Today -100: July 31, 1924: No joy

Headline of the Day -100:  

Bavaria’s interior minister bans processions & other demonstrations on Constitution Day, August 10th, the anniversary of the adoption of the Weimar constitution. “The Bavarian Government respects the Constitution of the German Republic but derives no pleasure from it,” the proclamation says.

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Today -100: July 30, 1924: Cryin’ Loeb

In the Leopold n’ Loeb trial, State’s Attorney Robert Crowe reverses his plan to have his last witness be one of his assistants, to testify that Loeb was crying before he confessed. He’s afraid of triggering a requirement to have a jury called to assess their sanity. He will also object to the defense introducing alienists, threatening to blow up the boys’ guilty pleas if they’re brought in.

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Today -100: July 29, 1924: Of rebellions, witnesses, fruit packers, and radio

Brazilian government forces recapture São Paulo from the rebels, who mostly escape into the interior.

The Leopold n’ Loeb prosecutor puts on the stand Johnny Levison, a 9-year-old they had intended to be their victim but who took a different route home than usual on the day. He has a whale of a time.

Sacked California fruit packers attacked Japanese who replaced them in Mendocino County. Initial reports in Japan attributed the mob attack to the Ku Klux Klan, but the consul’s investigation doesn’t mention them.

Radio companies say they don’t want to broadcast more than an hour a day of political speeches, or more than 15 minutes per speech.

There are now 534 radio stations in the country, by the way.

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Today -100: July 28, 1924: Super-slow Sunday news day

550,000 people visit Coney Island on a single day, even though the water is quite cold.

Headline of the Day -100:  

The Loyal Order of Moose, not an actual moose.

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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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Today -100: July 26, 1924: Of refugees and kidnappppings

Greece tells 50,000 Armenian refugees that they need to go... somewhere. Somewhere else. The League of Nations is asking Russia to take them.

In the Leopold n’ Loeb trial, State’s Attorney Robert Crowe introduces into evidence a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, purely because its title is spelled with that double P, just like in the ransom notes (“kidnaped” being more common at the time). The judge allows it. It’s going to be that kind of trial.

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Today -100: July 25, 1924: Not to either demagogue or crackpot

William Randolph Hearst publishes a signed letter in his newspapers calling for the Dems to replace Al Smith as their nominee for NY governor in November (also something about water power). Smith replies that he never reads any of Hearst’s papers, which he has banned from state offices, but says when the Democratic Party “needs advice it will go to Democrats for it, and not to either demagogue or crackpot.” In a very NYT move, the article helpfully defines “crackpot” for its readers, noting the word is not in the dictionary. The state Democratic Convention will be held in September and it’s not even clear yet whether Smith will run for re-election. DemoCon is expected to pass a strong anti-Klan plank.

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Today -100: July 24, 1924: We must be intelligent even in our intransigence

Clarence Darrow objects to the prosecution in the Leopold & Loeb trial introducing every detail of the murder of Bobby Franks, given that they are pleading guilty. He says the prosecutor’s address is “utterly incompetent [meaning irrelevant] and meant only to appeal to the passions of men.”

Mussolini pushes “reforms” through the Grand Council of the Fascismo, including the expulsion of “undesirables,” “good-for-nothings,” and “all those who love violence for violence’s sake,” as he refers to them. But who would that leave? He wants greater discipline in the party: “We must be intelligent even in our intransigence, for the Fascistization of Italy must surely come, but it must come gradually and cannot be forced.”

At the Olympics in Paris, Italian fencer Oreste Puliti is banned after trying to provoke a duel with the Hungarian fencing judge.

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Today -100: July 23, 1924: Of Ford v. the demon liquor, sieges, and thwarted lynchings

Henry Ford has notices posted in his plants that he will fire any employee with liquor on his breath or who keeps liquor in their home.

The Brazilian army is still bombarding São Paulo after more than a week.

Illinois Gov. Len Small sends the state militia to Mounds City to stop a lynching of two black prisoners held in the jail for killing a, I’m just gonna guess here, white woman.

