“A special canary department”
Here’s a light item from the July 11, 1937, Daily Oklahoman, about a yellow desperado and the policeman who captured his man …errr, his bird.
Promise of Reform Brings Release of Canary Prisoner
The police department’s prize prisoner, a yellow canary, seized on charges of obstructing duties of an officer went home Saturday minus a few feathers, chirping weakly and looking very ashamed about the whole escapade.
Booked Friday night as Mary (or John) Doe, the flying desperado was released Saturday to Mrs. Denver Burkett, 830 Northwest Fifth street, who said his name is really Jimmy and promised there would be no more of this unrestrained flitting about the house.
Mrs. Burkett identified Jimmy by the absence of two tail feathers which, she said, he lost in a forced landing behind the ice box last March.
Jack Barnett, station captain, who captured Jimmy after he annoyed officers by crying “cheep, cheep” through the station window and battering the screen with his bill, demanded an explanation of his presence there.
“Well,” Mrs. Burkett apologized, “the ice man left the door open Friday morning and he flew right out.”
Police received 20 calls Saturday from people looking for their lost canaries.
“Holy smokes,” complained Barnett, “at that rate people must lose 7,300 canaries a year. If this keeps up we’ll have to have a special canary department.”
Mary Phillips
mphillips@opubco.com
The 9-foot bed sheet
In the May 30, 1909, Daily Oklahoman this advertisement appeared: “Oklahoma Legislature “Nine Foot” Sheets–Full 81×108 inches–made of best wearing quality, linen finish sheeting–seamless, torn, hemmed, each …..75c”
Seems odd that the state Legislature would be promoting bed sheet sales, but in 1908 the state lawmakers passed a law ordering hotels to provide 9-foot sheets for their beds. While it was alleged that William H. “Alfalfa Bill” Murray, then speaker of the house, had the law enacted because he “was forced to sleep under a five-foot, 2-inch sheet one frosty night.” The provision was part of the hotel inspection law.
The July 16, 1908, Daily Oklahoman contained this excerpt from the Alva Record explaining the reasons for the law.
“The growing danger of tuberculosis, or as it is now called “the white plague” is alarming, not only this country but the entire world, and associations are being formed in many cities to enforce every means to prevent the spread of the disease. A healthy person who occupies the bed in a hotel where a consumptive has slept the night before may catch the disease. A nine foot upper sheet is long enough to spread two or two and a half feet over the top covers at the head of the bed, and as every respectable hotel washes the sheets daily, following their use, it tends to do away with the danger of catching any contagious disease. The medical world and all thoughtful people agree that the nine-foot bed law is one of the wisest laws for the protection of the traveling public, that was ever enacted”
The Alva article goes on to say, ” The grand council of Commercial Drummers of Missouri have just closed their annual convention at St. Joseph, and they have decided to make a vigorous fight not only for the nine-foot bed sheet, but for better sanitation at hotels along other lines. Score one more for Oklahoma. Other states will follow.”
Kansas and Missouri did, and bills were offered in New York, Nebraska, Illinois and Texas.
While the 9-foot bed sheet law often shows up in lists for strangest laws still on the books, it was actually dropped from the state statute books in 1910.
The next time you’re in a hotel and you see how the top sheet is long enough to cover the blankets on the bed, think of how our state legislators were thinking of our safety and health in 1908.
Mary Phillips
A street in D.C.
A small item was published on Page 1 of The Daily Oklahoman, June 4, 1936, stating that the U.S. House of Representatives had passed the bill presented by 1st District Congressman Wesley E. Disney requesting a street to be named for Oklahoma in the nation’s capitol. The bill was sent on to the Senate but was blocked. It was introduced again in 1937.
On Aug. 27, 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed that not only Oklahoma but Ohio, Missouri and Maine should have Washington streets named for them. Disney had wanted a street on the mall to be renamed for Oklahoma, but Roosevelt refused to sign a resolution to change the names. He said in his veto message the change “would result in a complete change in the policy established by Thomas Jefferson when the city was laid out by L’Enfant. Jefferson named the diagonal avenues after the 13 original states and the rectangular streets were lettered and numbered.” The president offered some alternative streets for renaming.
An Internet map search of Washington, D.C., streets shows that if you follow Constitution Avenue NW past the Ellipse in front of the White House and continue on past the Capitol building and the Senate office buildings, where the street changes to Constitution Avenue NE. Continue following the street until it turns to become 21st NE. Curving off of 21st NE you will find yourself on Oklahoma Avenue NE. It is north of RFK Stadium, orginally home to the Washington Redskins football team and the Washington Senators baseball team. It is now home to the D.C. United soccer team.
Mary Phillips
Ou-u-ch!
Here’s another offering from the “City Sights” occasional column that was published in The Daily Oklahoman June 23, 1918.
City Sights
It may have been the spark plugs or possibly the oil; the water in the radiator may have been aboil. Anyhow, she choked and missed and heaved a final sigh–Mr. Hess had tried to drive her up North Broadway in high.
She anchored in the asphalt. Hess dismounted with a cuss. He cranked but couldn’t diagnose the ailment of his bus. He thought * * * perhaps all gasoline his hell-on-wheels had drank, so he ventured to the rear and stuck his eye into the tank.
All was very dark within, no rippling could he hear. In curiosity he struck a match and held it near. Now, family doctors dressed his wounds; he may survive, they say. But the epitaph on Lizzie’s grave says: “Keep All Fire Away.”
While a search of The Oklahoman’s archives indicated there were Hess families living in Oklahoma City in 1918 and the Hess Rooms were located on North Broadway, I was unable to find any report of this event.
Mary Phillips
