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Volume 1789

ERB AND THE PRESS
Local Papers ~ Van Nuys News

CONTENTS 1. E. R. Burroughs Gets An Offer By Hearst 2. Two Lion Cubs For Their Christmas Gifts 3. ERB Sees Valley As World Mecca For Men At Play 4. Annual Kiwanis Football Frolic Was Big Success 5. Tarzan Author Hospital Patient 6. Dale Carnegie: Edgar Rice Burroughs

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E. R BURROUGHS GETS AN OFFER FROM HEARST Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the Tarzan stories and managing director of El Caballero Club, last week wrote an interesting article on evolution for the Hearst newspapers in connection with the Scopes evolution  trial at Dayton, Tenn.

Mr. Burroughs received a flattering offer from teh Hearst newspapers to go to Dayton and write for the Hearst Sydicate his impressions of the trial. Not since Huxley faced the bishops of England have science and religion entered any such trial arean in teh modern world.

Mr. Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan is an authority on evolution.

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Two Lion Cubs For Their Christmas Gifts
Van Nuys News ~ January 6, 1921 The two young sons of Mr. and Mrs. E. R. Burroughs of Tarzana ranch on the Ventura boulevard were greatly surprised and pleased on Christmas to receive two real live African Nubian lion cubs as gifts from one of the large film producing companies of Los Angeles.

The cubs are four months old and are regular pets. Mr. Burroughs has had a cage erected to  house the animals and the boys have no hesitancy in entering the cage and playing with their pets.

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EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS SEES VALLEY
AS WORLD MECCA FOR MEN AT PLAY
The Van Nuys News ~ February 17, 1928 Edgar Rice Burroughs, famous author of "Tarzan of the Apes" and thirty-one other novels, which have been translated into nineteen different languages, in discussing the $25,000,000 San Fernando Valley development program now under way for the construction of highways, development of new communities, golf courses, bridle trails, parks and increased transportation facilities to meet the future requirements of areas of denser population, yesterday declared the san Fernando area to be the great playground of Los Angeles. Mr. Burroughs' home is at Encino and his world-read stories are written there. Mr. Burroughs voice his sentiment in a story written especially for The News.

"with our freedom from persistent fog, with ten months without high winds, with our ideal winter climate, the only danger that I can see menacing lies in the possibility, which is by no means a remote one, that San Fernando Valley may eventually become as over-populated as are many of the districts that were formerly the playgrounds of Los Angeles," Mr. Burroughs declared.

"The first impressions of Los Angeles that I can recall and which were received long before I made my first visit to Southern California in 1913, led me to think of it then, and for many years thereafter, as a sort of heaven on earth where tired souls went after they had acquired enough worldly goods in the humdrum, sunless purgatory that lies beyond the borders of this earthly paradise to permit them to retire from a life of drudgery and enjoy the rewards of the hereafter without actually dying a physical death.

Ideal Existence
"In my mind Los Angeles was a playground at that time, and when I eventually came here to live some years ago it was still little more than a vast playground with plenty of places to play, to enjoy peace and happiness -- to lead an ideal existence; and then came the period of our tremendous industrial development and in a few years hundreds of thousands of people swarmed into and spread over our garden of the gods until it trembled to the tramp of countless feet, its peace shattered by the honking of myriad automobile horns, factory whistles and other nerve destroying factors in the march of progress.

Home Overlooks Valley
"I was glad then, and I have continued to be glad since, that when I came here to live I had chosen a homesite in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains overlooking the broad and beautiful San Fernando Valley, for here the spirit of peace and happiness and play is making its last stand against the raucous din of overwhelming prosperity, and while San Fernando Valley is joining in that prosperity it has done so in such a way as to insure that it shall be forevermore the playground of Los Angeles.

"It is a good place to work -- during the past ten years I have discovered that -- but it is primarily a good place to work because it is a good place to play, for to my mind the two move forward to perfect success only when they go hand in hand.

Roams Hills
"For ten years I have roamed these hills with my family, both afoot and on horseback. I have watched my children grow to a sturdier health, achieving cleaner minds and morals because of their close companionship with nature, and when, one after another, the country clubs and golf courses sprang into existence upon our side of the mountains, until now they stretch almost uninterruptedly for nearly fifteen miles along Ventura boulevard, I was more than delighted for I felt that this meant that the San Fernando Valley was going to be dedicated for all time to the pursuits of play and peace and happiness."

