Paul V. Coates -- Confidential File, July 16, 1959

Confidential File Some Judges Deal in Real Justice Two weeks ago I quoted you a rather amazing conversation between an attorney and Los Angeles Municipal Judge George B. Ross. At least, to me it was amazing. The gist of the judge's remarks to the attorney, who was questioning the severity of the sentence given his client, was: If a man pleads not guilty and asks for a jury trial, and he's found guilty, and I believe he was obviously guilty, it's going to cost him a lot more than if he pleaded guilty in the first place. The attorney, Louis Romero, argued that trial by jury was the right of everyone, rich or poor. It was not a privilege reserved only for the wealthy. He added that levying heavier fines against individuals who used their right of jury trial was a deterrent to justice. Judge Ross replied, "Maybe so, but that is what I am doing. That is what other judges are doing, and you are going to have a to persuade a lot of judges to change their minds..." At the time, I questioned Judge Ross' statement that it is a common practice of our courts to soak someone for exercising a constitutional right. And last week, Mirror News reporter Paul Weeks polled several judges, who both denied and criticized the use of such a policy. I thought, then, that possibly Judge Ross' attitude was a unique one. But today I received a copy of "The Open Forum," official publication of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. In it was the following article:  "A Long Beach judge who habitually set excessive bail when a defendant insisted on a jury trial was officially condemned in a ruling handed down by Superior Judge Frank G. Swain last month. "The court granted a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the appeal of Emery Newbern, merchant seaman, and ordered his bail reduced from $500 to the customary $25. "Judge Swain appointed ACLU counsel A.L. Wirin to represent Newbern in the appeal of Municipal Judge Charles T. Smith's bail policy. "Wirin argued that the Long Beach jurist had denied Newbern's constitutional rights to reasonable bail solely because the defendant has exercised another constitutional right, trial by jury. Bail Held Excessive "Judge Swain held that $500 bail on a drunk charge is 'excessive' and penalizes the petitioner for demanding his constitutional rights. " 'It is undisputed that the purpose of bail is to assure defendant's presence in court at the required time and bail set at a figure higher than an amount reasonably calculated to fulfill this purpose is excessive under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S.Constitution,' Judge Swain ruled. "At Newbern's arraignment, Judge Smith remarked from the bench, 'My policy is that if you plead not guilty and demand trial by jury and are found guilty, you are going to get 90 days in jail; and I will bet you 100 to 1 that the jury finds you guilty.' " Judge Smith's quoted remark is about as shocking a statement as I've ever heard attributed to a man paid by the taxpayers of our country to administer justice. If it weren't for the cynicism which accompanies my advancing age, I'd say that a judge's betting a defendant that a jury will find him guilty is an inconceivable bit of dialogue. It sounds like something out of a burlesque routine or out of a Moscow courtroom. However, such bizarre interpretations of justice in our courtrooms are more the exception than the rule. It's reassuring to know that there are dedicated men like Judge Swain who don't feel that the robe is so sacred that its wearers aren't subject to public criticism when the occasion warrants. And if Judge Smith made the remarkable statement attributed to him, the occasion certainly warrants.

