Today -100: August 31, 1919: Of race riots, sugar profiteers, wars on Jews, and dancing

“Lithuanian sources” (which seems to mean one railroad engineer, but if that isn’t a good enough source for a front page above the fold story, what is?) inform the NYT that an army of 40,000 Germans has assembled in Lithuania to invade Russia.

In Knoxville, Tennessee, a huge lynch mob is driven from the jail without seizing a black prisoner who’d been transferred to Chattanooga, so they go on a murderous rampage through the negro district, as was the custom, killing two.

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The American National Association of Masters of Dancing asks the Methodist Episcopal Church to lift its ban on dancing. The Masters stand for “decent” dancing and against jazz and “other music that tends to degrade or sensualize dancing.”

Now Playing: The Valley of the Giants, starring now-forgotten mega-star Wallace Reid, who was badly injured in a train wreck late in the filming, so the studio, Paramount, sent out a doctor to pump him with enough morphine to get him through it, as was the custom. Reid died a hopeless addict in 1923 at 31 years old. The film was lost for 90 years, when a print was discovered in Russia. It’s supposedly being restored by the Library of Congress.

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Today -100: August 30, 1919: Of anschlusses, treaties, and anxious Turks

The French are incensed that the new German constitution includes provisions for Austrian representation in the Reichstag, should it be annexed in the future.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee continues to gleefully mutilate the Peace Treaty, giving the US greater representation (equal to that of Britain plus its colonies and self-governing dominions – Canada, South Africa, India, etc), banning those colonies & dominions voting on disputes in which their mother country is involved, etc.

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Today -100: August 29, 1919: I am tired out and am going fishing

Monroe Trotter, “Boston negro” of the National Equal Rights League, appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and demands a racial equality amendment to the Peace Treaty. He warns that if the injustice and oppression in the US continues, “our own country may not be free from a menace to the world’s peace.” Joseph Thomas of the National Race Congress asks the Committee to ensure that the US rather than France gets the League of Nations mandate for Kamerun. American blacks would go to Kamerun as teachers, policemen, etc. The Democrats on the Committee seem to have boycotted this session, and the Republicans didn’t bother to ask any questions of the black witnesses.

A mob in Ocmulgee, Georgia shoot a black man, Eli Cooper, in a black church, which they then burn down, along with other nearby black churches. Cooper was alleged to have been the leader of a plot for negroes to rise out and wipe out the white population.

Ole Hanson, Seattle’s anti-labor mayor, resigns, issuing an official statement: “I am tired out and am going fishing.”

South African Prime Minister Louis Botha, who led the Boer forces against Britain during the Boer War, dies at 56 of a heart attack following a bout of Spanish Flu. He will be replaced by Jan Smuts.

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Today -100: August 28, 1919: Of informal warnings and tobacco riots

Rear Admiral Mark Bristol, commander of the US naval forces in Turkey, tells Turkey to stop massacring the Armenians. When Turkey complains to Britain and France about being threatened, the US explains that this was merely an “informal” warning. Clemenceau complains that the US should only deal with Turkey through the allies’ Supreme Council, and anyway the US was never at war with Turkey and has dragged its feet about taking or rejecting a League of Nations mandate over Armenia.

The French riot over tobacco shortages, because the French.

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Today -100: August 27, 1919: Of borders, draftees, strikes, listening lesters, and Houdini

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes on party lines to strip the peace treaty of US obligations to participate in European matters such as the commissions drawing up the German-Belgian and other borders.

Last week Pres. Wilson met a delegation of parents of US soldiers currently stationed in Siberia, who demanded that draftees be brought home since they had been drafted for a war against Germany not Russia. Wilson now orders the return of draftees. He will send new recruits to replace them, so no easing off of the undeclared war against Bolshevik Russia.

The railway unions reject Wilson’s request not to go on strike and will poll their memberships.

The Justice Dept claims that “Russian Soviet interests” are funding newspapers for negroes in order to stir up racial antagonism.

Theater is still iffy. The stage hands at the Atlantic City production of “Listen, Lester” ignore that injunction and go on strike – after the first act.

