Stripper's Guide

February 19 1909 -- Illegal Chinese lottery tickets are found by the L.A. cops, and a whole group of Asian-American suspects are hauled into court. They maintain unanimously that the tickets are merely cards with poetry written on them. Their explanation unravels when each is brought into the court separately and asked to translate the verse.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

Here's a Gene Carr postcard from the Rotograph Co., issued in 1906. The gag goes over my head -- can anyone parse the century-old stereotypes here well enough to explain it? I'm guessing it's a St.Patrick's Day card, but why the fat Dutchman leading the parade???

As long as explanations are being called for, what in the heck is that faceless refugee from a genetics experiment gone wrong in the lower left? Yipes!

Labels: Wish You Were Here

 King News by Moses Koenigsberg

Published by F.A. Stokes Company, 1941

Chapter5

At The Editorial Valhalla (part 2)

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Disgust over the Kansas City Sunday Sun only heightened my pride in the Evening Star. But a disillusionment was at hand. Salaciousness was not the only ogre that leered at the sacredness of the sanctum. Corruption stalked a newspaper in various disguises. One of these masks was unexpectedly lifted by a bit of diligent reporting. Upheaval of my own office resulted.

A new Bexar County courthouse was in course of construction at a cost of $240,000. George Dugan had come from Kansas City to land the job. He was a common type of the times. A promoter and manipulator of public work enterprises, he “knew all the angles.” Otto P. Kroeger, an amiable young San Antonian and member of a prosperous family, was in position to enlist local capital. That would, in turn, command political influence. Dugan picked Kroeger as his partner. They got the contract. Some of the unsuccessful bidders did not accept their defeat gracefully. They alleged various irregularities. The county commissioners ignored these accusations until specific charges were filed. A formal complaint set out certain violations of agreement by departures from the specifications. Official action could be no longer evaded. Public hearings were ordered. They were held by the county court, consisting of the judge and four commissioners. This was the same tribunal that had awarded the contract.

The Evening Star covered the inquiry in considerable detail. A dozen building specialists consumed four days discussing the dimensions of stones best suited for the making of concrete. There was general accord on one point. Rock fragments as large as four inches in diameter were satisfactory. Indeed, they might be more advantageous than smaller elements. The commissioners were evidently pleased with the course of the investigation. They indicated to me privately their cordial approval of the thoroughness of my reports. Their urbanity did not excite my suspicion.

On the fifth day a bombshell burst. A barrel of mud was dumped into the investigators’ tank of whitewash. An expert violated the agreement by which he had been permitted to testify. He demolished the testimony of all his predecessors on the witness stand. The contract with Dugan & Kroeger specified stones half the size of those actually used in the making of the concrete. Broken rock cost much less than cement. The bigger the fragments, the less would be the proportion of cement entering into each cubic foot of the mixture. Use of the larger stones caused an inferior product at a greater profit to the contractors.

It did not occur to me, at the moment, that this exposure spelled my first reportorial contact with “big time” graft. The external facts alone constituted important news. One expert had torn into tatters a fabric woven under oath by a group of his colleagues. That was the basis of my story in the Evening Star. There was no allusion to sinister implications underlying the disclosure. It wasn’t needed.

Neither of the other two dailies in San Antonio had been represented at the actual sessions of the commission. They had relied on the clerk for an account of what happened each day. This was not an unusual practice. Reportorial staffs were too small to afford attendance at meetings that seemingly promised nothing beyond a technical inquisition. The Express and the Light received regularly the county board’s versions of the testimony adduced. It hadn’t dawned on me that this might have been assured by special arrangement. Nor had any inkling reached me of any reliance on the Evening Star to publish reports satisfactory to the county board.

So, it was a complete surprise that afternoon to run afoul of a ton of irate officialdom. The clash literally upset me. The county commissioners had been in a huddle on Main Plaza. All of them, save one, were unusually large, heavy men. As I approached them, a whimsical notion occurred to me for a paragraph about the weightiness of office-holding problems. Here, in less space than a lariat’s loop, was massed 2,000 pounds of the subject. In a blink the whimsicality faded into arresting realism.

Commissioner Dwyer grabbed my collar. Yanking me into the center of the group, he let loose a blast of billingsgate. The sulphurous quality of his tirade compelled more attention than its meaning. His companions joined in a chorus of interpretation, much noisier but no more lucid. The scene bordered on the ridiculous. An angry effort to break through the cordon of abuse produced a slapstick comedy. Three of my bulky vilifiers, reaching around each other to halt me, fell in a most undignified sprawl. That they had carried me with them did not ease their discomfiture. Our disentanglement was the signal for adjournment.

The impromptu party had been neither a social nor a political success. It did bring to my attention a rather sharp dissatisfaction with the Evening Star’s one-man news-staff. But what qualifications did these men possess to pass on my professional ability? Repeated references to a “double cross” had mystified me. Dark hints of the paper’s impending doom had aroused my concern.

Hamilton, Callan and Nordhouse received me as if at a funeral. At first they were too morose to talk. But bit by bit the facts were matched together. Adam Maurer had provided our “bank roll.” He was a building contractor. Others in his line of activity were also contributors to our operating funds. Maurer and his associates had looked forward to a newspaper that would serve their interests. “We want to advance the substantial and constructive elements of the community,” had been Maurer’s explanation to Nordhouse, Hamilton and Callan. And with that statement of a highly laudable program, the three were content.

These inner workings of a Texas daily in the ’90s were not peculiar to the section or to the period. They have been paralleled by journalistic undertakings throughout the country. They are reviewed here as a composite illustration of numerous counterparts. Maurer had not explained that there were any special interests to foster. He had outlined his financial and business connections. He had assumed these facts would afford sufficient guidance for the editorial policy of his newspaper organ. None of my associates had revealed to me the identity of our financial sponsor.

None of them had intimated to me that there were any “sacred cows” to safeguard. While the county commissioners were upbraiding me in Main Plaza, Maurer was berating my partners in the Evening Star office. He had never been there before. He never returned. His mission was to sever all relations with the newspaper. The Evening Star had lost its angel.

In the midst of our doldrums, the landlord entered. He had served as unofficial treasurer. All daily collections had been entrusted to him and Maurer’s check covering the weekly deficits had been made out in his name. He doled out the cash for wages and current expenses, retaining for himself the amounts due for presswork, newsprint and rent. Thus, the bank records would show nothing beyond a considerable business between Adam Maurer and W. L. Winter. These tactics not only limited Maurer’s liability, but they would enable him, if he chose, to disavow responsibility for the Evening Star. And now Winter told us, “We come to the end of the rope on Saturday.” It was a calamity. But it was also the end of a comprehensive course in finance, politics and newspaper promotion. Never again would my name appear on a payroll defrayed from an invisible source.

At Winter’s urging, we set out to “dig up a new bank roll.” Two friends, Dan Lewis and Emmet Kehoe, responded readily to my solicitation. Dan, in his late thirties, was a member of a wealthy family with extensive land and cattle interests. He insisted he had “no ax to grind.” Some time later, Dan’s brother, Nat, became a candidate for sheriff. Kehoe, chief of the fire department, disclaimed any motive in helping me beyond “putting the Evening Star on its feet and the opportunity for a profitable investment.” Time and circumstances attested his sincerity. For immediate needs, Lewis handed me $300 in cash and Kehoe wrote a. $200 check. Sunday afternoon, Nordhouse, Hamilton and Callan met me with Winter. None of my associates had been able to raise any funds.

Winter was deeply impressed with my $500 plus the assurance that enforceable contracts would guarantee whatever money was needed up to $4,500 more. That was a considerable amount of capital at the time. Hardly more than a decade earlier, Joseph Pulitzer had bought the St. Louis Dispatch with a down payment of $2,500. A couple of years later, Henry J. Hearsey found $2,250 an adequate stake for the establishment of the New Orleans States. Winter took charge of the meeting.

“We must have a clean slate,” he announced. “If you continue with the name of the Evening Star in my plant, I must be protected against claims from anybody on account of past transactions. If necessary, I shall extend a reasonable credit provided the wages and expenses are not increased without my consent. But I won’t stand for any squabbling. I’ll deal with one person only. I’m sure Koenigsberg’s backers will want him to be that person. Therefore, he must act as publisher.”

Four months were to elapse before my fifteenth birthday. It was the winter of 1892-93. But there was no misunderstanding of my new estate. It was not a prize captured by newspaper talents. It was a responsibility growing out of exigencies that friends had helped me to meet. So, my first job as a publisher, even at that age, afforded me small sense of achievement. There would have been more of a thrill in a big scoop. There was one real triumph. The Evening Star had been saved.

It was neither advisable nor expedient to make any public announcement. When the occasion arose, however, the Evening Star would proclaim its independence of all political parties. The new publisher could not be dissuaded from this course. He set up for his newspaper a rule to which he pledged his own lifelong adherence. Professional manipulators controlled partizan politics. It was a game playable only by insiders. The individual or the newspaper that blindly served a political organization was in the same category of dupes to which belonged the victims of the three-shell fraud. They were the pawns of the sharps. Partizan fences were screens for sculduggery. The fervor of election campaigns was whipped to a white heat in order more firmly to intrench the leaders of both sides. Then, when the voting was over and the tumult and the shouting died, the real innings of the bosses began. While the voters were immersed in other matters—while their heads were turned—the spoils were traded and shifted and graft traps were framed for the mutual benefit of those who would again make ugly faces at each other when the stage was set.

