Evening Star
- Mayfield Backing Won Watson Klan Aid, Witness Says
- County Deports Gangsters After Burning of Roadhouse
- Message Sent to Mars for 72 Cents; British Station Is Not Sure It Got There
The Evening Star of October 28, 1926 carried three Associated Press stories. In St. Louis, George W. Meyers, a former Indiana Klansman, told the Senate campaign fund committee that the Klan's general counsel, William F. Zumbrunn, served as its legislative agent in Washington, handling immigration restriction, the abolition of parochial schools and the seating of senators. From southern Illinois, the paper reported that Franklin County officials had ordered the Shelton gang to leave the county, and that about 15 men had machine-gunned and burned a roadhouse used by Birger's men. From London came the story of Dr. Mansfield Robinson paying 72 cents to send a two-word message to Mars in "no known language."
Translation
Mayfield Backing Won Watson Klan Aid, Witness Says
ST. LOUIS, October 28. — William F. Zumbrunn, general counsel of the Ku Klux Klan, was described here today before the Senate campaign fund committee by George W. Meyers of Marion, Ind., as the legislative agent of the Klan at Washington. Meyers, a former member of the Klan in the Hoosier State, testified that Zumbrunn looked after matters before Congress in which the Klan was interested, including immigration restriction, abolishment of parochial schools, "and the seating of United States Senators."
County Deports Gangsters After Burning of Roadhouse
BENTON, Ill., October 28. — Franklin County officials today served notice on the Shelton brothers gang, engaged in warfare with the Birger faction, that they must leave the county at once and not return. The Shelton gangsters immediately left their roadhouse near West City and went toward the Williamson County line.
WEST FRANKFORT, Ill., October 28 (AP). — The smoldering feud between the Birger and Shelton gangs of Williamson County flared up again early today when a band of some 15 men attacked "Shaw's Garden," a roadhouse frequented by Birger men, riddled four dilapidated frame buildings with machine gun fire and, finding no one to fight back, burned them to the ground.
Message Sent to Mars for 72 Cents; British Station Is Not Sure It Got There
LONDON, October 28. — In return for a payment of 72 cents the British government has done its best to send a message to Mars. Gravity was maintained by the officials of the Central Radio Office last night, when Dr. Mansfield Robinson handed in with business-like seriousness a message for Mars, some 42,600,000 miles distant, and asked the rate. The message was prefixed with three M's, which Dr. Robinson said was the call sign for Mars. It was composed of two words, "Opestinipitia Secomba." The receiving clerk asked what the language was and Dr. Robinson replied, "No known language."
Context
How the Senate had already ruled on Klan charges against Earle Mayfield
Meyers's reference to "the seating of United States Senators" touched a case the Senate had already decided. On February 22, 1923, George Peddy filed a petition protesting the seating of Texas senator Earle Mayfield, and his charges included excessive expenditure of money and the flagrant participation of the Ku Klux Klan on Mayfield's behalf. On February 2, 1925, the Committee on Privileges and Elections announced the result of its year-long investigation. It reported finding no evidence that the Klan spent illegal amounts of money for Mayfield and recommended dismissing the contest, which the Senate did unanimously without debate. By the time of this October 1926 hearing, Mayfield held his seat. The headline's claim that backing Mayfield won "Watson" Klan aid is the witness's allegation as the paper reported it, and the excerpted text does not explain that link. Mayfield served only one term: in 1928 Tom Connally defeated him for renomination, attacking his connection to the Klan.
The Indiana Klan's political machine and its position in 1926
Meyers came from Marion, Indiana, and testified as a former member of the Klan in a state where it had built real political power. D. C. Stephenson was appointed Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan in 1923, and under him membership grew to nearly 250,000, about a third of all white males in the state. When Ed Jackson ran for governor in 1924, he made a deal for Stephenson's help, and Stephenson mailed 225,000 letters urging Hoosiers to vote for Jackson in the Republican primary. On November 14, 1925, almost a year before this hearing, a jury convicted Stephenson of second-degree murder. The fullest exposure of Klan money in Indiana politics came only afterwards: denied a pardon by Governor Jackson, Stephenson began talking to Indianapolis Times reporters in 1927 and released a list of officials who had been in the pay of the Klan. Meyers's testimony thus fell between Stephenson's conviction and those 1927 revelations.
