Although this item claims it was "evident from their actions that they had been imbibing freely," it sounds more like horseplay.
BOYS AND GIRLS IN UNSEEMLY BEHAVIOR
Two young girls and two young men created a great disturbance and were arrested by Officer Skaggs. They entered pleas of guilty before Judge Bagley and were fined five dollars each. The quartette were arrested as Jane Does and John Does, and their names will not be divulged. It was evident from their actions that they had been imbibing freely, and on Fourth street their unseemly behavior and boisterous language caused pedestrians to stop and wonder. They were laughing and making a loud noise and jerking and pulling each other around in a furious manner. When the blue uniform of Officer Skaggs loomed up in the distance they made a semblance of quieting down.- Santa Rosa Republican, February 12, 1907
Remember when they struck oil in Forestville? Be thankful that great-grandpa spent nearly a week's salary to buy a single $10 share of stock back in 1907. No oil wells pumping crude in the village today? Gee, I guess it was a scam.
This ad appeared briefly in the February, 1907 Press Democrat.
Trouble, ya got trouble right here in River City Santa Rosa with a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'P' and that stands for 'pool.'
I say, your young men'll be fritterin' Fritterin' away their noontime, suppertime, choretime, too Hit the ball in the pocket Never mind gettin' dandelions pulled or the screen door patched or the beefsteak pounded Never mind pumpin' any water 'til your parents are caught with a cistern empty on a Saturday night and that's trouble Oh, ya got lots and lots o' trouble I'm thinkin' of the kids in the knickerbockers shirttails, young ones peekin' in the pool hall window after school Ya got trouble, folks, right here in River City with a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'P' and that stands for 'pool' Now I know all you folks are the right kind of parents I'm gonna be perfectly frank Would you like to know what kind of conversation goes on while they're loafin' around that hall They'll be tryin' out Bevo, tryin' out Cubebs, tryin' out tailor-mades like cigarette fiends And braggin' all about how they're gonna cover up a tell-tale breath with Sen-Sen Now one fine night they leave the pool hall headin' for the dance at the Armory Libertine men and scarlet women and ragtime Shameless music that'll grab your son, your daughter into the arms of a jungle animal instinct- massteria! Friends, the idle brain is the devil's playground, trouble! - The Music Man, Meredith Wilson © Frank Music Corp. and Meredith Wilson Music |
WANTS MINORS RESTRICTED
Chief of Police Rushmore Suggests Ordinance Barring Lads From Entering Pool Room
Chief of Police Fred Rushmore attributes a number of cases of petty thieving in which boys have figured in this city recently to the fact that they are allowed to lounge around billiard and pool rooms.
He suggested at last night's Council meeting that an ordinance should be passed forbidding boys under eighteen years of age entrance into pool rooms. Boys twelve and thirteen years of age are frequently found, he said, about such places, particularly, a room on Fourth street, near the corner of Fourth and Davis streets, and at times their language is objectionable.
Mayor Overton and other members of the Council suggested that the matter receive the attention asked and an ordinance will undoubtedly be drafted. Chief Rushmore, when seen after the meeting, said there was no doubt but that the young boys hanging around the places mentioned could not learn anything that would benefit them.- Press Democrat, January 23, 1907
Why were people on Wright Street so durned upset in 1907? For all the fuss they were making about their sidewalks and lawns, you'd think that cowboys were driving herds of cattle through their front yards. Oh, wait - they were.
Santa Rosa's stockyard and slaughterhouse was at the corner of College and Cleveland Avenues, but the cattle, pigs, and sheep arrived via train stock cars at the Southern Pacific terminal on North Street, and by a new ordinance passed in 1906, the herds could be wrangled down College Ave. Why in the world they were driving the animals towards College Avenue using narrow, residential Wright Street, which runs parallel to wider North Street, is a mystery.
Defending himself again before the City Council, stockyard owner P. H. Noonan repeated his 1906 quip that he was still looking for a breed of cow that could avoid the streets altogether by flying to the slaughterhouse (huh-yuk).
THE COMMITTEES MAKE THEIR REPORTS
...Chairman Reynolds of the street committee declared the streets were in a soft and mellow condition, whereat his conferes [sic] and the spectators smiled. The matter of driving stock through the street was brought up by Street Commissioner Decker on behalf of P. H. Noonan. It was declared the stock was being taken through Wright Street, and that they were ruining sidewalks and lawns of residents in that vicinity, who had entered a vigorous protest. It was pointed out that Mr. Noonan was strictly "up against it" in getting his stock to the slaughter house, and that he had been seeking a brand of cattle that could fly in order to obviate driving them through the streets. He had offered to make repairs to the sidewalks at his own expense and showed every disposition to be more than fair in the matter. Mr. Noonan and Street Commissioner Decker will take up with the officials of that company the matter of removing the unloading corrals of the Southern Pacific outside the city limits.
