Today -100: February 16, 1926: Craven cowards are the worst kind of cowards

The roof of the White House is in serious need of repair, but Coolidge refuses to spend the $500,000 it would cost to prevent it falling in during, say, a snowstorm. But has he even considered building a big beautiful ballroom? HAS HE?

An arrest warrant is issued for the Earl of Craven for deportation on the grounds of “moral turpitude” for illicit fucking. Did Immigration wait until after he’d left for Canada? Possibly.

Meanwhile, the Labor Dept, which controls Immigration, holds a hearing for 

Vera, Countess Cathcart’s appeal of her own deportation order. Delegations from the National Woman’s Party and the ACLU are denied entry.

Alliterative Headline of the Day -100:

What was your first clue?

T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) will publish Seven Pillars of Wisdom (under the title Revolt in the Desert) in a limited edition at a cost of $150. He had to rewrite the whole thing after leaving the first draft on a train.

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Today -100: February 15, 1926: Of deportations and beer for workers

Immigration Commissioner Henry Curran responds to the complaints about the double standard in the order to deport Vera, Countess Cathcart by ordering the arrest of the Earl of Craven (!) too, although he does so by press release, which suggest he’s trying to get Craven to flee into Canada.

Headline of the Day -100:

The Association Opposed to Prohibition surveys Illinois manufacturers. Of 1,850 replies, 1,427 favor loosening of Prohibition.

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Today -100: February 14, 1926: Catchcart & Craven

Vera, Countess Cathcart, while waiting on her appeal of the deportation order against her, points out that the man she did all the adultery with, the Earl of Craven (!), was allowed to enter the US (earlier; they’re not together anymore and he’s back with his wife). So now the authorities are looking for him... 

The National Woman’s Party and Rep. Fiorello LaGuardia protest this double moral standard, although it sounds like they’d be content if men were treated equally badly for their private moral actions as women are.

When Germany joins the League of Nations, it will probably get a seat on the Council and might well align itself with Britain against France. So France wants to balance it out by adding Poland, as well as Spain and Brazil. Britain disagrees.

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Today -100: February 13, 1926: Of coal and straw hats

The anthracite coal strike is indeed over, after half a year. Miners will return to work this week on the exact terms they had before, without the wage reductions and compulsory arbitration the mineowners tried to force on them. Coolidge, as was the custom, was no help at all.

Pres. Coolidge orders tariffs on imported straw hats (mostly from Italy) worth more than $9.50 increased from 60% to 88%. 1) $9.50? For a straw hat? Why, that’s the equivalent of some money! SOME MONEY. 2) Taxing the most 1920s of all hats? I dunno.

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Today -100: February 12, 1926: Crimes involving moral turpitude are the funnest kind of crimes

Vera, the Countess Cathcart is ordered deported by the special board of inquiry at Ellis Island. Immigration Commissioner Henry Curran says she “admitted the commission of the crime involving moral turpitude, adultery.” Crime?

Mexico will nationalize all church property, including property belonging to individual priests, and deport all priests who aren’t native Mexicans.

The 164-day anthracite coal strike seems to be coming to an end.

Showbiz Headline of the Day -100:

A likely story.

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Today -100: February 11, 1926: Maybe just shut up about the plight of Sudeten Germans, Duck?

Mussolini warns Germany (and Austria) against appealing to the League of Nations against his treatment of ethnic Germans in South Tyrol, which was annexed as part of the post-war settlement. He says Italy won’t allow the League to discuss the issue, which he considers an internal one. He says that while there are millions of Germans outside Germany, Germany only complains about the treatment of those in Italy; he points out the Czech language was just made compulsory for conducting government business in Czechoslovakia.

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Today -100: February 10, 1926: Unjustifiable and insultingly phrased attacks and sneers are the worst kind of attacks and sneers

All parties in the German Reichstag except the Communists approve a declaration rejecting Mussolini’s “unjustifiable and insultingly phrased attacks and sneers” and defends Germany’s right to demand just treatment for ethnic/linguistic German minorities in South Tyrol.

