Born in the U.S.A.

Jan. 26, 1907
Los Angeles

Chin Man Can (or Kan) is in jail on charges of being an illegal immigrant. The young man says he is nothing of the sort, but unable to prove that he was born in San Francisco because all of his belongings were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.

Can says that when he was 13, the rest of his family left San Francisco to return to China, but that he stayed behind, attending Chinese school and learning English. After the earthquake, he came to Los Angeles, where he was arrested while working at an Ocean Park restaurant.

The Times defended Can, noting that his uncle was a wealthy San Francisco businessman, Ching Wing.

“Ching Wing has always been so enthusiastic an American that he has arranged to bring up his baby as an American boy, forsaking the language of his fathers, wearing American clothes, reading American books. It seems like a joke that one of his relatives should be arrested,” The Times says.

The Times wrote in an editorial: “Every right-minded American will resent the disagreeable experiences which have befallen Chin Man Can, who appears to be our fellow countryman. Let us hope that all will end well for him and that his heart will not become embittered because of his rough treatment. We trust he will live long and prosper in the land of his birth, which has the same regard for him that she has for all her children, of whatever race, color or creed.”

An anonymous headline writer was not so kind, nor was a reporter who wrote: “ ‘Me velly flond this country,’ Chin Man stated on the witness stand. ‘Family all go back to China. Me hide in wood yard in Flisco till they all gone. I likee mission school, likee ‘Melican ways, alle slame ‘Melican myself.’ ”

Although an inspector bolstered claims that Can had been smuggled into the country, testifying that he had frequently seen Can in Ensenada, a benefactor charged that the “Mexican ranger” was railroading Can to get the $300 bounty for turning in an illegal immigrant.

In 1913, while out on bail as his case was being appealed, Can was charged with belonging to a ring smuggling Chinese across the border. By then he was manager of the Quang Hing Lung Co. at 305 Marchessault St., and attending the University of Southern California.

His trial lasted into 1914 and testimony revealed that Can had adopted the names Frank Chan and W.H. Chan. He was convicted of trying to smuggle a boxcar of immigrants into the U.S. and although he appealed his case, no further information can be found in The Times.

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Introducing Miss White


Jan. 24, 1907
Los Angeles

Meet a tough little lady who gave her life to helping the poor, needy children of Los Angeles. She built a church and school starting with a nickel donated by a newsboy, left it all and began again in a tent when the presiding minister turned out to be a crook, and then regained everything. She spent most of her later years fighting with state authorities to stay in operation. Her name is Belle L. White.

White was preaching as early as 1897 at the Pacific Gospel Union, working with needy children in the neighborhood east of Alameda Street. But in a few years, when the Gospel Union decided to give up working with youngsters, White split off and formed her own school at 6th Street and Mateo.

She began with a small, roughly constructed building and raised a larger Mission-style structure called the People’s Church. White was joined by the Rev. T.G. Atteberry, who was soon in debt. There was further controversy about him: “He has actually begun to jump with the Holy Rollers,” The Times says, “they who serve the Lord with ragtime songs and cakewalk accompaniment, and his institutional church at 6th and Mateo streets has become the lodging house, meetinghouse and general headquarters of the ludicrous bunch of fanatics.”

White continued to have faith in Atteberry when everyone else had abandoned him. “She is a sincere friend of Atteberry and last night fought his battle like the valiant little woman she is,” The Times says. “She pleaded and wept for him, declaring it was her belief that he is simply the victim of circumstances, that he is honest to the core and will pay every dollar owing on the People’s Church, though she says her work is now completely separated from it.”

And in January 1907, the church wanted to ordain her. “Los Angeles is likely to have the only woman preacher in the country in active charge of a congregation,” The Times says. The paper carried an announcement that White was to be ordained, but there is no further information about it.

Information on White remains sketchy. The institution at 6th and Mateo continued to operate, and by 1909 was known as the nonsectarian Belle White Children’s Home. In 1912, the Belle White Home moved from 588 S. Mateo to the home of former Mayor Hazard at 3701 Eastside Blvd., which had been remodeled as an orphanage.

