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January 10, 1910

HYDE PARK M. E. CHURCH

A REBUILT RESIDENCE.

Upper Floors Refurnished for

Parsonage -- Congregation Formal-

ly Takes Possession.

The congregation of the Hyde Park M. E. church yesterday formally took possession of their new house of worship at Valentine road and Broadway. This is probably the first instance in the history of religion of the transforming of an old residence into a church. For years the property was known as the Allen residence and a year ago it was bought for $20,000 by the congregation. At an additional expense of $5,000 the first floor was made over into an auditorium beautifully decorated and fitted out with comfortable pews and an attractive pulpit. The upper floors were re-decorated and refurnished for the parsonage and the basement arranged for sociables and a meeting place for the different church organizations. Three-fifths of the cost has been paid with out assistance from the public, and in bringing about this satisfactory condition the congregation has received generous support from George N. Neff, J. W. Vernon, Fred B. Houston and William S. Kirke.

Prior to yesterday the church society to the number of 100 have been conducting services in a store room at Thirty-seventh and Main streets and have had as their pastor for a year the Rev. Dr. Napthall Luccock, who resigned a $5,000 a year pastorate in St. Louis to come to Hyde Park to help it grow at a salary of $1,800 a year.

Labels: Broadway, churches, Hyde Park, ministers, real estate, St Louis, Valentine road

January 4, 1909

TO PROTECT MAYOR

FROM CRANK ARMY.

SPECIAL OFFICER ON DUTY AT

THE CITY HALL.

BUG HOUSE CROWD

GROWING.

HIS HONOR WANTS FREEDOM

FROM THE ANNOYANCE.

Official Cares and Personal Ease Is

Being Disturbed to Too Great

an Extent by Mentally

Disturbed Persons.

Every hour of the day and every day of the week from a half to a dozen people from all walks of life sit in the big waiting room adjoining the private offices of Mayor Thomas T. Crittenden, Jr., in the city hall waiting to get "a word with the mayor." The visitors attract little if any attention from the other throngs that pass in and out of the building, so today when an unconcerned appearing man takes his place with the other callers at the mayor's offices, and mingles among them in an unconscious sort of way there is no possibility of his presence exciting more than passing notice. But after he repeats for days his presence he will then become an object of notice, and people will begin wondering and asking why he is there and what is the necessity for his continual attendance. Then it will all come out.

WHO IS MYSTERIOUS STRANGER?

The mysterious stranger is a police officer, and he is there to deal with cranks, near-cranks and other objectionables that are making life burdensome to the mayor. This class of individuals is fast becoming a pest, and Mayor Crittenden has had some experience with them of late that has induced him to follow out the rule in vogue in the offices of mayors of other cities and have an officer at arm's length when emergency demands. Very often, too, the mayor is requested by citizens to have a service performed that he cannot impose consistently upon his private secretary, and in instances of this kind "the mayor's office" will be quite handy. Officially, however, the officer will be expected to be the crank squelcher.

"I had hoped that there would be no publicity over the detail of an officer to my offices," said the mayor yesterday, "but as it has gotten out there is nothing left for me to do but say that it is a usual thing for an officer to be in the mayor's offices in other cities. There is always more or less need for an officer in city hall."

"It is said you are becoming more frightened over visits from cranks, and consider the need of protection," it was suggested.

The mayor laughed heartily, and while he would not concede that cranks were altogether responsible for the detail of an officer for the mayor's protection, still indirectly they had something to do with it.

"Every day in the week," continued the mayor, "I have from fifty to 100 callers and I have to listen to them. Eighty per cent of my visitors have to be directed to the heads of other departments, and the other 20 per cent are politicians with an ax to grind, job hunters and cranks.

VISITS FROM CRANKS.

"Then you do have visits from cranks?"

"Yes, a great many and they are extremely annoying. It was not so very long ago that a fellow called upon me, and insisted that I, and only I, could remove a hypnotic spell that was upon him. I jollied him until I could summon an officer from headquarters, and I never passed a more unpleasant ten minutes waiting for the officer to report. The fellow was put under restraint, and to pacify him I underwent a sham performance as if removing the hypnotic spell. I don't know as I succeeded, but I have since learned that the fellow is now a raving maniac.