Vera Cathcart, Countess Cathcart, after sailing to the US to try to sell some of her plays, will face a board of enquiry on Ellis Island because when she got divorced from the Earl Cathcart in 1922 (1921?) he accused her of (shock gasp horror) adultery.

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Today -100: February 9, 1926: Of bread trusts, ponzi property, and racial integrity

Federal tax returns will once again be private following an unrecorded vote in the Senate.

The federal government files suit under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to prevent the merger of several baking companies into the Ward Food Products Corporation, calling it an illegal “bread trust.”

In Georgetown, Delaware, a lynch mob is held at bay by the state militia, armed with machine guns, hand grenades, and tear gas (they use the tear gas) while black man Harry Butler is tried for an attack on a 12-year-old. He’s convicted and sentenced to hang.

Charles Ponzi’s latest business activities have been in the always above-board field of Florida real estate, as he supposedly tries to pay back his previous fraud victims (he got out of prison last year). He and his wife are now indicted for doing business without complying with any of the Florida regulations.

The Virginia Legislature is working on yet another “Racial Integrity” Bill, but some people are worried that its one-drop definition of race would classify some of the state’s upper crust as “colored,” including a dozen members of the Legislature. One problem is that people with Native American blood count as colored, although the bill excludes descendants of white/Indian couples who married before 1619.

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Today -100: February 8, 1926: Of smog and moods

The NYT says the US Weather Bureau “has given a new word, ‘smog,’ to the American language.” The British coined the word 20 years ago, which I guess is new by NYT standards.  (Update: Philip Hitti, a Princeton professor, will correct them on this.)

Headline of the Day -100:

No fucking kidding.

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Today -100: February 7, 1926: What I said does not apply to clowning or political oratory

Some Germans are boycotting Italian products over Italy’s treatment of Germans in South Tyrol (or the Alto Adige as Italy calls the province annexed after the Gerat War), among other things forcing them to Italianize their names. In the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Mussolini threatens retaliation: “two eyes for an eye and a whole set of teeth for the loss of only one tooth.” He calls the German campaign “nefarious and ridiculous,” which I believe is the Duck’s dating profile. He says “We will render that region Italian because it is Italian, both historically and geographically. The new boundary of the Brenner Pass is a frontier traced by the infallible hand of God.” He says most of the Germans in the Alto Adige “are Italians who have become Germans and whom we will redeem by making them feel the pride of belonging to the great Italian nation.” The rest of the Germans are just “residues of barbaric invasions.”

Five people dig up  Pancho Villa’s body and make off with his skull. They leave a note saying they’ll send it to the US for $5,000. They won’t, and it will never be seen again, except maybe at Yale’s Skull and Bones Club.

Contributing to a debate in the letter pages of the Daily Telegraph on applause in theatres, George Bernard Shaw puts “applause during a performance on the footing of brawlings in church” (like those aren’t fun too). “The first condition of an artistic performance is that the players should be able to forget the audience and the audience to forget itself.” “The only entertainments at which loud laughter and applause should be countenanced are those which have laughter and applause for their object. Therefore, what I said does not apply to clowning or political oratory.”

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Today -100: February 6, 1926: Hyde and seek

The appeal of Sir Basil Thomson, former head of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, against his conviction for hanky panky in Hyde Park, is rejected at the London Sessions. No fewer than 50 justices of the peace attend the case. His lawyer says he was merely there to gather material for a book about social conditions after dark.

A meeting of German Jews called by the B’nai B’rith enters into an anti-suicide compact; they will “continue to live and hope for better times.” Oh dear.

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Today -100: February 5, 1926: Of black shriners and the Charleston

New NYC Police Commissioner George McLaughlin tells the National Urban League that they should try to enroll black youths in churches and social organizations, stop them gambling, and stop white slumming parties who go to Harlem black and tan cabarets because they’re trouble-makers. But he does say black youths should be allowed to do the Charleston.

Black lawyers will be heard in the Texas Supreme Court for the first time, in a case about whether black people can call themselves Shriners.

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