Evening Star
- KENTUCKY STAGING REAL "HORSE RACE" IN SENATE CONTEST
- INJUNCTION DENIED IN PAINTERS’ ROW
- 500 HUNT BANDITS WITH GAS BOMBS
The Evening Star's front page for October 16, 1926, covered a close Kentucky Senate fight, a labor ruling in Washington and a federal crackdown on mail bandits. G. Gould Lincoln reported that the Cantrill family and former Senator Stanley were rallying behind Judge Alben Barkley, and argued that 30 years of industrial growth had made Kentucky far from safely Democratic. A District Supreme Court justice refused the Barker Painting Co. an injunction against painters who demanded New York wages for work on the Mayflower Hotel, holding that collective wage demands made without threats were lawful. After the Elizabeth, N.J., mail robbery, Postmaster General New ordered the mails protected even if the armed forces had to guard them, and said he would ask Congress to make armed attacks on the mails a capital offense.
Translation
KENTUCKY STAGING REAL "HORSE RACE" IN SENATE CONTEST
other thing than the election of a governor. Furthermore, they point to the statements issued by Mrs. J. C. Cantrill, the widow of the late Representative Cantrill, indorsing the candidacy of Judge Barkley. They point, too, to the support of James E. Cantrill, son of Campbell Cantrill, given the Democrat senatorial candidate. Former Senator Stanley, a leader of the liberal element of the party, likewise is campaigning vigorously for Judge Barkley.
G. O. P. Growing Along Border.
For the last 30 years the balance between the Republicans and the Democrats of Kentucky has been growing more and more even. It has been the history of the border States generally. As industries have grown, Republicanism has grown. It is customary to think and speak of Kentucky as a Democratic State, but the election of Republican governors, of Republican Senators and the close vote in presidential elections during the last score of years has indicated that Kentucky cannot rightly be reckoned as strongly Democratic, even though a hundred per cent vote of the entire State might show the Democrats slightly in the lead.
INJUNCTION DENIED IN PAINTERS’ ROW
The purpose of labor unions to obtain for their members higher wages and shorter hours or fewer days of work, is not unlawful, and the united demand of 1,000 workers, without duress or threat, is no more an unlawful enterprise than the similar demand of a single worker. This pronouncement was made by Judge James Francis Smith of the District Supreme Court today in an opinion refusing an injunction asked by the Barker Painting Co. of New York City against the Brotherhood of Painters and Paperhangers of America and the Washington local and its officers, in which a charge of conspiracy was made by the plaintiff when it was unable to get local painters to work on the Mayflower Hotel under the Washington schedule of wages. The Washington painters demanded the New York terms of $10.50 per day and a five-day week, instead of the Washington rate of $9 per day and five-and-one-half-day week. When they refused to work the New York concern filed suit for injunction through Attorney W. C. Sullivan. The union, through Attorneys Sheehy & Sheehy, denied there was any conspiracy and contended anti-trust laws did not apply to the painting trade,
500 HUNT BANDITS WITH GAS BOMBS
New to Ask Law Making Armed Postal Banditry Capital Offense.
The United States mails will be protected against bandits even if it becomes necessary to call upon the Army, Navy and Marine Corps to guard them. This order went forward today from Postmaster General New, following a decision reached by President Coolidge and his cabinet as the result of the $300,000 mail robbery at Elizabeth, N. J. The Postmaster General added that he would recommend to Congress the passage of legislation to make an armed attack upon the mails a capital offense. Any man participating in such an attempt, he declared, "has murderous intent, and the world is a good deal (Continued on Page 4, Column 1.)
Context
Why the Cantrill endorsements mattered to Barkley
Lincoln's emphasis on the Cantrill family makes sense against the background of the 1923 governor's race. Barkley ran in that Democratic primary as a supporter of Prohibition who denounced pari-mutuel betting, and he narrowly lost to a fellow congressman, J. Campbell Cantrill. The Star refers to Cantrill as "the late Representative," so by October 1926 his widow and his son James E. Cantrill were publicly backing the man Cantrill had beaten three years earlier, a sign that Barkley's Democrats were presenting a united front. Barkley had also moved to defuse the betting quarrel that had divided the party: after his failed governor's campaign he distanced himself from the political boss Percy Haly and promised that, if elected, he would not push a national ban on pari-mutuel betting.