"A professional man who is having troubles, and whose sanity has been questioned, is becoming intolerably annoying. He is persisting that I give him a permit to carry a gun, and he believes that if I only would that I can patch up his marital woes. Every time he comes in here his eyes look glassier, and he acts more like a madman. On his last visit his eyes looked like two electrical bulbs to me.

MILLIONS IN IT FOR HIM.

"Friday forenoon while I was my busiest I was called from my office by a man whom I immediately sized up to be a crank. I had never seen him before, still he greeted me with the cordiality of lifetime friends and was disagreeably familiar.

" 'I want a job and I want it quick,' said the stranger.

" 'There are no jobs to be given out; this is the dull season in municipal matters,' I replied.

" 'Give me a job, and I'll tell you how you can make a million dollars,' the fellow whispered confidentially into my ears.

" 'I can't barter away city jobs for my own personal gain,' I told the man, and he became quite demonstrative. It was self-evident that the fellow had to be solaced, and I invited him to call on me again and I would see about giving him work.

" 'Remember,' he flashed back, as he departed, 'get me a job and there is a million in it for you.' "

"The cranks are not confined wholly to the men. I have calls from women cranks and they are the hardest to dispose of. Quite recently I had a woman on the shady side of 40 implore of me to use my influence with a youngster still in his teens to be responsive to her love and affection for him. The woman said that the object of her heart had repelled all her devotion for him, and that without his love and esteem life to her was not worth the living. To be rid of her I made a promise to see the young man, and when she calls again she will be introduced to the officer in waiting."

Labels: city hall, Hyde Park, Mayor Crittenden, mental health, police

November 24, 1908

JUDGE HENRY L. M'CUNE IS

ELECTED TO SCHOOL BOARD.

Will Fill the Unexpired Term of

Joseph L. Norman, Who

Becomes Secretary.

At a special meeting of the board of education, held yesterday here in the office of General Milton Moore, Judge Henry L. McCune was elected to fill the vacancy made by the resignation of Joseph L. Norman, who succeeded W. E. Benson as secretary. Judge McCune has accepted but he will have no voice in the meetings until his term as judge expires, January 11. He has expressed his willingness to be present at every meeting in an advisory capacity. Judge McCune will hold his position as member of the board until April, 1910, when the next regular city election takes place. He will fill the unexpired term of Mr. Norman.

"Kansas City has many men who would make good members of the board of education," Mr. Norman said yesterday, "and the board considered many names, but there was not a man who would work more untiringly than we know Judge McCune will work. In twenty-one years' experience on the board of education I have learned how much there is to do on our board and how vitally interested a man must be to perform all of the duties required of him. Judge McCune is just such an interested man."

"Do you approve of Zueblinism and the teaching of such propaganda in the public schools of Kansas City?" was asked of Judge McCune in his chambers in the court house yesterday afternoon.

"The board already has settled that question, and, as I presume I do not take office until after January 1 it is not proper for me to say anything at this time," said the judge with a smile. Judge McCune indicated by his manner that his stand upon the question, should it be put up to a board of which he is a member, would be guided by the same common sense which has characterized his work as judge.

The addition of Judge McCune to the board adds a member who has children in the public schools of Kansas City. He has a son in Westport high and a daughter in the Hyde Park grammar school.

Labels: courthouse, Hyde Park, Judge McCune, schools, Westport

July 4, 1908

MAYOR COULDN'T

REMOVE "SPELL."

STROUD STILL UNDER INFLU-

ENCE OF THE "EVIL EYE."

SEEKS A REAL HYPNOTIST

K. U. GRADUATE STILL BEING

HELD BY POLICE.

Will Not Be Given Liberty, as They

Fear He May Be Seized at

Any Moment by Homi-

cidal Mania.

JOHN EARL STROUD, A. B.
Kansas University graduate whose mind
is deranged and is being detained
by the police.

Mayor Thomas T. Crittenden, Jr., put aside everything for a time yesterday and repaired to the police matron's room, where, with mystic signs, a few words, a wrinkled brow and a queer look in his eye, he attempted to remove a hypnotic spell which John E. Stroud of Howard, Kas., says has been upon him for now just three months and six days.

