Found 99 Year Old Newspaper

I found this newspaper from June 14, 1919 in the back of a framed picture of my Grandfather when he was 2 (3rd photo down).  I think that they just stuffed it in the back to keep the picture straight and so that the wire hanger would not move.  The Columbus Citizen in June was not an especially eventful day and I could not find anything tying it to the family, but it was pretty amazing.  The Citizen merged with the Ohio State Journal in the late 1950s, and became the Columbus Citizen Journal.  I remember always having a subscription to the Citizen Journal when I was a kid.  It was the morning paper of Columbus and was more liberal compared to the conservative afternoon Dispatch newspaper.  The wealthy Wolfe family owned the Dispatch while Scripps Howard owned the Citizen Journal.  The Dispatch endorsed Republicans for 100 years up until the 2016 election when they endorsed Hillary Clinton.

The front page story with the confusing headline "Offer Stored Food to Public" was about all the supplies stored by the War Department and what would happen to it now that the war was over.  The 30 million pounds of meat stored in Columbus were going to be sold wholesale to people.  They had 75 acres of warehouses full of food that cost $80 million to purchase.  The other story on the front page that you would not see on the front of any modern newspaper: "French Poodle Adopts Family of Motherless Kittens." And yes, the story is exactly as the headline describes thanks to Mr. Cramer's poodle "Trixie" (sounds like a prostitute dog).

It seems that the Columbus Citizen was fighting to have the surplus food supplies released to the public for cost instead of going through the "packers and food barons," who were gauging the people. There was an editorial about the packers not being part of the public, but the front page story was a slanted story about how they were on the verge of beating those who would purchase the food and significantly raise the price.  The paper was proud to tout their victory in a story blurring the lines between editorial and news. They really were representing the interests of the citizens in both name and in their actions. Strike a victory for "yellow journalism."

There was a story about a British plane attempting to go from New Foundland to Iceland which will run you between $779 to $2,500 on Lufthansa today.  No real direct flights on British Airwaves that I could find.  The "shopmen" were ending a strike at Norfolk and Southern, but I have no idea what a shopman was at a railroad.  There was a comic strip on the front page of the paper and there was a story about long distance call rates going up to $1.05 from 80 cents to other cities.  This seems like a ton of money for 1919.

There was an advertisement for dinner at the Hotel Deshler Crystal room in Columbus for $1.50 per person and by the way that included the Marimba Band.  The Deshler Hotel was evidently rather posh right on Broad and High in the center of Columbus where the 20 story KeyBank Building now stands.  The rich Deshler family lived right down the street from the Hotel.

In a headline showing the racism of the early 20th Century, "Negro Highwayman Robbed Six." It sounded like the guy was a mugger, but they used highwayman for some reason.  There was another racist headline "Anti-Jap Agitation Spreading in China." Houses were advertised in big letters as "Colored" and then those for "Whites."  Most of the houses were around $2,000.

There was a picture of J. Pierpont Morgan on the front page with the headline, "Most Influential of Rich Americans." The end of the short story was, "The Morgan firm is the greatest power in the American  financial world."  Really, that seems rather subjective to me.  We never really have gotten over worshiping our rich people in America, have we?

The Governor of Washington state died suddenly after suffering a "nervous breakdown several weeks ago."  Strange. There was a really cool soap opera in the one section of the paper called "My Husband and I" by Jane Phelps that was serialized and ended with "continued tomorrow." Now, why doesn't the paper try something like this today?  They could have the fictional pieces in the print edition only so that people would have a reason to subscribe again.

There was an entire page dedicated to the major religions and what each were up to.  Nothing from the Catholics while the Methodist Episcopalians getting a large section. The Knights of Columbus had a full page ad about an upcoming celebration proclaiming that "everybody welcome!" A full page is like 2 or 3 times the current size of the Columbus Dispatch.

There was a section called "Casualty List"which I assume was from the war.  Thankfully seven months after the end of the war, there were no deaths from Columbus. There was an attempt to sell War Savings Stamps in order to build a stone memorial to World War I or something they called a "Victory Shaft," (seems like they needed a little marketing help with that). There were a few advertisements that looked exactly like newspaper stories as an example one headlined, "Just Use Sloan's Liniment Once--(subhead) Then you'll understand why it's the world's greatest pain relief." Then a two paragraph story championing the benefits of this liniment.

The biggest sport at the time was boxing with the other sports getting very little ink. There were also many advertisements for "Electric Starting and Lighting" added to cars for as little as $85 which was a price reduction from $110.  Seems worth it to me to have the ability to have your car seen. Also, Ford was advertised as the "Universal Car" whatever that means, and they had that same famous script "F." In the back of the paper was a story about John A. Kidwell, the President of the Railway Clerks Association who was killed when he stopped to get a drink of water at a farmhouse and stepped into the road killed immediately by an automobile driven by Charles Francis. Today, he would have more problems with the knock on the door of a rural country farmhouse rather than crossing that lonely country road.

I really liked the ad for Dr. Stewart's Tonic Bitters which "relieves all distress of the stomach" and "sold wherever medicine is sold."  It also cures you if "your liver is now too torpid to secrete sufficient bile," which is disgusting and confusing.  Dr. Stewart's tonic can help with a bad liver, dyspepsia gaunt, or if your life is filled with "gloom and grief."  I can't imagine what medicine could do all those things except that the weird thing was that the bottle looks exactly like a bottle of Jack Daniels.

by Brian Davis