In 1914, she was investigated on charges of running the home for personal profit and accused of neglecting the children. Later that year, the state Board of Charities and Corrections stripped the home of its license. White defied the ruling and vowed to stay in operation. She challenged the state board to arrest her, and when it didn’t, she continued caring for the children.

The next year, she incorporated and was again investigated by the state Board of Charities and Corrections, which among other things wanted her to restrict admission to either boys or girls and to have a board of directors including men and women. In 1917, there were further charges against White, saying that she operated a boarding home rather than a charity and White conceded that in some instances relatives paid the children’s expenses. It continued to operate as late as 1926, then vanished from the historic record, as did its namesake, Belle L. White.

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We Saved the 76 Ball!

The following is a message from the future, 2007 to be precise.

Y’know that little oil company Unocal out Santa Paula way? Welp, round about 1962 they’re going to send an ad executive up to the World’s Fair in Seattle (of all godforsaken backwaters) and he’ll create a sign that the whole world will fall in love with. He’ll call it the 76 Ball, and that’s all it is, a big orange ball with "76" across its belly, but not for 1776, but for some nutty thing to do with octanes.

Anyhoo, the 76 Ball will be a sweet old thing and everyone will love it, especially little kids, and folks’ll even wear little ones on their cars as decoration. Come 2003 and a big Texas company called ConocoPhillips is gonna eat up the little Californnia company and start knocking those friendly balls off their poles and replacing them with red Texas belt buckles. That’s when your time traveling pals at 1947project get involved, with a website and a petition. And would you believe, those Texans listen?

We pretty much just saved the 76 Ball — for museum collections and in a new, red and blue interpretation, and we’re feeling pretty good about it.

This concludes your message from the future. We now return you to your previously scheduled Lemon Fiend.

yrs, Kim
(and Nathan)
(and the rest of the 76 Ball geeks)

Le-Mon! Le-Mon!

Jan. 23, 1907
Los Angeles

Pity, for a moment, Felix Chavarino, caught in the grips, not of opium, morphine or heroin, but of citrus, for he is a “lemon fiend.”

He was arrested after begging for food in a small restaurant. Chavarino didn’t want anything else on the menu, pleading for a “le-mon,” a “le-mon.”

“Gaunt, unkempt and weird looking, he crouched there, disdaining all offers,” The Times says.

“With skin turned to the yellow hue of the lemon, lips drawn back sore and red, from protruding teeth, skin stretched tightly over cheekbones; matted hair, through which his fingers constantly moved; eyes bulging and glassy, he was a living picture of the effects of excessive use of the lemon.”

Someone gave him money to buy food, but took it away when Chavarino set off for the nearest fruit stand.

Chavarino, who had already served months in jail, was convicted of vagrancy and given 30 days. There is no further record of him in The Times, so we don’t know what became of him.

Lmharnisch.com
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The Bible Explained — For $1,000


Jan. 22, 1907
Los Angeles

Since his teens, James Lauer has been studying the Bible. Where others have struggled to parse its meanings, he has found clarity. He wants to write a book that will explain it all. The only thing he needs is $1,000 ($20,523.57 USD 2005).

During his studies of the Bible, Lauer has apparently never encountered anything prohibiting extortion, so to get the money, he has been writing notes to Mrs. Joseph Maier Sr. One was not enough, so Lauer wrote a series of letters demanding money and threatening her life if she didn’t pay.

At the moment, Lauer is in the City Jail under examination by Dr. Quint. Neither Lauer’s conduct nor his appearance is reassuring. “His long red hair and beard are unkempt, his flat-topped skull is peculiarly formed and his painfully strained gaze does not indicate a well-balanced mind,” The Times says.

“During his imprisonment in the City Jail, Lauer talked wildly of his plans for writing a book about the Bible which would clear up all the misunderstanding. He repeatedly declared that while all attempts to explain the Bible have failed, it is quite clear to him, and that he could explain it perfectly to others if he were given opportunity to write his book.

