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 69
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Mr. Shoults is known as one of the most progressive and vigorous exponents of real estate enterprise in Los Angeles, and the service of the organization of which he is the head insures the most courteous and considerate attention and the offering of most attractive inducements to real home-seekers.
Mr. Shoults is found aligned as a staunch supporter of the cause of the republican party, and is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity. On the 9th of January, 1909, at Los Angeles, was recorded his marriage to Miss Beulah Winslow, who was born and reared in North Caro- lina, and they are popular figures in the social life of their home city.
MARTIN A. LEACH. A native Californian, formerly in the lumber business, Martin A. Leach is one of a group of progressive and enter- prising business men of Los Angeles who are responsible for this city's first practical achievement in the field of motor car manufacturing. Mr. Leach is the founder and president of the Leach-Biltwell Motor Com- pany. His long experience in the motor business and over two years of thoughtful study were chiefly responsible for the Leach "Power-Plus" Six, the first exclusively Los Angeles built motor car.
Mr. Leach was born at Marysville September 10, 1879, son of An- drew Martin and Margaret I. (Pratt) Leach. He was given a good sound education, attending public school in San Francisco until sixteen, and then the Palo Alto preparatory school for three years. Though ready for admission to Stanford University, he decided that the world of business needed his services without a college education. His first ex- perience was as a hand in a box factory for the Scott & Van Arsdale Lumber Company at Upton, California. Not long afterward he was made foreman of lumber yards, and then assistant superintendent of factory and yards. He resigned in three years to become manager of the La- Moine Lumber and Trading Company of LaMoine, California. He left that concern in 1906, again to better his condition, and was general manager of the Northern California Lumber Company at Hilt until the business was sold three years later. By that time his expert qualifications in all branches of the lumber industry were quite well known and he was chosen as general manager of all the Pearson lumber interests in the State of Chihuahua, Mexico. These interests were handled under th name of Madera Company, Limited, a sixty million dollar corpora- tion. The outbreak of the Mexico Revolution of 1913 put a temporary stop to the company's operations, at which time Mr. Leach returned to the United States and for a year was sales manager of the Danaher Pine Company at Camino, California.
Since 1914 Mr. Leach has devoted all his energies and study to the motor car business and has achieved a knowledge of production and distribution that in itself has been one of the primary assets of the Leach- Biltwell Motor Company. For a time he was sales manager of the south- western division of the Dort Motor Company of Flint, Michigan, in 1915 was made western sales manager, and in 1916 came to Los Angeles and
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opened the district agency for the Dort car. Here the business was incorporated as the Leach Motor Car Company, with Mr. Leach as secretary and manager. At the same time he bought out the English Motor Car Company which held the King agency, and retained the sales organization of the English company. He soon added the Liberty and the Premier cars, and during 1917 the sales of his organization aggre- gater more than one and a half million dollars worth of automobiles in California. In that time he set a record for the sale of King cars in the United States and reached second place as Premier distributor and third place as Dort distributor.
Seeing distinctive possibilities for the development of a special manu- facturing and custom service in the automobile business at Los Angeles, Mr. Leach resigned from the Dort Company on January 1, 1918, selling his interests in the Leach Motor Car Company to the Security Motor Cor- poration. He had previously organized the Leach-Biltwell Motor Com- pany and has been its president since December, 1917. This company started in the restricted field of manufacturing special automobile bodies, tops and maintaining an expert painting department. The first estab- lishment was at Eighth and Kohler Streets, where the company had one floor of a three-story building and employed fifteen people.
Since then his organization has done much to make automobile history in Southern California. Comprising a personnel of experts in the auto- mobile and financial world, the Leach-Biltwell Company have perfected every facility for the production of cars of the highest standard of effi- ciency plus that distinctiveness appreciated by owners of discriminating taste. Mr. Leach Biltwell in November, 1919, acquired twelve acres from the Republic Truck Company with 120,000 square feet floor space, steel struction. At the present time in 1920 the production of the com- pany averages two cars per day, and the factory is at Forty-eighth and Santa Fe Avenue, with a force of two hundred skilled mechanics in the different departments. From a special custom service all the resources of the plant and organization are now devoted to manufacturing.
