Today -100: July 12, 1910: Of fight pictures and lynchings

In NY, a theater advertising “Pictures of the Jeffries-Johnson Fight” is wrecked after patrons discover that this meant not moving pictures but snapshots.

That theater was charging 25¢, but when the movies do finally arrive Monday, tickets may be as much as $1 or $2 (which has the perceived advantage of pricing most blacks out of the audience). For just the fight movies, no additional features.

Ohio Governor Judson Harmon removes the mayor and sheriff of Newark for failing to prevent the lynching of Carl Etherington. The new mayor then fires the police chief and a captain, for failing to enforce the county’s prohibition law. Two men are arrested in connection with the lynching. Rather suspiciously, both are black men, one of them a mute. I smell scapegoat.