In the News: January, 1910
It’s January, 1910. US President William Howard Taft is starting his second year in office. The economy is starting to rebound following the near collapse of the NY Stock Exchange in 1907; although now in 1910 the higher cost of living is on everyone’s mind.
“Trust-busting” is the word of the day and a lot of rage is being focused towards the “meat trusts” – meat producers and packers – who are accused of artificially raising the price of meat. There is talk of boycotts, vegetarian diets, and Congressional investigations. A federal grand jury in Pennsylvania has handed out thirty subpoenas to the big three meat packers – Armour, Swift, and Morris.
While most people still get around in horse-drawn buggies and by the railroads, aeroplanes and automobiles are the tech news of the day. In Southern California, the 10-day Los Angeles International Air Show is held on a field at Dominguez Ranch (now present day Carson, California) and in Oakland people flock to the first annual Motor Car Exhibition.
Newspapers make sure to tell their readers when a news item was received via wireless telegraphy and advertisers let the readers know they answer “both phones” in cities where more than one telephone company has subscribers.
Scandals and gossip are front-page news. We read of the Christy Custody trial going on in, of all places, Zanesville, Ohio. Famed artist Howard Chandler Christy and his ex-wife are locked in a custody battle over their 10 year-old daughter. Daily we learn of scandalous testimony regarding Mrs. Christy’s alleged dalliances with the family chauffeur and her drinking habits. Howard Christy is best known for his Spanish American War illustrations and later for his WWI recruiting posters.
From San Francisco there is the story of the “pretty” nurse from German Hospital eloping to Los Angeles with a bigamist from Mendocino County. Then there is the story the Mexican spitfire, Senora Amelia Calderon, and her affinity, Count Jose De La Franconia, both vaudeville performers, who are arrested in San Francisco and threatened with deportation when it is learned that she has abandoned her husband and father of her daughter in Mexico City.
While former Vice President Charles Fairbanks is preparing for a tour of Europe, his son, Frederick is being sued for allegedly misappropriating $130,000 from the funds of the Old Mexican Land and Industrial Company.
A libel suit brought by former President Roosevelt and J. P. Morgan against Joseph Pulitzer and his publishing company is thrown out of court. The New York World had exposed an illegal payment of $40 million by the United States to the French Panama Canal Company in 1909.
In France, thousands are left homeless by disastrous flooding caused by blinding snowstorms that wrecked homes and turned the streets of Paris into canals resulting in 200 million dollars worth of damage to city (1.5 billion in 2010 dollars). In some parts of the city the water is 20 feet high.
That’s the news from January, 1910.
