Today -100: August 22, 1920: Of escaping representatives, hunger strikes, and whistling

A judge issues a restraining order against the governor and other officials of Tennessee certifying the ratification of the 19th Amendment because of a provision in the state constitution that we know violates the US Constitution. Meanwhile 30 Anti House members flee the state to prevent a quorum (this is sort of a Tennessee tradition; the state was without US senators for two years in the 1840s because of a walkout that included future president Andrew Johnson). Suffragists say the state rules on quorum don’t apply on this federal matter.

Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork, now in an English prison where he is hunger-striking until his demand that the New York Times spell his fucking name right, or at least spells it the same wrong way twice in a row, is met, is told by Home Secretary Edward Shortt that he won’t be released and won’t be force-fed either.

What To Watch, Except You Can’t Because It’s Another Lost Movie: The Untamed, starring Tom Mix, at the Capitol Theatre. Advertised as “A Startling Tale of Three Strange Comrades of the Wild – A Man, A Horse and a Dog.”  Mix plays “Whistling Dan.” “His whistling was like the magic of wild things, the cry of the banshee, weird, soft and beautiful – that’s why people loved him, feared him and called him ‘Whistling Dan.’”

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