City Attorney Geary and Chairman Reynolds declared that the people in that vicinity should be protected in their property, and that cattle could not be driven through the streets without doing damage. It was suggested that as the Southern Pacific now controls the California Northwestern, the trains of cattle should be shipped around that road and taken to the Noonan side track at College avenue. This would avoid all the trouble.- Santa Rosa Republican, January 3, 1907
Only luck and a lack of wind kept all Santa Rosa from burning down in the 1906 earthquake, so it's a bit of a surprise that just eight months later, downtown property owners told the Fire Chief to shut his yap about fire safety.
On the agenda at that January, 1907 City Council meeting was yet another debate on the "back porch" problem, which had become one of those issues that the Council slogged through at every session with no end in sight.
In one corner of the ring was respected Fire Chief Frank Muther, who had witnessed fires spreading through the alley behind Fourth Street on the morning of April 18, 1906, and wanted the new buildings at those locations to have porches made of fireproof materials instead of the rough wood construction that might be found on a back porch. The Builders' Exchange supported him by endorsing a solid concrete porch floor. In the opposite corner were some of the wealthiest property owners in town, who said that would be too expensive - and that the Fire Chief had too much influence in the matter.
The Council clearly took the fire danger seriously; at the same meeting, they gave Muther powers to order any rubbish removed and impose a fine if he was ignored. But money talks loudly, and once again, they listened to the sound of rich men pinching pennies. One of them suggested that the problem could be solved if they could just line porches with asbestos.
The City Council was in an awful pickle. There was no building code in Santa Rosa before the earthquake, and since then, the Council had created new rules and regs on an ad hoc basis. Since there was not yet an ordinance prohibiting the use of wood in the rear of the same properties that had earlier spread the fires, the landlords were well within their rights to build their porches out of rice paper, if so desired. And so much for the authority of the Fire Chief to make the town safe.
To break the stalemate, Mayor Overton called on architect Victor Dunkerly (also spelled, "Dunkerley"), who had designed the newly-built Overton Hotel. His solution showed political skill; use less of the expensive concrete, but build the porch out of iron, which cost about the same as wood. After a little more chew-over the following week, peace was finally declared in the back porch war.
MATTER OF PORCHES PRECIPITATES DISCUSSION
The mooted question of back porches to business blocks on Fourth street and other business streets bobbed up serenely at the meeting of the city council Tuesday evening. After considerable discussion, in which there were some lively call down for various speakers. Architect Dunkerly hit the matter a solar plexus blow in a few words, practically settled the question to the satisfaction of all and gave the council the best advice that they had received on the subject.
The Builders' Exchange prepared an ordinance for the council for a fire proof back porch and specified that it should have a concrete floor five inches thick. This was objected to by property owners as being too expensive and they wanted something more moderate and at the same time fire proof. They did not desire to take any chances on having their structures burned through inflammable rear porches.
John F. Kinslow addressed the council, advocating a floor dressed with asphaltum, while Albert Jacobs, another property owner, was wedded to the theory of asbestos, which experience has shown cannot be burned. Contractor Kobes was worried to know why the council insisted on having a fire proof porch and still permitted the use of wooden stairways leading to the porch and said the stairs would require more lumber than the remainder of the porch. Fire Chief Muther injected a few remarks into the discussion at intervals, and to this there was strenuous objection on the part of Kinslow, ably seconded by Jacobs, when Kinslow declared the chief "tried to be the whole thing." Contractor Rushing spoke in favor of asbestos lining for porches.
Matters were waxing exceedingly warm when Mayor Overton thrust himself into the breach in the sake of peace and harmony and asked belligerents to confine themselves to the question before the council and to refrain from indulging in personalities.
