Today -100: January 17, 1925: Of prohibition and ag

Coolidge thinks a proposed law providing for mandatory imprisonment for violating Prohibition laws is excessive.

Herbert Hoover declines to become secretary of agriculture, saying he can do more for farmers from Commerce.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: January 16, 1925: No more disturbed than any other country

Tammany Hall leader Big Tom Foley, described as Gov. Al Smith’s “political godfather,” dies at 73.

Pres. Coolidge is considering moving Herbert Hoover from Commerce to Agriculture, which seems to me like a demotion.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Wyoming Gov. Nellie Taylor Ross does the unthinkable.

Headline of the Day -100:  

NYPD Police Commissioner Richard Enright calls for everyone to be required to carry a police i.d. including their photograph and fingerprints. “While the Commissioner did not specify women, he was understood to have included them.” He’s just been on a tour of South America and this is the system in Buenos Aires. He also wants to register aliens, which he says would help solve the sporadic Tong wars in Chinatown which so baffle the police. And the feds should ban the sale of pistols. (An editorial tomorrow -100 wonders how long the i.d. photo would be kept: “The unfortunate man who loses his hair at 30 will be in danger of immediate arrest.”)

Poland and the Free State of Danzig may go to war over, um, mail boxes. Poland exceeded its treaty rights in the city by placing mail boxes, which it says it had a right to do and Danzig says it didn’t. Some Danzigers repainted the boxes in the old German imperial colors, and that’s when Poland started threatening war. The League of Nations Commissioner Mervyn MacDonnell is siding with city authorities over the whole, um, mail box deal.

A resolution in the Italian Parliament saying that it is impossible to hold a general election as long as the government suppresses newspapers and individual liberty is supported by former primes minister Giovanni Giolitti, Antonio Salandra and Vittorio Orlando.

Mussolini says “Italy is no more disturbed than any other country.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: January 15, 1925: Really too much

Italy’s Communist MPs end their boycott of Parliament in order to participate in the debate on Mussolini’s new electoral law. And by participate, I mean praise Lenin and Russia, sing the Red Flag, and denounce the bourgeoisie, while Mussolini says, “This is really too much.”

The Italian Freemasons dissolve ahead of the proposed law against secret societies.

German Finance Minister Hans Luther, who belongs to no party, forms a new cabinet, including 4 Nationalists. If I understand this correctly, Luther just went ahead and negotiated a cabinet without having been asked to do so by Pres. Ebert. This will be Weimar’s first right-wing government, but not its last.

Chicago bans the eating of raw oysters, punishable by a $25 fine. 

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: January 14, 1925: A coolness might result

French Prime Minister Édouard Herriot warns that “if the Soviets continue to carry out a Soviet policy in France, a coolness might result.” Grigori Zinoviev, the head of the Comintern, recently ordered the French Communist Party to exert itself in the municipal elections, which is obviously scandalous.

Banker/forger Fred Pollman, who repudiated the pardon he bought from Kansas then-Gov. Jonathan Davis, tries to present his pardon to the new governor. Who refuses to accept it. The attorney general says they may have to declare Davis’s last pardons & paroles void.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: January 13, 1925: Of bitter and unreasoning oppositions, secret societies, and musical commanders

Kansas Gov. Jonathan Davis and his son are arrested on the morning of the day his term expired rather than after he left office, as was expected. Davis complains that the arrest shows the “bitter and unreasoning opposition” to his governorship (bitter and unreasoning opposition is the worst kind of opposition). He claims to want his pardoning processes to be investigated by the Legislature. Were brown paper bags employed? that sort of thing, probably.

Mussolini introduces a bill to ban secret societies, i.e. the Masons.

Richard Strauss is given the new title of “Commander-in-Chief of Austrian Music.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: January 12, 1925: Of pardons and tommy guns

County Attorney Tinkham Veale, which is evidently a real name, will have Kansas Gov. Jonathan Davis and his son arrested immediately after his term ends today (the governor’s term, not the son’s) for taking bribes in exchange for pardons. All of his pardons (the governor’s, not the son’s) are being looked into, as well they should be.

If no one can form a majority cabinet in Germany, President Friedrich Ebert may use emergency powers to appoint a chancellor to operate without Reichstag support.

