The majority of the clippings in the William H. Maas Scrapbook document his early work with the Portland Fire Department, and his later career as a policeman; injuries and deaths of fellow officers; major or significant crimes committed in and around Portland (e.g. murders, raids on gambling dens, and illegal distilleries); benefits and labor issues relating to the Police and Fire Departments (e.g. reductions in force, addition or reduction in benefits such as pensions and vacations); and Police Department and governmental scandals (e.g. gambling, brutality, bribes).
The first ten pages of the scrapbook – pages 3 to 13 – date from September 1911 to June 1912, and primarily document fires in and around Portland, including a fire at the Second Baptist Church at 7th and Ankeny, and at the Gilman, Castle, and Romaine Hotels. Also documented are accusations of mismanagement of funds in connection with the first Fireman’s Ball in Portland (7-8); the hiring of additional firemen to serve the city, and the addition of new fire houses in Kenton, Woodlawn, and Rose City (7-8); a proposal to offer firemen one day off in every six, as opposed to one day off in seven (9); and the deaths of several firemen, including Warren Francis Smith and John H. Higdon (4, 13).
Maas’s scrapbook also documents several high profile murders and assaults in and around Portland, including the deaths of several fellow officers. The murder of Bernard C. Linstrom by Della Marsh, and the statewide search for Ms. Maud Mariette Hughes for assault on Frank Ellithorpe were given several pages of coverage (46-48, 73). Clippings were also collected to document the killing of Lieutenant P.R. Johnson by Patrolman Arthur B. Chase (74-77), and the shooting, and subsequent death, of Deputy Sheriff Bob Phillips (66-71). Maas also chronicles a 1916 escape from Kelly Butte, site of a rock quarry cum prison, where prisoners sentenced to hard labor were sent to “break rock” (54-57).
A number of the clippings Maas collected relate to labor issues and benefits offered to civil service employees, namely those in the police and fire departments; Captain Joseph Keller, Police Chief A.E. Clark, and Mayor Harry Russell Albee are mentioned frequently in these clippings. Among the loose clippings is a copy of HB 469, written to establish the creation of a Board of Police Pension and Relief in all cities of more than 50,000. Additional clippings dealing with the police force as a civil service, addition or subtraction of benefits, and other Police Department labor issues can be found on pages 16, 20, 29, 30-31, 33, and 37-39.
Interestingly, Maas does not shy away from documenting Police Department scandals, or the sanction of his fellow officers. His clippings include documentation of a case of harassment against Chinese American business owners (18); a brutality charge filed by Harry Nicklin, son of then-prominent physician A. I. Nicklin (19); accusations of the use of unnecessary force by a patrolman against a fugitive (36); the accepting of bribes by officers (34-35); and cases of officers gambling while on duty (40-41). The scrapbook also includes a short clipping about a Sergeant Andrew Sorenson, who was “reduced to ranks” (i.e. to the rank of patrolman) for being a Socialist sympathizer (33).
A deeper reading of the clippings in Maas’s scrapbook reveals the ways in which gender norms were policed, and female sexuality “safeguarded,” in the first half of the 20th century. The clippings provide evidence of two men, M. Barsottie and J.H. McKenna, who were fined on two separate charges of “mashing” (i.e. street and/or sexual harassment or assault of women); Barsottie was sentenced to 90 days hard labor, a not uncommon sentence for mashers (15). Two officers, Patrolmen C.G. Boone and Clifford W. Maddux were suspended – and threatened with dismissal – for having flirted with a married woman on a street car (25). Mention is also made of Portland’s “Purity Squad,” a special force of Portland police officers whose mandate was to “attend to the morals of the city” (33).
Of particular interest is a small grouping of World War II-related content in the scrapbook. On March 28, 1942, the first arrest for violation of the curfew established by President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 was made. Minoru Yasui – a graduate of the University of Oregon who lived and worked as a lawyer in Hood River – deliberately broke the “alien curfew law” in a protest against its unconstitutionality. Yasui, after being refused arrest by two patrolmen in Portland's north end, turned himself in at the nearest station house; Maas was the officer who booked him, and was called to testify at his trial (78, loose). An additional item of interest in this set of clippings is a full page, World War II-era newspaper clipping regarding the dangers posed to servicemen by prostitutes and venereal diseases (loose).
Many of the rest of the pages in the scrapbook detail Maas’s own work as an officer. Most of his “collars” are small, the day-to-day work of cop on his beat. Several, however, were more significant. In 1912, Maas was part of the group of officers who responded to the scene of the fire at Erickson’s Saloon, a hulking den of alcohol and iniquity occupying almost an entire city block on West Burnside (25). He also took part in a raid on a craps game put on by the “Oregon Social Club” (26). Later in his career, then-Sergeant Maas and his partner, Patrolman Gaunt, spearheaded a raid on an illegal distillery in the heart of Portland’s Irvington residential district (loose clippings). On a more personal note, Maas includes clippings about playing catcher on a Policemen’s Athletic Association baseball club team (17), and his position as “spare” on a Portland Amateur Hockey Association team (59). A retirement notice and brief obituary for Maas can be found on page 81 of the scrapbook; a marriage notice can be found on page 46. A ribbon inscribed with the name Sharon Maas indicates the scrapbook may have, at one time, belonged to a relative of William's.
A PDF access scan of this item is available upon patron request.
