Saratoga Stereopticon

Trail between two cities powered by Internet

By Willys Peck

When I was embarking on my newspaper career in the middle of the last century (that somehow sounds more impressive than merely saying "1949"), scissors and paste pots were the basic tools for journalistic preservation. The people in the San Jose Mercury Herald library--I was told never to refer to it as the morgue--clipped and pasted items from the day's paper on strips of uniform size for filing, and cross-filing, under appropriate headings. They were an invaluable reference source for reporters. No story requiring background information could be written without a trip to the morgue, er, library. Today, the reference function is performed by means of computers; no more cutting and pasting.

I mention it now because (a) I am desperately in need of column material to meet a deadline and (b) I feel obliged to enlarge on a theme sounded in my most recent Stereopticon column: "Never underestimate the power of the press." In this particular case it requires a corollary: "Never underestimate the power of the Internet." To recap briefly: A while back, an email came to the Saratoga News office referring to a 1997 Stereopticon column in which I described an early movie projector, the Power's Cameragraph.

I told how I had acquired the pieces of one back in 1937 and still had the arc lamp assembly. The writer of the email said he had bought one of these projectors at an antiques sale, and all it needed was the arc lamp assembly. Just the other day I was able to meet the man, who lives in Soquel, when he came to my house to get the projector part, which I was glad to give him.

But I had a question. How in Soquel, I wanted to know, did he come across a Saratoga newspaper nearly four years old with just the information he was looking for? The answer was the Internet. He works for a high-tech firm, so research by this means was no problem. When he punched in "Power's Cameragraph" on whatever it is you punch, my column was the only reference that came up.

There was a sidelight--not an arc lamp--to the story, which, in my still-desperate need to fill space, is worth mentioning. It seems that the projector from the antiques sale had come from the Hearst Castle at San Simeon. Mention San Simeon and the name Julia Morgan comes to mind, she having been the architect who designed the legendary mansion.

Mention Julia Morgan around Saratoga and you're likely to trigger a recitation of local structures designed by this woman, who holds a secure position in California's cultural history. There is the Foothill Club, where the local Power's Cameragraph was first used around 1916; the Federated Church; and at least two houses.

It is also interesting to note how her influence has survived to this day. The design of the addition to the Federated Church complements her original 1923 structure. And there has been talk of how the new fire station--whatever agencies will be housed within--should be designed along Morganesque lines.

Miss Morgan got involved with Saratoga through the efforts of Mrs. Grace Richards, who had been a Kappa Alpha Theta sorority sister of hers at UC-Berkeley.

I can't leave the subject of antique projectors and silent movies without bringing up an item that appeared in the Aug. 15, 1929, issue of the Saratoga Star. I've quoted it in a column some time back, but I like the sentiment. The Star, incidentally, is the newspaper my dad purchased in 1922 when he and my mother came to Saratoga.

Around 1925, he moved the operation to Los Gatos and established the Los Gatos Star. The Saratoga and Los Gatos papers were really the same, only with different nameplates and maybe one or two stories changed according to the location.

This particular account was an interview with Professor James J. Gill, a dramatic instructor at St. Ignatius College in San Francisco, who was visiting in Los Gatos. His pitch was that, even with talking pictures, "silent films will survive."

"The legitimate stage," he said, "has become distasteful to many people, especially to persons of family, because there have been so many plays of questionable morality in the last few years.

"The talking pictures, if they will avoid the unsavory themes to which so many theatrical producers have become addicted, will find an ever increasing popularity. They will appeal more and more to the great American family, but only so long as they maintain the morals reverenced by family people.

"But for epic themes, requiring a large stage, the silent films will survive."

Professor Gill, requiescat in pace.

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