Paul V. Coates -- Confidential File, July 15, 1959

Confidential File Harry Karl's Barber Is Pro Tem Leftist When he's not busy totaling the day's receipts, Harry Karl, the shoe tycoon, is a member in good standing of a social class known as the idle rich. He is, so to speak, loaded. Unlike you or me, he doesn't wait until the "January white" sales are announced to replenish his home linen supply. If his neighborhood supermarket is featuring ground round as a week-end special, he's the kind of guy who'll shrug it off and plop a seven-bone roast into his push-cart. You get the idea? Money, with Harry, is no object. Take haircuts. I know, and you know, that at $1.75 a head, barbers are getting away with daring daylight robbery. But that's not Harry's feelings. For a perfect trim and the proper swivel-chair treatment, he'll go as high as $1,000. You don't believe me? Well, sit down and hear me out. Recently, Karl was sitting in Maury's chair at the Beverly-Wilshire Health Club, pondering a problem of relatively immense proportions, considering the moment. He was about to leave on an extended vacation to Hawaii. While there, he would need a haircut. And Maury, his barber for 22 years, wouldn't be available, obviously, to perform the ritual. "The only answer," Karl sighed finally, "is for you to fly over after me." Maury, a man quick to oblige the whims of his customers, agreed to make the trip. On schedule, Maury arrived in Honolulu. Karl's chauffeur met him at the airport and drove him to the hotel. Although it was still before 7 a.m., the barber went directly to his customer's hotel suite. He banged on the door until Karl woke up and opened it. The shoe magnate muttered a sleepy greeting, yawned luxuriously and rubbed his eyes until he could see reasonably well. What he saw made him turn pale. The barber's right arm was neatly encased in a plaster cast. "Maury!" he cried, pointing at it in horror. "What's that?" "My arm," the barber replied. "I broke it three days ago." "You can't do that to me," Karl screamed. "Look at my hair. Three weeks I've been waiting for you to come over here and cut it. And whatta you do? You break your arm." "I didn't do it on purpose," Maury pleaded. "A thousand bucks it cost me to get you over here," Karl raged, pacing up and down. "Why didn't you call and tell me you broke your arm? Why did you come all the way over here?" Maury shrugged. "You got me the ticket, I figured I might as well use it. I never been to Honolulu before." Karl collapsed into a chair and buried his uncut head in his hands. Maury patted him on the back with his good arm. "Look," he said soothingly, "we'll go to the hotel barber and I'll give him directions how to cut." "Directions!" Karl shouted. "You could've done that on the telephone. A thousand dollars you cost me. You're a rat, Maury. You hear me? A rat." Karl continued pacing and furiously banging a fist into his hand. Finally, with an exasperated sigh, he said: "As long as you're here, you might as well stay for a day." "No hard feelings?" the barber asked meekly. "My luck," Karl muttered bitterly. "I got to wind up with a one-arm barber." Guy Needs Some Killing "No hard feelings?" Maury repeated. "Let's shake on it." With a flourish, he thrust out the "broken" arm. "See? It isn't broken," he said brightly. "It was just a gag I thought up before I left." I'd like to end this story by telling you that Karl took the barber's arm and broke it. But he didn't. If he had, it would mean flying in Maury's partner from the mainland. And, after all, who ever heard of paying $2,000 for one haircut.

Paul V. Coates -- Confidential File, July 14, 1959

Confidential File Life Must Go On, Even After Murder On Feb. 19 of this year, Robert L. Mason, 40, went wild with a gun. He entered the Glendale home of jazz musician Johnny Zorro. He shot Zorro's wife, 31-year-old Mrs. Rona Porrazzo, critically wounding her. And, with two more bullets, he killed Zorro's mother-in-law, Mrs. Susan Jamerson, 52. At the time of the shooting, Zorro was working in Las Vegas. His son, Page, 5, was the man of the house, and a witness to the murder. These facts have all been reported and recorded -- by the police, by the press and by the courts which eventually decided that Mason should die for his crime. But what hasn't been reported is the lingering aftermath of the headline case of murder in the first degree. Yesterday I met Johnny Zorro for the first time since we were together in the Glendale Police Station, where Mason was being booked following his return from Winslow, Ariz. Zorro was crying at Mason, an acquaintance of five years: "C'mon and face me. Aren't you man enough?" He was pounding the table in front of Mason's chair and shouting: "You've ruined my wife's life, my son's life. My mother-in-law is gone." Zorro's conversation with me yesterday bore out too much of his prophecy. A front-page murder may be forgotten by the public, but its aftermath is still there to be lived out. Zorro told me, first of all, about his wife. "You'll remember," he said softly, "that nobody expected her to live. The bullet had lodged behind her right ear. "She was six weeks in the hospital and in bed three months. One side of her face is still paralyzed. Now, we'll just have to wait." The young musician added: "Already she's done so many things the doctors said were impossible." Today, Mrs. Porrazzo walks unaided. But the vision in one eye blurs frequently. She becomes dizzy quickly. There's always the noise of a roar in her right ear. "She wants to get back in her church work. She was real active in it before the shooting," Zorro told me. "More than anything, though, little Pagie's the reason she's alive today. She wants to live for the boy, for his sake." Pagie, named by his parents for their friend, Page Cavanaugh, has his memories of the tragedy, too. "Like in our telephone number list, we had Mason's name and phone number. Written in a long time ago," Zorro said. "Without saying anything to us, little Pagie got a pencil the other day and scratched it out. "The kid talks about what happened sometimes and he asks me, 'Daddy, do you think he can break out of jail?'" There's also a price tag on tragedy, the musician admitted -- a tag way out of line with the family's income. Zorro's wife has undergone three operations. "We had two cars," he said. "I sold one. I sold some furniture. Right now, I guess I still owe about $2,500. I'll just pay it off little by little." Family Must Be Preserved Zorro, a singer who plays the electric guitar, added that he's worked only a couple of times since the shooting. "Naturally, I had to be both mother and father to Page when Rona was in the hospital. I still like to stay home a lot, to be around if I'm needed. "I know I've got to get back working," he added. "I've been trying, looking around. But things sure seem quiet now. It's tight. "I'll stay in the music business," Zorro explained. "I've been supporting myself in it since I was 16. But I don't know about all the traveling. "The main thing now," he concluded, "is to keep my family together." Note: Here are some clippings on the Daily Mirror about the Porrazzo case.

