USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > Los Angeles from the mountains to the sea : with selected biography of actors and witnesses to the period of growth and achievement, Volume III > Part 57
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When the war was over General Otis returned to Marietta, Ohio, and became owner of a small newspaper and printing plant. During 1869-70 he was foreman of the Government printing office at Washing- ton, and from 1871 to 1876 was chief of a division in the United States Patent office.
More than forty years before his death he came to Southern Cali- fornia and from 1876 to 1880 was editor and publisher of the Santa Barbara Press. In 1879-81 he was principal United States Treasury agent in charge of the Seal Island of Alaska. In 1882 he was appointed by the State Department consul for the Samoan Islands, but declined, as he did a similar appointment two years later.
August 1, 1882, General Otis became a fourth owner in the Los
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Angeles Times. In October, 1884, he joined in the organization of the Times-Mirror Company, and was president and general manager from 1886 until his death. He was also a director of the Times-Mirror Printing and Binding House, president of the Board of Control of the Los Angeles Suburban Homes Company, a director in the California-Mexico Land and Cattle Company, president of the Colorado River Land Company of Mexico, and had many other business interests.
General Otis served in two wars, and for all the ripeness and maturity of his experience and achievement it must always remain a source of keen regret to his friends and associates that he could not live to the end of the present great struggle, in which he was deeply interested. About his last work aside from the routine duties of his newspaper was in outlining and developing the details of his "world embracing plan to end wars," a synopsis of which had been published in the Times a few days before his death.
In 1898 General Otis served in the Spanish-American war and in 1899 in the war to suppress the Filipino insurrection. He was Brigadier General of Volunteers, having been appointed by President Mckinley in May, 1898, assigned first to the Independent Division of the Expedi- tonary Forces for the Philippines, and later commanded the First Brigade, Second Division, Army Corps in the Philippines. He was in command of this brigade at the Filipino outbreak on February 4, 1899, and was consequently on the advance line in all the subsequent actions up to and including the capture of Malolos March 31, 1899. His brigade con- stituted the principal force in the assault upon and the capture of Caloo- can on February 10, 1899. March 25, 1899, he was ordered with his brigade to "pierce the enemy's center" in the first advance from La Loma Church northwest to Malolos, the temporary Filipino capital. This order he successfully executed. April 2, 1899, he was relieved of his command at his own request and returned to the United States, where he was honorably discharged from military service July 2, 1899. He was subse- quently brevetted Mayor General "for meritorious conduct in action at Caloocan March 25, 1899."
His military associations were an important source of his keenest pleasures. He was elected a companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion in the United States by the Commandery of California in 1890, and became a member of the Southern California Association in 1891. He was elected president of the Southern California Associa- tion November 21, 1903, and in May, 1904, was elected junior vice commander of the Commandery of California and became a member of the Commandery in Chief of the order. In March, 1917, he was again elected president of the Southern California Association, the office he held at the time of his death. He was also a charter member of Stanton Post No. 55, G. A. R., of Roosevelt Camp No. 9, United Spanish War Veterans, and of Corregidor Post No. 8, Veterans of Foreign Wars.
He was a member of the American Academy of Science, Associated Press and American Newspaper Publishers Association, Order of Sons of the American Revolution and many clubs and societies. In September, 1910, he was appointed by the president a commissioner to attend the Centennial of Mexican Independence.
In politics he was always an old-line, stalwart republican. He served as official reporter of the Ohio House of Representatives in 1866-67 and was a delegate from Kentucky to the National Republican Conven-
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tion at Chicago which nominated Abraham Lincoln in 1860. He was also a delegate from the District of Columbia to the Soldiers and Sailors National Convention at Chicago in 1868, which first nominated General Grant for the presidency.
At Lowell, Ohio, September 11, 1859, General Otis married Miss Eliza A. Wetherby, who died November 12, 1904. She was actively associated with her husband in journalism for more than a quarter of a century. She was author of a volume of poetry and prose entitled "California, Where Sets the Sun," published in 1905. General and Mrs. Otis had a son, Harrison Gray, born in 1861 and died in infancy; and also four daughters: Lillian, born September 22, 1864, died in March, 1905 ; Marian, wife of Harry Chandler ; Mabel wife of Franklin Booth ; and Esther, who died in infancy.
