The Montgomery Advertiser
- HALF MILLION FIRE SWEEPS DOTHAN SUNDAY
- QUEEN MARIE AMONG SHIP'S WORSHIPERS AT SUNDAY SERVICE
- AL SMITH COURTS SOUTH'S FAVOR IS COLONEL ROOSEVELT'S CHARGE
The Montgomery Advertiser's Monday front page led with two Sunday fires in Dothan, in Alabama's Wiregrass. The fires destroyed a livery stable, a warehouse holding 2,000 bales of cotton, part of the Atlantic Coast Line compress and a produce store, with losses put at nearly half a million dollars and the second blaze suspected as arson. Much of the burned cotton, the paper said, belonged to uninsured farmers who had been holding out for higher prices. An AP dispatch from the liner Leviathan described Queen Marie of Romania's quiet last day at sea before landing in New York, from a shipboard Episcopal service to 160 pieces of luggage piled in the corridors. A column of wire news carried a Chicago safe-blowing, a fatal quarrel in Memphis and Theodore Roosevelt Jr.'s charge in Harlem that Governor Al Smith had dropped the New York Democrats' equal-rights plank to court the South with an eye on the presidency.
Translation
HALF MILLION FIRE SWEEPS DOTHAN SUNDAY
Constructive Fearless Independent 8 PAGES Price 5 Cents
SUNDAY COTTON WAREHOU [?] AND LIVERY STABLE BURN AT NOON HOUR
Second Blaze Takes Portion of A. C. L. Compress, Big Grocery Store And One Dwelling Before Night
RESIDENTIAL SECTION OF CITY THREATENED BY BLAZE
Ten Mules and Fine Saddle Horse Perish in First Outbreak; Farmers Lose
DOTHAN, ALA., Oct. 17. - Special to The Advertiser. - Losses estimated at nearly half a million dollars resulted from two fires which swept Dothan Sunday. The first blaze, about 11 o'clock, called the fire department to the Sanders livery stable and Dothan warehouse, which were destroyed, together with 2,000 bales of cotton, ten mules, one saddle horse valued at $500, and a quantity of feed stuffs. The second blaze broke out at the Atlantic Coast Line compress and swept the warehouse, one dwelling, a wholesale produce store and other buildings. The second fire is believed to have been of incendiary origin.
The first fire, of undetermined origin, started in the livery stable and quickly spread to the warehouse, which was only three feet away. The warehouse was the property of K. P. Holland and was located on the same site where one burned about three years ago. The livery stable belonged to John Sanders and Sons.
Much of the cotton in the warehouse, it is stated, belonged to farmers who were holding for higher prices and was carried without insurance. Many farmers, however, had deposited their warehouse receipts with the banks and were protected against fire. Both buildings were insured as was the live stock in the livery stable.
Due to the fact that there was practically no wind blowing at the time of the fire, other property was not seriously threatened by the flames. A small quantity of the cotton was rolled to places of safety while much of that swept by the fire will be salvaged, it is believed. One fireman suffered a badly burned hand while a bystander had a leg broken when a bale of cotton fell (Continued on Page Two)
WHEELER DEFENDS WILLIAM B. WILSON
QUEEN MARIE AMONG SHIP'S WORSHIPERS AT SUNDAY SERVICE
Constructive Fearless Independent VOLUME XCVIII-NO. 291 HALF MI
QUEEN MARIE AMONG SHIP'S WORSHIPERS AT SUNDAY SERVICE
Servants of Royal Party Spend Busy Day Preparing For Landing of Distinguished Visitor Early Today
CHILDREN ARE DELIGHTED WITH TRIP ACROSS OCEAN
New York Prepares For Staging Brilliant Welcoming Program to Rumanian Ruler
S. S. LEVIATHAN, Oct. 17. - (AP) - Queen Marie's last day at sea was a quiet and restful one in preparation for tomorrow's reception in New York. The royal apartments, however, were in a state of considerable confusion as the servants had the corridors piled high with 160 trunks, boxes and bags, which must be unloaded at quarantine early in the morning.