Briefly stated, Architect Dunkerly suggested that the proposed ordinance was severe on the property owners. He said that a porch could be constructed of two inch galvanized iron pipe, thoroughly put together, with slabs of concrete two or three inches in thickness, and that it would sustain almost any weight which would be put upon it. He also suggested iron stairways and in comparison with ngures [sic] for wooden stairs submitted by Mr. Kobes, it was found the iron stairs would be no more expensive than the wooden ones. The features of the mayor and council relaxed when the suggestion was made, for they saw a method of construction that would be superior to the one under consideration and they felt relieved. The matter went over one week to give the ordinance committee time to prepare an ordinance covering the architect's suggestions. Chairman Johnston voted against postponing the matter further, saying it had been before the council for months and he believed it should be disposed of at once that builders might erect porches for their tenants.- Santa Rosa Republican, January 16, 1907
Kids in Sonoma County rarely had the opportunity for a snowball fight, so the little heathens (and a few adults) had a grand time after the January, 1907 snowstorm. Except when the guy tried to kill them with an ax.
If the "Jap" references in one of the items below seems offensive, see the previous post for a discussion of what was appearing in other California newspapers at this time.
The house in the postcard image below is the Belden House built in 1902, and which still stands at the corner of Cherry Street and Humboldt Avenue. (Courtesy the Larry Lapeere Collection)
BEAUTIFUL SNOW FALLS OVER COUNTY
Orange Trees Broken but the Golden Fruit Is Uninjured
Santa Rosa and Sonoma county were treated to a genuine eastern snow storm Sunday. The fall of the beautiful began shortly after 8 o'clock and continued for about two hours. It brought joy to the native Californians, who seldom see anything of that kind, and memories of home to the people from the east who have located here.
The small boy was in his element throwing snow balls while the snow lasted and was joined heartily by his elders. The exhilarating sport was indulged in by all, and many hard knocks were given and taken with the pellets of snow. Not even the policemen were exempt and Officer Ed Skaggs took his share with the rest, being compelled to seek his helmet several times after it had been knocked from his head.
Many windows were broken in this city by being struck with the balls and the fall of snow made business for the glazier.
Chinese and Japs who essayed to walk the streets were given a rousing reception, but the sport was by no means confined to these races. Everybody who ventured out got his full share of snow balls and even more. Many venturesome youths got on top of buildings and there rolled up huge balls of snow which they dropped from the roof onto unsuspecting passers by. An inebriated individual who chanced to go down the street was pelted for several blocks and furnished rare sport for the small boys and men. Women were not exempt from the general bombardment and they were pelted fully as much as were the men.
Two Japs who were trying to board the California Northwestern train were rescued with difficulty by Roadmaster J. W. Barrows. They had been caught by a crowd, who were determined to bury the little brown men beneath the white pall. The Japs did not become angry, but entered into the spirit of the occasion. They were permitted to depart in a volley of snow balls.
[..]
Snow falls so seldom in Santa Rosa or Sonoma county that it is a genuine surprise to see it here. About five years ago a slight fall of the beautiful occurred, but it vanished in a couple of hours under the warm rays of the sun. Previous to that it had been many years since any snow was seen here, and there have been few falls of snow within the memory of the oldest inhabitant.- Santa Rosa Republican, January 7, 1907
CHARGES CROWD WITH AN AXE
Hotheaded Frenchman Seeks Revenge Upon Lads Who Snowballed Him in Petaluma Sunday
Swinging an ax above his head in a threatening manner Victor Bogue, a baker, lately of France, and altogether ignorant of the playfulness of the American youth when it snows in Petaluma and in Sonoma county where it is a novelty, got his French blood up on Sunday morning and charged some of the snowballers. Each time the ax went wide of its mark, and its edge was dulled by contact with the cement sidewalk. When things were at a pitch of wild excitement Constable James Sullivan took the situation in hand. It was not until he had managed to avoid the swinging ax and poke his revolver under the Frenchman's nose that the latter dropped his wood cleaver.
It seems that the dough-mixer's wrath had been kindled just before the snowballs were thrown by seeing two companions roughly handled by other men. A Petaluma man in town Monday gave a very realistic description of the encounter to some friends here. Bogue was taken to jail and detained for a short time until his wrath had subsided and the snowballs were no more.- Press Democrat, January 8, 1907
SWUNG AXE AT CROWD
Victor Bogue, a Frenchman, swung an axe at a crowd of Petalmans on Sunday when the crowd attempted to snow ball him. He had previously seen two of his countrymen pretty roughly handled and determined that he would not suffer similarly. Ignorant of the ways of the people here and having recently come from France and being unable to understand the language, he is not to be blamed for his display of wrath. The man was permitted to plead guilty to a simple assault and Recorder Lyman Green fined him ten dollars. He attempted to chop some one with the weapon, but only chopped a hole in the cement sidewalk.- Santa Rosa Republican, January 8, 1907
So how bad were relationships between Japan and the U.S. in the early 20th century? Let's put it this way: Anyone wouldn't have been surprised if the two countries went to war someday.