It is possible here to note only a few of the tributes paid to General Otis, who, as the Mayor of Los Angeles said "was an international figure, one known and respected by many people." Mr. John S. McGroarty, formerly one of the regular staff writers on the Times, called him "the master of his craft, the genius of a great establishment, the foremost newspaper man of his time, and more than even all that, a true friend whose heart was warm and tender at the core."
Mr. McGroarty also said of him: "He was keen on all fine things in life. He was passionately fond of poetry. He had an unerring judg- ment of the real in literature. Indeed, he was himself a stylist in writing, with a perfect sense of the meaning and delicate phrasings of the English tongue. His admiration of these same qualities in others was genuine and generous. He loved pictures and nature. The fields, the hills, the sea, the flowers and the flocks of the fold were always a deep source of delight to him.
"But after all I am sure that the two great passions of his life was the flag of his country and Los Angeles, the city of his adoption. These two he loved as a strong man loves anything, with a constancy and fervor beyond all words to tell. When now they shall wrap the flag around his lifeless clay its stars and bars will never have enfolded a truer lover. He shed his blood for it in very gladness and he would have died for it as gladly."
As the chief medium of his influence and the institution that will long survive him, it is especially appropriate to note the tribute paid him by his associate editors of the Times.
"The Times has lost its leader-the indomitable spirit that was equal to every emergency and never bowed to a passing breeze; the brave heart that inspired bravery in the hearts that gladly sought his counsel followed his direction; the manly man who instinctively knew what was the right thing to do and did it without fear and without pause.
"In an intercourse of years the Times writers on all subjects became so saturated with the Otis spirit and the Otis opinions that they seldom misinterpreted him in dealing with the issues of the day and the actions of men. And when there was doubt as to the accuracy or propriety of treatment the article was submitted to 'the General', who instead of impatiently throwing the defective screed into the waste basket altered it a little with a few graphic and apt sentences, struck out a few words, added a few words and sent it to the composing room and the next morning tens of thousands of Times readers perused with delight and unstinted commendation editorials which otherwise might have created criticism or been passed by as not up to the Times standard.
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"Those who knew best loved him most-loved hiin for what he was even more than for what he did. His dominant characteristics was faithfulness-loyalty to principles, loyalty to country, loyalty to friends, loyalty to all obligations, great or small. In all his splendid career no man or woman ever charged him with a broken promise, a dishonored obligation or an unpaid demand.
"His broad and abounding humanity was expressed in hundreds of kindly and generous deeds. He did not like 'slackers' in business or politics or in any relation of life. He hated traitors and meanness and cowardice and did not spare criticism of those who were guilty of it. For forty-five years he was the husband of a gifted woman, from whom death separated him for thirteen years, but whom he has now rejoined in the Great Beyond."
HARRY CHANDLER, who succeeded the late General Harrison Gray Otis as president and general manager of the Los Angeles Times, first entered the service of that great journal about thirty years ago as clerk, at wages of twelve dollars a week.
Mr. Chandler was born at Elizabeth, New Hampshire, May 17, 1864, a son of Moses K. and Emma J. Chandler. He came of a substantial New England family in which it was traditional that the sons should attend college as a preparation for life. After graduating from high school at the age of eighteen he entered Dartmouth College, but had been there only two months when ill health forced him to give up his studies. Then it was that he visited Los Angeles for the first time, and for about a year worked on a neighboring ranch. With his health apparently restored he reentered Dartmouth College, but in a few months had to definitely abandon his college career for the health giving climate of Los Angeles.
It was on his return to the city that he went to work in the offices
. of the Los Angeles Times as clerk at twelve dollars a week. Four months later he was given charge of the collections and was then made manager of the mail order department. These promotions all came within a year. His next responsibility was in charge of the circulation depart- ment, and in that connection he bought the city routes of the Herald, Evening Express and the San Diego Union.
