Crítica
- BAKERS WENT ON STRIKE TODAY IN CHILE
- ANTEO ZAMBONI, THE ATTACKER, WAS AN ACTIVE FASCIST
- Calvin Coolidge went to the capital to cast his vote
This reading of Crítica's front page for 2 November 1926 covers three cabled reports. From Santiago, the paper reported that bakers had declared an indefinite strike, joining shoe and leather workers who were protesting against compulsory insurance, and warned that bread would be on sale only until noon. From Italy, it printed details about Anteo Zamboni, the youth named as Mussolini's attacker. It gave his age as 16 and said he belonged to the young fascists but had not attended their meetings for more than a year, and it added that his father had once moved in anarchist circles. From Washington, it reported that President Calvin Coolidge had left by special train for his home town of Northampton to vote and planned to return to the capital the same day.
Translation
BAKERS WENT ON STRIKE TODAY IN CHILE
This movement has been made in solidarity with the workers of the shoe factories, to protest against compulsory insurance.
THERE WILL BE BREAD ONLY UNTIL NOON
(Agencia Austral) SANTIAGO DE CHILE, 2. – The bakers have declared an indefinite strike, joining the strike of the workers of the shoe and leather factories. Today there will be bread only until noon.
ANTEO ZAMBONI, THE ATTACKER, WAS AN ACTIVE FASCIST
Mussolini, young Anteo Zamboni was 16 years old and belonged to the young fascists [?] for more than a year he had not attended their meetings [?] Zamboni's father was at one time connected with the anarchist circles of this city, but, it seems, he cut himself off from all subversive activity many years ago.
Calvin Coolidge went to the capital to cast his vote
WASHINGTON, 2. – The President of the Republic, Mr. Calvin Coolidge, left last night on a special train bound for Northampton, in order to cast his vote today and return to the capital in time to
Context
Which compulsory insurance were Chile's shoe workers and bakers striking against?
The insurance the cable refers to was most likely Law No. 4.054 on compulsory sickness and invalidity insurance, which Chile promulgated on 8 September 1924. Other labour laws, including Law No. 4.053 on the labour contract, were promulgated on the same day. These laws did not come out of ordinary parliamentary deliberation. On 8 September 1924 army officers pressed Parliament hard and demanded the approval of sixteen laws, important labour laws among them. When Crítica printed this report in November 1926, the compulsory insurance scheme was therefore only about two years old. The report says that shoe and leather workers had stopped work over it and that the bakers had joined them with an indefinite strike, so that bread in Santiago would run out at noon. The cable does not say why the workers objected to the insurance.
Who held power in Chile when the strike broke out, and what came next for the unions?
In late 1926 Chile's president was Emiliano Figueroa, elected in 1925 after Arturo Alessandri's second resignation. During Figueroa's government, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo became the real power behind the scenes. Ibáñez had entered national politics in 1924 at the head of the officers who voiced their anger at Parliament from the Senate galleries, the same military pressure that forced through the social laws. The strikers of November 1926 were thus confronting a state in which the officer who had led the 1924 pressure behind the insurance law already carried decisive weight. Ibáñez took power in 1927, and only then did the new labour legislation begin to be applied. His government repressed the opposition with press censorship, pushed through the expropriation of the newspaper La Nación and placed the trade-union movement under state control. Strikes like the one in this report took place in the final months before that authoritarian turn.
Who was Anteo Zamboni, and how does the paper's account compare with later findings?
On 31 October 1926 a shot was fired at Mussolini as he rode in an open car through Bologna, and the crowd lynched a 15-year-old boy, Anteo Zamboni. Crítica's cable, written two days later, gives his age as 16. Its headline calls the attacker an active fascist, although the body says he had not attended the young fascists' meetings for more than a year. The cable also notes that his father had once moved in the city's anarchist circles, which pointed suspicion toward the left even while it said the father had long since withdrawn from subversive activity. Later scholarship treats the official version with suspicion. The terrorism specialist J. Bowyer Bell wrote that the boy was probably innocent and that the affair was either a put-up job or a plot among Fascists. The newspaper's label of 'the attacker' therefore reflects the account circulating in the first days, not an established finding.
Why did the Bologna shooting matter so much for Mussolini's regime?
The Bologna shooting was the fourth attempt on Mussolini's life in about a year. In November 1925 the former Socialist deputy Tito Zaniboni was arrested before he could fire, and laws enacted in late 1925 then allowed the suppression of any opposition political organisation. On 7 April 1926 Violet Gibson fired a pistol that grazed Mussolini's nose, and on 11 September 1926 the anarchist marble worker Gino Lucetti threw a bomb at his car at Porta Pia in Rome, injuring four other people. The Zamboni affair came only weeks later, and the regime used it to go further: the attempt led to laws creating Mussolini's secret police. Read against this sequence, the cable's details about the boy's politics, a young fascist with a once-anarchist father, reached readers just as the regime was turning the attempt into grounds for tighter control.
Why did Coolidge travel to Northampton to vote in 1926?
Coolidge announced the trip himself at a press conference on 29 October 1926. He said he would start home to vote on Monday night and reach Northampton on Tuesday morning. He expected to leave the train and vote at the polling place right next to the City Hall, then return to Washington in the late evening. He insisted that the house the press described as his mother-in-law Mrs. Goodhue's residence was his own home, a point that mattered because his vote depended on his Northampton residence. Going home to vote was common in the administration: Coolidge said seven Cabinet members were away making campaign speeches and going home to vote, while Secretary of State Kellogg was voting by mail. Coolidge had gone home to vote four years earlier, but in 1924 he had stayed in Washington because he gave a radio talk the night before the election. Crítica's headline says he 'went to the capital', but the body correctly reports that he left Washington for Northampton.
What was at stake for Coolidge in Massachusetts on 2 November 1926?
Coolidge's own state held a special Senate election on the same day he voted. The seat had been filled by appointment after the death of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, and the incumbent, William Morgan Butler, was a close ally of Coolidge. At Butler's campaign launch in 1926, most speakers tied his campaign to Coolidge's prospects for re-election. The Democrat David I. Walsh defeated Butler, and it was the first time since 1851 that Democrats held this Senate seat. The president's trip home to vote therefore came on a day when his home state voted against his close ally.
Original
LOS PANIFICADORES SE DECLARARON HOY EN HUELGA EN CHILE
Este movimiento ha sido hecho por solidaridad con los obreros de las fábricas de cal zado, para protestar contra el seguro obligatorio SOLO HABRA PAN HASTA MEDIODIA (Agencia Austral) SANTIAGO DE CHILE, 2. - Los panificadores se declararon en huelga indefinida, adhiriéndose a la huelga de obreros de las fábricas de calzado y cueros. Hoy habrá pan solamente hasta mediodía.
ANTEO ZAMBONI, EL AGRESOR, ERA UN ACTIVO FASCISTA
Mussolini, el joven Anteo Zamboni, tenía 16 años de edad, y pertenecía a los jóvenes fascistas [?] hace más de un año no concurría a sus reuniones [?] El padre de Zamboni estuvo, tiempo atrás, relacionado con los círculos anarquistas de esta ciudad, pero según parece, se desligó de toda actividad subversiva desd» hace muchos años.
Calvin Coolidge fué a la capital a emitir su voto
WASHINGTON, 2. - El presidente de la República, Mr. Calvin Coolidge, partió anoche en un tren especial con destino a Northampton, a objeto de depositar hoy su voto y regresar a la capital a tiempo para
Source: Source: Internet Archive / Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina