Evening Star
- 300 "Reds" Storm Chicago City Hall as Marie Departs
- Italian Flyer Sets 246-Mile Record to Win Schneider Cup
- Bomb Hurts 5 at Game.
The Evening Star of November 14, 1926 followed Queen Marie of Romania to Chicago, where she received the keys to the city from Mayor Dever and the council; after she left by one exit, a bedraggled column of Communists, put at 300 in the headline, forced its way into the Municipal Building and was driven out by police, who arrested several. Frederick R. Neely's dispatch from Norfolk hailed Maj. Mario de Bernardi's Schneider Cup victory at Hampton Roads in a Macchi seaplane as a record-breaking feat and conceded America's first defeat in aircraft design. An AP report from Columbus told how a pre-game mortar bomb at the Ohio State-Michigan game drifted on the wind into a temporary stand and injured five, while four more were hurt in the crush at the gates.
Translation
300 "REDS" STORM CHICAGO CITY HALL AS MARIE DEPARTS
The Queen, sheltered from a dismal rain by her enclosed car, gave no indication if she was aware of the denunciation and proceeded to the city hall, where she was presented to Mayor Dever and the city council, who gave her the keys to the city. As she left the city hall by one exit the bedraggled battalion of Communists, which had marched in disarray up side streets to the building, stormed another door and carried their banners into the Municipal Building, only to find that the target of their barbs had gone. The police beat them back and expelled them from the building, arresting several who resisted.
ITALIAN FLYER SETS 246-MILE RECORD TO WIN SCHNEIDER CUP
NORFOLK, Va., November [?]. — Italy tonight sits on top of the world of seaplane racing, supreme in every respect, and America has bowed low in graceful tribute to a wonderful accomplishment. America has never before conceded defeat in aircraft design and construction. But at the naval air station, Hampton Roads, this afternoon, she handed over the palm of glory to Maj. Mario de Bernardi, who, at the controls of a Macchi-Fiatt seaplane, shattered all existing performances of seaplanes, no matter by whom or where they were made.
BOMB HURTS 5 AT GAME.
COLUMBUS, Ohio, November 13 (AP). — Nine persons were injured at the Ohio Stadium today, five when a mortar bomb fired in the pre-game celebration exploded in the midst of 6,000 people seated on a temporary grand stand at the Ohio State-Michigan game, and four in the crush of humanity about the stadium gates. The bomb, intended to add color and noise to the game, failed to explode in the air and was wafted into the stadium's open end by a strong south wind and burst after it hit the floor planking of the bleachers. It was fired from a mortar.
Context
Queen Marie's 1926 tour and the Greater Romania she represented
The Star shows Marie receiving the keys of Chicago while Communists marched on the city hall, and the reason a visiting queen could draw such hostility lies partly in what she stood for. Marie had been queen consort of Romania since October 1914, and after the First World War she became the public face of an enlarged state: on 1 December 1918 Transylvania united with the Old Kingdom of Romania, following Bessarabia and Bukovina, and Marie went to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference to campaign for international recognition of the enlarged country. Control of Bessarabia had already been a source of tension between Russia and Romania when her marriage to Ferdinand was being arranged in the early 1890s. Her 1926 journey with her children Nicholas and Ileana was a diplomatic tour of the United States, so her appearances in American cities carried political weight. The excerpted Chicago passage records a "denunciation" and the storming of the building but does not give the protesters' stated reasons, so any link to Romanian territorial policy is background supplied by the reader.
American Communism in 1926: a young movement and its defense network
The paper calls the marchers "Reds" and Communists, and the movement they belonged to was still young and embattled. American Communism had emerged in the summer of 1919 and was quickly subjected to systematic legal attack during the First Red Scare. In 1925 Communists created the International Labor Defense as the American section of the Comintern's International Red Aid network, and the study quoted on the ILD's history page treats 1926 as the year International Red Aid became a recognized component of the Comintern's revolutionary strategy, with agitation and propaganda at the center of its work. The excerpted passage names no organization behind the Chicago march, and nothing in this excerpt ties the ILD to it; what this history shows is the organized and Moscow-linked setting in which American Communists operated when Marie arrived in late 1926.