The Leach Power-Plus Six is a car specially developed and made to satisfy the high ideals of California motorists. It possesses exclusive features but in the main is built with standard units and equipment, readily recognized by every car owner, all of which are readily duplicated, though the ensemble is a unique combination of beauty and efficiency. The body and top are manufactured complete in the company's own plant and that still remains a distinct custom service.
Though a resident of the city only a few years, Mr. Leach has become widely known in business and social organizations. He is president of the Commercial Board, is a member of the Jonathan Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club, Brentwood Country Club, Newport Yacht Club, Union League Club of San Francisco and in Masonry is affiliated with the Golden Gate Commandery Knights Templar and the Mystic Shrine at San Francisco. He is also an Elk and a republican. At Marysville in Decem- ber, 1905, lie married Miss Katie B. M. Ribble. They have two children, both attending public school, Martin Carter, born in 1908, and Annette, born in 1912.
MISS LILLIAN WALKER. There are few lovers of the moving picture art who have not heard of Lillian Walker or whose enthusiasm and admiration have not been aroused by her sincere and beautiful work as
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a screen artist. She entered the picture field in 1910 and has been a star almost from the beginning, but in searching the country over it would be difficult to find a more charming young woman, entirely free from affectation notwithstanding the adulation she receives, seemingly being entirely unspoiled by her successes. She is proud of her Swedish ancestry, but her birth took place in America and her home is in Cali- fornia, and it will be difficult for the thousands of her friends in the United States to allow any other country to lay claim to her.
Lillian Woelke, whose stage name is Lillian Walker, was born at Brooklyn, New York. She is a daughter of Andrew and Caroline Woelke, the former of whom died in 1907. Her mother, two sisters and five brothers survive, the mother and sisters residing on a farm to which Miss Walker laughingly refers as her "country estate." She attended ยท school at Brooklyn but in early girlhood her type of beauty began to attract attention and she was sought after by artists, and long before she came into moving pictures she had earned a good income posing for different advertising firms. The fancy took her one day to show some of her calendar pictures to J. Stuart Blackton, and he was so pleased with the grace of pose and interpretation of character that he immediately censented to try her on the screen for two weeks, offering her a salary of $25 a week. She recalls that she waited around but drew her salary for eight weeks before she was called on for trial, and was starred in her very first picture and has been a star ever since. For seven years she worked with the Vitagraph Company, playing with Earle Williams, William Humphreys, Wally Van, Flora Finch and the late John Bunny. She had a contract to make two reel pictures, one a week for fifty-two weeks, with the three last named distinguished screen artists. She speaks kindly of other screen favorites and of the many directors under whom she has done such satisfactory work, mentioning Maurice Costello in particular.
While Miss Walker has acquired a large fortune through her screen work, some of her best known pictures being: Green Stockings, Kitty McKay, Indiscretion, and Little Dolls ; she has occasionally suffered from unwise business management. Once she organized a company of her own, which through no fault of hers failed to succeed, and in order to pay the incurred debts she sold her lovely home in Brooklyn, and further- more, out of her own resources paid everything due the players associated with her.
Miss Walker owns a charming bungalow in Hollywood where she takes her ease when not working on pictures. She is fond of almost everything that attracts a pure-minded, happy, wholesome girl, includ- ing some domestic tasks, and when a chance photograph happens to be taken unawares she will probably be seen surrounded by her household pets, the latest acquisition being a Pekinese dog.
JOHN H. JONES, who died February 12, 1903, was a California pioneer of the fifties, and throughout a long and active life his personal resources and character were generously devoted to the upbuilding and enlargement of Los Angeles and much of its surrounding territory. His is one of the most honored names among the older American residents of the city.