“Lauer, according to his own statement, has pored over the Bible constantly since he was 15 years of age, inventing explanations, and this, it is believed, has turned his brain.”

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If They Had Only Known

Jan. 21, 1907
Los Angeles

Mayor Arthur C. Harper addressed the crowd for a moment, reminiscing about a teacher who used to tell his pupils that someday, long after he was gone, people would get around Los Angeles in self-propelled vehicles.

And with that, Harper threw the switch, illuminating 10,000 electric lights at Morley’s Skating Rink on Grand between 9th and 10th Streets and beginning the insanity, formally unveiling the automobile in the first car show not only in Los Angeles, but on the West Coast.

More than 3,000 people poured through the exhibits in the first three hours of the show, which featured 97 gas-powered autos and two electric cars, as well as all manner of accessories such as odometers, speedometers, dashboard clocks and gas lamps. There was a personal appearance by Barney Oldfield with his famous “Green Dragon” racecar.

Not all of the exhibitors arrived in time for the opening night. The railroad car carrying the shipment of Pope-Toledos caught fire near Barstow and the Ford was delayed, although Henry Ford did attend the show, The Times says.

Great preparations had been made to display the vehicles: 9th and 10th Streets, as yet unpaved, were muddy from recent storms, but Grand was cleared of mud and a wooden causeway was built to the entrance. The Times notes that a canopy had been erected for people arriving in carriages.

The autos’ technical innovations were breathtaking: “At the space of the White garage a constant crowd looked over the Christman, a car built for the hardest kind of place, the desert,” The Times says. “The car is built for carrying passengers over no roads at all, for jumping off rocks and climbing over gullies and generally being abused.

“The Christman is a large, heavy, rugged-looking machine, with broad tread, large wheels and a body fitted with three seats, like an old-fashioned buckboard. Its frame is built like a railroad car, with truss rod underneath. In front is the motor, a Brennan double-opposed rated at 40 horsepower. This size is used in the car on exhibition, but the next ones turned out with have a 60 horsepower motor, capable of taking them anywhere.

“A peculiar system of individual clutch transmission is used, which has been changed a little since the first car was made. Formerly the car had no reverse and when Christman wanted to turn the machine around in the narrow streets of Goldfield he rushed at the curb, hit and bounced back and then continued the operation until he had bounced himself around.

“This operation seemed to have no deleterious effect on the car, but it was thought better to have a reverse as the method was rather strenuous on the passengers.”

There were many questions and after a few days, salesmen became exhausted from explaining why a car engine needs pistons and why a manufacturer can’t leave off the differential to save weight. The show was extended because of its popularity, and was forced to close in part because most of the exhibition cars had been sold.

If anyone asked about mass transit, pollution or traffic, the comments were not recorded. No, the first thing people did when they got hold of their cars was to see how fast they could go.

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Architectural Ramblings

Los Angeles
Jan. 20, 2007

What we do know about H.J. Brainerd is that he built a fair number of “portable homes.” What we don’t know, except in one case, is exactly where he put them.

Brainerd was active from 1906 to 1911, building homes throughout Southern California. His ads appealed to people like sportsmen, ranchers, oil executives and anyone else who might need a no-frills building put up in a few days in a relatively remote area.

In 1909, for example, Brainerd sold a three-room house to the Cerritos Gun Club, a three-room bungalow to Horace M. Dobbins for a ranch near Arcadia and a bungalow in San Diego, The Times says.

The only example of a Brainerd home that I’ve located can be found at 1158 E. 41st St. Although it appears to have some sort of masonry facade, the house is of the proper vintage and resembles the few photos I have located of Brainerd homes. Of course it has a big palm tree in front, the telltale sign of a home from this era.

If anyone has information on other Brainerd houses in the Southland (or anything about Ducker’s Patent Homes), let me know.