The queen, Princess Ileana and Prince Nicholas attended morning religious service in the public amusement hall. It was generally known among the passengers that the queen would attend, but there was only a small congregation. Marie has been so constantly in the public rooms that the passengers have had abundant opportunity to see her, and the lack of any attempts of the passengers to force their attentions on the sovereign without an invitation has demonstrated the wisdom of her democratic attitude and impressed the royal party with the good breeding of the average trans-Atlantic passenger.
The Episcopal service, read by the purser, was followed closely by the queen and her children, whom the mother has frequently taken with her to the Church of England, of which she is a member, although Ileana and Nicholas belong to the Greek Orthodox church. The service included the singing of "My Country 'Tis of Thee," in which the royal worshippers joined.
Queen Marie keeps a large bronze ikon of St. Nicholas, an inheritance from her Russian mother, constantly on the reading table beside her bed, and ikons of the Madonna and Child and St. Nicholas hang over Ileana's bed in the royal suite.
Before breakfast the queen and princess took a farewell dip in the Roman plunge and Marie passed part of the day crocheting on deck, but was driven to her private sitting room by rain. Princess Ileana played several games of deck tennis with Nicholas and Prince Hohenlohe and had farewell visits with young friends she has made on the ship.
AL SMITH COURTS SOUTH'S FAVOR IS COLONEL ROOSEVELT'S CHARGE
nounced. Messrs. Black and Cramton will probably urge that the Atlanta-Asheville highway be extended to Montgomery. It was pointed out that Montgomery is situated at the foot of the Appalachian system and should be included on the scenic highway.
SAFE DOORS ARE BLOWN
Gang of Yeggmen Spend Busy Day In Windy City; Get $33,000
CHICAGO, Oct. 17. - (AP) - A gang of more than a dozen yeggs early today blew the doors off of five safes of the Kellogg Switchboard and Supply company and escaped with loot estimated at $33,000, after capturing nine night workmen in the plant. The robbers, employes said, entered the building through a coal chute. J. B. Edwards, president of the firm, estimated that the loss would approximate $3,000 in cash; $15,000 in negotiable securities, and platinum valued at $15,000. The robbery was discovered when a day watchman found the night men bound and gagged. One of the employes estimated that there were seventeen men in the gang.
vice-president and a member of the board of directors of the General Motors corporation. Mr. Bassett is survived by the widow and one child, who are now en route to France.
OFFERS DRINK INSTEAD OF MATCH, DIES FROM WOUND
Insistence Upon Indulging Causes Drinker to Die With Throat Cut
MEMPHIS, TENN., Oct. 17. - (AP) - His insistence that an acquaintance take a drink of whiskey led to the killing of W. T. Taylor, 31, late last night, according to police today. Claude H. Pierce is sought as the slayer. Taylor's body, sitting erect in a chair with his throat slashed, was found in his room. A woman who declared she witnessed the quarrel which led to Taylor's death, said that Pierce entered the house and asked for a match. Taylor, according to the woman's story, offered Pierce a drink which was refused. Taylor became insistent, she said and the two men began fighting. Police were called and when they arrived Taylor was found dead.
AL SMITH COURTS SOUTH'S FAVOR IS COLONEL ROOSEVELT'S CHARGE
New York Democratic Candidate Has "Eye on Presidency," Says Young Teddy; Party Platform Omits "Race, Creed and Color" Panel of Guarantees; Gubernatorial Candidates Busy
NEW YORK, Oct. 17. - (AP) - Governor Smith, with his eyes on the White House, is courting favor in the "Solid South," Colonel Theodore Roosevelt charged tonight. He asserted that the customary declaration for equal rights, regardless of race or creed, had been omitted from the New York State Democratic platform this year in order not to arouse prejudice in southern states.
Appearing on the platform for the first time since he returned from a republican campaign tour in the middle west several weeks ago with a large carbuncle on his neck, Colonel Roosevelt addressed an audience in a Harlem church. He urged the election of Ogden Mills and Senator James W. Wadsworth, Jr., the Republican candidates, respectively, for Governor and the United States senate.
