Aug. 23 to 28

There will be no news from 1907. I'll be away for a week -- in Madrid.

Aug. 22, 1907 (Thursday)

MASSACHUSETTS TOWN SHAKEN BY TRAGEDY WHEN YOUNG BOYS PLAY "WILD WEST" -- WITH A REAL RIFLE: Daniel Wallbaum (shown here) was shot in the back of his head by a playmate yesterday. He died half an hour later in his mother's arms. It happened in a field near the sandpits of North Everett. A group of boys -- ages 9 to 12 -- grabbed a .22 rifle, two air rifles and some Indian gear and decided to transform the area into the Western plains. Wallbaum was not part of the original group, but he tagged along. They told him to go back home, but he wouldn't. Then, tragically, the group decided to "try to scare the Wallbaum boy," according to today's Boston Daily Globe. One of the boys, Wesley Hanson, fired the rifle toward Daniel, not thinking he could do any harm. Just before he fired, Danny ducked behind a bush. The boys thought nothing of it, until they saw people rush toward the bush. The boys ran over and "found Daniel lying on the ground unconscious and with blood streaming from a small hole in the back of his head."
Danny was 12 and about to enter the sixth grade at Horace Mann School (shown, one of many schools named after the famous educator). The paper says he was "a great favorite among his classmates and playmates."
Wesley talked about the shooting with a reporter:
"I didn't know that I had shot him and I wouldn't have fired the gun for the world if I had known it would hit him. The first I knew a crowd was running toward the bushes and when we got there I saw Dannie lying on the ground bleeding from his head. Then I don't know much that happened after that.
Police think it was an accident. Before Daniel was killed, another boy was hit three times in the wrist by bullets from an air rifle.

ROOSEVELT CONTINUES HIS BLUSTER: Some are still chuckling over President Roosevelt's remarks on Tuesday to a group of fishermen from Gloucester and Provincetown. Not surprisingly, he praised the men for their hard work. He reportedly said:
I am giving you a lot of advice without knowing much of your calling, for I was brought up in a cow country and worked hard from the hurricane deck of a bronco.
His upbringing was, of course, in New York -- hardly "cow country." And the bronco? Today's New York Times reminds readers of a comment by Roosevelt biographer Murat Halstead that the president was "never fond of bucking broncos."
The Times, in an editorial, says the nation needs more than mere "hard-working men," something Roosevelt cherishes. The times wants more of what Matthew Arnold calls "sweetness and light." The paper says, "Lincoln had this quality, which our great and good President deplorably lacks."

JUST ANOTHER REMINDER OF HOW HARD IT IS TO BE A CATCHER: Boston of the American League defeated the Detroit Tigers yesterday by a 5-4 score in 12 innings. Although much was written about the exciting game -- which was won in relief by Cy Young -- one sentence drew a second glance. Her it is: "Detroit had two catchers put out through SPLIT HANDS through FOUL TIPS." Ouch. Appropriately, one had the last name of PAYNE -- which would be Fred Payne.

Aug. 21, 1907 (Wednesday)

PINKHAM'S HEALTH COMPANY SUED BY WOMAN OVER ADVERTISEMENT: The advertisement pictured above began appearing in many newspapers around the country last spring. Now, the woman pictured at the right -- whose real name is not "Miss Elizabeth Wynn" but rather Frances Wynne -- is suing the makers of Lydia E. Pinkham Vegetable Compound, according to today's New York Times. She had no idea her picture was being used in the advertisements. Recently, she was puzzled by looks she got from customers at the Broadway department store where she worked. Then she got some letters from friends who consoled her for some health problems she had overcome. What was going on? she wondered. Then, to her shock, she discovered that her likeness (shown here) was being used in an advertisement for the widely used product of Lydia E. Pinkham. The advertisement changes her name to Elizabeth Wynn and gives her wrong home address, but the picture is hers. It also prints a letter supposed to be from Wynne that lists some of the maladies she has overcome:
For months I suffered with dreadful headaches, pain in the back and severe hemorrhages. I was weak and out of sorts all the time. Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound helped me when all other medicine had failed. It seemed to be just what I needed and quickly restored my health.
Well, the advertisement sickened her. The article in today's New York Times explains:
She was annoyed and suffered mental anguish, particularly as she says she has never had any of the ailments which the letter represented her as having.
The case has been moved to U.S. Circuit Court. She has sued for $10,000 damages.

ROOSEVELT KEEPS PRESSURE ON THE WEALTHY: President Roosevelt spoke for 45 minutes yesterday at the laying of the cornerstone of the Pilgrims memorial in Provincetown, Mass. The picture above shows him seated in the front row at the speech. The other picture shows the completed monument.) His speech made front-page news for most of the country. He promised to "punish certain malefactors of great wealth." But, he assured the public, he won't go overboard. As quoted in today's Washington Post, he said, "It is idle to ask me not to prosecute criminals, rich or poor. But I desire no less emphatically to have it understood that we have undertaken and will undertake, no action of a vindictive type and, above all, no action which shall inflict great or unmerited suffering upon the innocent stockholders and upon the public as a whole."
The Times glumly noted that people in Wall Street had advance knowledge of what the president was going to say -- being much better informed than the newspapers, who received advanced copies of the speech on Saturday. Over the next days, word of changes filtered through Wall Street before newspapers were informed. The Times moaned today,
It is declared that this is by no means the first time the wiseacres of Wall Street have been ahead of the newspapers as to knowledge of Presidential utterances, but it is said to be the first time that the financial district has had so much detailed and authentic information ahead of the newspapers.

SHOULD THOMAS JEFFERSON OR GEORGE WASHINGTON HAVE DONE THE GROUND BREAKING? The first shovelful of dirt was yanked from the ground and tossed aside yesterday to mark the beginning of the building of the Cape Cod Canal. The spot was at the north end of Buzzard's Bay. The dirt removed in the digging will be used to fill the Scusset marshes, and the canal will run through Bourne and Bournedale on its way to Sandwich and Massachusetts Bay. Today's New York Times notes that "plans for a canal across Cape Cod date back 200 YEARS.