Today -100: July 6, 1926: In which is revealed what creates the character of the nation

At the Sesquicentennial Exposition, Pres. Coolidge says it is not “the enactment but the observance of laws that creates the character of the nation.” When you hear a statement like that and know that it’s about Prohibition even though he doesn’t say it’s about Prohibition, maybe you’ve just got a bad law on your hands. Coolidge is criticized for downplaying the role in the writing of the Declaration of Independence of Thomas Jefferson, whose ideas Coolidge says came from preachers.

I could  swear yesterday the NYT was describing the Ku Klux Klan’s Klorero (meeting or rally or  key party or something) on Long Island as a bust, but today 3,000 kluxers parade through Mineola, wearing the Klan bathrobe but not the mask, in oh so grudging obedience to New York law. Onlookers throw coins into flags held horizontally by women kluxers. Floats represent the Spirit of ‘76 and A Little Red Schoolhouse™, with the words “Keep the Bible in the Public Schools.” Cause you have to use something to prop up that uneven table leg, I guess.

A French mechanic invents a flying bicycle.

Pope Pius asks Catholics all over the world to pray for Mexico to stop persecuting Catholics on August 1st, which is the festival of... St. Peter-in-Chains (I don’t even want to know).

Mussolini follows the economy program he’s imposing on Italy by canceling his plans to visit parts of the country and colonies, calling them luxuries which can’t be afforded just now.

The BBC, which has begun John Reith’s task of deciding how English should be spoken, considers the voices of 90% of stage comedians unsuitable for broadcast. It does approve of the voices of the Prince of Wales and George Bernard Shaw, who read out one of his plays. If this makes you wonder what GBS sounded like, here’s a quite clear recording from 1929:

I’d call that accent Mid-Irish-Sea.

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Today -100: July 5, 1926: Of swimming Swedes, medicine balls, and assassinations

Even though the Republicans correctly fear losing House and Senate seats in November, Coolidge is likely to refrain from campaigning altogether.

Coolidge’s 54th birthday was on the 4th of July, by the way.

There have been a lot of drownings in Sweden of late (c.340 per year), so they’re taking harsh measures to force everyone to learn to swim: no teachers who can’t swim, no students (the article says boys, could that be true?) passing exams without also passing swim exams, no government officials who can’t swim, etc.

Crowds crowd (as crowds will do) the beaches at Coney Island and Atlantic City for the 4th. Gov. Al Smith visits Coney and “played with a medicine ball on the beach for a while.” I’ll bet he did, I’ll bet he did. Rather embarrassingly, the NYT names bathers who had to be rescued from drowning.

French police drop charges against 2 Spaniards they’d arrested for allegedly planning to assassinate King Alfonso, but retain charges for carrying false passports and real guns. Feels like there’s more to this story.

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Today -100: July 4, 1926: Your sister wears knickers

Mexico issues the Calles Decree, which confiscates church property; bans non-Mexican-born ministers from doing minister stuff; bans non-secular teaching and religious primary schools; bans proselytizing to minors; bans ministers from meeting together, in public or private; bans them wearing religious outfits or symbols when out and about; gives the government ownership of all the churches; bans ministers from complaining publicly about any of this and religious newspapers can’t comment on any of this. Plus a whole lot more. It goes into effect on the 31st.

Wayne Wheeler of the Anti-Saloon League begs the Senate committee investigating election spending not to release the names of the League’s donors.

London sees its first suffragist parade since the war, demanding the voting age be by equalized between the sexes. Emmeline Pankhurst, Lady Rhondda, and MP Ellen Wilkinson participate.

Charles Ponzi, who was on the run but was evidently captured without it making the NYT, telegraphs Pres. Coolidge asking for clemency and to be deported to Italy, which he calls a “compromise.” He’s also cabled Mussolini for help.

Headline of the Day -100: 

In a “former” saloon in the Bronx, the victim casts aspersions on women who wear knickers. The Tennesseehoovian says My sister wears knickers and she is a good girl! It escalates from there.

Marshal Józef Piłsudski, the Polish dictator, was reported last week as resting in a sanatorium, but now says that was a ruse to cover for his carrying out an inspection of border troops. It’s unclear why such a ruse was required.

The French government rejects a request (it is not said from whom) to send the Mona Lisa to the Sesquicentennial Exhibition. 

Greek dictator Theodoros Pangalos proved unable to dictate the length of women’s skirts. His decree (issued January, I think) required skirts to be a maximum of 35 centimeters from the ground, with punishment falling on the father or husband of the offender. The decree wasn’t popular among women or indeed the police, who didn’t want to be in the skirt-measuring business, so 2 women skirt-measurers were hired. Then the cops arrested a woman who turned out to be the daughter of a Court of Appeal judge. Her trial was so unpopular that Pangalos has now rescinded the decree.

