Evening Star
- PAYNE PROPOSES RED CROSS CENSURE FLORIDA OFFICIALS
- EDITOR SEEKS AID IN INDIANA INQUIRY
- FIVE-DAY WEEK SET AS A. F. OF L. GOAL
The Evening Star's front page of October 4, 1926 led with a Red Cross clash with Florida's boosters. At the organization's annual convention in Washington, chairman John Barton Payne set aside his welcome speech to accuse Florida officials and business interests of downplaying the September hurricane to protect the tourist trade. He read out Governor Martin's telegrams and urged delegates to finish the relief drive, which had raised just over $3,000,000. From Indianapolis, an Associated Press report followed Vincennes publisher Thomas H. Adams as he pressed charges that the imprisoned former Klan leader D. C. Stephenson had corrupted Indiana government, with six state senators backing a legislative probe and Adams looking to a U.S. Senate committee. From Detroit, the paper reported that the American Federation of Labor had opened its forty-sixth convention with a 40-hour, five-day week as its next goal, and that William Green cited Henry Ford's new schedule as a sign of the times.
Translation
PAYNE PROPOSES RED CROSS CENSURE FLORIDA OFFICIALS
Saturday's Circulation, 101,326 Sunday's Circulation, 108,685 Associated Press. TWO CENTS. PAYNE PROPOSES RED CROSS CENSURE FLORIDA OFFICIALS Wants Definite Action Against State's Officers and Special Interests. ORGANIZATION STARTS ITS ANNUAL MEETING President Coolidge Will Address Gathering at Session Tonight in Honorary Post.
Declaring that failure to speak out strongly now would amount to connivance with an untruth, Judge John Barton Payne, chairman of the American Red Cross, addressing the opening session of the annual convention of the national organization at the Chamber of Commerce of the United States this morning, called upon the convention to take definite action against the activities of "officials and special interests" in Florida to minimize the hurricane losses.
Judge Payne laid aside his prepared address of welcome to present the "true facts of the Florida situation" before the convention, which represents more than 3,000,000 members throughout the United States. He said copies of his prepared speech had been made so that those who wished to read it might do so later. For the morning, he declared, he wished to use his whole time telling the delegates why he had issued his denunciation of the Florida situation last week.
Payne Explains Position.
"I thought I ought to tell you," he said, "just what led up to that statement. I want to tell you that the disaster in Florida is [?] much greater than the interests there would have us believe. And there is going on in Florida a conflict between the humanitarian efforts of mercy on the one side and the selfishness of business interests on the other. The time has come when we must consider seriously whether it is too late to renew our campaign for the relief of the poor and stricken in the storm area.
"The first intimation I had about what was going on was when the chairman of the Chicago chapter called me up on the telephone and read me the message Gov. Martin had sent to the Mayor of Chicago, thanking him for offers of aid and assuring the Mayor, he, the Governor, would let him know if further assistance was necessary. At first I could scarcely believe that a Governor would be such an idiot as to make such a statement, right at the height of a campaign to raise money for the relief of the poor people of his State."
Judge Payne read Gov. Martin's telegram, which was also sent to the mayors of a number of other large cities. He also read all of the messages and correspondence that had passed back and forth between himself and Florida officials and business men. [?] applause greeted the reading of his suggestion that the governor should call in the newspaper men in Miami and give them an unbiased statement, without trying to advertise Florida.
"Time to Speak Now."
"I suppose that the desire of a group to protect its business interests is a natural weakness," Judge Payne continued. "But the poor victims of the storm are regarded as of less importance than the tourist business. The time has come for the American Red Cross to speak out. There are needs and circumstances when not to speak out is at least to connive. The American Red Cross can never connive in a falsehood.
"The American people should still be ready to go forward and provide adequate relief for the many people in Florida, who are in dire need of it.
"We have something more than $3,000,000 now. What we will do in the future rests with you. Some effort should be made to complete our campaign. We should, at least, have the satisfaction of feeling that we have done our utmost."
