Today -100: July 28, 1925: Of widows and dried-up friendly sources

Isabelle La Follette, widow of Fightin’ Bob, declines to stand for his vacant Senate seat. Fightin’ Bob Jr. probably will run.

The Italian Foreign Office asks the US ambassador to facilitate the expulsion from Italy of Chicago Tribune reporter George Seldes for writing bad things about Mussolini, including that he was involved in the murder of Giacomo Matteotti. This will be the second country to deport him, after Russia. The Trib protests that censorship of its correspondents will result in it having to get its Italian news from the opposition, “the friendly sources being all dried up.” 

According to his 1987 memoirs Witness to a Century, the train taking Seldes to France (involuntarily) was stopped at the border and a Blackshirt squad entered to beat him up/kill him. He found a compartment with some British admirals who confronted the Blackshirts and saved him.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.