Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • Page 29

EDITORIAL QfUX EDITORIAL FEATURES York Evening JournrtL hoping to land a. few It made the frokt page in every daily book, "Furdah," on the status of Indian women will come from her typewriter next month and that it is a story of the women kept in the seclusion of the land. If there is new attention given to the Mooney case it may be because of the attention Ernest J. Hopkins, former San Francisco newspaperman, has given thesubject. His book, "What Happened in the Mooney Case," will be off an eastern press within a week or two.

Hopkins recently published a book on third degree methods, revealing some of the findings of the Wickersham Commission, with which he worked. "Stories of the States," by Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez, a work in which considerable research has been put, is out in a second edition. She is the author of "Spanish and Indian Place Names of California" and other books and is a sister to the late Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson. sion of the Legislature.

Breed, incidentally, is practically certain to be reelected President Tro-tern of the Senate, a position he has so ably filled for many years, although the con-, veution brought to light an insurgent movement which would put forward Senator W. P. Rich of Marysville as a rival candidate. In the Assembly there is not likely to be any contest over the Speakership. Walter J.

Little of Los Angeles, who lost out to Speaker Edgar C. Levey of our city by a single vote two years ago, is already assured of more than enough votes to land the honor in January. It is likely, too, that his election will be accompanied by a general wave of good feeling which will be a happy omen for constructive legislation. There may be a contest, however, over the job of Speaker Pro-tern, for which Assemblyman Percy West of Sacramento is being boomed. The argument is being offered that West is entitled to the honor because of the support he gave Little in the battle of two years ago.

legislators believe, however, that the bitterness of two, years ago had best be forgotten and if West or any other man is elected Speaker Pro-tem, it be for reasons other than the part he played in the Levey-Little struggle of 1931. ous stage when he was a steady customer. It was part of his philosophy that the man who succeeds must keep abreast of the times. He held small traffic with the theory of the success of the recluse with the mouse trap. Yet he was stern in his condemnation of what he considered ctmimefcialisni in sacred music.

His own songs were the results of "inspiration and perspiration" and most of them were written late at night. But he contended that few songs "are born out of any particular experience through which the author passed." In his own list of 8000 odd hymns he could recall only a few that had their birth in this way. His Bon, Charles known here as program director of the National Broadcasting Company and a composer and musician of distinction, unwittingly provided the title for one of his father's most popular numbers. He was leaving for war after a furlough at home and said more or less facetiously in farewell: "Well, Dad, take care of the folks until I return. I expect to come back to yon but if I don't, I'll meet you where the gate never swings outward." Gabriel lifted his sorrow in an inspired hymn, "Where the Gates Swing Outward Never." On another occasion, he recalled, a Salvation Army card hanging in a street car in which he was riding brought forth an idea for his famous Glory Song, That Will Be Glory," used by Torrey and Alexander on their world tour from 1903 to 1905.

Yet his "Brighten the Corner Where You Are" was written with "inspiration and perspiration." SAX FRANCISCO, Sept. 24. More excitement there may be before: the fateful November 8, but it is doubtful if we will get as much and varied politics, dished up in so short a time as we have had in the last ten days. The meetings of the State central committees in Sacramento today concludes a series of events which included the State conventions at the capital last week, the visit of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic standard bearer, and visits, too, from the Vice-Presidential candidates of several of the minor parties.

Surely these have' afforded ample opportunity for lots of cheering and handshaking, not to say confabbing and programming, but whether it steps up the interest of the citizenry to the point of wanting to vote will be known only when the registration figures for the November balloting are revealed. Incidentally, the dead line on November registrations is next Thursday, a date which has come surprisingly soon to most of us. In the past the registration rolls used to close 30 days before the election. The last Legislature, wishing to give the county clerks and election officials more time to make their preparations, changed the law so that there is now a 40-day lapse between signing up tfhd voting. Speaking of a change in the laws, I would not be surprised to see other changes suggested when the next Legislature meets, for gossip among the politicians at the State conventions of the two major parties at Sacramento last week indicates there is much dissatisfaction with the way our primary law works out.

I think there may be a move at Sacramento next spring to bar candidates from seeking the nominations of more than one party. 1 1 1 I I I 1 1 I 1 1 1 111 IliC lllllCU UlUICD IUU UUtUld lb JQ UUg fwl of the publicity romances of the theater how we developed Anna Held into a national favorite. The year he brought her from Paris with her baby voice, but beautiful and charming in person, he knew something unusual was needed. We had 'pulled' so many sensational stunts over the country with'Sandow that I would awake in the night dreaming of crazy adventures. Anna Held and her cute risque songs in 'The Parlor Match' were being talked about but we wanted" something new.

