61
Mayor Defies 'Mandate' for Silk Hat
Daughter of France Wins $5 Prize; Metcalfe, Firm in Rejecting Formal Attire for Paris, Recalls World-Herald Incident.
That shiny object going west through the sky Wednesday night may have been mistaken by some folks for the moon, and the dark object following closely could have been scudding cloud. But the first was a high silk hat, and the second a fleeing coat. A hat and frock coat fleeing from the mayor.
More people acclaimed the hat and coat for Mayor Metcalfe's trip to Paris than were against them. But the mayor is not swayed. The mayor is still against them both, firmly and with emphasis.
The Silk hat editor of the contest just closed went to see the mayor to speak of cabbages and kings, of silken hats and frocked coats, and ayes and nayes, and things, but the mayor motioned him to a seat at a glance.
War in the Editorial We.
"I know why you have come," said the mayor. "And now I will tell you a story. Once upon a time many years ago Colonel Al Fairbrother and Mrs. Elia W. Peattie were the editorial 'We' of The World-Herald. Needless to say they both wrote editorials.
"One morning, Colonel Fairbrother strode into Mrs. Peattie's office and with the editorial page in one hand, pointed with a trembling finger to an editorial.
" 'Did you write that?' demanded the colonel.
" 'I did,' replied Mrs. Peattie.
" 'Well read it then!' ordered the seemingly irate gentleman.
"I don't have to read it," calmly replied Mrs. Peattie, "I wrote it."
Not for the Colonel.
The mayor paused to fleck a bit of cigar ash from the lapel of his becoming dark gray business suit, then continued.
"The editorial in question," he said, "was a solemn defense of the hoop skirt. Colonel Fairbrother pointed to the last line of the editorial. "Read that!" he volleyed. "Read it out loud!"
Mrs. Peattie ran her eye down the editorial she had written in defense of the hoopskirt, and read with some emphasis, "And we shall continue to wear them!"
Then the colonel's voice boomed out like thunder, "You may continue to wear them madam, but I'll be ——— if I will!"
To Talk About Omaha.
The mayor reached for a match. "And that, young man, is something of my position, I heartily concur in the colonel's declaration.
"I will not wear a frock coat and a silk hat when I go to Paris. In the first place a silk hat is too hard, and a frock coat makes me uncomfortable. On the other hand Jimmy Walker wore a plug hat and he got into trouble. No edict of kings will make me change my mind.
"I can tell of the beauties of Omaha, and describe the advantages of the finest city in the work, much more effectively in a nice soft hat and business suit, In fact I feel confident that when I get on my favorite subject, they will be so interested they will forget to notice just what I am wearing. I will include evening clothes, four sack suits, my "tux," some nice linen suits and a straw hat. I shall be neat and clean and keep my hair trimmed, and I am sure there will be no cause for complaint."
(IMAGE) "Madame Marguerite le Tourneux" and her prize winning letter.
The winning letter on "Shall Mayor Metcalie wear a silk hat and frock coat in Paris?" won by unanimous vote among hundreds. The translation, from the French, follows:
"Sir: Being a citizen of France, I am in a position to know something of etiquette. In my country the people expect the mayor to wear a cutaway and silk hat. Without this apparel, he exposes himself to ridicule. With respect, Madame Marguerite le Tourneux, 1807 Cass street."
In her housekeeping apartment, "Madame Marguerite le Tourneux," white of hair, rosy of cheek and blue of eys, was delighted.
"Before I married, my name was Marguerite le Tourneux— now I am Mrs. David Hammond Cole," said the winner. "My husband has not so much work. I am glad we won the prize!"
Mrs. Cole came to America as a young girl, and some years ago was a teacher of piano in New York. Her father was a wine merchant in Chantilly.
62
The Diary
Ten Years Ago- 1957
United Nations experts said the Suez Canal, blocked during the Anglo-French Israeli attack, had been cleared sufficiently to allow small ships to pass.
Robert Kruger, 32, of 2718 Titus Avenue, Greyhound bus driver, flagged a Union Pacific freight a mile east of Elkhorn to save the driver and two children in a stalled car.
