Keith Star Starts Fund to Feed Pigeons and Squirrels

From The Indianapolis Star, Wednesday, January 13, 1926:  Recognizing that pigeons in University Square must eat and there isn’t much nourishment in snowflakes, dancer Alma Neilson, this week’s headliner at Keith’s Theater, after visiting the park yesterday morning with four pounds of cracked corn which disappeared with such rapidity that no one could doubt that the birds were hungry, has turned over $10 (2024:  $181) to R. Walter Jarvis, park board superintendent, as a start toward establishing a pigeon feeding fund.  The pigeons are municipal pets, and during warm weather they never lack refreshment from park visitors, but in the winter the commissary gets extremely low.  Custodian Charles Hess will use part of the funds to buy nuts for the squirrels, too.  Even the thriftiest of these University Square creatures can’t manage to lay up much against a rainy day.  

“Keith Star Starts Fund to Feed Pigeons and Squirrels,” The Indianapolis Star, 13 January 1926, p. 10:5

County Democrats Propose Political Klan Elimination

From The Indianapolis Star, Thursday, January 7, 1926:  Four hundred precinct committeepersons, ward chairs, and other prominent members of the Marion County Democratic Party adopted resolutions last evening pledging to fight to eliminate the Ku Klux Klan from controlling politics in the county.  The resolutions called upon, “all fair-minded citizens regardless of past political affiliations to join in eliminating the Ku Klux Klan and its leaders from all political control in Marion County [and to] resist all efforts of the Klan to nominate candidates in the Democratic primary or to control the Democratic organization.” It was understood veteran party leader Thomas Taggart thoroughly approved and the weight of Marion County with its big block of delegates will make a bitter fight at the coming Democratic state convention against “pussyfooting” on the adoption of an anti-Klan plank in the party platform.

“County Democrats Propose Political Klan Elimination,” The Indianapolis Star, 7 January 1926, p. 1:2

Forty Dry Raids Made Here

From The Indianapolis Times, Tuesday, December 29 1925:  “Indiana must be dried up” was the ultimatum and for the first time federal prohibition agents concentrated on Indianapolis today.  The biggest liquor raid in the city’s history saw federal officers, deputy sheriffs, and police bust into poolrooms, soft drink parlors, dry beer saloons, drug stores, rooming houses, and private homes with warrants for the arrest of sixty-five persons.  Prisoners were taken to the county jail where friends, relatives, and bondsmen soon appeared asking to see the arrestees but were refused.  Bond may be arranged when the prisoners appear in Criminal Court.  Maximum sentences of six months on the State Farm and $500 (2024:  $9,133) fines will be sought by Prosecutor William Remy. The raids were the culmination of federal agents working secretly for six weeks gathering evidence after months of preparation.

“Forty Dry Raids Made Here,” The Indianapolis Times, 29 December 1925, p. 1:7