Nov. 24, 1907 (Sunday)

YES, THE WORD "TELEVISION" IS OLDER THAN A ... TELEVISION: Excitement appears to be building among politicians and journalists about the growing ability to transmit photographs by wire. Today's New York Times includes an article that describes the transmission of photographs by telegraph and asks the intriguing question in the headline: "Television next?" (above). The article describes a somewhat historic event on Nov. 7. On that date -- at the office of The London Mirror newspaper, a photograph of King Edward was sent by telegraph to Paris. (This is commonly regarded as the FIRST NEWSPAPER WIREPHOTO.) The machine used was developed by Prof. Arthur Korn, whose work is part of a long history of efforts to transmit images across great distances -- something that will lead to our modern fax machine. [Note: Does this mean there was a chance it would be called a Korn machine?]
According to the Times, Korn says the first attempt a few years ago to send what he calls an "electrograph" took about 42 minutes and the quality was poor. An experiment in 1904 required 24 minutes. Now it's been shortened to about 6 minutes.
Here's what Korn says about the practical uses that are ahead:
Now, as to the possibilities of the invention. Electrographs may son become a common phase of the illustrated press of many countries. They there is also the question of the POLICE being able to transmit photographs of CRIMINALS. Perhaps, too, we shall soon have the illustrated telegraph card as a complement of the illustrated postcard. At present the application to the ILLUSTRATED PRESS must be considered the most important."
He talked about television, by which he seems to mean MOVING, continuous pictures:
"The problem of television, by which distant views are reproduced in a way similar to that by which we how hear distant sounds, has not yet been solved. Many bright minds are working upon it, but the great difficulty is the speed required."

MANY ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE "PROBLEM NOVEL": The above illustration shows a group of distinguished authors -- such as Dickens, Bunyan, Chaucer and Shakespeare -- facing a rejection from a publisher. The note flashed at them reads "Dear Sirs: While your MSS may contain interesting qualities -- We regret to say that in OUR OPINION it is NOT what the PEOPLE want. Yours with Regret".
To clarify the "problem" of modern novels, today's New York Times asks a number of publishers and other literature mavens to discuss the "problem."
One of the people the Times asked about the situation was publisher Henry Holt (shown). He mentioned that he suspected the questions about the state of current literature was sparked by "the increased attention paid to SEX PROBLEMS." He continues:
"There was revulsion after the "Tom Jones" and "Clarissa" period until, up to within a generation ago, it was the habit to dispose of such questions by ignoring them. Parents left their children to learn of them from prurient companions; physiology was not taught in the schools, and any book referring to reproduction was pronounced indelicate. The world has grown wiser as well as more honest in these regards. Subjects are discussed at the dinner table to-day which, within the memory of the older diners, were postponed until the ladies gathered in the drawing room and the men in the smoking room.
He contrasts two recent publications -- "The Helpmate" [by by May Sinclair] and "Three Weeks." Of the latter, he said the book is "merely a misuse of appeals to the strongest passion in human nature, to add 'an unhealthy interest to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative'."

Sounds stuffy. Here's an excerpt from that "unconvincing narrative" -- "Three Weeks," the author of which was in the news on Nov. 17, 1907:
A bright fire burnt in the grate, and some palest orchid-mauve silk curtains were drawn in the lady's room when Paul entered from the terrace. And loveliest sight of all, in front of the fire, stretched at full length, was his tiger--and on him--also at full -- reclined the lady, garbed in some strange clinging garment of heavy purple crepe, its hem embroidered with gold, one white arm resting on the beast's head, her back supported by a pile of the velvet cushions, and a heap of rarely bound books at her side, while between her red lips was a rose not redder than they--an almost scarlet rose. Paul had never seen one as red before.
The whole picture was barbaric. It might have been some painter's dream of the Favourite in a harem. It was not what one would expect to find in a sedate Swiss hotel.

Nov. 23, 1907 (Saturday)