How the Macchi M.39 won at Hampton Roads in 1926
Neely credits de Bernardi with shattering every existing seaplane performance in a "Macchi-Fiatt" machine; the aircraft was the Macchi M.39, designed by the Italian engineer Mario Castoldi specifically to represent Italy in the 1926 Schneider Trophy competition. Three M.39s took part in the contest held at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 13 November 1926. The racer was powered by a Fiat AS.2 V-12 engine with an exceptionally high power-to-weight ratio for its time, and two-thirds of the upper wing surfaces served as surface radiators, giving relatively low-drag cooling. The winning aircraft, MM.76 flown by de Bernardi, set two world speed records that year: the race itself and, four days later on 17 November 1926, a run of 416.618 km/h (258.874 mph) at Hampton Roads. The headline's 246-mile figure is the paper's own statement of the race record; the later run shows that de Bernardi's machine had more speed in reserve than the race demanded.
What followed Italy's 1926 Schneider victory
Neely wrote that Italy sat "on top of the world of seaplane racing," and Italy did build directly on the M.39: Castoldi based his next racer, the Macchi M.52, on its design. The supremacy proved uneven. Italy entered all three M.52s in the 1927 race at Venice on 26 September 1927, and all three suffered engine trouble and failed to finish. In straight-line speed Italy kept advancing: on 30 March 1928 at Venice, de Bernardi flew the single M.52bis to a world speed record of 512.776 km/h. In the 1929 contest, held on 7 September at Calshot off the Isle of Wight, the Italian M.52R finished well behind the winner, a British Supermarine S.6 flown by Richard Waghorn. The triumph the Star celebrated thus opened a period in which Italy and Britain pushed seaplane speeds steadily higher, with the race itself passing to a British machine within three years.
What happened at Ohio Stadium on November 13, 1926
The AP account blames a mortar bomb that failed to burst in the air and was carried by a south wind into the temporary stand, injuring five. Ohio State's own archives add who fired it and why: during the November 13 game a defective pyrotechnic bomb was shot off by the university's military department, and it was supposed to explode overhead and reveal a flag bearing Ohio State's emblem before it instead fell into the temporary bleachers. The archives record three people seriously injured and kept in hospital for an extended period, with several others suffering minor burns to skin and clothing, and the university reimbursed spectators for clothing and medical expenses totalling more than $12,000. The AP's figure of five bomb injuries and the archive's three serious cases are therefore compatible counts of different severity, and the university's payout shows that the institution, not just the crowd, bore the consequences of the stunt.
Original
300 "REDS" STORM CHICAGO CITY HALL AS MARIE DEPARTS
The Queen, sheltered from a dismal rain by her inclosed car, gave no indication if she was aware of the denunciation. and proceeded to the city hall, where she was presented to Mayor Dever and the city council, who gave her the keys to the city. As she left the city hall by one exit the bedraggled battalion of Communists, which had marched in disarray up side streets to the building, stormed another door and carried their banners into the Municipal Building, only to find that the target of their barbs had gone. The police beat them back and expelled them from the building, arresting several who resisted.
ITALIAN FLYER SETS 246-MILE RECORD TO WIN SCHNEIDER CUP
NORFOLK, Va., November [?]. - Italy tonight sits on top of the world of seaplane racing, supreme in every respect, and America has bowed low in graceful tribute to a wonderful accomplishment. America has never before conceded defeat in aircraft design and construction. But at the naval air station, Hampton Roads, this afternoon, she handed over the palm of glory to Maj. Mario de Bernardi, who, at the controls of a Macchi-Fiatt seaplane, shattered all existing performances of seaplanes, no matter by whom or where they were made.
BOMB HURTS 5 AT GAME.
COLUMBUS, Ohio, November 13 (AP). - Nine persons were injured at the Ohio Stadium today, five when a mortar bomb fired in the pre-game celebration exploded in the midst of 6, 000 people seated on a temporary grand stand at the Ohio State-Michigan game, and four in the crush of humanity about the stadium gates. The. bomb, intended to add color and noise to the game, failed to explode in the air and was wafted into the stadium's open end by a strong south wind and burst after it hit the floor planking of the bleachers. It was fired from a mortar.
Source: Holding institution