SE Portland, Oregon

He's sheef p'lice.

DRUNK ON THE STREETS
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Napoleon Davis and Chief Barry Join in Debauch
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DISGRACEFUL SALOON BRAWL
----- Barry Said He Was Running the Town and Viciously Assaulted a Saloon-Keeper.
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   The spectacle of the chairman of the police commission and his chief of police staggering along the streets in a drunken spree, shouting curses, brawling in saloons, destroying property and viciously assaulting unoffending citizens was furnished a number of people the night before Thanksgiving.  Although Chairman Davis and Chief Barry may have forgotten all the circumstances of the episode, these are perfectly fresh and distinct in the minds of many witnesses, particularly the unfortunate victims of their assault.

   Early Thanksgiving eve Davis and Barry started out with the praiseworthy intention of showing the town that they owned it.  After they made the rounds of the saloons and dives, leaving a trace of overturned beer kegs, bicycle racks and signboards in their wake, and imbibing all the liquor they could get free, the brought up about 1 o'clock Thursday morning in a saloon on Morrison street, both ugly drunk, and looking for trouble.

   Banging the door open, they staggered up to the bar and demanded a drink.  It was furnished them.  They they started for the private rooms in the rear, one of which was occupied by two young men named Mannard and Lenner.

   "Who's in this here room," demanded Barry.

   "There are two young gentlemen there, chief," said the bartender, civilly.  "There are plenty of other rooms."

  "Do' wan' no other room; want this here one," said the chief.

  "You'll have to take another."

  "I'll do nothin' kind; I'll break door in," shouted Barry, giving it a vicious kick.

  This brought the one of the occupants of the room to his feet.

  "I don't know who you are," said he, "but if you want this room worse than we do, we'll get out and let you have it."

  "Looker here, young feller," yelled Barry in a drunken rage, "I'm chief p'lice, I'll git in there 'n show you who's runnin' this here town."  He threw back his coat and showed his star.

  "Thas' what he is," corroborated Davis, "He's sheef p'lice. I'm cham'n p'lice. I'll stand 'im back. Don't give no jaw."

  At this juncture, William Anglin, who runs a saloon on Morrison street, near the corner of first, and the bartender came running in, and took a hand in the melee.

  "I can handle him," said Anglin, and  he made a grab for Barry.  The chief, who is a powerful man, suddenly swung around and smashed Anglin on the face, breaking his glasses into fragments, and sending him back into the barroom.

   "Leave me 'lone," he shouted, "I'm chief p'lice.  I'll fix these here kids in this box."  He thrust his hand in this hip pocket, and would have drawn his pistol, had not the barkeeper seized hi and pulled him back into the barroom.  A crowd had in the meantime gathered, and by the united efforts of every one present, Davis and Barry were pushed into the street.  The next day one of the young men who was in the box received a note of apology, signed by Barry.  Anglin was paid $5 for his broken glasses, which was a sufficiently large sum to purchase his silence.

   Earlier the same night Davis and Barry came out of the Imperial, a concert dive on Fourth street, between Morrison and Yamhill, and made the best of their unsteady way around the block, overturning bicycle racks, piles of beer kegs and everything they could lay their hands on.  Every time a bicycle rack was reached David would kick it over, and order Barry to pick it up and heave it into the center of the street, which the latter would do with alacrity.  The four sides of the block around which they made their irregular course were strewn with smashed movables, and their course could be traced a long way by the wrecks, whatever they were able to lay their hands on.  In the Louvre, at Fourth and Alder streets, their boisterousness soon led to their ejection, as it did in a number of other places.

   Before reaching the Morrison-street saloon, they made the rounds of the dives and disreputable houses.  It was the night of Bud Smith's victory at the Multnomah Club, and the street was crowded with young men, celebrating the event.  Nearly all of these met the drunken officials in their travels.  Whenever the latter met any one whom they knew they stopped and engaged in maudlin conversations, telling with great glee that they owned the town, and were going to do what they pleased with it.

   Several policemen met them, but the only one who had the courage to advise them to go home was roughly told to mind his own business.  At 2 o'clock a county official, who is a personal friend of Barry, put the two drunks in a hack and sent them home.  It was too late, however, to avoid a scandal, although both Davis and Barry have been spending considerable time and money to hush the matter up since.

   There have been no arrests.

  Although recent publicity has lessened their patronage, the dives, dancehalls and like places are still open, and undisturbed by the police.

