Evening Star
- BOTH PARTIES FIRE FINAL BROADSIDES AS ELECTION NEARS
- WADSWORTH RACE, WITH G. O. P. SPLIT, DECLARED IN DOUBT
- Local Bootleggers Now Inclose Warning With Wares Against “Cheap, Nasty Gins”
The Evening Star of October 30, 1926, led with the closing days of the midterm campaign. An Associated Press roundup cast the election as a play reaching its last act, and noted a White House denial that President Coolidge had taken sides in the Illinois Senate race. It also reported Republican nominee Frank L. Smith's defense of campaign money from utility magnate Samuel Insull, whose companies Smith's state commission regulated. G. Gould Lincoln reported that Senator James W. Wadsworth Jr.'s New York race turned on whether wet Democratic votes could offset Republican drys defecting to the bone-dry Franklin Cristman. A short local item described Washington bootleggers packing their synthetic gin with a health leaflet that condemned "cheap, nasty gins."
Translation
BOTH PARTIES FIRE FINAL BROADSIDES AS ELECTION NEARS
The great American drama, "Politics of 1926," hurried today toward its climax, with actors throughout the country concentrating their last-minute efforts upon snaring the elusive vote in the last act—Tuesday's election, which will decide the completion of the Seventieth Congress. Sharing interest with appeals by spokesmen for the two major parties was a formal White House statement denying that President Coolidge had expressed any attitude on the choice of a United States Senator in Illinois, and a defense by Frank L. Smith, Republican senatorial nominee in that State, against attacks on contributions to his campaign fund by Samuel Insull, utility magnate, while Smith as chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission exercised supervision over rates and service of the Insull companies.
WADSWORTH RACE, WITH G. O. P. SPLIT, DECLARED IN DOUBT
NEW YORK, N. Y., October 30.—Can Senator James W. Wadsworth, jr., Republican, obtain enough Democratic wet votes to offset the loss of Republican drys who will vote in large numbers for Cristman, Independent-Republican and bone-dry? The answer will spell defeat or victory for Wadsworth in the senatorial election which is to take place Tuesday. The Republicans say he can. The Democrats, supporting Robert F. Wagner for the Senate, say that he cannot.
Local Bootleggers Now Inclose Warning With Wares Against “Cheap, Nasty Gins”
Local bootleggers are now including in their quart packages of synthetic gin a copy of "A Guide to Health," advising that "few spirits are so useful and beneficial as pure London gin," and warning persons away from "synthetic, or cheap, nasty gins." In fact the warning against synthetic gin is very emphatic and absolute. It says: "Synthetic or cheap, nasty gins should be left severely alone. They are of no use for cocktails or medicinal purposes and are extremely harmful to the human system."
Context
How the Insull money later cost Frank L. Smith his Senate seat
The Associated Press story shows Frank L. Smith defending himself over Samuel Insull's money only days before the vote, and the Senate's own record explains why the issue outlasted the election. According to the Senate Historical Office, charges raised in the Senate in June 1926 held that Insull, the owner of public utility corporations, had contributed $125,000 to Smith's primary campaign fund while Smith still chaired the Illinois Commerce Commission that oversaw such utilities; the Senate history describes accepting such money as a conflict of interest that was illegal under Illinois law. A special committee chaired by James A. Reed held hearings in Chicago through the summer and fall of 1926, so the inquiry was under way when this page was printed, and Insull later refused to answer the committee's questions about contributions. Smith rejected calls to step aside and won the November election by more than 60,000 votes. The committee's final report in January 1928 rested on evidence that public service corporations had made excessive contributions while he chaired the commission, and on January 19, 1928, the Senate voted 61 to 23 that he was not entitled to his seat. The paper reports only the attacks and Smith's defense; the dollar figures and the outcome come from the later Senate record.
The New York returns and the weight of Cristman's dry vote
G. Gould Lincoln framed the New York race as a single arithmetic question, and the official returns allow a reader to test it. Hard-line prohibitionists had backed Franklin W. Cristman against Wadsworth at the Republican convention, and Cristman then ran as an independent Republican who supported Prohibition and opposed the wet senator's position. In the November 2, 1926, election Robert F. Wagner received 1,321,463 votes, Wadsworth 1,205,246 and Cristman 231,906. Wagner's margin over Wadsworth was 116,217 votes, about half of Cristman's total, so on paper the dry Republican vote was more than large enough to account for Wadsworth's defeat. The totals cannot show how many Cristman voters would otherwise have chosen Wadsworth rather than stayed home or voted for someone else. The returns therefore fit the Democrats' prediction quoted in Lincoln's story without proving that Cristman alone decided the race.
Synthetic gin and the liquor trade in a dry capital
The bootleggers' leaflet makes more sense against the conditions of the capital's liquor trade. Washington was dry by federal law from November 1, 1917, when the Sheppard Act outlawed the sale of alcohol in the District. Gin was the predominant drink of the 1920s, and many versions were made by mixing cheap grain alcohol with water and flavorings, the kind of liquor known as bathtub gin; cocktails such as the Bee's Knees are credited to the need to mask its unpleasant taste. That background sharpens the irony of the Star's item: dealers selling quarts of synthetic gin wrapped them in a pamphlet praising pure London gin and declaring synthetic gin useless for cocktails and harmful to the body. Demand reached Congress itself, since George Cassiday, a bootlegger who supplied lawmakers, later recalled that liquor had been ordered, delivered and consumed under the shadow of the Capitol dome. The health warnings in the item are the pamphlet's own words as the Star quoted them.
Original
BOTH PARTIES FIRE FINAL BROADSIDES AS ELECTION NEARS
The great American drama, " Politics of 1926, " hurried today toward its climax, with actors throughout the country concentrating their last-minute efforts upon snaring the elusive vote in the last act-Tuesday's election, which will decide the completion of the Seventieth Congress. Sharing interest with appeals by spokesmen for the two major parties was a formal White House statement denying that President Coolidge had expressed any attitude on the choice of a United States Senator in Illinois, and a defense by Frank L. Smith, Republican senatorial nominee in that State, against attacks on contributions to his campaign fund by Samuel Insull, utility magnate, while Smith as chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission exercised supervision over rates and service of the Insull companies.
WADSWORTH RACE, WITH G. O. P. SPLIT, DECLARED IN DOUBT
NEW YORK, N. Y., October 30. - Can Senator James W. Wadsworth, jr., Republican, obtain enough Democratic wet votes to offset. the loss of Republican drys who will vote in large numbers for Cristman, Independent-Republican and bone-dry? The answer will spell defeat or victory for Wadsworth in the senatorial election which is to take place Tuesday. The Republicans say he can. The Democrats, supporting Robert F. Wagner for the Senate, say that he cannot.
Local Bootleggers Now Inclose Warning With Wares Against “Cheap, Nasty Gins”
Local bootleggers are now including in their quart packages of synthetic gin a copy of " A Guide to Health, " advising that " few spirits are so useful and beneficial as pure London gin, " and warning persons away from " synthetic, or cheap, nasty gins. " In fact the warning against synthetic gin is very emphatic and absolute. It says: " Synthetic or cheap, nasty gins should be left severely alone. They are of no use for cocktails or medicinal purposes and are extremely harmful to the human system. "
Source: Holding institution