ROUGH SEAS KEEP MAURETANIA FROM SETTING TRANSATLANTIC SPEED RECORD: Rough seas and a hastily put together crew of stokers are being blamed for the failure of the RMS MAURETANIA (above) to set a Europe-to-New York record in the trans Atlantic business. the ship slipped into its pier late yesterday afternoon after a rugged maiden voyage that lasted 5 days 5 hours and 10 minutes -- a little more than 4 hours slower than the Lusitania's record run. Here are three paragraphs from today's story that describe the weather:
The great vessel ran into rough weather soon after leaving Queenstown on Sunday and by Monday morning she was bucking through terrific head seas kicked up by a northwest gale. The Mauretania pitched as the great engines drove her headlong into seas which swept her decks. A carved show case in the lounge, in which candy was displayed, was torn from the wall and sent crashing to the floor.
Late that night a score of persons were awakened by a might pounding on deck as though some one was using a giant hammer. A number rushed to the forward deck, where they found that a mighty sea climbing over the lofty boy had torn a TEN-TON spare ANCHOR loose from its lashings on the deck. Capt. Pritchard quickly signaled to slow down to three knots an hour -- barely enough to keep her head to the sea.
It took one hour and a half to secure the anchor. Several times after that the liner had to slow down to withstand the onslaught of the wind and sea.
The ship consumed about 900 TONS of coal a day in the crossing. Chief Engineer John Currie described the work of the men who kept the furnaces going:
"Our crew in the stokehold is a new one, made up from several sources, and not accustomed to working together. Individually, most of them are fine stokers, but they lack team work."
Sounds like a football coach.

Nov. 22, 1907 (Friday)

BAD ECONOMY THROWS IMMIGRATION FLOW INTO REVERSE: Today's New York Times points out that there's been a significant change in the HINGES of the country's "Golden Door." In the past, people such as President Harrison claimed the door swings ONE WAY -- to allow people IN -- at places such as Castle Garden (above), the entry point that predates Ellis Island. Well, cutbacks in factories and mines and other places of employment are driving erstwhile immigrants BACK TO EUROPE. The Times says the outflow is about 25,000 PER WEEK. An official with the Hamburg-American Line -- which has been raising prices of steerage tickets -- says that this hard workers -- and savers -- are taking about $5 MILLION a week with them in cash or drafts on foreign countries.
Who are they and where are they from? The article says about 1,000 more people looking for a way to Europe arrived at in a 12-car train about midnight last night.
Most of these men, it was said, were either single or had left their wives at home in Europe. There were not half a dozen women in the whole multitude. Most of these people came from the districts in Pennsylvania where twenty large stone and cement works have shut down.
Many of the men are Italians, Hungarians, Poles, Syrians, Russians and "even a few Turks."
Again, here's a tip for the many who don't like the fact that lots of people from other countries want to come to live and work in the United States: One way to keep people from coming is to ruin the nation's economy. Then it won't be so attractive.

CHILD-WELFARE AUTHORITIES MAKE "TROUBLE" FOR MATINEE OF "MADAM BUTTERFLY": The special matinee performance of "Madam Butterfly" scheduled for next Friday at the Belasco Theatre in New York City -- and featuring the star Blanche Bates (left) -- will NOT be shown. Evidently, the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, better known as the Gerry Society (after one of its founders) forbids the use of a 2-year-old child in the role of Trouble. The group suggested that Ms. Bates use a boy or girl of 7, but that won't do because she is supposed to toss the child lightly into the air during one scene.
Bates had evidently forgotten to ask permission of the society, and now it won't budge at this late date. She wanted to do the performance in honor of Geraldine Ferrar, the original operatic "Madam Butterfly."
The Times says,
Miss Bates cannot understand why any one would object to the stage appearance for fifteen minutes at an afternoon performance of a baby too young to realize its surroundings, especially when in that short time it would earn an entire week's salary, amounting to about $35.


BY JOVE, IT LOOKS LIKE THE BUTLER DID DO IT: Edward Burnham is in trouble. He was arraigned yesterday at Jefferson Market Court in New York City on charges that he had stolen some pictures from a studio on the night of Nov. 18. During the hearing, he was taken to "an inner room" where he was also charged with stealing a DIAMOND-STUDDED MUSTACHE COMB from his employer, for whom he works as a BUTLER. Police then searched Burnham's room. Here's what they found:
--103 stick pins;
--100 pairs of shoes;
--1,000 neckties;
--100 fancy waistcoats;
--50 suits of clothes;
--a PEARL worth $1,000.
When he was arrested, Burnham had $850 in his pocket. He has a safe deposit box, which police will examine sometime today.
Burnham is currently working as a butler for Edward Berwind, president of the Berwind-White Coal Company. He has worked as a butler for Charles Barney, Howard Gould and Samuel Untermyer, each of whom MIGHT BE MISSING at least one tie.

Nov. 21, 1907 (Thursday)

EDUCATION WORK AT SING SING PRISON CAN CONTINUE -- THANKS TO A FACULTY OF CONVICTS, WHO BOAST SOME TOP CREDENTIALS: Educator Philetus Helfer left Sing Sing prison in Ossining, N.Y., this week for a post in the prison in Auburn. People wondered what might happen to his educational work, which offered the prison population of about 1,200 a fairly complete set of classes -- which covered education levels somewhere between grammar-school and high-school levels.
Some prisoners have volunteered to step up and help take over -- making up a faculty of nine. According to today's New York Times, the new dean (a convict) has a degree from OXFORD. Other faculty members boast degrees from CAMBRIDGE (1), COLUMBIA (3) and CORNELL (1). The Times points out that the Oxford- and Cambridge-educated inmates are doing time for FORGERY, "a variety of crimes which seems to appeal to the educated."
This is clearly not the type of school that will offer many FIELD TRIPS.