So why not go to the movies?

Harry Houdini’s second movie, this one features thrills, escapes (naturally), and that mid-air collision, which was... not intentional. But they caught it on film so rewrote the script to include it. Excerpts are on YouTube, including the dramatic scene below where Houdini – actually a stunt double, which is rather disappointing – lowers himself from one plane to another. The collision between the planes was... not intended, but they rewrote the script to include it. No one died or anything. This movie was believed lost for 96 years.

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Today -100: August 26, 1919: Of immigration bans and railroads

Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to extend the wartime control/ban on immigration for a year after the end of the war (whenever that might be), warning that foreigners “whose origin and affiliations make it inadvisable” that they enter the US are just waiting to swarm in. I’m not sure exactly what is meant by “origin.” Japanese? 

Wilson meets railroad unions to tell them that their demands for higher wages would just perpetuate inflation, so they should suck it. He denies that they even need a wage increase because of inflation, because inflation is just temporary and prices will come down, probably, just as soon as the Peace Treaty is ratified.

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Today -100: August 25, 1919: The war to end all hyphens

The 8th Cavalry leaves Mexico, the trail of the bandit-kidnappers washed out by rain. It’s now confirmed that they entered Mexico right after it was known that the captured aviators had been safely ransomed, so this was always a punitive expedition rather than a rescue mission, as it was originally portrayed.

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In the ongoing theatrical strike, the Apollo Theatre in Atlantic City gets an injunction against the stage employees union. The musical comedy “Listen, Lester” can now go on.

20 or more German prisoners of war escape the stockade in Camp Sherman in Ohio, where they are still being held because the war is still officially on. It was a tunnel job. 18 are quickly recaptured.

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Today -100: August 24, 1919: Of agitators, mutinies, shantungs, and hay

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Obviously Bolshevik Russia and the IWW are behind any move for self-determination by oppressed peoples, and negroes would be perfectly content in their subordinate position but for blah blah blah.

300 British soldiers are arrested in Southampton after refusing to board ships bound for France. They suspect they would be sent to fight in Russia.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is happily rewriting the peace treaty, deciding that Shantung will go to China rather than Japan. This would mean reopening the whole negotiation process, which they know won’t happen. Still, it’s a weird, obscure issue to use as a poison pill. 

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Today -100: August 23, 1919: Of reich presidents and Texas for Texans only

Friedrich Ebert is sworn in as German Reichspräsident under the new Weimar Constitution. He will be succeeded in that office by Field Marshal von Hindenburg on his death in 1925 and then, you know, Hitler.

John Shillady, the (white) secretary of the NAACP is beaten on the streets of Austin, Texas, in broad daylight, by county Judge Dave Pickle, Constable Charles Hamby and others, who are now proudly bragging about the felony, and ordered to leave Texas. Shillady was in town to investigate the Texas Rangers’ interference with the NAACP; the assistant adjutant general tells him that organizations teaching racial equality are causing troubles between the races. The night before the beating, Shillady was arrested/kidnapped and a secret “court of inquiry” was held, which may or may not have been a real court, although it was presided over by a real judge, and it’s Texas, so “real court” is a relative term. Gov. William Hobby will tell the NAACP that Shillady was “the only offender” in the incident and tells the organization to stay out of Texas. He will further defend the mob action: “I believe in Texas for Texans only, and just as strongly do I believe that Texans should say how the affairs of the state should be conducted and I believe in sending any narrow-brained, double-chinned reformer who comes here with the end in view of stirring up racial discontent back to the North where he came from, with a broken jaw if necessary.” Shillady will resign from the NAACP next year.

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Today -100: August 22, 1919: Well, everyone needs a hobby

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The US Cavalry troops in Mexico kill four bandits. The only casualty on the US side is a cactus-related injury. Carranza asks the US to remove its troops from his country, please and gracias.

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Sen. Albert Fall asked whether the US could just skip the whole peace treaty thing and go straight to declaring that a state of peace exists. 

A black man is lynched in Louisburg, North Carolina.

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Today -100: August 21, 1919: It ain’t over...

