by Paul R. Spitzzeri
With journalistic heat turned up and getting a little warm for Los Angeles city officials in the aftermath of the accidental February 1906 death of Minnie Blough during a private dining room revelry at the Del Monte Tavern in downtown Los Angeles, the pressure was amplified on the fourth day of media coverage once the news of the incident broke over a week after it occurred.
The Los Angeles Times, always ready to ratchet up the sensationalism, especially on matters of moral turpitude and the crusade of reformers, titled an editorial in its edition of the 18th, “Dens of Infamy Must Go” and it began with the jeremiad:
Wine, women and song have long been pointed out as the roads to ruin. It is a cowardly and a brutal excuse invented by men to palliate their sins and to soften the blow when their sins have found them out. On the roads to ruin there should be new sign boards erected, and they should read: “Wine, men and song.” It is time to do it. Adam blamed the woman, but the daughters of Eve have far more frequent cause to place the blame of the world’s sorrow, suffering, shame and death on man.
The example of “poor, weak little Minnie Blough” who was “now asleep under the snow in her far away grave among the native hills of Michigan” was cited as one in which “the story has stirred the pitying heart of the entire community, which has been immeasurably shocked by the revelation of her untimely and pitiful end.”
It portrayed in her archetypal terms as a country girl, naive and lacking in sophistication, not to mention pretty, who came to the big city and worked as a restaurant server, but “had all the elements about her to make her the prey of the predatory brutes who go about the world seeking whom they may devour in their bestial passions.”
Extending the stark gender dichotomy, the Times asserted that,
The fiends who work the ruin of young girls in the cities and towns of America, have as necessary allies, the road house, the assignation house and the unspeakable resorts where private drinking and eating rooms are furnished indiscriminately to men and women of all sorts and conditions, without any questions being asked so long as they have the price. Los Angeles is cursed with many of these places, and it was in one of them that Minnie Blough spent her last fatal hour.
The paper claimed that it was a civilizing movement that was gradually turning the tide against such infamous houses and in general reform in politics and society, thanks to the fact that “good men and good women are fighting the wrong wherever it shows its face,” this being a common Progressive era statement.
The editorial took on the tint of Old Testament style sermonizing as it thundered that “the needed reform which most seriously presses at the present hour is the extermination of the houses of infamy which threaten the city with the very wrath of God.” It was, it propounded, “among such hell-holes the private-room café, the drinking places open alike to men and women, [which] are the most pernicious and dangerous.”
In the Del Monte and other such establishments, “the conscienceless scoundrels of the town lure young girls, induce them to drink, and thus accomplish their ruin.” This truth was said to be hard to offer in such a plainspoken manner, but it had to be said without anything but the clearest and most direct language. Working up quite a lather to its conclusion, the piece exhorted,
Something must be done, and done without delay. It needed the Blough case in all its sad and pathetic phasings to shock the town into a sense of its responsibilities. Let us put our hands to the work. In the name of decency let us not rest until these dens of unutterable infamy are uprooted, once and for all.
A visual representation of the attitude of the Times was given in an accompanying cartoon, titled “An Awakening,” in which a stern lady “Los Angeles,” garbed in what looks like dress of ancient Greece or Rome, points out a large window and forces a supine “The Law,” with a man stretched out on a quilted chaise lounge, wearing judicial robes and, for some strange reason, wearing a wig like those found among English officials, to look upon a café and saloon across the street.
The establishment is shown under the harsh light of press exposure and which illuminates men and women entering the enterprise, with a gent peering suspiciously over a curtain in a front window. A sign informs that private rooms are available on the upper two floors from which silhouettes reveal revelry and carousing of drinking and dancing, including one woman kicking up her heels and her skirts on a table top.
In its edition of that day, the Los Angeles Herald ran a feature under the heading of “May Sound Knell On Wine Rooms,” in which it was remarked that “the tragic death of Minnie Blough, the pretty waitress who died under most peculiar circumstances . . . may result in [John] Koster & [John J.] Lonergan, proprietors of the ‘tavern,’ losing their license” at the upcoming meeting of the Police Commission.