THIS SLEEPY COAL MINER SHOULD HAVE SIMPLY LET THE CAT KEEP SCRATCHING: OK. It's generally a good idea to go try and silence a cat whose scratching noises are keeping you awake at night. But sometimes its a good idea to let scratching cats scratch.
That's what George Dohney should have done early yesterday when he was awakened from sleep by the sound of a cat scratching under his bed at a miner's boarding house at the No. 3 plant of the Jamison Coke Company near Greenburg, Pa.
Dohney, who is (soon to be "was") 16, told roommate Karl Orocos, 21, that he'd take care of the problem. He arose out of bed, grabbed a lamp and lit it. Then he started crawling under the bed, trying to coax the cat to move away or to grab it outright. He must have forgotten that, in addition to the cat, there were THREE CANS OF BLASTING POWDER under the bed.
As he reached for the cat, he let the lamp fall. It exploded. Two seconds later there was another explosion -- one that completely wrecked the house. Both Dohney and Orocos were catapulted up and out of the house. They are in a hospital being treated for serious injuries. They are NOT EXPECTED TO LIVE.
The story in today's New York Times adds this important fact:
"Half an hour after the explosion the CAT CAME LIMPING BACK toward the wrecked house."

NEW YORK SCHOOLS DECIDE TO KEEP ANY MENTION OF CHRIST OR CHRISTMAS OUT OF THE CLASSROOM: Frank R. Rix, the music director of the public schools in New York City told principals Wednesday night that "no hymns or carols in which Christ or Christmas was mentioned must be sung in the schools at the approaching Christmastide celebrations," according to today's New York Times. The decision is not a surprise; nor is it recent. Rix told the paper that the topic had been "thrashed out months before and was therefore not new," the paper reported. The decision comes at the request of orthodox Jews and leading rabbis that "the celebration of Christmas in the schools had become essentially sectarian, and, therefore, objectionable" to followers of Judaism.

A QUOTE OF NOTE:
U.S. Attorney General Bonaparte spoke to the National Municipal League yesterday in Providence, R.I., about "Government by Public Opinion." In addition to airing some complaints about the press, he had some praise:
"In the first place, [newspapers] made, for the average man, a much larger world. When the newspapers began to place beside his breakfast plate an epitome of yesterday's history, it was as if a telescope were constructed a million-fold stronger than any yet known. ....
"There is one thing which the newspapers must do if they would be, in this field or in any other, an agency for good, and that is to think and tell the truth."

Nov. 20, 1907 (Wednesday)

TIMES REFLECTS UPON PHOTOGRAPHY THAT INTRUDES ON THE RICH AND/OR FAMOUS: Today's New York Times takes a step back and reflects on the recent dust up in yesterday's paper over the arrest of a free lance photographer who took a picture of people in the Vanderbilt party.
Photographers are inescapable, the paper acknowledges. (The photo above shows a group of Chicago newspaper photographers in 1911.)
The Times says, "It is one of the penalties of eminence nowadays that cameras are constantly snapping at its possessor, and that he or she is ever in danger of appearing in the illustrated press, not in the dignified or graceful poses which everybody thinks he or she could take if warned in time, but in those strange attitudes which the photographic plate invariably 'catches' if it possibly can." The paper acknowledges that there's a general attitude that the "grosser invasions of privacy should be prevented or punished." Here's how the mini-editorial ends:
"Propriety and impropriety in these cases depend on many things and are a matter of opinion. Perhaps the worst of the snap-shot pictures could be attacked in court as caricatures and libelous in that they make the subject ridiculous, but otherwise they will probably have to be endured until the general elevation of public taste prevents the taking of any photographs that can be legitimately resented."
Don't hold your breath for any "general elevation of public taste" when it comes to celebrity photographs. Wonder if they knew in 1907 just how much privacy could be "violated" in celebrity photographs.

