Today -100: July 4, 1924: 43 to 61

No significant movement in Democratic Convention presidential ballots 43 through 61: McAdoo drops 20 votes, to 469. Smith gains 16, ending at 335. Various states changed their preferred candidate over the course of the day. No end in sight, delegates losing will to live and have run through their expense money and are getting eyestrain from the Garden’s arc lights. Sen. Samuel Ralston (Ind.) cracks 100 for the first time, displacing John W. Davis as #3, before sinking again in the night-time ballots to 37, like riding the world’s most boring rollercoaster.

The McAdoo camp insists the deadlock is the fault of the favorite sons, i.e. everyone who isn’t Smith or McAdoo, and they should all just pull out pronto. Others are suggesting it should be McAdoo who withdraws.

Mussolini’s Blackshirts will swear a new oath to the king, replacing their old oath to The Duck personally. And if... an oath... doesn’t remove the threat of dictatorial rule backed by a personal militia, I don’t know what would.

Giacomo Puccini is finishing up his opera Turandot, which he says will premiere not in Milan, where audiences hissed Madame Butterfly, but at the Met in New York next year. Actually, he’ll die before completing it.

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