Today -100: September 25, 1926: ...and prosperity

The Republicans have a slogan for 1926: “Coolidge and prosperity.”

Ross Gilmore Marvin, part of  Robert Peary’s Arctic expeditions, was reported drowned in 1909. Now, Kudlooktoo, an Inuit attached to that expedition, who recently converted to Christianity, admits having shot him when Marvin tried to fire another Inuit and send him off without any supplies.

Black people, who know slavery when they see it, resist being conscripted to clean up after the hurricane in Florida, getting in a gunfight with marines in Miami.

And 3 black men are rumored, probably maybe falsely, to have been lynched for looting dead bodies near Miami, shot and then burned.

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Today -100: September 24, 1926: Of boxers, hurricanes, and petitions

Gene Tunney beats Jack Dempsey to become heavyweight champeen, but Dempsey makes a lot more money out of the fight.

Florida police and militia and specially deputized American Legionnaires round up anyone who can’t prove they have a job and force them to help in hurricane cleanup. No mention of paying them anything.

Anti-typhoid serum and “medicinal” whiskey are being widely distributed.

It will be impossible to determine how many people died in the hurricane because many were buried without any record being kept, especially in Miami and Miami Beach. People who ask the cops for information are directed to the newspaper offices.

Charles Ponzi, in jail in Texas awaiting extradition to Massachusetts, offers Houston Mayor Oscar Holcombe the deeds to his Florida properties to sell for hurricane relief. Holcombe says no, calling it “an attempt to gain publicity at the expense” of hurricane victims.

The Mexican Congress rejects the Episcopate’s petition to drop the anti-Church bits of the Constitution and related legislation. Also, the Petitions Committee noticed that many of the signatures came from non-Mexican-citizens. Since Coolidge declared all this none of our business, the Church’s hope that outside nations would overawe the Mexican government is fading.

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Today -100: September 23, 1926: Of poor devils, occupations, and radio fads

Gen. Lincoln Andrews, the head of federal prohibition enforcement, says prohibition agents will be fired if they drink and future hires will be required to take a pledge of total abstinence. One exception: agents who have to testify in court that they tasted the evidence and, yup, it’s whisky alright. Andrews calls those agents “poor devils” because “the product now available is of the most atrocious quality.”

Relief workers helping survivors of the Miami hurricane ask for medicinal whisky and are informed fuck you.

France (finally) begins to withdraw its troops from the Rhineland. 7,000 of them anyway.

Thomas Edison says radios should not be used for music because of distortion. Once the “radio fad” passes, he says, people will return to the phonograph. Radio dealers are finding them unprofitable.

Speaking of the radio fad, the BBC says it will only employ men as radio announcers, because of the heavy physical strain involved.

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Today -100: September 22, 1926: Of mikados

A London revival of “The Mikado” elicits complaints by using actual Japanese garb or modern Japanese garb, whatever “Oriental Oxford bags” might be. Loose pants, I guess.

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Today -100: September 21, 1926: Of reservations, degeneracy, and machine guns

The US has been negotiating to join the World Court, provided it be given equal status despite requiring certain “reservations,” such as not allowing League of Nations advisory opinions in any case involving the US.

Former prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia, the second son of former kaiser Wilhelm, is divorcing ex-princess Sophie Charlotte for the crime of... auditioning to be in movies, which is just plain embarrassing to the good name of Hohenzollern. She will bring counter-charges of degeneracy. Next month the court will declare him the guilty party, or the more guilty party.

Gunmen with machine guns do a drive-by at Al Capone’s Hawthorne Inn in Cicero, Illinois. This article is wrong that Capone was next door during the attack. He was in fact hiding under a table. Over 1,000 rounds are fired from seven cars into the Hawthorne & the neighboring Anton Hotel, which is also Capone-owned (Capowned?), but no one is killed. A family in a car experiences some injuries; Capone comes out and promises to pay their medical and presumably car-repair expenses, which will amount to $10,000.

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Today -100: September 20, 1926: Zeal!

The corpses of the bandits who kidnapped & killed Jacob Rosenthal are still hanging from trees or, as the NYT puts it,  

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Today -100: September 19, 1926: Miami is in ruins

A hurricane hits Miami and Palm Beach, killing several hundred people and doing $100 million of damage to Miami. Tropical Radio station reports “Miami is in ruins”.

Cuba is negotiating with Italy to take some of the latter’s excess population.

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Today -100: September 18, 1926: Of bandits & citizenship

A day or two after bandits kill Jacob Rosenthal, Mexico executes 7 of them, all Indios, with more to come. Their bodies will be left hanging from trees, as was the custom. 3 more are killed when their compadres attempt to rescue them.

France has been arresting naturalized US citizens who were born French for evading military service to their former country. Also, American citizens born in France to American parents.

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Today -100: September 17, 1926: We oppose the return of the saloon

The Connecticut Democratic State Convention calls for repeal of the 18th Amendment, calling it “an indefensible curtailment of personal liberty.” But it says as long as the indefensible curtailment of personal liberty remains the law of the land it should be enforced, and “We oppose the return of the saloon.” 

The L.A. County orders the arrest of Aimee Semple McPherson, her mother, and three others involved in her disappearance last May. The charge: conspiracy to defeat justice, including paying a woman to pretend it was she rather than Sister Aimee who inhabited the love shack in Carmel.

Mexican bandits who kidnapped Jacob Rosenthal of Long Island kill him when the Mexican authorities refuse to allow his family to pay the 20,000 peso (c.$10,000) ransom and send soldiers in not-very-good disguise to the drop-off point.

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Today -100: September 16, 1926: I’ve just been strutting myself

Coolidge bans arms exports to Nicaragua. This is aimed at the rebels rather than the government. 

Sen. Rice Means loses the Colorado Republican primary for re-election, another sign of the declining influence of the Ku Klux Klan. 

The 3rd Ku Klux Klan convocation authorizes Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans to stay in hotel bridal suites during his travels. And they’re giving him a yacht. He will adopt a standard of living commensurate with the “dignity of the Klan.” “Boys,” the Imperial Dentist announces, “I’ve just been strutting myself. I’m going to leave it to you whether I shall continue to do so.”

In Canadian federal elections, the Liberal Party comes slightly short of a majority. Mackenzie King will probably be able to stitch something together allowing him to continue as prime minister.

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Today -100: September 15, 1926: Everyone is at work and Mussolini works harder than anybody else

The Locarno treaties come into effect, triggered by Germany’s entry into the League of Nations. 

After all those constant denials that nobody really believed, Al Smith will run for re-election as governor of New York after hall because his health has improved – he’s had a mole removed from his back.

4,353,605 Spaniards vote in favor of the plebiscite for continued dictatorship (and 0 against, that not being an option on the ballot). That’s 13% of the electorate, which the regime considers a rousing success.

US ambassador to Italy Henry Fletcher congratulates Mussolini on surviving the latest assassination attempt, and effusively praises The Duck and the progress Italy has made under Fascism: “Everyone is at work and Mussolini works harder than anybody else.” Mussolini is giving the Italian people a new spirit and a new patriotism.

KKK Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans says that if any European nation invades Mexico (no, no one is really suggesting that will happen), “there are enough Klansmen in America to repel them.”

Headline of the Day -100:

Same.

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Today -100: September 14, 1926: Of parades, strikes, more strikes, and milk wars

The Ku Klux Klan parade in D.C. is much smaller than last year’s, 15,000 to 20,000 this time around.

The British coal strike is still going on. Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill can’t get mine owners to negotiate.

Oh that’s cute: the Spanish plebiscite is taking place on the third anniversary of Primo de Rivera’s coup.

Supposedly thinking they were enforcing a temporary injunction against the NYC garment workers’ strike, police arrest 480 strikers. But the injunction only applied to 3 union officials, not the strikers as a whole.

In other New York labor news, there is a “Bronx milk war.”

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