   At First and Madison streets, a combination joint is run by one DeMartini, which is the rendezvous of the toughest element in that section of the city.  Downstairs is a bar and a disreputable show, in which women take part, in open defiance of the law, which forbids womenin the same room with a bar.  Above is a crap and stud poker game.  Here thugs and toughs congregate in large numbers, and not a night passes that the place is not the scene of a disgraceful drunken brawl.  Policement wander in and out of the place and drink at the bar.

   A place known as the Imperial, on Fourth street, near Morrison, is nightly filled with women, who take no trouble to conceal themselves behind the curtains of the boxes in which they are ranged.  A close inspection of these boxes will reveal the presence of numerous young girls not of their teens, who have been lured thither before they know the character of the place, and who have been corrupted till they enjoy the entertainment.

   The proprietors of the dancehalls in the North End constantly visit such places of theses in search of women to fill their dives.  These men prefer young girls, who are willing to pay them large commissions to dance in their resorts.  Girls whose first lessons in evil are taught in concert halls like the Imperial invariabley find their way sooner or later to the dancehalls of the North End, and are associated with the worst element to be found in the city.  All such places are frequented by the police, and not the slightest effort is made to keep young girls out of them.

-Oregonian. December 9, 1897.

 

Patrick J. Barry was Portland's Chief of Police from June 9, 1897 to July 2, 1897 (just 23 days!), so the date of this article (December 1897) and purported date of the drunken foray (day before Thanksgiving, 1897), both months after the end of Barry's short tenure as chief, means Barry was carrying on about being "sheef" long after it no longer being the case (but Barry flashes his "star" to get his way?).  Portland's then-Mayor Pennoyer appointed four police chiefs during his term (1896-1898). His successor, Mayor Mason, replaced the entire police force, its chief, the janitor, and the board of commissioners, including… Napoleon Davis.  Davis knew Mason would clean house and forced each the Portland patrol to donate $25 a month to war chest to defeat Mason in the election.  He collected $2,500 and instead kept it all for his own personal use "to buy big fat cigars" (see Portland's Finest, Past and Present (2000) p22).

Criticism Made Freely

In 1913 New York City's Buerau of Municipal Research came to Portland and reviewed the city's government and services. It published its results in a series of reports as they were completed, and summarized the results on May 4, 1913 in the Oregonian, only shortly before an election where voters would decide whether to adopt a new city charter based on the Galveston plan. Here's some excerpts.

• "No centralization of power could possibly afford greater opportunity for wrong doing than the conditions which actually obtain in thecity's legislative body at the present time."
• "The Police department is so inefficient that to list the things it hasn't but ought to have is to describe a modern police department." 
• "Control over contagious diseases is wholly inadequate. One-quarter of the city's tuberculosis cases are not reported. Venereal diseases are not reported at all. Cases are often released from quarantine by telephone or verbal order."
• "The Council, particularly, has assumed dictatorial powers in the granting of special [building] permits, although wholly incompentent to pass judgment understandingly upon such technical engineering questions. Special permits mean special privileges for a few"
• "Provision has not been made for maintaining all streets by city labor." [100 years of potholes]
• "The Auditor's financial control is no control. It consists merely of his being informed what has been done after it has been done."
• "The City auditor has no means of knowing whether the city received from the county all of the taxes to which it is entitled."
• "Although water revenues amount to more than $750,000 a year, the City Auditor has no accounting or auditing control thereover."
• "Scientific budget making in Portland is handicapped by the present charter, which limits each of the city's principal functions to a certain perscribed tax levy. The Council should be able to apportion each year's funds according to the current needs of each department, bureau and office, and not be compelled to adhere to the arbitrary schedule fixed 10 years ago."

The new city charter, which remains our present-day city charter, passed by a narrow margin of 722 votes [I have a citation for this - I will update later with it] (it was also the first election after women's suffrage in Oregon).  Its passage should not be weighted too heavily on the Bureau of Municipal Research's findings - rather eastside Portland discontent with under-representation under the existing ward system is a more likely culprit.[I have a citation for this, too]  There were 10 wards with 4 on the eastside and 6 on west, despite the eastside being far more populous by 1913 than the west.