"The Democratic governor," he said, "is running this autumn, primarily for the nomination for the presidency, secondary to the governorship of this state. His principal opponent in the democratic national convention two years ago has announced publically that a victory in this state will entitle Smith to the presidential nomination two years hence.
Cites Party's Ommission
"Every year the Democratic state platform has contained a plank demanding equal rights for all Americans regardless of race, creed and color. This year for the first time, this plank is omitted. The reason is clear, Governor Smith does not wish to offend the southern states whose attitude toward our colored Americans is well known. Any man or woman, therefore, who votes for Smith now is stamping him with their approval as president."
CANDIDATES CONTINUE ATTACKS
NEW YORK, Oct. 17. - (AP) - The prohibition referendum, state water power and the milk scandal in New (Continued on Page Two)
Context
Why so much unsold cotton sat in a Dothan warehouse
The Advertiser's Dothan correspondent reported that much of the 2,000 bales lost in Holland's warehouse belonged to farmers holding for higher prices without insurance, while adding that many had deposited their warehouse receipts with banks and were protected; that protection is the paper's account of the situation. The detail reflects what Dothan was in 1926. The Encyclopedia of Alabama describes the town as little more than a transportation hub for cotton, lumber and commercial farm goods, and says that by the 1920s, with the virgin forests gone and cotton ravaged by the boll weevil, its economic future was in serious jeopardy. Cotton prices across Alabama had been sliding since early 1921, when they began falling from a high of 35 cents a pound toward less than five cents by 1932. Farmers who kept bales in storage rather than selling into that weak market left a season's income sitting in buildings like the livery-side warehouse that burned. In the same decades peanuts were displacing cotton as the Wiregrass's main cash crop, a shift so complete that by 1938 Dothan proclaimed itself the "Peanut Capitol of the World."
What brought Queen Marie of Romania to America
The AP report from the Leviathan caught Marie on the eve of a visit that became a national spectacle: on 18 October 1926 she arrived in New York to cheering crowds and a ticker-tape parade. She came at the behest of American friends, the businessman Sam Hill and the modern dancer Loie Fuller; Hill wanted her to speak at the dedication of his new Maryhill Museum of Art in Washington State. The dispatch's admiring tone about her "democratic attitude" and the restraint of her fellow passengers fits the way Americans received her; Emma Rountree, writing for History of Royal Women, calls Marie one of the first royals to truly become a modern celebrity. The tour did not run its planned course. On 17 November she received news that King Ferdinand was ill, and she cut the trip short. The article's aside that Ileana belonged to the Orthodox church also looks ahead: the princess later made her life in the United States, where she founded the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration in 1967.
Why Smith's standing in the South mattered for 1928
Theodore Roosevelt Jr.'s charge assumed that Smith's 1926 race was a springboard to the White House, and the record of 1924 explains why. At that year's Democratic convention Smith had failed to win the nomination after a 103-ballot deadlock with William McAdoo, and McAdoo is evidently the "principal opponent" Roosevelt invoked, though the paper does not name him. Smith was a Catholic and a New York City man, and anti-Catholic and anti-Tammany sentiment was a major obstacle to his nomination; the Klan's imperial wizard, Hiram Wesley Evans, declared the Klan opposed to granting political power to any Roman Catholic. Smith's own allies already treated 1928 as settled: in late 1926 Franklin Roosevelt wrote to him that he would be a candidate in 1928 whether he liked it or not. Roosevelt Jr.'s claim that the equal-rights plank was dropped to placate the South is his accusation as reported here, made before a Harlem audience. His reference to southern attitudes toward Black Americans pointed to a region where, since disenfranchisement at the turn of the century, whites dominated voting. In 1928 Smith became the first Catholic nominee of a major party, yet Hoover won in a landslide and carried five southern states through crossover voting by conservative white Democrats.