Was not ample proof of all this supplied by my own experiences? Did not a Republican district attorney procure my indictment for criminal libel as a backfire to protect Democratic officeholders? And now, was not my present position traceable to a political hippodrome that went amiss? Had it not required both Republicans and Democrats to arrange the set-up that was knocked down by the Evening Star’s courthouse disclosure? No matter how sophomoric may have been the mind that pursued this reasoning, the conclusions have stood the test of time.

Journalism was caressing my fondest hopes. The Evening Star was forging ahead. Then Major Mose C. Harris came to San Antonio. His coming marked a turning-point in my newspaper career. Dan Lewis told the facts bluntly.

“Mose Harris has bought the Evening News," he announced in a tone in which one might recite an obituary notice. My apparent lack of concern nettled him. “You don’t seem to know much about him,” he resumed. “If you did, you’d lie down and turn over. He’s bad medicine for anyone he doesn’t like. And if I helped you to stay in the field as his competitor, he wouldn’t like either of us. It’s much better to have him with us than against us. And I’m fixing it the better way.”

The Evening Star was to fade out. Lewis had already effected a deal with Major Harris. It converted Lewis’ investment into a one-third interest in the Evening News. This was to be in the name of Koenigsberg, who would be taken over with the same drawing account that he had been receiving.

In his early forties, a scant five feet and six inches in height, compactly built, Mose C. Harris had the air of a man with an arrested bent for foppishness. He was a baldish dandy whose appearance suggested the dandruff he didn’t have. Dancing brown eyes belied the laziness of a drawl. The straggling ends of a small, sandy mustache sought refuge between lips too full to conceal. His voice fluctuated between a throaty purr and a deep rumble. It was an admirable vehicle for a voluminous magniloquence. His presence alternately denied and affirmed his reputation as a daring soldier of fortune. But his speech left no doubt about the vigor of his brain.

Only those soliciting favors addressed Harris as “Major.” He was invariably referred to as “the Majah.” Because of his own pronunciation, he could not resent the implied banter. “Rest assured that San Antonio will be just as responsive as other communities that have indulged a keen appetite for my offerings,” he boasted. “Once, I published a paper behind barricaded doors and for eleven days the good citizens came up under the guns to buy each issue.” This was more than braggadocio. Less than five years before, this swashbuckling journalist had been the central figure in one of the strangest newspaper dramas ever enacted.

A tramp compositor, Harris “came up from the printer’s case” to the writing staff. His trenchant pen kept him constantly in hot water. The javelins of his caustic scorn were loosed as readily by a baby’s prattle as by a politician’s declamation. His piquant individuality found a fitting background in the turbulent Hot Springs of the late ’80s. There he launched the Horseshoe. Its contents consisted of spicy comment.

The Arkansas resort was seething with a struggle for control of gambling privileges. Three Flynn brothers dominated the field. They owned a string of saloons with gaming-rooms overhead. Their competitor was Jim Lane. Cures effected by the waters from springs on the abutting government reservation drew visitors from all sections of the country. The end of Central Avenue, the principal street, was being hewn from a mountainside under a federal contract involving several hundred thousand dollars. The town was a gamesters’ El Dorado with all the bustle and vividness of a western mining camp.

The Horseshoe espoused the Flynns’ cause. A score of shootings over a period of months had enlivened the gambling competition. Then Lane sent to New Orleans for reinforcements.

Major Billy Doran, a notorious gunman, responded. He brought with him a gang of “trigger sharps.” The feud reached its climax in a street battle the desperateness of which is still a saga of the South. Doran and his gangsters lay in ambush opposite Billy McTague’s saloon. The Flynn trio approached in a hack. Jack Flynn was killed by the first shot. The driver, with half a dozen bullet holes through his body, toppled to the ground. His last gesture wedged the frightened horses against the curb. The carriage was literally riddled into splinters. It fell apart. The two surviving brothers became exposed targets. Frank Flynn, his hand shattered by a revolver bullet, dropped beside Jack’s body. Billy Flynn, his chest pierced by a rifle ball, grabbed Frank’s Winchester. His gun spitting fire at each step, Billy drove the Doran gang to cover. He was standing alone in the blood-spattered street when a posse, hastily organized by Police Chief Toler, arrived.
Doran and his followers, several of them badly wounded, were marched to the courthouse.

That night, law-abiding citizens organized the Committee of Safety. It formed a military organization. Flintlock muskets with bayonets were carried for show. Revolvers in hidden holsters were carried for emergency. The plant of the Horseshoe was converted into an armed fort. A barricade was erected behind the front doors, which had been further secured with a lattice of iron bars. Since the building backed against a mountain, there was no rear ingress.

The Horseshoe, which had been issued weekly, became a daily the next afternoon. It was an eruption of fire and brimstone. Harris had dug out of the slime and slush of Hot Springs politics the semblance of a righteous cause. He charged that the Flynn brothers had been shot down in furtherance of a conspiracy of corruption. A scheme had been hatched whereby illicit profits accrued under the government contract for the excavation of Central Avenue. Sites owned by favored property-owners were selected. The blasting of rock from these building lots greatly increased their value. Use of this stone by the contractors saved for them the large expense of transportation from other points. Jim Lane had engineered the deal. Municipal officials shared his profits. The Flynn brothers demanded part of the gains. Their removal followed. The Horseshoe presented all this in the form of a serial.

Each edition was a chapter of absorbing interest to Hot Springs. Harris, armed with a repeating rifle, stood on guard beside the barricade while buyers of the paper thrust their coins through the iron bars in exchange for their copies. Food and supplies were lowered to Harris on a rope through the skylight in the building roof. A note was handed in by a reader. It announced the flight of Hot Springs’ mayor. “The Majah” rejoiced. Later that afternoon he learned that the police chief had decamped. Harris drank a pint of champagne in celebration. But the Horseshoe’s allegations were disturbing the peace of many substantial citizens. The Committee of Safety sent word that it would be a salutary measure for Harris to seek an abode remote from Hot Springs. That was on the tenth day. The next afternoon, the Horseshoe published a resume of “The Revelations,” with an announcement that a copy was being sent to each member of Congress. A furor ensued. Harris was attacking the community’s tenderest spot. If a scandal touching the government contract reached Washington, it would cause a Congressional investigation. That might mean a suspension of the work. The danger of such a disaster was appalling. Harris must be stopped.

The Committee of Safety assembled outside the office of the Horseshoe. Fifteen men with fixed bayonets formed a half-circle in front of the barricaded doors. In the background crowded most of the citizenship of Hot Springs. The posse commander, carrying a sword, called to Harris to “come forth.” Several moments elapsed before “the Majah” presented himself. There was a wry grin on his face. In his best public meeting manner, he asked, “To what am I indebted for this extraordinary attention?”

“We are here,” the man with the sword answered sternly, “to give you safe escort out of Hot Springs. Your presence is an instigation to riot. Our best citizens agree that your absence is necessary for the preservation of peace. We shall protect you against violence on the way to the railroad station. But you are warned that we will not be responsible for your safety if you attempt to return.”

“It has been a custom in the valley,” Harris intoned as if delivering an address, “both on the arrival and the departure of a distinguished citizen, to accord him the compliment of a brass band. I call for a brass band.”

“Hang the----- !” came a chorus.

“Under the circumstances, we’ll dispense with the brass band,” announced “the Majah,” apparently less ruffled than an orator who has just been hissed.

The men with the bayonets formed a hollow square. In its center, Mose C. Harris was marched to the railroad yards. There he was put aboard a switch engine that had been waiting with steam up. That was in the fall of 1888. Harris afterward filed suit for damages in the federal court at Little Rock. He was awarded a verdict of $1,200. The Committee of Safety defendants paid the judgment.

The story of the Hot Springs episode revived my hopes. Here was an editor who had “defied the intrenched forces of iniquity even to the bayonet’s point.”


Chapter 5 Part 3 Next Week   
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Labels: King News

Irma Harms was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on October 20, 1882, according to a 1900 passport application and a 1924 passenger list at Ancestry.com. The 1880 U.S. Federal Census recorded Harms’ family in Euclid, Ohio. Her father, Louis, was born in Germany, and mother, Hulda, in Russia. The couple’s first child was named Hulda who was followed by Irma. Louis’ first wife, Judith, had four children and died in 1870. Additional information about Louis can be found in the Memorial Record of the County of Cuyahoga and City of Cleveland, Ohio (1894).

Harms was raised in Euclid which was named in her mother’s 1896 passport application. Some time later they moved to Cleveland.

Harms and her mother traveled to Europe in early April 1900, about two months before the enumeration of the 1900 census. The passport application said Cleveland was their permanent residence. The application had Harms’ first name as “Emma”. They returned to the U.S. in early 1901. A passenger list said they sailed on the S.S. Graf Waldersee from Hamburg, Germany, on January 13, 1901. The ship made stops in Boulogne-sur-Mer, Plymouth and New York.

The Cleveland Leader, February 18, 1902, reported the Eastern Cuyahoga branch of the Ohio state Board of Agriculture’s annual farmers’ institute in Euclid. The evening entertainment included Harms who played a piano solo and a violin duet.

In the 1910 census, Harms and her mother lived in Euclid, Ohio on Euclid Road. Harms was unemployed. They were recorded as a separate household while residing in the same place as Harms’ oldest step-brother, farmer Charles, and his family.