The sentiment is echoed by a postscript from Oregonian editorial board regarding the Bureau of Municipal research report, after passage of new city charter:

• "The same charter, last November, in competition with another commission charter, gained 48.08 percent of the vote case on the issue. In the recent election, with no competition, it secured 50.44 per cent of the vote cast." 
• "These experts told us a large number of things we already knew and had been discussing for months and even years. They were not employed by the city of Portland, as might be readily inferred from the [recent advertising] leaflet, but by a self-appointed committee, whose membership in large part is yet unknown to the public. The work of the bureau was no needed, and served principally tocomplicate a contest between rival candidates for office. There is suspicision that it was brought here for that purpose.  Does anybody remember what the bureau reported, except that it placed all blame for municipal shortcomings on the old charter and by implication excused from blame city officials who were seeking re-election?"





So maybe the whole report was a publicity hit job? It certainly reads like one.  And if a hit job is what the citizens group wanted then the Bureau certainly delivered the goods.

 Here follows the full scan of the Bureau's summary from May 4, 1913:

Graduates of the Saloons' Back Doors—How They Are Debauched by Young Men.

GIRLS ALL SET FREE
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THE LAW VERY LENIENT WITH YOUNG STREET ROWDIES
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Graduates of the Saloons' Back Doors—How They Are Debauched by Young Men.
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   Nellie Stewart, Frances Whitfield (or Gray), Mollie Squires and Clara Zeck, the young women who indulged in several disgraceful street fights Monday night, and who were picked up early yesterday afternoon by Patrolmen Barclay and Gasselt, were all arraigned in the municipal court yesterday afternoon on charges of disorderly conduct.  The girls defiantly pleaded guilty, and through the intercession of City Attorney Davis they were allowed to go.  A plan was set on foot during the afternoon to rearrest them and take them before Justice McDevitt's court on state charges, but fortunately for the girls, it was not carried out.

    One of the girls interested in the quarrel on Monday night emphatically denied a published statement that it was a mere accident.  She said that there has been a long-standing grudge between Nellie Stewart and the Whitfield girl, who lives in Salem.  The latter came to Portland a few days ago expressly to settle her quarrel.  Monday night she collected a crowd of girls of the same stamp, and, after all of them had been served with drinks in different saloons about town till they became disgracefully drunk, they sent up to the Stewart girl's lodgings and dared her to come down.  She refused to come at first, but finally, egged on by a couple of her friends, she came down, and the street brawls which followed resulted.

   The exception of Nellie Stewart, none of the girls who participated in the ill-starred affair is more than 19 years old, and the youngest, Clara Squires, is barely 17.  All of them are of respectable parentage, and are graduates of some of the local institutions of learning.  To girls such as these, the back rooms of many of the self-styled "first-class" saloons are always open.  They first go to such places in company with young men whom they admire because they are a little "sporty."  After a few weeks, instead of going there with them, they go there to find them.  Drinks are always served on request.  As a rule, bartenders do not question the ages of their female customers or refuse them any intoxicants for which they may ask.  Some of the scenes which are enacted every night in some of these places are of such a nature that a recital of them would not be credited.

   There are at present in Portland at least 20 young girls, all of them under 20 years of age, who two years ago were living at home and leading respectable lives, but who now run about the streets at night from one saloon to another, associating with men whose loose morals render them outcasts from decent society.

   There are a dozen saloons scattered about the central portion of the city which are glad to receive girls in their rooms because of the following they attract, and because men always spend more money when drinking with women than they do when drinking among themselves.

   The extent of degradation which young girls can reach in little time by such associations is almost incredible.  It is, however, very well evidenced  by the language was that was used during the squabble Monday night.   No North End saloon bummers or thugs in any drunken brawl could revile each other more foully or pour forth a grosser stream of filthy epithets than those that came in torrents from the lips of half a dozen frail young girls, none of whom was old enough or wise enough to be away from her mother.  When the Squires girl was arrested by Patrolman Barclay, yesterday morning, she assumed an air of insolence and answered him in a manner which would have brought the blush to the cheek of a hardened woman of the town.

   Several of the girls who were concerned in the fight promised to leave town last night, but it is hardly likely that any of them will keep their promises.

Oregonian. March 17, 1897.

