I was recently thumbing through some old books that I’d found among my box lots from auctions. I usually get medical books, art books, classic novels, cookbooks and children’s books.
I opened one hardback book with a maroon cover because I was curious about the title: “Excessive Venery.” What does that mean, I wondered. Before I could get my answer, I came across a half-dozen clipped newspaper articles tucked just inside the cover, four of which were held together with a rusty paper clip.
Naturally, I started reading the articles, eager to find out what news they contained. Here’s a sampling:
The first had a handwritten date on it, 8-16-32:
It was a story about Albert Strelow, a Detroit man who was an original stockholder in the Ford Motor Company. It seemed that Strelow put $5,000 into the company when it was founded in 1903 and then sold the stock for $45,000 in 1906.
“But that profit seems insignificant by comparison with what it would have been if he had held on. His $5000 would have grown, ultimately, to a great many million dollars. He would have become one of the richest men in the middle west. … He acted prudent in selling out when he did. The only trouble was that he happened to be in a spot where prudence was a worthless virtue.”
Ouch. A major building contractor in Detroit, Strelow owned the building where the Ford company got started, according to the Model T Ford Club of America website. He wasn’t that interested in cars, but decided to invest anyway, becoming one of 10 original investors. After cashing in his stock, he put the money in a mine in British Columbia and lost everything. Here’s a history of Ford stock. The photo above is a 1910 Model T.
I found this article especially entertaining, dated 1-28-43:
The government has proposed using city folks – store clerks and factory workers – to help out farmers who are having trouble finding laborers. The farmers, however, say no way. Why not, when they needed help so badly? They’d had city workers before and found that they were “of little use on the farm.” They can’t operate the machinery and as a result, they break it. They can’t withstand the long hard hours of farmwork. They need constant supervision. “They get jabbed by pitchforks, kicked by horses, or hurt in other ways that farmers are afraid to let them stray far from view.”
In other words, keep them away from our farms.
This one is a winner, even today:
A “white collar” employer in Chicago came up with a novel way to get workers to put in overtime during peak seasons. Paying one and a half-time and double time wasn’t doing it. Only 50 employees were staying beyond the 4 p.m. quitting time, and the company needed twice that number. So, the employer tried a new enticement: buffet supper “on the house,” served from 6 to 7 p.m. And a contest to win more money: “Employees draw numbers, the holder of the right number receiving $10. At 9 p.m., another $10 is pulled from the hat. The system has kept 100 employees on the overtime job.”
At my old newspaper job, we only got dinner on the house on Election nights and holidays – and we weren’t paid OT. It was just part of our regular shift.
How about these smart (or dumb) teenagers and public official:
Police say two Brooklyn teens followed the instructions of a Chicago state attorney who in an article described how thieves were stealing cars. The “self-confessed” teen-thieves said the article “told them how automobile thieves opened locked car doors, started locked engines, changed engine numbers, disguised the appearance of stolen cars, and how they were disposed of.” So, they tried it, using one of their own cars – a registered and licensed 1920 model – in their crimes, police said.
These days, you can probably find a “How-To” on the internet. But most criminals likely already know how to.
And this one, about how Americans donated automobile tires after the Japanese invasion of the Dutch West Indies in World War II cut off the U.S. supply of rubber:
A California rancher told United Press International that he turned in eight tires, still good for 12,000 miles of driving, to the national rubber pile. In return, he got back four 10-cent stamps – “and not even of the ‘Victory’ series,'” he said.
In 1942, President Roosevelt urged all Americans to turn in scrap rubber for recycling, including tires, raincoats, garden hoses, shoes and bathing caps. Gasoline rationing was also enabled to help conserve rubber. Here are some photos of the rubber piles. As for the Victory series, the rancher may have been referring to the “Win The War” stamp issued around the same time with a picture of an Eagle with upturned wings in an Art-Deco style “V.”
At left is a cartoon that was also among the articles.
By the way, I finally got to the cover page inside the book. It was a sex book, but there was no publication date. Its title: “Excessive Venery, Masturbation and Continence” by Joseph W. Howe, M.D. I’m not sure if it had anything to do with the articles. Maybe both belonged to someone with an unusual sense of humor. Or maybe not.
