Today -100: November 6, 1920: Of cycling, hip flasks, show trials, spheres of influences, and samoas

Disappointing Headline of the Day -100:  

Actually MOTORcycling, which is somehow so much less interesting a story. Anyway, 4 men are arrested and two are shot dead “attempting to escape,” as was the custom.

Chicago District Attorney Charles Clyne – which is a Chicago district attorney kind of name – threatens to close down cabarets that allow customers to bring in hip flasks.

The Russian government is collapsing, because the Russian government is always collapsing. The NYT claims that Lenin was put on trial, or a sort of trial in a theatre (yes, we’re all thinking it), by Bolsheviks who accuse him of graft and trying to make himself absolute ruler. This is supposed to have happened last month, but the outcome is not known. Another totally true report says 100 to 300 people are executed every day in Moscow.

France, Britain and Italy sign an agreement setting out their spheres of influence in Turkey. How very nineteenth-century of them. Oh wait, they signed it 3 months ago and it’s not a secret treaty but just happens to have been kept secret since August, got it.

Warren Terhune, governor of American Samoa, was suspended pending an investigation into his heavy-handed approach to the natives. Three days before a battleship bringing a Naval Board of Inquiry is due to arrive, he kills himself.

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