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January 17, 1910

KANSAS CITY GIRLS

FOR PICKLE FACTORY.

Plant Will Be Only Stage Affair,

But Beauties Will Handle

Real Pickles.

"Working in a pickle factory" will no longer be a joke with a score of pretty young women from various walks of life in Kansas City who will hold forth at the Orpheum theater this week as employes of a pickle factory in Helen Grantley's sketch, "The Agitator," the top liner on the bill. They will handle real pickles and after a week's training and rehearsals and their participation in the show this week it is predicted they will have no difficulty in getting work as experts in the business, should they so desire.

The sketch is based in part on the female suffrage movement. The scene in which the young women work is one in which Miss Grantley makes her plea for a strike. Of course the girls follow their leader, the strike is called and after the usual trials and tribulations of strikers, is won. The sketch created somewhat of a sensation in New York, the play there being made more realistic by the fact that the girls who counterfeited the pickle trimmers were really striking shirt waist makers.

Miss Grantley came here with her company a week ago ahead of her billing so that she might rehearse the score of young women supers, some of whom will be carried with the company at the close of the week.

An advertisement brought half a hundred replies and out of this number Miss Grantley selected a score of girls. Among those selected were stenographers, two high school girls who were "just dying" to go on the stage even if they had to work in a "pickle factory," a telephone girl who had often wished that she might appear behind the footlights, three art students who wanted the work for the "atmosphere," later to be transferred to canvas, and a couple of girls who had not worked anywhere, but who sought this as a stepping stone to the stage.

It was an ungainly and awkward squad, as they lined up for the first rehearsal. Only one of the girls had ever been back of the scenes, and she was fairly lionized by the others. The turn was not a difficult one, and after the story of the play was told, the girls quickly appreciated the points which it was desired to emphasize.

"A trained chorus direct from New York City could not have done any better," declared Miss Grantley last evening. "They still have another rehearsal, but they are letter perfect now and I am sure that some of them will come with me when I leave the city."

Labels: employment, New York, suffrage, theater, visitors, women

November 20, 1909

SUFFRAGIST TO SPEAK HERE.

Mrs. Anna Spencer Guest of Honor

at Dinner November 29.

Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer of New York, now engaged in female suffrage work, will be the guest of honor Monday, November 29, at the monthly dinner given at Morton's south side hall by the Woman's Dining Club.

Mrs. Spencer organized the first school of philanthropy in America, and is now one of its lecturers. She also organized the summer school of ethics at the University of Wisconsin.

At this dinner Mrs. Spencer will talk upon the growth of the suffrage movement in America and Europe. Both sides of the question will be discussed.

Labels: New York, organizations, suffrage, visitors

November 10, 1909

SUFFRAGETTES GO TOO FAR.

Scottish Woman Visitor Has No Sym-

pathy for Militant Sister.

Mrs. George Romanes, wife of the distinguished Scottish scientist, who spent yesterday in Kansas City on her way to Salt Lake City, is not a suffragette. She has come to America at the special invitation of the Episcopal church to deliver lectures in different cities.

"I am not a suffragette," said Mrs. Romanes. "Of course, I have no particular antipathy to a woman's right to vote, but our women have carried the thing to the extreme. I'm not in the least in sympathy with them."

The party took a trip over the boulevards yesterday morning in a motor car and were thoroughly delighted.

"The prettiest drives that I've seen in America," declared Mrs. Romanes.

She is accompanied by F. J. Romanes, a son, who recently graduated from Oxford and Miss Helen Watkins of London. The party left last night for Lawrence, where Mrs. Romanes lectured and the son is a guest of several friends who are attending the university of Kansas.

Young Romanes has decided to spend about two years in America and probably will teach in some Episcopal college.

Labels: Lawrence, politics, suffrage, visitors

October 30, 1909

CLEAN POLITICS SAFE

IN WOMAN'S HANDS.

MORE CAPABLE TO VOTE THAN

THE AVERAGE MAN.

Ten Years to See Nation-Wide Equal

Sufferage Says Mayor Critten-

den to Woman's Ath-

letic Club.