The paper added that Police Chief Walter H. Auble, killed in the line of duty two years later, “is prepared to offer damaging evidence,” commissioners Orson T. Johnson and George Mason “ready to take their stand,” and Mayor Owen McAleer “has been investigating the character of the resort.” Otherwise, if the proprietors of the Del Monte, “where orgies are said by the police to be a nightly occurrence,” were able to hang on to their liquor license, “the least to be expected is that [Koster and Lonergan] shall be compelled to remove their private rooms, open up their secret chambers and give up the tavern part of their business.”
After praising Blough family friend W.H. Phillips for his “manly course” in helping to arrange for funeral arrangements, the Herald quoted Chief Auble as suggesting
There are rooms upstairs that should not be part of the restaurant. It is not a hotel; it has no regular guests who arrive with baggage. It is a menace to the young people of Los Angeles. I am ready to go ahead and order the booths and partitions out when I have authority from the commission.
As for Mayor McAleer, it was commented that he “usually sides with the so-called liberal element” of the board, but he “cannot allow the recent happening at the Del Monte to pass unnoticed” and it was added that Auble would support the chief executive with a “mass of evidence concerning the character of the place.”
It was noted that Auble wondered why Koster and Lonergan, “anxious to prove that the Del Monte is a quiet, decent restaurant,” wouldn’t agree to demolish the third floor suites with their questionable combination of dining, bedroom and bathroom spaces. The Herald reported that the Chief was most concerned with the dining rooms, believing that “parties who drink liquor in the sight of others have no opportunity to indulge in orgies that may result as fatally as the one of February 6.”
Some new information was that the “Frank Slood” previously identified by the Express as the second male present at the Del Monte revel was either Frank Hardy, a tourist with rooms at the Hotel Elden on Broadway between 5th and 6th streets and who admitted knowing Minnie and her sister Lillian and sending “a costly wreath to be placed on Minnie’s casket,” or Frank L. Flood, manager of the McKee Bakery and Café where “Slood” was said to have worked.
Flood, however, denied, as Hardy did, being at the party, though he, too, knew the Bloughs and their friend, Nellie Courser, worked at McKee’s. A woman identified as “Mrs. Fisher” and a resident of the Hotel Rookwood, where Minnie Blough and Courser worked as a server, told a private detective (hired by whom was not stated) that it was Flood who was with the group. The Rookwood dining room manager and cashier, however, denied knowing a “Mrs. Fisher” and also revealed that Courser was fired that morning.
The paper concluded that the commission meeting would, it hoped, ban those elements of establishments like the Del Monte and “prevent a repetition of such midnight orgies at the Del Monte and other ‘hotels’ run on a similar plan” because this was “what the better element in the community is striving after” as it sought to deal with the places
where young girls can be lured to ruin and be drugged with wine until their moral sense is perverted and scenes take place which do not always end in death, but nearly always in disgrace.
The Times of the 20th reported that “Koster & Lonergan . . . whispered their version of the Minnie Blough tragedy in the ear of the Mayor,” while some Masons, presumably because of their penchant for holding events at the Del Monte, asked McAleer to see that the liquor license for the establishment and the adjacent Imperial Café be kept. Meanwhile, it was stated that “as a sop to the indignant public,” there would likely be an order regarding the upper floor suites.
That evening’s edition of the Express, however, reported that the Del Monte and Bisbee did lose their liquor licenses with the Police Commission ruling that the reason was because these facilities were “conducted in a disorderly manner.” The paper added that “curtailing the privilege of selling liquor with meals at these places cuts off the larger part of their patronage” and it was supposed that the Del Monte would likely change those upper level sections and apply for a new license or sell the place.
Commissioners Johnson and Mason were able to secure the necessary third vote for revocation from Frank James, though Dr. Ralph Hagan, the remaining member aside from the mayor, informed his colleagues that “you are taking the wrong action” as he believed that the bedrooms and bathrooms could be ordered to be removed and force the places to act as others were expected. The physician continued,
The unfortunate circumstances surrounding the death of Minnie Blough were entirely accidental, I believe. The accident could have occurred on the street or any other place and no blame can be attached to the proprietors of the Del Monte. I have not been in the Del Monte and am not familiar with the surroundings of the Bisbee Inn. I am not in favor of either resort, but if their licenses are to be revoked I believe the proprietors should be permitted to appear and defend themselves. I do not believe in taking snap judgment.
McAleer then voted with the majority and, after the vote concluded, Hagan told the Express that he was concerned that there was no defense allowed to the owners of the establishments and no evidence brought forward at the meeting. What was stated was hearsay, which was not admissible in a court, and the decision made behind closed doors in McAleer’s office; otherwise, he would have voted with the majority.
