Today -100: December 9, 1923: We’re going to Cleveland!

The Reichstag passes an emergency powers act allowing Chancellor Wilhelm Marx’s Cabinet to do whatever it wants without further Reichstag authorization for an indefinite period. The vote is 313-18, with 39 left-wing members of the Social Democratic Party ignoring the party whip and staying away.

Pres. Coolidge decides that the 1924 Republican Convention will be held in Cleveland (they’ve been using Chicago exclusively since 1904 but support for Hiram Johnson is strong there so...). The Republican Party is thinking about sending out 2,000 trained speakers to explain Treasury Sec. Andrew Mellon’s plan for reducing taxes mostly on the rich (dropping surtaxes from 50% to 25%). “Duh, we’re Republicans” would seem to cover it.

The Nash County, North Carolina commissioners protest Gov. Cameron Morrison’s sending troops to Nashville to prevent the lynching of a black man on trial for assaulting a white woman. Morrison, not exactly innocent of participating in racist violence in the past, says he’ll use “every particle of power given me by the Constitution of this State to prevent lynchings”.

The Ku Klux Klan contributes $25 to a small negro church, the Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, in Greenport, Long Island, which is building a new church.

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