Why the Shelton and Birger gangs were fighting in October 1926
The "smoldering feud" in the West Frankfort dispatch grew out of Prohibition bootlegging. The Shelton brothers had dominated gambling and liquor distribution in southern Illinois until 1926, when Charles Birger, a former ally, tried to take over their bootlegging operations. Only months earlier the two gangs had cooperated: in April 1926 Birger and the Sheltons joined forces to attack the remaining Klan leaders in Herrin. By October 1926 the gangs were in open conflict, and the Sheltons even tried to bomb Birger's Shady Rest headquarters from the air, though the dynamite missed. The West City named in the Benton dispatch was a village near Benton whose mayor, Joe Adams, was a Shelton partisan, and Birger was later convicted of ordering his murder. The raid on "Shaw's Garden" was therefore one episode in a war that was escalating at the time of this report.
How county authorities pushed the gang war across county lines
Franklin County's order that the Sheltons leave "at once and not return" sent them toward the Williamson County line, and this was not the first time local officials had dealt with a gang by expelling it. Saline County authorities had earlier persuaded Birger to leave, and he then built the fortified speakeasy called Shady Rest. Franklin County later became decisive in the war's outcome: Birger was tried there for the killing of Mayor Adams, in a county his political allies did not control, and he was hanged for that murder at the Franklin County Jail in Benton on April 19, 1928. The notice reported in this article shows the county acting against the Sheltons a year and a half before it executed their rival.
Dr. Mansfield Robinson and the Post Office's Mars telegram
The sender was Dr. Hugh Mansfield Robinson, a London lawyer and former town clerk of Shoreditch, who claimed to have been communicating telepathically with a Martian woman named Oomaruru since the early 1920s. Britain's General Post Office had recently opened Rugby Radio Station as a global radio telegraph hub, and it charged Robinson the standard long-distance rate of one shilling and sixpence per word, then about 35 cents. At that rate the paper's 72 cents fits its report of a two-word message, while Mental Floss gives the text as three words: Opesti, Nipitia, Secomba. An internal memo called Robinson "singularly serious" and judged him "perfectly sane," so officials felt no qualms about taking his money. The transmission was scheduled for 11:55 p.m. on October 27 on his requested wavelength of 18,240 meters, and the clerks listening for a reply received no response. When Robinson tried again in 1928, a memo recorded that the Post Office agreed mainly to obtain free publicity for Rugby.
Original
MAYFIELD BACKING WON WATSON KLAN AID, WITNESS SAYS
ST. LOUIS, October 28. - William F. Zumbrunn, general counsel of the Ku Klux Klan, was described here today before the Senate campaign fund committee by George W. Meyers of Marion, Ind., as the legislative agent of the Klan at Washington. Meyers, a former member of the Klan in the Hoosier State, testified that Zumbrunn looked after matters before Congress in which the Klan was interested, including immigration restriction, abolishment of parochial schools, " and the seating of United States Senators. "
COUNTY DEPORTS GANGSTERS AFTER BURNING OF ROADHOUSE
BENTON, Ills., October 28. - Franklin County officials today served notice on the Shelton brothers gang, engaged in warfare with the Birger faction, that they must leave the county at once and not return. The Shelton gangsters immediately left their roadhouse near West City and went toward the Williamson County line. WEST FRANKFORT, Ill., October 28 (AP). - The smoldering fued between the Birger and Shelton gangs of Williamson County flared up again early today when a band of some 15. men attacked " Shaw's Garden, " a roadhouse frequented by Birger men, riddled four dilapidated frame buildings with machine gun fire and, finding no one to fight back, burned them to the ground.
Message Sent to Mars for 72 Cents; British Station Is Not Sure It Got There
LONDON, October 28. - In return for a payment of 72 cents the British government has done its best to send a message to Mars. Gravity was maintained by the officials of the Central Radio Office last night, when Dr. Mansfield Robinson handed in with business-like seriousness a message for Mars, some 42, 600, - 000 miles distant, and asked the rate. The message was prefixed with three M's, which Dr. Robinson said was the call sign for Mars. It was composed of two words, " Opestinipitia Secomba. " The receiving clerk asked what the language was and Dr. Robinson replied, " No known language. "
Source: Holding institution