Today -100: September 12, 1925: Of fraud and insanity and parks

At the International Spiritualist Congress in Paris, at which Arthur Conan Doyle gives a talk, one Mercy Cadwallader from Chicago, whom I assume just based on that name is a medium in a caftan, complains that the persecution of “some of our best mediums, principally in Boston” by Harry Houdini has prevented them holding seances. The Congress adopts a resolution that mediums “should be protected from charges of fraud and insanity.”

Plans for a state park on Long Island encompassing Jones Beech and Fire Island, Robert Moses’ dream, begin, very much against the wishes of the rich locals. It will involve a lot of expensive highway-building to make the beaches accessible.

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