Then and now
Published: Saturday, November 21, 2009
Updated: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 12:58 PM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 12:58 PM CDT
The Settlement Observer is not the first person to write anonymously for a newspaper. In fact, the Observer is not the first person to write anonymously for a Farmington newspaper. In fact, the Observer is not even the first person to write anonymously for a Farmington newspaper under the name Observer.
During the first decade of the 1900s, the Farmington Times regularly published articles authored by a writer known only as the Old Observer. While we don’t know the identity of the Old Observer, it’s safe to say he was not one of the Eastern Europeans who had immigrated to the Leadbelt around the turn of the century to work in the mines. For here is a piece by the Old Observer published in the June 11, 1903 edition of the Farmington Times:
“After the festivities on Saturday, the Hungarian laborers felt so good over the treatment accorded by the Americans, that they went home and imbibed too freely of ‘Lemp’s extra pale.’ Saturday night they fought among themselves. Two of the Russians in the gang got the worst of the melee, so they swore out a warrant charging several others with assault.”
“When Turner [a constable] went to arrest the foreigners, he found one man who was giving his ‘frau’ an unmerciful strapping. The wife beater met the constable in the yard and said, ‘now you go back, this is my business, and I am whipping her because she has been faithless.’ Turner said the actions of this man were so brutal that he felt like shooting a hole through him. The Slav who comes to America is as barbarous as was the Saxon three hundred years ago. Women are treated like brutes . . . Only last week a poor, unfortunate woman passed up the street drunk. The sight was so pitiful that strong men wept. The Hungarian woman has to work as much as the man.”
A lot has changed in 106 years. The first thing that will hit you in the Old Observer’s article is that, in 1903, men cried – and at the mere sight of a drunk woman. What a bunch of sissies those men were. Today’s virile males go to drinking establishments for the express purpose of seeking out intoxicated women. Yes, men have come a long way in the past century.
Next, you’ll probably notice that the Old Observer was appalled at the idea that women might be made to work as hard as men. What a quaint notion, which the feminists have thoroughly disposed of. Now, women always work as hard as men. Usually harder. Thanks to women’s libbers, females. too. have come far in the past century.
Last, you obviously can’t miss the fact that the Hungarians drank Lemp’s extra pale. Before Prohibition put the Lemp Brewery out of business, Lemp was as large as Anheuser-Busch, and, like Anheuser-Busch, the Lemp brewery itself was also located in St. Louis (in fact, a tiny bit south and across I-55 from the A-B brewery complex). Lemp’s most popular beer was not its pale ale. Lemp’s most popular brew was Falstaff, named for the dissipated, but fat, funny and likeable, wastrel who appears in several of Shakespeare’s plays, most notably as the childhood friend of Henry IV.
Americans today no longer read Shakespeare. His works are too long and too hard to read. And so we no longer name anything after Shakespearean characters. Instead, some contemporary beers include Buffalo Bill’s Alimony Ale (motto: “The Bitterest Beer in America”), Wasatch Polygamy Port (motto: “Why have just one?”), Judas Beer (which fortunately does not have a motto), and Skull Splitter Beer (which does not need a motto).
And so, you see, we’ve come a long way since 1903.
The Settlement Observer is a resident of Farmington.
During the first decade of the 1900s, the Farmington Times regularly published articles authored by a writer known only as the Old Observer. While we don’t know the identity of the Old Observer, it’s safe to say he was not one of the Eastern Europeans who had immigrated to the Leadbelt around the turn of the century to work in the mines. For here is a piece by the Old Observer published in the June 11, 1903 edition of the Farmington Times:
“After the festivities on Saturday, the Hungarian laborers felt so good over the treatment accorded by the Americans, that they went home and imbibed too freely of ‘Lemp’s extra pale.’ Saturday night they fought among themselves. Two of the Russians in the gang got the worst of the melee, so they swore out a warrant charging several others with assault.”
“When Turner [a constable] went to arrest the foreigners, he found one man who was giving his ‘frau’ an unmerciful strapping. The wife beater met the constable in the yard and said, ‘now you go back, this is my business, and I am whipping her because she has been faithless.’ Turner said the actions of this man were so brutal that he felt like shooting a hole through him. The Slav who comes to America is as barbarous as was the Saxon three hundred years ago. Women are treated like brutes . . . Only last week a poor, unfortunate woman passed up the street drunk. The sight was so pitiful that strong men wept. The Hungarian woman has to work as much as the man.”
A lot has changed in 106 years. The first thing that will hit you in the Old Observer’s article is that, in 1903, men cried – and at the mere sight of a drunk woman. What a bunch of sissies those men were. Today’s virile males go to drinking establishments for the express purpose of seeking out intoxicated women. Yes, men have come a long way in the past century.
Next, you’ll probably notice that the Old Observer was appalled at the idea that women might be made to work as hard as men. What a quaint notion, which the feminists have thoroughly disposed of. Now, women always work as hard as men. Usually harder. Thanks to women’s libbers, females. too. have come far in the past century.
Last, you obviously can’t miss the fact that the Hungarians drank Lemp’s extra pale. Before Prohibition put the Lemp Brewery out of business, Lemp was as large as Anheuser-Busch, and, like Anheuser-Busch, the Lemp brewery itself was also located in St. Louis (in fact, a tiny bit south and across I-55 from the A-B brewery complex). Lemp’s most popular beer was not its pale ale. Lemp’s most popular brew was Falstaff, named for the dissipated, but fat, funny and likeable, wastrel who appears in several of Shakespeare’s plays, most notably as the childhood friend of Henry IV.
Americans today no longer read Shakespeare. His works are too long and too hard to read. And so we no longer name anything after Shakespearean characters. Instead, some contemporary beers include Buffalo Bill’s Alimony Ale (motto: “The Bitterest Beer in America”), Wasatch Polygamy Port (motto: “Why have just one?”), Judas Beer (which fortunately does not have a motto), and Skull Splitter Beer (which does not need a motto).
And so, you see, we’ve come a long way since 1903.
The Settlement Observer is a resident of Farmington.
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