He was born at Greenbush, New York, March 31, 1834, son of James and Sarah (Olds) Jones. His parents were natives of England,
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and had acquired a competence in business before they came to America, and in this country spent their years in leisure and retirement. Their two older children, a son and a daughter, were both born in England and died when past middle age. For many years James Jones lived in Massachusetts, where he died. He was a typical English gentleman and possessed all the sterling traits of that character.
John H. Jones was only a boy when his father died. Most of his early training came from his mother, and to the end of his life he ex- pressed extreme gratitude to the fine influences proceeding from her. He attended the public schools of Massachusetts, but soon after his marriage in the early fifties he determined to seek his fortune in Cali- fornia. Many of the dreams of his boyhood had centered in this land of romance. He came to California on a vessel commanded by a friend, after a long voyage around Cape Horn. His first experience in Los Angeles was as a clerk, but subsequently he removed to Santa Barbara, and was soon in business on an extensive scale. While there he began buying and speculating in lands, and in the course of time acquired some very valuable property in the downtown district of Los Angeles. His first home was at the corner of Fifth and Main streets, where he lived for over twenty-eight years. He also had a home on Broadway between First and Second Streets. The home where he died was at 258 East Adams Street.
Much of his prosperity was due to his unlimited faith in the future of Los Angeles and Southern California. So far as known none of his investments were unfortunate. He was not content to buy property and allow it to accumulate value through the efforts of others, but sought every means of improving it under his personal direction. Among these improvements should be mentioned the Chester Block, a two-flat building on Ottawa Street and another on Twenty-seventh Street, and at the time of his death he had under construction a large warehouse on Los Angeles and Fifth streets.
While his wealth and influence grew during the nearly fifty years he spent in Los Angeles, his old friends and associates never recognized any change in his democratic manner and his genial good fellowship and public spirit. He was liberal without ostentation, always devoted to the practice of the golden rule, was a republican in politics and a very useful member of the city council for one term.
November 24, 1854, Mr. Jones married Miss Carrie M. Otis. She was a native of Massachusetts and of a prominent Boston family, and was reared in the traditions and the best schools of that New England center of culture. She did not join her husband in California until 1858. She came west by the Isthmus of Panama and from San Pedro to Los Angeles rode in a stage. Despite the obvious contrast between this pioneer southwestern town and her home City of Boston, Mrs. Jones learned to recognize the beauty and charm of California, to like its people, and in turn was greatly beloved by them because of her beauty of character and constant association with charitable enterprises. Though a Unitarian in church affiliations, she assisted in building the first Episcopal Church on Temple Street, and was also the donor of a sum of twenty thousand dollars to assist in building the Young Men's Christian Association home. In later years she relied upon her own judgment in handling her extensive property interests, and her ability was such that she seldom needed advice even in the most complicated
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problems. Mrs. Jones left ten thousand dollars to Barlow Sanitorium, two thousand dollars to Ladies' Benevolent Society, ten thousand dollars to Protestant Orphans Home, Los Angeles, fifty thousand to Southwest- ern Museum, and gave one hundred thousand dollars to the University of Southern California, known as the Carrie M. Jones Scholarship Fund. She was survived by a brother and a sister, Mr. William L. Otis, formerly of Chester, Massachusetts, now living in Pasadena, and Mrs. F. J. Hall, of Pasadena, also formerly of Chester, Massachusetts.
CHARLES RAYMOND MACAULEY. Plutarch has taught us that the life stories of men and women who strive and accomplish are the most fascinating form of literature; they instruct and guide us at the same time that they entertain and thrill, and in the story of a success won against great odds there is drama, human interest and education mixed in the proportions for which the skilled playwright is constantly seeking. Life itself is the great drama of life.
Interest in the career of Charles Raymond Macauley, artist, car- toonist, novelist and producer of motion pictures, starts with the career itself. He is another product of the State of Ohio, the great university of practical politics, birthplace of presidents, presidential candidates, artists, authors, journalists and mighty men of industry, and now holds a high place in the list of Ohio's distinguished sons.
