Today -100: January 5, 1923: Of potential wars, engaging princes, lynchings, and cocos

Headline of the Day -100:  

At the Paris conference (always with the conferences, these people), France and Britain (and Belgium and Italy) aren’t agreeing on what to do about German reparations and France increasingly looks like, yes, invading Germany and occupying the resource-rich Ruhr.

Two days ago, the Daily News (London) reported that the Prince of Wales was engaged to an (unnamed) Italian princess, and the NYT repeated it on the front page. Now the News says, and the NYT repeats on the front page that he’s actually engaged to a “daughter of a well-known Scottish Peer,” which everyone understands to mean Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. Closer than the Italian princess story, but still wide of the mark: Ms Double-Barrel will actually marry the Prince of Wales’s brother Bertie in March. 

A convent in Quebec and a Catholic school in Winnipeg burn down. There’s been a wave of arson attacks at Catholic institutions in Canada in the last year.

Leslie Legett, a black man or possibly a “Spaniard,” is lynched in Shreveport, Louisiana for associating with white women. Police had been tailing him but were unable to obtain evidence of this “crime.” Sorry, I mean the associating-with-white-woman crime; obviously they haven’t managed to obtain evidence of the kidnapping and lynching.

The, I guess grand jury hearings, on the murders of Watt Daniels and Thomas Richards by a Klan mob in Mer Rouge, Louisiana begin. Now if only they can find anyone to sit on the grand jury who ISN’T a klansman. Attorney General Coco and Adj. Gen. Toombs are present, while former mayor/goblin Dr. Bunnie McKoin has given up resisting extradition from Maryland and will be back shortly. Coco, Toombs and Bunny sounds like the worst children’s book ever.

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