America's labor unions are taking on Prohibition head-on, as the American Federation of Labor descended upon the Senate prohibition committee demanding legalized beer for their 4 million union members. AFL president William Green's representatives, led by William Roberts, challenged the 'drys' to join a referendum movement, arguing that opponents of light wines and beer know they'd lose a popular vote. The heated testimony comes as Senate investigators probe the 'intolerable conditions' under the Volstead Act, with dry advocates set to respond next week. Meanwhile, political drama unfolds as the Senate prepares for a crucial Monday vote on whether insurgent Republican Senator Brookhart of Iowa keeps his seat or gets ousted for Democrat Daniel Steck. The White House is scrambling to deny rumors that President Coolidge prefers Steck over the troublesome Brookhart. Up in Maine, prison labor is heading to the highways as 40 convicts will build roads near Thomaston this summer, while Charles Starbird, dubbed 'the boy wonder of Maine's Democracy' at just 28, announces his congressional run.

This front page captures 1926 America grappling with Prohibition's unintended consequences. Six years after the 'noble experiment' began, organized labor's vocal opposition signals growing cracks in the dry coalition. The AFL's challenge for a referendum reflects mounting pressure from working-class Americans who saw Prohibition as elite moralizing imposed on their communities. The political maneuvering around Senator Brookhart illustrates the era's Republican Party tensions between establishment figures and insurgent progressives who challenged big business. Meanwhile, Maine's experiment with prison road crews reflects the decade's Progressive Era hangover—belief that scientific management and rehabilitation could solve social problems through efficient government programs.

• Triplets born 62 years ago in 1864 suffered their first death—Dana Cluff of Kennebunkport passed away, leaving her sisters Mrs. Thomas Clff of Saco and Mrs. Henry Pennet of Kennebunkport as the surviving pair
• Green Mountain potatoes hit a season-high price of ten dollars a barrel cash to producers at Presque Isle, with only 5,000 carloads (about 15% of the crop) remaining in Aroostook County
• A motorman named William Gray died of a heart attack while operating a Boston elevated car, causing his uncontrolled subway car to crash into another train near Adams Square
• The biggest ice jam on record in New Hampshire's Merrimack River finally broke up, damaging hundreds of feet of dashboards on the Amoskeag Falls—ice hadn't remained this late in 22 years
• The new Hudson Brougham advertised for just $360 down payment with 18 months to pay the balance, accepting trade-ins toward the down payment

• Charles Starbird, the 28-year-old 'boy wonder' running for Congress, was on the first Bates College debate team to travel abroad and debate Oxford University—part of the 1920s craze for international collegiate competitions
• The mention of Senator Wheeler's perjury case involves oil permits—this was part of the Teapot Dome scandal aftermath that would eventually bring down Interior Secretary Albert Fall
• That prison labor road crew represents early experiments in rehabilitation—but by the 1930s, labor unions would successfully lobby to restrict prison-made goods, seeing them as unfair competition
• The Methodist Church's call to recall missionaries from Germany and Scandinavia reflects post-WWI isolationist sentiment, even as America was becoming more internationally connected
• The ice jam breaking in Manchester, New Hampshire was near the Amoskeag Mills—once the world's largest textile manufacturer, it would close just six years later in 1935, marking the end of New England's textile dominance