Today -100: March 4, 1926: Of strikes and nickel

The Passaic, New Jersey police used fire hoses on textile factory strikers a day ago and now, along with Clifton police, attack strikers with tear-gas bombs and clubs and motorcycles. To be fair, some of the children the motorcycle cops run down had hit them with snowballs. The cops make a special target of press photographers and newsreel cameramen, smashing their cameras (and hands).

In its largest day of trading ever, the markets tumble following the Interstate Commerce Commission’s rejection of the Nickel Plate merger.

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Today -100: March 3, 1926: Of Bimbas

Anthony Bimba is convicted of sedition, but not of blasphemy, the prosecution having downplayed the charge under that 300-year-old law. The judge expresses annoyance at the Lithuanian community of Brooklyn using the legal system to conduct its internal disputes, calling it “over-contentious.” He fines Bimba $100. Bimba’s conviction will be reversed on appeal. He will become a naturalized US citizen in 1927, but in 1963 the government will try to deport him, claiming he failed to mention the 1926 prosecution when he applied for citizenship; the government will eventually drop that case, which was probably initiated in retaliation for his refusal to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1957.

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Today -100: March 2, 1926: Watch out

The War Department turns down an offer by the Benrus Watch Co. (owned by three Jewish brothers who immigrated from, where else, Switzerland) to install – for free – a giant illuminated wristwatch on the Statue of Liberty. The War Dept (why is this their decision?) says a wristwatch would simply be too modern for the classical statue.

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Today -100: March 1, 1926: Of dirty businesses, the real cause of the crime wave, and what means the same thing as negro

Prince Aage of Denmark, who renounced his position as #1 in the royal succession and joined the Foreign Legion, as you do, says being a king is “a dirty business.” “Give me the army,” he says. Whenever the prince of Wales falls off a horse, “everybody in the the world laughs at it,” but when Aage falls off a horse in Morocco, “I just rub myself and that’s the end of it.” No comment.

William McDougall, professor of psychology and racist twaddle at Harvard, says crime in the US is caused by racial mingling, which erodes the traditions which preserve order.

A black man, Joseph Manning, is fined $30 for disorderly conduct. He approached a young woman eating breakfast in a Park Row restaurant, then dared to object when she told him, “Shut up, nigger.” The magistrate says, “There are too many of your kind in Harlem who want people to believe they are not negroes by taking offense when they are called negroes. Nigger means the same thing as negro.”

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Today -100: February 28, 1926: Of vindications, maids, and cruel and barbarous bedtimes

Miriam “Ma” Ferguson, who ran for governor of Texas in 1924 allegedly to “vindicate” her husband, impeached former Gov. James R, announces that she’ll need a second term to finish that vindication. She wants the impeachment expunged from the record and says she wouldn’t be running again if that had happened. That’s quite a platform, especially since the state senate has already refused to do that. She says she will continue to be advised by her husband just like previous governors have been advised by their wives (I notice she never claims that she advised James when he was governor).

Mary Harrison, widow of Pres. Benjamin Harrison (by the way, she was the niece of his first wife), appears in court in Harlem to plead for mercy for her maid, who had stolen a bunch of her jewelry.

In Pittsburgh, the master (job title, not an S&M thing, probably) who reviews divorce cases and makes recommendations which the court usually rubber-stamps, agrees with Miriam Elpern that the 9:00 or 9:30 bedtime he imposed on her is cruel and barbarous.

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Today -100: February 27, 1926: Baby’s day out

Less than 3 weeks after being convicted of attacking a 12-year-old girl, black man Harry Butler is hanged in Georgetown, Delaware. Although only 100 or so spectators are allowed to observe the... entertainment (not counting those watching from the roofs of neighboring buildings), afterwards thousands are allowed to look at the body on the scaffold. “Many of the women carried babies, raising them to their shoulders to see the negro.” Before the execution, the crowd was singing, but the article does not list their songs.

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Today -100: February 26, 1926: Of bridges and elections

A $425 million Deficiency Bill is held up by a bunch of senators hiding in the cloak room to prevent a quorum for a vote on whether to tax Navajo tribes to build a bridge in Nevada and another over the Colorado River, neither of which would be of any benefit whatsoever to the Navajo.