The Sandusky Star-Journal (Ohio), March 10, 1928, said Harms was student at the Cleveland School of Art and later studied with cartoonist C.N. Landon. She was listed as an illustrator in a Landon School advertisement. During World War I she did pen-and-ink illustrations for the Cleveland Press.

According to the 1920 census, unemployed Harms lived with her older half-sister and widow, Julia, and her family in Sandusky at 502 West Market Street. Harms’ occupation was artist in the 1921 city directory.

In February 1924, Harms visited Cuba.

American Newspaper Comics (2012) said Harms drew Gabby Gertie from September 1927 to 1935. A trademark application was recorded in the Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, February 5, 1929. 

Ser. No. 270,420. Irma Harms, Sandusky, Ohio. Filed Aug. 1, 1928.
Gabby Gertie
For One-Column Daily Illustrated Epigram Series. Claims use since Aug. 22, 1927.

Newspaper artist Harms continued to be part of Julia’s household in the 1930 census. The 1930 city directory said she was a cartoonist. In the mid-1930s, Harms moved. A 1937 directory listed the artist at 1835 Willowhurst Road in apartment 101.

The Editor & Publisher said Harms produced a daily strip, The Patsy, for the Thompson Service in 1933. It’s unclear if the strip was published.

The 1940 census recorded Harms’ address as 1875 Willowhurst Road. The cartoonist did not work and had no income in 1939. 

Harms passed away October 13, 1952, in Cleveland, according to the blog Sandusky History. 

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

In the 1900s and 1910s, it was practically a law that every syndicate had to have a Katzenjammer Kids copycat. In the 1920s, it was flapper panels. Although the International Syndicate of Baltimore was barely even registering a heartbeat by 1927, even they managed to distribute a Flapper Fanny competitor. Theirs was titled Gabby Gertie, and it was penned by Irma Harms. Ms. Harms provided some decent art though I wonder how much of it was actually cribbed from Ethel Hays. She also sometimes managed a decent gag, but often the captions offered more of a mystery than a chuckle. I offer the above examples as proof, three of which elicit from me a "huh?"

The feature debuted on August 22 1927 as a daily panel, but since many of International's clients were small papers, you'll also see it often appearing weekly or somewhere in between. In 1930 it seems like the syndicate may have given up the daily version and cut the panel back to weekly frequency, as it stopped running in daily papers that year. The writing was on the wall, and the syndicate seems to have given it up in September of 1931.

That wasn't quite the end of Gabby Gertie, though, as the backstock of the panel seems to have been sold to Western Newspaper Union. You can find the panel popping up as late as 1935 in little weeklies.

Labels: Obscurities

1926

Charles Irving Okerbloom, Jr. was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on August 13, 1908, according to the Pennsylvania, Birth Records at Ancestry.com, and a news report from the University of Arkansas. Okerbloom’s full name was on his marriage certificate and in publications from Ohio State University and the University of Arkansas.

In the 1910 U.S. Federal Census, Okerbloom was the youngest of four children born to Charles and Huldah. Okerbloom’s father was a Swedish emigrant and accountant, however, the next census said he was Swiss. The family resided in Harrisburg at 621 North Fifteenth Street.

The 1920 census recorded the Okerbloom family of seven in Columbus, Ohio, at 351 West Seventh Avenue.

Okerbloom graduated from North High School in 1926. The 1926 Polaris yearbook said his nickname was Chuck who was on the Polaris art staff, and member of Hi-Y and the Art Club. Okerbloom continued his education at Ohio State University. The 1928 Makio yearbook said he was in the Pen and Brush Club and the Sigma Chi fraternity.

The Magazine of Sigma Chi, July 1937, published an article, in part, about Milton Caniff. Caniff’s influence on Okerbloom was told.

…Columbus was full of cartoonists, and so was Ohio State. The late Billy Ireland was interested in Milt’s work and Milt valued his counsel very highly. Milt mixed with the campus artists who fraternized at the Sun Dial office—the University’s humorous publication. Clayton Rawson, Jon Whitcomb, Reamer Keller, and the late Don Barley—they were all Sun Dial artists at that time. Along with Milt, they all passed through the same halls where the late George Bellows had walked during his Ohio State days. Then later, along came Chuck Okerbloom [Alpha Gamma ’30], Noel Sickles, Bill Dwyer, and Charlie Raab, who became Sigma Chi pledges through association with Milt. All these young artists have since attained prominence of varying degrees in their chosen lines of art, and for the most part, Milt gave them all endless encouragement.

Milt’s interest had a profound influence on Chuck Okerbloom’s early Ohio State days. Chuck was no great shakes as a cartoonist when Milt sponsored him for pledging at Alpha Gamma. But he was a good tennis player. This made him an athletic prospect—and his cartooning ability was considered unimportant by most of the members. So Chuck was pledged, and because freshmen weren’t eligible for tennis, but were eligible for Sun Dial, Milt was assigned the task of guiding Chuck toward campus prominence as a Sun Dial cartoonist.

From the beginning. Milt coerced Chuck into turning at least one acceptable Sun Dial drawing to him every week. He figured that anyone as prolific as all that would certainly be well-represented in every issue of The Sun Dial. So Chuck dutifully carried out his weekly assignment, sometimes doing only one—and sometimes doing two or three drawings, and Milt selected the best ones for submission to the Sun Dial. In a short time, Chuck was better represented in the campus humor publication than was Milt. So Milt, when it was no longer necessary to enforce the mandatory requirement, dropped it, letting Chuck be responsible for his own submissions. But at this time, Milt advised Chuck that if he worked hard, he would some day be art editor of the Sun Dial—and he impressed on Chuck’s freshman mind that it was a high campus honor to be the Sun Dial’s art editor—not to mention the fact that in those days the job paid around $700 a year.

The 1929 Makio yearbook listed Okerbloom as art editor of the Sun Dial. Caniff was on the art staff, too.

The 1930 University of Minnesota yearbook, The Gopher, said “Cornell and Young were the only Minnesota representatives at the Conference [tennis] meet. Young lost a hard fought match to Charles Okerbloom….”

American Newspaper Comics (2012) said Okerbloom was one of five artists who drew Radiotics, later retitled Radiomania. The NEA series began in October 1927 with Joe King, followed by Art Krenz, Dorothy Urfer, Okerbloom, and George Scarbo. The series ended about five years later.

According to the 1930 census, unemployed Okerbloom lived with his parents in Columbus at 351 West 7th Avenue.

The Ohio County Marriages, at Ancestry.com, said Okerbloom and Margaret Elizabeth Clymer were married on December 30, 1933 in Franklin County, Ohio.

In the 1940 census, Okerbloom and his wife were residents of Iowa City, Iowa, at 1215 Yewell. Okerbloom was a state university fine arts instructor, and his wife was an assistant professor at a state university.

During World War II, Okerbloom enlisted in Texas on December 4, 1942 and served in the Army Air Corps. According to Okerbloom’s Application to State of Iowa for World War II Service Compensation, he served in the “510th Basic Flying Training Squadron U.S. Air Corps” and “Headquarters Squadron 73rd Bomb Wing 20th Air Force”. Okerbloom was honorably discharged December 1, 1945.

The University of Arkansas said Okerbloom “served as an associate professor at both the Ohio University and the University of Tulsa. An accomplished cartoonist and painter, Okerbloom joined the Department of Art at the University of Arkansas in 1953, reaching the rank of full professor in 1963. He retired in 1969. His works are in collections and art museums in Dallas, Texas; Tulsa, Okla.; New Orleans, La.; and Columbus and Toledo, Ohio. His artwork is also in the permanent collection of the State University of Iowa.”

Okerbloom passed away April 6, 1999, in Springdale, Arkansas. He was laid to rest at Middletown Cemetery.

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

February 16 1909 -- American industrialist Henry Clay Frick is in Paris and wants to go see a Wilbur Wright demonstration flight out on the coast. He and his entourage arrive at the train station only to find out that the train is fully booked. Frick insists that they add a special luxury car to the train, saying cost is no object. The French, not realizing how serious those words are to an American multi-millionaire, said it was impossible and sent the train on.

Instead Frick simply ordered a special train, just for his party. They got to see Wilbur Wright at the mere cost of approximately $1200 American dollars. In today's money I'd guess that to be something like $75,000. A mere bagatelle....

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

Rube Goldberg's Foolish Questions postcards were a huge hit, but he also produced a set under the running title The Ancient Order of the Glass House. These were issued by the same company that did his Foolish Questions cards, which offers only their logo, intertwined initials B and S, as identification (Barton Spooner?). While the Foolish Questions cards were series 213, these were series 212, presumably meaning they were issued earlier. This particular example was postally used in 1910.

By the way, I just stumbled upon Paul Tumey's essay about Goldberg's Foolish Questions. Recommended reading!

Labels: Wish You Were Here

 King News by Moses Koenigsberg

Published by F.A. Stokes Company, 1941

Chapter 5

At The Editorial Valhalla (part 1)

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“Thermopylae had its messenger of defeat, but the Alamo had none.” This is one of the inscriptions marking the historic Franciscan mission in the heart of San Antonio. It is the unofficial city slogan. Cavilers have decried the sentence as too sanguinary to be coupled with a civic outlook. It does not appear on the municipal crest. But its epic theme echoes through the programs of community convocations. The heroic last stand of 180 Texas volunteers against 3,000 Mexicans under General Santa Ana is San Antonio’s most sacred legend. Memories of two of the martyrs, Davy Crockett and James Bowie, were intertwined in schoolroom lessons. But the spirit they should have infused was absent from my return to San Antonio.

