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.
THOUSANDS FLOCK TO AIMEE’S TEMPLE FOR BIG COMMUNION
FLOODS AGAIN DRIVE WESTERN FARMERS TO HIGHER GROUNDS
The Montgomery Advertiser's front page for October 4, 1926 carried three Associated Press dispatches. From Detroit, the American Federation of Labor's executive council, meeting on the eve of its 46th convention, adopted the five-day, 40-hour week as its central bargaining goal, and President William Green argued that shorter hours would raise output, cut unit costs and turnover, and give workers more leisure. From Los Angeles, Aimee Semple McPherson staged a tableau called “The march of the martyrs” at her temple, a pageant that ran from Calvary to Joan of Arc and ended with a present-day scene, on the eve of the second week of her hearing on conspiracy and false-evidence charges. From Chicago came word that renewed rains were flooding Kansas, Oklahoma, Illinois and Missouri, forcing evacuations by boat, straining Mississippi levees and shutting down railways, utility plants and mines.
This London, Ontario evening paper of October 4, 1926 relied heavily on Associated Press cables. From London it reported that Australia's Premier Bruce, newly landed at Marseilles, was expected to force a showdown at the coming Imperial Conference on how the dominions stood toward Britain, prompted by hints that another dominion wanted independent status. A second London cable relayed a Daily Express claim that American money for Britain's striking miners had gone to an unofficial delegation rather than the official one, causing a feud around A. J. Cook. From Rockwood, Tennessee came word that 65 men were feared trapped after an explosion deep in a Roane Iron Company mine. Short items reported that Italy's cabinet had approved restoring the death penalty for attempts on the royal family and the premier, and that Georgetown University's seismographs had recorded a severe distant earthquake. This reading covers only part of the page and leaves out torn sections and fragments from neighbouring columns.
The Vossische Zeitung's front page of 4 October 1926 led with a Vienna report on the first Paneuropa Congress. It argued that Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi's movement was moving from ideas into organised politics, and quoted at length former Chancellor Wirth's improvised plea for Franco-German peace, which brought the hall to its feet. It also described Seipel's opening under the flags of thirty European countries. From Paris, the paper reported that Stresemann's Cologne speech had drawn unusually friendly French comment, even from Le Temps. It added that official statements stressed that the Thoiry and Livorno talks had taken place by mutual agreement and that the Franco-German rapprochement was not directed against Britain. A short item reported that Reichswehr Minister Gessler had ordered an inquiry into the role of the Crown Prince's eldest son at the Münsingen manoeuvres. The order followed credible reports that the son had actively taken part, and an earlier flat denial.
This Figaro front page carried three signed opinion pieces on politics. Henri Vonoven used Justice Minister Louis Barthou's own report to argue that the new cut in the number of courts reflected a real shortage of judges: 97 substitute-judge posts could not be filled and fewer candidates sat the examinations. He blamed poor pay, noting that a magistrate earned a tenth of what a grain broker or speculator made. Louis Bertrand said France was a "closed vessel" that did not know how it looked from outside. He argued that after the recent attack on Mussolini, French replies to Italian complaints had missed the real point. Alfred Mallet welcomed Stresemann's praise of Franco-German rapprochement in his Cologne speech but rejected his demand to evacuate the Rhineland. He insisted that evacuation depended on reparations and German disarmament.
The Neue Freie Presse of 4 October 1926 greeted the previous day's opening of the Paneuropean Congress in Vienna as a historic event. Its editorial described organ music and a blue silk banner whose sun had twenty-eight rays for the nations of Europe. It found the strongest impression in Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi's personality, praised former chancellor Ignaz Seipel for opening the congress, and pointed to Italy's absence as a sign of Europe's divisions. A news report gave Austen Chamberlain's account of his cordial talks with Mussolini at Livorno and with Briand in Paris: he said he and Mussolini were determined to continue the Locarno policy, denied that any new agreements had been made, and declined to comment on Italian domestic affairs. In a signed feature, the geographer Eugen Oberhummer traced how ethnology developed from Peschel, Müller and Ratzel, and how expeditions, including those in the German colonies, had filled the great ethnographic museums.
This Algiers daily's page gathered French press reaction to Aristide Briand's meeting in Paris with Austen Chamberlain, who had earlier seen Mussolini at Livorno. Le Petit Parisien and L'Œuvre said the meeting refuted attempts to set Livorno against Thoiry or to conjure up an Italo-British bloc, l'Avenir argued that Britain could not officially block a Franco-German rapprochement it had itself advocated, and the Echo de Paris warned that London always feared too close an understanding on the Continent. A second report said France would obtain no concessions from Washington on its war debt. It quoted an American debt commissioner who expected France to ask for safeguard clauses, be refused and still ratify the Bérenger–Mellon agreement, and it carried a French deputy's personal plea to put all inter-Allied debts before an international conference or tribunal. A third item relayed the League of the Rights of Man's protest over a photograph sold in Tetuan that showed Spanish soldiers holding the severed heads of five Riffian chiefs while another soldier half-unfurled a Red Cross flag. The reading covers only these three excerpts.
To the Annamese Voters of the 1st Constituency
(EASTERN COCHINCHINA)
Spectator or Manoeuvre Participant?