Twenty-five Years Ago- 1942
The Japanese conquered Bali.
Prime Minister Churchill dropped five ministers from the War Cabinet there. There were few objections.
Dr. William Temple, Archbishop of York, was named Archbishop of Canterbury, succeeding Dr. Cosmo Gordon Lang.
Fifty Years Ago--1917
Thousands of women in South Philadelphia, protesting high food prices, upset food displays, overturned pushcarts and entered stores.
Capt. C. D. F. Chandler, trying out a new balloon from Fort Omaha, landed near Persia, Ia.
An Iowa painter estimated for Police Judge Fitzgerald he had consumed one hundred barrels of whisky in 38 years. "Every time I come to Omaha, I figure on being robbed," he said. The judge dismissed charges.
Seventy-five Years Ago--1892
Sara Bernhardt starred in "La Tosca" at the Boyd Theater. The World-Herald devoted a column to the play and another to a list of those who attended. But Elia Peattie wrote: "Art is always at its best when it idealized... and Bernhardt, who does not idealize, is, therefore, in the rare sense, not among the great artists."
Capt. A. D. Yocum shot and killed Myron Van Fleet in Hastings, Neb.Mr. Van Fleet was said to have been the author of Vanity Fair letters traducing Captain Yocum's daughter.
Historical Highlight. On the February 22, 1732, George Washington was born.
Today's Birthdays Former labor leader David Dubinsky is 75. Actor Robert Young is 60.
COMPLETE SETS of encyclopedias, bicycles, and swing sets can all be found at bargain prices in The World-Herald "Miscellaneous for Sale" Want Ads.--Adv.
Peanuts
"You've been telling everyone I lied to my teacher, haven't you?
Don't you know that psychologists say children don't always know that they're lying?! To an innocent child like me, if a lie works, it isn't a lie! What do you think of that?!"
"GEORGE WASHINGTON!!"
"You're right! WHAA! I'll never lie again!"
I hated to do it, but some problems call for drastic action...
63
Looking Back-- Genuine Bohemian Lived in Hubbell
IF ANY one were to ask, "Have you read any good books lately?" I'd have to put at the top of the list "The Nebraska of Kate McPhelim Cleary" published in 1958 by The United Educators, Inc., Publishers House in Lake Bluff, Ill.
The book, a collection of short stories, vignettes and verse, is the work of an early-day (1884-1898) resident of Hubbell, Neb., a Thayer County community south of Hebron almost on the Kansas border.
A preface written by Kate's son, James Mansfield Cleary, one of six children born in Nebraska, calls attention to a number of nationally known publications to which Kate contributed but adds:
"Her best work was that inspired by the Western prairies."
Intrigued
The book was brought to my attention by Mrs. Glenn O. Pearson.
She received it and another volume of poems written by Kate, her mother and a brother, Edward J. McPhelim, onetime literary and dramatic critic of the Chicago Tribune, from another of Kate's sons, Gerald V. Cleary of Winnetka, Ill.
When Mrs. Pearson and the late Mr. Pearson were in Hawaii in 1955, they met Gerald Cleary and his late wife.
After the latter's recent death, Mrs. Pearson sent to members of the family the colored photographs taken by the Pearsons of Mrs. Cleary on that holiday.
In return, Mr. Cleary sent the books to Mrs. Pearson, who was so intrigued by the subject matter and the charming manner of its presentation that she shared her prize with me.
Hubbell, with a population of 126, I discovered in this newspaper's library, figured in the news in 1961 because of an old elm tree "believed to be the largest in the state (having) a spread of 110 feet and a 14-foot circumference at breast level."
But back in Kate's day. The Sunday World-Herald of April 23, 1893, devoted 2 1/2 columns to a story, "A Bohemian in Nebraska," by Elia Wilkinson Peattie (later literary editor of the Chicago Tribune and mother of Donald Culross Peattie) about Kate Cleary.
'Bohemian'
Mrs. Peattie's piece, reprinted in "The Nebraska of Kate McPhelim Cleary" and verified by the microfilm files of this newspaper, began like this:
"It's not very often that a woman is a bohemian--a genuine Bohemian.
