Feb. 9, 1908 (Sunday)

THEY WILL BE STARTING THEIR ENGINES IN NYC ON WEDNESDAY: The drivers (and mechanics) are in New YOrk for the beginning -- on Wednesday -- of the much-anticipated New York-to-Paris automobile race. Some of the participants in the six-car race are shown above, which is part of a seven-column-wide photo printed in today's New York Times. The paper includes a description of the route to Chicago that reads like a very detailed list generated by Mapquest. It takes the drivers north to Albany and west through Syracuse and Buffalo and on to Chicago. Here, for example, is the description of the route that allows them to leave Cleveland, some information that many people might find useful at some time in their life:
Leaving Cleveland, cross Cuyahoga River viaduct, and through Wet Cleveland to Rocky River Bridge, through Finney's Corners and North Ridgeville to Elyria. Follow interurban railroad to Oberlin. Continue to end of pavement then turn right one block, then left across trolley tracks. Follow telephone wires, turning left at four corners and straight ahead through Kipton. [and so on]
Here are the main stages:
New York to San Francisco by road (4,300 miles)
San Francisco to Valdez, Alaska, by boat (2,800 miles)
Valdez to Nome, Alaska, by road (1,200 miles)
Nome to East Cape, Siberia, by boat (256 miles)
East Cape to Paris, by road (11,450 miles)
It's as simple as that.
Today's Times says, "The courage of these men is unlimited."

Feb. 8, 1908 (Saturday)

PRESIDENT OF HARVARD DOWNPLAYS THE MONETARY VALUE OF A MEDICAL DIPLOMA FROM HARVARD (NOT THE EDUCATION, NECESSARILY, BUT THE DIPLOMA ITSELF): Recently, the Adams Express Co. was sued by Dr. George H. Whiteside of Omaha, Neb. His complaint? The company has lost Dr. Whiteside's medical diploma from Harvard University. (That's the medical school pictured above in a post card from the early 1900s.) He sued the company for $20,000. To fight the suit, the express company took depositions from President Eliot of Harvard and members of the faculty. Today's Times sums up the testimony in this way:
All testified that a diploma has a sentimental value only, and that the express company is right in contending that it has no other value.

CSI STARS WOULD BE IMPRESSED WITH INVESTIGATIVE WORK OF NEW YORK DETECTIVES WHO NAB A BLACK-HAND CHIEF: A man known as Pelegrino Mule was arrested yesterday by New York police in cooperation with police from Sicily. Mule is allegedly a former brigand who was wanted for three killings in Sicily. Today's Times quotes Deputy Commissioner Wood as saying, "This is the most important Black Hand arrest since the recent outrages in the Italian colonies here. We have not only one of the big men among the blackmailers, but also one of the worst criminals that ever left Sicily to come to this country."
Some tantalizing evidence is a page of paper on which detectives noted some "heavy indentations" indicating a letter had been written on a torn-off page "with a hard pencil and with labored effort." The first part was readable, saying,
Dear Friend: This will be our last answer, so be careful, and do not fail to be on hand Saturday night at the same appointment of first letter. bring the sum you knoe about. Be cautious and don't forget that this will be of small importance, you know. You pig of Madonna, you know that this time .... [the rest was unreadable]
Police, not surprisingly, would like to know the name of the person to whom it was addressed.

PRESS AGENT FLASHES CASH AT JOURNALISTS TO SNARE PUBLICITY FOR BILL BEFORE SENATE: Today's New York Times includes an article about a Pennsylvania publicist's efforts to drum up newspaper coverage for the currency bill spearheaded by Sen. Nelson Adrich (right) (whose grandson Nelson will be born on July 8, 1908). The South Carolina News Bureau in Columbia just received a letter that offers to pay money to any newspaper which publishes material favorable to the bill. The identity of the publicist is hidden. The letter includes this whispered postscript: "I must ask you, of course, to treat this matter as strictly confidential," (which is why there's a story about it in today's New York Times.)
The letter offers to pay $10 for any story that's about half-a-column long that the agency can place in any big-city paper, meaning, for example, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Boston, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, New Orleans, or Nashville. Articles placed in papers of smaller cities will earn $2.

Feb. 7, 1908 (Friday)

WOULDN'T IT BE NEAT IF THIS DOG PROVIDED THE INSPIRATION FOR THE NAME OF A CERTAIN BUS COMPANY? A greyhound raised in Oakland, Calif., was sent in December to a new owner in WESTERN MONTANA. The dog's former owner, Michael Ryan, actually sold two of his greyhounds to the customer, who took the dogs to his home in the Big Sky Country.
Ryan got the surprise of his life on Feb. 5, according to today's New York Times. That's when a "travel-stained and foot weary greyhound" showed up at the kennel. Ryan didn't recognize the dog and headed outside to drive him off. Then, "the dog gave an eager bark and leaped to welcome him." Ryan recognized the greyhound as the one whose new home is 1,500 MILES away.
(NOTE: For the record, the source of the name of the Greyhound bus company lies in the color of the early vehicles, according to the entry for 1921 at the timeline for Greyound bus company.)
(NOTE: That's a hood ornament above, from a 1927 Lincoln automobile. You can find it here.