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Today -100: July 22, 1924: Of killers, serial killers, killer mobs, and Russian divorces

Leopold n’ Loeb plead guilty to killing Bobby Franks, on the theory that they’d be better off having their fates determined by a judge who might be convinced by evidence of insanity than by one of those notoriously blood-thirsty Chicago juries. Their lawyer Clarence Darrow says no one thinks they should be released but rather they should be permanently isolated from society. He’ll now be in the tricky position of having to convince a judge not to execute them because of insanity after they have pleaded guilty, which insane people aren’t allowed to do.

Hanover serial killer Fritz Haarmann is charged with 17 murders. Haarmann is called “strangely psychotic” by government criminologist Dr. (ahem) Kopp. In addition to “M,” which was partly inspired by Haarmann, there’s a movie, Der Totmacher, that consists solely of the psychiatric interrogations, although not by Dr. (ahem) Kopp. It’s... intense (By sheer coincidence I just watched that movie about Haarmann, the Vampire of Hanover, right after an episode of the Spanish sci-fi show The Ministry of Time which was about a Spanish serial killer called the Vampire of Barcelona).

Persia apologizes for the killing by a Tehran mob of US vice consul Robert Imbrie, but it seems that police and soldiers were part of that mob, as shown by a sabre cut on his head.

Soviet Russia introduces the 5-minute, $1.50 divorce (if uncontested). Grounds for divorce include desertion, religious superstition, and differing political views. No one can get divorced and remarried more than 3 times a year, so pace yourself, guys.

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Today -100: July 21, 1924: They will plan to whoop things up

German republicans (but predominantly Social Democrats) form The Reichsbanner, an organization with a paramilitary wing to fight monarchism.

This will be the first election in the US in which radio plays a significant part, and there are many theories about how that will work. La Follette, for example, says it will stop reactionary newspapers lying about speeches radio listeners will have heard themselves. The NYT thinks radio won’t be that important because that’s not what people want from the radio and they’ll just switch off when speeches by people from parties other than own come on. Public meetings will still be the preferred venue because they provide the collective fervor of an audience, the spectacle of banners and bands, etc: “The political generals do not want the voters to keep cool and be too critical. They will plan to whoop things up, and it cannot be done to any great extent by broadcasting speeches.”

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Today -100: July 20, 1924: But not a Wall Street Democrat

The Allies’ conference on the Dawes Plan agrees to let France retain its right of independent action, for example to keep invading the Ruhr or wherever it wants to do to Germany whenever it wants.

The Catholic Church in France will refuse sacraments to women showing cleavage. Or elbows.

H. Grindell Matthews says he’s going blind due to his experiments with his Diabolical Ray, which is not a euphemism and that’s not what he calls his penis and please stop calling it a death ray, he says (well, he says some of that). He seems hurt by all the criticism of his fraud, but he can’t spill the details by applying for a patent. He promises that some day he’ll release the information that will convince electrical experts that he has “discovered a new force.” He says it could stun entire armies or cities. Gosh.

Burton Wheeler agrees to be La Follette’s running mate, saying “I am a Democrat, but not a Wall Street Democrat.”

The Bavarian state legislature hears a motion to prevent Jews holding government posts, buying land, teaching high school, or changing their names to disguise their Jewishness. It would expel any Jews who moved to Bavaria since 1914 and confiscate their property.

Australia tells Britain that it doesn’t want its citizens being given British knighthoods & suchlike. Canada did this 5 years ago.

A black man accused of attempting to assault a white woman is lynched in Scooba, Mississippi.

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Today -100: July 19, 1924: Purely ephemeral

The US vice consul in Tehran, Major Robert Imbrie, is beaten to death by a mob enraged at his taking photos of a sacred well where a miracle had supposedly taken place (a blind man’s sight restored) and women are present. Or maybe the Persians thought he was Bahai. Or that he’d poisoned the well. Or the mob was provoked by the government so they would kill a foreigner and give it an excuse to crack down. Or something. Imbrie’s diplomatic career included arriving in Russia just in time for the Bolshevik revolution, fleeing a death sentence the next year, and having a price put on his head in Turkey.

