Teacher Hospitalized After Undressing in Class

Nov. 20, 1909: An unidentified woman, deranged over the death of her brother, is taken to a hospital after the school nurse finds her undressing in front of her class.

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 19, 1959

Saga of a Guy Who Flipped From Poky     "I walk alone," the voice on the phone told me, more as an apology than as a boast.  "With me, it's habit.  I guess I never learned any other way."     The voice was a man's and a drawl.  It continued:  "Funny I should be calling somebody like you for help after all these years of going it alone."     The time was about 3:45, yesterday afternoon.     "What do you need?" I asked.     "I need-" he started, and stopped.  "Is this phone tapped?"     "No."     "You won't trace it, or call anybody, until I'm through talking?"     "No."     "I'll trust you," the man said.  Then, for a long minute, he said nothing.  Finally, he began again.  "I just flipped.  That's the only way to explain it."     "Explain what?"      "Why I broke out of jail.  It was about eight o'clock, after dinner, and I was just sitting there on my bunk and I started thinking about my kid.  I just flipped."     Now the conversation was coming easy.      "He's three, and I got this weird idea that he's run out in the street and be hit by a car.  Silly things.  Things like that were going through my mind."     "How did you escape?" I asked.     "Domestic troubles," he continued, ignoring the question.  "When my wife came to visit me, I told her to get a divorce.  It would be better for the kid -- and now we've got another one, a baby girl -- if he never remembered me.     "That's what I told her.  I told her I was no good.  That's what happens to me sometimes.  I get off on a negative kick."     "What were you doing time for?" I said.     There was a sigh.  "This'll get you.  Robbery, second degree.  They gave ma  a year.  With good time, I could have been out in March.  So I ran away.     "I ran straight home and saw the kid.  I was afraid he would have forgotten me, but he didn't.  I wasn't there thirty minutes when he turned to his mother and said, 'This is Daddy.' " The caller continued to unwind.  He was 33, he said.  He'd had one felony conviction for first degree robbery.  He got five-to-life for it.  He came out in April of '55, and not too long afterwards, he married.      "I got a good job.  I worked," he said.  "I thought everything was going to be all right.  Then I goofed.     "It was my fault.  It's been my fault all along.  Like this escape.  They trusted me, made me a trusty.  So I took off."     I asked him from where.     "Montrose substation.  My kid -- he talks real good now.  When I saw him the last time, he barely talked."     "What's your name?" I asked.     He answered without a hesitation.  "Elias Smith.  Elias like the Biblical Elias.  Elias Smith Jr."     "What are you going to do?"     This time, he paused.  "I wish I knew what they're going to do with me."     "You're ready to go back?" I pressed him slightly.     "It's one-to-ten years for escape," he sighed.  "When I left my wife last Monday, I told her I'd turn myself in.  I promised.  And she said she'd wait for me.  That was all I wanted to hear.     "I started to turn myself in, but I got confused.  Now it's Wednesday and I'm still confused.  You're not tracing this call, are you?" he asked again. He Got Confused         "No," I assured him.     "All right," he said doubtfully.  He told me where he was calling from.  "Now," he added, "two favors.  You call them for me, would you?  And give me 10 minutes for  a cup of coffee."     I waited 10 minutes, then called.     Half an hour later, a sheriff's deputy called me back to report that Elias Smith Jr. was a man of his word.

Beauty Queen Seeks Divorce From Dockworker

Nov. 18, 1959: Shirlee Garner Witty seeks a divorce, saying that her husband was always making snide remarks. Witty competed for the title of Miss Universe in 1956 even though she was a wife and mother, because at that time married women weren't banned from the beauty contest.

“The Sound of Music” opens with more than $2 million in advance ticket sales.

“You Know I Can’t Get Better.”

Hey, Keith, will the Bruins smite USC in their tilt?

Three Sought in Robbery, Killing

Dance tonight at the Roma, 616 S. Hill St.

Nov. 18, 1919: The housekeeper of a downtown rooming house is sought in the robbery and murder of the proprietor, W. Frank Sheets, and police are also looking for her husband and an associate in the killing. Police say that the housekeeper, Margaret Evans, was secretly married to Philip Gargano and that witnesses identified photos of Gargano and Alfonso Bassano as the two men seen running from the Santa Anita rooming house after the killing. A pistol found near the rooming house was registered to Gargano, police say.

Witness Describes Union Violence

Nov. 18, 1909: In Chicago, Bruno Verra testifies against Vincent and Joseph Altman, brothers charged with several bombings and arson fires on behalf of the carpenters union. Verra says he was paid $5 each to hit non-union carpenters and later got a steady job "to commit lawless acts" for $25 a week.

Baseball Players May Sue Over Nonpayment of World Series Bonuses

The Chicago players have been waiting for more than a month for their money from the World Series.