In the address which he cast aside, Judge Payne had begun by declaring that "again the meaning of Red Cross service is emphasized by the dreadful disaster to the people of Florida, and shown the imperative need of maintaining our peace-time strength."
The [?] to meet great emergencies, he said, depends on membership, on organization and on the financial and spiritual resources of the American Red Cross. "That we are able to keep our peace-time strength to more than 3,000,000 by our annual roll call is a great tribute to the organization and to its active and influential chapter workers," he said. "These constantly-recurring disasters suggest the need of an even greater membership, and I confidently believe if all could realize the boundless opportunities afforded to members to render service to their fellow-men, we may even hope for a membership of 10,000,000."
Roll Call Armistice Day.
On Armistice day, Judge Payne said, the roll will be called again. He urged all who can to join. To illustrate the need for peace-time organization, he pointed out that in the fiscal year which ended June 30 there were 62 domestic disasters alone, in which the Red Cross participated. These called for appropriations aggregating $788,457.88 from the organization's own treasury, above public subscriptions.
William Fortune of Indianapolis, who did considerable work when the call came for help for Florida, was elected chairman of the convention. Almost overnight he succeeded in getting 100,000 units of typhoid fever vaccine, 50,000 of which he had shipped by airplane. Dr. Thomas F. Green was made secretary. Committee chairmen included Lieut. Gov. D. J. Davis of Pennsylvania, resolutions committee; Mrs. George A. McKinlock, Chicago, nominations, and Rev. A. E. Fackus, rules and organization.
President Speaks Tonight.
Right Rev. James E. Freeman, the Bishop of Washington, made invocation, and Commissioner J. Franklin Bell welcomed the delegates to Washington. Elliott H. Goodwin, resident vice president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, and Vicomte Ronald de Rouge, of the League of Red Cross Societies also (Continued on Page 2, Column 6.)
EDITOR SEEKS AID IN INDIANA INQUIRY
heavy-hitting American League champions had few good balls offered them. Shocker, who started for the Yankees, was an in-and-out performer. Shawkey went to his rescue in the (Continued on Page 3, Column 4.)
EDITOR SEEKS AID IN INDIANA INQUIRY Charges Klan Grafts in State and Says Reed's Committee May Act.
By the Associated Press.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind., October 4. - While political Indiana wondered where the lightning of wholesale charges of political fraud, and corruption, dating back to 1924, would strike, Thomas H. Adams, veteran Vincennes publisher, who has conducted the crusade almost single-handed to date, prepared today to go to Chicago to seek backing in his effort to obtain an investigation of conditions in Indiana by the United States Senate.
Undeterred by the frank skepticism which in some quarters greeted his broadside of charges of corruption, barter and sale of offices, graft, fraudulent indictment of public officials as parts of a gigantic "frame-up" and domination of officials by the unseen hand of D. C. Stephenson, former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, Adams and the followers attracted to his expose undertook numerous moves looking toward investigation by an officially constituted body of the evidence he has gathered.
Probe Move Under Way.
Six State Senators who reviewed the evidence in Adams' possession over the week end and pronounced it as meriting "legislative investigation" proceeded with plans to sound out opinion among members of the Senate of the last session of the Indiana General Assembly as to the possibility of obtaining a special session, formal or informal, to appoint a probe committee. At the same time attorneys directed their attention to determining specific powers with which a Senate session would be clothed in any attempts to dig to the bottom of the publisher's assertions.
Adams has not yet made his charges specific, although it is understood that he has a mass of documentary evidence.
Governor Not Advised.
Gov. Ed Jackson, from whom some lawyers say, a call for an official special session would have to come, said in Cleveland last night that the charges had not been brought to his attention.
The campaign against corruption was inaugurated by the white-haired editor last week after an investigation conducted by him acting as chairman of the executive committee of the Indiana Republican Editorial Association in conjunction with a group of publishers of Indiana daily newspapers, all of them constituting a self-appointed committee of the association.