The Progressives name Democratic Sen. Burton K. Wheeler of Montana as Fightin’ Bob La Follette’s running mate, although Wheeler hasn’t said whether he’ll accept. Since Wheeler is mostly known for running the Teapot Dome investigation, it’s clear the campaign intends to run on the issue of Republican corruption.

William Butler, chair of the Republican National Committee, says Teapot Dome “is not much of an issue. It is purely ephemeral.”

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Today -100: July 18, 1924: But she does it unwittingly

Pres. Coolidge will not go on the stump, but will campaign entirely over the radio.

The British House of Lords discusses admitting women peeresses. Lord Banbury of Southam reminds the Lords: “You must remember that men and women are different, and you cannot prevent a woman in the House of Commons exercising the privilege of her sex which she has been accustomed to exercise. You cannot treat her as an equal. I do not for a moment say that she, by malice prepense, exercises that fascination which a woman exercises over man, but she does it unwittingly.” Women won’t be allowed to exercise that fascination in the Lords until 1958.

Pope Pius will offer a medal to whichever Catholic Women’s Diocesan Club comes up with the best modest fashion for women’s clothing.

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Today -100: July 17, 1924: De Valera & Einstein, together again

Éamon de Valera is out of prison. He spent the last year studying math, especially Einsteinian theory.

Klan-backed Judson Transue is elected mayor of Flint, Michigan.

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Today -100: July 16, 1924: Exhibit A

The Irish Free State will free Éamon de Valera and other political prisoners.

The US embassy in Brazil overrules its consul in Santo’s call for warships to be sent. The Brazilian government is arresting army officers it thinks might be sympathetic to the rebellion.

At the murder trial in Mays Landing, New Jersey, of Pearl Willard and her boarder, former NYPD cop John Gilles, for the killing of her 5-month-old daughter, the actual for-fuck’s-sake corpse is brought into the courtroom for the jury and everybody to see, ostensibly for identification purposes since Mrs Willard denies that was her child. No one can remember this happening before.

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Today -100: July 15, 1924: Very normal

Very Normal Headline of the Day -100:  

 

Fritz Haarmann, the serial killer known as the Butcher of Hanover, had an accomplice (lover, I think) in the used-clothing business, Hans Grans, which is a fun name, I guess. Grans was in it for the used clothes (best not to think about Haarmann being a literal butcher, who illicitly sold mystery ground “beef”).

NY General Sessions Judge George Washington Olvany is the new head of Tammany Hall.

The Brazilian army is shelling São Paulo, which is still occupied by rebel troops.

H.L. Mencken, in the Baltimore Evening Sun: “There is something about a national convention that makes it as fascinating as a revival or a hanging. It is vulgar, it is ugly, it is stupid, it is tedious, it is hard upon both the higher cerebral centers and the gluteus maximus, and yet it is somehow charming. One sits through long sessions wishing heartily that all the delegates and alternates were dead and in hell—and then suddenly there comes a show so gaudy and hilarious, so melodramatic and obscene, so unimaginably exhilarating and preposterous that one lives a gorgeous year in an hour.”

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Today -100: July 14, 1924: How many statues were ever erected in the US for black World War I soldiers?

France opens a monument in Rheims to its black colonial (mostly Senegalese) troops.

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Today -100: July 13, 1924: Honorable & reasonable

Egyptian Premier Saad Zaghloul is wounded in an assassination attempt. The would-be-assassin, a student, says Zaghloul had called the British Parliament honorable and reasonable.

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Today -100: July 12, 1924: Mr. Gracious

William Gibbs McAdoo is backed into a corner and finally endorses John W. Davis, at Will Rogers’ Follies of all places. He’s in the audience and Rogers points him out, so he’s forced to stand up and say “now that the convention is over we must all get together and make sure that we elect a Democrat.” Still can’t bring himself to utter Davis’s name. The next day he does meet Davis, but he won’t say what they talked about or whether he’ll support the Davis-Bryan ticket; he says he’ll answer that before he sails for Europe tomorrow – if he has time.

