Feb. 16, 1907 (Saturday)

GIRLS CAN RELAX A BIT IN BLOOMINGTON, ILL.: A "serial hugger" has been put out of commission in Bloomington, Ill. The accused is Wesley Greenley. He has been frightening girls and women for months, according to today's Washington Post, by "grabbing them o the strets and hugging them." The arrest happened in front of the house of former Vice President Adlai E. Stevenson (left). Former Gov. Joseph W. Fifer was one who helped arrest the man. He played an important role in keeping parents and others from doing some real physical harm to the accused man.

HERE'S A 'DOG BITES MAN' HEADLINE IF I EVER SAW ONE: The headline, in today's Post-Standard, is.... "MUCH MONEY IS SPENT IN PLAYERS' SALARIES". It's talking about baseball. Somebody has pulled out the adding machine and discovered that the clubs in the American League spent HALF A MILLION DOLLARS in players' salaries last year. The biggest-spending team is CLEVELAND. The next two teams are Boston ($70,000) and New York ($65,000). In the National League, the top spenders are Chicago and New York ($60,000 each). No numbers are given for Boston of the National League and St. Louis of the American League. The reason, according tot he article is that those clubs "will pay an even smaller amount, as nearly all of their players are CHEAP MEN."

ANOTHER VIEW OF THE EDITOR'S PLAN TO OPEN THE WORKDAY WITH PRAYER: Remember the idea a Kalamazoo editor had -- to start the workday in the newsroom with a WORD OF PRAYER? Well, someone at The Roff Eagle (a newspaper in the Indian Territory, or Oklahoma) had a nice spin on it. Here's the item, as printed in The Post-Standard:
An editor at Kalamazoo, Mich., opens his office each morning with prayer. Thas it the proper spirit, but in most places newspaper offices are opened by the devil.
That would mean, of course, the printer's devil.

Feb. 15, 1907 (Friday)

PARENTS CHECK INTERESTING ITEM AT WOMEN'S CLOAK ROOM AT THE OPERA -- THEIR BABY: The New York Times reports today that Check No. 60 at a local opera house was linked to neither a coat nor an umbrella. Rather it was for an 18-month-old BABY BOY. The parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lewis of Winnipeg, Manitoba -- apparently unable to line up a baby sitter -- had brought him to the Manhattan Opera House (right) so they could see "Rigoletto." The clerk asked
Oscar Hammerstein if this was OK. He reportedly said, "Certainly; check the baby." The child fell asleep right after he was dropped off. He stayed asleep until after the second act. Then it got exciting, according to the Times, because:
so many requests came from the members of the opera company to see the checked baby that he was taken up into the business office where he awoke and held a reception.
Here's what Oscar Hammerstein said:
I don't announce that we are ready and willing to check all children who may come with their mothers. However, it can be arranged occasionally if the baby is as good as this one.

RUSSIAN GENERAL REVEALS WHY CZAR'S ARMY WAS BEATEN: A new book called "History of the Russo-Japanese War" -- which was confiscated by the Russian government -- has surfaced. The author, Gen. Kuropatkin, says cowardice, incompetence and disobedience on the part of the Russian army spelled doom. The writer devoted one volume to each of three battles: Liaoyang, the Sha River and Mukden (right). This sentence gives a summary of the work (in quite a long sentence):
Kuropatkin's reasons for the failure of the war are based chiefly on a comparison of the warlike spirit of the Japanese, their preparedness and valor, which, he says, had never been seen in any previous war, and their ability to maintain the numerical superiority necessary to resume the offensive, with the disadvantages of Russia, owing to the inadequacy of the single-track railway from Europe in feeding her fighting strength, with commanding officers disobeying orders and in a hopeless state of confusion and cross-purposes, with a low state of morale and confidence among the troops and continuous news from home of internal troubles and of insults and reproaches against the army.