The Los Angeles Record, also a daily, reported on the hour-and-a-half secret session and added that “if a bomb shell had fallen . . . greater surprise would not have been caused than was depicted in the faces of nearly 100 citizens present.” This included reformers, like the Rev. J. Wiley Phillips and officials of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union who were prepared to speak, as well as Fred Maier of the Maier and Zobelein Brewery, Koster and others representing the interests of those who made and sold alcoholic beverages, though “these were given no opportunity to fight for ‘Booze.'”
In its coverage on the 21st, the Herald noted that the mayor seemed prepared to vote with Hagan before changing his mind and going with the majority. It also observed that two weeks prior, the commission transferred the Imperial liquor license to the Del Monte, so it was unclear what would happen to the former, it being added that “the proprietors of the Broadway restaurant was [sic] not conducting it in a highly moral manner.”
The paper then added that,
It is further stated [though by whom was not mentioned] that Koster & Lonergan, proprietors of the Del Monte, will not allow the action of the police commission to pass unresented by them. They are declared to be in a position to tell things on prominent politicians and men in high official standing and that they lay the action of the police commission yesterday to the non-interference of these politicians.
Lonergan fumed “we are the victims of over-ambitious reporters” and, after saying there was nothing more to add, fulminated that “we simply owe our misfortune to the representatives of some of the newspapers.” The journalists, he continued, “may be good fellows” and yet “their over-zealous efforts to land a scoop on rival papers led them on.”
Moreover, the owner of the Del Monte reminded the media that, in the three years since he and Koster bought the place “there has never been an arrest in our place and oftentimes we have assisted the police by turning over to them information that came to us through various channels” and he bitterly sniped, “this is the thanks we get.”
The Times, also on the 21st, quoted Mayor McAleer as telling the press, “now gives us a rest, don’t come around after any more [low-hanging fruit—persimmons were actually the example given] until the new crop has a chance to grow.” The paper added that representatives of the WCTU brought flowers and wreaths “for the Magdalen,” that is, Minnie Blough, “who during her lifetime received not one little rosebud of sympathy,” though this, of course, was not the case, though an opportunity for the paper to offer more of its dramatism for the matter.
It was also reported that Koster confronted Mason after the vote and said “surely you are going to give us a chance,” to which the commissioner “grimly responded” that there’d been chances given, to no avail, and “you have been gambling on the friendship of the commission for years. This time you lose.” Despite two decades of friendship and the fact that Koster told Mason that “they were willing to close their bedrooms and to make other improvements,” this was not enough for the commissioner, who told the media “I am opposed to the policy of permitting a man to run a place in open violation of the law and the dictates of public morals.”
Johnson, too, was not satisfied with the proposal to close the bedroom portions of the Del Monte and Bisbee and, when asked why the latter was included in the revocation when it had no role in the death of Blough, he responded, “the Bisbee Inn is a notorious resort. A license should never have been granted there in the first place.”
Before the final vote, McAleer pointed out that the license was through the first of March, but Johnson countered that there was no reason to not revoke beforehand. A “white ribboner,” meaning a WCTU member, asked, “did they really revoke them?” and apparently answered “well, er—I’m thankful, but I didn’t think they would” before “with a sigh of pleased relief” she and others of the organization departed.
The Express offered an editorial called “Where Credit Belongs” in its edition of the 21st and praised the Police Commission, but criticized Hagan, the newest of the body, by claiming that “his excuse . . . either was founded on ignorance of the powers and duties of the police commission or prompted by a desire to protect these immoral places.” The Commission was not a court, the paper argued, and, if any establishment was found to violate ordinances or be “conducted in an immoral or disorderly manner it becomes its plain duty to revoke the license.”
It cited the investigations and reports of Chief Auble and Mayor McAleer and stated that Koster and Lonergan were given opportunities to counter any charges, if not in the final decision-making session, and the paper continued,
Many of the facts in connection with disgraceful orgies at these places were made public, especially the events leading up to the recent death of Minnie Blough, and the evidence collected was conclusive, damaging and overwhelming. There was nothing to do save revoke their licenses, and do it at once.