At the 2nd Nazi Party congress, the Grossdeutsche Jugendbewegung are renamed the Hitlerjugend.

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Today -100: July 3, 1926: Of vares, Rothschilds, and governors-generalses

Gen. Lincoln Andrews, the federal Dry Czar, threatens to resign if Congress doesn’t pass the laws he demands giving him way more powers. Congress rejected his plan to hire retired military officers for prohibition work (without affecting their retirement pay). The NYT says this is because congresscritters considered those jobs patronage fodder, but I can think of other reasons not to staff a policing agency with military types.

The Senate Rules Committee proposes banning any senator whose campaign spent more than $25,000 with their knowledge, including in the primary. This is aimed at Rep. William Scott Vare, Republican candidate for the Senate from Pennsylvania.

The French Chamber of Deputies refuses to seat Baron Maurice de Rothschild as deputy for the Hautes-Alpes Department because he spent too much money in his election in 1924. He’s been attending the Chamber since that election but without being allowed to vote. The campaign to unseat him was led by Communists. He’ll be re-elected anyway in October’s elections.

Governor General of Canada, Julian “Bungo” Byng dissolves Parliament, as he refused to do for Mackenzie king last week, after the Meighen government failed that confidence vote yesterday. Byng is criticized for letting many bills which were passed by Parliament lapse without royal assent, including 44 divorce bills. Mackenzie King and the Liberals will fight the election partly on the question of Canadian autonomy and Byng’s interference (Byng’s term of office expires shortly anyway).

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Today -100: July 2, 1926: Of tigers & confidence

NY Gov. Al Smith evidently has his own zoo at the governor’s mansion, including an increasingly aggressive “Tammany Tiger” which he can’t persuade any real zoo to take. So he has it shot.

In other news, Al Smith can go fuck himself.

The very new Canadian government of Arthur Meighen loses a vote of confidence in Parliament by one vote.

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Today -100: July 1, 1926: Women must fight their own battles

NY Gov. Alfred E. Smith, asked if he’ll be running for re-election in 4 months, says, “I am not going to think anything more about that for a while. ... This is vacation time.” Tammany Hall is considering Robert F. Wagner of the NY Supreme Court as a replacement if Smith doesn’t run.

Spain’s King Alfonso and Queen Victoria have been vacationing in France, where police thwart a plot to assassinate him.

So what happened to the car in which the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Duchess Sophie were assassinated in 1914? Well, it was still in Sarajevo when the Great War broke out, so Yugoslavia wound up in possession of it and for a time the governor of Bosnia used it but after some incidents he decided it was haunted. A merchant bought it but also decided it was haunted and was driving to a possible buyer when it turned over and killed him. It then passed to a series of people and has now been bought for pennies by a Dr. Ragibkavara. Are you as skeptical about this story as I am? Good. (Update: Right, none of that is true. None of it.)

George Bernard Shaw, who has rejected invitations to address meetings in support of reducing the voting age for British women from 30 to 21, has his secretary respond, “Mr. Shaw desires me to say that women must fight their own battles. He is not to be lured into the ridiculous position of their male champion.” I respect that position but... imagine the speech he would give.

Fascist newspapers in Italy are praising the government order to reduce all newspapers to 6 pages, saying most journalism is just a waste of paper. Augusto Turati, Secretary General of the Fascist Party, says each province will have a single newspaper, “in which will be published the party’s orders, and the political acts of Fascism will be briefly illustrated. All the rest of the space will be devoted to things which are being constructed and work which is being carried out.” 

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Today -100: June 30, 1926: Headses or tails

Mussolini, worried about Italy’s balance of trade and determined to increase Italian production, orders the work day increased from 8 hours to 9. He also bans the building of more expensive houses for a year and cafes, bars, night clubs etc. indefinitely. Gasoline for cars will be mixed with wine. The newspapers which he hasn’t already banned will be restricted to 6 pages.

The Italian public prosecutor’s office finds no evidence that the Socialist former deputy Tito Zaniboni’s attempt to assassinate Mussolini last year was instigated by the Freemasons.

The Treasury will mint a Sesquicentennial half-dollar coin with portraits of Coolidge and Washington, the first time a living president will appear on a US coin. That was illegal then like it’s illegal now. I had assumed Mr. C. and Mr. W. would appear on opposite sides, but actually...

That really is terrible. Also, the Sesquicentennial celebrates the birth of the nation at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and neither Washington nor Coolidge signed the Declaration of Independence. The Liberty Bell appears on the other side. 1 million of these things were minted, to be sold at the Exposition; 859,000 went unsold and were melted down.