The central figure in what Adams denominated as an unscrupulous and powerful combination of political forces, is Stephenson, now serving a life sentence in the Indiana State prison for the murder of Madge Oberholtzer. The former grand dragon's conviction on this charge last year followed one of the swiftest and most colorful rises to power that the State has ever known.
Reed Committee May Act.
From an obscure position in the ranks of the Ku Klux Klan late in 1923, Stephenson rose to virtual control of the Republican party in the State. The completeness of his sway, Adams charges, was best demonstrated in the 1925 legislative session, and it was just before, during and immediately after this 60-day session that the publisher says most of the acts of malfeasance occurred.
Although he has not proceeded in this direction, Adams says many of the facts at his command have been placed in the hands of the senatorial campaign funds investigating committee headed by Senator James A. (Continued on Page 3, Column 2.)
FIVE-DAY WEEK SET AS A. F. OF L. GOAL
head of the House of Orleans and, as such, pretender to the French throne since the death of the Duke of Orleans earlier this year. He has two unmarried daughters, Princess Francoise, who is 23, and Princess Anne, 20.
FIVE-DAY WEEK SET AS A. F. OF L. GOAL Greater Production Predicted by Green-Labor to Enter Life Insurance Field.
By the Associated Press.
DETROIT, Mich., October 4. - Committed to the five-day week as the next major forward step for "the highest-paid workers in the world," executive officers of the American Federation of Labor turned today, in the opening sessions of the federation's forty-sixth annual convention, to a multitude of problems centered on the welfare of American labor.
Eleventh-hour agreements between groups widely separated on several vexatious questions opened a fair prospect for the two weeks' assemblage, bringing forth the prediction of prominent leaders that the entire time probably would be devoted to deliberations upon constructive policies bearing directly upon the immediate program of the organization.
Foreboding divisions of sentiment in the preliminary gatherings last week on the question of relations with the Mexican Federation of Labor were bridged by an informal agreement by representatives of a majority of the convention voting strength to accept without debate the recommendations of the executive council on Mexican relations for the coming year.
Five-Day Week Stressed.
The executive council's report was the first order of business at the afternoon session.
The five-day week of 40 hours was defined as a cardinal point in the federation's "policy of constructive progress" by President William Green, after the final pre-convention gathering of the executive council yesterday.
Although it was a mere coincidence that the announcement came in the city in which Henry Ford last week declared the five-day week the operative wage base for thousands of workers in the motor industry, Mr. Green alluded to the Ford program as a sign of the times. The automobile industry was mentioned as one now ready for the shorter schedule. Other fields ripe for the step, in the view of Mr. Green, are the building trades, mining industry and needle crafts.
No Reduction in Wages.
"The five-day week seems inevitable in American labor," Mr. Green said, "for the simple reason that it is economically sound and profitable. It is profitable for the worker and for the employer, and has been tremendously successful in the numerous crafts in which it is already partially effective.
"We have constantly maintained that hours must be reduced in direct proportion to increased productivity (Continued on Page 5, Column 2.)
Context
Why would Florida's leaders play down a catastrophic storm?
Payne's anger makes sense given the scale of the disaster and what Florida stood to lose. The Great Miami Hurricane came ashore near Miami on September 18, 1926, a little over two weeks before this convention opened. The Red Cross later counted 372 dead, and about 43,000 people were left homeless, mostly in the Miami area. The storm struck a state riding a boom in land sales and tourism, and it is regarded as the final blow that ended Florida's 1920s land boom. Tourism and land speculation had already been growing during Governor John W. Martin's term. He had also tried to counter bad publicity about real estate scams with a New York seminar called "The Truth About Florida." When he told other cities' mayors he would let them know if more aid was needed, he was showing that same concern for the state's image. What the Star reports, though, is Payne's side of the argument: his reading of Martin's telegram to Chicago, and his charge that officials and "special interests" were minimizing the losses. No reply from Florida's officials appears in this front-page portion of the story.