The 7 March edition of the Herald reported that the Del Monte was reopened as the Monarch Café, with a stock company as owner and Koster as general manager and Lonergan a shareholder. Moreover, it was stated that the Imperial, which adjoined, was to be directly connected to the newly renamed eatery and it turned out that the Monarch company president, J.M. Kellerman, was a friend of Mayor McAleer.
Koster appeared before the commission with Kellerman and pledged that the Monarch would be operated cleanly and also said the upper floor bedroom suites in the building were removed and only private dining rooms remaining, though the serving of alcohol was only allowed on the first floor public dining area.
Yet, the Times of 13 April reported on the closure of the Del Monte, with Kellerman having acquired the lease of Koster and Lonergan, who maintained their operation of the Imperial. The explanation was that the latter could only devote their full attention to the latter, while gossip among “the men of the town” was that the Del Monte “was almost ruined by the disclosures made immediately after Miss Blough’s death” so that “its business dropped to a fraction of what it had been” including women who previously went to after-theater parties and other events, while “the business of the fast set was not sufficient to keep it going,” especially once the liquor license was pulled.
The paper rejoiced in proclaiming, “there will be no more scenes of disgraceful debauchery there” and “no more young women will be taken into the place, plied with wine and started on a downward path.” Additionally, those upper floor dining and bedroom suites, “which if their walls could speak, could tell stories which would destroy the happiness of many families,” will be converted into business offices.”
Back in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that city’s Press of the 22nd reported that the death of Blough was the second of a former resident of that state at the Del Monte in two years, as Edward N. Caldwell, formerly of Battle Creek, home of the Kellogg cereal company, died after a revel from complications of his eating a whisky glass while deep in drunkenness.
The same day, the Holly Herald, published in a town northwest of Detroit, ran a piece called “The Dance of Death” about Blough’s demise and reported that,
Minnie Blough was married two years ago to Sam Dysenger . . . They separated and Minnie and her brother and sister went to Chicago and thence to California. They [the sisters] were employed in a restaurant in Los Angeles when the eastern tourist mentioned [this was actually Mortimer C. Helmer, not the tourist as initially reported in the Angel City press] became attracted to Minnie and paid her constant attention.
The case of the death of Minnie Blough is an interesting and instructive one concerning early 20th century Los Angeles, undergoing another massive growth boom, especially the moral reform movement against alcohol and disorderly behavior. Questions of political links to restaurants and saloons, the behavior of officials like those on the Police Commission, and the investigative journalism of the press are certainly notable, as is the matter of what constituted the legal bounds of the acts and behavior of consenting adults.
Mortimer C. Helmer was first said to be a young, overweight carouser, though this turned out to be only true with the last portion, as folks in his native Iowa knew him to be “reckless.” He claimed “bad company” for his misfortune, but, while the press also painted Minnie Blough as almost virginal (or Magdalen-like, in one instance,) she was 26 years old, which was hardly girlhood, especially at a time when women very often married when much younger. She’d also been previously married and was pregnant when she died, so who knows who Blough really was.
Finally, the Del Monte, by virtue of having bedrooms and bathrooms directly connected to private dining rooms in its upper floors and its convenient proximity to City Hall and other official edifices, was almost certainly not the respectable establishments its well-connected (and well-informed, when it came to Angel City leaders) proprietors claimed.
So, whatever the media frenzy, there was very likely much more to the story than what appeared in the press, as well as what those involved were willing (and able) to tell. From an innocent looking Thanksgiving Day program from the Del Monte, a remarkable series of events followed within just a few months that remind us of the complex and nuanced history of the Angel City in the early 1900s.
The excerpt from the Los Angeles Times was intriguing, stating, “Wine, women, and song have long been pointed out as the roads to ruin.” Had the Minnie Blough case occurred 50 years earlier or 50 years later, cannabis might have replaced songs. According to my research, cannabis use was popular in the 1850s, outlawed or prohibited in the early 1900s, and then resurged in the 1960s. Thus, when weed is widespread, “3Ws” – Wine, Women, and Weed – could represent the key temptations of a reveler. Likewise, we could adapt the pattern to warn women of similar pitfalls with “3Ms” – Money, Men, and Marijuana.
Hi Larry, thanks for the comment and, in early 20th century Los Angeles the use of varied drugs, beyond alcohol and marijuana, included cocaine and opiates and moral reformers targeted all of this, as well as houses of prostitution and other realms of vice.