How the New York contest Roosevelt joined turned out
Roosevelt spoke in Harlem to win votes for Ogden Mills against Smith and for Senator James W. Wadsworth Jr., in a state election held on November 2, 1926. The result went against him on both counts. Smith was re-elected governor, and Wadsworth lost his Senate seat; of the statewide Republican incumbents, only Attorney General Albert Ottinger survived. The "prohibition referendum" mentioned in the follow-on dispatch was decided the same day, when a proposal to repeal Prohibition was accepted by a very large majority, and Smith's own opposition to Prohibition became one of the notable features of his 1928 presidential run.
Original
HALF MILLION FIRE SWEEPS DOTHAN SUNDAY
Constructive Fearless Independent 8 PAGES Price 5 Cents SUNDAY COTTON WAREHOU [?] AND LIVERY STABLE BURN AT NOON HOUR Second Blaze Takes Portion of A. C. L. Compress, Big Grocery Store And One Dwelling Before Night RESIDENTIAL SECTION OF CITY THREATENED BY BLAZE Ten Mules and Fine Saddle Horse Perish in First Outbreak; Farmers Lose DOTHAN, ALA., Oct. 17. - Special to The Advertiser. - Losses estimated at nearly half a million dollars resulted from two fires which swept Dothan Sunday. The first blaze, about 11 o'clock, called the fire department to the Sanders livery stable and Dothan warehouse, which were destroyed, together with 2, 000 bales of cotton, ten mules, one saddle horse valued at $ 500, and a quantity of feed stuffs. The second blaze broke out at the Atlantic Coast Line compress and swept the warehouse, one dwelling, a wholesale produce store and other buildings. The second fire is believed to have been of incendiary origin. The first fire, of undetermined origin, started in the livery stable and quickly spread to the warehouse, which was only three feet away. The warehouse was the property of K. P. Holland and was located on the same site where one burned about three years ago. The livery stable belonged to John Sanders and Sons. Much of the cotton in the warehouse, it is stated, belonged to farmers who were holding for higher prices and was carried without insurance. Many farmers, however, had deposited their warehouse receipts with the banks and were protected against fire. Both buildings were insured as was the live stock in the livery stable. Due to the fact that there was practically no wind blowing at the time of the fire, other property was not seriously threatened by the flames. A small quantity of the cotton was rolled to places of safety while much of that swept by the fire will be salvaged, it is believed. One fireman suffered a badly burned hand while a bystander had a leg broken when a bale of cotton fell (Continued on Page Two) WHEELER DEFENDS WILLIAM B. WILSON
QUEEN MARIE AMONG SHIP'S WORSHIPERS AT SUNDAY SERVICE
Constructive Fearless Independent VOLUME XCVIII-NO. 291 HALF MI QUEEN MARIE AMONG SHIP'S WORSHIPERS AT SUNDAY SERVICE Servants of Royal Party Spend Busy Day Preparing For Landing of Distinguished Visitor Early Today CHILDREN ARE DELIGHTED WITH TRIP ACROSS OCEAN New York Prepares For Staging Brilliant Welcoming Program to Rumanian Ruler S. S. LEVIATHAN, Act. 17. - (AP) - Queen Marie's last day at sea was a quiet and restful one in preparation for tomorrow's reception in New York. The royal apartments, however, were in a state of considerable confusion as the servants had the corridors piled high with 160 trunks, boxes and bags, which must be unloaded at quarantine early in the morning. The queen, Princess Ileana and Prince Nicholas attended morning religious service in the public amusement hall. It was generally known among the passengers that the queen would attend, but there was only a small congregation. Marie has been so constantly in the public rooms that the passengers have had abundant opportunity to see her, and the lack of any attempts of the passengers to force their attentions on the sovereign without an invitation has demonstrated the wisdom of her democratic attitude and impressed the royal party with the good breeding of the average trans-Atlantic passenger. The Episcopal service, read by the purser, was followed closely by the queen and her children, whom the mother has frequently taken with her to the Church of England, of which she is a member, although Ileana and Nicholas belong to the Greek Orthodox church. The service included the singing of " My Country ' Tis of Thee, " in which the royal worshippers joined. Queen Marie keeps a large bronze ikon of St. Nicholas, an inheritance from her Russian mother, constantly on the reading table beside her bed, and ikons of the Madonna and Child and St. Nicholas hang over Ileana's bed in the royal suite. Before breakfast the queen and princess took a farewell dip in the Roman plunge and Marie passed part of the day crocheting on deck, but was driven to her private sitting room by rain. Princess Ileana played several games of deck tennis with Nicholas and Prince Hohenlohe and had farewell visits with young friends she has made on the ship.