Fritz Haarmann, the Hanover serial killer, says he deserves to be executed. He can’t remember the names of all his victims: “You see, they came so fast that I really did not have a good chance to get well acquainted with them” before chopping them to bits and dumping the bits into the river.

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Today -100: July 11, 1924: Maybe it’s just the friends you meet along the way

John W. Davis says he first met his running mate, Gov. Charles Bryan, at this convention, and hasn’t spoken to him since the nomination.

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Today -100: July 10, 1924: Future trivia quiz answer nominated for president!

On the 103rd ballot, the Democrat National Convention selects former ambassador to Britain John W. Davis as its presidential candidate after William Gibbs McAdoo and Gov. Alfred E. Smith withdraw.

Davis, from West Virginia, is the first presidential candidate from the South since the Civil War. He is Presbyterian. His campaign supposedly cost just $5,000.

Davis is informed of his nomination by his wife, who heard it on the radio while he was out having a smoke.

The withdrawal of Smith & McAdoo should have been an emotional high point, the NYT says, but “McAdoo withdrew so reluctantly and ambiguously and hedged his renunciation with so many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ and ‘ands’ that the emotional value of that turning point was dissipated.”

Smith volunteers to campaign for Davis, and McAdoo... is going to Europe on vacation for two months. He sends a one-sentence telegram to Davis and... that’s it. He refuses to talk to reporters. Smith is just happy that he was able to block McAdoo.

Incidentally, everyone in the Convention seems to love Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Smith’s campaign manager.

The Democratic National Convention chooses as Davis’s running mate Gov. Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska (the brother of William Jennings Bryan, who’s been fighting the Davis candidacy tooth and nail) with little fuss and only one ballot at 2:30 in the morning, after a brief boom for Sen. Thomas Walsh (Montana), who led the Teapot Dome investigation. Walsh declined to accept what he basically called a demotion.

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Today -100: July 9, 1924: 88 to 100

Al Smith & William Gibbs McAdoo meet secretly at the Ritz-Carlton. Smith hectors his rival to withdraw, at least we assume that since neither man will reveal what they said to each other.

During the Convention’s evening session, Al Smith’s campaign manager Franklin Delano Roosevelt announces that Smith will drop out if McAdoo does. Hours later, McAdoo releases his delegates, but that is not quite the same as withdrawing. In the meantime, the McAdooites make an intensive effort to regain the lead, which they do in the 94th ballot, helped by Sen. Samuel Ralston withdrawing from the race, er, again. Many of the remaining 15 candidates are jockeying to become the compromise candidate should Smith & McAdoo both withdraw. Ralston had been a favorite comp-can.

In the 100th ballot, the last of the day, McAdoo, whose support has been bouncing up and down all day, drops to 190 (he started the day at 315 and went as high as 421), putting him at 3rd place behind John W. Davis at 203, with Smith at 351½.

After that ballot, William Jennings Bryan attempts to speak, but is jeered down.

Incidentally, FDR “was escorted to the rostrum”. That story doesn’t mention why he might need assistance. I was pondering how the NYT keeps alluding unnecessarily to his disability like that, in a way which will pass right over the heads of readers who don’t know about it, before I saw another story that does mention his crutches.

The Socialist Party condemns –  by name – the Ku Klux Klan and “every other effort to divide the workers on racial or religious lines, and to effect political purposes by secret or terroristic methods.”

Calvin Coolidge’s father heard of the death of his grandson on the radio (he has a radio but not a phone).

Germans are super-pissed that Friedrich “Fritz” Haarmann, the serial killer known as the Butcher of Hanover, among other sobriquets, wasn’t caught long ago. And he certainly should have been. So far he’s confessed to butchering 14 boys. There were more.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: July 8, 1924: 78 to 87

Calvin Coolidge Jr. dies. From a blister. Seven doctors were working on him, one of whom was knocked unconscious for a bit after an oxygen tank exploded.

