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."
Prosperity Shown by Rail Earnings During Past Month
Grafting Activity by Prohi Officers Charged in Hearing
The Montgomery Advertiser of October 28, 1926, led its front page with the State Fair of Alabama, where Morgan County in the Tennessee Valley repeated last year's win in the individual county exhibits, finishing ahead of Butler, Chilton, Crenshaw, Montgomery, Choctaw, Baldwin and Limestone. An AP dispatch from New York reported that September returns reported so far by 33 of about 185 class one railroads showed aggregate net operating income up 6 percent, and that General Motors' nine-month earnings had broken all records. From Chicago, AP described testimony about "arrangements" and alleged graft at the federal trial of former Illinois prohibition director Percy Owen and state senator Lowell B. Mason over the illegal withdrawal of more than a million gallons of sacramental wine. This reading translates the three articles, and the commentary covers the background to the county exhibits and the boom of the Coolidge era.
The Vossische Zeitung of 28 October 1926 reported from Paris that, after the Italian ambassador's visit to Briand, the Quai d'Orsay had ruled out a direct Briand–Mussolini meeting for the time being. French officials called a settlement with Italy premature and insisted that any revision of the Tangier Statute be negotiated among the signatory powers, though they left the door open to talks later. In Berlin, Reichstag President Paul Löbe, back from a round of political events, briefed the paper's parliamentary correspondent on preparations for the session opening the following week. From Rome, the paper described Fascist newspapers filled with retrospectives for the fourth anniversary of the March on Rome, and reported Mussolini's order that the day be marked with parades but no speeches, only the reading of a message addressed to Fascists.
Le Figaro's front page of 28 October 1926 carried two signed portraits of public figures and a satirical column on a Paris street novelty. Paul de Cassagnac paid tribute to Princess Lætitia Bonaparte, presenting her as the very embodiment of the Napoleonic line in her looks, her bearing, her mind and her heart. Lucien Romier portrayed Alfred Mascuraud as a backstage operator who, by swinging small and middling shopkeepers to the Left at decisive moments, ensured the Radicals' long hold on power after the Opportunists. Régis Gignoux mocked a police-prefecture measure that allowed costermongers, now bound to official prices, to rent out the shafts, boxes and wheels of their handcarts as advertising space.
The Neue Freie Presse of 28 October 1926 ran high finance, disarmament diplomacy and Balkan crime side by side. In a signed column, the French politician Louis Loucheur argued that France could not sign a debt agreement drawn up without regard to its real situation and its capacity to pay. He also described a dream in which U.S. Treasury Secretary Mellon became a naturalized Frenchman and finance minister, and then despaired over the transfer problem. A correspondent's telegram reported that the Conference of Ambassadors would probably not make a new démarche to Berlin over disarmament, and that General Walch of the Inter-Allied Control Commission would be called to Paris for new instructions. A second telegram reported that bandits near Svilengrad had killed the French engineer Pierre Bermond, his wife and his son, seriously injured their coachman and fled with their belongings.
This Algiers daily's front page mixed colonial administration with international finance and presidential ceremony. The General Council of Algiers, meeting under Senator Duroux, voted money for local policing: 55,000 francs as a first payment towards a building for a gendarmerie barracks at Bouzaréa and 2,000 francs for furniture at the Sidi-Aïssa gendarmerie. A Paris dispatch relaying Le Petit Parisien's New York correspondent reported that a 50-million-dollar loan to stabilise the Belgian franc, issued by an American bank syndicate the paper said was led by Morgan and the Guaranty Company, sold out by 10:30 a.m. on the day it opened. A short item from Rambouillet, cut off on the page, told of a shoot M. Doumergue gave there in honour of members of a 'Corps di–', almost certainly the diplomatic corps.
This partial reading of La Tribune de Madagascar for 28 October 1926 covers three items. A column on foreigners and taxation reported that a deputy's bill answered earlier proposals: Falcoz and André Hesse wanted an entry tax scaled to the length of stay and payable in strong foreign currency, while Fongères wanted a 20-franc tax on every foreigner staying more than twenty days. An editorial on Tananarive's milk supply attacked the municipal administration for failing to inspect a food the paper called vital to infants and to colonials suffering from malaria, dysentery or liver disease. A short note passed on a friend's complaint that T.C.E. railway passengers had to check for themselves that their luggage was loaded, along with his suggestion that a bailiff be posted permanently at the terminus stations.
This front page of L'Écho annamite for 28 October 1926 combined politics, history and local news. A column signed ALPHA traced the long Vietnamese campaign for press freedom: from the founding of the Tribune indigène about ten years earlier, through a Cahier des Vœux handed to Governor-General Alexandre Varenne in November 1925, to the same demand echoing at Saigon's Court of Appeal the previous March after meetings of the Jeune-Annam party. A second contributor introduced an official Annamite account of Phan Thanh Giản's audience at the Tuileries on 5 November 1863 and urged readers to consult Langlois and Seignobos's manual on historical method. A report from Huế described the flooded imperial capital as a busy, lively Venice and contrasted it with the ruin and death that floods brought to Tonkin.