AL SMITH COURTS SOUTH'S FAVOR IS COLONEL ROOSEVELT'S CHARGE
nounced. Messrs. Black and Cramton will probably urge that the Atlanta-Asheville highway be extended to Montgomery. It was pointed out that Montgomery is situated at the foot of the Appalachian system and should be included on the scenic highway. SAFE DOORS ARE BLOWN Gang of Yeggmen Spend Busy Day In Windy City; Get $ 33, 000 CHICAGO, Oct. 17. - (AP) - A gang of more than a dozen yeggs early today blew the doors off of five safes of the Kellogg Switchboard and Supply company and escaped with loot estimated at $ 33, 000, after capturing nine night workmen in the plant. The robbers, employes said, entered the building through a coal chute. J. B. Edwards, president of the firm, estimated that the loss would approximate $ 3, 000 in cash; $ 15, 000 in negotiable securities, and platinum valued at $ 15, 000. The robbery was discovered when a day watchman found the night men bound and gagged. One of the employes estimated that there were seventeen men in the gang. vice-president and a member of the board of directors of the General Motors corporation. Mr. Bassett is survived by the widow and one child, who are now en route to France. OFFERS DRINK INSTEAD OF MATCH, DIES FROM WOUND Insistence Upon Indulging Causes Drinker to Die With Throat Cut MEMPHIS, TENN., Oct. 17. - (AP) - His insistence that an acquaintance take a drink of whiskey led to the killing of W. T. Taylor, 31, late last night, according to police today. Claude H. Pierce is sought as the slayer. Taylor's body, sitting erect in a chair with his throat slashed, was found in his room. A woman who declared she witnessed the quarrel which led to Taylor's death, said that Pierce entered the house and asked for a match. Taylor, according to the woman's story, offered Pierce a drink which was refused. Taylor became insistent, she said and the two men began fighting. Police were called and when they arrived Taylor was found dead. AL SMITH COURTS SOUTH'S FAVOR IS COLONEL ROOSEVELT'S CHARGE New York Democratic Candidate Has " Eye on Presidency, " Says Young Teddy; Party Platform Omits " Race, Creed and Color " Panel of Guarantees; Gubernatorial Candidates Busy NEW YORK, Oct. 17. - (AP) - Governor Smith, with his eyes on the White House, is courting favor in the " Solid South, " Colonel Theodore Roosevelt charged tonight. He asserted that the customary declaration for equal rights, regardless of race or creed, had been omitted from the New York State Democratic platform this year in order not to arouse prejudice in southern states. Appearing on the platform for the first time since he returned from a republican campaign tour in the middle west several weeks ago with a large carbuncle on his neck, Colonel Roosevelt addressed an audience in a Harlem church. He urged the election of Ogden Mills and Senator James W. Wadsworth, Jr., the Republican candidates, respectively, for Governor and the United States senate. " The Democratic governor, " he said, " is running this autumn, primarily for the nomination for the presidency, secondary to the governorship of this state. His principal opponent in the democratic national convention two years ago has announced publically that a victory in this state will entitle Smith to the presidential nomination two years hence. Cites Party's Ommission " Every year the Democratic state platform has contained a plank demanding equal rights for all Americans regardless of race, creed and color. This year for the first time, this plank is omitted. The reason is clear, Governor Smith does not wish to offend the southern states whose attitude toward our colored Americans is well known. Any man or woman, therefore, who votes for Smith now is stamping him with their approval as president. " CANDIDATES CONTINUE ATTACKS NEW YORK, Oct. 17. - (AP) - The prohibition referendum, state water power and the milk scandal in New (Continued on Page Two)
Source: Holding institution