Mr. Chandler became a stockholder in the Los Angeles Times in 1898, and giving it more and more of his abilities he gradually disposed of the agencies of outside papers, and in 1898 was made assistant general manager and vice-president of the Times. That was his position until August 1, 1917, when, following the death of his father-in-law, General Otis, he became president and general manager. He recently went to New York to attend the annual meetings of the Associated Press and American Newspaper Publishers' Association. He is a director of the last named organization, which is grappling with the paper shortage problem.
Mr. Chandler married Miss Marion Otis at Los Angeles June 5, 1894. They are the parents of eight children.
Mr. Chandler's extensive business interests are revealed in the list of organizations in which he is an executive officer. He is president of the California and Mexico Land and Cattle Company, the Imperial Farm Land Company, is chairman of the Board of Directors of the Tajon Ranch Syndicate, is president of the Times-Mirror Printing and Binding
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Company, a director of the Suburban Homes Company, president of the Interurban Water Company, director of the Ramona Ranch Company and a director of the Carmel Cattle Company. He is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Jonathan Club and in politics is a republican.
B. F. GREEN is chiefly known to the citizens of Los Angeles and many of the city's annual visitors as active manager and one of the proprietors of the Auditorium Hotel at Fifth and Olive streets. He is a very practical hotel man, having been in the business most of his life.
Mr. Green as his chosen friends know is a nephew of the famous Sells Brothers, who shared and contributed to the glory of "the days of real sport" along with P. T. Barnum, Adam Forepaugh and Ringling Brothers. Mr. Green was born at Columbus, Ohio, where the Sells family lived for many years, on June 11, 1876, being the only son and child of B. F. and Mary (Sells) Green. B. F. Green, Sr., who was born at Hartford, Connecticut, was a mechanic by trade and during the Civil war was employed in the Colt Rifle Shops in the east. For twenty years he was agent at Columbus for the Singer Sewing Machine Company, and prior to his death was in the real estate business. He died when about sixty-five years of age. He was a member of the Lodge and Encampment of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In 1875 he married at Columbus Mary Sells, who was a native of Cleveland, Ohio. Her brothers, the famous circus men, Ephraim, Allen, Lewis and Peter Sells, are all now deceased. There was also a fifth brother, Heman Sells, whom the public never heard of, since he died as a prisoner of war at Andersonville during the Civil war. Mrs. M. Sells Green, who is joint proprietor with her son of the Auditorium Hotel, is one of four living sisters who today represent that generation of the Sells family. Her father Peter Sells'and her mother were very strict church people and strong prohibitionists and would not permit their boys even to attend a circus or play cards. As is often the case such repression breeds an uncontrollable desire for the very thing prohibited, and the Sells boys found their ruling passion and work as circus men, and in that capacity afforded pleasure to a whole generation of other boys, not to speak of grown men and women. Peter Sells the elder was a fruit grower, and raised and shipped berries on a large scale. He lived both at Columbus and Cleveland. Part of the City of Columbus is now located on the grounds where he once grew berries. After selling that land he moved to Cleveland and spent his last days in Columbus. Mrs. M. S. Green is next to the youngest of her father's children. Her living sisters are : Mrs. Rachel Colby, of Columbus; Mrs. Almenia Holt, of Cleveland, and Mrs. Rebecca F. Barrett, of Los Angeles. Her youngest sister, Mrs. Edward West, died at Hollywood, California, in 1918, and another sister, Mrs. William Cobb, died in Cleveland in 1904.
Her brothers for many years conducted an independent organization known as Sells Brothers, and later became allied with the Forepaugh interests. Her brothers Lewis and Peter were the active show men.
Mr. B. F. Green, who has never married, was educated in the public schools of Columbus, graduating from the high school with the class of 1892. He also attended the Ohio State University, and had his early business experience as an employe of Green, Joyce & Company, wholesale dry goods merchants. During 1895-96-97 and 1898 he was
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associated with his parents in operating the Normandie Hotel at Colum- bus. During 1900-02 he was steward and purchasing agent for the Forepaugh & Sells Brothers Circus, and thus had some experience in the circus business himself. Later he became a copartner of the Lenox Hotel at Columbus, and in 1910 he and his mother came to Los Angeles and took a lease on the Auditorium Hotel. This handsome structure had just been completed and Mrs. Green and her son opened its service to the public in May, 1911. The Auditorium Hotel is a high class and modern hotel and has adapted its service as especially desirable for ladies traveling alone.