[I love the sensational and breathy writing of this article ("no North End saloon bummers or thugs in any drunken brawl could revile each other more foully or pour forth a grosser stream of filthy epithets than those that came in torrents from the lips of half a dozen frail young girls"), but this piece see-saws between addressing a real social ailment (teenage drunkenness, and possibly, or probably, worse, subsidized by local saloons) and an early form of patriarchal finger-wagging at middle-class young women not staying locked up at home all the time.  Indeed, young girls running " about the streets at night.. with men whose loose morals render them outcasts from decent society" sounds like a 1,001 b-movie cautionary tales from the 1950s (and beyond).  Not to be dismissive – the Oregonian's crusade against the saloons and drunkenness is remarkably consistent, and the mention that "the scenes which are enacted every night in some of these places are of such a nature that a recital of them would not be credited" sounds rather terrifying given their participants (the barely 17 Clara Squires and some men in the back-room of saloon).]

 

 

 

PURSUED BY AN IRATE HUSBAND

PURSUED BY AN IRATE HUSBAND
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Exciting Chase After Two Men Who Insulted a Woman—One is Captured and Gets Fined.
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    As Mrs. W. M. Woodall accompanied by Miss Frances Taylor, was returning to her home on Third and Columbia streets, about 9 o'clock Tuesday evening, two strange men accosted them on First street near Jefferson and began to make ungentlemanly remarks to hem.  The first remarks were passed in silence, but when the men became more insolent in pressing recognition, the ladies told them to mind their own business or there would be trouble.

   No attention was paid to this warning and the men went so far as to attempt to take hold of the arms of the women.  This last impertinence so frightened them that they started to run.  The two men also turned the corner on Columbia street and pursued the women to the doorstep of Mrs. Woodall.

   When Mrs. Woodall got into the house her husband had already retired. She however, lost no time in apprising him of her very unpleasant experience, and he at once started in pursuit of the men.  The men were still near the gate when Mr. Woodall appeared at the door and the exciting chase began.  One of the men escaped on a side street, while Mr. Woodall, in hot pursuit of the other, continued the road race down Columbia towards First.

   Upon reaching First street, the pursued man dodged into a saloon, while the enraged husband, in his night clothes and brandishing a large club he had picked up on the way, followed closely after.  The crowd of men who were gather about the bar were so frightened by the flying spectre-like men that some of them dropped their glasses and lost their appetite.  The saloon-keeper, with the instincts of a Trojan warrior, grabbed Mr. Woodall and unceremoniously threw him out of the back door, while the same summary movement was performed with the man whom Woodall was pursing, only the latter was ejected through the front entrance.

   Mr. Woodall, not to be outdone by the action the irate saloon-keeper, ran around the saloon from the rear end to the front, and got there just in time to catch the man he had so vigorously pursued.

   Officer Smith appeared on the scene immediately after and took the man to the city jail, while Mr. Woodall retraced his steps to his home to tell his wife of the capture.

   The man, who gave his name as Alex Leuden, and claimed to be a barbed, working in a Washington Street shop, had an examination in the police court yesterday afternoon.  He denied having made any improper remarks to the ladies, but admitted that his companion did.  The name of this companion he did not know, for he claimed the man was only a casual acquaintance.  As the women, however, positively identified Lueden as the man how accosted them and took improper liberties in addressing them, the court did not place much reliance in his statements.   Leuden was found guilty and fined $30.

 

 

[I like to think that Mr. Woodall was this broad shouldered Bluto-from-Popeye type fellow.  The club he brandished would thus be either a small tree or a lamppost torn summarily from the very ground.  I also like to imagine that the saloon-keeper was an even more broad-shouldered Bluto.]

-Oregonian.  June 7, 1889.

SHOCKING AND OUTRAGEOUS.

SHOCKING AND OUTRAGEOUS.
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John Barry, While Drunk, Treats the Dead Body of His Aged Wife with Brutal Violence – No Adequate Punishment.

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    A brief item appeared in these columns yesterday morning on the death of old Mrs. Barry, who has been rooming at the old lodging-house at the corner of Second and F streets.

   It is a case which calls for than a passing notice, as exemplifying the life of a hard-working wife, joined to a worthless and dissolute man.  Barry's exploits yesterday were on a par with his previous night's performances.  He was in the police court yesterday noon, where he pleaded guilty to a charge of being drunk.  The officers, humanely inclined, spoke a good word to the judge for the man, as he was supposed to be overcome with grief, and he was suffered to go, that he might attend his wife's funeral.

   He took his departure and went to the morgue, where his wife's body was lying.  Between frequent potations he went in and out, finally becoming so drunk as to fall down several times, bruising his face and tumbling over the stove.  The police had to be called in, and he was again conducted to jail.