Charles Raymond Macauley was born in Canton, the home of the martyred president, William Mckinley, March 29, 1871. His father, John Kendrick Macauley, served in McKinley's regiment, the 14th Ohio Infantry, throughout the Civil war, and when young Macauley was born Major Mckinley stood as his Godfather.
While Macauley was a mere lad the family moved from Canton to Cornersburg, a hamlet which Mr. Macauley describes as being just what its name indicates. Here they lived for several years and here the drift toward an artistic career began to manifest itself in the boy.
The Macauleys are of Scotch ancestry, and the Scotch tradition and tenacity still clings to them. As has so often been the case, the boy's artistic impulses were discouraged and even opposed with all this Scotch determination from the moment they first showed themselves. His parents had marked out for him a career in commerce and industry, an idea to which they clung with determination second only to the boy's own impulse toward the artistic.
It seems to be a part of nature's own refining process that the creative and artistic impulse must fight for life from the cradle. Almost without exception our noted singers, composers, writers, artists and inventors have first been compelled to overcome or defy parental opposi- tion, and only those whose flame was strong enough to dispel these clouds have shown their light to the world. There can be little doubt that they have gathered strength in the process.
'The family removed to Canton when Charles Macauley was still of tender age. Things were not going so well with them, and the boy was compelled to quit school at the age of thirteen. He worked at various odd jobs for a time in a brass factory and then in the works of the Deuber- Hampden Watch Company.
One day, while in the Canton postoffice, Charles noticed a man whose face was vaguely familiar. He watched the man as he seated himself on a bench across the room to read his mail, and then, as the stranger moved
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on, the boy spied something shining on the floor underneath the bench. Running over to it he discovered a $10.00 gold piece. Young Macauley ran after the stranger and gave him the coin and the man, delighted at the boy's honesty tried to reward him, but Macauley diffidently refused to accept a money compensation for an act of simple honor.
"At least you'll tell me who you are?"
Macauley told his name.
"You're not, by any chance, John Macauley's boy?" asked the stranger. Macauley proudly said he was.
"Why, then, you're my Godson! I'm Major Mckinley."
From that time commenced a closer association between the future president and the Macauley family, with which Mckinley had temporarily lost touch. From becoming a member of Mckinley's Sunday school class young .Macauley obtained through the Mckinley influence a position as assistant court stenographer in the Stark County Courts. This was in 1889.
The following year Mckinley obtained a position for the boy in the office of a steel mill in Canton. This was at the suggestion of Macauley's parents, but the work grated on the boy's temperament, and it was this very temperament that got him out of the hated job.
The "boss" of the office was a type of old-school business man with the flaring collar and flowing side whiskers which appealed to Macauley's penchant for caricature, and one day the new clerk drew a sketch of luis employer on the fly leaf of his ledger. An envious fellow employe reported to the "boss" with the results that Macauley was called up "on the carpet" and straightaway detached from the steel business. Genius it appears will work out its own salvation.
In 1891 Charles Macauley became a reporter on the Canton Reposi- tory, which paper published his first drawing, a sketch of a fire in Canton. The following year the Cleveland Press offered a prize of $50.00 for the best drawing on the subject of "Thanksgiving," and Macau- ley won the prize over sixty-two contestants. This event determined the career of Charles Macauley. Not only did he pocket the $50.00 prize but the Cleveland World saw the prize sketch and wired him an offer of $25.00 a week to serve as cartoonist on their staff. What other offers he might have received he never will know-he grabbed at this one so quickly.
Later on he went to the Cleveland Plain Dealer in the same capacity at $30.00 a week, and then to the Leader at $35.00. He was now an established cartoonist with a reputation rapidly extending over the country. Of course this success could have but one result : he must try his luck . in New York. Long before Macauley's day the ambition to "be on Park Row" was the spur to every aspirant for newspaper honors. It was in June, 1895, that he started for the metropolis with a number of sketches under his arm. He even made one on the train, a political cartoon, based upon President Harrison's announcement that he would not be a candidate for re-election. This sketch he took to the New York World immediately on his arrival. It was accepted and appeared on the front page of the World on Macauley's second morning in New York. The other sketches he sold to "Judge" and the late "Puck," and he began to feel that the cold and cruel metropolis had been waiting for him.
