Feb. 27, 1908 (Thursday)

WELL, IT CAN BE A PROBLEM WHEN THE CORONER -- WHO CONCLUDED THE SHOOTING WAS IN SELF-DEFENSE -- DOESN'T NOTICE THE TWO BULLET HOLES IN THE BACK: A man named George A. Carkins was shot and killed in early January in New Hampshire. The shooter, the dead man's brother-in-law, was not prosecuted at the time. When the doctor -- a family friend -- was called, he was told right away it was an accident. He passed that notion on to the Coroner -- a personal friend of the doctor. Because the undertaker got to the house so quickly, the body was buried.
Flash forward a couple of days, according to today's New York Times, Carkins' mother -- a Mrs. Kelly -- was grieving her loss, crying while holding the man's jackets. That's when she noticed the TWO BULLET HOLES IN THE BACK of the jacket.
That spurred the authorities to action. They dug up the body. By the time charges were ready to be filed against Roy, he was in Paris. The tale is being played out on the front pages of the newspapers. Roy's wife, an American actress by the name of Glacia Calla (above) has testified against her husband. The dead man was her brother.
An autopsy was performed Feb. 25. The official ruling now is that "Carkins was shot twice in the back after he had been stunned by the [gunshot] wound in his forehead and had fallen face downward on the floor," according to the Times.


THE PUSH FOR CHARACTER-BASED EDUCATION IS NOTHING NEW -- JUST LISTEN TO TEDDY ROOSEVELT: Yesterday, in Washington, President Roosevelt told a group of educators that he will continue his "warring against rottenness and corruption." Today's New York Times quoted much (or maybe all) of his speech to delegates to the Department of Superintendents of National Education Society at the White House. (The photo above shows the president in Colorado in 1905.) He focused in part on the development of character. Here's a sample:
"You who are training the next generation are training this country as it is to be a decade or two hence, and while your work in training the intellect is great, it is not as great as your work in training character. More than anything else I want to see the public school turn out the boy and girl who, when man and woman, will add to the sum of good citizenship of the nation."