She wasn't in on the milk bath story at first and refused to pay for the gallons and gallons of milk that made the story. We paid thl deliv- ery man to bring suit. Newspapers did the rest." Even after the hoax was exposed, Zieg- feld continued to garner, publicity. Then the magazines took it up, no less a scholar than Walter Pritchard Eaton contributing an article to one of the national monthlies. In it Eaton also told how Stoltz had come to San Francisco and found a girl he chose to call "Charmion" in a San Francisco beer garden, where she was getting $6 a week, and promoted her into $2200 at Koster and Bial's in New York.

More, she was re-engaged for eighteen weeks at the same figure. In his letter to the Quill, Stoltz recalled much of the back- stage difficulties in making a star of Sandow. ne had been billed as the strongest man in the world and Stoltz was endeavoring to make a social idol of him when the Midwinter Fair in San Francisco opened and Ziegfeld decided to come west. "On the way to the fair," Stoltz continued, "beer was ordered on the train and Sandow took a bottle but couldn't open it. The husky train porter placed the bottle between his knees, gave a yank and out came the cork.

Zieggy was simply mortified. We wanted to smother all of the shows at the exposition so we announced that our star would wrestle a lion at each performance of our Trocadero Vaudevilians. Then we had the lion's teeth extracted. The battle of the 'Superman' with, the 'King of Beasts' drew packed houses until an inquisitive reporter spilled the beans. Then we beat it quick." Ships and the Sea AUNCHING of a new ship for these Pacific A waters hat? occasioned a writing man for the Grace line to go back into the history Of christenings of the kind.

The giving of a ship to the water has been accompanied with cere-, mony of some kind, almost back to the day when the first sailing vessel was nere is some of the story "So far as we can be ctr'tain, the blessing of British ships was in vogue in the fourteenth century and, ac- i cording to the monk of St. Denys, this was done when the Duke of Bourbon despachedoan expedition to Genoa under the Earl of Derby in 1390. The procedure was in keeping with an ancient custom and intended to insure sue- cess; and to that end the ships were blessed by' priests. In July of 1418, the Bishop of Bangor went to Southampton to give a benediction to the Grace Dieu one of the King's -ships completed in that port a short while be- fore. The worthy bishop was paid five pounds for his trouble and the glamonr he added to that occasion.

No vessel of the royal navy was baptized with wine during the fifteenth century at least that is the declaration of a well-Ttnown British naval historian. Far back in the early days of venturesome mariners, it was a practice among ancient Norsemen to attach human victims to the rollers upon which they launched their craft; and in the Eddas this ceremony is referred to under the name of 'hlun-rod' that is roller-reddening. During the concluding years of the eighteenth century and for a considerable part of the first half of the succeeding century, it was the custom in France at the launching of ships to rem6ve all impediments to the movement of the craft save a single heavy timber, called a This timber was canted against the stern posts of the vessel to keep her from launching her- self, and the beam was chopped through and knocked out of the way when everything was ready for her slide into the water. The task was so hazardous that a volunteer was commonly chosen from the long-term convicts in the galleys. Garbed in red, the prisoner took -his place between the launching ways and in the shadow of the towering stern.

At a given signal, he would begin to chop into the dog-shore with a sharp axe and, if quick enough, he would drop into a pit dug for him before either the dog-shore fell on him or the ship rushed down upon him. Not infrequently, the man' was killed or so wounded that his blood was spilled thus seeming to perpetuate the sacrificial offerings of the Norsemen when they launched their THE KNAVE. Escaped From Whaler A STORY of a French whaling vessel stop-ping at Santa Cruz, the desertion of five sailors, and some speculation as to what became of them are to be found in the collection of Spanish and Mexican documents preserved in the office of the county recorder of that city. In 1844 the French whaling vessel La Grange was at Monterey, involved in smuggling for which two French residents of that town, Tierre Richards and nenri Cambuston, were fined 500 pesos each. There was, however, another occurrence in connection with the La Grange which incensed tho Mexican authorities, who were struggling bitterly to prevent "foreigners" getting a foothold in California.

In the recorder's office is the original of an order sent by Florencio Serrano, acting first alcalde at ilonterey in the illness of Amesti, to the Braneiforte alcalde, who was Francisco Alviso, grantee the previous year of Agua Puerca rancho, on the coast to the west. Serrano wrote: "There having deserted five slors of the French whaling vessel Le Grahge, and holding well founded suspicions that those individuals may have taken refuge in the establishment of Santa Cruz in the house of Carlos Roussillon, you will make all necessary inquiries to learn if the sailors can be found in that or any other place, not sparing any means in your power until their capture. For this purpose I have secured of the commander general and send you the assistance of two dragoons and a corporal. I hope from your exacting patriotism the most heedful compliance with this as the public good and the interests of the country depend upon it to avoid the illegal introduction of vagrant persons who can not be useful. A return on this must be made with all possible haste, at the latest next Monday.