However, like all the rest of us, Macauley learned that New York has no favored guests. Sometimes it likes to "kid them along" a bit,
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but it demands payment. But he kept at it and eventually reaped his reward. Such world famous periodicals as Truth, Life, Puck, Judge, the New York Herald and Press opened their columns to him. With hard work his fame grew and his drawings have been printed and reprinted in every civilized country on the globe.
For one year, 1900-01, he left New York to fill a contract as car- toonist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. During this engagement he origi- nated a noted "stunt." It was to have an elephant led about the streets of Philadelphia, with "G. O. P." painted on its huge sides, to illustrate the doings of the republican party, and incidentally advertise the In- quirer. It might be said to have been the first animated cartoon.
For three years, beginning in 1901, he retired from newspaper work and devoted his time to writing and illustrating the works of others. During this period he illustrated Joseph Conrad's "Romance" and other books, and wrote himself the novels "Fantasmaland," published by Bobbs- Merrills in 1904, and "The Red Tavern," published ten years later by D. Appleton & Company. Besides these he wrote a number of magazine stories, chiefly for the American.
In 1904 he entered on a ten-year contract as cartoonist for the New York World. One of his great achievements was the creation of the "big stick" as a feature of his cartoons during President Roosevelt's term. His adaption of Roosevelt's famous phrase "Speak softly, and carry a big stick," caught on immediately, and is familiar to millions in this country and Europe. He was the first cartoonist to picture the "big stick," and has seen his idea adopted by dozens of his fellow craftsmen.
Macauley was president of the New York Press Club, the world- famous organization of newspaper men, for two terms, in 1911 and 1912, succeeding John A. Hennessy, then publisher of the New York Press, and being in turn succeeded by John Temple Graves.
It was the presidential campaign of 1912 which first turned Charles Macauley's attention toward motion pictures. During this campaign he assisted Josephus Daniels in the publicity department of the Democratic committee, having entire charge of the cartoon service. To aid in raising campaign contributions he produced a motion picture entitled "The Old Way and the New." This picture, which was produced at the old Imp Studio in New York, is so far as I know the first motion picture political propaganda on record. It served the democratic party well, but it served also to open the eyes of Charles Macauley to the marvelous field of motion pictures.
In 1914 he left the world to devote himself to the new screen drama. During this year he wrote several plays for the original "Alco" Com- pany, and produced independently "Alice in Wonderland," using a troupe of midgets to play the various fanciful characters of Lewis Carroll's story.
This year of 1914, which saw the ignition of the great world con- flagration, was a busy one for Macauley. In addition to the work just mentioned, he began the preparation of a play, visualizing a great world- peace movement, based upon international police and courts, and predict- ing a war which should sweep the face of the earth. David Belasco and the late Andrew Carnegie interested themselves in the work, Mr. Carnegie agreeing to finance the production, and Mr. Belasco to produce it at one of his New York theatres. This was in March, three months before the first rumblings of the thunder in Europe. The play was actually in
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course of production when the advent of the war stopped it. Mr. Belasco caused to be issued from his office on September 12, 1914, a statement to the effect that such a play was in production but had been given up because of the trouble abroad.
The last half of the year 1917 and the first half of 1918 Macauley contributes his time and genius to the United States Government, turning out a series of war cartoons which were syndicated and published in one hundred and twenty-one of the smaller newspapers in all parts of the country ; the gross circulation of these cartoons was over six millions daily, and President Wilson commended Macauley heartily for this im- portant war work in a personal letter to the cartoonist.
In 1918 he went to Los Angeles to take up definitely the production of motion pictures. His own novel, "Whom the God's Would Destroy," was one of his first productions, achieving an unusual success and re- leased through the First National.
In 1920 Charles Macauley organized the Macauley Master Photo- plays, of which he is president, director general and guiding spirit, and which is now engaged in the production of screen plays in Los Angeles.
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