"I believe the average woman is more capable of clean, honest politics than the average man, and should vote on all local issues. The matter of keeping a city's life clean physically and morally should be entrusted to a woman's hands. It is my firm conviction that within the next ten years this country will have woman suffrage from one end to the other."

These were some of the remarks of Mayor Crittenden before the regular business meeting of the Kansas City Women's Athletic club, in the gymnasium at 1013 Grand avenue, yesterday afternoon. The speech was made on the invitation of Mrs. S. E. Stranathan, president of the club.

"I know that a great many women, as well as the majority of men, are against a suffrage movement or any other movement which would lead the gentler sex into the ungentle game of politics. It has been customary for men to assume that a woman could never understand the tariff; that the value of ship subsidies and river navigation would floor her, and that she is far too impulsive to be of value as a factor in our national government.

"These great issues, however, are not necessarily local. It might take time for the average matron or maid to grasp their details, but give them a few years of experience in town and city or perhaps state politics and it is my opinion that their vote would be as honest and as intelligent as any deposited in the box election day.

"There was a time when I did not believe in women voting, but that was before I held public office and dealt with committees of both sexes."

About seventy-five women, members of the club, heard Mayor Crittenden's remarks and applauded him at his conclusion.

Labels: Grand avenue, Mayor Crittenden, organizations, politics, suffrage, women

July 3, 1909

AS PLAIN ENGLISHMAN,

WON KANSAS CITY GIRL.

Marriage of Adeline De Mare and

Henry Charles Augustus Somerset

in England is Confirmed

Carefully guarding the fact that he was of a titled English family, Henry Charles Augustus Somerset, son and heir of Lord Henry Somerset, wooed and won Mrs. Adeline De Mare, the Kansas City girl whose marriage to the nobleman was announced last Tuesday on postcards received by her friends and relatives in this city.

Letters received yesterday by the young woman's father, Craig Hunter, a railway labor agent with offices at 1002 Union avenue, confirm the report that his new son-in-law is the son of courtship which culminated in the marriage in London of June 16. The story, as told by Mrs. Hunter, who was with her daughter when the ceremony was performed, is that Mr. Somerset was attracted by Mrs. De Mare while the two were staying at the same hotel in Paris last winter. He did not tell Mrs. De Mare at that time that he was the son of Lord Somerset, merely representing himself to be a civil engineer of English birth.

When it became known that Mrs. De Mare and the English nobleman were to wed, there were protests from various sources. Mrs. Hunter did not wish to sanction the marriage, for she knew how strongly Mr. Hunter opposed the marriage of American girls to titled foreigners. Somerset's mother, Lady Henry Somerset, the famous temperance leader and suffragist, did not want her son to marry an American. She went so far as to declare that she would cut her son off "without a penny." This did not worry the son in the least, for he had inherited a comfortable fortune from his grandmother, the Duchess of Beaufort. So, in spite of these objections the Englishman and the American girl were wed and now they are spending a happy honeymoon in Switzerland. They probably will reside in England where Mr. Somerset has a palatial home.

Mr. Hunter, while much displeased because of the choice of his daughter, was relieved to a great extent when was informed that there was nothing "bogus" about the title or social standing of his new son-in-law.

"I would much rather Adeline had married a good, plain American," he said, "but it's all over now and I guess I have no kick coming. I fear, however, that Adeline will not be happy if Lord and Lady Somerset are so opposed to an American coming into their family."

Henry Somerset is 35 years of age and a widower. He has a daughter 9 years of age. Mrs. De Mare was 21 years of age last September. She was the widow of Professor Georges De Mare, the artist who lost his life in the fire which destroyed the University building, Ninth and Locust streets, May 8, 1907.

Labels: England, suffrage, Union avenue, wedding, women

June 30, 1909

DOESN'T APPROVE OF

TITLE IN HIS FAMILY.

CRAIG HUNTER HEARS DAUGH-

TER WEDDED SON OF A LORD.

Post Cards Bear Announcement of

Marriage of Mrs. Adeline De

Mare to Henry Somerset

in England.

MRS. ADELINE DE MARE,
Who May Be Lady Somerset.