Paul V. Coates -- Confidential File, July 13, 1959

July 13, 1959: California, the welfare magnet. Confidential File Are Juveniles Really Delinquent? Let me speak for the record. I'm against juvenile delinquents. They're a menace. No question about it. Not only are they constantly getting into trouble themselves, they're setting a very bad example for all the rest of us. So, I'm against them. I think they should be avoided at every turn. The trouble is, however, I no longer can be certain whom to avoid. It wasn't long ago that "juvenile delinquent" was a badge of dishonor pinned on kids whose behavior was, clearly, criminally antisocial. Today, though, we're applying it recklessly to any youngster whose behavior is just mildly annoying. A teen-ager doesn't have to swipe hubcaps in order to earn the delinquent label any more. He can get one for bothering the neighbors by playing ball in the street. In the dear, dim, dead days of my youth, I was frequently smeared by irate neighbors and not just a few relatives as a "brat" or an "ill-mannered punk." These are not the softest terms in the world. But certainly they are less dire and ominous than being called a "juvenile delinquent." I think we've developed a kind of hysterical fear about our kids. We interpret much of the natural mischief and experimentation of growing up as a sure sign of criminal tendency. When I was a kid, swiping an apple was almost socially acceptable. (Provided, of course, you took it from a neighbor's tree. Only cops could snitch them from fruit stands.) Today, it constitutes petty theft. Sneaking into the movies was a regular Saturday ritual. If you got caught you got booted out, and that was it. Now, you'd probably be arrested for breaking and entering. Perhaps I exaggerate. But not much. Not when I read about a U.S. attorney in Honolulu named Louis Blissard. He's a gentleman, I think, who clearly portrays the weird way we are misbehaving toward our kids in this enlightened age. Last week Blissard became involved in a case concerning two L.A. area girls, ages 13 and 16, who stowed away on the ocean liner Lurline when it embarked for Hawaii. With their parents, the girls had gone to bid some voyager friends good-by, but apparently became so enraptured with the farewell festivities that they laid low aboard ship until it was safely away from dock. Immediately on their discovery, the family's friends saw to it that the pair became paid-up passengers, with a stateroom. They were well-chaperoned and, except for their initial sin of stowing away, well-behaved. But on arrival in Honolulu they were, according to dispatches, taken into custody by police, fingerprinted and charged with juvenile delinquency by U.S. Atty. Blissard. Lays Down Law Blissard then made it clear that -- chaperoned or not, and regardless of their parents' wishes -- the girls would be prosecuted as delinquents if they weren't sent back home on the first available plane. Obviously, there was no malicious intent on the part of the girls. Nobody was hurt, except their parents -- in the pocketbook. And their parents, I'd guess, are capable of dealing out whatever punishment was necessary on that score. However, if those two kids are -- as U.S. Atty. Blissard apparently feels they are -- candidates for a juvenile detention home, then we better get busy right now putting up more barbed wire. About 90% of today's kids ought to be locked up. And as for us parents, we should be damned thankful that we were brought up in an era when adults differentiated between mischief and maliciousness, or we'd have prison records instead of happy memories to look back on.

