The Montgomery Advertiser
- RACING EXHIBITION IS CHIEF ATTRACTION ON TODAY'S MENU
- AUBURN TIGER IS VICTORIOUS AFTER STRENUOUS BATTLE
- NAME OF EXECUTIONER IS NO LONGER SECRET
The Montgomery Advertiser's front page for Sunday, October 31, 1926, combined a local fair, college football and a New York prison story. Hal Stephens's state fair report, headlined on the day's racing exhibition, put Saturday's attendance at an estimated 10,000. It described a lively midway, crowded with Auburn fans despite drizzle, and named the three winners of a Charleston contest held in the automobile building. Jack Langhorne's account of Auburn's win over Sewanee at Cramton Bowl is pure celebration, built around a 'Tiger eat Tiger' image, though the excerpt does not give the score. A third item reported that Sing Sing's executioner, unnamed since his appointment that year, was Robert Elliott of Long Island. Elliott also served three other states, was paid $150 per execution, and had children who believed he only kept a small business.
Translation
RACING EXHIBITION IS CHIEF ATTRACTION ON TODAY'S MENU
It was estimated that 10,000 persons attended the state fair yesterday. A drizzling rain failed to dampen the spirits of the crowd in the midway Saturday night. The blue and orange of Auburn was seen on every side as the Tiger supporters made the rounds of the shows. A loving cup offered as first prize to the winner of the Charleston contest held in the automobile building last night was awarded to Miss Tootsie Dunbar. The second prize, $25 in cash, was awarded to Miss Helen Ginnovan. A third prize, $5 in cash was awarded Miss Josephine Kennedy.
AUBURN TIGER IS VICTORIOUS AFTER STRENUOUS BATTLE
Glory, all glory, to dear ole Auburn! The claws of a Tiger from the Plains of Alabama, unsheathed and sharp, sank deep into his purple brother from the mountainous forests of Tennessee yesterday afternoon in Cramton Bowl. It was Tiger eat Tiger and the lashing beast of the Plains was victorious after sixty minutes of the most thrilling, gruelling and spectacular warfare ever staged in the Dixie sector of the great grid domain. Auburn won yesterday. They fought, they thought, they did everything to perfection and all glory is theirs. If anything, the score of yesterday's game should have been larger, for the Auburn eleven was a far superior combination than that outfit which held the mighty Tide of the Capstone to a 2 to 0 score in Birmingham just last Saturday
NAME OF EXECUTIONER IS NO LONGER SECRET
Sing Sing prison's executioner, whose name has been kept secret since his appointment early this year, was revealed today as Robert Elliott, a resident of Long Island, who, prison officials said, is also executioner for Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Elliott is about 60 years old. He has performed ten executions at Sing Sing thus far, for which the fee is $150, unknown to his son and daughter, who believe their father's only occupation is that of the proprietor of a small business in his Long Island village. Elliott was selected from 40 applicants in the United States and foreign countries.
Context
How an agricultural fair became a midway weekend
The Alabama State Fair began as a farm event. Its first edition, held November 20–24, 1855, was called the Agricultural Fair and Cattle Show, and by the turn of the twentieth century the fair was held at a fairground just north of Montgomery. Hal Stephens's 1926 report shows how much commercial entertainment had joined that agricultural core. He put attendance at an estimated 10,000, described crowds touring the midway shows on a drizzly Saturday night, and listed the winners of a Charleston contest staged in the automobile building, where the prizes were a loving cup, $25 and $5. The report also links the fair to the football weekend: Auburn supporters in blue and orange made the rounds of the shows after the game across town. The 10,000 figure is the paper's own estimate, and the sources used here give no independent attendance count for 1926.
Why Auburn played in Montgomery's Cramton Bowl
Cramton Bowl was only four years old in 1926 and had been built through private effort. Lumberman Fred J. Cramton had given land to the city for a park, but city officials could not fund the project and returned the land; Cramton then led a $33,000 fundraising campaign, and the stadium was completed in May 1922. Montgomery soon became a regular venue for the state's two leading college teams. Alabama Polytechnic Institute, now Auburn University, played at least one game there every year from 1922 to 1951, often its season opener, and the University of Alabama played there every season from 1922 to 1932. That pattern explains why an Auburn game drew a crowd to the capital on the same weekend as the state fair, and why Stephens could report Auburn colors 'on every side' of the midway that night.
