Today -100: November 20, 1924: Of sirdars, opium, tong heads, and immediate, absolute and complete independence

Sir Lee Stack, the British Governor-General of Sudan and Sirdar (that’s like commander-in-chief) of the Egyptian Army, is wounded, and will die tomorrow, after bombs and bullets are directed at his automobile in Cairo by 7 students, who escape, for the time being.

At the world opium conference in Geneva, the US proposes limiting the production of opium and coca to the amount required for medical and scientific purposes, and banning heroin altogether. There are details, which are obviously unworkable.

The British Columbia Legislature votes for whipping drug traffickers.

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For just a second I had a very different image in my mind of what “tong heads” might be. Possibly bad guys in “The Tick.”

The Philippine Legislature, in its alter ego as the Philippine Commission of Independence, adopts a resolution for “immediate, absolute and complete independence.”

Mary Kolus’s divorce suit is rejected in a Trenton court because her husband being jailed for life for murder doesn’t meet the legal definition of desertion. The court also rejected her charge of infidelity as not proven, despite his conviction being for murdering the husband of his lover.

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Today -100: November 19, 1924: Of aqueducts and amnesties

Inyo County Sheriff Charles Collins calls himself powerless to remove the farmers occupying the L.A. Aqueduct because they’d just blow it up if he tried.

The French Senate grants amnesty to former PM Joseph Caillaux who that body convicted in 1920 (long after his arrest in 1918) on a bullshit high treason charge (“plotting against the external security of the State by maneuvers, machinations and intelligence with the enemy”). They also amnesty former interior minister Louis-Jean Malvy. Prime Minister Édouard Herriot commends the Senate for “forget[ting] and forgiv[ing] those differences of opinion which were considered dangerous during the war.”

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Today -100: November 18, 1924: Of quora, women’s suffrage, and monuments

With the opposition boycotting the Italian parliament, that institution has become so boring that it’s having difficulty maintaining a quorum.

Mussolini supposedly favors women’s suffrage, and there is some move to implement it at least for municipal elections.

Anti-Semites destroy a Potsdam monument to the French Jewish actress “Rachel,” born Elisabeth Félix, which was erected by Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV after she performed before him and Czar Nicholas I.

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Today -100: November 17, 1924: We are a nation of the samurai, and to us honor is more than all

 

The US Chamber of Commerce submits its marching orders wish list to Coolidge, including subsidy of the merchant marine, a “scientific” immigration commission, tax stuff, and above all, the ending of the public release of personal income tax return info.

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Hey, you know what I hear is good for calming anger? Opium.

The Japanese are pissed that the British delegate implied that Japanese officials issue opium import certificates corruptly and that some countries have refused to honor those certificates. “We are a nation of the Samurai, and to us honor is more than all.” The conference is not going well.

Vice president-elect Charles Dawes has a hernia operation.

60 or 100 “raiders” from Owens Valley seize the Los Angeles aqueduct, which diverts water to the city to the detriment of Owens Valley agriculture. They open the gates to restore the water to the Owens River. The Inyo County sheriff asks the state to send troops but Gov. Friend Richardson thinks the whole thing will “blow over” in a few days. This is the start of the California Water Wars.

The oldest man in the world is Zora Agrah, is 150 and has been employed as a porter in Constantinople for over 100 years. His 5th wife (he was married to the 1st 3 simultaneously) is 65 “and too old for me,” so he’s looking for a new one.

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Today -100: November 16, 1924: It’s the Chicago way

Chicago Police Chief Morgan Collins will form a “strong-arm squad” 12 cops to battle organized crime (more breaking heads than making arrests, sounds like) and reorganize the detective bureau. “Those detectives who are too lady-like to do business with the gunmen are to be removed,” he says.

Another response to Chicago mob violence: the Sears, Roebuck catalog will no longer sell firearms by mail order.

Organ grinders with monkeys are disappearing from New York streets thanks to the closing of bars and the fact that monkeys are illegal. And you have to have a license to operate a portable organ, not that that ever stops anyone.