Who was D. C. Stephenson, and where did the Indiana corruption charges lead?
Adams's charges centered on the most powerful Klansman in 1920s Indiana. D. C. Stephenson was appointed Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan in 1923 and directed a statewide political machine from Indianapolis. When Ed Jackson ran for governor in 1924, he reportedly cut a deal in exchange for Stephenson's help. That link gives weight to the article's report that Governor Jackson had not been told of the charges. Some lawyers said any official special session would have to be called by him. In November 1925 Stephenson was convicted of second-degree murder for the death of Madge Oberholtzer, the conviction the article mentions. According to the article, Adams placed most of the wrongdoing around the 1925 legislative session. Later events showed that suspicions of Klan influence over Indiana officials had substance, though the decisive disclosures came from Stephenson himself. After Jackson denied him a pardon, Stephenson began talking to reporters for the Indianapolis Times in 1927. He also released a list of officials who had been in the pay of the Klan. A wave of indictments followed, including one against Governor Jackson. When the Star reported Adams's crusade in October 1926, those disclosures were still in the future and his charges remained unproven.
How did Ford's five-day week fit into labor's push for shorter hours?
The Star called it a coincidence that the AFL made its announcement in Detroit, but Green's reference to Ford still tied the federation's goal to Ford's move. In 1926 Henry Ford standardized on a five-day week in his factories instead of the prevalent six days, reportedly without cutting pay. Green argued that shorter hours were profitable for workers and employers alike. Ford's own reasoning, as later described, was that workers with more time off would take vacations and go shopping. Across industry as a whole, though, the goal was still distant: weekly hours had stabilized at about 49 during the 1920s. Green's list of trades "ripe" for the change (building, mining and the needle crafts) suggests how unevenly the idea was expected to spread. A clothing union from the needle trades he named was the first to win it. In 1929 the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America became the first union to demand and receive a five-day week. The 40-hour, five-day week that Green called "inevitable" became standard for many workers only through federal law. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 established it. The two-day weekend was adopted nationwide after the act's 40-hour maximum took effect in 1940.
Original
PAYNE PROPOSES RED CROSS CENSURE FLORIDA OFFICIALS
Saturday's Circulation, 101, 326 Sunday's Circulation, 108, 685 Associated Press. TWO CENTS. PAYNE PROPOSES RED CROSS CENSURE FLORIDA OFFICIALS Wants Definite Action Against State's Officers and Special Interests. ORGANIZATION STARTS ITS ANNUAL MEETING President Coolidge Will Address Gathering at Session Tonight in Honorary Post. Declaring that failure to speak out strongly now would amount to connivance with an untruth, Judge John Barton Payne, chairman of the American Red Cross, addressing the opening session of the annual convention of the national organization at the Chamber of Commerce of the United States this morning, called upon the convention to take definite action against the activities of " officials and special interests " in Florida to minimize the hurricane losses. Judge Payne laid aside his prepared address of welcome to present the " true facts of the Florida situation " before the convention, which represents more than 3, 000, 000 members throughout the United States. He said copies of his prepared speech had been made so that those who wished to read it might do so later. For the morning, he declared, he wished to use his whole time telling the delegates why he had issued his denunciation of the Florida situation last week. Payne Explains Position. " I thought I ought to tell you, " he said, " just what led up to that statement. I want to tell you that the disaster in Florida is [?] much greater than the interests there would have us believe. And there is going on