Stroud called on the mayor Thursday afternoon and insisted on having an audience with him at once. He said that he was laboring under the spell of a "snake-eyed hypnotist," which might cause him to jump in front of a street car at any moment, and that he had made a special pilgrimage here to see the mayor, believing that only he could undo the spell. The mayor called Captain Walter Whitsett to his office and Stroud was placed in limbo.

There was a brief session of the police board yesterday, and at its close Stroud's case came up for discussion. "Why don't you go in and remove the spell then?" the mayor was asked. "If the man believes you can, it might help him."

"I have never been a success at removing spells," said his honor, "but I'm game to try my hand at it."

The police board adjournd to the matron's room and Mayor Crittenden was formally introduced to Stroud, who sat with bowed head in a cell. He seemed pleased when told that the mayor had come to cast off the spell and shook hands cordially.

IT PLEASED THE VICTIM.

"All but myself and the doctors will please leave the room," said the mayor in a commanding voice. When the room was cleared the cell door was unlocked and the mayor entered with Dr. J. P. Neal. Taking Stroud by the right hand, placing the left upon the man's brow and looking as much like a real spell-removing wizard as possible, the mayor said in a slow, firm voice:

"By the authority vested in me by the great state of Missouri and this beautiful city, I here and now peremptorily command the hypnotic spell which has been upon you be permanently removed."

The mayor finished his solemn duty with a motion of the hands as if flinging something from the ends of his fingers. Stroud grinned and looked as if he felt better.

"You'll be all right now," said the mayor on leaving. "I have called the spell all off."

The unusual duty was performed at just 4:13 o'clock. Two hours later Stroud was asked if he didn't feel better and if the spell had been cast off.

"SEND ON A HYPNOTIST."

"I guess I was wrong in my surmises," he said dolefully. "It will undoubtedly take a hypnotist to undo the work of one of his kind. Send on a good one and I think he can do it."

"How do you know the spell has not been removed by the mayor?" he was asked. "He has removed hypnotic spells before and should not have failed in your case."

"Because I can hear the hypnotist talking to me," was the reply. Then he cocked his head to one side to listen. "I didn't quite catch what he said then," he said. Once more he took a listening attitude and laughed. "He says, 'You can do as you please.' Now that isn't true, for my whole life is guided by his suggestions. I see it now in everything I do. I may be looking at a person passing along the street there and want to change and look at someone else, but I can't. Again, when I feel like looking at an object a long time, the hypnotist compells me to change and look at something else."

Dr. Neal said yesterday that Stroud's condition is much worse than when he was first detained. Then he was only receiving suggestions at intervals, but now he regards every move he makes a coming from the mysterious person whom the thinks has him in his power.

DANGEROUSLY INSANE.

"That class of insanity is the most dangerous kind," said Dr. Neal. "Suppose the suggestion to kill should come to him and he believed that he had to act on it? What would be the result?"

Thursday night Captian Whitsett wired the unfortunate man's father, R. L. Stroud, the proprietor of the Stroud hotel, Howard, Kas., and the reply said, "Have written by this mail." The letter had not ben received last night Colonel Greenman notified the father again yesterday. Stroud said he had been here since June 15 and had been stopping at 314 West Fourteenth street. He will not be released except to relatives who can care for him, as he is now regarded as a dangerous man to be at large.

Labels: Captain Whitsett, Col. J. C. Greenman, Fourteenth street, Hyde Park, Mayor Crittenden, mental health, police board, police matron, streetcar, visitors

July 3, 1908

MAN UNDER SPELL

VISITS THE MAYOR

WANTS HIS HONOR TO REMOVE

"EVIL INFLUENCE."

TRIP FROM KANSAS

IN VAIN

LAYS ALL HIS TROUBLES TO A

TRAVELING MAN.

J. E. Stroud of Howard, Kas., De-

clares Mr. Crittenden Is the Only

Person, Except a Hypnotist,

Who Can Relieve Him.

"I want to see the mayor and see him at once."

"He's busy now. Won't you have a seat?"

"No I won't. I said I wanted to see the mayor right now, and I meant it. I am under the spell of a hypnotist and may jump in front of a street car at any moment. I want the mayor to break this spell. I have come all the way here to have him do it."

The foregoing dialogue took place yesterday afternoon in the office of Mayor Thomas T. Crittenden, Jr. between a tall, slender man with constantly shifting eyes and the mayor's secretary.