Post cards bearing the announcement of the marriage in London, England on June 16 of Mrs. Adeline De Mare of Kansas City, widow of Professor Georges De Mare, the artist who lost his life in the fire which destroyed the University building in this city in 1907, have given rise to the belief on the part of the friends and relatives of the young woman that she has wedded Henry Charles Somers Augustus Somerset, the son of Lord Henry Richard Charles Somerset, husband of Lady Henry Somerset, the famous temperance leader and suffragist.

According to the meager information conveyed by the postals, which were received from England yesterday by the father of the girl, Craig Hunter, a railway contractor with offices at 1002 Union avenue, and Mrs. Herman Lang, 3901 Forest avenue, a close friend of the family, Mrs. De Mare was married to a Henry Somerset in London on June 16. Partly through the way the announcements were worded and more through the presumption of those who received the announcements, the report was started that the Somerset in question is the son of the nobleman. Neither Mr. Hunter nor Mrs. Lang was in a position to confirm the report last night, but both were anxiously awaiting more information, which is expected to arrive by letter in a few days.

FATHER IS NOT PLEASED.

Mr. Hunter is not pleased with the thought that perhaps his daughter has become the wife of the son of an English nobleman.

"I sincerely hope that Adeline has not married into a titled family," he said yesterday. "I have always talked against such marriages, and if she has married Lord Somerset's son, she has acted directly contrary to any wish of mine. A good, plain American boy is my choice."

Mrs. De Mare, who graduated from the Central high school in the spring of 1905, married Professor Georges De Mare, head of the art department of the school, in December, 1906. Professor De Mare the following May was killed in a fire which destroyed the University building at Ninth and Locust streets. The death of her husband greatly preyed upon the mind of Mrs. De Mare and in order that she might be benefited by a change of scene she was sent to Paris to school in September, 1907.

She took up a course of study at the Sorbonne, the University of Paris. She was a proficient artist in instrumental music and completed a course in that study last spring. Last September her mother, Mrs. Hunter, went to Paris to return with Mrs. De Mare to America when her school work was completed. Mrs. Hunter and her daughter were to have sailed for America today form Naples. The plans of Mr. Hunter to meet them at New York are upset by the unexpected announcement of the daughter's marriage in London.

MARRIAGE A SURPRISE.

"Adeline's marriage was a complete surprise to me," said Mr. Hunter. "I received a letter from my wife two weeks ago in which she said that an Englishman by the name of Somerset was madly in love with the girl, but I did not think seriously of it. I did not think, either, that it might be a member of the Lord Somerset family. But now that I compare the meager descriptions I have received of the man with those of the son of the lord, I am firmly convinced that they are one and the same person.

"Mrs. Hunter said that the Mr. Somerset who was paying attention to my daughter was a widower and had a little daughter about 9 years of age. Henry Somerset, they tell me, was married in 1896 to the daughter of the Duke of St. Albans and should be at this time about the age of the man who married my daughter. He has been making his home in Paris for some time, so I guess there may be something to the report of my son-in-law being of a titled family. I hope, however, that it is not true."

Mrs. De Mare was 21 years old last September. She is a beautiful and talented woman and was very popular in the younger social set in Kansas City.

SOMERSET HISTORY EVENTFUL.

EASTNOR CASTLE, ONE OF THE FOUR HOMES OF LADY HENRY SOMERSET.

Somewhat eventful has been the history of the Somerset family. Nor has its domestic relations been of the happiest. The present Lady Somerset was married at the age of 18, after a brief season at court. The match between Lady Isobel and Lord Henry Somerset was arranged by the young girl's mother, and Lady Isobel's dowry was welcome to Lord Henry.

Two years after the wedding the only child, Henry Charles Augustus Somerset, was born. During those two years of married life there had been frequent ruptures between husband and wife with the result that divorce was frequently discussed by each. Shortly after the birth of the son the courts of England granted a divorce and gave the mother custody of the child.

