Real Old News

Just like Melville's Ishmael, when the everyday worries become overwhelming, I long for the sea. However, since the sea is over one hundred miles away from Westminster, Maryland, I must settle for some other diversion. Sometimes it is escape to news from "yesteryear."

I'm looking at a copy of The Literary Digest dated October 31, 1908 (101 years ago!) Some items that were of interest to me:

01. An ad showing a young lady with a bow tie sitting at a vintage Remington typewriter. Model 10 has a column selector, and model 11 has a built-in tabulator. (My grandkids may not know what a typewriter is... they probably don't even need to know what a word-processor is, as long as their agile fingers can "text".)

02. An ad for a two month's summer tour of Europe for $250.

03. An ad for GRAFT.."The game of the hour; the game for Election days. More fascinating than Bridge or Eucre... 50 cents."

04. Ad for 1,000 acres in West Virginia for $9,000.

05. Ad for Miss Hess' French School for Young Ladies.

06. Ad for "The 1909 Fad!" This device projects any sort of "Post Card, Sketch, Photograph, or Clipping in all the brilliant coloring" on the wall as a six-foot reproduction. Cost for this machine in its fully assembled form: $5.

07. News about the William J. Bryan and William H. Taft strategic struggle to gain sufficient electoral votes to win the Presidency. Teddy Roosevelt puts in his two cents. (It all sounds so familiar.)

08. News that the United States Battle-ship fleet sailed around the world and in Sydney Australia the fleet was welcomed by 9,000 school-kids grouped to form the words "Hail Columbia" and to trace the pattern in colors of the American and Australian flags.

And then... get this.. in Yokohama, to quote the New York Post: "Toward the close of the reception, at a collation on the after deck of the battle-ship, Captain Okada drank the health of Ambassador O'Brien. Then followed a demonstration that will be long remembered by the Americans. The Japanese admirals and captains raised Ambassador O'Brien on their shoulders and marched around the deck with him, everybody on board wildly cheering. The same performance was repeated with Rear-Admiral Sperry and each of the other American admirals present."

And then, the New York Tribune said "Japan and America are, and are likely to remain for a long time, the chief, we might say the only important, naval Powers in the Pacific" and indicated that this friendly reception should put to rest any suggestion of friction between these two countries.

09. Lots of news about the Balkans and Austria .. sounds like the problems that led up to WWI.

10. News that unemployment in England has reached "painful proportions." Mr. Stewart Gray, the leader of "Hunger Marchers" clashed with the police at Trafalgar Square. About 150,000 men in London are out of work.

11. Sir Hiram Maxim analyzed a "sure fire system" for beating the bank at Monte Carlo, and found that the player would probably win.. "one dollar in 21,474 years."

12. Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Buchanan, of the British Army in India says: "The best way to put a stop to the plague where it is epidemic is to keep cats."

13. Professor Gaston Bonnier of Paris says that "a beehive is a perfect example of the equalitarian product of state socialism."

14. "A system by which a wireless-telegraphic apparatus may control from a central station the clocks of a whole city is now in use in Vienna."

15. Joseph Ruau, French Minister of Agriculture says that "fraud is common in food manufacture, and reminds us that absolute purity is not practicable or necessary."

16. There is now a simple test for distinguishing between butter and "oleomargarin". (Sounds like a time-consuming process utilizing fresh milk and a "stick.")

17. Mr. Israel Zangwill caused a commotion with his play "The Melting Pot", where he implies that Jews will be best off in America by being "absorbed" through marriage. The Jewish Comment (Baltimore) likes his play and agrees with his thesis.

18. Mr. Marc Debrol, French writer, was asked if people in the US are religious in the "real sense of the word".. He replied: "No. The American is too taken up with the practical side of life, too preoccupied with conquests and gain, to be meditative. There is no introspection... in this race for the dollar, the finer sensibilities dry up..." (!) Debrol says that America is a charitable country, but "Charity does not spring from private initiative; it is carefully organised, and in many cases by the churches... The poor must be fed and clothed, not out of pity, but out of prudence; they must not become discontented and revolt, disturbers of the national peace."

19. An ad for the Flexible Flyer, the Sled that Steers. "Send for a free cardboard model showing how it steers."

20. An ad for Whitelaw's Paper Blankets. Sanitary. Healthful. Warm. $3.00 a dozen.

21. An ad for Postum (coffee substitute still sold next to coffees in supermarkets.. I drank it for years. "There are still some well-informed persons who do not know that coffee contains a drug -- caffeine."

22. Ad for Harderfold Hygienic Underwear with the Inter-Air-Space System... "... affording protection against the vicissitudes of our variable climate..."

23. Ad for The Keeley Cure for liquor and drug using.

24. Finally...!! A joke from the Washington Star:

The Crank. "You say there is nearly always something broke about your automobile?"
"Yes," answered Mr. Chuggins, nervously.
"What is it, as a rule?"
"Me."

... so, not much has changed in 101 years.

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