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Stonehedge, Leland, MI: December 20, 1930., 1930. Very good. - A sheet of light gray note paper, 8-1/4 inches high by 5-1/2 inches wide, is inscribed and signed in black ink: "To: - / Seymour Halpern, Esq., / Sincerely / Karl W Detzer" followed by his address "Stonehedge, Leland, Michigan" and the date "Dec. 20, 1930." Folded 3 times for mailing. Very good.Detzer sends an inscribed and signed sheet of note paper to future Congressman Seymour Halpern, then a young autograph collector.Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Karl W. Detzer [1891-1987] began his career as a reporter and photographer for a Fort Wayne newspaper. After serving in World War I, he went to Chicago where he wrote advertising copy. He left this job to become a full-time author, writing for various pulp magazines, submitting screenplays to Hollywood studios including "Car 99" (1935) and "Crash Donovan" (1936). The U.S. World War One Centennial Commission details his military experiences. "During WWI he was an infantry Captain and a member of the Criminal Investigation Division. Formed by Brigadier General Harry Bandholtz, (Constantine, Michigan) Provost Marshall-General of the A.E.F. "Father of the Military Police", he appointed Lt. Col. E.O. Sanders to the newly established post of Director of Criminal Investigation, with authority to organize a division of the army to fight crime. Captain Detzer was assigned to the LeMans District, a territory the size of the state of Illinois. One Hundred Thousand home ward bound men occupied his area at one time. His duty was to reduce the percentage of crime, to apprehend lawless soldiers and civilians and cooperate with French and Belgian gendarmeries and the British C.I.D., (Scotland Yard) in capturing "Men Wanted". Karl was a newspaper reporter before the war and went on to a very successful writing career. He wrote for a number of police and firemen stories having one of them, Car 99 turned into a Hollywood movie by Paramount studios. During WW 2, he was a Colonel and wrote a number of articles and books for the army. He received the Distinguished Service Medal for his war time effort."Stonehedge is a historic stone estate on Lake Leelanau near Leland, Michigan. Built by Karl and Clarice Detzer starting in the 1920s, the house expanded through the 1930s. Situated on 17 acres of land along the shores of north Lake Leelanau, it was built with 365 feet of private waterfront. It became one of the largest residential properties on the lake.The Queens, New York Republican Congressman Seymour Halpern (1913-1997) started his political career as a campaign aide to New York's powerful mayor Fiorella La Guardia and first served in New York's State Senate for 14 years before seeking a seat in the U.S. Congress. In Albany Halpern sponsored 279 bills that became law, including measures on schools, housing, civil rights, nutrition and mental health. A Liberal, he was something of an anomaly as the lone Republican representative from New York City, and generally garnered support from Labor Unions and endorsement from the Liberal Party. Yet he never even considered switching parties as he considered membership in the Republican Party a family tradition and commitment. While he found ample time for his private pursuits, including painting and collecting autographs, he took his legislative duties very seriously. Of these, he was proudest of his co-sponsorship of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and of the original 1965 Medicare legislation.Scarce.
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