The 21 Republican state legislators from Rhode Island are ending their Massachusetts exile and in return Democratic state senators will end their filibuster of the budget. The D’s were trying to alter the ridiculously archaic state constitution, which still has a property qualification for voting and senatorial districts weighted towards rural areas, giving R’s a clear majority of seats despite only garnering 24% of the vote. This stalemate meant there’s been no budget and hence no salaries for officials or money for jails since January, so private citizens and banks stepped up to fund some of that, advancing state employees first 90% of their salaries, then 75%.

Newlyweds Leonard and Alice Rhinelander flee the glare of publicity. Reporters have discovered that Alice’s father was listed as “colored” when he naturalized in the ‘90s, as was her sister Emily on her marriage certificate.

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Today -100: November 15, 1924: Of flowers and duels

Dion O’Banion’s funeral in Chicago is attended by over 10,000 people and features 26 truck loads of flowers, which is what happens when you’re both a mob boss and a florist.

Gen. Italo Balbo, commander of the Fascist National Militia (Italy, of course), “owing to the impossibility of a duel” with Gen. Peppino Garibaldi, who accused the Blackshirts of attacking unarmed veterans, submits the case of his challenge to the Permanent Court of Honor in Florence, whatever that might be. Duels are weird. Another duel, evidently not impossible, takes place between a Fascist deputy and a Liberal one. Whether guns or swords is not mentioned, but the Lib wounds the Fascist 6 times. Good.

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Today -100: November 14, 1924: Numerous convolutions

Belgian Foreign Minister Paul Hymans suggests a new Entente between France, Britain and, of course, Belgium.

Rep. John Philip Hill (R-Maryland) is acquitted of making cider and wine from fruit grown on his “farm,” which he did to challenge the Volstead Act’s distinction between what “farmers” and regular urbanites are allowed to do. The Baltimore jury decides it was not intoxicating, which it certainly was – 12% alcohol. It is not clear if the jury came to this conclusion following a taste test.

The Catholic Church refuses Chicago “slain florist and gang leader” Dion O’Banion a church service but will allow him and his $10,000 silver coffin to be buried in consecrated ground. Science was performed on Mr. O’Banion by the coroner’s physician: “The fissures [in his brain] were not deep, which would indicate O’Banion was not deeply intellectual, but there were numerous convolutions, which showed his mind was shrewd.”

Socialite Leonard Kip Rhinelander marries Alice Beatrice Jones, the daughter of a cab driver. They are 22 and 23, respectively, and white. There will be more about this.

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Today -100: November 13, 1924: Sure, horse thief suppression, why notToday -100: November 13, 1924: Sure, horse thief suppression, why not

Remember the violence in Niles, Ohio a week or two ago between the KKK & anti-kluxers? It seems the former thought they were acting as state police. A Klan organizer got hold of a charter dating from before the Civil War for a group to suppress horse thieves and signed them all up.

The Italian Parliament opens. A Communist deputy informs it that while the Communists aren’t part of the opposition group, they will also be boycotting the Parliament, which he says “has been elected by Matteotti’s murderers.” Former Prime Minister (5 times!) Giovanni Giolitti has announced that he won’t be attending either.

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Today -100: November 12, 1924: Parliament is a bluff with which you hope to cheat public opinion

Sen. Theodore Douglas Robinson is appointed assistant secretary of the Navy, a post which has previously been held by 3 Roosevelts, so of course Robinson is TR’s nephew. In making the appointment, Coolidge is acceding to a death-bed request from Henry Cabot Lodge.

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On the eve of the re-convening of the Italian Parliament after a 4-month hiatus, and with opposition deputies still boycotting in protest at the Matteotti assassination, Mussolini tells a plenary meeting of Fascist and Fascist-supporting deputies, “The reopening of Parliament is a proof of my constitutional intentions.” The opposition deputies, meeting on their own, respond, “Parliament is a bluff with which you hope to cheat public opinion.” M. says the Fascist militia are fully constitutional because they’ve sworn loyalty to the king; the opposition seems to think that’s insufficient. M. says “Not words, but hard facts, prove that the government is marching rapidly and continuously on the road of absolute normality.” I’m not sure “absolute normality” really entails all that marching. The opposition deputies affirm their refusal to return to Parliament and demand new elections, not run by the Fascist regime.

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