God and Liberty. April 3, 1814." Roussillon, the Trader BANCROFT, IN II1S exhaustive history of California, recorded reference to the five French mariners who deseFted their ship. If they found their way to Santa Cruz the "two dragoons and a corporal" may have failed in their search and the mariners joined, Carlos Roussillon in his lumbering operations on Pierre Saiusevain's Rancho la Canada del Rlncon in the lower San Lorenzo Valley. Roussillon was a French trader whose name appeared on the records at Los Angeles in 1843. From 1844 he was at Santa Cruz with Sainse-vain, working a sawmill either as an employee or a partner.

The Braneiforte padron of 1845 showed him as 31 years old. Bancroft remarks that he found no record of him after 1848 and that hemay have gone to South America, but old records in the Santa Cruz clerk's office show Carlos Roussillon still in Santa Cruz in 1834, part owner of Rancno del Rincon. That the French deserters remained in the region, of Santa, Cruz is more than possible. In a brief history of Aptos, published in the Santa Cruz Fturf in 181)6 by A. A.

Taylor, he relates that in Sainsevain was "leader of a company of Frenchmen" who erected a mill on Aptos Creek on land leased from Rafael Castro. The Milk Bath Hoax IN THE NEWS stories and subsequent features and paragraphs following the death oi' Florenz Ziegfeld, the name of Anna Held and the milk bath hoax found frequent mention but commentators were unable to recall who was the press agent to contrive the stunt It was not until last week that Melville Soltz came forward in St Louis, where he is in business, to admit that he was Ziggy's Barnum of the day and to discuss this and other publicity exploits. "The idea was entirely mine," ho wrote The Quill, official organ of the theatrical press agents. wrote it. for the New 'International Bankers' WrHEN A SAN FRANCISCAN with a long memory brought to the office of the Chronicle an advertisement he MM clipped from that newspaper in October of 1922, there came to light a story which already is entering the political discussions of the nation.

It was a notice of "United European Investors, a company engaged in selling German marks, "$200 for one million," and specializing in foreign bonds and moneys. Its president, according to the announcement, was Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Chronicle put a reproduction of the ad on the front page along with an editorial devoted to people who live in glass houses. Knowing how candidate Roosevelt has inveighed against "international bankers" and what has befrn said by his leading newspaper support on that subject, tho reference to the glass houses will be appreciated.

A large term, used freely, is this "international banker" and often as if being in the banking business with international connections was something reprehensible. We all remember the period in which speculation in German marks was rife and, also, the disillusionment which followed. Those who sold them, of course, knew no more than did we, that they would turn out worthless. Yet "United European Investors, of which Roosevelt was president, does have the sound of international bankers and that, in view of what he has to say on the subject furnished a rather embarrassing echo from the past. Wrote Gospel Hymns YVVHEN A.

GOSPEL hymn program comes on the air these days its appeal is limited to the older generation that finds It a pleasant jog to sentimental memory, and we are prone to forget that there was a day when this type of song was as light and airy in its wayas the jazz melodies and ballads are today. Charles H. Gabriel, who died in Hollywood last week, called attention to this case many years ago when he was reviewing the part he played in church music. "The masses of the people," he wrote in reflection, "bad little to sing, other than church hymn tunes, two-and three-part songs, and home ballads aside from the classic oratorios. Soon thereafter a new style of song appeared.

It was immature, musically, and embryonic in text, but it lightened the gloom that shrouded a somber custom of religious service." Gabriel, an Iowan, as is Billy Sunday, was to play a prominent part in this new type of religions music and for more than sixty years he dominated the field. From sixteen to seventy-six his pen was rarely idle even in the last days of his life when he declined to move to the home of his son in Hollywood's hurly-burly and maintained a bachelor's residence in his1 Thousand Oaks home on your Bide of the bay. In fact, the importunings of the younger Gabriel for him to go south and make his home with him, bore weight only when they were coupled with a request from nomer Rodeheaver that the old gentleman attend a revival service in Los Angeles. So the aged Gabriel agreed to have his house closed with its memories of the wife who had preceded him "Where the Gates Swing Outward Never" and journeyed south by plane. More Than Eight Thousand ABRIEL WAS always one to keep a lively interest in the affairs of the world.

vAir-planes had scarcely emerged from the hazard Prodigious Worker THOSE OF US who knew the older Gabriel will carry a picture of him, not as the cadaverous Cromwell or the perspiring Sunday, but of a ruddy faced' gentleman whose only affectations were a carefully trimmed mustache, a Windsor tie of bright hue, and a pair of expressive hands. He was a frequent attendant at the Shrine luncheons at the Palace during his residence here and was noted for his wealth of humorous stories and amusing anecdotes. One of these pet stories concerned the fact that he "helped build the Palace Hotel." In 1873 when he arrived here as a lad of seventeen determined to conquer the composing world but possessed of the few dollars left out of the original1 twenty-five with which he was endowed by his mother as lie left home, he went to work as a carpentcr'B helper on the old hotel. Later he mastered the piano not having seen an instrument until he was fourteen, learned to play the flat cornet and made his living as a touring singing and musical master. It was here in San Francisco that he wrote his first hymns, such as "Send the Light" and "Calling the Prodigal," the latter earning him Jhe munificent sum of a high mark for him.