The mayor himself over heard the conversation and took a look at the man who was laboring under hypnotic influence. Something about him made his honor nervous. With visions of bombs, infernal machines and other anarchistic toys, the mayor closed his door and hurried to the telephone.

"Hello, police headquarters?" he asked. "Let me talk to the captain. Is that you, Captain Whitsett? Well, I wish you would send up here to my office and take a man out that is acting queer. This is the mayor."

Captain Whitsett went up himself. When he got there the mayor was leaning over the railing of his office and talking "real nice" to the man. He was taken in charge and locked up in the matron's room.

GRADUATE OF K. U.

To Dr. Paul Lux, who examined him later, the man gave the name of J. E. Stroud of Howard, Kas. He looks to be 30 years old but said that he graduated with a class of about 270 at the Kansas State university on June 10. He said he had taught school at Galva and Jamestown, Kas.

"I came all the way here June 15 to see the mayor about removing a hypnotic influence which has been over me since March 28, last."

Stroud said he did not know the name of the man who had cast the spell on him, but believed it was a New York traveling man with whom he talked at dinner in a Howard, Kas., hotel, March 28.

"Did you know that the man was a hypnotist?" asked Dr. Lux. "When did you first realize that he had hypnotized you?"

"I didn't know it at first, of course," replied Stroud, "or I would have left him. He held my conversation about fifteen minutes longer than I intended and I felt that I could not get away from him. His eyes were funny, but I suspected nothing until a few days later when I found myself acting solely by suggestions that came to me and doing things I had not done before."

Just at this point, Stroud, who was sitting on the edge of a bed, reached out with his right hand and smoothed out the top spread. Jerking his hand away quickly he said: "There, do you see that? Did you notice what I did then?"

STROUD "SEES THINGS."

The doctor had not noticed. Stroud seemed surprised that he had overlooked such an unusual thing as a man smoothing out a bedspread.

"Didn't you see me straighten out that cover? Well, that man caused me to do that. I am not in the habit of smoothing out bedspreads. I wish the mayor had taken this spell off. I believe he is the only one here to do it. In fact I came here just to have him do it."

At another time Stroud scraped a splinter from the floor with the toe of his right shoe. That, too, was caused by the same hypnotic influence. He said that when he arrived here he thought of hunting up another hypnotist and having him try his art at removing a spell cast by another of his profession. The idea always came back to him that Mayor Thomas T. Crittenden, Jr., was the only man in the wide world to remove such influences. "And he actually wouldn't do it," Stroud said sadly; "what do you think of that?"

Stroud said that at times he was able to do exactly the opposite of the hypnotist's suggestions, but that it was a mental strain. Stroud is now being held and relatives at Howard, Kas., will be notified.

Stroud said that if he knew where he could find the hypnotist he would wire him to get busy and look the other way for a while.

Labels: Captain Whitsett, doctors, Hyde Park, Mayor Crittenden, mental health, police matron, telephone, universities, visitors

February 10, 1907

LEAGUE IS MAKING STATE DRY.

Bushnell Tells How It Carries On Its

Prohibition Work.

In an address before the congregation at the Hyde Park Christian church, Westport avenue and Main street, yesterday morning, Rev. A. Bushnell, superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League, told how Missouri was going dry. He said in part: "Members of the Anti-Saloon League have gone from place to place, making a thorough canvass of the state. That they have accomplished much is shown from the fact that sixty-eight counties of the eighty-one which held local option elections have gone dry. Of the cities fifteen out of twenty-seven have voted dry. This is very encouraging.

"It may be seen from this that our fight is a good one. Our weapon is the local option election. It is after all the strongest implement of warfare which we could use, for it shows what the people, not the people's representatives want. The local option victory is only a beginning of the real work. We want the people everywhere to organize for the enforcement of laws and to get the men into office who will stand true fo rthe work of the anti-saloon principles everywhere and always."

Labels: alcohol, churches, Hyde Park, Main street, ministers, politics, prohibition, saloon, Westport

January 11, 1907

WAS UNDER SPELL.

GIRL, CHARGED WITH THEFT,

MAKES THIS EXPLANATION.

UNABLE TO CONTROL ACTIONS.

COMPLETELY IN FORTUNETELLER'S

GRASP, SHE ASSERTS.

