Dedicatory Program Opens Station WFBM

From The Indianapolis News, Thursday, March 5, 1925:  WFBM, the Merchants Heat & Light Co radio station, will formally begin broadcasting at 6:30 tonight with a special program transmitted remotely from the Indianapolis Athletic Club.  The program will include selections by the Gus C. Edwards orchestra, playing for the club’s regular dinner and dance crowd, remarks by Mayor Lew Shank and Lt. Gov. Harold Van Orman, and a special musical performance by the Popular Four Quartet and the Schubert Quartet.  WFBM radio will not have a studio but will broadcast from any place in the city by a special telephone connection to the Merchants Heat & Light Co Lenore substation five miles southwest of the city.  One purpose of WFBM is to advertise Indianapolis as the “convention city of America.”  Its use will be free to any person or organization. 

“Dedicatory Program Opens Station WFBM,” The Indianapolis News, 5 March 1925, p. 25:1

D.C. Stephenson Behind Move Which Brought 15 Absent Senators Back

From The Indianapolis Times, Friday, February 27, 1925:  Because of promises by Republican political boss D. C. Stephenson, Indiana Democratic state senators are back in their seats after bolting to Dayton, Ohio over a gerrymander bill that would have made the second Congressional District safely Republican.  Their action denied a senate quorum and left hanging pet measures backed by the Ku Klux Klan.  If the Democratic senators remained on strike and the legislative session adjourned sine die on Monday, March 9, and a special session had to be called to pass the appropriation bill, the Klan leadership saw little chance of getting its legislative program through.  Stephenson promised the Democrats immunity from arrest for bolting and killing of the gerrymander bill, which Lieutenant Governor Van Orman in a signed telegram confirmed he would “do everything in his power” to defeat.    

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“D.C. Stephenson Behind Move Which Brought 15 Absent Senators Back,” The Indianapolis Times, 27 February 1925, p. 1:7

Exposition Building Large Enough, Belief

From The Indianapolis News, Thursday, February 19, 1925:  The state fairground Exposition Building has ample room for the crowds expected to attend the state basketball finals next month without the crowding of aisles and passageways according to authorities.  This determination was expressed following a statement issued yesterday to high school officials by Dixson Byrum, chair of the state industrial board, that they would be subject to prosecution if overcrowding was allowed in halls and auditoriums where basketball games were in progress.  The Exposition Building has actual seating for 13,500 people and, to prevent crowding at the entrances, there is a platform at the north end of the playing court for standing room of an overflow crowd that will hold an additional 6,000.  Mayor Shank assures there will be ample police and fire protection forces on hand to regulate the crowd.   

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“Exposition Building Large Enough, Belief,” The Indianapolis News, 19 February 1925, p. 4:4