How the Barkley–Ernst race was fought and decided
The "horse race" Lincoln described pitted Barkley against the Republican incumbent, Richard P. Ernst, who had national backing: President Calvin Coolidge supported Ernst, and Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover campaigned in Kentucky on his behalf. Ernst tried to bring back the issues that had hurt Barkley before, namely his support for a coal tax and his opposition to pari-mutuel betting. Lincoln's argument that industrial growth had made Kentucky a genuinely competitive border state is the paper's own analysis, but the contest itself was real. A Republican held the seat in 1926, and in November Barkley defeated Ernst's bid for a second term and won the seat for the Democrats.
The Elizabeth robbery and the return of the Marine mail guards
The robbery behind New's order took place on October 14, 1926, when James Cunniffe and seven accomplices armed with submachine guns hijacked a mail truck in Elizabeth and escaped with about $161,000 in cash and securities. The Star's figure of $300,000 is well above that later total; Cunniffe was separately linked to a $300,000 mail theft involving William "Bum" Rodgers. The threat to call in the armed services was carried out. Coolidge ordered Marines to escort valuable mail shipments and approved Thompson submachine guns for postal guard duty. There was a precedent: during a wave of robberies in 1921, the Postmaster General had appealed to President Harding, and 53 officers and 2,200 enlisted Marines were deployed around the country. The 1926 deployment ended at the beginning of 1927, when the Marines returned to their bases.
A capital penalty for mail crimes had existed before
New's proposal to make armed attacks on the mails a capital offense would have revived a penalty with deep roots in federal law. An act of Congress of February 20, 1792, specified that anyone convicted of stealing mail would suffer death. In 1872 Congress reduced the maximum penalty for mail theft to a lifetime of hard labor. New's recommendation was therefore narrower than the 1792 law, aimed at armed attacks rather than all theft, but it asked Congress to restore for mail crimes the ultimate punishment it had abandoned more than half a century earlier.
Original
KENTUCKY STAGING REAL "HORSE RACE" IN SENATE CONTEST
other thing than the election of a governor. Furthermore, they point to the statements issued by Mrs. J. C. Cantrill, the widow of the late Representative Cantrill, indorsing the candidacy of Judge Barkley. They point, too, to the support of James E. Cantrill, son of Campbell Cantrill, given the Democrat senatorial candidate. Former Senator Stanley, a leader of the liberal element of the party, likewise is campaigning vigorously for Judge Barkley. G. O. P. Growing Along Border. For the last 30 years the balance between the Republicans and the Democrats of Kentucky has been growing more and more even. It has been the history of the border States generally. As industries have grown, Republicanism has grown. It is customary to think and speak of Kentucky as a Democratic State, but the election of Republican governors, of Republican Senators and the close vote in presidential elections during the last score of years has indicated that Kentucky cannot rightly be reckoned as strongly Democratic, even though a hundred per cent vote of the entire State might show the Democrats slightly in the lead.
INJUNCTION DENIED IN PAINTERS’ ROW
The purpose of labor unions to obtain for their members higher wages and shorter hours or fewer days of work, is not unlawful, and the united demand of 1, 000 workers, without duress or threat, is no more an unlawful enterprise than the similar demand of a single worker. This pronouncement was made by Judge James Francis Smith of the District Supreme Court today in an opinion refusing an injunction asked by the Barker Painting Co. of New York City against the Brotherhood of Painters and Paperhangers of America and the Washington local and its officers, in which a charge of conspiracy was made by the plaintiff when it was unable to get local painters to work on the Mayflower Hotel under the Washington schedule of wages. The Washington painters demanded the New York terms of $ 10. 50 per day and a five-day week, instead of the Washington rate of $ 9 per day and five-and-one-half-day week. When they refused to work the New York concern filed suit for injunction through Attorney W. C. Sullivan. The union, through Attorneys Sheehy & Sheehy, denied there was any conspiracy and contended anti-trust laws did not apply to the painting trade,
500 HUNT BANDITS WITH GAS BOMBS
New to Ask Law Making Armed Postal Banditry Capital Offense. The United States mails will be protected against bandits even if it becomes necessary to call upon the Army, Navy and Marine Corps to guard them. This order went forward today from Postmaster General New, following a decision reached by President Coolidge and his cabinet as the result of the $ 300, 000 mail robbery at Elizabeth, N. J. The Postmaster General added that he would recommend to Congress the passage of legislation to make an armed attack upon the mails a capital offense. Any man participating in such an attempt, he declared, " has murderous intent, and the world is a good deal (Continued on Page 4, Column 1.)
Source: Holding institution