The Montgomery Advertiser
- INSURGENTS TO HOLD BALANCE OF POWER
- PRISON KEEPER AND 3 CONVICTS ARE SLAIN IN FIGHT FOR LIBERTY
- SEEK BURIAL PLACE FOR J. BARLEYCORN
The Montgomery Advertiser's front page of November 4, 1926 led with AP returns from the midterm elections. The wire story reported that Democratic gains had wiped out most of the Republican Senate majority, leaving a small group of insurgents elected as Republicans holding the balance of power, and that Republican control of the House was also under threat. From New York came an account of a gun battle in the yard of the Tombs prison, where three prisoners trying to shoot their way out were killed after killing a keeper and shooting the warden. A lighter AP item from New Orleans followed federal officers driving truckloads of seized whiskey around the city in search of a lot where $300,000 worth of evidence liquor could be destroyed.
Translation
INSURGENTS TO HOLD BALANCE OF POWER
NEW YORK, Nov. 3. - (AP) - The democratic thrust in the off-year election has made certain insurgent control of the senate and threatens the domination the republicans have had over the house since the Coolidge landslide two years ago. With the make-up of the 70th congress virtually complete, the democrats have captured seven of the nine places constituting the republican majority in the senate, thus leaving the balance of power there in the little group of insurgents elected under the republican banner. By taking 13 seats so far from the republicans in the house, the democrats have brought about an alignment under which the insurgent group there might be able to take the upper hand in the working control of that body.
PRISON KEEPER AND 3 CONVICTS ARE SLAIN IN FIGHT FOR LIBERTY
NEW YORK, Nov. 3. - (AP) - Four men were killed today and three were wounded when the yard of famous old Tombs prison was turned into a battleground as three desperate criminals attempted to shoot their way to freedom. All the prisoners were killed, but before they died they killed a prison keeper, wounded another, and shot Warden Peter Mallon below the heart. The dead: Peter A. Mallon, warden; Hyman Amberg, charged with murder; Oliver Glantz, charged with robbery, and Jeremiah Murphy, keeper.
SEEK BURIAL PLACE FOR J. BARLEYCORN
NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 3. - (AP) - A burial place for John Barleycorn is hard to find in New Orleans. After a search of several days for a fitting spot for the obsequies over $300,000 worth of liquor, the accumulation of evidence during the past three years, United States Marshal Victor Loisel today was informed where a vacant lot could be found for the purpose. A deputy marshal, a prohibition agent and two truck drivers piloting two government truck loaded with whiskey set out in search of the lot. They found it, but this lot, like all others they discovered, was bounded on all sides by signs prohibiting the dumping of garbage or any other refuse. After driving several miles and examining several lots, they found one whose owner consented to the destruction of the liquor on his property provided they would dig a hole and bury the broken containers.
Context
How much power did the insurgents actually gain in the 70th Congress?
The 1926 Senate contests reduced the Republican majority by seven seats, which is the arithmetic behind the AP's statement that Democrats had captured "seven of the nine places" making up that majority. From this the dispatch concluded that the little group of insurgents elected under the Republican banner would decide the chamber. When the 70th Congress actually organized, the margin proved razor-thin: Republicans gained control of the Senate at the end of the first month of the first session only through the vice president's tie-breaking vote. A disputed election narrowed the Republican side further, since the Senate refused to qualify the Pennsylvania Republican winner, William S. Vare, because of charges of corruption and fraud in his election. As for the House, the AP was more tentative, counting 13 Democratic gains "so far" and saying insurgents "might" take working control. In the end both chambers kept Republican majorities, reduced from the previous Congress, and together with President Coolidge the Republicans retained control of the presidency and both houses.
What was the 'famous old Tombs' prison in 1926?
The jail where the fight broke out was New York's City Prison, the second building to carry the nickname "the Tombs." In 1902 the original 1838 building had been replaced by a $1 million city prison with an eight-story Châteauesque facade and conical towers along Centre Street. The AP's phrase "famous old" drew on a long reputation: the institution was well known for corruption and had been the scene of numerous scandals and escapes in its early history. The dispatch itself is inconsistent about the warden. Its lead says all three prisoners died after killing one keeper and shooting Warden Peter Mallon below the heart, which accounts for the four dead it reports. Yet its list of the dead names Mallon, only two of the prisoners, Hyman Amberg and Oliver Glantz, and keeper Jeremiah Murphy. As printed, the two parts of the report cannot both be right.
Why did New Orleans officials have so much seized liquor to destroy?
According to the dispatch, Marshal Victor Loisel's $300,000 stock had piled up as evidence over three years, a sign of how intensively federal agents worked the city. Liquor raids in New Orleans peaked in 1925, when 200 agents uncovered and destroyed more than 10,000 cases of liquor. By December 1926, a month after this story ran, New Orleans had more padlocked speakeasies and saloons illegally selling alcohol than any other city in the nation. The AP's mock funeral for John Barleycorn turns on a practical problem of that campaign: whiskey held for court cases still had to be destroyed somewhere, and the story reports that every vacant lot the officers found was posted against dumping until one owner agreed, on condition that the broken containers be buried.
How did New Orleans regard Prohibition in 1926?
New Orleans was among the least willing places in the country to go dry. Business interests in New Orleans and other southern Louisiana cities opposed Prohibition because of its economic consequences. A 1926 survey of social workers across the country identified New Orleans as the "wettest" city in America, and smugglers brought so many shiploads of illegal liquor into Louisiana that its price actually began to fall. The officers in the AP story, hauling government trucks of confiscated whiskey from lot to lot, were enforcing federal law in that setting, in the same year the city earned its reputation as the nation's wettest.
Original
INSURGENTS TO HOLD BALANCE OF POWER
NEW YORK, Nov. 3. - (AP) - The democratic thrust in the off-year election has made certa in insurgent control of the senate and threatens the domination the republicans have had over the house since the Coolidge landslide two years ago. With the make-up of the 70th congress virtually complete, the democrats have captured seven of the nine places constituting the republican majority in the senate, thus leaving the balance of power there in the little group of insurgents elected under the republican banner. By taking 13 seats so far from the republicans in the house, the democrats have brought about an alignment under which the insurgent group there might be able to take the upper hand in the working control of that body.
PRISON KEEPER AND 3 CONVICTS ARE SLAIN IN FIGHT FOR LIBERTY
NEW YORK, Nov. 3. - (AP) - Four men were killed today and three were wounded when the yard of famous old Tombs prison was turned into a battleground as three desperate criminals attempted to shoot their way to freedom. All the prisoners were killed, but before they died they killed a prison keeper, wounded another, and shot Warden Peter Mallon below the heart. The dead: Peter A. Mallon, warden; Hyman Amberg, charged with murder; Oliver Glantz, charged with robbery, and Jeremiah Murphy, keeper.
SEEK BURIAL PLACE FOR J. BARLEYCORN
NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 3. - (AP) - A burial place for John Barleycorn is hard to find in New Orleans. After a search of several days for a fitting spot for the obsequies over $ 300, 000 worth of liquor, the accumulation of evidence during the past three years, United States Marshal Victor Loisel today was informed where a vacant lot could be found for the purpose. A deputy marshal, a prohibition agent and two truck drivers piloting two government truck loaded with whiskey set out in search of the lot. They found it, but this lot, like all others they discovered, was bounded on all sides by signs prohibiting the dumping of garbage or any other refuse. After drilivng several miles and examining several lots, they found one whose owner consented to the destruction of the liquor on his property provided they would dig a hole and bury the broken containers.
Source: Holding institution