Japan will replace the military administration it has used to run Korea since conquering and annexing it with a civilian one and says it will treat Korea on the same footing as Japan itself... “in due course.” This is intended to shut up the independence movement but won’t. Even with the recent violent suppression of independence protesters, the rest of the world hasn’t much cared. When Korean exiles in the US, including future South Korean president Syngman Rhee, asked the State Dept for permission to travel to Paris to make their case to the Peace Conference, they were told to apply to Japan, since they were after all Japanese subjects now.

Congress overrides Wilson’s veto of the Daylight Saving repeal.

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To be fair, he was a music publisher and asked her to sing (Beethoven).

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Today -100: August 20, 1919: Of incursions, battles at sea, and la la Lucilles

Troops from the 8th Cavalry cross into Mexico to look for the two captured aviators. Who were in the process of being released anyway, if I understand the timeline correctly. So now the troops are trying to find and “punish” the Villaista bandits who held them.

British Navy ships sink a Russian battle cruiser and a destroyer in the Gulf of Finland and bombard Kronstadt.

The Broadway strike continues to spread, shutting down “La La Lucille.” I’m enjoying the names of Broadway plays.

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Today -100: August 19, 1919: Of non-disasters, regents, beer, and gas

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The Supreme Council of the Peace Conference won’t respond to Archduke Joseph’s request that he be recognized as regent of Hungary.

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Pee as much as you like, guys.

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After the last item, I think you know where I’m heading here...

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Today -100: August 18, 1919: Women are determined to vote by 1920

The National Woman’s Party is putting pressure on governors and legislatures to hold special sessions to speed up ratification of the women’s suffrage Amendment. “Women are determined to vote by 1920,” says Alice Paul.

The new German constitution (aka the Weimar Constitution) is now in effect. Reichstag, popularly elected president, dialing down the dominance of the Imperial Council by Prussia, women’s suffrage, equal rights (i.e., no aristocracy), free speech, religion, etc.

Two US Army aviators went missing, but it’s okay, they’re safe in the hands of.... Mexican bandits, who would appreciate $15,000 to let them go. In gold.

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Today -100: August 17, 1919: Of archdukes, foreign legions, and deliverances

Hungary: Archduke Joseph appoints a new cabinet. The Socialists refuse to join, so it’s just a bunch of “old reactionaries,” and the Entente will likely not accept it as a representative government. They also won’t accept Joseph trying to weasel his way into monarchical powers; he’s said fine he’ll just retire from public life then, he didn’t want to be king anyway, fine.

France is doing things in the occupied Rhineland that go beyond what’s allowed in the Peace Treaty, including recruiting for the French Foreign Legion and mandating that French be taught in elementary schools.

NYC’s subways, street cars and elevated trains are all going on strike. And the theatre strike is spreading.

Maybe a movie instead?

Featuring the actual Helen Keller & Annie Sullivan, playing themselves, in the latter part of the biopic. There are clips of it online.

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Today -100: August 16, 1919: Of hats in hands, insurance, spheres of influence, and daylight savings

Woodrow Wilson tells senators that if they fuck up the peace treaty, the US will have to go “hat in hand” to beg Germany for bilateral terms. That’s not as stupid as it sounds, since the US would have too few soldiers left in Europe to have a strong bargaining position.

The Cleveland Railways Company takes out a $10,110,000 insurance policy against riots.

Britain and Persia come to an agreement in which Britain will loan Persia $2 million in exchange for “influence” – control of its military and finances, that sort of thing. And yes, Britain knows that Persia has oil.

Woodrow Wilson again vetoes a bill repealing Daylight Savings. He says it may be inconvenient for the farmers, but the needs of industry are more important right now.

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Today -100: August 15, 1919: Don’t spend it all in one place, Henry

Henry Ford’s libel suit against the Chicago Tribune reaches its conclusion, after three long months: he is awarded damages of 6¢ (and costs). So does that mean that Ford is an anarchist or that he isn’t, or...?

The US threatens Mexico with “a radical change in its policy with regard to Mexico” if American citizens keep getting killed there. Does that mean military intervention? The US ain’t sayin’.

