Today -100: March 6, 1923: Get a shovel

Arthur Balfour’s government is not doing well in by-elections, including those required of MPs appointed to office. Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen was appointed Minister of Health but loses his by-election to J. Chuter Ede (Lab), who will be Attlee’s home secretary in the 1945-51 government. This comes a few days after George Stanley, under-secretary of the Home Office, lost his own by-election. Both therefore have to resign. Griffith-Boscawen, who says he was beaten by “rank treachery” (that’s the worst kind of treachery), presumably because an Independent Conservative candidate divided the right-wing vote, will be replaced as health minister by Neville Chamberlain.

France has suppressed many newspapers in the Ruhr and Rhine, and severely censored the rest. So Germany tries to reach the Ruhr through radio. French radio broadcast from the Eiffel Tower drowns it out. The French leave music alone, starting up their jamming when news or “Deutschland über alles” comes on.

The city of New York calls for bids to supply 100 gallons of rye whiskey for use in Bellevue and other hospitals for pneumonia and influenza patients and old people with bad hearts.

And the Hawaii territorial Legislature calls on Congress to allow light wines and beer, saying Prohibition has caused secret drunkenness and “hypocrisy, cant and dissimulation have become rampant.”

Human fly Harry Young falls off the outside of the 10th floor of the Martinique Hotel in NYC. It was a publicity stunt for Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last! Before the ascent, the Martinique’s house dick, after helping Young inspect the building, asked if he’d like a room and a bath after the stunt. “If I do it, have the bath ready. If I don’t, get a shovel.” He was to get $100 for the stunt. He was 32 and had been married 2 months.

8 of the 12 Grand Jury members hearing about the Mer Rouge Ku Klux Klan murders are, you guessed it, kluxers themselves. This will go well.

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