Apprehension was routed by annoyance. There would be no trial for libel. The indictment had long since been dismissed. At my father’s instance, no notice of the dismissal was forwarded to me. He reckoned shrewdly. My belief that the case was still pending might be turned to useful account. His theory was verified when Frank Ellinger told of seeing me in a prize-ring. Shook & Vander Hoeven, who had been unwilling to interfere with my work in journalism, felt differently about a pugilistic career. They subjected Ellinger to stringent questioning. His report was convincing. The cunningly worded wire was sent to drag me from an ignoble pursuit.

Tom Vander Hoeven was genuinely distressed by my explanation. But he comforted himself with a dig at my gullibility. “You were smart enough to broaden your training for journalism,” he said, “but you’re not yet smart enough to analyze a telegram. Study that message. A clever newspaperman should have asked for more facts before acting.”

My reappearance in San Antonio was highly opportune. Jeff Nordhouse considered it talismanic. Jeff was the typographical “swift” of the Southwest. He was the winner of a number of speed contests in type-setting. With Joe Hamilton and Chris Callan, fellow-typesetters, he had procured financial backing for an afternoon paper. The office would be in the printing plant of W. L. Winter, on Soledad Street, opposite the courthouse, in the center of town. All mechanical arrangements were perfected, but it remained to provide the contents of the publication. The frame was ready, but the picture was missing. The first issue had been delayed by lack of a news staff. Now, Jeff believed, my arrival at this critical point was an augury of certain success.

A new partnership of four was formed—Nordhouse, Hamilton, Callan and myself. Joe Fonda, a combination bookkeeper and circulation manager, with J. B. Pond, advertising solicitor, completed the staff. Fonda drew $12 and Pond $18 a week. Pond was the patriarch of the organization. At thirty-five, he was a veteran of canvassing campaigns of every description throughout the South. His high salary was a concession to his larger domestic responsibilities.

The Evening Star was launched with a flourish. Scores of acquaintances handled the free distribution of the first issue of 5,000 copies. That was expansive promotion in those days. The newspaper itself was palpably amateurish. But the dearth of professional polish was abundantly offset with enthusiasm. There was no perspective of experience to cramp its style or daring. Many readers found its leaven of juvenility refreshing. They were indulgent even to its sallies of sophomoric wit, such as this editorial paragraph:

There was a classic forecast of the stellar course of San Antonio's new daily newspaper. A proper sympathy will find it in this stanza by Lord Byron:

. . . ’Tis sweet to hear
At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep,
The song and oar of Adria’s gondolier,
By distance mellow’d, o’er the waters sweep;
’Tis sweet to see the evening star appear. . . .

No matter what color my face may turn now at the record of such callowness, it was great fun at the time. And the circulation figures gave approval to our gladsomeness. At the end of three months, the Evening Star claimed the largest circulation of any afternoon paper in South Texas. There were two local competitors, the Light and the News. The Times had passed out. The Light kept its figures secret. We credited it with 2,000 subscribers. The News was negligible. It was not any scintillating quality that attracted readers to the Evening Star. Such popularity as it gained was the fruit of sheer toil. Never had so many items of local information appeared in a single issue of a San Antonio daily as were regularly offered in each edition of the Evening Star. We had no telegraphic service. So, the growth of our subscription list could be attributed almost wholly to one factor, the copious volume of neighborhood news.

Intensive coverage of a small town’s happenings is an onerous undertaking. It involves real risks and frequent hardships. The intimacies of a limited population exaggerate the importance of near-by events. They magnify to the subject of untoward tidings the adverse effects of publication. Suppression is often demanded as a right of neighborly obligation. Newspaper penetration of privacy is at times held intolerable.

San Antonio’s population in 1892 exceeded 35,000. It was the chief entrepot for the trade between the United States and Mexico. It spoke with metropolitan majesty; but it whispered with small-town cant. The newspapers treated stories involving domestic infelicity with excessive delicacy.

The “shush-shush” of clubwomen critics resounded between the lines. So, a city-wide sensation followed when the Evening Star presented a full column of details of the petition for divorce filed by Mrs. Clarence Lyons. The Express used the item the next morning in much smaller space.

The defendant was a superintendent of mechanical operation. The plaintiff, the former Mary Klockenkemper, was the daughter of a prominent jeweler. Publication of the divorce action drove Lyons into a frantic rage. Death alone, he swore, could expunge this outrage. Despite an almost incoherent fury, he investigated personal responsibility for the published news. Major culpability was fixed on me. If my story had not been printed in the Evening Star, he concluded, the suit would not have been mentioned in the Express. Still, that didn’t excuse Bill Blunt, night editor of the morning paper. It would require the life-blood of both Blunt and Koenigsberg to wipe out this disgrace.

“Personal Safety in the Southwest” was the caption of an article that had appeared in the Evening Star a few weeks before. The material around which it was written came to me from Jacobo Coy, described in the feature as “the eminent authority on the strategies and dynamics of private warfare.” It was a rather strained effort at humor. But it ended on a note of seriousness. Coy outlined “three rules of conduct for the peace-lover.” They read: “1. Avoid the habit of wearing a gun. The reputation of going armed justifies the other fellow in shooting on sight. 2. A weapon should be used only for self-defense. If actual danger necessitates the carrying of a firearm, cut that danger to the shortest possible duration. 3. Don’t let a grudge smolder. It may flare up when you’re least in readiness.”

No better counsel seemed available. The first injunction was superfluous. But the second and third applied to my complication. At three o’clock that afternoon, the crack of a pistol shot halted me. It was in Losoya Street, in front of the Express office. The explosion seemed underfoot. Another crash snapped my eyes to the spot, scarcely six steps away, where Bill Blunt lay motionless on the pavement, a smoking revolver alongside his outstretched hand. Over Blunt, his body sagging and his arms pinioned from behind, tottered Clarence Lyons. A reddened dagger slid through his fingers to the asphalt. The strong arms clasping Lyons dragged him up and away from Blunt. Their owner’s face had been hidden by Clarence’s shoulders. Now, as he turned, I recognized Frank G. Huntress, Jr., a bright young attache of the Express.

Huntress had been in the office of the Express when, through a window, he saw Lyons attack Blunt. He leaped over a counter to stop the fight. Blunt went down at the first knife thrust. Lyons sat astride him. The blade rose and fell again before Bill could draw his revolver. Then, with his elbow on the pavement, Blunt fired. Huntress reached them as the first shot sounded. Both Lyons and Blunt survived their wounds.

Providence chose Blunt instead of me to answer for publishing a divorce story. Else this chronicle might not have been written. Huntress’s intervention probably averted a fatal outcome. His deportment that day was of a piece with his career. He rose to the proprietorship of the newspaper on which he started as a route boy. In 1918 he launched the San Antonio Evening News. Adding it to the Express, he became the most successful publisher in the extensive field that his two dailies have continued to serve with dignified vigor.

While individual vengeance sufficed for divorce stories, lynching was not uncommon in the South for other kinds of publicity. Timorous forerunners of modern gossip columnists were favorite prey. They clung to the shelter of anonymity. Even their output was largely anonymous. Theirs was pale piffle compared with the racy reports of Broadway commentators a generation later. Yet these fugacious pedlers of tattle were hunted out with stern relentlessness. The hunters often followed a wrong scent. There were more innocent victims of mob violence than actual offenders. Most of the real culprits kept under effective cover. And there was scant palliation for the mistakes. “Skunk-chasing isn’t a nice sport or an exact science,” ran the apology of one administrator of lynch law in North Texas. “If you’re a good citizen you’ll take the bad medicine without a whimper and help us find the right subject for a good dose.”

Sharp warnings were delivered in doubtful cases. In some instances the admonition was limited to a lecture in the center of a group under a cottonwood tree. There was a noose around the chief listener’s neck. The rope end hung across an overhead branch. An occasional tug emphasized the speaker’s remarks. At times a kangaroo court convened in solemn session. If the defendant failed to refute the accusation, ostracism was decreed. A liberal coating of tar and feathers prepared him for a bouncing ride out of town on a fence-rail.

The publication of personal innuendo was commonly regarded as an abhorrent form of literate degeneracy. If the insinuation pointed to impropriety or unseemliness, street-corner crowds discussed the need for a vigilance committee. If it took a pornographic twist, a neighborhood convulsion ensued. Conservators of public morals saw the pillars of decency smeared with filth.

Printing of such material was held lower than common pandering. Reputable daily newspapers steered clear of gossip bearing the faintest tinge of indecorum. But the Southwest was blanketed with a highly successful scandal sheet. It gained the largest circulation until then attained in the region. More than 100,000 copies of the Kansas City Sunday Sun were sold weekly. Its eight pages were devoted exclusively to the mention of persons—whose full names were usually withheld. Separate editions were printed for different sections to afford adequate coverage. The “local gleanings” of a single locality occupied from one to two columns.

No copy of any issue was purchasable on the day after arrival. It was the Kansas City Sunday Sun that precipitated the transient vogue for lynching bees. Rewards were privately offered for identification of its correspondents. In constant jeopardy of life or limb, these hounded scriveners plied their surreptitious operations for a pitiable pittance. Few, if any of them, received as much as $20 a week for their hazardous work.

