Bates College is celebrating a windfall that would make any modern university green with envy. President Chase announced that J.W. Scott Libbey of Lewiston, a prominent mill owner, is donating funds for a grand new fraternity and assembly building. Libbey, who has two children as Bates graduates and another preparing to enter, plans to travel abroad to gather architectural ideas before construction begins this fall. The college also received a $1,000 gift toward the Carnegie endowment fund and assurance that the $50,000 pledge from the late Bartlett Doe will be honored despite his tragic death in the San Francisco earthquake. Meanwhile, Congress marked Speaker Cannon's 70th birthday by passing 45 bills in one of their most productive sessions, though not without Democratic filibustering tactics from Mississippi's Mr. Williams.

This May 1906 front page captures America just one month after the devastating San Francisco earthquake that killed over 3,000 people and left the city in ruins. The mention of Bartlett Doe's death in the quake and concerns about his estate being 'largely in San Francisco' reflects how the disaster's financial ripple effects reached across the country. Meanwhile, the railroad rate bill debate in Congress was addressing one of the era's biggest issues — corporate power versus public interest, as massive railroad monopolies controlled much of America's commerce.

• Bath Automobile and Gas Engine Company is advertising second-hand launches ranging from 25 to 35 feet, including one with a 7½ H.P. Taylor Cowanesque Engine — showing Maine's early embrace of recreational boating
• A 10-cent cigar manufacturer in Manchester, New Hampshire is so concerned about counterfeiting that they're stamping 'E.G. Sullivan' on every cigar as a 'smoker's protection'
• Spring overcoats at H.G. Barker Co. are marked down 25%, with the most expensive $20 coat (about $700 today) now selling for $15
• The weather forecast cheerfully predicts 'Fair—Possibly Showers' with the kind of optimistic vagueness that makes modern meteorology seem miraculous

• Speaker Joseph Cannon, celebrating his 70th birthday in Congress, would become so powerful that reformers coined the term 'Cannonism' to describe his iron-fisted rule — he'd eventually be stripped of much power in a 1910 revolt
• That Carnegie endowment fund mentioned for Bates? Andrew Carnegie was in the midst of giving away his entire $350 million fortune — equivalent to about $100 billion today
• The Senate's heated debate over railroad 'free passes' was tackling a massive corruption issue — railroads routinely bribed politicians and journalists with free travel
• Fred Peabody of Thomaston being 'buried alive' in the San Francisco earthquake reflects the disaster's reach — refugees scattered across the country, and aftershocks of the tragedy appeared in small-town Maine newspapers
• The mention of 'separate cars for the race' in the Senate railroad debate shows how Jim Crow segregation was being encoded into federal transportation law