AS REPORTEDno primary record reached; this is what the reporting says
Historical analysis indicates that the famous story of Emperor Norton kneeling in prayer or defiance during an anti-Chinese meeting stems from a later 1939 romanticized account that exaggerated period newspaper reports.
The answer to this and other Norton-related questions can be found at The Emperor Norton Trust . First, the story of the prayer comes from a 1939 book by a man named Ryder. The Trust believes that the 1939 book may be exaggerating an incident reported in period newspapers. [W]e believe we have found the first document that stands to lift key elements of the Lord’s Prayer story out of the realm of legend and into the realm of history. We are pleased to share it below. If, as seems likely, an incident reported in the San Francisco Examiner on Tuesday 30 April 1878 is the basis for Ryder’s romanticized account, then what actually happened is both less and — in certain respects — more heroic than has been understood. The newspaper reports on an anti-Chinese meeting which Norton interrupted. It reports: The fun commenced by Emperor Norton I mounting a bench and by virtue of his sovereign auth