Today -100: April 24, 1920: You will have war in Asia Minor

Interviewed by reporters in San Remo, Lloyd George pooh-poohs (French) fears about Germany, saying the country is paralyzed and disjointed, not functioning as a unit, with the central government’s orders being disregarded. So no German military coup against the Allies is likely. Nor will it fall to Bolshevism because Germans are “too used to discipline.” He expresses disappointment that the US only sent someone to the San Remo conference to take notes, not to explain American positions.

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The Sam Remo conference decides to establish an independent nation of Armenia, because no one feels like taking the mandate. The League of Nations was asked if it would take it, but the League pointed out that it didn’t actually have a budget. The conference hasn’t worked out Armenia’s borders yet, but it will probably be smaller than earlier plans had foreseen because no one feels like sending in troops to evict the Turks occupying parts of Armenia. Smyrna will be officially part of Turkey but administered by the Greeks.

Italian Prime Minister Francesco Nitti says the dismembering of Turkey means “You will have war in Asia Minor, and Italy will not send a single soldier nor pay a single lira.”

The New York State Senate passes the bills already passed by the lower house banning Socialists from public office.

The French Senate sentences former PM Joseph Caillaux to 3 years’ imprisonment (the time since his arrest in 1918, with time off for it being in a cell, covers this), plus 5 years’ banishment to a town designated by the Interior Minister, and 10 years’ loss of political rights.

The Senate votes to increase pensions for Civil War veterans to $50 a month, and for their widows to $30. Also the 215 veterans of the Mexican-American war and 1,576 widows, and 73 widows of War of 1812 veterans.

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Seven black couples attend the senior dance of Brooklyn Girls’ High School. The senior class had voted to cancel the dance if black students attended. Some of them claimed to have no objection to their fellow black students, but worried that their escorts might want to dance with white girls. Protests ensued, including from W.E.B DuBois, who happens to be the father of one of the girls, so the school superintendent told them that if the black students can’t come, the dance would be cancelled. The class changed its vote because they’d already paid for dresses and the ballroom. One of the teacher chaperones says that “everyone seems to be enjoying the dance. Naturally, the negro couples are keeping to themselves and not mingling with other students.” Naturally.

Want to go to the movies? Cecil B. De Mille’s Why Change Your Wife? with Gloria Swanson and Bebe Daniels opens at the Criterion Theatre in Times Square, which is converting from a live theatre to a movie theatre. 

It’s on YouTube.

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