Maggie Paul Says Clothes She is Alleged to Have Stolen Were

Given to Her -- Mrs. Moran, Medium, Tells a Different Story.

Miss Maggie Paul, the 18-year old daughter of J. J. Paul, saloonkeeper at Eighteenth and Charlotte streets, was arraigned before Justice Miller yesterday charged by Mrs. D. J. Moran, a fortune teller at 815 East Fifteenth street, with taking $91.75 worth of wearing apparel. She pleaded not guilty and her bond was fixed at $500. She was held over night in the matron's room at police headquarters and expects to give bond today.

Miss Paul said she had lived at Mrs. Moran's and played the piano during what she terms a "spirit fortune telling stunt supposed to be presided over by a defunct Indian chief, one 'White Coon.' " She also says that, had she married John Moran, the 24-year-old son of the fortune teller, she would have had none of her present troubles.

"She has been trying for a long time to get me to marry her son," said Miss Paul last night. "I went to a dance Christmas eve at 910 Campbell street with Mrs. Moran's daughter. When I got to thinking of that marrying business it was all so repulsive to me that I ran away and went to the house of a friend at 1214 East Eight street.

"When I am around where that woman is she casts a kind of spell over me and I can't but obey her every wish. It took all my courage to make up my mind to run away from it all. I got tired of playing for a lot of fake fortune telling business anyway. Often I have seen a person with money come to the seance and heard one of the Morans say: 'Trim that sucker. Don't let him get away. Make arrangements for a private seance for he's got real money.' It was all so false and shammy to one who knew and I didn't want to marry John Moran anyway."

Mrs. J. J. Paul, Maggie's mother, and George Brown, to whose house she went when she ran away from the 'White Coon' seances, went to police headquarters last night to see her daughter.

"This is all a trumped up charge which cannot be proved," said the mother. "That woman has had a hypnotic spell over my daughter for two years. We used to live in Midland court on East Sixteenth street and Mrs. Moran lived just across the street. Maggie got to going there and right then the trouble began. Maggie was made to believe that I was killing her with slow poison and she was afraid of me. Didn't I go to Mrs. Moran's house where she had Maggie locked up in the cellar and make her give her up?

"The girl fears that woman right now. You can see it. All this has been done because she ran away when engaged to John Moran. And I don't blame her for that or leaving those Indian 'White Coon' seances, either."

Miss Paul said that a sealskin cloak, valued at $50, which she is charged with taking, was stolen from the cloak room at the dance hall at 910 Campbell three weeks ago when Miss Moran was along. A skirt, valued in the complaint at $17, she was wearing yesterday. She said it cost $3.50 and was given to her by Mrs. Moran and would fit no one else in the family. In fact, she claims that all the missing clothing but the cloak was either given her previous to or at Christmas.

Miss Paul was arrested by Detective William Bates yesterday afternoon at the home of a friend at Eight street and Forest avenue. She said she had left the Brown home because she heard Mrs. Moran had found out where she was, and she was afraid she would "look at me that way again, and then I would have to go back and do anything asked -- perhaps marry John."

The girl who is afraid of the woman who gives seances controlled by the ancient Indian spirit, "White Coon," has blue eyes, blonde hair, and is petite and pretty.

Said Mrs. Moran, when asked about Miss Paul:

"On Christmas night she wore my sealskin coat to a Yoeman's ball at 910 Campbell street. She came home without the coat, and said it had been stolen. New Year's night she put on $42.25 worth of our silk clothes, jewelry and a hat and went to another Yeoman's ball with Mamie. That time she got lost from Mamie and we just found her today living at 1214 East Eighth street with the same Mrs. Brown who had her arrested the time we paid her fine. We've heard that the sealskin jacket was thrown from the window to someone and wasn't stolen. We stuck to her, even when her mother was going to have us arrested for harboring her. We thought her parents were hard on her. They have a divorce case on trial tomorrow."

"Did Miss Paul assist in your seances?"

"Oh, she sat in them," explained Mrs. Moran's husband, "but she didn't help earn any of the clothes."

Labels: Campbell street, Charlotte street, clothing, con artist, crime, detectives, Eighteenth street, Eighth street, Fifteenth street, Forest avenue, Hyde Park, Justice Miller, marriage, Native Americans, police, police headquarters, Sixteenth street