This partial reading of L'Écho annamite for 4 October 1926 covers three items. An editorial on agricultural syndicates argued that direct sales would let buyers bypass Chinese intermediaries. It proposed a market sheet, published more or less often depending on the growing season, paid for by subscribers and by a fee in proportion to each trader's business. It then began to take up the lack of selection in 'our rice'. Doctors Nguyen Van Thinh and Tran Van Don wrote an election manifesto to the Annamese voters of Eastern Cochinchina. It promised work on education, medical assistance and economic development, loyal Franco-Annamese collaboration, and calm acceptance of whatever the voters decided. A short news item reported that the Reichswehr denied Prince Wilhelm had done more than watch its manoeuvres, and that the Berliner Tageblatt disputed this. It was followed by the start of a relief subscription for flood victims in Tonkin.
This front page of the Journal de Genève opened with Raoul Patry's tribute to Tommy Fallot, the Protestant pastor whose call for the Churches to take up their social duty had once been branded subversive; prompted by Pastor Marc Boegner's biography, Patry held him up as a prophet whose cause had since been won in principle. René La Bruyère described the Düsseldorf exhibition, with its 5,000-seat Rhine terrace, realist painting drawn from everyday life with none of it inspired by the war, and startlingly frank hygiene pavilions of wax models and specimens in jars. The unsigned 'La Situation' column reported Chamberlain's call on Briand after his Livorno meeting with Mussolini, Stresemann's speech tracing a path from the Dawes Plan to Thoiry, stalled Franco-German talks and American coolness toward German railway bonds, and a planned step-by-step negotiation over the statute of Tangier.
The legible part of this Politika page is dominated by an editorial signed "K." on the League-sponsored Bulgarian refugee loan. It argues that penniless refugees from Greece, Romania and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes weighed on Bulgaria's economy, fed internal disorder and bred distrust abroad. Settling more than 200,000 people would instead turn marshes and forests into farmland, with roads and railways, strengthening the nation economically and politically. It notes that not only Sofia but also Athens, Bucharest and Belgrade attached importance to the Geneva Protocol. A second, fragmentary item, "Leka's Testament," recalls the last Ottoman mutesarif of Prizren, who stood alone in the town square, rifle in hand, and fired on the men of Ljuma during an Albanian rebellion.
The paper dispute was settled on Saturday evening.
14 days from today.
Aftenposten's front page on 4 October 1926 welcomed Finnish President Lauri Kristian Relander, who was arriving in Oslo that morning for an official visit to King Haakon. The editorial stressed long-standing Finnish–Norwegian friendship, similar national character and shared interests. A long news report said the month-and-a-half paper-industry stoppage had been settled on Saturday evening: general issues would go to voluntary arbitration, with the wage question decided by a five-member tribunal, while special demands were to be settled by direct negotiation. A campaign editorial counted down the 14 days to the 18 October referendum on prohibiting spirits and urged opponents of prohibition to turn out. This reading covers the three selected items and does not include the dispute report's continuation on page 3.
The legible part of this page carried a war report from the Jiangxi front of the Northern Expedition. It said the Southern Army, having fallen back from Nanchang, had turned to the attack along the whole line in what it called a clash of main forces that would decide both sides' fate. The paper weighed the Southern troops' high morale and skillful tactics against the eagerness of Sun Chuanfang's own troops, who were said to be resentful at having missed earlier chances for glory. It predicted heavy casualties and a decision within about a week. A second, only partly legible item was a charity society's notice: holders of a postcard urging purchase of flower-patterned letter paper would receive one or two yuan's worth in mid-October unless they replied promptly to change or cancel the order.
On 4 October 1926, the feast of Saint Francis, La Nación of Santiago filled a page with Franciscan material for the seventh centenary of the saint's death. A short biography follows the young Francis as he repairs chapels near Assisi, hears the Gospel command to carry neither gold nor staff, gathers his first brothers at Rivo Torto, and sums up his life in a rule of obedience, chastity, poverty, work, fasting and begging. Beside it runs a Spanish version of the Canticle of Brother Sun, credited to Francis himself, praising God through sun, moon, wind, water, fire, earth and finally 'Sister Bodily Death.' A third column retells a Fioretti-style miracle: crowds strip a priest's vineyard near Rieti while visiting Francis, yet the few surviving bunches yield the twenty loads of wine he had promised.
The Establishment of the United States of Europe Would Not Be Incompatible with the League
THE FOOTBALL DELEGATIONS ARE AWAITED
MUSSOLINI WILL GO TO PERUGIA TOMORROW
Among the reports on this Buenos Aires page were three wire dispatches. An Associated Press dispatch from the pan-European congress reported a speaker's claim that a United States of Europe would strengthen the League of Nations and might even bring the United States of America into it. The same report quoted former German chancellor Wirth on Franco-German understanding and Europe's "sacred mission" to rescue civilization. From Santiago, Agencia Austral reported that Chile's newspapers were hailing, with praise and fraternal words, the Argentine and Uruguayan delegations heading to the South American Championship. Representatives of the Chilean federation were to meet them at Puente del Inca and then at Los Andes. A third item previewed Mussolini's visit to Perugia to open the new University for Foreigners. There he was to lecture on ancient Rome's rise as a sea power and then speak to Umbria's Fascists.