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Today -100: August 14, 1919: Of cement trusts and Polish armies

The Justice Dept takes action against the “Cement Trust,” 19 cement companies that conspired to drive up the price of cement by 2 or 3 times.

Poland is creating a huge army supposedly to protect itself against possible invasion from Bolshevik Russia, and certainly not to grab a chunk of the Ukraine off a weakened Bolshevik Russia.

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Today -100: August 13, 1919: But I value my manhood above everything else

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Even while the NYT’s usual “reliable” sources reliably predict the imminent reliable downfall of Bolshevism, the paper finally admits that Adm. Kolchak: The Night Stalker is in full retreat.

The peace deal, naturally, provided for the return of prisoners of war. But the Allies didn’t want Russian POWs being returned to Bolshevik Russia, so Germany still has ‘em. The German prison camps were taken over by the Allies, but now they’re handing them back to Germany, which really doesn’t feel like feeding 300,000 prisoners, and can’t just push them over the border into Poland.

Austria has been referring to itself as German Austria. The Peace Conference tells it to stop that and call itself the Republic of Austria.

Woodrow Wilson wants to use Secret Service detectives to track down food profiteers (but needs legislation to do so).

The theater strike reaches Chicago. George M. Cohan, vowing to fight the actors, quits the Friars Club: “The stage is my life, but I value my manhood above everything else.” The latest Broadway plays affected: “She Would and She Did,” “Too Many Husbands,” “A Bashful Hero,” “The Girl in the Limousine,” “The Great Illusion,” “Adam and Eva,” and “Nightie Night.”

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Today -100: August 12, 1919: Of carnegies, shantungs, chihuahuas, and the ancient rivalry between bears and leafs

Andrew Carnegie, steel tycoon and library nerd, once the richest man in America, dies at 83.

Woodrow Wilson rejects the Senate’s demands for data relating to his decision to acquiesce in Japan’s demand for Shantung, specifically the memo written by Gen. Tasker Bliss on behalf of himself, Secretary of State Lansing and others, objecting to that decision. Wilson rather comically denies that it was a “protest” because it was written before the decision was made by the peace conference, so how could they be protesting something that hadn’t happened? So Wilson won’t let the Senate see it, because it’s “confidential.” In fact, Bliss et al fiercely opposed implementing a treaty that China had only agreed to under strong coercion from Japan, saying it made a mockery of the 14 Points. Bliss came close to resigning.

Mexico executes 15 people accused of trying to foment a pro-Pancho Villa mutiny in Chihuahua.

Headline Which Might Be Interesting If It Weren’t About Fucking Baseball But It Is About Fucking Baseball of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: August 11, 1919: Of fair prices, murder leagues, and mad artists

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer asks war-time food administrators to form local Fair Price Committees to determine how much of the skyrocketing food price increases is excessive. He doesn’t intend to prosecute anyone, just shame them.

Sweden has arrested or detained 66 Russians believed to be part of a “political murder league” that’s been killing various Russian exiles.

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Rude. Blakelock had been in an asylum for 18 years, starting around the time he finally achieved some recognition as a painter. For years the doctors thought his belief that he was a famous artist was another sign of insanity. He also thought he was rich, which he was not, having sold most of his his paintings for negligible amounts. One of them (the top one below, I think, but I’m not sure since he painted a bunch of pictures he titled Moonlight) later set a record amount for a sale by an American artist, $20,000, 30 years after he’d sold it for $500.

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Today -100: August 10, 1919: La commedia è finita

Sen. Joseph McCormick (R-Illinois), talking about the Chicago race riots, both-sides racial violence, condemning both lynchings in the South and blacks who moved to Chicago “whose truculence in public places invited resentment.”

New York County DA Edward Swann reminds the police commissioner that hand grenades are dangerous and that people selling them as souvenirs should be arrested.

Ruggero Leoncavallo, composer of the opera Pagliacci (1892), dies at 62. He based Pagliacci on a court case in which his father was magistrate. It was the first opera to be recorded uncut (1907) and the first one filmed uncut (1931).

