From the Los Angeles Daily Times, September 15, 1900

MERRY BANQUET.

Feasts and Toasts at the Van Nuys.

Officers of Insurance Company Honored

Large and Fine Gathering, and Good Speeches — Tribute to Old Glory.
 

Two lean and hungry hoboes stood in front of the Van Nuys Hotel [pictured] last night. They were peeking in over the sash curtains at the blaze of light, at the gleam of men’s linen, at the clinking crystal, glittering under the soft glow of shaded candles.

Said the little hobo to the big hobo in esthetic tone, “Say, git onto de decorations, will you?”

“Decorations,” snorted the big hobo; “decorations, hell! Look what they got to eat.”

It was the christening party of a new insurance company, which has just been organized by prominent men of this city.

It is known as the Conservative Life Insurance Company of Los Angeles. Its officers are:

The directors are Frederick H. Rindge, H.G. Brainerd, Milo Baker, David W. Edwards, John R. Haynes, Wilbur S. Tupper. . . .

A large number of invitations were sent out, and it was over a hundred of the city’s finest who sat down to the long tables. There were lawyers and judges and doctors and merchants, insurance men, ministers, all solid names.

The dining hall was exquisitely decorated with ropes of smilax studded with red flowers. The light was shed softly, through shades of crimson upon tables all a-glimmer and strewn with scattered rose petals. With the men all in evening dress, it was a pretty scene. A magnificent musical program was rendered.

The repast was elaborate and long, the menu being as follows:

California oyster cocktail.

Cream of asparagus.

Canape caviare.

Salted olives.

Mission olives.

Turban of sole, mariniere.

Duchesse potatoes.

Sliced cucumbers.

Tenderloin of beef, grilled, aux truffes.

French peas.

Roast squab, pepper cress.

Julienne potatoes.

Cold tomatoes, mayonnaise.

Lady fingers.

Macaroons.

Neapolitan ice cream.

Assorted fruit.

Black coffee.

Cigars.

  Dan Freeman was to have acted as toastmaster, but at the last moment was taken ill. Dr. Walter Lindley took up his duties most charmingly. There were many excellent and witty speechlets, although the formation of a new insurance company is not as inspiring to eloquence as some topics.

The poor, old, long-suffering Irishman was pressed into service the usual number of times. Was anybody but an Irishman ever admitted to have said anything good?

And there were the “you remember the boys” and “like the man who said.”

One of the crispest talks of the evening was a bunch of breezy anecdotes made apropos by Rev. George T. Dowling. . . .

Dr. Dowling has discovered that there is a bond of sympathy between ministers of the gospel and insurance agents. One, he says, deals in life insurance, and the [other] ministers in fire insurance.

Will E. Chapin gave an impromptu speech, although he protested that, as a man “with a weak heart and a busted lung,” he had no use for insurance companies, and couldn’t get into one if he wanted to.

Mr. Chapin spoke amusingly of the fact that two or three Anglo-Saxons never get together that they do not become seized with a desire to resolute or make speeches. He passed easily to the new insurance company and to the future of Los Angeles, which he believes to be assured because it is built of the best nerve and brawn of the East.

Rev. E.A. Healy, in the course of a few remarks, told a good story of Senator Beveridge. He said two or three of his townsmen were discussing the relative merits of their lawyers. One asserted that Beveridge was the best lawyer in the city.

“How are you going to prove it?” asked one of the others.

“I don’t have to. Beveridge will admit it.”

A short address was delivered by Judge B.N. Smith, who spoke of the future of the West and of this community.

“Our West is the East now,” he said, “for the door of the Orient has swung open.”

Frederick H. Rindge, Dr. John R. Haynes and several others spoke.

The last speech of the evening was the response of Hon. Will A. Harris to the toast, “Our country and our flag.” Mr. Harris is a magnificent talker. He has a glorious voice, and he wields it with the nicety of an artist. His talk last night was only a moment long. He made it a beautiful tribute to those things which every true man holds most dear, but concerning which it is given to so few to speak of.

Here is a pretty bit from it:

“We find our flag disputing the gorgeousness of the aurora borealis, in the North. We find it at the thunder of the Atlantic and at the shores of Porto Rico, to the East. To the West, it floats where the ocean laps that dreamland of the Pacific, the Hawaiian Islands; there, on the distant islands [the Philippines] where it was planted by the bravery of our marines and soldiers.”