Mr. Green is a member of the Masonic bodies of Columbus, is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite and Knight Templar Mason and a member of Al Malaikah Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Los Angeles. He is a member of the Hotel Men's Mutual Benefit Association of the United States and Canada, the Los Angeles Athletic Club, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and Automobile Club of Southern California.
ROBERT C. GILLIS is a Canadian by birth, and came to California and established his home at Santa Monica in 1887. Since then a long list of achievements has been linked with his name. For many years he has been an intimate business associate of General M. H. Sherman and E. P. Clark in the great railway and electric development of Southern Cali- fornia. Development work in the best sense of the phrase might be regarded as the one dominating aim and purpose in the life of Mr. Gillis. Waste land, unproductive water power and other unutilized resources have always presented themselves to him as a problem to be solved in the interest of civilization, and so far as the great southwest is concerned probably no man has done more to create a favorable solution of such problems than Mr. Gillis.
He was born at Moncton, New Brunswick, July 11, 1863, son of Robert and Jean (Morrison) Gillis. Much of his early life was spent in Nova Scotia, acquiring his education in the cities of Halifax and Picton. He also gained his first business experience in Canada.
When he removed to California and located at Santa Monica in 1887 Mr. Gillis found his opportunities in developing and promoting the growth of Santa Monica, and deserves an important share of credit for the present condition of that beautiful suburb.
In 1902 he took an active part in the affairs of the Los Angeles Pacific Railway Company, owners and operators of local and interurban electric lines. He negotiated the sale of the system to the Southern Pacific interests in 1905. When the Pacific Electric Railway Company was absorbed by the Pacific Electric Company, the Harriman corporation, Mr. Gillis was made a director of the new company and has since been active in its management. Reference has been made to his active associations for many years with General Sherman and Mr. Clark, the men generally accorded the chief responsibility for the development of the great network of interurban and electric lines in Southern California. Mr. Gillis is also associated with John D. Spreckels in important railway and transportation properties at San Diego, and is a member of the executive committee of the Spreckels Securities Companies.
The greater part of 1909, 1910 and 1911 Mr. Gillis spent in Oregon in personal charge of the construction and completion of the railroads and
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power plants of the Mount Hood Railway & Power Company and the Mason Construction Company, which he and E. P. Clark and Arthur H. Fleming of Pasadena had purchased. He also had some other business enterprises at Portland.
Mr. Gillis is a large land owner and has wielded a great influence in several land development projects. Many of his investments are in the western states of Mexico. He is president of the Santa Monica Mountain Park Company, owning thousands of acres of land in the vicinity of Santa Monica, and also the Madera Land Company, now developing a large area of fertile and in Madera County. Other impor- tant business enterprises with which Mr. Gillis is officially associated are the Iron Chief Mining Company, the Los Angeles Union Terminal Com- pany and the Santa Monica Land and Water Company, and is vice- president of the San Diego & Arizona Railway Company.
Mr. Gillis, whose offices are in the Investment Building, at Eighth and South Broadway, Los Angeles, is a member of the Los Angeles Country Club, Brentwood Country Club, California Club, Chamber of Commerce, the Athletic Club, the Automobile Club of Southern Califor- nia, and is affiliated with the Masonic Order.
At Santa Monica October 1, 1889, he married Frances L. Lindsay, daughter of Congressman Stephen D. Lindsay, of Maine. They have three children, Adelaide S., Dorothy and Lindsay.
HARRY R. COWAN, of Los Angeles, has become well known through- out Southern California for his work in real estate development, the reclamation and improvement of farm and ranch lands. That has been his specialty, and it is not too much to say that he and his organization have made available thousands of acres for permanent home owning settlers.
Mr. Cowan was born at Rockford, Illinois, January 26, 1876, son of William and Mary (Ruford) Cowan. In 1883 his parents removed to Toronto, Canada, where Mr. Cowan attended public schools to the age of eighteen. In the meantime he worked on his father's farm and thus had some knowledge of farming in addition to being a very practical and widely experienced business man. After leaving home he was em- ployed a year in a large glove manufacturing concern at Gloversville, New York. For another five years he was connected with the Malone Woolen Mills at Malone, New York. He then removed to Chicago and was engaged in the real estate business there until 1904, when he trans- ferred his operations to Los Angeles and Southern California.
