Saratoga News

Saratoga Stereopticon

Willys Peck

Politically incorrect or not, club boasts rich history

In past Stereopticon columns I have remarked on my propensity to save just about every kind of document that might be useful for future reference. It is, as I've pointed out, an inherited trait; my dad, Llewellyn B. Peck, a longtime newspaperman, accumulated a vast store of such material, which I am now as reluctant to discard as I am the more recent acquisitions.

Occasionally this earlier collection yields a real gem. Such is the case with the Saratoga Men's Club, where there is an effort under way to develop information on how the organization got started. Sure enough, there in my dad's improvised file was an envelope, labeled Saratoga Men's Club, containing several yellowed newspaper clippings. One, from a 1930 issue of the San Jose News, is a story written by Lutheria Cunningham telling how the club was organized in 1921 for the purpose of sponsoring a Boy Scout troop.

It was right about this time that the Disciples of Christ, or Christian, Church was liquidating its property holdings, the members having previously voted to join with the Saratoga Congregational Church to form the present Federated Church.

At this far remove, the financing details are unclear, but the upshot was that the Men's Club bought the church building, located on Big Basin Way, where the Echo Shop is today, and the adjacent parsonage. The church became the Scout hall for Saratoga Troop 50, and the parsonage was the Men's Club headquarters.

The scoutmaster was J.A. Emrich, who had come to Saratoga as pastor of the Christian Church, only to be eased out of the pulpit with the amalgamation of the two congregations. However, he remained active in the community, as did his wife, Nell Emrich, who was librarian when the county library branch was in the building now occupied by the Friends of the Saratoga Libraries Book-Go-Round, and who also was clerk of the Saratoga school board.

In that 1930 article, club president Burt W. Lyon was quoted as saying he hoped to see his organization become like the Washington, D.C., Gridiron Club, famous for its "roasting" of public figures. That this objective was pursued to some extent is borne out by a 1930 newspaper clipping telling of the "largest gathering of newspaper editors ever held in the county ... when the Saratoga Men's Club will be host to 150 newspapermen from all parts of the state." Gov. C.C. Young was to be present at the March 22 event.

There is also a printed program for the "Third Annual Dinner Given by the Saratoga Men's Club to the Editors of Santa Clara County and Bay Cities," on March 21, 1931, with quite an impressive guest list.

San Francisco had four daily newspapers back then, and there were several newspapers along the Peninsula that have since been deep-sixed. Even San Jose had two competing newspapers, the Mercury Herald and the News. All were represented. In the program, the editors were listed as "our 1931 victims," and one can only imagine what they were subjected to.

For sheer absurdity and heavy-handed humor, it would have been hard to match an entertainment called "The Deestrick Skule," given by the Men's Club on Feb. 9, 1923. At least that is the inference to be drawn from the printed program, which advised audience members to keep the document because "in coming years you will be proud to show it to your children and grandchildren to prove that you were not in it." The cast included some of Saratoga's leading citizens in a schoolroom setting, with the tone of the printed program suggesting that, as to dramatic content, the corn was as high as an elephant's eye.

In March 1925, the Men's Club ventured into the area of today's political incorrectness with a minstrel show, given in the Los Gatos High School auditorium, with all of the stereotypical acts associated with this kind of entertainment. These were fundraising events, though, and in the background was a Boy Scout troop as beneficiary.

More recently, in the political incorrectness arena, the Men's Club ran afoul of a California Judges Association's ethical-standard ruling because, by definition, it's, well, a men's club. That 1987 ruling cost the club membership a state Supreme Court justice, an Appellate Court justice and several Superior Court judges.

For a good many years now, the Men's Club has been simply a social organization, meeting monthly for dinner, with speakers and discussion on a wide variety of subjects. Feminists may color me politically incorrect, but I'm glad to be a member.

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