Paul V. Coates -- Confidential File, July 11, 1959

Confidential File Smog Blinds His Objectivity Traveling newspaper correspondents -- for want of something better to report -- get their kicks by diagnosing the ills of each city on their itinerary. And usually, because of deadlines and harassment by their editors, they have to do it fast. Like, say, 20 minutes after they check into their downtown hotel, they've got to unlock their typewriter and begin recording their impressions. This gives them time to glance at the headlines of the local press, talk to two bellboys, a cab driver and one waitress and overhear an argument between a middle-aged matron and a room clerk. The results generally are similar to the following, a recent summation of the city of Los Angeles by a correspondent of London's Daily Express: "This is America's smog city. The filthy, swirling muck is as much a menace here to health and happiness as it is in London and Manchester... "Whereas New York goes to ridiculous lengths upwards, Los Angeles goes to ridiculous lengths sideways. "It is in area the world's largest city -- as all its taxi drivers never fail to point out proudly during their 20-mile, $5 drives. "The result is appalling for city living. "Two million, five hundred thousand people are smeared thinly over a 450-square mile area of perpetual suburb. "Your neighbor is a half-hour drive away, your supermarket a healthy trek, your local pub a plane trip. "A novelty shop on Hollywood Blvd. claims to sell 'real stardust -- gathered electromagnetically from outer space, with the aid of the latest scientific techniques.' "Yet all the star-dusted creatures are supposed to live within a few blocks." Taking this man's comments as a whole, I've got to admit that he encountered some pretty observant bellboys, waitresses, and cab drivers. But there's one point where I take exception -- that crack about it being a plane trip to your local pub. That's not true. And it's just this kind of propaganda that gives us a bad name all over the world. :: While on the subject of plentiful pubs, I'm sorry to report that through some clever lobbying, the proponents of Senate Bill 1093 maneuvered their pet through the House and Senate in Sacramento, and onto the desk of Gov. Brown for signature. Booze Sale Near Schools The legislation opens up to retail liquor establishments and bars some previously protected territory around certain schools, institutions and hospitals where it would be dangerous, or at least ill advised, to peddle booze at the premises' gates. It's pure special interest legislation. It's going to make a few people rich. (Or richer, as the case may be.) And that's a rotten reason for permitting it to become law. If you're interested in stopping it, drop a card to Gov. Brown. His veto can kill it. :: As proof that the public can have the final say in government if it's willing to speak up, an ordinance outlawing pinball machines went into effect this week in El Monte. The profitable pinball pay-off games -- for years well protected by selfish interests in the community -- were finally put to a vote a couple of weeks ago after some intensive petition passing by concerned parents in the area. The citizens effected the ban by a 535-to-334 vote.

Paul V. Coates -- Confidential File, July 10, 1959

Confidential File Mash Notes and Comments "Dear Paul, "Have you taken a close look in the mirror recently? "Well, we here at the Encino Summer Playhouse have. And do you know what we saw? "YOU -- as an actor! "Now we are prepared to offer you a deal. We'd like you to take part in our play, 'Laura,' which opens July 24 for two weeks. "How would you like to have your name up in lights in front of our theater? That's a pretty exciting thought, isn't it? Just think of the comment it would cause among your close circle of friends. "Your first reaction is probably something like this: " 'Aw, go on. I'm too busy writing a column and doing a TV program every day.' "Sure, you're busy! We're all busy! "But a true artist never thinks of that. All he can think of is the excitement of opening night -- "The blaring overture...A quick once-over of the script to make sure you know your lines...The butterflies in your stomach doing the minute-waltz incha-cha-cha time...The last minute touches to your makeup...Then, the creak of the curtain going up in all its faded glory...And there you are -- in the flesh -- for all the world to see!" (signed) Bill Dodge,Encino Summer Playhouse, 4935 Balboa Ave., Encino.     -- I'm not going on like that unless the rest of the cast does. :: "Dear Sir: "A compulsion drives many imperfectly educated men, like the writer, to put words on paper expounding theories and opinions that spring from the bottomless well of their imagination; an imagination that is renewed by contact with the works of literary giants and is similar to the method used by Antaeus to renew his strength. "A representative example of this compulsion follows: "Parkey Sharkey exists as the California counterpart of the British 'man who never was,' although neither run much danger of being tagged with a Social Security number. "There is one significant difference between these two illusions: the 'man who never was' played a vital role in a desperate war, while Parkey Sharkey is the embodiment of his creator's frustration, tinged with revulsion, which is the natural result when an imaginative writer like you is forced into contact with the helpless, the downtrodden and the foolish. "In short, a sensitive person must resort to such allegorical devices if he is to remain at all objective on the job in the face of the ceaseless waves of human misery beating against his desk... "That's it. Or rather, it's only it until the next time the trigger is pulled by a remembrance, an article, a word. What do you think?" (signed) Harold Parrow, P.O. Box 42507, L.A. 42.     -- What should I think? You've just told me that my best friend in the whole world is only a hallucination. :: "to Paul, "I have two jobs now, when I get through cleaning up the Oasis bar, I deliver Chinese dinners for a Chinese resterant. "The other night I asked the Chinese cook, what you got for supper??? "He ran off a list of Chinese dinners which I had never heard of before. I had never had a Chinese dinner before, Paul, so I said Chow Mein, without the chopsticks. I can't eat with them. "Paul, my wife is driving me nuts. "The other day she walked a 82-year-old man home from a bar. He was drunk. They were crossing the street at a signal when his pants fell off him, and my wife had to pull his pants up for him in the middle of the street." (signed) Parkey Sharkey, c/o Oasis Bar, Menlo Park.     -- Lies! Lies! Lies!