Time has made an ironic jest of their tribulations. Communities that once tarred and feathered them in later years would have indulged their most atrocious offenses as vapid prattle. Beside the untrammeled licentiousness of some gossip columns of the 1930s, their effusions would read like idle chitchat. The Kansas City Sunday Sun observed at least a modicum of decency. It did not drag the marriage couch under the spotlight. It left to the private scrutiny of bridal couples the calendars of their maternity plans. It supplied no publicity percussion to widen a marital breach. It hastened no domestic crash with affirmative predictions. It did not speculate about a prospective bride’s choice of a second husband before the consummation of her first nuptials. It did not champion vulgarity against modesty. It offered no approval of debauchery. It did not cultivate a special wit for the exploitation of sex perversion. It did not lift the veil that still screened some of the valid privacies of life. Good taste was yet a social entity.

The Kansas City Sunday Sun concentrated on masculine peccadillos. It found intimation more attractive than exposure. The curiosity of readers was whetted with incomplete descriptions of individuals. The method promoted a game of identification. As much interest was generated by guiding recognition of the principal as by telling the details of an escapade.

A typical item brought me into an exciting collision with its central figure. The paragraph read: “There’s a fire department officer the sound of whose last name has a meaning directly contrary to his day-off didos. Look out, C. Better take your badge back from that San Saba Street red-head. Her Government Hill meal ticket may get sore and turn it in.” The meaning was perfectly clear to Charlton Wright. Busybody friends made sure that his wife didn’t miss it. A family crisis resulted. Embarrassment for other members of the department, with the same surname, was averted by the single letter “C.”

None of this reached me until the following Sunday. Then, at noon, a distraught husband thrust me into the wretched drama. A handsome fellow, in the dress uniform of a fire captain, hailed me outside the Evening Star office. He had been waiting on the opposite sidewalk. No one else was in sight. Instead of a helmet, he had an ornate shako. He was holding it in both hands. The angle at which he carried it forced a queer clumsiness as he crossed the street. Nothing was said until he was less than an arm’s length away. Then he asked: “Is your name Koenigsberg?”

His arms flung apart at my answer. A long-barreled pistol emerged from the tasseled headpiece. Its muzzle was pressed against my stomach. The shako, swung out of the way in his left hand, slipped from his fingers and rolled along the pavement.

The man’s face was startlingly white. His eyes protruded. His lips moved, but there was no sound. There was a drumming in my ears. It bore an eerie echo of the voice of Jacobo Coy. It formed into phrases of a warning Coy had once spoken. “The man who intends to shoot doesn’t waste time talking to you about it,” he had said. “He shoots. You’d be fairly safe if he gave you a chance to argue.” Wouldn’t this fellow talk? My own tongue was paralyzed. The seconds stretched into what seemed like immeasurable time. Then, at last, a queer noise came from the twitching mouth. It was both a croak and a scream. “You’ve got just one minute to pray, you----- .”

The words were chilling, but the voice quavered. It broke into a sob. The man was trembling as if with ague. My numbed senses sparked into action. Hope flashed through the darkness that had closed around me. There was more of hysteria than murder in this fellow. He had talked. We might reason together. If only his trigger finger would hold steady long enough. Speech came to me in a torrent.

“What’s eating you? Are you insane? Who are you? You must be crazy to think of killing a man without letting him know why. What good would it do you? What have you got against me?”

A vortex of emotion charged the outburst with a harshness of tone that no studied effort could have produced. It shocked my own hearing. It stirred the man with the gun. His left hand arose as if to brush something away from his forehead. A paroxysm twisted his features. He seemed to be gulping for utterance. At last he spoke in labored wheezes. “A ----- that breaks up homes and ruins other people’s lives has no right to live.” There was no direct menace in this. It was a general statement. The man was arguing. Feeling, rather than reason, brought these facts to my consciousness. A growing relief restored control of my voice. “What makes you think I have done such things?”

The question acted on my assailant like the flick of a whip. He was plainly nonplussed. A sudden doubt had evidently beset him. Slowly, wonderingly, he put it into a query: “Aren’t you the Kansas City Sun correspondent?”

The vehemence of my denial was palpably convincing. The figure in front of me seemed to shrink. The gun sank until the muzzle pointed downward. Tears were streaming down the man’s cheeks as he muttered: “My friends told me they had checked up on it. They told me you were the regular correspondent. I don’t know what kept me from shooting.”

The distracted man was Charlton Wright. The paragraph in the Kansas City Sunday Sun had disrupted his family. He was crazed with grief. There was a momentary resentment of the excruciating strain to which he had subjected me. But anger could not endure against this tortured host of unhappiness. Wright fumbled around for a moment in a daze. Then he reversed his revolver and silently presented the handle to me. The proffered gun was not accepted. Instead, Wright’s shako was lifted from the pavement and handed to him.

In the ineffaceable memory of that Sunday noon encounter is stamped one of the criterions of my newspaper code. It was wrought out of conclusions drawn from Charlton Wright’s trying experience. He may have been a philanderer. He may have deserved punishment of some sort. Neither his innocence nor his obliquity was at issue. The force of the printed word had ripped a domestic establishment into shreds. There was no relief for the victims. Legal measures could not restore the shattered home. The odium of that outrage contaminated the source from which the daily newspaper derived its physical existence. Through printer’s ink flowed the same power that on one hand exerted inestimable good and on the other imposed incalculable harm.

The malevolent elements of that power must be filtered for the protection of legitimate journalism. This could be accomplished by the adoption of a principle that was formulated for incorporation in my table of professional commandments thus:

Legitimate news, comprising those elements of public intelligence the publication of which embraces the fundamental purposes of journalism, may not be suppressed; but any other communication or comment touching matters apart from the public welfare is unfit for publication, even though true, if it may inflict an injury or a wrong not susceptible to redress at law.

Such a law of procedure would inherit for journalism a nobler quality of ethical leadership. It would cramp the style of a number of columnists, but it would enhance the prestige and expand the influence of many newspapers. It would reduce the space surrendered to eroticism. It would close countless avenues to the seepage of scandal. It would remove a formidable impediment to the inculcation of good taste.

Disgust over the Kansas City Sunday Sun only heightened my pride in the Evening Star. But a disillusionment was at hand. Salaciousness was not the only ogre that leered at the sacredness of the sanctum. Corruption stalked a newspaper in various disguises. One of these masks was unexpectedly lifted by a bit of diligent reporting. Upheaval of my own office resulted.



Chapter 5 Part 2 Next Week   
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Labels: King News

Dorothy A. Urfer was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1905 according to a family tree at Ancestry.com. Urfer had an older sister born January 4, 1904.

In the 1910 U.S. Federal Census, Urfer was the third of four children born to Fred and Pearl. Her father was a jeweler who operated a jewelry store. Also in the household was Urfer’s maternal grandmother. They resided in Center, Indiana, on School Street.

The Urfer family grew by two members in the 1920 census. Their home was at 201 Wheeling Avenue in Muncie, Indiana. Urfer’s father managed a furniture store.

The 1925 Muncie city directory listed Urfer as a dental assistant at 301 Western Reserve Life. She continued to live at home.

Urfer sent a letter about dolls to the magazine Science and Invention which answered her questions in the July 1927 issue (see page 262, Patent Advice, “Protecting and Marketing a Suggestion”). Urfer’s interest in dolls would resurface later in her life.

At some point, Urfer moved to Cleveland.

Urfer worked for the NEA. American Newspaper Comics (2012) said she was the third of five artists to draw Radiomania which was started by Joe King in November 1927. Art Krenz was next. Urfer’s stint started in 1929. She was followed by Charles Okerbloom and George Scarbo. Urfer’s next NEA series was Annibelle which she dew from December 29, 1929 into March 1936. It was continued by Virginia Krausman.

On August 31, 1935, Urfer married NEA cartoonist Joseph “Joe” King. At the time, Urfer’s address was 1644 Robinwood Avenue. King resided at Quad Hall on Euclid Avenue.

Urfer worked on other NEA projects such as books of poetry.

According to the 1940 census, Urfer had a two-year-old son, Timothy. The family of three lived in Weston, Connecticut.

In 1953 Urfer wrote and illustrated The Little Red Bicycle. Urfer may have illustrated Mary Alden’s Cook Book for Children. The 1955 book had pictures by “Dorothy King”.

Urfer’s husband passed away January 24, 1980. The death notice mentioned three more children, Heather, Heidi and Stephen, and one grandchild, Mistianna. A research paper was dedicated to Urfer and her husband in 1982.

New York Magazine, February 25, 1980, profiled Urfer who was repairing dolls in New York City. The profile included a photograph of Urfer and one of her Annibelle strips.

The date and place of Urfer’s passing has not been found.

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

Joseph B. “Joe” “Joel” King was born in Newark, New Jersey, on September 16, 1904. His birthplace was recorded on a passenger list and marriage certificate. The birth date is from the Social Security Death Index.

The 1910 U.S. Federal Census recorded King and his parents, Clifford, a hotel waiter, and Edith, in his paternal grandparents’s household. The grandparents were George, a carpenter contractor, and Emily. They all resided in Los Angeles, California at 529 Daly Street.

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

We've been covering several of NEA's weekly features lately, of which Radiotics is another. Unlike those others we've been discussing lately, however, this one was not offered only with the NEA's weekly Pony Service, but was included in their regular offerings for dailies. Radiotics was meant to be a part of newspaper radio pages, which were mostly once-a-week affairs, hence the frequency of this panel.

