Today -100: November 11, 1922: I would have proclaimed a dictatorship, which I could have done easily

Headline of the Day -100:  

Sir William Horwood, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is poisoned – in Scotland Yard itself – by a box of chocolates with walnut & arsenic that arrived in the mail.  He’ll survive, but it’s probably not a great reflection on his detecting skills. To be fair, it’s his birthday (54), so he thought they were from his daughter. He’ll hereafter be known as the Chocolate Soldier by the rank & file, who are not fans, and are in fact suspects in the poisoning. Or it’s the Communists, because it’s always the Communists. Or “a desperate gang of race track crooks.” Sir Basil Thomson, former head of Special Branch, thinks it can’t possibly be a deliberate poisoning because English people just don’t kill public officials with poison. It’ll turn out to be some random nutter.

Mussolini tells an American reporter that only Communists call the Fascists reactionary. Why, he didn’t even have to reopen parliament, which he did. If he were reactionary, “I would have proclaimed a dictatorship, which I could have done easily.” Color me reassured. He says women will probably eventually get the vote, but they won’t know what to do with it.

Irish Free State forces capture Erskine Childers, novelist and de Valera’s #2. If they’d been smarter, they could have followed him to de Valera and got him too.

Commerce Secretary Andrew Mellon orders the release of vessels seized outside the 3-mile limit for having liquor on board if they haven’t sent boats ashore. That’s about 20 ships over the last few months.

Headline of the Day That My Father Would Have Enjoyed -100:  

Happy Armistice Day or, as the French have decided to call it, Capitulation Day.

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