For a while Lady Somerset kept up her social activities, but Queen Victoria looked into the causes of divorce and placed the social ban upon that immediate branch of the Somerset family. In June of 1902, however, King Edward, his wife and sister, Princess Beatrice, restored Lady Henry Somerset to court favor. This action on the part of King Edward occasioned favorable comment on the part of the British public and press.

RETIRED TO PRIVATE LIFE.

When Lady Henry fell into disfavor with the court she retired and lead a sequestered life, teaching her boy. Later she sent her son to Harvard university, from which institution he graduated.

Henry Somers Somerset was married in 1896 to Katherine De Vere Beaucher. There had been no news in America of a divorce or of the wife's death. She has been described as a very beautiful woman and a prime favorite of the Somerset's.

Lady Henry Somerset has been long identified with socialism and temperance work. At the present time she is the president of the world organization of the W. C. T. U. She has spent large sums of money to alleviate the distress occasioned by drink among the men and women of England. She has written many books upon the subject of temperance and has become widely known.

Lord Henry Somerset, the divorced husband, has been lost from sight and there is no record of his death.

Henry, the son, who is said to have married Mrs. De Mare, is 35 years old.

Labels: arts, England, Forest avenue, suffrage, Union avenue, wedding, women

October 24, 1908

JESSE JAMES USED TO

KEEP NEGRO SCHOOL.

J. M. TURNER, EDUCATOR, RE-

CALLS EARLY DAYS HERE.

Former Minister to Liberia Taught

First Negro School in Mis-

souri -- Addresses Negro

Hadley Meeting.

From slavery into the diplomatic service cost J. Milton Turner a life of effort, but he had time on the side to educate the negroes of Missouri and help 'em out in Kansas. Turner, who was the principal speaker at the negro Hadley meeting last night in the Rev. Dr. Hurst's church at Independence avenue and Charlotte street, came here yesterday for the first time in a great many years.

There wasn't any reception committee at the depot to greet him, so he strolled up to Ninth and Main streets to have a look at the site of the first negro school in Missouri. Turner taught that school. It was supported by Jesse James, and most of the legal advice and diplomatic stunts necessary to keep a Confederate school board from running Turner out of the community came from Colonel R. T. Van Horn.

Turner said last night that he came here in '67 to get the Republican separate school law into effect. There wasn't a negro school in the state when he landed, although the law provided that there should be in every district where there were over twenty pupils. The school board of '60 and '61 had gone off to join the Confederate army, and had returned and arbitrarily taken up their old duties and were then finishing up their terms in office. They got back to duty just in time to confront the separate school law, which Republicans had placed on the books and which the Democrats have been claiming credit for ever since.

JESSE JAMES CONTRIBUTES.

Turner wanted to start a school, but the Confederate school board here wouldn't recognize either him or the law. Turner said yesterday that Colonel R. T. Van Horn secured a carpenter shop for him at Ninth and Main streets and told him to get busy. Turner had a wife, but no furniture, and a generous storekeeper gave him cloth to make a partition and goods boxes to make tables. The board refused to pay his salary and he lived in the carpenter shop and taught school in a corner of it the entire winter without pay.

"Jesse James used to ride in and shoot up the town," said Turner. "He was in sympathy with the school. When he was ready to leave the town he used to ride up and demand to see the n----- school teacher. I would go out trembling and admit that I was the teacher.

"Are they paying you?" Jesse James would ask. When I told him no he would hand me a $10 bill and ride away. He was about the only cash patron I had."

In the spring, after his first term, the carpenter returned and offered to sell Turner his place, 200 feet on Main street and seventy-five feet on Ninth street, for $300, and offered to trust the negro for the money. Turner thought the carpenter was crazy and declined, taking a summer job as a bootblack in a hotel on the Kansas side of the border.

GETS HIS BACK PAY.

Getting into Kansas got Turner into more trouble. Susan B. Anthony and Mary Cady Stanton and Jim Lane and a bunch began to espouse woman's suffrage about that time, and the issue became woman's suffrage against negro suffrage. But Turner extricated himself and got back to Kansas City, where, he said yesterday, a Dutchman who had been elected to the school board settled up with him for all the back salary and rehired him for teacher.

