Today -100: August 5, 1910: Of electric poles, bomb-throwing aeroplanes, bribery, and unintelligent policemen

Kinky Headline of the Day -100: “Electric Pole Kills Pleasure Seeker.”

Alarming Headline of the Day -100: “A Bomb-Throwing Aeroplane; C.B. Harmon to Try It Out at Garden City on Sunday.”

A civil war may have started in Spain, in Navarre and the Basque country.

The blind Sen. Thomas Gore of Oklahoma (Gore Vidal’s grandfather) testifies to the House committee investigating his accusation that a bribe was offered him to stop opposing a scheme to manipulate the sale of Indian lands to generate enormous fees. Gore says that the guy who offered him the bribe said that Vice President James Sherman was involved.

NYC Mayor Gaynor tells reporters what he learned by visiting the Night Court yesterday: “What I saw convinced me that the only necessity for the night court is for the prompt discharge of persons stupidly or unjustly arrested by stupid or vicious policemen”. Indeed, some of those he saw were, he claims, arrested to extort money. Children were arrested for playing, men for quarreling who should simply have been separated, men for talking “in a loud and boisterous manner,” several people for drinking out of a can. Gaynor repeatedly calls the police who made such arrests “stupid” or “unintelligent.” The night after Gaynor’s visit, there were a lot fewer cases brought to the night court.