Litigation having established a clear title to the property once held by the Sixth District Agricultural Association, and the State, the declared owner, having agreed to lease the ground to the County and the City for fifty years, decisive steps were taken in January, 1910, by the Historical Society of Southern California to provide the Museum building now such a source of civic pride. Other bodies, including the Fine Arts League, the Southern California Academy of Science and a branch of the Cooper Ornithological Society, were invited to coöperate, each being promised a place in the park and museum plans; and by the middle of February, the supervisors had agreed to vote the necessary building funds. On July 11th, 1910, in the presence of a large and representative gathering at Exposition Park, ground was broken for the building, although the corner-stone was not laid until the 10th of December.
In the dark hours of the night of April 25th, 1910, after an illness of four days and almost entirely free from suffering, she who had shared with me the joys and sorrows of over half a century was called to her reward. She passed from this life as she had passed through it—gently and uncomplainingly. I was left in the midst of a gloom that I thought would be forever black; for six out of our eleven children had preceded their mother, whose spirit on that night was reunited with theirs. I was soon to find, however, how true it is that "The Lord tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." Common misfortune and common memories made but stronger the tie, always strong, between my children and myself. Time has performed his kindly offices: he has changed the anguish of grief to the solace of recollection; and in assisting me to realize that I was permitted so long and so happy a companionship, he has turned my heart from its first bitterness to lasting gratitude.
CHAPTER XLIII
RETROSPECTION
1910-1913
At one o'clock in the morning of October 1st, 1910, occurred the most heinous crime in the history of Los Angeles. This was the dynamiting, by the evil element of union labor, of the building and plant of the Los Angeles Times, resulting in the sudden extinction of no less than twenty human lives and the destruction of the property of the corporation. The tragedy, lamented in obsequies of the most impressive kind ever witnessed in this city, was followed by the construction, on the same site and at the earliest moment, of the present home of the Times. The trial of some of those deemed responsible for this disaster brought to the fore John D. Fredericks, District Attorney[50] in 1900, 1902, 1906 and 1910.
Not the least of the many and far-reaching losses entailed through the ruin of this printery was a History of the Medical Profession of Southern California by Dr. George H. Kress, with an introduction by Dr. Walter Lindley—a work of extended research almost ready for publication. After all such material as could be saved from the ruins had been assembled, an abridged edition of the volume once planned was issued.
In strong contrast to this annihilation of man by his brother, were the peaceful exercises marking the afternoon of the previous Sunday, June 19th, when the Kaspare Cohn Hospital, on Stephenson Avenue, was dedicated; a worthy charity made possible through the munificence, several years before, of the pioneer after whom the hospital is named.
As Superintendent of City Schools here for four years beginning in 1906, C. E. Moore laid the foundation for that national reputation which, in July, 1910, led to his being called as a professor to Yale University.
Jacob A. Riis, the famous Danish-American sociologist, who was so instrumental in cleaning up New York's tenement districts, visited Los Angeles for the fourth time, on March 10th, 1911, lecturing at the Temple Auditorium on "The Battle with the Slum."
The City Council having created a Harbor Board, Mayor George Alexander, in October, 1909, appointed Stoddard Jess, Thomas E. Gibbon and M. H. Newmark as Commissioners. In March, 1911, at a popular election, the Board was made a charter body, and Mayor Alexander reappointed the gentlemen named. Owing, however, to the numerous difficulties thrown in the way of the Commissioners in the accomplishment of their work, M. H. Newmark resigned in December, 1911 and Stoddard Jess in January, 1912; while Thomas E. Gibbon, for many years one of the most formidable advocates of a free harbor, met with such continued obstacles that he was compelled, in the summer of 1912, to withdraw.