Then Turner went down the river on a steamboat, and Joseph L. Stephens got him to stop off at Boonville and teach the second negro school in the state. Stephens paid the bill. Stephens afterwards got to be father of a governor of Missouri. Thomas Parker, then state superintendent of instruction, heard of the negro educator and sent for him. He appointed Turner second assistant, but said he did not have an y money to meet his salary. Turner worked for nothing until he was also named second assistant by the Freedman's bureau at Washington and assigned to Missouri and Kansas territory. This paid $125 a month. The Missouri Pacific railway gave the transportation and Turner began to travel about establishing negro schools. He put in 140, and then discovered there wasn't a negro in his territory who could read or write, and he was up against it for teachers.

News didn't travel fast in those days, and it was a long time before Turner learned that a negro regiment on the battlefield had voted to appropriate $5,000 to build the Lincoln institute at Jefferson City. Turner got busy and called a convention at the state capital, had 790 negroes there, and invited the general assembly to look on. That night members of the general assembly went down and donated $1,000 toward negro education.

A THAW GETS INTO THE GAME.

The outgrowth of Turner's Jefferson City convention was a bill in the general assembly to appropriate $15,000 to the negro educational movement, just as soon as the negroes themselves could certify to having a like capital in cash and real estate. The negroes sent Turner down East to beg money, and he got $1,000 in cash from a fellow named William Thaw down in Pittsburg, whose son afterward got into print for killing Stanford White on a New York roof garden. Begging did not suit Turner, and he returned to Missouri.

"This brings us to the convention of '70, when we Republicans got the balance of power in Missouri," said Turner with a chuckle, as he rubbed the rheumatism out of his aged joints. "That's where I met Carl Schurz of St. Louis. Mr. Schurz was in the senate. That's when the fifteenth amendment was put in operation.

"I was in that convention, backed up by 200 negro delegates, and I was in joint debate with Carl Schurz for three days. He wanted to enfranchise the Confederate veterans, and so did we negroes, but we kicked when Schurz wanted the bill to read for the benefit of white men only. With my 200 negroes I held the balance of power, and Mr. Schurs bolted the convention and the party."

This convention and the memorable three days' debate with Carl Schurz got Turner into the limelight. Colonel R. T. Van Horn of Kansas City recommended him to President Grant, and the negro was sent as minister to Liberia. He stuck it out there for eight years, and then returned to St. Louis, where he was born into slavery, and became a lawyer. For twenty years he has been an attorney for the negroes of Indian Territory, and secured for them their treaty rights there.

Labels: churches, Civil War, Colonel Van Horn, history, James Gang, Jefferson City, Main street, ministers, Ninth street, politics, race, schools, St Louis, suffrage, veterans

October 11, 1908

BRYAN GREETED

BY THOUSANDS.

DEMOCRATIC LEADER GETS GLAD

HAND IN KANSAS CITY.

HE APPEALS FOR

MORE FUNDS.

ADDRESSES GREAT GATHERING

IN THE OPEN AIR.

After Speaking in Independence He

Is Brought Here in Automobile.

It was a madly driven string of flag-bedecked automobiles that dashed over to Independence yesterday and whisked Candidate William Jennings Bryan to the Parade. Speaches were made at both ends of the trip by the Democratic leaders, adn it all took place within two hours.

It was a regular honk, honk affair, and thirty cars containing at least 150 persons made the trip. On the return, it was a veritable race and several times the pike was blocked with chugging machines, each trying to extricate itself and get to Kansas City first.

Little groups of suburbanites stood at every rural mail box and cheered as the flying autos went by with Mr. Bryan, and then they stayed to cheer the tail of the gasoline propelled comet. It is certain that those who live on the south side of the intercity road will have to clean house today for clouds of dust were stirred up by the wheels of the whizz-wagons. It is also certain that Mr. Bryan, in all the campaign, has never been treated to a more strenuous trip than when he was born over the Jackson county hills by Kansas City's flying automobile squadron.

WHEN BRYAN ARRIVED.