BULGARIAN IMMIGRANTS PROTEST TREATMENT IN TEXAS: A group of Bulgarians was so upset with how they were treated under the oversight of Texan employers that they WALKED about 200 miles to Galveston, where the walkers lodged a protest with the Bulgarian consul. The 45 who finished the walk arrived in the U.S. about 10 weeks ago with about 40 others. They were hired to work at coal mines in Bridgeport, Texas. They "worked out their transportation and expenses at the rate of $1 a day and were discharged," according to an article in today's New York Times. They then fell under the sway of "swindling employment agents." That's when the immigrants decided to take their walk. Along the way, 20 found jobs at farms, 15 had to drop out of the walk because of illness and "deprivations" and three DIED en route. The 45 arrived yesterday "half-starved, footsore, and suffering from exposure."
The workers cannot be deported, according to the Times. The reason? They are not "cripples nor criminals nor lunatics under the law."
How does that Emma Lazarus poem go, again?)

COULD THIS BE A FRIVOLOUS LAWSUIT? John Hampson of Newark, N.J., fell from a trolley in December of 1906. Hampson was injured and decided to sue the North Jersey Street Railway Co. He seeks $10,000 because the injury prevents him from pursuing one of his major hobbies: hunting butterflies and insects. He is 73 years old and said that before his injuries, he was able to walk 40 or 50 MILES every day.

Feb. 6, 1908 (Thursday)

PRESIDENT ACCEPTS CHALLENGE FOR A 15-MILE JAUNT, ON FOOT: President Theodore Roosevelt got a taste of his own fitness medicine yesterday, thanks to J. Franklin Bell, who is chief of the General Staff. Evidently, he "beguiled" the president to embark on a 15-mile walk based on the fitness regimen of William Muldoon (an inductee of the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame) (shown above). The routine calls for "eight miles on a walk and seven miles on a trot."
Although the president seemed exhausted by the ordeal on Feb. 4, he bounced back yesterday. Here's how the Times said it:
The President limbered up today after his fifteen-mile walk of yesterday and took a walk in one of the heaviest snowstorms of the season."

JURY PUTS VALUE ON A BOY'S FINGERS -- $875 APIECE: The owners of the Leatherole Company in Westchester County, New York, didn't seem to mind that one of their employees -- Christian Jetter -- was only 15 years old. That is, until he lost two fingers in an accident at the plant. In an attempt to avoid liability, the company tried to use his youth against him, saying -- in the words of The New York Times -- that the boy's "youth and childish carelessness" was really to blame. The jury didn't buy it -- awarding Jetter $1,750 in damages. The boy's lawyers said the company was liable because it employed a boy who was younger than 16 without having a certificate from the Health Board that showed the worker's age.

CANADIAN PROVINCE PASSES LAW AIMED AT JAPANESE IMMIGRANTS: The path from Japan to Canada just got narrower. The legislature of British Columbia yesterday passed a bill that requires that immigrants who cannot read English or "a language of Europe" will not be allowed entry. Today's New York Times says the provision is framed along the lines of similar measures at other British colonies. The Times notes, "The bill is obviously aimed at the Japanese." After all, who else is coming to Western Canada who can't speak "a language of Europe"?

Feb. 5, 1908 (Wednesday)

NEWS FLASH!!!!! GETTING AUTOMOBILES ACROSS THE BERING STRAIT WILL BE DIFFICULT! There's plenty of buildup for the upcoming New York-to-Paris automobile race. For today's editions, The New York Times reporters and editors checked in with people in Nome, Alaska, (shown above in 1906) to find out about a certain, important leg of the trip. The first sentence of the article seems to trumpet the obvious:
The one phase of the automobile race from New York to Paris that has seemed most difficult has been the crossing of Bering Strait.
No kidding!
The timing of the crossing is vital. To drive cross-country in Alaska and Siberia, the automobiles have to cover the territory while the ground is hardened by cold weather and, likely, covered by packed-in snow. In the spring and summer, much of the land becomes bog-like; it could swallow the vehicles.
Organizers are seriously talking about the possibility of transporting the automobiles across the strait ON ICE SLEDS. If the ice is gone, ships will be available to carry the autos.
The Times is eager to find out more about NOME and its capacities to help the racers. So, it sent a message to the NOME NUGGET newspaper. Despite that paper's name, it evidently couldn't afford to pay for too many words in the response. Today's Times quotes it in full:
Nome, Alaska, Feb. 3, 1908
To The New York Times:
Possible to cross. Nome will give every assistance to autos acros strait. Gasoline plentiful.
NUGGET