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Annual Kiwanis Football Frolic Was Big Success
San Fernando and Van Nuys Have Joint Luncheon Meeting
and Attend Annual Game On Smith Field
ERB Speech Excerpt ~ October 22, 1929 Members of the van Nuys and San Fernando Kiwanis club s had a real red letter day Friday when they held a join luncheon meeting in the Van nuys high school cafeteria to observe the annual football classic between the Van Nuys Wolves and the San Fernando Tigers, high school teams.

The festivities began at 1 o'clock, when a delicious luncheon was served cafeteria style in the large dining room.

Author Says "Keep Fit"
Seated at the speaker's table were Dr. Charles B. Canby, president of the Van nuys club; Herbert Sykes, president of the San Fernando club; Walter Collins, lieutenant governor Division J; Capt. J. P. Inglis, principal of the Van Nuys high school; H. E. Gross, principal San Fernando high school; and Edgar Rice Burroughs, author, and principal speaker on the program.

"In introducing me Walter Mendenhall did not even suggest a subject,: said Mr. Burroughs, "and I had hoped some of the football players would be present to give me an inspiration -- but as I look over the members of these service clubs today and see the preponderance of men whose girth is growing more rapidly than it should, my message to you is to do something that will keep you fit. I am preaching this gospel, because four years ago I was faced with the same problem and since then have exercised vigorously. The result has been most gratifying."

Mr. Burroughs advised young men to include in their athletics some form of sport that they could follow after their school life was finished as the best method for keeping in the best physical condition.

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Tarzan Author Hospital Patient
Edgar Rice Burroughs Has Relapse
Following First Major Operation
Van Nuys News ~ January 9, 1931

Edgar Rice Burroughs, noted author, suffered a relapse last week and was taken to Hollywood hospital Monday. He underwent a second operation that afternoon and is reported a very sick man.

The first operation was performed early in December and was considered successful. He recovered rapidly and was taken home to recuperate. Two doctors and two nurses are in attendance.

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DALE CARNEGIE: ERB
Author of "How to Win Friends and Influence People"
The Times and Daily News Leader - San Mateo, California ~ March 29, 1940

The other day, in a New York hotel, I interviewed a man who had a job that would not support him, and he told me what he did about it. The job the man had was peddling pencil-sharpeners from office to office in the business district of Chicago. He was married and had three children.

He was so poor that he bought a half-soling outfit and hafl soled the shoes of the family . He worked even harder at his pencil-sharpener selling, but it wasn't enough.

So he decided to do something on the side while he was still canvassing. He had never been trained for special work. He had once been a policeman in the railroads in Salt Lake City, but he couldn't get a side line like that in Chicago. He had once been a cavalry officer, but he couldn't get a job at that either. He seemed beaten, but he wasn't. Not is kind.

He tried to think of something he could do at night, after his street-tramping. AS he was coming back on a street car from his sharpener-selling, he read a short story, and said to himself, "I can write as well as that."

And that very night he began. It was a wild, impossible story about a beautiful girl who lived on Mars. He finished half of it and sent it to the All-Story Magazine. The editor replied that if he would finish it, and if the last part was as good as the first part he would buy it.

He dashed into it in earnest, then, and lo and behold! a check for $400 came back. He was a millionaire!

But he still held his door-to-door canvassing job. Nights he pushed his pencil. One night he started a story about a semi-wild man who lived in Africa. He needed a name for his character. he wrote three on a piece of paper, and selected one, Tarzan. The name of the peddler of pencil-sharpeners is Edgar Rice Burroughs.

He ws astonished how his stories caught on. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever visualized such success. He moved to California and bought himself an estate with a private golf course. The success of his books was world-wide. In former Czechoslovakia, his books were used in the public schools. Since he started that midnight story of Tarzan, more than 24 million copies of his books have been sold.

He told me that the turning point in his life had come when he had determined to hold one job while he tried out another. That one idea took him from poverty to the millionaire class. The idea is perfectly sound, and it may be something that you yourself can apply. If you are not making as much as you need, then hold the job you have and work up one on the side. It will probably not be easy, but it can be done.