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Today -100: August 9, 1919: Of unconscionable profits, deserters, heroin, and Zorro

Woodrow Wilson, speaking before Congress, offers a plan to deal with the high cost of living: continuing the wartime Food Control Act, licensing all corporations engaged in interstate commerce to prevent “unconscionable profits,” penalties for profiteering, etc. He also asks unions (i.e., railway unions) to “think and act like true Americans,” by which he means not go on strike to get pay increases matching inflation. Good luck with that.

The Netherlands is kicking 7,000 German army deserters who sought asylum there during the war out of the country, since Germany has declared an amnesty.

The Association of Pharmaceutical Chemists annual meeting (in June) says doctors should stop prescribing heroin.

What To Read: “The Curse of Capistrano” by Johnston McCulley, serialized from today in All-Story Weekly. It’s the first Zorro story.

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Today -100: August 8, 1919: Of strikes, regents, and things which are verboten in Lorraine

Brooklyn Rapid Transit and Broadway actors are both on strike, so I’m not expecting much else from the NYT today.

Gyula Peidl, who succeeded Béla Kun as prime minister of Hungary earlier this week, is ousted by Archduke Joseph (acting as regent rather than something more, you know, monarchical), who appoints right-winger István Friedrich as PM.

When France reacquired Lorraine, it banned the speaking of German after 10:00 pm and on trains. This has now been lifted, since it turns out many Alsace-Lorrainihoovians don’t speak French very well.

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Today -100: August 7, 1919: Of hoarders, occupations, and peace terms

The Wilson administration is planning to tackle the high cost of living by pretending it’s entirely the fault of “hoarders.” So the Justice Dept will charge meat-packing companies under anti-trust laws.

Romania, ignoring Allied orders to remove its troops from Hungary now that Béla Kun has been ousted, issues demands on Hungary – reduction of its army to 15,000, giving up half its railroad supplies and 30% of its harvest animals, etc etc.

Austria responds to the Peace Conference’s terms, complaining about the loss of so much territory, especially the Tyrol district and southern Bohemia, and to being saddled with 2/3 of the debt of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.

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Today -100: August 6, 1919: Of shantungs and detestable Prussian systems

Japan formally declares its intention not to hold Shantung, the Chinese territory it grabbed from Germany during the war. We’ll see.

The National Guard Association objects to the idea of universal military service, “that detestable Prussian system which is abhorrent to the American people.”

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Today -100: August 5, 1919: Of mediation, occupations, and conscription

The British government will stop mediating labor disputes, as it was forced to do during the war.

Despite the ouster of Béla Kun and the Entente telling them not to, Romanian troops occupy Budapest. Romania has its own agenda. The Allies also order Hungary to cease relations with Russia.

The War Dept. wants compulsory three months’ military training for 19-year-olds, who would then remain in the reserves for 2 years.

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Today -100: August 4, 1919: Of hooliganism and prohibition

“Liverpool is in the grip of hooliganism,” the NYT says as if that were news. There’s a police strike, hence looting.

The Anti-Saloon League denies it will try to ban tobacco next. Rather, it will focus on enforcement of prohibition in the US and spreading prohibition throughout the world.

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Today -100: August 3, 1919: I made the best fight I could

Congress is working on returning railroads to private ownership. The big four railroad unions, representing 2 million RR employees, demand that this not happen. They’re also demanding higher wages.

The Association Opposed to National Prohibitions claims that the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, having succeeded in enacting prohibition, will go after tobacco next.

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Postal relations between the US and Germany having been restored, Germans in the US are sending sausages to their relatives in Germany (and lard and ham and butter). Postage is 12¢ a pound.

A Phoebe Williams of Brooklyn has been under 24-hour police guard in hospital since jumping from her 3rd-story apartment nearly 2 years ago. The charge of attempting suicide has just been dropped.

300 cars are stolen every year in New York City.

Chicago: arson destroys the houses of Stock Yards workers, evidently blacks burning white workers’ homes. So blacks will be banned from working at the Stock Yards, because nothing solves racial tensions like firing a bunch of people on the basis of race.