Paul V. Coates -- Confidential File, July 9, 1959

July 5, 1959: Ira Cockrum is arrested in the death of his grandson. Confidential File About a Grandpa Who Killed Michael Gary Cockrum, a stocky little kid with blond hair and desert-brown skin, was buried yesterday. After 14 years of being alive, he was laid to rest in Lancaster Community Cemetery. And all the family was there to pay final respects. All except his Grandpa Ira, who blasted Michael to eternity with his shotgun last Friday. Grandpa Ira's in jail. You probably read in the papers over the week end how deputies picked him up and booked him for murder of Mike and for injuring Mike's brother, George Jr., 10, in a family feud over a $12 electric iron. I read it, too, but somehow, I forgot about it until I got a call yesterday from the dead boy's father. George Cockrum Sr. phoned me shortly after he, his wife and his three other sons, Georgie Jr., Charles, 9, and Dennis, 4, had left the cemetery. "About my father killing my son that way," the 44-year-old hod carrier told me, "I'd kind of like to straighten out some of the things that was said." The reports in the papers said that Cockrum, who arrived at the scene minutes after the tragedy, was restrained from attacking his father with a baseball bat. "What happened," he explained, "was that I did pick up that baseball bat. And I was walking at my papa. But nobody got in my way. "By myself, I dropped it. "I knew, before I reached him, that if I hit him, God would punish me." Cockrum told me that his father was a big, strong man for his 64 years. 'Pa Had a Bad Temper' "He drank and he had a bad temper," he said. "Pa always had a bad temper. When I was a kid, he used to beat on my mother something awful. "But he was an awful hard worker, and he paid the bills. My father would be good sometimes. He could be real good, too." Then George Cockrum talked about his dead son. "Michael was a good boy. He wasn't a tall boy. He was stocky, but there was no fat on him. "Strange," Cockrum recalled, "but my father always did kindly favor Michael. In fact, Michael had been helping him work on his house until just lately, when Michael told me he'd rather not go over there no more. Grandpa was cussing at him too much, he said. "I told the boy that if he didn't want to, he didn't have to. "My papa's been worse lately," the dead boy's father continued. "His father -- my grandpa -- died two or three years ago. He grieved over that. Then, two months ago, my mother died. That hit him. Extra hard, I guess, 'cause of the way he treated her. "It got so he wouldn't listen to any of us. He told me just last month, 'Georgie, if you don't watch out, something's going to happen. It's going to happen to one of your loved ones.' 'I Hope He Finds God' "I said, 'Papa, you're sick. I'm going to take you to a doctor.' Last week I got an appointment for him. For the 10th of this month. I just got it too late." Cockrom cleared his throat. "If anybody was to ask me how I feel about my father, I'd have to say that I feel sorry for him. I hope and pray that he gets down on his knees and finds God. I hope God helps him, because I know he's a sick man. "I love my father. I loved my boy. He thought a lot of that boy, too. "Tomorrow," George Cockrum told me, "they'll be bringing him back here to Lancaster for his trial. I haven't seen him, but I hear he's been asking for cigarettes. I'm taking him a few, I guess. "But what I don't know," he added, "I just don't know why he done me this way."

