Today -100: September 5, 1926: Of prosperity, candidates, chaplins, and plebiscites

Coolidge will not actively campaign in the mid-term elections, but has spent his vacation meeting with bankers & business people, because of course he has, and developing the party’s issues: prosperity, no change in tariffs, cutting taxes and government spending still further, Prohibition enforcement, and helping farmers through cooperative marketing.

The New York Republicans, having failed to get anyone to agree to run for governor, plan to just draft someone at their convention on the 27th, ignoring any previous refusals.

Monsignor John P. Chidwick, who according to the NYT is “Department Chaplin” of the United Spanish War Veterans of the State of New York (does he do the mustache? probably) and was chaplain of the USS Maine when it was blown up, resigns from the veterans’ group, saying it’s been taken over by the Ku Klux Klan, noting the election of Sen. Rice Means (R-Colorado), who is indeed totally a kluxer, as National Commander in Chief.

Spain will hold a plebiscite on whether to call a new National Assembly or just continue Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship. Which is in increasing conflict with the military, with King Alfonso straddling the fence as always.

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Today -100: September 4, 1926: Of planes, duels, and corpse trains

Coolidge, pushing to increase spending on naval aviation, says he’s pretty sure that doesn’t violate the Washington Treaty. He doesn’t want an arms competition (“arms race” wasn’t coined until 1930), so he thinks everyone else will ignore his aeroplane surge, probably.

Prince Valerio Pignatelli, secretary to the Italian Legation in Mexico, challenges Federal District Governor Gen. Francisco Serrano to a duel for making fun of the duel he did last week when both guys missed.

A large crowd throngs the Chicago railroad terminal trying to catch a glimpse of the train containing the coffin containing the body of Rudolph Valentino, because these people badly need TikTok. In the event, they don’t actually get to catch a glimpse of the train containing the coffin containing the body of Rudolph Valentino; the view’s blocked by another train or something. They don’t even get to catch a glimpse of Pola Negri, who’s ridin’ the rails with the late Mr. Valentino.

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Today -100: September 3, 1926: Of trousers, mild wet plans, and Bolshevism-savor

Front-Page Headline of the Day -100:

Headline of the Day -100:

Moist, I think the word you’re looking for is moist. Like the R’s, the D’s are using the forthcoming referendum on state Prohibition enforcement as an excuse to weasel out of taking a position.

The execution of Celestino Madeiros is postponed so he can testify in Sacco and Vanzetti’s appeal for a new trial, which is based on Madeiros’s confession to the crime for which S&V were convicted.

The Catholic Episcopate attacks the claim in Pres. Plutarco Elías Calles’s message to Congress yesterday that the Church was in rebellion against the Mexican state. They say, “He would better have said that all Governments since 1853 have been oppressors of the Church, inspired by a Jacobinism or a premature Bolshevism.” Calles’s policies also “savor of Bolshevism,” presumably mature Bolshevism. They also claim that the closings of churches, schools, etc were done with no supporting law.

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Today -100: September 2, 1926: Of sympathetic actions, curfews, platinum teeth, and goats

Knights of Columbus leaders – including a gentleman known as The Supreme Knight – meet Pres. Coolidge, later claiming they didn’t ask him for intervention in Mexico, just “sympathetic action.” Which doesn’t sound very Supreme-Knighty, if you ask me.

Chicago now has a curfew for children 16 or younger, and cops are supposed to enforce it, but “Because of the prevailing mode of short skirts, rolled hose and bobbed hair, they were unable to distinguish children from grown-ups.”

Former mayor of Atlantic City William Riddle, challenging his property tax assessment, makes the mistake at one point of taking out his $1,200 platinum false teeth, whereupon one of the assessors demands that they be taxed too. After a couple of days fighting about jurisdiction, they determine he should pay $30.58.

Headline of the Day -100:

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Today -100: September 1, 1926: Of quitters, films, and duels

NY Supreme Court Justice James Cropsey drops out of the gubernatorial race, thanks to Sen. James Wadsworth’s objection to a state Prohibition enforcement plan, which Cropsey supports, being put in the Republican platform. At least according to an (unnamed) friend of his.

William Hays, “head of the motion-picture industry,” meets Pres. Coolidge and asks him to include films in the proposed Archive Building, although it sounds like this would be just for “historic” films, like the footage of McKinley’s inauguration.

Rhode Island State Police shoot at striking textile workers in Manville when they try to storm a factory, injuring god knows how many.

Prince Valerio Pignatelli, secretary to the Italian Legation in Mexico, fights a duel with one Alberto Meade, whoever that is. It’s pretty unusual to have a duel in a foreign country. Anyway, they both shoot and miss. The cause of their quarrel is unknown. Pignatelli turned later in life to writing pulp novels.

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Today -100: August 31, 1926: Of lynchings and responding readily to modern conditions

Local elections in Italy are abolished in favor of officials being appointed by the central government, the Podesta system, “which responds more readily to modern conditions.”

A white mob in Coffee County, Georgia lynches... a white dude.

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Today -100: August 30, 1926: We will never have another proxy governor

There’s a German Nationalist/Monarchist parade through Nuremberg, reviewed by former Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, wearing a field marshal uniform, former Prince Oskar of Prussia, and miscellaneous princes, admirals, and field marshals.