There’s an article in today’s NYT Sunday Magazine section that ascribes Chicago’s racial strife to the influx of blacks during the war and the consequent expansion of the Black Belt into formerly all-white neighborhoods. The blacks demanded, and got, representation on the city council, with the connivance, as the writer sees it, of Mayor Big Bill Thompson, who let gambling saloons and cabarets develop freely in the Black Belt in exchange for votes: “Jazz bands filled the air with syncopated sound, while in the cabarets whites and blacks intermingled in carousal. It was here that the ‘shimmy’ dance is said to have originated.” So I guess the theory is that black people experienced so little policing that they thought they could get away with anything. Like responding when a white man killed one of them with stones?

You will have noted the pro-segregation agenda behind the phrase “intermingled in carousal”.

Allied threats and Romanian military incursions force the resignation of Béla Kun as head of the Hungarian government. He will go into exile (and internment) in Austria. Sez Kun, “If you demand it, I must resign. I made the best fight I could.”

Last October, conscientious objector Priv. Lester Ott was sentenced to death for refusing to clean up Fort Riley. Pres. Wilson commutes that to 6 years in prison.

There are reports of pogroms in Odessa.

What to Read: Somerset Maugham’s The Moon and Sixpence, reviewed today. I’ve, um, seen the movie version.

Nebraska ratifies the women’s suffrage Amendment. 14 down, 22 to go.

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Today -100: August 2, 1919: Of race riots, internationalists, hammersteins, and breaches of promises

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Race rioting has “practically ceased” in Chicago. Soldiers patrol the streets and “all places where men congregate for other than religious purposes” have been ordered closed. The army bought up every issue of a black newspaper, the Chicago Whip, because of incendiary material. Gov. Frank Lowden (R) plans to create a committee of 5 whites and 5 blacks who aren’t in politics to draw up a code of ethics for interracial relations, meaning an agreement on separate beaches, stores, parks, residential areas, etc. So Lowden’s solution to racial tensions, in the absence of legal segregation, is to implement it informally.

Woodrow Wilson tells Sen. James Watson (R-Indiana), in one of those one-on-sessions that seem to have convinced not a single senator to support Wilson’s position, that if the Senate insists on putting reservations on the ratification of the Peace Treaty, it will take longer to set up the League of Nations and in the meantime Europe will descend into chaos. Then he & Watson get into a fight over whether he’s an internationalist. Wilson says he is not an internationalist.

Oscar Hammerstein, who built many theaters and opera houses and was to a large extent responsible for the creation of Times Square as a theater district, dies at 73. The Metropolitan once paid him a rumored $2 million to get out of the opera business, since the competition with his Manhattan Opera House was ruining both of them, but that agreement was due to expire in 1920.

Hermann Otto Boehme, a manufacturer of electrical appliances in NYC, is arrested in a suit by Elfrieda Arntz for breach of promise of marriage. She wants $100,000 for his failure to marry her, and he was about to skedaddle for Germany. She says the non-marriage has left her in a mental condition where she can no longer continue her employment as governess. She works as governess to the children of a Dr. Edward Cowles, whose wife named his closeness with Arntz when she sued him for divorce a few years ago. Cowles, we are informed for some reason, is a cousin of Theodore Roosevelt’s brother-in-law. Anyway, I didn’t know you could actually be arrested for breach of promise.

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Today -100: August 1, 1919: Of race riots & dusenberries

Chicago race riots, Day Five. The Black Belt on the South Side is now patrolled by soldiers, lots of soldiers, so things are a bit calmer, just the one murder & some arson. The arson now seems to be more deliberate, a concerted plan to drive blacks out. Food is finally getting to the Black Belt in trucks driven by white drivers up to the “dead line,” then taken over by black drivers. The soldiers have mounted machine guns but haven’t used them.

John Clinton of Beacon, New York, age 91, marries his housekeeper, a Miss Sadie Dusenberry, 35. I’m just saying: if a 35-year-old housekeeper was going to marry her 91-year-old employer in 1919, she would definitely have been named Sadie Dusenberry.

Gen. “Black Jack” Pershing says he’d prefer the bodies of dead American soldiers not be brought home from France.

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