Strange Times 186: Bathing Suits Start Riot

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Today we have tales of summer fun gone horribly wrong. Strip naked and bludgeon a lifeguard on…

July 5, 1921

• Speaking at a Fourth of July celebration, Senator Philander Chase Knox cautions the crowd against the lure of “untried ideas” and theories of government imported from the old world.

• It is revealed that President Wilson’s famous war message was not written in the Oval Office, but while he sat on his porch in a bathrobe, “sipping milk and munching crackers.”

• Asserting that lax parenting turns children into felons, Judge Talley warns a gathering of the Knights of Columbus that without “the only kind of discipline that would do any good,” the nation’s children are doomed.

• Discouraged by the heat, less than 20,000 appear for the anti-dry parade, marching past Mayor Hylan “wet mostly with perspiration.”

• The deposed Kaiser Wilhelm bars his family members, many of whom are hard up for cash, from appearing in motion pictures.

• Admitting that he did not sing on his transatlantic voyage, instead allowing his voice to be played on phonograph, the ailing Enrico Caruso confesses a fear that the power of his voice has deserted him forever.

• The Weather: Partly cloudy and cooler today; Wednesday, cloudy; moderate northeast and east winds.

A classic 1920s news item that provides only questions and no answers. I think there’s a movie here, folks.

LOS ANGELES, Cal., July 4.—Fights over bathing suits developed into a riot at the crowded beach near Santa Monica, a suburb, today.

Forces from the Sheriff’s office soon quelled the disturbance.

This article was riddled with typos, presumably because the mild-mannered occupant of the copy desk had been sent into an erotic frenzy at the thought of “naked roughs” thundering into battle with a gang of valiant lifeguards.

A gang of roughs undressed about 200 feet from the boathouse of United States Volunteer Life Saving Corps Station 3, on the Harlem River, in East Chester, yesterday afternoon while the life savers were entertaining their wives and friends at a dance. Protests to the naked bathers were unavailing, and Captain Schnell led his men in an attempt to rout them. The bathers, who were returning from a baseball game, resisted with bats and missiles, and Schnell, three of his men and a boy, who found himself in the midst of the combatants, were injured.

The captain escaped with minor bruises, but the boy, Fred Dousley of 1789 Undercliff Avenue, was taken home by an ambulance surgeon who feared he might have a fractured skull, while John Fink, Henry O’Brian and Jeremiah Coffey, all life guards, went to Fordham Hospital, Coffey with internal injuries, O’Brian with a ruptured kidney and Fink with a battered face and minus some teeth. Reserves from the Highbridge station arrived too late to arrest the bathers who fled after their victory.

This entire issue was incident after incident of terrible things happening because of fireworks or parades or the beach. The Times wants you to know, folks, that summer kills.

DENVER, Col., July 4.—Robert Knott, 55, a wealthy real estate operator, dropped dead in Denver’s business quarter today, when a giant firecracker exploded at his feet.

Nervous shock was believed to have been responsible for his death.

This story is a literal example of burying the lede—they wait until the last paragraph to inform us that neighbors of the exploded house think the fire was probably set deliberately by someone who was annoyed that a fireworks factory had moved into the area. I am all for hating your neighbors, but if you think that a building full of explosives is bad for the area you probably shouldn’t set it on fire!

With a roar that could be heard several miles away, fireworks exploded yesterday afternoon in a one-store frame building on Sunnyside Avenue, North Bergen, N.J. It was one of a group of small buildings used for the storage of explosives by Joseph Barnabey of 5181 Hudson Boulevard, North Bergen, manufacturer and dealer in fireworks, principally aerial bombs.

The explosion blew the roof 200 feet and started a fire which spread to an adjoining building, doing dmaage to the plant estimated at $4,000. Pieces of burning wood, blown upon the roofs of nearby houses, kept the North Bergen firemen busy putting out incipient fires. No one was injured, but it was estimated that the damage to homes would be $4,000.

Neighbors said that they believed the explosion was of incendiary origin, as the fireworks plant had been considered an unwelcome addition to the neighborhood.