All of Nepal’s slaves are now free, mostly through government compensation to their owners.

Headline of the Day -100:

Then Negri, who has traveled from LA to NY by train, “recovered herself long enough to say it was true she had been engaged to marry him.” Then she swoons again.

Dan Moody says of his Democratic primary victory for Texas governor, “There was only one issue and that was Fergusonism,” that is, his victory was over “Pa” rather than “Ma” Ferguson. Which, fair.  “We will never have another proxy governor”.

Pa Ferguson says his wife’s “not worried and you needn’t be worried about her either,” adding, “We are just trying to decide which calf the train ran over,” whatever the hell that means.

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Today -100: August 29, 1926: Of military interventions, collective madnesses, overnight uncrowned dictators, shrines, and flag exercises

Texas Attorney General Dan Moody defeats Gov. Miriam “Ma” Ferguson in the Democratic run-off primary with 64% of the vote. Moody is 33 and, as the NYT feels obligated to say over and over, red-headed. (Michigan’s first governor, in the 19th century, was 23, by the way. Couldn’t tell you how many ginger governors there’ve been). Moody will have an even larger majority against the Republican candidate in November. 

The US lands troops in Nicaragua to protect Americans and their property, supposedly invited by the governor of Bluefields.

Some other woman swims the English Channel, but we’re bored now.

The Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano weighs in on the scenes at Rudolph Valentino’s funeral home: “It is a collective madness, incarnating the tragic comedy of a new fetishism, the last logical consequence of a materialist civilization which has given man dominion over everything but himself.” They make it sound like a bad thing.

A Sunday NYT Magazine article explains how Stalin “has become almost overnight the uncrowned dictator of Russia.”

Japan’s Shrine Bureau, a branch of the Home Dept., decrees the destruction of shrines to animals and monsters; only gods need apply.

The ACLU comes to the aid of 9-year-old Russell Tremain of Bellingham, Washington, who authorities removed from his home last year because he would not salute the flag in school for religious reasons (his parents are in the Elijah Voice Society, a splinter of the Jehovah’s Witnesses). His parents removed him from school when it refused to exempt him from “flag exercises,” so his father was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. A judge ordered Russell sent to the detention center for incorrigible children, be permanently removed from his home and put up for adoption so he could be raised by a “patriotic, Christian family.” The Tremains are not doing themselves any favors by refusing to show up in court – they do not recognize earthly courts – or authorize anyone to represent them. Russell will be returned to his family in late 1927, a year and a half after he was taken. More information on the case here. The US Supreme Court ruled in 1940 that schools could coerce students to recite the pledge of allegiance but reversed itself 3 years later.

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Today -100: August 28, 1926: Of tips, warships, and greetings

Coolidge issues rules for traveling government employees. They must limit tipping to 60¢ a day (with maximums for bellboys, porters, etc). They may not pay more than 50¢ a day for a hotel bath or $1.40 a week for laundry.

Nicaraguan complains to the League of Nations that Mexico is trying to overthrow its government, sending a warship carrying troops to aid rebels. It’s not asking the League to do anything in particular, just, you know, checking in.

Huge crowds (including a bunch of pickpockets) greet Gertrude Ederle in New York on her return from swimming the English Channel. How much of an overlap do you think there is with the crowds who jostled each other for a glimpse of Rudolph Valentino’s corpse?

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Today -100: August 27, 1926: Fun with alliteration

At Texas’s primary run-off elections tomorrow Gov. Ma Ferguson is expected to be crushed. Pa Ferguson calls Attorney Gen. Dan Moody a “Klene Kut Ku Klux Klansman” (actually, as a prosecutor Moody put a lot of kluxers in jail). I’d forgotten that 2 years ago Ms Ferguson’s slogan was “Me for Ma.” Anyway, Moody’s is “Dan’s the Man,” which is somewhat... problematic.

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Today -100: August 26, 1926: Of corpses, governors, and women’s votes

Campbell Funeral Parlors stops its public viewings of Rudolph Valentino’s corpse after the circus-like atmosphere (depending on what sort of circuses you go to, I guess).

New York Republicans are still having a hard time finding a candidate for governor. NY Supreme Court Justice Arthur S. Tompkins declines to run, pointing out that he has 8 years of his 14-year term on the Court left to run. He suggests Justice James Cropsey, but Cropsey would push for an unpopular state Prohibition enforcement act.

Mussolini giveth, Mussolini taketh away. In this case, women’s suffrage. Women (some women, not a lot of women) were recently granted the vote in municipal elections but now, before they’ve had a chance to exercise that vote, municipal elections are being abolished. Henceforth, muni officers will be appointed by the central government.

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Today -100: August 25, 1926: It’s what he would have wanted

30,000 people show up at the funeral home to see Rudolph Valentino’s corpse for two seconds at a time, getting a tad unruly at times. “They were merely curious, and looked it. Hardly one looked even sorrowful much less reverent.” 10 black-shirt-wearing Fascists set themselves up to guard the coffin, on the orders of Mussolini himself. Except they will turn out actually to be a bunch of actors hired by the funeral home. Mounted police charge the crowd, as was the custom.

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