REPORTER ON SHIP MAKES JOURNALISM HISTORY: Today's New York Times has additional information on the St. Cuthbert disaster, as described here on Feb . 4. It turns out that the reporting drew lots of attention to the Times. For one thing, the details from the report were "prominently displayed in the London newspapers this morning (meaning Feb. 5). Among the journals that give credit to The New York Times for this journalistic feat are The Mail and The Standard."
Today's report in the Times notes that the information coming from a correspondent on the Cymric, which helped rescue some of the crew from the St. Cuthbert, marked "the first wireless report sent from the scene of a great calamity at sea, although the transatlantic liners have ben equipped with wireless telgraph outfits for half a dozen years."
The first dispatch, which was quite brief, was received by The Times at 10 p.m. Monday. A wireless message went back to the correspondent at the Cymric (500 miles from New York and 200 miles off Cape Sable, Nova Scotia). That message asked for more details. The correspondent received that report at midnight and "at once began sending his narrative from the tempest-tossed ship." Everything received by 3:30 a.m. was printed in various editions of the Times.
This appears to have scooped all other New York papers, and Boston papers learned of the report from the Times' publication.
This was a big break for the Times. However, the "tempest-tossed" correspondent is NOT NAMED!

Feb. 4, 1908 (Tuesday)

DRAMATIC RESCUE AT SEA SAVES SOME CREW MEMBERS OF BURNING SHIP: The steamship St. Cuthbert, bound from Antwerp to New York, caught fire and has been left as sea as a burning hulk. Thirty-nine members of the crew were saved -- and 15 others drowned -- thanks to the efforts of the crew of the White Star Steamship Cymbic (above), which waited nearby for nine hours as a fierce winter storm raged. The 15 who died were in a lifeboat that was swamped by the huge waves -- as others helplessly watched. Most of the ones who were saved were burned badly by the fire that they had been fighting for days on the ship. Reportedly, the men would have all died if the Cymbic and, later, the Cambrian had not arrived to provide assistance. The burning hulk lay in a major shipping lane. Crew members opened the shuttlecocks of the St. Cuthbert, so it has probably sunk by now, according to the report in today's New York Times.

WOMEN CAN SMOKE IN NYC, THANKS TO THE MAYOR: New York City's Mayor McClellan has vetoed the recent ordinance that prohibits women from smoking in public places in the city. His move, made yesterday, overturns the work spearheaded by "Little Tim" Sullivan. The first arrest under the law was made on Jan. 23. In a message to the aldermen, the mayor said, according to today's New York Times,
While the conduct of individuals or of the owners of private property can be regulated by legislation, to a certain extent, for the protection of the public morals, health or safety, I do not believe that this general power, which is technically known as the police power of a Government, can be invoked to sustain an ordinance of this kind.

Feb. 3, 1908 (Monday)

TIMES DESCRIBES HORRIFYING MOMENTS AT ASSASSINATION IN PORTUGAL: The new king of Portugal is Manuel II (right), who survived the Feb. 1 assassination attempt on the royal family -- an attack that killed King Carlos and his oldest son. Today's New York Times gives a more detailed description of the attack. The description includes the futile effort of the Queen to fight off an attacker -- with a BOUQUET of FLOWERS.
The horses moved across the Praca da Commercio. Near the Home Office, where the carriage should have turned a corner toward the Arsenal, a young man stepped out from the crowd and jumped upon the back of the royal carriage. Before anything could be done to stop him, he aimed a revolver point blank at King Carlos. the first shot pierced his Majesty's throat. The second struck him full in the back. The King, putting both hands to his head, fell sideways on the Queen.
At the same moment, in the confusion, a bearded man rushed forward with a rifle, drawn from under his cloak, and aimed it point blank at the Crown Prince. The Queen's piercing shrieks sounded despairingly as she piteously attempted to beat off the man from the side of the carriage with a bouquet which had been given to her on her arrival, endeavoring to protect her sons.
Prince Luis, however, had already been mortally wounded, and fell into the arms of his young brother, who himself had been struck by a bullet in the arm. Indeed, so near was the shot fired that it singed his uniform. As it was, his life proably was saved by his mother's actions.
The bearded man next pointe his rifle at the Queen, but as he took aim an Adjutant thrust his sword at the assassin, wounding him. Without a moment's hesitation the man, feeling himself disabled, dropped his rifle, and, drawing a revolver, blew out his own brains.