A devastating hurricane has slammed Florida's millionaire playground, leaving an estimated 500 to 1,000 dead and wiping out Miami Beach, Hollywood, and Coral Gables with 100-mile-per-hour winds. The communist Daily Worker leads with multiple explosive stories: Illinois labor leader Frank Farrington's sellout to the Peabody Coal Company, the League of Nations plotting a new war against Soviet Russia through a Finnish proposal to financially arm any nation 'attacked' by the Soviets, and American Legion Commander Paul V. McNutt declaring war on pacifism in Indiana. The paper's founder William Z. Foster makes an urgent plea to 'Keep The Daily Worker' alive, calling it 'the sole English daily paper defending the interests of the workers' and warning that 'great fights loom ahead' as trade union bureaucracy moves further right and employers increase pressure on workers.

This September day captures America at a crossroads in 1926 - natural disaster striking the booming Florida real estate bubble while political tensions simmer beneath the surface prosperity. The communist perspective reveals growing international fears about Soviet success inspiring Western workers, while domestic labor corruption and anti-pacifist sentiment show the establishment's anxiety about maintaining control. The hurricane devastating Florida's luxury developments symbolizes the fragility of the Roaring Twenties' speculative excess, foreshadowing the economic crashes to come.

• The National Catholic Welfare Conference punctured the 'employee ownership' myth, revealing that in the gas industry, less than 1/10th of 1% of stockholders were employees who owned just 4/10ths of 1% of stock
• Illinois labor bosses Walker and Olanffer got salary raises to $7,500 a year (about $125,000 today) while ignoring the Farrington coal company scandal
• Mexico has a liberty bell they ring once yearly to commemorate a Spanish priest who led an Indian revolt against Spanish rule and was executed for his trouble
• General Obregon was NOT fighting Yaqui Indians as reported, but safely at home in Cajeme, according to the Mexican under-secretary of war

• The Finnish Foreign Minister Holsti proposing to arm nations against Soviet 'aggression' represented a country that had just emerged from a brutal civil war in 1918 where the anti-communist 'White Guard' executed 8,000-10,000 suspected 'Reds'
• Commander Paul V. McNutt warning against pacifist propaganda would later become the highest-paid corporate executive in America as head of Philippine government, then president of Indiana University
• The hurricane destroying Miami Beach struck during the peak of Florida's land boom - lots that sold for $800,000 in 1925 would be worthless by 1926, even before the storm hit
• James Connolly, praised in the Communist International article, was executed by British firing squad in 1916 while tied to a chair because his leg wounds from the Easter Rising prevented him from standing
• The secret meeting between German Foreign Minister Stresemann and France's Briand at the Swiss village of Thoiry would lead to improved relations that helped Germany join the League of Nations council