William P. Borland, congressional aspirant, was holding the crowd of perhaps 2,000 when the Bryan special arrived at Independence. The presidential candidate was led to an auto and taken to the courthouse square, where he was greeted by cheers. He did not speak more than fifteen minutes and when he broke off he told the corwd that he would come back and finish his speech if they would elect him.

"I wish I had the power of Joshua," said Mr. Bryan, "that I might make the sun stand still and talk to you, without encroaching on Kansas City's time. Although I have not the power to control the movements of the sun, I can make the Republicans move.

They have reason to show fright, for the people are now coming to believe that the Democratic party is the one source of relief from present conditions and that through it alone can freedom of speech,, conscience and of the individual to use what he earns, be assured. The Republicans have nurtured predatory wealth which allows the few to prey upon the many. Our creed is that this should be corrected by suffrage, and we plead for an honest election. To get it we must have publicity of campaign contributions that the people may konw the sources of financial influence in carrying on our campaign."

OFF FOR KANSAS CITY.

When he finished speaking, a flying wedge formed around Mr. Bryan and broke the way through the crowd to his automobile in the court house yard. It seemed that the chauffeurs hardly took time to crank up, for in a trice the honk-honk procession was off for Kansas City.

"There's another proof that the corporations are agin' us," remarked a Democratic autoist savagely as a long Kansas City Southern train rolled leisurely across the roadway and cut about half of the flying procession from further progress for seven maddening minutes. Nearly twenty cars reluctantly obeyed the stop lever and stood trembling with nervous rage, spitefully repeating all the cuss words in an autombile's vocabulary of profanity. One owner vowed that his French car was chugging, "sacre bleu!" At last the train passed, the gates lifted and just in time to miss being hurdled and the autos dashed forward.

THOUSANDS GREET HIM.

Ten thousand persons must have been awaiting the candidate at the Parade where he made an appeal for more contributions to the campaign fund.

"We have already raised from $160,000 to $180,000 by contributions from the people, in addition to the $40,000 left over from the sum subscribed in Denver to pay for the convention. We have fixed the limit of single contributions at $10,000 but find that we have placed it unnecessarily high. But two or three gifts have been made amounting to more than $1,000. I believe it is better for an administration to owe its election to all the people than to a few favor-seeking corporations. We need at least $100,000 more between now and election day, and Democrats ought to raise it."

"If elected, I promise to call a special session of congress to enact legislation whereby United States Senators shall be elected by a direct vote of the people. I believe there should be a department of labor, with its head in the president's cabinet. The laborers are entitled to it, and I want a representative of labor with who m to consult in the event that I am made president."

After taking a few facetious raps at President Roosevelt on the strength of his proposed African hunting trip, and at Longworth for expressing the wish that his father-in-law may be elected eight years hence, Mr. Bryan stopped, and was whirled through the downtonw streets in his auto to the Hanibal bridge, where he deaprted for St. Joseph.

Labels: automobiles, Congressman Borland, Independence, Kansas City Southern, politics, President Roosevelt, St.Joseph, suffrage, William Jennings Bryan

April 12, 1907

NEGRO AS K. U. DEBATER.

Boycott Placed on Baker Debate by

Kansas Students.

As a result of the selection of a negro for the Kansas university debating team, which meets Baker today, only a score of students will accompany the team to Baldwin tomorrow. Woodie Jacobs, a fullblood negro from Rosedale, entered the competitive preliminary debates two months ago, and on account of his experience easily won a place on the team. The other men on the team -- Sanders Vigg, from Alva, O. T., and Clyde Commons, from Fort Scott -- made no protest, and after a few vain attempts to have the preliminaries tried over by some of the members of the debating council who opposed the negro, Jacobs was assured a place on the team. Nothing was heard of the matter until this week, when the debating council tried to arrange an excursion to Baldwin. In former years, 500 or 600 students attended the debates and chartered special trains, but this year only sixteen Kansas University students bought tickets.

The novelty of having a negro on the team is increased all the more by the fact that the question for the debate is the repeal of the fifteenth amendment, involving the taking away of the right of suffrage from the negro. Jacobs, for Kansas university, defends the negro side of the question.

Labels: race, Rosedale, suffrage, universities