Today -100: July 27, 1924: Of diseased minds, reparations, and hylans

Clarence Darrow tells the Leopold n’ Loeb court that he won’t be arguing legal insanity but that “the boys” – he’s gonna be using that term repeatedly if unsubtly throughout the trial – “have diseased minds and... were not responsible for their acts.”

The US threatens to break off diplomatic relations with Persia unless it arrests those who killed Vice Consul Robert Imbrie and his plus-one, punishes cops and soldiers who were present and failed to intervene (or participated), pay for the warship sent to bring Imbrie’s body home, and attend the putting-the-corpse-on-the-warship ceremony.

NYC Mayor John Hylan says he might run for governor, if progressives want him to. It’s unclear if that means he’d run in the Democratic convention in September or would join La Follette’s Progressives. He’s in California, meeting with William Randolph Hearst, who does not get on with Al Smith or Tammany Hall and may have urged this move on Hylan.

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