International politics isn't usually on the radar of this journal, but the long-running thread of anti-Japanese fervor can even be found in the Santa Rosa newspapers, and some context helps to interpret where the line was drawn before WWI between geo-political opinions and overt racism.
Unlike many other places in California, Sonoma County had little enmity towards Japanese immigrants. Part of the reason was the respect given Fountain Grove wine maker Kanaye Nagasawa, who came to America via Scotland (where he picked up English with a distinctive burrrrrrr) and was portrayed in the papers as an innovator in the manner of Luther Burbank. Locals apparently also viewed Japanese laborers as kindred spirits, seeking to scratch together enough money for a family homestead. Santa Rosa even had a Japanese employment office because immigrants were sought out as hard-working domestics, farm workers, and general labor.
By contrast, Chinese immigrants were isolated and the target of bigotry in Santa Rosa, usually described in the local newspapers of the day as criminal or foolish "Chinks" or "Celestials" who could barely speak English (which sometimes might have been a feint to play the game of diminished expectations). When they were mentioned in the Press Democrat of that era, it was typically an arrest or something that was an opportunity to write a "humorous" racist vignette (usually with pidgin dialog), often concerning a broken marriage or other personal humiliations of Chinese residents.
Before 1904, most Santa Rosans probably couldn't find Japan on a map on a bet. But once the Russo-Japanese War began, Japan and its military were in the headlines for much of the year. Many Japanese youths in Sonoma County returned home to fight the Czar, and there was a parade and train station sendoff for the boys.
As the war was underway, a movement began to demote Japanese immigrants to the same dismal legal status as the Chinese. In 1905, San Francisco labor unions created the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League, seeking to expand the ban on Chinese "coolie" labor to include other Asian workers. (If you're wondering where our elected officials stood on these race-tinged issues, Santa Rosa's own Rep. McKinlay was among the most anti-immigrant hardliners in Congress, leading California House Republicans who helped defeat Teddy Roosevelt's attempt to make exceptions in the Chinese Exclusion policy for "officials, teachers, students, merchants, or travelers for curiosity or pleasure.")
Japan's victory over Russia in the autumn of 1905 only fed American anxieties. Now it wasn't only hordes of farm laborers to fear, but the possibility that Japan had a robust industrial base that could undercut U.S. exports to Asia, along with a navy capable of challenging the United States militarily.
(RIGHT: "If Japan Should Attack Us" Sunday feature in the San Francisco Call, Sept. 23, 1906)
Fearmongering became a common theme in the early 1906 newspapers. When the British launched a Dreadnought warship, the Feb. 12 NY Tribune used the news in an op/ed to point out that Japan was building two warships of this type, but U.S. ships were years away. An editorial in the Feb. 11 LA Herald warned, "...little Japan, grown 'cockey' by its recent victories, is nudging the sleeping giant and whispering to it to 'go in and win.' But recently the Japanese government had the nerve to twist the lion's tail by criticizing the army formations of Great Britain. And reports come that Japan is working day and night on its naval armament..." An adjacent article by "Captain A. W. Best" warns that the "real aim and aspiration of the yellow races...[is] to win first the Pacific slope of North and South America (and Northern Australia) and having established themselves, like weeds there and choked out the white race in those areas to gradually extend the process to the rest of the world..." There was also a Panama Canal angle: Canal-bashers in Congress implied that if it was completed, Japanese warships could use it to attack the U.S. East Coast.
In short order, the situation became a replay of the anti-Chinese hysteria of the 1880s. Champion of the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League was a San Jose Congressman who delivered a Japanese exclusion speech. The San Francisco school board issued an order to segregate "pupils of the Mongolian race" from public schools, charging that classrooms were overcrowded with Asians (in reality, the order only applied to 93 Japanese kids, since Chinese schoolchildren were already forced to go to the "Oriental School"). Following the 1906 Earthquake, Japanese scientists visiting San Francisco were pelted with rocks, perhaps because one of the Exclusion League's statements claimed the Japanese liked earthquakes: "Do not for a moment think that the Japanese will keep away on account of the earthquakes. They are raised on earthquakes in Japan, and the earthquake will only make the Nepponese [sic] coolies feel more at home in California. "
The view from Sonoma County can be found by sampling the local papers from January, 1907. Teddy Roosevelt had just ordered the San Francisco Board of Education to keep Japanese students in the public schools, and on the seventh the Santa Rosa Republican printed wire stories about the Governor and an Oregon Senator denouncing the order. The next day, the Republican reprinted an Oakland Enquirer editorial on the "commercial menace of Japan," warning that the Japanese could horn in on lucrative flour exports if they started grinding wheat grown in Asia. On Jan. 24, the Press Democrat published the editorial cartoon seen at right, powerful in its imagery if rather vague in message (click to enlarge).