"And it must be confessed that Nebraska is not the place where one would go to look for a woman of that kind, and certainly he would not journey all day along the Burlington road, over the prairie, to the tiny town of Hubbell--the quietest place, with prohibition politics--to find such a woman.
"Yet, there is one there.
"Perhaps some night you will get in that little town ...about midnight. The place will be black as Erebus ...But up the dark, straight street one light will be shining, and it will show you inside...a group of people in a room which does not in the least look like the room of quiet Nebraska farming village...
"There never was a more informal room--never. It's a room where you say good things if it is in you to do it...
"And when you get in one of those comfortable chairs with a glass of beer in your hand, and no particular care whether it is time to go to bed or not, and the Chicago, New York and Omaha papers at your elbow, and new books and magazines yet to be cut lying near... then suddenly Bohemia has come to you, and the Nebraska praise with its hard working, quiet living people seems very far away..."
Empathy
Kate Cleary doesn't mention Hubbell often in her stories but she frequently speaks of "Bubble" and refers to Chester (now a community of 480), Hebron, Lincoln and Omaha.
In fact, "At the Omaha Fair" is a tale probably born of exposure to the Trans-Mississippi Exposition of 1898 held in Omaha.
Since Kate's husband was in the lumber business, hers was not the lot of the overworked farm wife who was dominated by her menfolk, chained by frugality and devoid of bright interludes to bright the day-to-day struggle for existence.
But Kate had empathy-- for the fatigue and hardiness of farm women, the dreams of poor-but-hopeful town women, the suffering of the westbound mother who buried her child, and part of her heart, beyond the bluff and plunged on.
Kate demonstrated that empathy in such tales as "For the Rest of Her Life," "Jim Peterson's Pension" and "On the Way West."
The stories prove beyond much doubt that whereas there is much to be said for "the good old days" in Nebraska, to get an unbiased appraisals, admirers should talk to a few pioneer women. They had what it takes.
Evelyn Simpson, Women's News Editor
64
Elia Wilkinson Peattie Succumbs; Noted Writer
Served World-Herald as First Newspaper Woman in Omaha
Mrs. Elia Wilkinson Peattie, author, critic, and 50 years ago the first newspaper woman in Omaha, where she worked for The World-Herald, died of heart trouble Friday at the summer home of a son, Prof. Roderick Peattie, of Ohio State university, at Wallingford, Conn.
Mrs. Peattie was born in Michigan in 1862, and was reared in comparative poverty. At 13 she left school to help her mother. She married Robert Burns Peattie, well known Chicago and New York newspaperman, in 1883, and herself joined the Chicago Tribue staff in 1884. Four years later she and her husband came to Omaha, and for the next eight years both were employed by The World-Herald.
While here, Mrs. Peattie helped organize the Omaha Woman's club, of which she was a charter member and which she served as president in 1896. The couple remained here until 1898, when Mr. Peattie rejoined the Tribune staff and they returned to Chicago. There Mrs. Peattie became literary critic, which position she held until 1917.
She wrote many novels, and later turned her attention to playwriting with much success.
Mrs. Peattie was guest speaker for the Omaha Women's Press club here in February, 1923, when many social events were held in her honor.
65
Life Was Unhurried When—
Only Horses' Hooves Broke Quite at 20th, Dodge
By Margaret H. Doorly
Even as today's traffic zips past Twentieth and Dodge Streets, I can remember how peaceful it once was.
We lived in that neighborhood in the years after my father, Gilbert M. Hitchcock, founded The Omaha Daily World in 1885.
Then there was little traffic —an occasional horse drawn streetcar and, later, the trolley. Instead of the whiz and roar of hot tires and engines there was the gentle clop-clop of saddle or carriage horses on the wooden block pavement.
High on the northwest corner of that intersection stood the red brick high school building, formerly the State Capitol.
And across the street from the school was the Lewis S. Reed home. One of Mrs. Reed's sisters, Mora Balcolm, was an early society editor of this newspaper. When she faced a dearth of social events, she occasionally brightened her columns with accounts of the De Peysters, a delightful imaginary family of her own creation.