Paul V. Coates -- Confidential File, July 8, 1959

Confidential File How Secrets Filter From Me to Kozlov WASHINGTON, July 8 -- Allowing Soviet Deputy Premier Kozlov to visit the University of California's radiation laboratory at Berkeley has been called "soft-headed nonsense" by Rep. Lipscomb (R-Los Angeles). Lipscomb angrily demanded official explanations for the Russian's visit to the top security installation while American newsmen were excluded for security reasons. Rep. Lipscomb makes a good propaganda point in this Washington report, but as sometimes happens, the story is wrong. Newsmen DID tag along with Koslov. He raises a point, though, that shouldn't go unanswered. Should U.S. reporters be trusted with a lot of top-secret information? Or is a little knowledge a dangerous thing? I'm not speaking for all of us American newsmen. Just for me. But the way I look at it, Rep. Lipscomb should keep his nose out of our private battles with the State Department. If [Secretary of State Christian A.] Herter's hired hands want to show our nuclear secrets to the Russians and bar the door to us reporters, I say they've got their reasons. They probably figure that if they let us in and deny admission to Kozlov, the Kremlin would find out soon enough, anyway. Take me, for instance. Suppose I were admitted into the radiation lab at Berkeley as a newsman. I'd come home that evening and my wife would say, "What happened at the office today?" "I'm beat," I'd tell her. "What'd you do?" she would press. "Nothing." "Nothing," she'd snort. She would keep it up a while longer, and finally I'd blurt out: "If you must know, I was at Berkeley inspecting a double meglacyclotron atom smasher with powerglide. But it's top secret." Early the next morning the dry cleaning man would come by for his weekly pickup. She would hand him my suit. "He looks a little baggy in the knees this week," the cleaning man would say. Had to Get on Knees My wife would nod. "He was out at Berkeley inspecting a top-secret double meglacyclotron atom smasher with powerglide. And I guess he had to get on his knees to get a good look." The cleaning man would tell it to his cousin Sandra, who plays bass viol with Phil Spitainy's All-Girl Orchestra. And, on a one-nighter in Sioux City, Sandra would tell a stage-door Johnny who dates her because he digs bass viol, that her cousin, the cleaning man in L.A., has a customer who saw a top-secret double meglacyclotron atom smasher with powerglide. The stage-door Johnny, a salesman who travels in ladies cut-rate lingerie, would casually let it drop to the buyer at John Wanamaker in Philadelphia , who would put it in an air-mail letter to his aging mother in the Bronx, whose sister Jennie has an unmarried daughter, Sophie, who rooms with a girl named Tanya who is a waitress at the Russian Tea Room opposite Carnegie Hall on 57th Street in New York. During the post-lunchtime lull, Tanya would confide to another waitress that her roommate's mother's sister's son at John Wanamaker knows a salesman who dates a bass viol player with Phil Spitainy whose cousin, a cleaning man, has a customer who saw a top-secret double meglacyclotron atom smasher with powerglide. Cloak, Complete With Dagger She would be overheard by a girl with muscular calves and an almost imperceptible mustache who has a 10-minute glass-of-tea break from rehearsals of the Bolshot ballet next door. Now, this girl is not really a ballerina. She's a fink for Anastas Mikoyan. And she would promptly send him a coded letter. A few days later, at the regular 9 a.m. sales conference of the deputy premier in the Kremlin, Anastas would take Kozlev aside and smugly ask: "You just got back. Do you know about their double meglacyclotron atom smasher with powerglide?"

