Today -100: October 19, 1924: Of electric coffee, assassins, and oases

Nominations close for the British general elections. 38 win their seats unopposed, including Tory leader Stanley Baldwin. The Liberals are contesting only 55% of the seats. 41 of the 1,405 candidates are women, of whom 12 are Tory, 6 Liberal and 22 Labour (Spoiler Alert: 4 will be elected).

NY Gov. Al Smith campaigns in Buffalo, where Mayor Francis Schwab (R), who was originally nominated by his friends as a practical joke – a brewer, he was under indictment at the time for possession of liquor – has been trying to make the names of Klan members public, fighting his police commissioner to do so. So the Klan is a big source of controversy in Buffalo, and Smith is here to help. He denounces Coolidge’s policy of silence.

The Klan holds a meeting in the fairgrounds outside Worcester, Massachusetts. As they leave, townies throw stones at their cars and beat up some of the kluxers.

Thomas Edison visits an electrical show, drinks “an electrically made cup of coffee,” and predicts that power will some day be transmitted by radio.

Heinrich Schulz (misidentified here as Foerster), one of the right-wing assassins of German former finance minister Matthias Erzberger in 1921, was captured in Hungary early this year. Hungary then refused to extradite him to Germany but expels him from the country as an undesirable. He will join the Turkish army, he says. He won’t actually do that, but will go to Spanish Guinea to oversee a plantation, where he’ll get malaria. He’ll return to Germany after Hitler comes to power and join the SS. Captured at the end of the war and questioned at Nuremberg, he’ll be returned to Germany for trial for the assassination. He’ll be convicted for manslaughter and serve 2 years of a 12-year sentence, living as a free man until his death in 1979.

Two Italian planes bomb the Gialo oasis in Libya. This is seen, by the Italians anyway, as a particularly audacious mission, given that the planes had to fly 373 miles to and from Benghazi and a while ago a pilot fell out of his plane in Libya and was eaten by hyenas, as was the custom.

The Texas Supreme Court rules that women, in this case Miriam “Ma” Ferguson, are eligible to hold office.

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