In Chicago, Al Capone’s car is shot up by gangsters with tommy guns, as was the custom. (Correction: Actually it wasn’t yet the custom. This is the very first use of a Thompson submachine gun in gang warfare.) Capone wasn’t in the car at the time, but inside a restaurant whose name I’ve been unable to discover. Capone will soon buy an expensive bullet-proof car. And have a few people killed in retaliation. As was the custom.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: January 11, 1925: If unsophisticated natures, secretaries of state, and locals

The Allies give in to the US’s demand that it get a share in the reparations Germany will pay under the Dawes Plan, despite never having ratified the Versailles Treaty.

Kansas Gov. Jonathan Davis attributes his son’s taking that bribe in exchange for a pardon, which he calls “indiscreet acts,” to his “unsophisticated nature.” Russell Davis apologizes for being “led into such a trap.” The state Justice Dept was already investigating other pardons. Convicted murderer Glenn Davis (no relation) says Gov. Davis refused him a pardon after he refused to pay a bribe (which he couldn’t afford).

The Kansas Supreme Court rules that the Ku Klux Klan is illegally operating as a business in the state, selling Klan paraphernalia and whatnot, and not as a benevolent society, and so cannot continue without a charter. What are the chances of it being issued a charter? Well, at the last election it tried and failed to defeat two of the Charter Board’s three members, the attorney general and secretary of state, so...

Charles Evans Hughes resigns as secretary of state so he can make some big lawyer bucks. He’ll be replaced by Ambassador to the UK Frank Kellogg.

Pres. Coolidge rejects the objections of Michigan congresscritters to his nomination of Charles Warren from that state to be attorney general. They think that there’s a home-state senator veto over appointments; he tells them there isn’t.

Local anesthesia is progressing. In a story suspiciously lacking the name of the patient or the hospital, a patient smoked a cigar and drank a highball while his appendix was being removed.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: January 10, 1925: Somehow they inveigled my son into accepting the money

The Kansas City Journal reports that Gov. Jonathan Davis’s son Russell (whose age I can NOT discover) took a $1,250 bribe in exchange for his father pardoning Fred Pollman, a former bank president convicted of forgery in 1920, who is out of jail but still on parole. The money was passed in a room at the National Hotel in Topeka while various reporters, a shorthand reporter, a state rep., prison and, for some reason, prohibition officials, were in another room listening in on a telephonic bug, all of whom confronted Russell when he returned. Russell says his father knew nothing about the bribe.  Pollman, who set Russell up, also accuses the governor of personally soliciting a bribe in another case, a man convicted of murder in 1911. Gov. Davis says it was all a frame-up; “Somehow they inveigled my son into accepting the money,” but when he realized what was going on he went back to the hotel to return the money and hand Pollman the pardon, which the governor had, coincidentally, already decided to grant (or, just possibly, to receive the rest of the bribe, which was a “$1,000 now, $250 on delivery” deal). This is nonsense: if Little Russell had intended to give back the money he would have actually had it on him, which he did not. 

Davis lost his re-election bid, so he’ll be out of office in a few days.

Coolidge nominates Charles Beecher Warren, former ambassador to Japan and Mexico, to be attorney general. There are rumors that Oliver Wendell Holmes will also retire soon. He is, after all, 83. In fact, Holmes will retire at 90 in 1932.

Mussolini’s draft election-reform law includes plural voting, with extra votes for teachers, clergy, secondary-school graduates, retired army & navy officers and Fascist militiamen, journalists, people who pay 100 lire in taxes, fathers of 5 sons, members of the royal family, etc etc. The complicated changes probably mean a new election can’t be organized for many months.

Dr. John Galen Locke, Grand Dragon of the Colorado Ku Klux Klan, is arrested on a charge of kidnapping 15-year-old high school student Keith Boehm and forcing him into a marriage, threatening him with mutilation if he didn’t. Warrants are issued for the actual kidnappers. Locke’s $1,000 bond is paid by Governor-Elect Clarence Morley, who always denied being a Klan member but is totally a Klan member.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: January 9, 1925: The constitutional mask of normalization has fallen

The California Legislature ratifies the Amendment to the US Constitution allowing Congress to regulate child labor, the second state to ratify after Arizona.

The “Aventine” opposition deputies decide to continue boycotting the Italian Parliament. They issue a manifesto accusing Mussolini of being, you know, Mussolini, of suppressing personal liberty, crushing the free press, trampling on the law, tolerating violence by his followers, and the murder of Giacomo Matteotti. “The constitutional mask of normalization has fallen.” They will boycott the election if the government dissolves the Chamber without resigning first.

The former German and Bavarian royal families reconcile, with Wilhelm giving permission for Bavarian ex-prince Rupprecht to run as a monarchist, but for “Reich Governor,” which is not a thing, rather than president.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.