in Florida a conflict between the humanitarian efforts of mercy on the one side and the selfishness of business interests on the other. The time has come when we must consider seriously whether it is too late to renew our campaign for the relief of the poor and stricken in the storm area. " The first intimation I had about what was going on was when the chairman of the Chicago chapter called me up on the telephone and read me the message Gov. Martin had sent to the Mayor of Chicago, thanking him for offers of aid and assuring the Mayor, he, the Governor, would let him know if further assistance was necessary. At first I could scarcely believe that a Governor would be such an idiot as to make such a statement, right at the height of a campaign to raise money for the relief of the poor people of his State. " Judge Payne read Gov. Martin's telegram, which was also sent to the mayors of a number of other large cities. He also read all of the messages and correspondence that had passed back and forth between himself and Florida officials and business men. [?] applause greeted the reading of his suggestion that the governor should call in the newspaper men in Miami and give them an unbiased statement, without trying to advertise Florida. " Time to Speak Now. " " I suppose that the desire of a group to protect its business interests is a natural weakness, " Judge Payne continued. " But the poor victims of the storm are regarded as of less importance than the tourist business. The time has come for the American Red Cross to speak out. There are needs and circumstances when not to speak out is at least to connive. The American Red Cross can never connive in a falsehood. " The American people should still be ready to go forward and provide adequate relief for the many people in Florida, who are in dire need of it. " We have something more than $ 3, 000, 000 now. What we will do in the future rests with you. Some effort should be made to complete our campaign. We should, at least, have the satisfaction of feeling that we have done our utmost. " In the address which he cast aside, Judge Payne had begun by declaring that " again the meaning of Red Cross service is emphasized by the dreadful disaster to the people of Florida, and shown the imperative need of maintaining our peace-time strength. " The [?] to meet great emergencies, he said, depends on membership, on organization and on the financial and spiritual resources of the American Red Cross. " That we are able to keep our peace-time strength to more than 3, 000, 000 by our annual roll call is a great tribute to the organization and to its active and influential chapter workers, " he said. " These constantly-recurring disasters suggest the need of an even greater membership, and I confidently believe if all could realize the boundless opportunities afforded to members to render service to their fellow-men, we may even hope for a membership of 10, 000, 000. " Roll Call Armistice Day. On Armistice day, Judge Payne said, the roll will be called again. He urged all who can to join. To illustrate the need for peace-time organization, he pointed out that in the fiscal year which ended June 30 there were 62 domestic disasters alone, in which the Red Cross participated. These called for appropriations aggregating $ 788, 457. 88 from the organization's own treasury, above public subscriptions. William Fortune of Indianapolis, who did considerable work when the call came for help for Florida, was elected chairman of the convention. Almost overnight he succeeded in getting 100, 000 units of typhoid fever vaccine, 50, 000 of which he had shipped by airplane. Dr. Thomas F. Green was made secretary. Committee chairmen included Lieut. Gov. D. J. Davis of Pennsylvania, resolutions committee; Mrs. George A. McKinlock, Chicago, nominations, and Rev. A. E. Fackus, rules and organization. President Speaks Tonight. Right Rev. James E. Freeman, the Bishop of Washington, made invocation, and Commissioner J. Franklin Bell welcomed the delegates to Washington. Elliott H. Goodwin, resident vice president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, and Vicomte Ronald de Rouge, of the League of Red Cross Societies also (Continued on Page 2, Column 6.)
