This Week in 1908 (June 23–June 29)

How Long Ago was 1908?

Chicago is just starting to enforce the brand new “Anti-White Slavery” laws passed by the Illinois House and Senate. Chicago Cops are reluctant to do this because many of them have made “personal agreements” with the various madames in the red-light Levee district.

So, a squad of marshals is brought in to do it instead, and this week they swarm Madame Eva DaFour’s “resort” and the “Paris” resort run by Maurice Van Bever. Both are charged with running a white slave racket, providing (selling) up to 2000 white girls into prostitution. Most of Chicago’s newspapers cheer the end of what is known as the “Dearborn Street French Syndicate.”

In Baseball

*The Cubs play a home and away series with the Cincinnati Reds, winning 5 and losing two. At the end of the week they are in first place, with a record of 37-22.

*In one of the games the Cubs lost, they have no one to blame but themselves. They lose their composure and start arguing with the umpire, and thereby miss the winning run crossing the plate. (June 29)

Elsewhere in the news

*Former President Grover Cleveland dies (June 24) in New Jersey. He had been suffering from cancer since he was the President, something that had been covered up to the American public. They never knew that he had his entire jaw removed and rebuilt while he was in the White House. Ironically the cancer isn’t what killed him. A heart attack did. His last words were “I have tried so hard to do right.” His face is on the $1000 bill at the time of his death, and will remain there until 1946. This is a recording of his voice during his presidency in 1892.

Birthdays

*Teenager Alfred Kinsey will probably remember the date of Cleveland’s death the rest of his life. The fellow New Jersey native turns 14 that day. He will go on to be one of the world’s first sexologists.

*In England, Eric Arthur Blair turns 5 (June 26). He will go on to be a radical journalist and writer, and will adopt the pen name George Orwell.

*Helen Keller is 28 (June 27). She is just four years removed from graduating from Radcliffe magna cum laude, becoming the first deaf/blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. Her teacher since childhood, Anne Sullivan, still lives with her and helps care for her.

Price check: Buy a house in a catalogue…”$725 and our free building plans will build, paint, and complete ready for occupancy, this $1100 six room cottage.”

If you travel back in time, don’t expect that $725 house to have a water softener. You can’t call for “The Culligan Man” until 1924.