Today -100: October 5, 1926: Of milk rings and baneful violators

Republican candidate for NY governor Rep. Ogden Mills attacks Gov. Al Smith for failing to bring down the bootleg milk ring, with its associated milk graft, and warns that a Smith victory would complete Tammany Hall’s control of state government. 

Democratic nominee for the New York US Senate seat Robert Wagner challenges James Wadsworth Jr. to say whether he advises, as Wagner does, a yes vote on the Prohibition reform referendum. Wadsworth would of course prefer to straddle the fence on this one.

Trotsky, Zinoviev, etc complained about Stalin’s crackdown within the Communist Party, including banning opposition members elected to the party conference, which has now been postponed 10 days. The Moscow party committee demands that the Central Committee repress “these bankrupt leaders, these baneful violators of party discipline” (baneful violators of party discipline are the worst kind of violators of party discipline, because of the bane).

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Today -100: October 4, 1926: As such

Headline of the Day -100:

British Foreign Sec. Austen Chamberlain visited Italy last week, and Italy got super-excited at what they assumed was a sign that it was finally taking its place among the big dogs and that an alliance would be formed with Britain to offset Franco-German cooperation. Chamberlain says there are no such plans. He says Fascism would not suit Britain, but that he admires Mussolini personally. “He is a man of great force of character, great shrewdness, and great charm and simplicity in his personal conduct, and however you may judge his policy he is a great patriot.”

Baron Maurice de Rothschild of the Rich-Fuck Rothschilds, is elected to the French Chamber of Deputies for the Hautes-Alpes Department by a large majority. He was elected before but that election was not validated due to some Rothschild-level bribery. While the Chamber was debating this, he sent every deputy a brace of partridges; they kept the partridges and voted against him. 

Oh noes! “European royalty is facing a crisis”! It seems that more princesses are coming of age than princes to marry them. Some have been resorting to marrying mere nobles instead.

In Constantinople, Turkey shows how post-Islamic it is now by erecting its first statue depicting a human. Kemal Atatürk, naturally.

An image search suggests that most subsequent statues of Atatürk portray him on a horse.

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Today -100: October 3, 1926: Of dragons, pleasant little trifles, and chapels

A group of Indiana Republican editors turns over evidence to the Indiana State Senate on the massive corruption and general shittery in the state government when it was under the control of Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson. One person who really wants this information to come out: D.C. Stephenson, now in prison for second-degree murder and pissed that his friends in government didn’t get him out of trouble (and who have made sure he’s had no contact with the outside world whilst in prison).

Noël Coward’s play “This Was a Man” is banned by the Lord Chamberlain because it depicts adultery, so much adultery. Coward says that in future he’ll concentrate his serious plays on Broadway; “I shall from time to time write a pleasant little trifle for London.” “This Was a Man” won’t have a commercial run in Britain until 2014.

Italy’s Cabinet Council approves restoring capital punishment, which was abolished in 1888, for assassination attempts against Mussolini and the royal family.

Yale makes student chapel-attendance optional.

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Today -100: October 2, 1926: Of political hypocrisy & relief

Democratic nominee for US Senate from NY Robert F. Wagner accuses Sen. James Wadsworth Jr. of “political hypocrisy” in changing from a dry to a wet position. Isn’t it surprising how Prohibition has turned into such a major issue in this election cycle, so many years into the great beverage experiment? There are just no other major issues this year.

Florida Gov. John Martin (D) is accused by the American Red Cross, among others, of sabotaging attempts to raise money for hurricane relief by downplaying the damage so as not to scare away tourists or burst the real estate bubble.

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Today -100: October 1, 1926: Of early beatings, expenses, steel trusts, and flying cork

The theme of New York Republicans in the gubernatorial race will be “Beat Smith this year and you will not have to beat him in 1928,” that is, for president. To be fair, Al Smith is certainly using the governor’s office as a stepping-stone to the White House.

Rep. Ernest Willard Gibson (R-Vermont) spent 36¢ on his unopposed re-election primary, but on what? This is infuriatingly undisclosed.