Most significant is that both Santa Rosa papers never, as far as I can find, reprinted items from the Bay Area press that suggested that the Japanese were "coolies" or part of a Fifth Column, called for them to be deported or their children removed from school, or otherwise suggested that they were undeserving, lesser people. Yes, individuals were sometimes disrespectfully (in modern eyes) referred to as "Japs" or even "little brown men" in local articles, but if those editors truly intended to publish racial putdowns, they had a lexicon of hateful invective available to them from the San Francisco papers.
Santa Rosa's big event for that month was a speech by Democratic Party superstar William Jennings Bryan, and more than 3,000 packed into the skating rink on a Saturday afternoon to hear him pontificate about America's greatness and its destiny to lead the world. In the portion of his speech summarized in a Press Democrat article below, Bryan also pitched the conflicts between Asia and the United States as sort of a crusade for the "active, positive faith of Christianity." Oh, dear.
The situation only spiraled down. Japanese who had become naturalized citizens but lost their papers in the San Francisco earthquake were denied their former citizenship. 1907 also witnessed two incidents in San Francisco involving White drunks that turned into anti-Japanese riots, and similar riots followed in Berkeley (!) in 1909. The Exclusion League tripled in membership groups, and in 1910 there were an astonishing 27 anti-Japanese laws proposed in the California legislature. William Jennings Bryan, always helpful, told President Woodrow Wilson in 1913 that the problem could be solved if half the Japanese in California were relocated to other states.
Most of those woes didn't impact Japanese immigrants in Sonoma County, but the California Alien Land Law of 1913 did. They could no longer buy property, or even legally rent land for more than three years, and a 1920 ballot initiative further blocked their ability to have the actual land title held in the name of a trust, business, or their citizen children. The courts later chipped away at the restrictions somewhat, but the entire law was not overturned in California until 1952.
While trade unions and the California Grange sparked the anti-Japanese movement, it was the newspapers of the day that are most to blame for fanning the flames white hot. The pro-union San Francisco Chronicle kept the issue on the front page for much of 1905-1906, even reviving it when interest waned after the quake. It became fodder for a newspaper war with the Hearst-owned San Francisco Examiner's long-running "Yellow Peril" series, which most famously offered a 1907 Sunday feature titled, "Japan May Seize the Pacific Coast." The Hearst syndicate continued playing this alarmist theme for years and hit rock-bottom - which for them, was really saying something - when in 1915 they ran an article supposedly revealing secret plans for a Japanese invasion of California via Mexico. The photos were twenty years old, and the basis of the story was badly-translated fiction from a Japanese magazine.
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN WELCOMED IN SANTA ROSA
Masterly Address Is Heard by Immense Audience
Splendid Reception Tendered the Distinguished Statesman in the City of Roses Saturday
It was an immense audience that gathered in the pavilion on A street to hear the Hon. William Jennings Bryan, the distinguished Nebraska statesman, on Saturday afternoon. They came from far and near to see and hear one of the country's foremost men. They saw and heard and went away satisfied, carrying with them the inspiration of a high resolve, and uplifted and elevated by the stirring sentiments expressed by the celebrated speaker.
[..]
Mr. Bryan dwelt at considerable length on modern China and her issue from the dormant condition of two thousand years. The negative creed of Confucius is giving place to the active, positive faith of Christianity, he said. Progressive viceroys of different provinces are organizing schools not for the teachers of the musty philosophy of the past, but the newer ideas of a nearer age placed before the earnest student. "I see the day," said the speaker, "when Christianity will illuminate the lang [sic], dark places of the Orient."
Referring to Japan the speaker said she was facing one of the most important crises in her history. She had copied western ways and now it remained to see whether she would borrow western religion, or endeavor to build up the nation without religion, and with agnosticism and infidelity.
Very interesting Mr. Bryan alluded to the religions of other races and the idolatry practiced in certain lands. He then described the visits he and Mrs. Bryan paid to some of the crowned heads of the old world, and of the ceremony attendant thereon. He was pleased beyond measure, he said, to hear President Roosevelt mentioned all over the world as a lover of peace, growing out of his mission in bringing about a cessation of hostilities between Russia and Japan...
- Press Democrat, January 27, 1907