The 9–0 'Tiger eat Tiger' game in Auburn's 1926 season
The game Jack Langhorne celebrated ended 9–0. The Birmingham News headlined its October 31, 1926, report 'Plainsmen outclass Sewanee Tigers to win, 9–0,' which also explains Langhorne's 'Tiger eat Tiger' line: both teams were called the Tigers, and Auburn's 'Plainsmen' nickname matches his 'Tiger from the Plains.' The paper itself places the Sewanee team in the 'mountainous forests of Tennessee' and gives it purple colors. The win came in head coach Dave Morey's second season, and Auburn finished 5–4 overall and 3–3 in the Southern Conference, so the 'all glory' tone belonged to a respectable but uneven year. Langhorne's final sentence argues that the score should have been larger because Auburn was far superior to the 'outfit' that had held the 'Tide' to 2 to 0 in Birmingham the previous Saturday; read in context, that outfit appears to be Sewanee itself. The Tide was the University of Alabama's Crimson Tide, the state's other major program. The sources gathered here do not record that Birmingham game, so the comparison rests on the writer's own account.
Who Robert Elliott was and why his name was hidden
Robert G. Elliott held New York's post of 'state electrician,' a euphemistic title for the executioner given to men who were electricians by trade. He had served as an assistant to Edwin Davis, New York's first state electrician, who trained him, and he took the post in 1926. His first execution, a double electrocution, took place on January 28, 1926, which matches the paper's 'appointment early this year.' Although he wore no mask or hood, he tried at first to conceal his identity by not revealing his name. New York hired state electricians for each execution rather than as full-time employees, which explains how Elliott could keep a private trade; he ran an electrical contracting business, the 'small business' of the article. The $150 fee matches what New York paid him for each execution. The danger of the job helps explain the secrecy: in 1920 his predecessor John Hulbert fled Nebraska on learning that local opponents of capital punishment planned to lynch him. The paper's 'about 60 years old' is wrong, since Elliott was born in January 1874 and was 52; a January 1926 newspaper had made the same error.
What followed the revelation of Elliott's name
The anonymity this article ended never returned, and Elliott went on to become the best-known American executioner of his era. From 1926 to 1939 he carried out executions for New York and for neighboring states that used the electric chair, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Massachusetts, which extends the list of three states given in 1926. On January 6, 1927, a little over two months after this article, he electrocuted six inmates in two states in a single day. In all he executed 387 people, including Sacco and Vanzetti, Ruth Snyder, Irene Schroeder and Bruno Hauptmann. Soon after the Sacco and Vanzetti execution, unknown persons planted a bomb under his house that destroyed his front porch, the kind of hostility the 1926 secrecy had been meant to avoid. Elliott himself came to oppose capital punishment, saying it served no useful purpose.
Original
RACING EXHIBITION IS CHIEF ATTRACTION ON TODAY'S MENU
It was estimated that 10, 000 persons attended the state fair yesterday. A drizzling rain failed to dampen the spirits of the crowd in the midway Saturday night. The blue and orange of Auburn was seen on every side as the Tiger supporters made the rounds of the shows. A loving cup offered as first prize to the winner of the Charleston contest held in the automobile building last night was awarded to Miss Tootsie Dunbar. The second prize, $ 25 in cash, was awarded to Miss Helen Ginnovan. A third prize, $ 5 in cash was awarded Miss Josephine Kennedy.
AUBURN TIGER IS VICTORIOUS AFTER STRENUOUS BATTLE
Glory, all glory, to dear ole Auburn! The claws of a Tiger from the Plains of Alabama, unsheathed and sharp, sank deep into his purple brother from the mountainous forests of Tennessee yesterday afternoon in Cramton Bowl. It was Tiger eat Tiger and the lashing beast of the Plains was victorious after sixty minutes of the most thrilling, gruelling and spectacular warfare ever staged in the Dixie sector of the great grid domain. Auburn won yesterday. They fought, they thought, they did everything to perfection and all glory is theirs. If anything, the score of yesterday's game should have been larger, for the Auburn eleven was a far superior combination than that outfit which held the mighty Tide of the Capstone to a 2 to 0 score in Birmingham just last Saturday
NAME OF EXECUTIONER IS NO LONGER SECRET
Sing Sing prison's executioner, whose name has been kept secret since his appointment early this year, was revealed today as Robert Elliott, a resident of Long Island, who, prison officials said, is also executioner for Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Elliott is about 60 years old. He has performed ten executions at Sing Sing thus far, for which the fee is $ 150, unknown to his son and daughter, who believe their father's only occupation is that of the proprietor of a small business in his Long Island village. Elliott was selected from 40 applicants in the United States and foreign countries.
Source: Holding institution