Saturday, August 31, 2019

Today -100: August 31, 1919: Of race riots, sugar profiteers, wars on Jews, and dancing


“Lithuanian sources” (which seems to mean one railroad engineer, but if that isn’t a good enough source for a front page above the fold story, what is?) inform the NYT that an army of 40,000 Germans has assembled in Lithuania to invade Russia.

In Knoxville, Tennessee, a huge lynch mob is driven from the jail without seizing a black prisoner who’d been transferred to Chattanooga, so they go on a murderous rampage through the negro district, as was the custom, killing two.

Headline of the Day -100:


Headline of the Day -100:  


The American National Association of Masters of Dancing asks the Methodist Episcopal Church to lift its ban on dancing. The Masters stand for “decent” dancing and against jazz and “other music that tends to degrade or sensualize dancing.”

Now Playing: The Valley of the Giants, starring now-forgotten mega-star Wallace Reid, who was badly injured in a train wreck late in the filming, so the studio, Paramount, sent out a doctor to pump him with enough morphine to get him through it, as was the custom. Reid died a hopeless addict in 1923 at 31 years old. The film was lost for 90 years, when a print was discovered in Russia. It’s supposedly being restored by the Library of Congress.


Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

No comments:

Post a Comment