Evening Star
- REPUBLICANS WIN HOUSE; SIX STATES VOTE “WET”; SMITH VICTOR IN ILLINOIS
- HALL WIDOW CALM AS MILLS MURDER JURY IS SELECTED
- Mrs. Langley Only One of 19 New Woman Candidates to Be Elected to Congress
The Evening Star of November 3, 1926, carried the morning-after picture of the midterm elections. G. Gould Lincoln wrote that the Republicans had held the House, the only nationwide contest, while early returns showed the Democrats taking six Republican-held Senate seats, from Massachusetts to Arizona; the headline also counted six states voting “wet” and a Smith victory in Illinois. An Associated Press dispatch from New Jersey reported that the Hall-Mills murder trial had moved past jury selection, which took an hour and a half, as Justice Charles W. Parker conferred with counsel. A second AP item noted that only one of 19 women seeking new House seats had won: Mrs. John W. Langley of Kentucky, whose husband was in federal prison for conspiring to violate the prohibition law.
Translation
REPUBLICANS WIN HOUSE; SIX STATES VOTE “WET”; SMITH VICTOR IN ILLINOIS
The Republicans have won the only Nation-wide contest of yesterday's elections—the House of Representatives. In the senatorial elections the Democrats have made serious inroads on Republican control of the upper house. On the face of the returns so far received the Democrats have won six senatorial seats now held by the [?] Massachusetts, Maryland [?] New York, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arizona.
HALL WIDOW CALM AS MILLS MURDER JURY IS SELECTED
- With a jury selected, the first trial [?] the Hall-Mills murder case moved into its second phase today. The jury was selected within an hour and a half. Justice Charles W. Parker of the Supreme Court then dismissed the [?] while he conferred with counsel.
Mrs. Langley Only One of 19 New Woman Candidates to Be Elected to Congress
NEW YORK, November 3. - Of the 19 women who aspired to join the three already in the House of Representatives only one was successful. She was Mrs. John W. Langley of Kentucky, wife of former Representative Langley, who is serving sentence in Federal prison for a conspiracy to violate the national prohibition law.
Context
How many states actually voted “wet” in 1926?
The Star's headline counted six states voting “wet,” a figure drawn from returns still arriving on the morning after the election. TIME's roundup of November 15, 1926, recorded prohibition referendums in eight states: Illinois, Montana, Nevada, New York and Wisconsin voted for modification of the liquor laws, while the drys won in California, Colorado and Missouri. TIME singled out New York, where the wet majority was more than three to one. The paper's six and the magazine's five therefore differ; the later, fuller tally names five states, and both Illinois and New York, the two big states touched on in this front page, were on the wet side.
Why was former Representative Langley in federal prison?
John W. Langley, a Republican, had represented Kentucky's 10th district from 1907 until he resigned on January 11, 1926, after being convicted of illegally selling alcohol. He had deposited $115,000 in his bank account over three years while earning $7,500 a year as a congressman. He had also tried to bribe a Prohibition officer, and he was sentenced to two years in prison. A biography of his wife describes the same case as a conviction for violating the Volstead Act by selling alcohol and trying to bribe a federal officer. The AP's phrase, “a conspiracy to violate the national prohibition law,” refers to this case.
How did Katherine Langley win her husband's old seat?
Katherine Langley was no newcomer to the 10th district's business: she had served as her husband's secretary for the eighteen years he held the seat. After his resignation she ran for it herself, declaring that he had been the victim of a conspiracy, and she soundly defeated his successor, Andrew J. Kirk, in the Republican primary. Her November victory made her the first woman elected to Congress from Kentucky. The AP item presents her as the single success among 19 new women candidates and identifies her through her imprisoned husband, which matches the way her campaign was built around his case.
Why did the Hall-Mills case come to trial four years after the murders?
The Rev. Edward Wheeler Hall and Eleanor Mills were murdered on September 14, 1922, in Franklin Township, New Jersey, and suspicion fell early on Hall's wife and her two brothers. A grand jury convened that November, but after five days of hearings it failed to issue an indictment. In 1926 William Randolph Hearst's New York Daily Mirror revived the case, and its strident calls for action forced the governor of New Jersey to reopen it. The trial began on November 3, 1926, at the Somerset County Courthouse in Somerville, with Charles W. Parker and Frank Cleary presiding. A cousin, Henry Carpender, won the right to be tried separately and was never tried, which helps explain why the Star spoke of “the first trial.”
How was Mrs. Hall portrayed, and how did the trial end?
The Star's headline about a calm widow fits a wider portrait: during the trial Mrs. Hall was nicknamed “The Iron Widow” because of her stoic demeanor. The Somerville courthouse was crammed with hundreds of reporters, who filed more than twelve million words over the course of the trial, and the case is regarded as an early example of a media circus. On December 3, 1926, all three defendants at trial were acquitted, and the murders have remained officially unsolved.
Original
REPUBLICANS WIN HOUSE; SIX STATES VOTE “WET”; SMITH VICTOR IN ILLINOIS
The Republicans have won the only Nation-wide contest of yesterday's elections-the House of Representatives. In the senatorial elections the Democrats have made serious inroads on Republican control of the upper house. On the face of the returns so far received the Democrats have won six senatorial seats now held by the [?] Massachusetts, Maryland [?] New York, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arizona.
HALL WIDOW CALM AS MILLS MURDER JURY IS SELECTED
- With a jury selected, the first trial [?] the Hall-Mills murder case moved into its second phase today. The jury was selected within an hour and a half. Justice Charles W. Parker of the Supreme Court then dismissed the [?] while he conferred with counsel.
Mrs. Langley Only One of 19 New Woman Candidates to Be Elected to Congress
NEW YORK, November 3. - Of the 19 women who aspired to join the three already in the House of Representatives only one was successful. She was Mrs. John W. Langley of Kentucky, wife of former Representative Langley, who is serving sentence in Federal prison for a conspiracy to violate the national prohibition law.
Source: Holding institution