Unfortunately, this weekly panel was recorded only spottily in the NEA archives at Ohio State University, so in order to track its many artist changes, I've had to rely on newspaper sources, which are anything but reliable with these weekly panels, so take the dates with a grain of salt.

Radiotics debuted in October 1927, seemingly a rather late entry in the radio panel sweepstakes. However, it is probable that it was intended by NEA as a continuation of their weekly radio strip feature Bugs which began in 1924 and had ended the previous month. Since that was a strip and this is a panel, though, I'm calling them separate features.

The first artist on Radiotics was the wonderfully named NEA bullpenner Joe King (get it? get it?), who had a pleasing drybrush style.

by Joe King

You'll notice that the sample of Joe King's work above is titled Radiomania, not Radiotics. That's because NEA changed the title of the feature in 1928, presumably because Associated Editors was distributing a radio panel feature by Fred Neher with the name Radiotic. Amazing that two creators would come up with the same awful dissonant sounding name, but at least NEA had the sense to change to the much more pleasing Radiomania.

Joe King penned the feature until April 1929, when he handed the baton to Art Krenz. Krenz was NEA's resident sports cartoonist, but evidently hadn't built up enough tenure yet to avoid this assignment. He was better at talking his way out of doing it, though, because he only produced it for about a month.

by Art Krenz

In May 1929 Dorothy Urfer took over, possibly her first assignment for NEA (she began Annibelle later that year). It took her quite awhile to palm Radiomania off on someone else -- her stint lasted until September 1930.

by Dorothy Urfer

Replacing Urfer was a fellow by the name of Charles Okerbloom Jr. He had a very nice mature cartooning style, but I know of no other work he did for NEA or any other syndicate. He later became known as a fine artist and spent many years as an art teacher. A real loss to newspaper cartooning, imho.

by Okerbloom

Okerbloom's first stint on Radiomania only lasted about a month, and then NEA go-to guy George Scarbo took over. The always overworked Scarbo lasted through much of November-December 1930, until he was able to pass the ball back to Okerbloom. Okerbloom then handled the panel from January until October 1931, when Scarbo had the panel dumped back in his lap. Scarbo kept at it until February 1932, when the feature was finally taken off the air.

by George Scarbo

One important postscript about Radiomania is that the dates I'm citing are rather oversimplified. Although I can find no paper that ran the panel with anything approaching a perfect consistent record, I see so many instances of old panels being reused after the initial stint by Joe King that I'm pretty confident in saying that none of the subsequent cartoonists produced the panel every single week. I believe that NEA was not above re-running old panels of this feature on a pretty frequent basis. Therefore you'll see Okerblooms, Scarbos, Urfers and King panels appearing well away from the dates I'm citing above.

Labels: Obscurities

February 14 1909 -- This is Herriman's illustration for the weekly Mr. Dooley syndicated column. Evidently the Mr. Dooley pieces didn't come with art, but it seemed to be common for an artist with the local paper to add some color to the proceedings. Here are samples of the art offered in a few other papers for this column:

John T. McCutcheon in the Chicago Tribune

Ole May in Pittsburgh Gazette Times (Post-Gazette)

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

Here's another card from the Tuck Series 170, all featuring Dwig's Ophelia. This example unfortunately marked up a bit by the postcard user.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

 King News by Moses Koenigsberg

Published by F.A. Stokes Company, 1941

Chapter 4

A President and a Prize-Fighter (part 2)

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Through [fellow New Orleans reporter Jimmy] Augustin came my first experience with combination reporting. He frankly admitted a selfish motive for the proposal. His arguments for the undertaking were specious and colorful. “"You jumped into this assignment with an unholy enthusiasm,"” he said. “"For half of it, I don'’t blame you. Nature is responsible. The other half is wholly your fault. You let McGinty set you afire with flagrant flattery. He knew that the man doesn'’t live who could cover this beat single-handed.

"“If you want to be a bull in a china shop, you can go it alone, work yourself to a frazzle, get some stories that I miss and miss some stories that I get. Both of us would be in a constant stew as long as it lasted. Now, if we work together, both the Item and the States will get all the news and nobody will be a loser. Of course, it means that I won'’t have to work so hard as I would if we bucked each other.”"

"“But the Item doesn'’t pay me to get news for the States," was the first demurrer.

“"Nor does the States pay me to get news for the Item. Don’t let your quixotic scruples blind ’you to the practicalities. If you double the man power on a job without increasing the employer'’s ex­pense, who is the chief beneficiary? If you operated a cotton plan­tation, which would you rather do, —assuming the cost would be the same— to have all the bolls gathered, or leave a number of patches unpicked?"
”
There were fundamental principles with which to demolish this structure of casuistry. But they lacked articulation. Standards for the guidance of news-gatherers were still inchoate. There was no general prohibition of combination reporting. Many city editors were known to connive at its practice. Nevertheless, it clashed with my theories of professional devotion. Yet it would be stulti­fying to reject Jimmy'’s proposition without cogent premises for the rejection. My reluctance was not swept aside. It was subordi­nated to a fear of seeming puerile. And this submission led to one of the sorriest though one of the most instructive of my early misfortunes.

Augustin was not a shirker, but he contrived to pick his own tour of duty. It included the sheriff'’s office. Nothing disturbed the combination for a couple of months. Then, one Sunday, the Times-Democrat published a sensational scoop. A girl had been raped in a street-car at four o’clock the previous morning. She was a member of a highly respected family. The culprit was the son of a leading parish official. He had been promptly arrested and held in custody all Saturday in the office of the sheriff. The story had political as well as social ramifications. It was the biggest item of news that had broken on our beat since the combination was formed. And all day, Augustin had held it in the palm of his hand.

It was unthinkable for me to offer any excuse. How could one say to his city editor, “"We fell down on this story because I relied on a reporter for a rival newspaper to get it for me”?" Valid objections to combination reporting now marshaled themselves. Didn'’t the combination usurp the employer’'s right to appoint his representatives? Was it not the sole privilege of that employer to determine whether he preferred volume of copy and thorough­ness of coverage to special service? The tardiness of this reason­ing only magnified my adversity. But it was Jimmy Augustin’'s explanation that overflowed the cup of gall. He came to my lodg­ings to apologize. The personification of abjection, he left me dumbfounded.

A candid admission of oversight, neglect or even victimization would not have been astonishing. But Augustin confessed that he had deliberately withheld the story! He was an intimate friend of the rapist'’s parents and of the girl’'s family. Desperate efforts were made to squelch the case. Jimmy was assured the affair would be hushed up without formal action of any kind. In that event, the facts would not be publishable. Too late, Augustin realized the futility of his attempt at a cardinal crime of journal­ism, the suppression of news. He had permitted the tug of per­sonal friendship to enmesh him in professional perfidy. And his had been a double betrayal. He not only violated the trust of his employer, but he also broke faith with his partner. Yet he suffered no ethical compunctions. His grief was only for his friends. He bemoaned the publication of the story on their account and he actually writhed in anguish over its probable effect on my for­tunes. It would have been useless to reproach him.

The squeamishness that deterred me from facing McGinty did not affect Augustin’'s course. He continued on the staff of the States. But not until fully assured of my status in a new position did he account for the retention of his job. “"It was very simple,"” he explained with evident relish of his mockery. “"I used a dash of complaisance to season a dish of discretion. When the city editor took me to task, I quickly acknowledged that I might be at fault and that I was impressed by his vigilance. He dropped the matter when I pointed out that the States was not beaten on the story in its own field since the news had not appeared in any afternoon paper. Thus, with high spirit unimpaired by any of the twinges that contort your supersensitive conscience, I can cheer­fully conclude: ‘Farther, deponent saith not."

That was not my last contact with combination reporting. The usage still persists in many quarters. But never again did such rara avis as Jimmy Augustin cross my newspaper path. No coun­terpart ever came from the same mold with gifts rich enough to long offset the invalidities of his philosophy.

Augustin'’s defection entailed less of a hardship than was ex­pected. The Truth needed another reporter. Peter Kiernan, the publisher, immediately accepted my application for the job. The salary was $14 weekly. The loss of $1 a week was soon discounted. It was exceeded in actual cash by outside earnings. They came from the News. That publication had all the infirmities though none of the traditions of the Houston Age. But unlike that de­crepit daily, it had two sources of sustenance. It not only re­ceived occasional drippings from the pot of municipal graft by way of official advertising, but it was also the recipient of a secret dole from the Daily States proprietor. He kept it alive as the pos­sible repository of an exclusive press-association franchise. The News agreed to pay me for editorials at the prodigal rate of one dollar each. More time was consumed in collecting the payments than in writing the articles. Still the average of three silver dol­lars weekly contributed to a hitherto unattained affluence.

Immeasurably more important than the compensation was the training on the Truth. There had been a year of newspaper ex­perience with practically no guidance save the outlines of imme­diate objectives. Now, for the first time, my work was under the direction of a man gifted with leadership. City Editor Thomas Nolan transformed his desk into a pulpit. He accepted his calling as an apostolic mission. Yet the fires of his zealotry left untouched the calmness of a philosophic mind. Under Nolan’'s tutelage came an orderly organization of precepts that thus far had reached me only through processes of trial and error.

Boxer Peter Maher

One of my early lessons on the Truth evolved from an inter­national prize-fight. New Orleans was at that time the Mecca of pugilism. Boxers poured into the Crescent City from every corner of the earth. Bouts were fought nightly. Peter Maher, the pugilistic idol of Ireland, had invaded America to capture the world'’s heavyweight championship. He challenged John L. Sulli­van. American sporting circles demanded that he demonstrate his fitness to aspire for the fistic premiership. He made a highly favorable impression in half a dozen New York bouts. Then he was offered a test that experts believed would determine his cali­bre. It was a match with Robert Fitzsimmons, middleweight champion of the world. New Orleans was chosen as the site for the combat. London, New York, Chicago and other metropolitan dailies sent special correspondents to the scene. A score of British sportsmen, headed by Squire Abingdon Baird, crossed the Atlan­tic to “give Peter Maher a proper send-off.” Nolan assigned me to cover the fight.

Maher outweighed Fitzsimmons by fifteen pounds. His splen­did body was an exemplar of athletic form. Fitzsimmons was “the freak of the prize-ring.” He had the spindling legs of a light­weight. It seemed at any instant they must buckle under his giant torso. His shambling carriage accentuated the appearance of knock-knees. Maher moved with the sinuous grace of a jungle tiger. Perhaps it was because Fitzsimmons was advertised as an Australian that his bearing brought to mind a kangaroo. Billy Madden, Maher'’s manager and second, was supremely confident.

He didn't even take the pains to detach the long linen cuffs that projected from his coat sleeves. He joked about the bald pate that surmounted Fitzsimmons’ tufts of carroty red hair. In “"Ruby Bob"'s corner were James F. Carroll, his manager, and Joe Choyinski. Carroll was a contender for the lightweight championship. Choyinski was one of the most popular heavyweights of the time. Like most of the bouts of the period, the fight was "“to a finish.”"

Fitzsimmons moved to the center of the ring with a plodding gait. It looked as if he were trying to save his legs. Maher danced forward eagerly. Two minutes passed in feinting, fiddling, jab­bing, blocking and parrying. Not a solid punch had been landed. Then Fitzsimmons stepped back. Maher moved in. A terrific left hook sent him sprawling on his haunches. His nose and both lips were split. Blood was gushing from them in streams. Peter sat for a moment in utter bewilderment, his arms entwining his knees. Fitzsimmons stood over him only a step away. John Duffy, the third man in the ring, was a novice at refereeing. He failed to motion Bob back. In another instant the picture was com­pletely changed. Quicker than the eye could follow, the beauti­fully proportioned figure of the Irish fighter straightened as if jerked by a spring. His right hand described an arc from the floor to Fitzsimmons'’ forehead. The thud sounded like a drum beat. The smash drove Bob staggering backward from the center of the ring to the ropes. There he hung draped over the upper strand. His glazed eyes turned unseeing across the arena. His arms dangled behind him outside the ring. His toes upturned, he teetered on his heels. He was entirely defenseless.

Again John Duffy missed his cue. The Marquis of Queensberry rules provide that a fighter hanging helpless on the ropes shall be considered down. The referee must begin counting the deci­sive ten seconds. Instead, Duffy stood motionless, in a daze. Pan­demonium broke loose. The crowd was in a roaring frenzy. Maher tore across the ring toward Fitzsimmons. Madden raced after him around the ropes, shouting, “"Keep away, Peter! Keep away! Don’t foul him!"” Maher's right hand, poised for a mighty punch, fell to his side. Madden, now alongside Fitzsimmons’' sag­ging body, bellowed to Duffy, “"Count him out! Count him out!”"

Maher’'s seconds took up the call. The tumult became deafening. Peter walked toward the referee. And then the gong sounded.

Above the uproar rose a shrill voice. “"That’s a fake!"” it piped. “"The round isn’'t over."” A scrimmage eddied around Reub Frank, the official timekeeper. In the center, a crowd of men in tuxedos were yelling about “a bloody outrage.” They were members of Squire Abingdon Baird’'s party. Their seats were close to the time­keeper’s bell. Several of them charged that a blooming bounder had struck the gong with a walking-stick. Reub Frank, in agita­tion, admitted that “something went wrong with the clapper.” Angry men, with stop-watches in their hands, swore that thirty seconds had been cut off the prescribed three minutes. The alter­cation was at its height when the gong rang for the second round. It sputtered up again to subside at last under the impact of gal­lery booing. The back-seat spectators demanded that the show go on.

Fitzsimmons had been carried to his corner by his seconds. He responded quickly to their strenuous ministrations. Bob came up for the second round cautious but strong. Maher's handlers had been unable to staunch the flow of blood from his mouth. Maher rushed, but his attack was evaded. Then, round after round, Fitz­simmons battered Peter'’s lacerated face. Maher became the blood­iest mess this reporter had yet seen. The spectacle turned into an ordeal. After the fourth round, the sound was as trying as the sight. Peter’'s nose took on the size and color of an over-ripe to­mato. His mouth looked like a rough gash in a side of beef. Every time Bob’'s blood-soaked glove smashed against Maher’'s distorted features, there was a sickening noise. It was like the thud of a mallet against a tautened hide, followed by the sudden squashing of a soggy sponge.

Maher quit at the end of the twelfth round. He had flopped onto his stool in total exhaustion. His lips were too swollen for speech. He motioned to Madden that he couldn’'t continue. His seconds threw a towel into the ring in token of surrender. The Fitzsimmons faction was hilarious in a triumph veritably snatched from defeat. The newspapermen crowded the winner'’s dressing-room. There was little mention of the larcenous first round. The Marquis of Queensberry rules were still a novelty in the United States. Each violation was a moot question. Moreover, the out­come of the fight was such an amazing upset that “Ruby Bob'’s” marvelous comeback overshadowed all other topics.

Joe Choyinski did not share in the Fitzsimmons party festivi­ties. He had worked assiduously on Fitz in his corner, but after the battle, when the gaiety began, he held aloof. He sulked out­side the dressing-room. “"This puts the bee on me,"” he grumbled.

"That guy is so yellow that jaundice wouldn'’t change his looks. Yet he'’s got the gall to lap up this bushwa as if it was coming to him."” Mr. Choyinski at times indulged a predilection for idio­matic expression. It was plain, however, that his allusion to an insect was purely metaphoric. It signified a stinging impatience. It also appeared that Mr. Choyinski was peeved over a bogus hero who, though deeply impregnated with an ocherous pigment, possessed the effrontery to accept adulation as his well-merited meed.

“"What do you mean?"” I asked, tactlessly passing over the lucid­ity of his statement.

"“You heard me. What do you want? A blackboard and some white chalk to make pictures?”"

“"You win,"” was my hurried answer. "“What you said was per­fectly clear; but what happened to make you say it?”"

"“All this bull about Fitzsimmons. He tried to quit. We had a hell of a time getting him up for the second round. He was out when we carried him to his corner. It took several whiffs of the ammonia to get the birdies out of his noggin. Then he blubbered to Carroll, ‘'It’'s no use, Jimmy; he’s too hard for me.'’ Carroll told him Maher was all in and ordered him to go out and finish the Irishman. Fitz kept whining, '‘He'’s too blooming hard for me.'’ That wallop that Peter lifted from his feet sure buffaloed Bob. When the gong rang for the second round, Fitz wouldn’t budge. Carroll was crazy. I had a needle ready and I jabbed it into Bob'’s rump. That’s why you saw him come bouncing out.”"

Choyinski left the building with me. No other newspapermen approached him that night. He had given me an exclusive story. It spurred a gleeful diligence. Reporters on night assignments for afternoon dailies were free to write their reports before the next day'’s work began. Any possible objection to such gratuitous overtime was carefully concealed. My copy awaited the city editor when he reached the office in the morning. Fifteen minutes later, a whoop summoned me to his desk. Nolan squared himself for one of his characteristic lectures.

"“I have read your story,"” he began, with a show of sternness. “"You evidently offered it as a piece of news. You know that we can'’t countenance rumor, gossip or hearsay. You know that no communication has attained the dignity of news until it bears within itself the impress or evidence of authenticity. Observe that when you report a fire, an accident, a tragedy, a crime or a busi­ness transaction, you are required to mention the authority for every pivotal statement. If it is the origin of the fire, you quote the police or the fire department. If it’'s the amount of the insur­ance, you state figures given by the owner or the insurance com­pany. If it'’s a bankruptcy, you cite the data in the schedules filed. The more important the statement, the more imperative the re­quirement to affirm its authenticity by disclosing its source. No item with a possible flare-back is safe for publication without a durable hook of authority on which to hang the facts.
“But that is the negative phase of the picture. There is an affirmative side even more commanding. It involves our obliga­tions to the reader. He is entitled to the fullest opportunity to appraise the credibility of the matter we present. We must help him to weigh and analyze the verity and the value of the infor­mation we offer. How could he do this if we didn'’t tell him exactly what was said and by whom it was said? It is the duty of the honest reporter to take the reader by the hand, show him the scene of the story, share with him his understanding of what happened and let him hear whatever the participants and wit­nesses may be induced to tell.

"“Yet knowing all these things, see what you have done with this story! I’'m not considering your description of what happened between Fitzsimmons and Maher. None of the morning news­paper accounts agree fully about the details. That is natural. Some observers have photographic vision. Others see beyond the focus of the camera lens. Still others look with eyes directed by prejudice. I’'m willing to accept your version. But what I can'’t understand is the wall of secrecy you have suddenly erected be­tween us. Why don'’t you take us into your confidence about the outstanding feature of your copy? Where did you get it?”"