And another:

“We place our faith in the glory of our women, in our public schools, which are as characteristic of the United States as the gladiator was of Rome. So long as the school ma’am is abroad, we need not fear for the destiny of our republic.”

 

The images of the Van Nuys hotel are from Brent C. Dickerson’s Web site, A Visit to Old Los Angeles.
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The Men at the Banquet — All Men

Conservative Life. The company, according to Clark Davis, in White-Collar Life and Corporate Cultures in Los Angeles, 1892-1941 (Johns Hopkins, 2000), was singularly successful. It took over San Francisco-based Pacific Mutual in 1906, keeping the latter name. Return to text.

David W. Edwards later founded the popular Bimini Baths indoor swimming pool. For an article about Bimini, click here. Edwards lived at 900 Beacon Ave., at the corner of Ninth (present James M. Wood Blvd.) Return to text.

Wilbur S. Tupper lived at 737 Whittier St., a few blocks from Edwards. That street is now part of Columbia Ave. or of Witmer St. Return to text.

Stephen M. White had been a United States senator and a lieutenant governor of California. He was a noted scholar of constitutional law, but he was better known locally for leading the fight to create the Los Angeles Harbor at San Pedro rather than in Santa Monica. His statue is at the entrance to the Cabrillo Beach Museum in San Pedro. White, who lived at 1058 S. Main St. (near the corner of present Olympic Blvd.), died in February 1901 at the age of 48. Read his biography in the Catholic Encyclopedia. Return to text.

Milo Baker lived at 1519 Ingraham St., between Valencia and Union streets in the Westlake district. Return to text.

Thomas B. Inch, listed in the 1901 city directory as a “clerk,” lived four blocks from Edwards, at 947 S. Alvarado Ave. Return to text.

George I. Cochran lived closer to downtown along Ninth St., at 947 S. Figueroa St., opposite the Women’s Club building. Return to text.

Alfred W. Morgan, a public accountant, lived in the West Adams district — at 2123 Thompson St. (present Portland St.) Return to text.

Frederick Hastings Rindge was owner of the 13,000 acre Malibu Ranch. His daughter, Rhoda, and her husband, Merritt H. Adamson, established the Adohr ("Rhoda" spelled backward) Stock Farms, which became the world’s largest milk producer. From Find-a-Grave. A sycophantic biography of Rindge, with a photo, is at the Harvard Magazine Web site. He lived out in Santa Monica, but he probably kept a flat or house in town, too (just my guess). Return to text.

Henry G. Brainerd, a physician, was dean of the College of Medicine at the University of Southern California. He founded the School of Dentistry there. Brainerd lived much closer to the center of action, at 315 W. Sixth St. (see below). Return to text.

John Randolph Haynes, also a physician, helped to organize a local chapter of the Union Reform League in 1897. The league's long-range goal was Christian socialism, “but in the meantime it settled for immediate reforms: woman suffrage, direct legislation, public ownership of utilities, civil service, graduated taxes, and other objectives of Progressive-era crusaders. . . . In the next four decades Haynes became the major reform figure in Los Angeles and one of the most important in California.” From the Haynes Foundation Web site. He lived at 945 S. Figueroa St., opposite the Women's Club building and next door to Cochran. Return to text.

George T. Dowling was rector of Christ Episcopal Church, which was on the northeast corner of Flower and W. Pico (the present site of a building housing OFS Fabrics and Versailles Fine Textiles). Although he lived in Pasadena, there may have been a church rectory to which he could retire when duty kept him out late, as on a night like this. Return to text.

Besides being an after-dinner speaker, Will E. Chapin was an illustrator and cartoonist, as you can see by clicking here. He also lived in the Westlake district, at 418 Dora St. (present Park View St.) Click here to read about Chapin in a fist fight. Return to text.

Ezra A. Healy, according to Vernon Squires, was on the first board of trustees of the University of North Dakota in 1881, then moved to Los Angeles, where he later was dean of the Department of Theology at USC. Both his church, University Methodist Episcopal, at 1030 W. Jefferson Ave., and his residence, at 1017 W. 35th, have been swallowed by the USC campus. Return to text.

Albert Jeremiah Beveridge (1862–1927), the noted and oft-quoted U.S. senator from Indiana (1899–1911), supported the policies of Theodore Roosevelt Return to text.