At the Democratic National Convention, there’s finally some movement. Over the day’s 10 ballots, McAdoo’s support drops from 511 to 333½, losing Nevada, Missouri, Iowa and Kansas, while Al Smith, whose support remains steadily in the 360s, surpasses McAdoo for the first time on the 86th ballot and ends the day at 361½. John W. Davis starts the day at 73½ and ends at 66½. I think some of the drop in McAdoo votes can be attributed to resentment of his resistance to any proposal to break the stalemate. Delegates just want to go home.

By the way, James Cox and  Sen. Samuel Ralston, who withdrew 3 days ago, are back in the race.

The Socialist Party throws its weight behind Robert La Follette and won’t run its own candidate.

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Today -100: July 7, 1924: With every drop of blood in my body, I am with you to the end in this thing

Calvin Coolidge Jr., world’s most middle-aged 16-year-old,

is not doing well at all.

An attempted coup by junior army officers in Brazil captures São Paulo.

A proposal to release DNC delegates from their instructions & pledges is supported by all the presidential candidates except McAdoo, who vetoes it and instead suggests abolishing the unit rule (states vote as a bloc), nominating by a simple majority, and dropping the bottom candidate after each ballot. His opponents all reject those ideas.

McAdoo tells supporters at the Hotel Commodore, “With every drop of blood in my body, I am with you to the end in this thing.”

Headline of the Day -100 (and so many other days, really):  

Not meaning a presidential candidate, but someone who could knock heads together, like Boss Murphy of Tammany Hall, except he died a couple of months ago.

Thomas Hardwick, former governor & US senator from Georgia, says the reason he is running for Senate again is that a delegation from the Klan (which orchestrated his defeat for reelection as governor in 1922) intimidated state Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Russell into not running himself. Harkwick calls incumbent Sen. William Harris a messenger-boy for the Klan.

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Today -100: July 6, 1924: 71 to 77

Over the course of the 7 ballots held at the Democratic National Convention yesterday (Saturday), William Gibbs McAdoo drops from 528 to 513 and Al Smith’s support increases from 333 to 367. A proposal by Sen. Tom Taggart of Indiana that a conference of reps from the 16 candidates meet and try to work something out is accepted. Seeing that holding ballot after ballot after ballot isn’t doing anything, many delegates, “hollow-eyed and weary,” are yearning for “strong men” to take control of the selection process.

The Conference for Progressive Political Action endorses Robert La Follette for president but leaves it up to its National Committee to select a running mate.

Calvin Coolidge Jr. is operated on to drain... you know, let’s just skip the details, they’re icky.

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Today -100: July 5, 1924: 62 to 70

The Democratic National Convention holds ballots 62 to 70. William Gibbs McAdoo’s support grows from 469 to 528½, Al Smith barely moves from 338½ to 334½. The delegates are “unhappy, confused and disposed to be morose”.

Al Smith’s people propose that all the presidential candidates be allowed to address the Convention. McAdoo’s people, fearing the spectators’ home-town bias for their governor, oppose this idea, and while the proposal is changed to exclude the audience and have the speeches in executive session, it gets a majority but not the necessary 2/3. A second motion to allow just Smith to speak – as the governor of the state hosting the Convention, certainly not as a candidate, perish the thought – is likewise defeated, even though William Jennings Bryan was allowed to speak earlier for some reason. This so pisses off the Smithafarians that later McAdoo in a letter asks the Convention to let Smith speak, but it is ruled out of order. The Smithistas are thinking about hiring Carnegie Hall so he can make a speech to which delegates could come.

McAdoo sends Bernard Baruch & Thomas Chadbourne to Al Smith to politely request that he quit. He does not.

However, two of the dark horses do withdraw: James Cox, the Dem. nominee in 1920, and  Sen. Samuel Ralston, who seems to have never wanted his name entered in the first place. He cites the attribution by many of a connection between himself and the Klan, which he says doesn’t exist, as a reason to withdraw in order to facilitate a “harmonious solution”.

On the 68th ballot, Will Rogers gets a vote from Arizona.