The protracted homily was epitomized in Nolan’'s last ques­tion. It was an exhortation for the use of quotation marks. My entire story had been written in the third person, the newspaper style then commonly employed. The reader was given no hint of any authority for the facts beyond the reporter’'s own observa­tion. Nolan was elated to learn that Choyinski had volunteered the episode in Fitzsimmons’ corner. “"Rewrite the yarn,"” he di­rected, "“letting Choyinski relate in his own words what he is in better position than anyone else to tell.”"
Gratification over the beat was heightened by appreciation of Nolan’'s guidance in its writing. From that experience matured a maxim of supreme moment. Incorporated in a predominant canon of journalism, it would exert a cultural advance of world­wide effect. It appears in my code in this form:

News traversing any matter of public concern or im­pinging on any individual right is not eligible for publi­cation unless it include an identification of its source.

Adherence to this principle would serve as a barrier against vicious propaganda. If universally applied, it would constitute the most effective factor yet devised for the prevention of interna­tional warfare. It would have averted the most colossal canard in the history of journalism: —the fake armistice of November 7, 1918.

Technically, the Choyinski yarn did not rate as a scoop. It was a beat. The term scoop expressed a complete unit. A beat meant an exclusive feature of a major story. The Choyinski beat brought me close to a beating. Journalism in those days was fraught with hazards of violence. Physical reprisal for adverse articles was com­mon. The notion prevailed in many quarters that it was an act of piety to trounce or remove an offending editor. A section of the press was itself largely responsible for this attitude. Numbers of editors strove to outrival their fellows in volume as well as vigor of vituperation. Careful to avoid libel, most of them pre­served immunity against legal redress. And it was not the fashion to waste time with the law'’s delays for adjustment of personal grievances publicly flaunted. Sultry phrases engendered sultry pas­sions. The deeper the editorial pen was dipped in vitriol, the readier grew the public temper to justify individual retaliation. So, there had grown up a disposition, fortunately sporadic in de­velopment, to apply unofficial censorship with corporal penalties.

My first contact with this sentiment came the night after the Fitzsimmons-Maher fight. It was in the lobby of the St. Charles Hotel, historic rendezvous of notables. In the center, the famous bar was crowded with sportsmen. On every tongue was some de­tail of the previous evening’'s contest. Dominick O’'Malley stood chatting with several friends. He stopped me. “"Colonel Fairfax was talking about you,"” he said. "“There was no need for you running out on us. It suited me to a T that the Item didn’t print that story—” --"

O’'Malley was interrupted by a burly fellow who grabbed my shoulder and swung me around to face him. “"Here'’s the blasted cockalorum we'’re looking for!"” he exclaimed to several com­panions. “"This is the jackanapes that started the lie about Fitz. What will we do with him?”"

A hand with two fingers missing seized the lapel of my as­sailant’'s coat. “"My dear sir,"” came a low-pitched soprano voice, “"you are making a mistake. Of course, you don’'t know me, or you wouldn’'t be roughing this young man around. Nobody in this part of the country does that to a friend of Dominick O’'Mal­ley.”"

The grip on my shoulder was released. My champion evidently required no heralding. He drew me back, alongside of him, whis­pering: “"Stand fast, bub, but keep your lip buttoned.”" The ro­tunda was filled with Fitzsimmons rooters. Word sped among them that an afternoon newspaper had denounced Fitz as a quit­ter; that the kid reporter who was responsible had been cornered; and that it was proposed then and there to “muss him up.” Angry voices rose. The rough who had tackled me and who had so quickly edged away from O’'Malley, was the most vociferous. O'’Malley was chewing gum. His face was a picture of perfect nonchalance. A glance at it was very helpful. It arrested a tend­ency toward wobbling of the knees. But a hidden gesture sug­gesting flight evoked a sharp warning. "“That would only start the ball rolling,"” he whispered.

A moment later came the diversion that released me from tor­ment. Lou Houseman, sporting editor of the Chicago Inter-Ocean, was making his way toward O'’Malley. Short and stocky, he was a human dynamo. In a voice audible to those around me, he had just told a group to “lay off this nonsense of ganging up on a boy for doing his job.” A dozen feet away, he was halted by Johnny Murphy, one of the contenders for the featherweight championship. Houseman and Murphy were generally known to be engaged in a bitter feud. As they faced each other a hush fell on the lobby. “"I don'’t suppose you know what 'a friend' means,”" Murphy said, “"but I'’m a friend of Bob Fitzsimmons and what you just said puts it up to me to ask whether you'’re back of the ---- lie this ---- wrote about Bob.”"

The rough-and-tumble engagement that followed was a classic. Murphy received a sound drubbing. Houseman'’s triumph was my deliverance. By the time the roly-poly sporting editor got through pummeling his prize-fighter antagonist, the spectators had forgotten all about any plan to chastise the traducer of Bob Fitzsimmons'’ gameness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My university of empiric knowledge established an extension course in pugilism. Boxing was the chief sport of the hour. To master its intricacies and to acquire familiarity with its rules would strengthen and expand one’'s journalistic equipment. The Fitzsimmons-Maher match was a case in point. Controversies about that contest continued. Referee Duffy'’s conduct in the ring that night was still under stricture. Yet some writers defended his actions. Harry McEnerny wrote about prize-fights for the Picayune. Later he assumed the nom de plume of “Bantam.” He was regarded as the foremost newspaper expert on prize-fighting in the South. But even his judgments were questioned.

A block from my lodgings was the St. Joseph Athletic Club. Like scores of other neighborhood centers in New Orleans, it staged boxing matches once or twice a week. The manager wel­comed me. He was in need of new talent. There was a circuit of district clubs on which he could arrange to use me several nights weekly. In the beginning, the pay would be fifty cents a round. It was up to me to make my appearances more lucrative. Anyhow, didn'’t he understand that it was the experience that attracted me? He didn'’t know about the job on the Truth.

“The Alamo Kid” did not fare well in the squared circle. The ring name bestowed by my entrepreneur was a psychic handicap. It might prompt inquiries from San Antonians concerning my identity. But exposure came through a quicker channel. “The Alamo Kid” was boxing three rounds with Eddie McCue, “cham­pion lightweight of Arkansas.” Eddie was neither a champion nor an Arkansan. His fighting record was limited to the wharves of New Orleans. But, compared to his opponent, he was a wizard in pugilistic lore. He was especially considerate in the first two rounds. It was not his chore to knock out a member of the man­ager'’s stable. In the third round, however, Eddie'’s restraints suc­cumbed to temptation. He couldn'’t spurn an opening wider than a barnyard gate. “The Alamo Kid” was gaping at a spectator in the third row. It was Frank Ellinger, from San Antonio, a checkers-playing intimate of my father. He wore the startled ex­pression of one who has just seen a ghost. There was a double shock. The sight of Ellinger’'s face was almost as stunning as Eddie’'s smash in the midriff. Eddie McCue was thoughtful enough to clinch and hold me up. Somehow, he kept me on my feet until the bell sounded for the end of the bout. But his effort to save my pugilistic standing was wasted. “The Alamo Kid” had already abandoned his ring career. He was not only sick at the stomach, but he was also sore at heart. Ellinger’'s presence boded trouble. When it would come or what it would be, time alone would reveal.

The Truth was in difficulty. Rumors of its financial shakiness grew more definite each week. One tale connected Publisher Kiernan with the lottery magnates. The Great Louisiana Lottery, numbering among its directors many of the proudest names in the South, had stood for some time with its back to the wall. Opposition to its operation had become a nationwide campaign. It was accused of financing or subsidizing newspapers to prolong its existence. It was alleged to have opened its money chests to support the Truth. Now, the lottery moguls were reported to have withdrawn from all such activities. Recognizing that abol­ishment of the company was only a matter of time, the manage­ment canceled all expenditures for publicity. This report included such details as the date of the Truth'’s prospective demise.

It was a wrench to think of parting with Tommy Nolan. Would there be a place with him for me in any new work he undertook? Interrogation could be pressed only with infinite delicacy. Nolan’'s responses were cryptic. His loyalty to Kiernan imposed the utmost caution. Finally, in the most circuitous of phrases, he intimated that it might be prudent to cast an anchor to windward. The advice was speedily adopted.

Colonel Page M. Baker, editor of the Times-Democrat, was a brilliant ornament of the old school of Southern journalism. He combined the carriage of a courtier with the terse directness of a military leader. In his view, a newspaper should serve not only as the conservator of public rights and morals, but also as a patron of the arts, a cultivator of the sciences, a leader of enterprise, a community counselor and, at all times, a cradle of good taste. Colonel Baker received me with characteristic urbanity. He ap­proved the foresight of seeking a new position before the quest was imposed by necessity. Also, he was interested in the idea that morning newspaper work would round out my experience. A position on his newspaper was open for me.

Membership in the Times-Democrat staff was suddenly termi­nated by a summons to San Antonio. It came in a telegram from Shook & Vander Hoeven. It read: “"Arrange to be here within five days. Preparation for trial."” The message seemed incredible. There had been no news to forecast the calling up of my case. There had been no intimation of a revision of Colonel Shook'’s assurances of freedom from concern. But the telegram left no option. It was my duty to leave immediately to stand trial under an indictment for criminal libel.



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