Dems in the NY Legislature propose a bill to increase the term of office for the governor from 2 years to 4, starting with whoever is elected in November, with elections held in the off year. Republicans agree to the idea of a 4-year term but want elections to be held in the same year as presidential elections. I don’t really understand the reasons for the parties’ preferences here.

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Today -100: February 25, 1926: Going through the arch

French army pilot Lt. Léon Collot (Collet? Callot?) makes a bet that he can fly through the arch at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower. He succeeds, then his wing catches on one of the Tower’s radio antennas, and he crashes and burns. There is no mention of whether the plane was his personal aircraft or the army’s.

Germany is offering to allow Spain – but absolutely not Poland – a seat on the League of Nations Council, in exchange for the end of the occupation of the Rhineland by the end of the year. (Update: Germany will deny this, so who knows).

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Today -100: February 24, 1926: Going on a jolly

Pres. Coolidge opposes the US having a large air force because 1) he’s a cheapskate, 2) he doesn’t want a global arms race.

A Prussian Diet investigating committee finds that the Black Reichswehr murders of supposed traitors within the paramilitary body were ordered by 3 deputies in the Diet. The convicted assassin Robert Grütte-Lehder also claims that the prosecutor in his closed-door trial suppressed evidence of the deputies’ involvement.

Badly Written Headline of the Day -100:

500 German women send proposals to professional hunger artist “Jolly” (real name: Siegfried Herz), who has been sitting in a glass box in Berlin restaurant The Crocodile for a week without eating. He will continue for a total of 44 days. Presumably the women are interested in marrying him “as means of cutting down kitchen drudgery.”

Madrid bans the killing of horses by bulls in bull fights.

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Today -100: February 23, 1926: Sometimes I want to kill, kill, kill

Arthur Findlay, manager of Wanamaker’s department store in New York, fails to get the pope interested in building a 6-hole golf course on Vatican grounds. It’s unclear whether he pitched this to Pope Pius personally.

Omaha captures its sniper. He’s a 45-year-old farm hand from Iowa. “Sometimes I want to kill, kill, kill,” he tells reporters.

The New York State Assembly kills a bill to outlaw “petting parties” in cars parked on highways. Assemblycritter Stone says the only supporters of the bill in the Assembly are men past the age where they’d enjoy a good petting party. Ass. Hutchinson, who supports the bill, denies having “passed the age when I am averse to such devotion.”

Politicians celebrate George Washington’s 194th birthday by debating whether he would have supported American participation in the World Court  and whether he’d have supported Prohibition.

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Today -100: February 22, 1926: Of social crimes

Vera, the Countess Cathcart is allowed into the US for 10 days on a  $500 bond. No one seems to know who made this sudden decision or why. (Update: A Labor Dept solicitor will admit tomorrow that it was he, but won’t discuss his reasons, which seem likely to be about preempting a habeas corpus hearing, which you can’t have if the government doesn’t habba your corpus. He says the whole thing may come down to whether “the commission of a social crime,” i.e., adultery, counts as a crime in the US even though it’s not a crime in South Africa, where it was committed.)

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Today -100: February 21, 1926: I didn’t know that one was expected to lie in order to enter the United States

A sniper haunts the streets of Omaha, shooting into lit windows and killing 2 people over the last 3 weeks.

In recent discussions of Prohibition in Congress, Rep. John Hill (R-Maryland) claimed beer is not intoxicating. Schlitz Brewing Company helpfully offers to send each congresscritter a case of beer to test this proposition for themselves.

Vera, Countess Cathcart, explains that she’s in this mess with US immigration because she told the truth about her divorce: “I didn’t know that one was expected to lie in order to enter the United States.”

German novelist and screenwriter Artur Landsberger says German movies are failing in the export market because of all the hand-kissing. Non-Teutonics prefer to see that newfangled lip-kissing.

The NYT runs a State of the Klan survey showing kluxer decline, in influence as well as hood count, in every state.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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