Political scandal rocks Indiana as Governor Jackson's son-in-law, Norman Beatty, faces dismissal from his $100-a-month job as state bacteriologist. The State Health Board ordered Secretary Dr. William F. King to stop paying Beatty's salary, but King defiantly declared the 'ultimatum will not be acted on' and that Jackson's relative will keep his job. The bitter factional battle centers on charges that the governor forced King to hire Beatty, a part-time employee who attends Indiana University Medical School while working early mornings and Sundays. Meanwhile, a brutal cold wave gripped Indianapolis, plunging temperatures to 3 degrees above zero at 8 a.m. — the coldest day of 1926. Two residents were injured in weather-related accidents, including 83-year-old Mrs. Elizabeth French who fractured her hip slipping in snow near Broad Ripple, and 18-year-old Miss Gertrude Moffett who slipped under a truck's wheels and may have suffered a fractured skull.

This page captures the messy political machinery of 1920s America, where family connections and patronage jobs sparked public battles over government integrity. The nepotism scandal reflects the era's ongoing tension between old-style political favoritism and Progressive Era demands for merit-based civil service. Meanwhile, the agricultural crisis brewing in the background — with farmers meeting in Washington about surplus crops and banks like State Savings reducing capital due to plummeting farm values — foreshadowed the economic troubles that would soon engulf rural America and eventually contribute to the Great Depression.

• The Indianapolis Times was paying readers $1 for each recipe submitted and printed — about $17 in today's money for sharing your grandmother's apple pie recipe
• Rudolph Valentino's wife Natcha Hambova was seeking divorce in Paris but pinning her hopes on Indiana law since they married at Crown Point — the notorious 'marriage mill' where couples could wed quickly
• A 33-year-old 'insurgent' named Gerald P. Nye won his contested Senate seat by just two votes (41-39) — he would later become famous for investigating the munitions industry before World War II
• Standard Oil raised gasoline prices in Ohio from 21 to 22 cents per gallon but kept Indiana prices unchanged — that's about $3.50 per gallon in today's money

• That young Senator Gerald P. Nye who barely won his seat would become one of America's most influential isolationists, leading the 'Nye Committee' investigations in the 1930s that convinced many Americans that bankers and arms dealers had dragged the country into World War I
• Crown Point, Indiana, where Valentino married, was America's 'Gretna Green' — a marriage mill where couples could wed instantly with no waiting period, attracting eloping celebrities and desperate lovers from across the Midwest
• The State Savings and Trust Company's 50% capital reduction due to failing farm mortgages was an early warning sign — by 1929, over 5,000 rural banks would fail as agricultural depression preceded the stock market crash
• That bitter January cold snap came from the same weather pattern that would bring the devastating 1926 Miami hurricane later that year — the first hurricane to cause over $100 million in damage