SOMETIMES "WORD PICTURES" DO JUST FINE: The trial of Anna Bradley continues in Washington, D.C. She's accused in the shooting death of former U.S. Sen. Arthur Brown of Utah. She took the stand yesterday. Here are how two articles begin:

The Boston Globe: "With hundreds of eyes leveled at her and the son of the man she murdered gazing steadily into her face, Mrs. Anna M. Bradley this morning took the witness stand in her own defense for the murder of Ex-Senator Arthur Brown of Utah.
"The day offered the most sensational session since her trial opened and the courthouse was stormed by a crowd of men and women anxious to get inside the courtroom.
"Mrs. Bradley stood up quickly when the bailiff called her name. She took the oath and mounted the two steps leading to the witness chair, but when she turned and faced the curious crowd in the courtroom, her face turned deathly white and she seemed about to faint."

The New York Times: "Just as she was nearing the tragic climax in one of the most dramatic recitals ever heard in a Washington courtroom this afternoon, Mrs. Annie M. Bradley suddenly bordered on utter collapse necessitating the immediate adjournment of her trial for the killing of ex-Senator Arthur Brown.
"She had been telling the story of her association with Brown and had reached the point of their last estrangement leading up to the scene in the Raleigh Hotel last December, when she shot him....
"When she walked to the witness chair her step was firm and her air resolute. She looked like a woman who had nerved herself for a terrible ordeal and meant to go through with it, come what might. All this was changed when she seated herself and looked out upon that sea of faces. Her eyes widened with terror, her wan face grew ashy, and she was seized with a convulsion of trembling which shook her head as if with palsy.
"In a thread of a voice, at times inaudible even to the court stenographer, she told a story which has never been equaled in a Washington courtroom."

Nov. 19, 1907 (Tuesday)

PAPARAZZI DRAW IRE OF VANDERBILT CLAN: A group of news photographers hovered at a door of Madison Square Garden yesterday, hoping to snap pictures of celebrities leaving the horse show. Excitement built when Count Szechenyi left the garden with his fiancee, Gladys Vanderbilt, and others. (That's the count and Gladys above.) The crowd was so large that photographers could not get in position to take any decent pictures. Two Vanderbilt women ducked into a car and were whisked away. Meanwhile, the count and a companion, Monson Morris, paused to get into a cab on 27th Street. At that point, they noticed a flash of light, meaning they had been caught on film. The count and Morris left the cab and ran after a couple of photographers. Morris grabbed one. The count couldn't catch the man he was chasing. A mounted policeman galloped over to help Morris, but he fell off his horse and BROKE HIS COLLARBONE. The photographer, who identified himself as a freelancer named Fred Carrett, was taken to night court where he was fined before Magistrate Droege. He was fine $5 for disorderly conduct.
This was worth a front-page story in today's New York Times.

LOTTIE AND FLORENCE DECIDE THEY'RE SICK AT THE PROSPECTS THEY FACE AS GIRLS; THEY DECIDE TO PRETEND TO BE BOYS: Agents of the Children's Society found two missing girls -- Lottie Carrol and Florence Bayha (ages 17 and 15) -- in the basement of a flathouse on East 160th Street. They had been missing for a few days -- hiding out in a boiler room in the basement of a house in their neighborhood and figuring out how they could pass undetected. They had just cut off their hair in preparation for a new career -- as boys. Here's what Florence reportedly told Lottie when she talked to her about the bleak prospects they faced as young girls:
"You either sit around the house waiting to get married, doing housework while you are waiting, or you work in a store or factory until you lose your complexion. Now a boy can go anywhere or any place, and he can work at most anything outdoors."
Florence, the 15-year-old, said she was sure they would have gotten away with their plan if they had only acted quicker.
"They wouldn't have caught us at all if we had had the nerve to cut off our hair before."

Nov. 18, 1907 (Monday)

THE "ARCTIC FOX" DIES IN ENGLAND: Sir Francis Leopold McClintock (shown) has died. Today's New York Times explains one of the reasons his death is newsworthy:
It was he who discovered the fate of Franklin's expedition in 1850, which he afterward told in a book entitled 'The Fate of Sir John Franklin'."
In case you're wondering what a sixth- or seventh-grader COULD be doing, you might want to consider that Admiral McClintock joined the royal Navy when he was 12 YEARS OLD.

NAVY'S SURGEON GENERAL WORRIED ABOUT TOBACCO USE AMONG THE TAR-LOVING TARS: As the U.S. Navy prepares for a round-the-world cruise, lots of tobacco is being mobilized to accompany the sailors on the trip.
The numbers tell the story: 48,000 cigarettes, 20,000 cigars and 1,000 pounds of "navy plug chewing tobacco" are being loaded on the Culgoa at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, according to today's New York Times.
This puts Presley Marion Rixey, (right) surgeon general of the Navy, in a slow burn. The Times says Rixey believes "tobacco is ruining the constitutions of American seamen."
Meanwhile, the Anti-Cigarette League wants to prevent the sale of cigarettes in Naval canteens.