Today -100: October 26, 1921: Of failed coups, strikes, business man’s cabinets, bats, and dirty, dirty words

Former emperor/king Charles accepts the Hungarian government’s terms of surrender, renouncing the throne for himself and his son (Update: No, he hasn’t). They’re stashing him in an abbey until the Allies decide what to do with him – Switzerland says he can’t come back and his entourage have to leave the country. There are stories that he tried to commit suicide, only to be dissuaded by former empress/queen Zita, which is the sort of thing the super-dramatic Hapsburgs would do but is also the sort of rumor that gets spread about them. I don’t think it’s true.

The Railroad Labor Board asks the railroads to postpone their request for a second double-digit wage reduction, in the interests of averting a strike. The railroads say no. Conflicts between various unions make the strike actually look increasingly less likely, but various governors are preparing to use troops to keep the trains moving, and 700 Harvard students volunteer to man the roads as scabs (Columbia will refuse to let its students do the same, or at least will penalize them for missed classes).

Joseph Wirth, who resigned as German chancellor Saturday, is chosen to be chancellor again and form a “business man’s” cabinet.

“Bat” Masterson dies. The last of the Olde West gunfighters, sheriff of Dodge City, etc., but more recently a sports writer and editor, he dies at his desk at the Morning Telegraph in NYC at 67.

The House of Representatives is outraged at something Thomas Blanton (D-Texas) slipped into the Congressional Record, a purported conversation between a union and a non-union printer for the Record – Blanton hates hates hates unions – and they’re considering expelling him altogether. They don’t like him anyway because he keeps demanding roll call votes and calling other congresscritters liars. They vote 313-1 to expunge whatever the offending matter was. The NYT certainly won’t tell us what it was, but we are assured it is so filthy it could not legally be sent through the mails.  And here’s some of it, exactly as it was printed: “G__d D___n your black heart, you ought to have it torn out of you, you u____ s_____ of a b_____. You and the Public Printer has no sense. You k_____ his a____ and he is a d_____d fool for letting you do it.” (I can’t figure out what the U-word is).

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