France, Germany, Belgium and Luxemburg form an iron and steel trust to limit production, fix prices, and exclude US and British steel.

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Today -100: September 30, 1926: Of prohibition, forgotten crimes, and climbing popes

The New Hampshire Democratic Convention, unlike the NY and Massachusetts ones, supports Prohibition, blaming the Republicans for laxness for enforcement.

The NYT complains about the slowness of justice in the Teapot Dome case: “If the guilty men are ever convicted and punished, it will be only after the great majority of the people have forgotten with what crime they were charged.”

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Today -100: September 29, 1926: I am going to put on my fighting clothes

The New York Democratic Convention picks NY Supreme Court Justice Robert F. Wagner as its candidate for US Senate. He says “I have been a judge and I am going to put on my fighting clothes.”

The New York Republican Convention picks Congresscritter Ogden Mills for governor and James W. Wadsworth Jr. for re-election to the US Senate, the latter over strong objections from the Drys. Pro-Wadsworth speeches say he should be nominated because Coolidge wants him in the Senate.

The Massachusetts Democratic Convention votes unanimously for repeal of the prohibition laws. However, like their senatorial candidate David Walsh, they are “not in favor of the return of the saloon, with its saturnalia of evils.” A saturnalia of evils is the worst kind of saturnalia.

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Today -100: September 28, 1926: The gunman in place of the barman

At the preliminary hearing of Aimee Semple McPherson et al, a witness who saw Sister Aimee in Carmel during the time she claims she was being held hostage in Mexico, is interrogated thus: “What is your religion, if any?” “Do you believe all the trash you read in the newspapers?” “I see I am talking to one of those boys who spots the women on the street when he drives by.”

Wayne Wheeler, the alliterative general-counsel for the Anti-Saloon League, complains about the New York Republican Party’s plan to abide by the results of the referendum on prohibition. See, the drys intend to boycott the vote, so I guess it shouldn’t count.

Former Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt addresses the New York Democratic Convention as its temporary chair, speaking more about national Republicans than New York ones. He says that by claiming credit for economic prosperity, the Coolidge Admin is guilty of the common-law offence of seeking to obtain by false pretenses something actually belonging to others (economic laws + the efficiency and good sense of businessmen and workers). He attacks Republican tariffs. He says the way prohibition has been enforced has “given us the bootlegger in place of the saloonkeeper and the gunman in place of the barman.”

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Today -100: September 27, 1926: Of guilt, throngs, crown princes, bunny hats, and umpires

French PM Raymond Poincaré calls on German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann to acknowledge, indeed to embrace, German’s guilt for starting the Great War.

Allen Dulles, the future CIA director, resigns from the Foreign Service because any further promotions (he was just named counselor to the legation at Peking) would entail expenses beyond his salary ($8,000 a year for the Peking gig) and he just can’t afford to supplement his little diplomacy hobby out of his own pocket.

Headline of the Day -100:

THRONG. With an R.

German newspapers claim that former crown prince Wilhelm, grandson of former kaiser Wilhelm, has enlisted in the German army as a private. He did not. They wouldn’t let him, of course, but he is also barred because he was made a lieutenant of the First Prussian Footguards during the war at the age of 10.

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The overseas soldier hat is made of Australian rabbit fur. The army is looking for a substitute.

Especially in New York, you often hear “Kill the ump,” but instances of umpicide are surprisingly rare. Anyway, at a game on Long Island between the Centuries and the Cubs, the brother of the Centuries’ catcher objects to a call of “out” and slugs the umpire, fatally.

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Today -100: September 26, 1926: Of shorter weeks and radio wars

Henry Ford establishes a 5-day work week as permanent policy, after it was trialed in some plants in July. But only those workers who “deserve” it will get the same pay as they did for 6 days.

Russia is engaging in a “radio war,” supposedly the first, with Romania, broadcasting propaganda into that country. Romanian military stations are trying to block it by broadcasting buzzing. You need a license to own a radio set in Romania, and none are allowed near the border. The first Romanian radio station opened this month, playing phonograph records.

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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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