High Ceilings
Many of the houses in that neighborhood were pleasant ones, their high ceilings and spacious rooms offering gracious hospitality. Among the finest was that of Judge Goerge B. Lake. It so impressed one prospective home builder that he told his architect: "I want a house just like Judge Lake's, only cheaper."
The house on the northeast corner of Twentieth and Dodge Streets belonged to a woman physician, Dr. Burroughs. The neighbors loved to repeat the tale of a tramp who came to the front door to ask if the doctor had an old pair of pants to give him.
Downhill and to the right, between Capitol Avenue and Davenport Street, was the George Lininger home and art gallery. It was quite an art gallery for a private venture in a young city. At one time it contained the famous "September Morn" painting.
Low Prices
A little farther away was the home of Edward Porter Peck, his wife and their four children—who used to remind other children that "four pecks make a bushel." Living with them (in those days most families counted with them a grandparent or perhaps some uncles and aunts) was Mr. Peck's mother. She wore the white cap, the customary badge of middle or old age, a custom which is happily no longer observed.
Farther down on Dodge Street was the home of Samuel S. Burns, owner of a china shop on Farnam Street. He possessed a dry sense of humor. One day a woman customer, determined to get the lowest price possible on a certain piece of china, had managed to reduce it to nearly nothing. When she asked to have it delivered, Mr. Burns sighed, "Madam, if you will take it with you, you can have it for nothing."
Others in the neighborhood, many of whom passed Twentieth and Dodge Streets each day, were the Horbach Bourkes, the Thomas Kilpatricks, the B. B. Woods, Dr. W. O. Bridges and District Judge Cunningham Scott. Captain Bourke much of the time was away in the Mexican border fighting.
Black Beard
So many of the men of that day wore beards, some blunt, some long, some short and pointed. The blackest beard of all was that of Robert Peattie, then a writer for this newspaper.
Talking part one time in private theatricals at the home of a friend, Mr. Peattie had to make his entrance through a window, there being no stage door, and he was temporarily detained by a passing policeman who took him for a burglar.
Mr. Peattie's wife, Ella W. Peattie, author of several books including "The Children's Crusade," was also on the staff of The World-Herald.
The times were generally peaceful. There were no automobiles, no airplanes. But there were thrills such as the terror of runaway horses racing through the streets, the carriage bouncing and sway behind them, or the stirring sight and sound of the horsedrawn fire engine, the driver braced in his high seat, leaning forward, with a mighty grasp on the reins that miraculously controlled the hard-galloping horses.
The social life of the city showed an elegance much diminished today. People dressed up for parties. The graceful sweeping trains of the women had not been cut back to nearly knee length skirts. They dressed for daytime luncheons and teas (cocktail parties were then unknown) in a manner to give even small occasions a festive appearance.
White Canvas
Dances were often given in the home, sometimes with white canvas laid on
(IMAGE) —World-Herald Photo Mrs. Doorly . . . It was peaceful.
the floor. Invitations were generally delivered by hand instead of over the phone.
Music was important, and as it was necessary to "do it yourself" it was an important part of children's education.
New books appeared by fine authors and were eagerly read.
The theater in Omaha was visited by many excellent traveling companies, and great plays were presented by distinguished actors.
Most of the streets were safe after dark for the strolling pedestrian. Even women and children ventured out on them without fear.
Rosy Cheeks
And in the winters there was snow. It was not then regarded with the dismay and dread of last winter here. Gay sleighs appeared with horses wearing jingling bells, and children got out their sleds and were rosy-cheeked and warm in their many layers of woolen clothes. And when the trolleys passed pushing ahead of them their great snowplows, children stood at the windows to watch in fascination the churned-up clouds of snow.
There was not much worry about overcrowded hospitals. Most illnesses were cared for in the homes, the homes where people were born and generally died.
Fortunate indeed were they who lived in those days.
Honeymooners Have Plenty of Company
Feb. 14, 1889, Omaha Daily World
A. E. Luke and Miss Ella Tremaine were married in this city on Saturday evening and leave today for Chicago to make it their home.
They will be accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. O. T. Rounds, Mrs. Rounds being a sister of the bride.