Paul V. Coates -- Confidential File, July 7, 1959

Confidential File Ensenada's Brooding About Tijuana's Sins For natives of Ensenada there's a long, lean summer ahead. The gaiety picked up a little over the Cuatro de Julio* weekend, but so far this year, the Baja California resort city has been suffering from more than the heat. Its problem is one of economics. Ensenada was conceived and weaned on the Mexican peso, but it grew city-big on the American dollar. And it's been the American dollar which has supported its relative prosperity in the last few decades of its phenomenal growth. Specifically, the American tourist dollar. But now, I'm informed, the economy is hurting badly. Visitors from north of the border -- once as reliable as San Juan Capistrano's swallows -- suddenly aren't reliable any more. In fact, they're avoiding Ensenada this summer like they're unaware that the overgrown seaside village exists at all. The reason they are, in case you can't guess, is that they're afraid.  Not afraid in the cowardly sense. It's just that they'd rather not take unnecessary chances on the strange brand of justice which too frequently is meted out by Baja California courts and police. The atrocious treatment accorded visitors in the border town of Tijuana and the publicity it received in recent months have influenced an awful lot of people to change any Baja California vacation plans which might have been formulating in their minds. Now that the pocketbook pinch is on, I'm told that the merchants of Ensenada are beginning to wake up to the fact that some terrible things have been happening to tourists in Tijuana. They're outright shocked, I'm told. They're stunned by the inhumane treatment being doled out to prospective paying customers. Now they're adding their voices to the cry of clean up Tijuana. And while I'm sad that the current economic squeeze might be hurting some of the small, decent individuals in Ensenada, I'm glad that the businessmen there are finally "aware" of conditions in the sin city 72 miles to their north. I'm glad, even if their compassion is inspired by the dollar signs. ::  Not just some things, but apparently everything is haywire in Gov. Long's domain these days. I received a letter this week from a longtime correspondent of mine in the Louisiana State Penitentiary. It was postmarked Angola, La. The date stamped on the envelope by the post-office canceling machine was Aug. 11, 1959. Maybe it's true, after all, that we damn Yankees are behind the times. *Cuatro de Julio: A holiday celebrated annually in Ensenada and Tijuana honoring Jorge Washington, whose picture is on the U.S. one-dollar bill.

Paul V. Coates -- Confidential File, July 6, 1959

July 6, 1959: "Our Boarding House With Major Hoople." Kaff Kaff! Confidential File Fourth Shenanigans Shock Monarchist I trust this raucous celebration can be considered at an end until next July the Fourth. Now then, if the parades have run their routes, the Elks' bands have laid up their wind instruments, the bunting has been swept away, the lemonade jugs have been drunk dry and the din of the last cherry bomb has faded, I can tell you. I can tell you that I have little patience with all this unrestrained enthusiasm. To me, it represents a shocking display. Why? Well, if you must know, old man, I'm a monarchist. Not a militant one. Just a rather wistful, sentimental one. And it pains me deeply, every year at this time, to note the extraordinary behavior of the colonists. Really, it is quite bad form to make such a public spectacle of one's feelings over an unfortunate misunderstanding that happened so long ago. It just isn't the sort of thing one does. At least, this one doesn't. I spend my Fourth of July feeling rather sad that we were unable or unwilling to find some gentlemanly course for agreement with our ruler, George III. Grant you, he was a stuffy old duck. But he was not unapproachable. And the whole ugly mess might have been resolved to everyone's satisfaction if we had been guided by calmer heads. Instead we engaged in that atrociously ill-mannered Boston Tea Party and allowed ourselves to be swayed by the histrionics of such malcontents as Patrick Henry. However, that's all water under the bridge, as the saying goes. I suppose there really isn't much we can do about it now. Unless, of course, there are enough of us and we all band together. My dedication to the crown is not totally free of emotional entanglement. The fact is, I am secretly in love with the queen. And I hope she's happy with Philip. Although, frankly, I fail to see how anyone could be happy married to a man whose idea of a ruddy good joke is to turn the lawn sprinklers on unsuspecting newspaper photogs. While it may be presumptuous of me to say so, Her Royal Highness is my kind of a girl. She's got -- how shall I put it? Real class! I love the way she looks, the way she walks and the way she talks. And the way she talks, incidentally, is another reason that I am an Anglophile. Lost Our Language It is my sincere belief that when we won our independence, we lost our language. A people who once paid solemn homage to the King's English have been miserably reduced to speaking in a slack-jawed drawl. It didn't happen immediately, you understand. It has been a gradual, insidious process. But over the years our speech  has become infected by an epidemic of double negatives and worse which crept stealthily up from the bayous, down from the Ozarks, in from the Panhandle and out from the Bronx. The carrier has been the popular song. And the sickness first came over us, at least in my time, with a grammatical abortion called "I Ain't Got Nobody." This was followed in quick succession with "Yes, We Have No Bananas," "Ain't She sweet?" "Them There Eyes," "Is You Is, or Is You Ain't My Baby?" "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More" and, recently, a sloppily insensible ballad called "Throw Mamma From the Train a Kiss." You see my point, I'm sure. If we were still part of the empire such things could never happen. And that peculiar Tennessee Teddy Boy, Elvis Presley, would be obliged to sing it, "You Aren't Anything but a Hound Dog." "It may not have much of a beat that way, but it's proper, by gad.