The Communist Party's Daily Worker leads with furious labor battles erupting across New York City. Greek furriers marched in defiance against their own ethnic newspaper, the Greek National Herald, after it urged them to abandon their union and break the fur workers' strike. Fifteen protesters were arrested when police intervened. Meanwhile, a shocking kidnapping scandal rocks the fur industry: union officials rescued eight workers who had been held prisoner for three weeks at an isolated farmhouse in Spring Valley, New York, by the Ratners' Sons manufacturing firm, complete with armed guards preventing their escape. Senators Robert La Follette and Frank Walsh are hammering President Coolidge's administration for defending the "bread trust" — a food monopoly they claim rigged the 1924 election. In China, warlord Chang Tso Lin's planes are bombing Peking as foreign powers fail to negotiate a ceasefire. And in a bizarre aviation story, the Lawson Aircraft Company in New Jersey claims to be building the world's largest airplane, seating 100 passengers with the revolutionary ability to pick up and drop off passengers mid-flight.

This snapshot captures 1926 America at a crossroads between old and new. The labor battles reflect the massive industrial strikes of the mid-1920s, as workers fought for basic rights while employers used increasingly desperate tactics — including literal kidnapping — to break unions. The Communist Party's Daily Worker was one of the few publications highlighting these stories that mainstream papers often ignored. Meanwhile, the aviation story represents the era's wild technological optimism, when anything seemed possible in the skies. The China coverage shows America's growing international concerns as the country emerged as a global power, watching instability in Asia with new strategic interest.

• The Lawson Aircraft Company claimed their 100-passenger plane would weigh 50 tons and have 10 propellers — 7 in regular use and 3 as backup reserves
• Benjamin Eisenberg was lured to the Spring Valley prison shop three weeks earlier by Ratners' Sons representatives who promised he could leave anytime, then threatened him when he tried to return home
• Noble guards from the Vatican Army will visit the United States for the first time in history to escort holy sacrament to Chicago for the Eucharistic Congress
• The Ontario Labor Party's constitution prevents the Communist expulsion question from being raised again for three years after their 116-to-56 vote
• North Dakota's bank examiner Gilbert Semfngson used state machinery to help the Bankers' Association consolidate 14 banks and relocate 11 others in just one year

• Frank Walsh, chairing the anti-monopoly meeting, had been chairman of the federal war labor board — he'd go on to defend Sacco and Vanzetti and become one of America's most famous labor lawyers
• That massive 100-passenger airplane being built in New Jersey? The aviation industry was so experimental in 1926 that Charles Lindbergh's solo Atlantic flight was still a year away
• The Greek National Herald's attempt to split ethnic workers from their unions was a common employer tactic — newspapers often served as mouthpieces for business interests within immigrant communities
• Chang Tso Lin, the Chinese warlord bombing Peking, controlled Manchuria with Japanese backing and would be assassinated by the Japanese in 1928 when he outlived his usefulness
• The Daily Worker's subscription rate of $6 per year outside Chicago equals about $100 today — showing how expensive information was before mass media