Lmharnisch.com
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A Conductor Throws Caution to the Winds


Jan. 19, 1907
Los Angeles

Despite his ill health, Harley Hamilton drove himself to conduct a concert by the Los Angeles Symphony because he believed so much in bringing the music of Tchaikovsky (or in those days, Tschaikowsky) to the public. The concert at hand is the West Coast premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4.

“Harley Hamilton, too ill to leave his house, is just finishing his arrangements for the work of the symphony orchestra,” The Times says of his labors on the concert series.

“During the entire past month the director has devoted the major part of every day, propped up with pillows on his couch, to the preparation of the splendid symphony programmes.

“The symphony orchestra is the darling of his heart-and in several instances it has come near costing him his life. Mr. Hamilton puts more money into the symphony work than he ever receives from it. He has carried the orchestra over the years of comparative failure, supported its burdens almost alone in time of public adversity and devoted his only hours of rest or recreation to a constant effort to better its personnel and its music.”

To make ends meet, Hamilton teaches music students, conducts a theater orchestra and even performs in pit orchestras, coming to the rescue when many players were banned from a performance of “Mignon.” (See “Oh, God, the Bassoon!”)

Of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, Hamilton said: “I am quite a Russian in my tastes. Tschaikowsky’s art is a fundamental bulwark upon which the splendid individual music of modern Russia stands. There is an Oriental richness about his writings-spiced fragrance in every phrase-violet skies, hot suns, tropic exuberance-qualities that are no more inherent to the bleak steppes than the thrilling tenderness of Italian melodies. These evidence the Asiatic strain that purples the lighter Russian blood-the dominating, compelling force of the ancient Tartars.”

Hamilton conducted the concert (which also included Goldmark’s “Sakuntala” or “Rustic Wedding” and Arthur Foote’s Serenade in E Major) at the Mason Opera House.

Because of a relapse of “nervous rheumatism,” he “was ordered to the strictest confinement by his physician. Throwing caution to the winds, however, he worked through a long rehearsal yesterday morning and yesterday afternoon, partly standing, partly sitting in his chair, directed the lengthy concert after which he returned home physically exhausted but [illegible] triumphant,” The Times says.

For a short time, the Los Angeles Symphony was in competition with the more recent Los Angeles Philharmonic, but it eventually disbanded. Hamilton died at his home, 1120 Arapahoe, in 1933 at the age of 72, having given birth to the Los Angeles Symphony and the Los Angeles Women’s Orchestra (later the California Women’s Symphony Orchestra).

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An Unfortunate Loophole

Jan. 18, 1907
San Francisco

In what is surely an embarrassing and awkward oversight, the California Constitution only prevents “Mongolian” children from attending white public schools when separate campuses have been created. The problem, legislators have discovered, is that the Japanese aren’t Mongolians and feel they somehow have the right to go to school with everyone else.

The case before the Legislature and San Francisco officials involves 10-year-old Keikeiki Aoki, who has been barred from the Redding public schools by Principal Mary A. Deane. In a unanimous ruling, the California Supreme Court has issued a writ ordering Deane to show cause as to why she should not admit Keikeiki to school.

Deane has responded that “she was acting under the law of the state and in pursuance of a resolution passed by the Board of Education that Japanese pupils cannot attend any public school except the Oriental school for Mongolians and Indians,” The Times says.

In an attempt to resolve the impasse, San Francisco City Atty. Burke is rushing to Sacramento to urge the Legislature to pass an amendment to the state Constitution substituting the word “Asiatic” for “Mongolian.”

“As the Legislature is unanimously against admitting Japanese children to the public schools, this amendment could be rushed through in a couple of days,” The Times says.

The proposed wording: “And also to establish separate schools for Indian children, Japanese children, Malay children, Korean children and all children of the Mongolian race. When such separate schools are established, Indian, Chinese, Malay, Korean, Japanese and all Mongolian children must not be admitted into any other school.”

Remind me again about how the past was a kinder, simpler time, please. I keep forgetting.

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