The Fourth is also Pres. Coolidge’s 52nd birthday, but the Coolidges don’t do birthdays, so no cake. Also, Calvin Coolidge Jr. is unwell. The 16-year-old got a blister on his foot playing tennis without socks and now has blood poisoning.

The Ku Klux Klan holds a Fourth of July “Tri-State Klorero” with 20,000 attendees in Long Branch, New Jersey, mostly to demonstrate against Al Smith – a speaker says there will only ever be Protestant presidents & vice presidents. For a nickel, you can throw 3 baseballs at an effigy of Smith, if that’s your kink.

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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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Today -100: July 3, 1924: 31 to 42

The British Cabinet decides against building a Channel tunnel.

The Conference for Progressive Political Action will open on the 4th in Cleveland and will create a 3rd party called the Progressive Party (which was the official name of Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party), which will nominate Fightin’ Bob La Follette for president. Now we hear officially that he will (gasp) accept. The Progressives don’t have a consensus on Fightin’ Bob’s running mate, but Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis seems favored.

The Georgia Lege rejects the proposed constitutional amendment to regulate child labor by 170-3. “State’s rights,” you know. Viola Napier, one of the two women in the House, votes for it. The state senate will reject it unanimously tomorrow.

The Democratic Convention holds presidential ballots 31 through 42. Al Smith’s support remains quite steady, holding between 310 and 323 votes all day, ending at 318. McAdoo recovers, reaching 503. John W. Davis sinks back into double figures.

William Jennings Bryan, a member of the Florida delegation, gives a speech in which he names eight people he thinks would be acceptable presidents – including his brother. In other words, he thinks McAdoo no longer has a chance.

A recount is ordered in the close Maine Republican primary. State Sen. Ralph Brewster claims he really won. Brewster is the Klan candidate and ran on a platform of defunding sectarian schools. Spoiler Alert: he will be the next governor (and congresscritter and US senator after that).

Portugese Prime Minister Álvaro de Castro fights a duel (with swords) with Flight Captain Teófilo José Ribeiro. He wins.

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Today -100: July 2, 1924: 16 to 30

In presidential ballots 16 to 30 at the DNC, former ambassador to Britain John W. Davis picks up some votes as the difficulties faced by McAdoo & Al Smith in reaching 2/3 become increasingly clear. McAdoo loses support, including Missouri, starting the day at 478 votes and ending at 415½. Smith gains achingly slowly, from 305½ to 323½. Davis has 126½ at the 30th ballot. William Jennings Bryan is telling anyone who’ll listen that the party can’t nominate a Wall Street lawyer like Davis, who has worked for J.P. Morgan (could be worse lawyering; in his last case in 1954 Davis defended segregation in the South Carolina part of Brown v. Board of Education).

28 people are sentenced to 2 years for participating in the Lilly, Pennsylvania fight between Klansmen and townies last April.

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Today -100: July 1, 1924: Sitting pretty on top of the world

Coolidge wants to cut the budget by another $83 billion. “I am for economy. After that I am for more economy.”

The DC Federal Grand Jury indicts former interior secretary Albert Fall and oil tycoons Harry Sinclair, Edward Doheny & Edward Doheny Jr. for bribery (or receiving a bribe, in Fall’s case) and conspiracy to defraud the US in the Teapot Dome/Elk Hills oil leases.

The Democratic National Convention holds its first 15 ballots for president. McAdoo is ahead with 479 votes, but well shy of a majority, much less the 2/3 (732 votes) he needs. Al Smith, far behind with 305½, says he’s “sitting pretty on top of the world.” Kansas switches to McAdoo, New Jersey to Al Smith.

The NYT points out that William Jennings Bryan, while objecting to the introduction of a religious question into politics in his speech favoring not mentioning the Klan by name, has himself been trying to get state legislatures to ban the teaching of evolution.

The New York law requiring motorists and motorcyclists to have a driving license, following an examination, by October 1st, goes into effect. There will also be a minimum speed limit of 12 mph in cities other than NY, Rochester and Buffalo. Standards are set for headlamps, trucks have to have rear-view mirrors. It is illegal not to stop on a signal from someone driving a horse.

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