Nov. 17, 1919: Pacific Coast League umpires want the league to pay for pressing their pants.

Father Seizes Daughter in Child Custody Dispute

Nov. 17, 1909: The courts and the police grapple with a child custody case after a father seizes his 2-year-old daughter and refuses to say where she’s been hidden, based on advice from his attorney.

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 16, 1959

Search for Better Brand of Justice     Erle Stanley Gardner, you either like or dislike.     He's easy to categorize.     If you don't like him, he's a troublemaker, a rebel who gets his kicks by destroying the public's illusions concerning the integrity and intelligence of our district attorneys and police.     As author of more than 100 Perry Mason mystery novels, he's continually belittling these public servants.  His man Mason always shows them up.     As a private citizen, Gardner founded the now-famous Court of Last Resort, which, in freeing dozens of innocent men from prison, has proved in fact that our system of justice isn't infallible.     (And when you prove, time after time, that certain prosecutors and police ruined innocent men's lives in their over-zealousness, you're not about to win any popularity contests about law enforcement officials.)     If you like Gardner, he's the champion of the underdog, unafraid to step on anybody's toes.      The other day, however, I sat down with Gardner for a talk -- and walked away an hour later with a new definition of the man.     "Frankly," he told me, launching into one of his favorite subjects, "the basic problem facing law enforcement today is one of public relations.     "People get fed up seeing law enforcement authorities, and particularly prosecutors, take technical advantage of the laws.  Laws," he explained, "with usually severe penalties, enacted to curb a usual serious crime situation -- but they apply them to much lesser situations."     Gardner cited the Mann White Slavery Act.     "Years ago," he said, "people became fed up with the pimps and panderers who seduced young girls and forced them into prostitution.     "They passed the Mann Act.     "What happened after that was that a couple of young men took some women, who were ready, willing and able, on a train from Sacramento to Reno.  It was the type of weekend trip that is indulged in by young people from time to time and place to place everywhere -- with the single exception that they crossed a state line.     "To the extent that the people had in mind when they passed the law, there was no white slavery involved, but a prosecuting attorney promptly arrested them as white slavers."     Gardner also mentioned  a case in which an ordinary auto theft by a bunch of winos on a New Year's Eve was tortured into a kidnapping because the car's owner was passed out drunk on the back seat.     Gardner's dislike of "eager beaver" prosecutors -- D.A.'s who measure their personal success by number of convictions rather than whether they feel justice was done- is passionate.     But he's equally firm in his defense of district attorneys who try to live their role as representatives of the people with honor.     "I know one district attorney who committed political suicide by refusing to prosecute a man he felt was innocent," he said.     "Unless we give law enforcement authorities better tools with which to work," he said, "their hands are tied.  They're licked before they start. Element of Distrust     "Yet the legislatures won't give them the tools because they distrust what law enforcement will do with those tools.     "We need new laws to cope with modern conditions, but the people don't trust the prosecutors to apply them properly.     "The fundamental problem today," Erle Stanley Gardner concluded, "is how the people themselves feel toward prosecutors and toward police."     Gardner is neither a rebel nor a champion of the underdog.  He's merely a man in search of a better brand of "justice for all."

Plans for Aviation Meet

Glenn Curtiss takes to the air over Los Angeles, 1910.   Plans are underway for an aviation week in early 1910. Glenn Curtiss has already signed a contract to appear. The “woman in black” may be involved in white slavery.

Nov. 15, 1909: "There are more aeroplanes building and in design in Southern California than in any other like section of the world. All these are local products and at least a half dozen new machines are ready to be tried out or about to be tested, while a half score of others are nearing completion and may be ready for aviation week."

Servicemen Wreck L.A. Union Hall Over Armistice Day Shootings

Nov. 15, 1919:  In response to the Centralia, Wash., shootings, “Twenty-five silent, stalwart men in full uniform of the United States Army and Navy raided the headquarters of the local I.W.W. in the Germain Building while a ‘defense’ meeting of the reds was in progress and utterly wrecked the place shortly after 8 o'clock last night," The Times said. “They drove the terrified I.W.W. before them as leaves before a cyclone. Some of the reds jumped out of the window to escape the flailing blows of the avengers, armed with table legs and stout pieces of banister broken from the stairway railing as they rushed up. Others flew from room to room, endeavoring to get away, which most of the fifty percent finally did, much the worse for wear. “When the smoke of battle finally cleared away and the police held the premises, four of the I.W.W. were in the Receiving Hospital and five were under arrest, charged with inciting a riot. They will be charged with criminal syndicalism later, according to the police. No members of the raiding party were injured and none was arrested, as there is absolutely no clew to their identity or where they came from. A handful of citizens arrested them in the attack, but no one knows who they were. “