EDITOR SEEKS AID IN INDIANA INQUIRY
heavy-hitting American League champions had few good balls offered them. Shocker, who started for the Yankees, was an in-and-out performer. Shawkey went to his rescue in the (Continued on Page 3, Column 4.) EDITOR SEEKS AID IN INDIANA INQUIRY Charges Klan Grafts in State and Says Reed's Committee May Act. By the Associated Press. INDIANAPOLIS, Ind., October 4. - While political Indiana wondered where the lightning of wholesale charges of political fraud, and corruption, dating back to 1924, would strike, Thomas H. Adams, veteran Vincennes publisher, who has conducted the crusade almost single-handed to date, prepared today to go to Chicago to seek backing in his effort to obtain an investigation of conditions in Indiana by the United States Senate. Undeterred by the frank skepticism which in some quarters greeted his broadside of charges of corruption, barter and sale of offices, graft, fraudulent indictment of public officials as parts of a gigantic " frame-up " and domination of officials by the unseen hand of D. C. Stephenson, former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, Adams and the followers attracted to his expose undertook numerous moves looking toward investigation by an officially constituted body of the evidence he has gathered. Probe Move Under Way. Six State Senators who reviewed the evidence in Adams ' possession over the week end and pronounced it as meriting " legislative investigation " proceeded with plans to sound out opinion among members of the Senate of the last session of the Indiana General Assembly as to the possibility of obtaining a special session, formal or informal, to appoint a probe committee. At the same time attorneys directed their attention to determining specific powers with which a Senate session would be clothed in any attempts to dig to the bottom of the publisher's assertions. Adams has not yet made his charges specific, although it is understood that he has a mass of documentary evidence. Governor Not Advised. Gov. Ed Jackson, from whom some lawyers say, a call for an official special session would have to come, said in Cleveland last night that the charges had not been brought to his attention. The campaign against corruption was inaugurated by the white-haired editor last week after an investigation conducted by him acting as chairman of the executive committee of the Indiana Republican Editorial Association in conjunction with a group of publishers of Indiana daily newspapers, all of them constituting a selfappointed committee of the association. The central figure in what Adams denominated as an unscrupulous and powerful combination of political forces, is Stephenson, now serving a life sentence in the Indiana State prison for the murder of Madge Oberholtzer. The former grand dragon's conviction on this charge last year followed one of the swiftest and most colorful rises to power that the State has ever known. Reed Committee May Act. From an obscure position in the ranks of the Ku Klux Klan late in 1923, Stephenson rose to virtual control of the Republican party in the State. The completeness of his sway, Adams charges, was best demonstrated in the 1925 legislative session, and it was just before, during and immediately after this 60-day session that the publisher says most of the acts of malfeasance occurred. Although he has not proceeded in this direction, Adams says many of the facts at his command have been placed in the hands of the senatorial campaign funds investigating committee headed by Senator James A. (Continued on Page 3, Column 2.)
FIVE-DAY WEEK SET AS A. F. OF L. GOAL
head of the House of Orleans and, as such, pretender to the French throne since the death of the Duke of Orleans earlier this year. He has two unmarried daughters, Princess Francoise, who is 23, and Princess Anne, 20. FIVE-DAY WEEK SET AS A. F. OF L. GOAL Greater Production Predicted by Green-Labor to Enter Life Insurance Field. By the Associated Press. DETROIT, Mich., October 4. - Committed to the five-day week as the next major forward step for " the highest-paid workers in the world, " executive officers of the American Federation of Labor turned today, in the opening sessions of the federation's forty-sixth annual convention, to a multitude of problems centered on the welfare of American labor. Eleventh-hour agreements between groups widely separated on several vexatious questions opened a fair prospect for the two weeks ' assemblage, bringing forth the prediction of prominent leaders that the entire time probably would be devoted to deliberations upon constructive policies bearing directly upon the immediate program of the organization. Foreboding divisions of sentiment in the preliminary gatherings last week on the question of relations with the Mexican Federation of Labor were bridged by an informal agreement by representatives of a majority of the convention voting strength to accept without debate the recommendations of the executive council on Mexican relations for the coming year. Five-Day Week Stressed. The executive council's report was the first order of business at the afternoon session. The five-day week of 40 hours was defined as a cardinal point in the federation's " policy of constructive progress " by President William Green, after the final pre-convention gathering of the executive council yesterday. Although it was a mere coincidence that the announcement came in the city in which Henry Ford last week declared the five-day week the operative wage base for thousands of workers in the motor industry, Mr. Green alluded to the Ford program as a sign of the times. The automobile industry was mentioned as one now ready for the shorter schedule. Other fields ripe for the step, in the view of Mr. Green, are the building trades, mining industry and needle crafts. No Reduction in Wages. " The five-day week seems inevitable in American labor, " Mr. Green said, " for the simple reason that it is economically sound and profitable. It is profitable for the worker and for the employer, and has been tremendously successful in the numerous crafts in which it is already partially effective. " We have constantly maintained that hours must be reduced in direct proportion to increased productivity (Continued on Page 5, Column 2.)
Source: Holding institution