading the newspapers.

GO EAST, OLD MAN, GO EAST: The amazing Ezra Meeker has come East from Seattle. He's done it in a PRAIRIE SCHOONER to recreate (in reverse) the trip he took in 1852 years ago -- leaving Indianapolis to be one of the first settlers of Seattle. This time, for much of the distance he traveled with his granddaughter Cora Osborn, who wanted to get to Connecticut so she could be at the ordination of the man she plans to marry, the Rev. Hugh E. Brown. Meeker, now 76, built the prairie schooner and traveled all the way to Indianapolis, where he is now. Osborn sped ahead by other means to make the ordination, which is scheduled to take place today in Connecticut.
Meeker plans to continue his trip in a couple of days and ride his prairie schooner, pulled by oxen, to New York and then to Washington, D.C.

CHURCH LEADERS ARE IN A BIND OVER ENFORCEMENT OF THE PROHIBITION LAW IN GEORGIA: When Georgia's anti-liquor law goes in effect on Jan. 1, it will become UNLAWFUL to give WINE at the COMMUNION TABLE, according to a report from Atlanta. This is upsetting many people, so Grand Juries throughout the state have adopted the following measure:
After Jan. 1, 1908, every minister who hands sacramental wine to his members will subject himself to as many indictments as there are members. Every Deacon who hands the sacramental wine to the members of the church will subject himself to as many indictments as there are members. We petition the General Assembly of Georgia to make such amendments to the law as will allow the Christian people of this State to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience without violating the laws of the State.

YES, CELEBRITIES WERE BIG NEWS IN 1907, TOO: In case you think that the coverage of the personal life of celebrities, or half-celebrities, is something new, consider that today's New York Times devotes one FULL COLUMN on its FRONT PAGE and about a third of its SECOND PAGE -- without pictures -- to the end of the marriage of Ferdinand Pinney Earle (shown) and his French wife.
It's a dramatic tale. Here's the first paragraph:
Hooted and jeered at from the time he left home yesterday morning to send his young wife away in order that he may we another, Ferdinand Pinney Earle was mobbed last night at 7:30 o'clock when he got back to Monroe, Orange County, N.Y. Five hundred villagers, in the midst of the pouring rain, turned over his buggy and somebody hit him across the head with his own horsewhip. He fought back his attackers, was joined by two officers, and, having vainly tried to "explain" his views, drove slowly away to his home near by.