The first important deal in which he figured was as a partner with E. L. Crenshaw in putting on the market a subdivision known as the Benton Terrace, comprising a hundred twenty-five lots. However, for the greater part he has operated alone and has specialized in farm lands. He has bought large tracts of unimproved and unproductive lands and has employed a large amount of capital in getting the land in a productive condition, improving it with buildings and placing all proper facilities ready for the buyer and settler. He now owns a number of large ranches under cultivation and employs a staff of several hundred men at work all the time on his development projects. Mr. Cowan organized the Imperial Water Company Number 2 in the Imperial Valley. This com- pany supplies water for irrigation purposes south of Holtville to the Mexican border. The tract available for the water is about twelve thou-
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sand acres. Mr. Cowan is president of the water company. He is also president of the Santa Fe Land Company.
Mr. Cowan is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner and a republican. September 2, 1904, at Los Angeles, he married Edna Taylor. They have two children, Gwendolyn, born in 1908 and now in the public schools, and Virginia, born in 1914.
NEIL STEERE MCCARTHY was born in Phoenix, Arizona, May 6, 1888, a son of James and Mary (Enright) McCarthy. He graduated from the Phoenix High School in 1907. He studied law in the Uni- versity of Michigan, graduating LL. B. in 1910. His active professional work was begun in Los Angeles in the law offices of James & Smith. Mr. McCarthy is Los Angeles counsel for the Famous Players Laskey Corporation, the Gaumont Theatres and other theatrical and motion picture interests, and is attorney for and a director in the Commercial National Bank of Los Angeles.
He is affiliated with the Knights of Columbus, is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Chamber of Commerce, votes inde- pendently in politics, and is a member of the Catholic Church. At Binghamton, New ork, September 23, 1912, he married Miss Mar- guerite Meade Gilbert. They have four children: Marjorie Ellen, born in 1914; Rosemary Elizabeth, born in 1915: Neil Dillon, born in 1917, and Kathleen Cecilia, born in 1919.
G. CARLOS SABICHI, M. D. In a little cottage nestled in an orange grove on East Seventh Street, in the city of Los Angeles, the fifth child of Francisco and Magdalena W. de Sabichi came, on a wintry morning November 4, 1878. Amid these happy surroundings he spent his youth. He received his early training at the primary schools of Los Angeles, which was later enriched by two degrees obtained from St. Vincent's College.
Early in his youth the desire to pursue the study of medicine came to him, and after leaving St. Vincent's College.he entered the University of California at Berkeley. While there he made an enviable collegiate rec- ord, and also made history as an athlete, being a member of the football squad which was the first to score against Stanford University, 30-0. During his college career he became a charter member of the Beta Xi of Kappa Sigma. With this excellent classical and scientific training he entered the medical department of the University of Southern Cali- fornia, where the degree of Doctor of Medicine was conferred on him in June, 1904. His opportunity for experience in the practice of medicine was enriched by his service at the Los Angeles County Hos- pital and at the Pacific Branch of the National Soldiers' Home through an appointment from Brigadier-General La Grange.
During the year 1906, we find the young physician pursuing the study of clinical medicine and surgery at Columbia University of New York. Returning from New York he took charge of the medical de- partment of the Yellow Aster Mining Company, where he enjoyed an enviable record in his chosen profession.
Doctor Sabichi saw great possibilities in the City of Bakersfield, where he has witnessed the great agricultural development of the San Joaquin Valley and the rapid progress of the petroleum industry. The development of these natural resources afforded him unusual opportuni- ties to become an investor in numerous oil corporations.
G. Carlos Sabictin H12
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The past eleven years have found the doctor practicing in Bakers- field, where he has won several distinctive appointments-as president of the San Joaquin Hospital, consulting surgeon of the Sante Fe Railroad and during the European War an appointment by Governor Stevens as examiner on the exemption boards No. 1 and 2.
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