New York Democrats are carefully scrutinizing the speech Gov. Al Smith gave at a dinner to determine whether he might be convinced to run for re-election 4 months from now.

Coolidge denies saying fishing is a sport only for youths.

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Today -100: June 29, 1926: Of Wing-Dings, vets, whips, and ironsides

The Governor General of Canada, Julian Byng, known, naturally, as “Bungo,” refuses Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s request to dissolve Parliament and call new elections. He is the first and last governor general to reject such a request. The most recent election was only last October and Byng thinks Arthur Meighen (C) should be allowed to try to form a government before there’s resort to another election. So King and his Cabinet, facing a motion of confidence over bribe-taking in the Customs Department and other scandals, resign. Meighen will try to form a Conservative government backed by only a plurality in Parliament (King’s Liberals have been ruling in a shaky coalition with the Progressives).

This is called the King–Byng Affair, or the King–Byng Wing-Ding. Those wacky Canadians.

The Senate passes a bill amending the World War Veterans’ act to provide hospitalization benefits for women veterans and nurses from the Spanish-American War in private hospitals, since VA hospitals are men-only.

The Educational Committee of the Prussian Diet rejects a Socialist motion to abolish corporal punishment in schools. Failing that, they tried to abolish it for girls. Then for 6-year-olds. But Prussians love them some whipping.

During the filming of “Old Ironsides,” a Wallace Beery film (with Boris Karloff in what I assume is a small role) which I haven’t seen but which is available on Tubi, a cannon explodes, destroying the masts, sending six extras falling to the deck. One is dead.

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Today -100: June 28, 1926: Wait, and hear me out, what if we use the Navy to protect the negro’s ballot?

Gen. Manuel Gomes da Costa, the leader of last month’s coup in Portugal, declares himself supreme ruler. All political prisoners will be exiled.

The NAACP launches a $1m fund to fight Jim Crow laws. NAACP Exec. Sec. James Weldon Johnson says “The federal government will use a navy to prevent a man from taking  a drink, but will not empower a deputy marshal to protect the negro’s ballot.”

The manufacture of horsewhips dropped 58.5% in 1925 over 1923.

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Today -100: June 27, 1926: Of gold, kluxers v. gypsies, and parole

Incoming French Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux sacks Georges Robineau, the governor of the Banque de France who opposed the use of France’s gold reserves to defend the franc. Caillaux says Robineau had often expressed a desire to retire; Robineau denies this.

Austrian Socialist MPs stalk out of Parliament to protest it electing Anton Rintelen, the former governor of Styria, as minister of education, calling him a fascist, which is not wrong.

A group in Klan kostumes shoot up a Gypsy camp in Westchester Cty, New York.

New York criminals are hastily pleading guilty to get into Sing Sing before Wednesday, when parole laws change.

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Today -100: June 26, 1926: Atlantis located, without even the benefit of Google Maps

Republicans are in disarray over Congress’s failure to pass a bill to aid farmers. Coolidge supports the Fess plan, involving aid to a cooperative marketing bureau, which is dead in the water.

German archaeologist Prof. Paul Borchardt says he’s figured out where Atlantis was: the Sahara Desert in Tunisia. It sank in an earthquake. Before that, it went to war with Egypt or something, dunno, stopped reading.

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Today -100: June 25, 1926: Let the males have one place in the country where they can live in peace

Spain arrests 30 lawyers, journalists, army officers, etc. Evidently a conspiracy has been uncovered to... issue a manifesto calling for the restoration of constitutional rights.

The Senate Campaign Fund Investigating Committee questions Pittsburgh Police Superintendent Peter Paul Walsh, who admits having ordered detectives to get out the vote for John Stuchell Fisher and George Pepper, the Republican candidates for governor & US Senate respectively. And by “admits,” I mean Walsh lies about it until the letter he wrote to the Detective Bureau inspector is read out to him. And when I say “wrote,” he insists, “I did not write it Senator. The stenographer wrote it, but I signed it.” “And you dictated it?” “Yes sir.” (The letter, by the way, was stolen from the Detective Bureau by some whistleblower and delivered to the Committee). He claims neither candidates’ campaigns asked him to issue that order. The Committee has also been examining the large amounts of money the Anti-Saloon League inserted into the primaries.

The British House of Lords rejects by a vote of 125 to 80 a measure to allow peeresses to sit in the Lords.  “Let the males have one place in the country where they can live in peace,” exclaims Baron Banbury. Lord Cecil notes that the claim that women aren’t up to the physical strains of being a Member of Parliament hardly applies to the Lords.

Britain’s oldest general is Sir George Higginson, age 100, Crimean War vet.

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