His list numbered more than 8000 before his death, and one of his operettas, "The Merry Milkmaids," is still a frequent touring vehicle for provincial players in Great Britain. He wrote four operettas in all, forty odd Santa Claus and juvenile cantatas, and a small library of church hymnals and books on that subject. "And a Plug Hat" "IN SEPTEMBER, 1892," he wrote in his momoirs, "I reached Chicago, possessed of a wife, a six-months-old son, a coat that buttoned up to the throat, a plug hat, a cane and sixteen dollars in cash." His first chore was to prepare a book of songs for Bishop J. Berry for the Epworth League. Then he undertook to sell his own hymns "Let the Sunshine In," "Glory in My Sonl," "The Way, of the Cross Leads Home," "He Lifted Me" and "lie Is So Precious to Me." The effort was futile.

Five publishers turned down the hymns and Gabriel, faced the problems of housekeeping and a small son, elected to do his own publishing. "I had faith in them, however," he continued, "and printed them at my own expense. As a fact beyond my ability to understand I never edited a book of songs tbatreitti-bursed me in royalties to the amount of money it cost me to gather the copy for the printer. On the other hand, every one I did compile produced from one to five songs that proved successful. 'Higher Ground' was one of the first I wrote after reaching Chicago.

For it, I received $5.00." With the Writers TTIERE WILL BE many former Stanford students, and over in your neighboring viity of Berkeley, to remember Frieda Haus-wirth, who came here frbm Switzerland and, after a college experience, married Sarangad-har Das, educated Hindu, They went to India where he has been" prominent in the new freedom movement and where she wrote "A Marriage In India." I am informed that a new Burying the Hatchet SE DEMOCRATS hereabouts are not inclined to scratch beneath the surface of things these days for fear they will dig up the hatchet so ostentatiously buried recently by William Gibbs McAdoo, the party's Senatorial nominee, and Justus S. Wardell, his erstwhile rival. The reconciliation took place at the McAdoo luncheon at the Falaee Hotel and there is supposed to be a good story behind the steps leading to the agreement to let bygones be bygones, at least for the Presidential campaign. Many believe that Roosevelt ordered an armistice and ordered it openly arrived at so that there might be no embarrassment for him when he reached our State. If there was to be any glory in the affair, Wardell captured it He made a fine talk in announcing his support of McAdoo, better in the view of many who heard it than any he had delivered in his own behalf during the primary campaign.

Wardell, of course, is a loyal party man and more than once has been willing to sacrifice himself for the parly's interests. But some of the bitter things said during the primary fight are not so easily wiped off the slate and, while Wardell and McAdoo may have patched up their differences, It is doubtful if their supporters have. Some of the McAdoo men, I learn, have not been satisfied with the way our local Democratic county central committee has been supporting the Senatorial nominee. Of course, many of our local Democratic rank and file will swing to Senator Tal-lant Tubbs in the November voting. All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't get them to mark their ballots for McAdoo or the Rev.

Bob Shuler. And as far as Roosevelt's chances in San Francisco are concerned, there is an interesting debate going on as to whether McAdoo will help the "Presidential candidate In nr town. One view is that Roosevelt may help McAdoo in San Francisco more than the former Secretary of the Treasury can possibly help the New York Governor. Legislative Gossip THE REPUBLICAN State Convent idn in Sacramento had many an interesting aspect aside from its chief business of adopting a platform and singing the praises of the party and its leaders. One of these is its resemblance to a legislative reunion.

It affords an opportunity for the boys to get together in a preliminary huddle and exchange political gossip. Certainly all learned this year, holdovers, candidates for reelection" and novices alike, that people throughout the State are expecting the.uext Legislature to do something about the tax situation. It was significant that Senator Arthur II. Breed of your county came out with his broadcast letter proposing a definite economy program so soon after he had met members of the Legislature at the Republican Convention. Breed proposes to amend the constitution so that school support shall either no longer be a fixed charge or else.

a greatly reduced one. If school support were eliminated from the constitution appropriations for education would devolved on each succeeding ses ir IL in i- i.