Saturday, September 21, 2019

Today -100: September 21, 1919: Of lusks, protectorates, colonists, and infamous words


The anti-Red Lusk Committee of the New York Legislature takes credit for shutting down 10 radical publications, one of them in Finnish.

Headline of the Day -100: 


Lord Curzon says the treaty signed this week between Britain and Persia does not amount to a protectorate and Britain toooootally respects Persia’s independence. No, Britain is just giving Persia “financial aid” (i.e., a loan, with customs revenues as collateral) and providing “expert assistance” (including military experts, paid for by Persia and given what the treaty calls “adequate powers”). For some reason he doesn’t mention the bit about gaining access to Persian oil. Probably slipped his mind.

Germany is allegedly “colonizing” Germans into Upper Silesia before the big plebiscite. Employers are being gently encouraged to continue paying the salaries of workers born in Silesia who take a little voting vacation there.

The Italian government sends Rear Admiral Cassanova (there’s a dirty joke in there somewhere) to Fiume to put a stop to the D’Annunzio occupation. Instead, the rear admiral has been “detained.” The Italian head of staff in the armistice zone informs D’Annunzio that officers who remain in Fiume will be considered deserters. D’A responds that “this infamous word” “does not touch me or my companions.” A bunch of planes (one carrying Prince Aimone) also fly in to help out the poet-aviator (there may come a time when I grow tired of that phrase, but that time has not yet arrived), just in case Fiume needs an air force, I guess. The poet-aviator’s men “marched up and down through the streets of Fiume, shouting their cause and demanding who had aught to say against them. It seems that if any one had they didn’t say it.” 


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