Will A. Harris, an attorney, had given a similar talk on May 1900 at the dedication in Central Park (later Pershing Square) of the monument to National Guardsmen who had volunteered to fight in the Spanish-American War but who never left California. (From the L.A. Public Art site.) Harris lived at 929 Ninth St., near Golden Avenue (about two blocks east of present Loyola Law School). Return to text.

Dr. Walter Lindley [ left], born in 1852 (from Abraham Hoffman), a native of Indiana, moved to Los Angeles in 1875 and died about 1921 (from the Journal-Times, Thursday, January 5, 1922).

Lindley, who was a candidate for mayor in 1906, served on the boards of Whittier State School for Boys and the city library. From the hospital’s Web site.

Lindley and his friend, Dr. J.P. Widney, in 1888 published California Of The South. Its Physical Geography, Climate, Resources, Routes Of Travel, And Health-Resorts Being A Complete Guide-Book To Southern California... With Maps And Numerous Illustrations. It consisted of eight volumes and three foldout maps, one of them hand-colored.

In June 1901 he and associates opened a sanitorium in Idyllwild, Riverside County. From the Idyllwild-Pine Cove Web site.

Thirty-one scrapbooks assembled by Dr. Lindley provide a rare look into life at the turn of the last century. From the Libraries of the Claremont Colleges.

He was a founder of Dr. Lindley’s Private Hospital at 315 W. Sixth Street (not 215, as listed erroneously in a Los Angeles Public Library record). As did many professional men of his time, he lived in the building where he worked. Photo at right.

Other medical tenants in his building were “W.W. Beckett, John R. and Francis Haynes and Henry G. Brainard, the first neurologist and psychiatrist in the area.” From the California Hospital Web site.

The 1901 City Directory also lists a number of nurses living and working there.

From this simple beginning grew what later became the California Hospital Medical Center at 1401 S. Grand Ave. Return to text.

Note that most of these important white people lived in the north or west parts of the city, many of them along Ninth Street. For a look at where newspaperworthy “Colored Citizens” lived in 1900, click here.
The addresses are from the 1900 or 1901 Los Angeles City Directory.
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Los Angeles Daily Times, September 13, 1900

“HOSPITAL” A MENACE.

Official Attention Called to the Filthy Chinese “Hospital” by a Death Occurring Wednesday.

So filthy that even a strongly-constituted person is made sick by spending a few minutes there, the Chinese “Hospital” in this city is made a receiving place for those ill-fated Chinamen who may be seized by any dread malady, and death is almost certain for the invalids who seek its shelter.

The building is located on the rear of a vacant lot at the foot of Marchessault Street, and is a one-story brick hut, poorly ventilated and furnished more meagerly than the most wretched hovel in Los Angeles.

A few dirty bunks and three or four vermin-covered blankets complete the equipment of the “hospital.” Once or twice a day the heathen who is supposed to be in charge of he place looks in and tosses a morsel of food to the miserable wretches who lie groaning in the bunks. Medical examination or treatment is unheard of.

A street scene in Los Angeles Chinatown near the turn of the last century. This image came from another page in Brent C. Dickerson’s Web site. (Caution: There is a loud Chinese gong on that site.)

Yesterday morning a Chinaman, 78 years old died in the place of consumption. With the endurance characteristic of his race, he had lingered in the hut for many months, crawling to the floor each day for his bit of food and, like a dog, lapping water from the can placed there for the use of the patients. Almost putrid with filth and with parasites crawling over his person, he presented a pitiable sight, death being a mercy to him.

The Coroner was notified and had the body removed to an undertaker’s, where it was prepared for burial in the Chinese cemetery. As the death was undoubtedly due to natural causes, no inquest was held, the Coroner signing the death certificate.

The attention of the health Officer has been called to the alleged hospital. A visit to the institution yesterday revealed three sick men there, one groveling on the floor so near to his end that when a coin was thrown beside him he paid no attention to it, but crawled over into a corner and curled himself up in a heap, all the while moaning in agony. Flies were swarming around the bodies of the inmates.

The alleged “hospital” is a pest hole where contagions are bred and men die like brutes. All the while the dwellers in Chinatown are passing by, indifferent to the awful fate of their sick countrymen.

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For a personal look at Los Angeles in the 1920s and 1930s, click for a new book by George Garrigues
He Usually Lived With a Female: The Life of a California Newspaperman
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