Monday, November 21, 2022

Today -100: November 21, 1922: Of popular idols, peonage, and false and infamous accusations


Headline of the Day -100:  



“This reactionary Nationalistic anti-Semitic movement has now reached a point where it is considered potentially dangerous, though not for the immediate future.” “He probably does not know himself just what he wants to accomplish.” “But several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-Semitic propaganda as bait to catch masses of followers and keep them aroused”. Except for that bit, this article gives a surprisingly accurate depiction of exactly what Nazism is and how it operates.

Sidney Catts, former governor of Florida (1917-21) is acquitted of peonage. He kept two black men as debt peons on his plantation. You know, slavery. He is acquitted by an all-white jury, as was the custom.

Louisiana Gov. John Parker meets with Harding, Attorney Gen. Daugherty, and William Burns of the Bureau of Investigation to talk Klan stuff. He isn’t asking, as some reports claimed, for the feds to take over the state, but for help stopping support coming to the KKK from outside Louisiana.

Members of the Louisiana congressional delegation vehemently deny the “false and infamous” accusations in the WaPo about Ku Klux Klan power in the state. One of them, James Aswell, writes to all the sheriffs in the state; they all say that everything is hunkkky dory. Aswell says he’s never knowingly met a klansman. Gov. Parker says Aswell’s district is full of them. He does, however, write to the Post saying its article was 90% inaccurate. 

Capt. George Ingle Finch of the Mt. Everest expedition says cigarette-smoking is helpful at high altitudes as a physical stimulus. Finch’s expedition, the first to use bottled oxygen, did not reach the top of Everest but on the other hand neither did it die in a fiery explosion.

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