The Journal de Genève's front page of 28 October 1926 opened with an editorial signed W. M. that tried to make the Chinese civil war intelligible to European readers. Chinese territory, it argued, was split among five armies and five generals, but the armies held only scattered points and the generals governed little beyond requisitions, taxes and summary justice. A news piece signed R. P. set the Confederation's situation, which could be viewed with optimism despite the budget deficit, against that of the Federal Railways, which the board of directors had judged very serious, as Mr. Haab had predicted. A correspondent's letter from Spain described how censorship and rumours made reporting difficult, how hearsay and clandestine sheets had fed public curiosity especially since the artillerymen's movement, and how the public read the government's denials as confirmations.
Politika for 28 October 1926 carried an economic column, a historical article and a gossip item. In a signed column, Dr. M. L. reported Hungarian statements offering Hungary as Yugoslavia's economic intermediary with the West, citing old Hungarian ties to Western economic centres, close knowledge of the Yugoslav market, and the claim that the shortest road from the West to the Balkans, and Western capital with it, ran through Hungary. A historical article headed 'Before 29 May 1903' argued that Russia, expecting an early war with Japan, wanted a free hand in the Balkans, where great-power interests reached as far as the Bosphorus and Constantinople. The gossip column 'What Is Being Said?', signed Ibis, joked that members of an Anglo-Yugoslav club had debated whether it was better to be a beggar or a sick millionaire.
This Aftenposten page of 28 October 1926 carried three short reports. Oslo's executive committee had unanimously agreed to lease the municipal icebreaker Isbjørn to the state; Docent Hoel was to settle the details with City Commissioner Strøm, the harbour board would fix the terms, and the ship was due to sail for Svalbard within 8 days. A lawyer's account recalled the quarrel in which Schaanning, defending the late Robert Collett's memory, accused Ørjan Olsen, editor of 'Norges Fugle', of plagiarism and literary theft. A note on the coal situation reported that Møre county's route company would release 1800 tons of its coal stock to local fishermen, strictly for the fishing fleet, and that a further 2000 tons would be sent from Svalbard to Aalesund.
The Leidsch Dagblad of 28 October 1926 printed a further list of donations for the families of the men lost with the Katwijk fishing vessel KW 152. The gifts in the excerpt ranged from f 1.50 from a private donor to f 7 from the Noordwijk branch of the building workers' union. Its court column reported that 21 cases were listed for the criminal session of the Leiden cantonal court, and that the first defendant was fined f 5, or five days' detention, for a labour offence after the chairman of the Labour Council testified. A short news item reported that a worker at the new cement works at Vijlen-Vaals was caught by a drive belt, badly mutilated, given the last rites and taken to hospital by car.
This page of Le Petit Matin, dated 28 October 1926, carried a signed column by Paul Lafitte on an Algerian farmers' plan to hold a North African Water Congress in October 1927, alongside wheat and cotton congresses. Lafitte praised the organisers for looking beyond immediate profit, but predicted that Tunisia would come a poor third behind Algeria and even the more recently occupied Morocco, above all on water policy. A Paris dispatch reported the arrest of Maurice Charton, a thirty-six-year-old PLM railway clerk who had drawn suspicion through frequent trips to the occupied territories; he was seized at the Gare de l'Est as he was about to board the Cologne express. A short sports item reported a motion to readmit the German tennis federation to the international federation, on the British view that Germany's League of Nations membership made its players eligible again.
British Capitalists Propose to Help the Mine Owners
Belgian Coal Miners Won a Five Percent Raise
THE ANNOUNCED COCHABAMBA–LA PAZ LONG-DISTANCE FLIGHT WILL TAKE PLACE TODAY
Coal dominated the foreign cables on this page of Crítica for 28 October 1926. A London dispatch from Agencia Austral reported that leading British financiers and industrialists planned a private loan to support the mining industry as the miners' strike dragged on. The text breaks off just as it turns to what the strike meant for the nation. An Associated Press cable from Brussels said Belgian miners and mine owners had agreed a five percent pay rise from the first of December. The same conference put off a decision on lengthening the working day by half an hour, and its chairman blamed the coal shortage on the British strike. From Bolivia came word that a Curtiss aeroplane would fly from Cochabamba to La Paz by way of Santa Cruz, Trinidad and Riberalta, over a stretch of forest with nowhere to land if the engine failed.
Trieste's Il Piccolo marked the anniversary of the March on Rome with a lead editorial praising the 'new Italy': a nation raised to unprecedented prestige abroad, a whole people united behind its Prime Minister, overseas lands pacified, and a fated role in the Mediterranean and in Europe. A Paris dispatch reported, in cautious conditional language, that ambassador Avezzana's talk with Briand had dealt with Italian colonial ambitions, possibly touching Syria, and that France wanted better relations with Rome without putting its North African holdings up for discussion. A third item relayed Interior Ministry statistics showing taverns and wine shops falling from 146,768 in 1915 to 106,414 in 1925.