  The reports of his conduct on the previous night seems so outré and incredible that a reporter was yesterday detailed to ascertain their truth.  Shortly after 7 o'clock Wednesday evening a roomer in Mrs. Barber's lodging house came up the back stairs and discovered something in the hall.  A light was brought, and it was found to be old Mrs. Barry, with life practically extinct in her body.  She was carried to her room, and the sisters at St. Vincent's hospital, who have always interested themselves in Mrs. Barry's case, were notified.  They came to the house and prepared the body for the grave with snow-white linen and a cloth upon the face.  The watch was given to Mrs. Barber, the lodging-house keeper, and another lady friend who volunteered to aid her.

  In due course of time, well fired with liquor, Barry returned home.  He went to his room and ordered the women out.  Not being possessed of sufficient determination they obeyed.  Alone with the corpse of the woman, whose meager and hard-won earnings had been his almost sole support, the brute began his orgies.  He first laid hold upon the shroud and cloths placed by the Sisters' loving and tender hands, and tore them from the body.  He struck her repeatedly upon the face, calling upon her to rise.  For the first time, the patient woman failed to do his bidding, and seizing her roughly he dragged her from the bed to the floor.

   BY this time help had arrived.  Two men forced their way into the room and replaced the body on the bed.  They wiped the blood from the face, covered the battered and bruised spots, and renewed, as far as they could, the linen coverings. 

   Barry then drew a knife, and he as he bore the appearance of a maniac, they withdrew.  Before the drunken ruffian had time to renew his despoliations, the police arrived, he was conveyed to the station, and the rest of his exploits are already told.

   Many old citizens remember Mrs. Barry.  She was a hard-working industrious woman and a faithful wife.  Of late years she has well worn herself out and such work as sewing, scrubbing, and nursing which the Sisters could throw her way has been her sole revenue.  Barry has maintained a show of working odd jobs, but the roomers in the house who knew them say that she has virtually supported both from her slender earnings.

   What little money came into the old brute's pocket was assiduously employed in getting drunk.  He became gradually so enfeebled that, following a debauch he would spend the entire day in bed.  The old lady did her utmost to quiet his noisy outbursts, and when he slept or was quiet she went in search of work.

   John Barry's wife is dead.  Her years of patient and unrequited toil are all gone by, but even her shroud of death did not detain her brute of a husband from acts of unspeakable violence which a dog would not be guilty of to a dead objection of his affection.

   Our advanced civilization such that ninety days in jail is the probable limit to his punishment.  There are portions of the West where brutality such as this is followed without delay by tar and feathers, or a rope over the limb of the nearest tree.

   The old lady's body still lies at the morgue.  Mrs. Barber has been trying to secure donations upon the street sufficient to give the body a decent burial.

   Barry will appear in the police court this morning to answer a charge of being drunk and disorderly.  Whatever his plea or sentence, if he has any feeling when sober, he will not have an enviable memory to cherish of the death-bed of his faithful wife of so many years.

   There is not a penalty upon the statute books adequate to such an outrage, and the public sentiment of a community ought be such that no man who has committed such an act could continue to live in it.

 

Oregonian. January 4, 1889.

But dogs hate bagpipes.

Another Kohn advert from the Oregonian, May 19 1886. I adore that awkward unnecessary "charms" at the end of the sentence.

His hobby seemed to be stoves

TUMBLE WITH AN INSANE MAN – Justice McGuire and Constable Hill of East Portland, had a warm rough and tumble fight with an insane man yesterday afternoon. It had been reported to Mr. McGuire that a crazy man was roaming about the woods near Sullivan's gulch, and had been sleeping on the ground without covering for the past week. When they found their man he seemed perfectly rational and while Mr. Hill engaged him in conversation McGuire got behind him and attempted to throw a rope over his arms, but failed and then the trouble began. Although small in stature the man seemed a perfect giant in strength, and it was only with their utmost efforts that they finally threw him to the ground and bound his hands. He was taken to the county jail, where he gave his name as Olaf Nelson and said he was from the Cascades. His hobby seemed to be stoves, as he delivered quite an oration on that subject, and expressed his deepest contempt for anyone who would charge two prices for that domestic article. He will be examined before Judge Rice to-day.

-May 11 1882


Gee, the trouble began when they tried to tie him up? Ya' think? Can't a guy sleep under the sky, dreaming of his love of stoves, without constables trying to restrain him?

Studio Guild Admiral

Studio Building/Guild Theater (actually the same building), built 1927.



Admiral Apartments, built 1909.


-d.d.