Today -100: March 3, 1926: Of Bimbas

Anthony Bimba is convicted of sedition, but not of blasphemy, the prosecution having downplayed the charge under that 300-year-old law. The judge expresses annoyance at the Lithuanian community of Brooklyn using the legal system to conduct its internal disputes, calling it “over-contentious.” He fines Bimba $100. Bimba’s conviction will be reversed on appeal. He will become a naturalized US citizen in 1927, but in 1963 the government will try to deport him, claiming he failed to mention the 1926 prosecution when he applied for citizenship; the government will eventually drop that case, which was probably initiated in retaliation for his refusal to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1957.

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Today -100: March 2, 1926: Watch out

The War Department turns down an offer by the Benrus Watch Co. (owned by three Jewish brothers who immigrated from, where else, Switzerland) to install – for free – a giant illuminated wristwatch on the Statue of Liberty. The War Dept (why is this their decision?) says a wristwatch would simply be too modern for the classical statue.

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Today -100: March 1, 1926: Of dirty businesses, the real cause of the crime wave, and what means the same thing as negro

Prince Aage of Denmark, who renounced his position as #1 in the royal succession and joined the Foreign Legion, as you do, says being a king is “a dirty business.” “Give me the army,” he says. Whenever the prince of Wales falls off a horse, “everybody in the the world laughs at it,” but when Aage falls off a horse in Morocco, “I just rub myself and that’s the end of it.” No comment.

William McDougall, professor of psychology and racist twaddle at Harvard, says crime in the US is caused by racial mingling, which erodes the traditions which preserve order.

A black man, Joseph Manning, is fined $30 for disorderly conduct. He approached a young woman eating breakfast in a Park Row restaurant, then dared to object when she told him, “Shut up, nigger.” The magistrate says, “There are too many of your kind in Harlem who want people to believe they are not negroes by taking offense when they are called negroes. Nigger means the same thing as negro.”

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Today -100: February 28, 1926: Of vindications, maids, and cruel and barbarous bedtimes

Miriam “Ma” Ferguson, who ran for governor of Texas in 1924 allegedly to “vindicate” her husband, impeached former Gov. James R, announces that she’ll need a second term to finish that vindication. She wants the impeachment expunged from the record and says she wouldn’t be running again if that had happened. That’s quite a platform, especially since the state senate has already refused to do that. She says she will continue to be advised by her husband just like previous governors have been advised by their wives (I notice she never claims that she advised James when he was governor).

Mary Harrison, widow of Pres. Benjamin Harrison (by the way, she was the niece of his first wife), appears in court in Harlem to plead for mercy for her maid, who had stolen a bunch of her jewelry.

In Pittsburgh, the master (job title, not an S&M thing, probably) who reviews divorce cases and makes recommendations which the court usually rubber-stamps, agrees with Miriam Elpern that the 9:00 or 9:30 bedtime he imposed on her is cruel and barbarous.

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Today -100: February 27, 1926: Baby’s day out

Less than 3 weeks after being convicted of attacking a 12-year-old girl, black man Harry Butler is hanged in Georgetown, Delaware. Although only 100 or so spectators are allowed to observe the... entertainment (not counting those watching from the roofs of neighboring buildings), afterwards thousands are allowed to look at the body on the scaffold. “Many of the women carried babies, raising them to their shoulders to see the negro.” Before the execution, the crowd was singing, but the article does not list their songs.

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Today -100: February 26, 1926: Of bridges and elections

A $425 million Deficiency Bill is held up by a bunch of senators hiding in the cloak room to prevent a quorum for a vote on whether to tax Navajo tribes to build a bridge in Nevada and another over the Colorado River, neither of which would be of any benefit whatsoever to the Navajo.

Dems in the NY Legislature propose a bill to increase the term of office for the governor from 2 years to 4, starting with whoever is elected in November, with elections held in the off year. Republicans agree to the idea of a 4-year term but want elections to be held in the same year as presidential elections. I don’t really understand the reasons for the parties’ preferences here.

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Today -100: February 25, 1926: Going through the arch

French army pilot Lt. Léon Collot (Collet? Callot?) makes a bet that he can fly through the arch at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower. He succeeds, then his wing catches on one of the Tower’s radio antennas, and he crashes and burns. There is no mention of whether the plane was his personal aircraft or the army’s.

Germany is offering to allow Spain – but absolutely not Poland – a seat on the League of Nations Council, in exchange for the end of the occupation of the Rhineland by the end of the year. (Update: Germany will deny this, so who knows).

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Today -100: February 24, 1926: Going on a jolly

Pres. Coolidge opposes the US having a large air force because 1) he’s a cheapskate, 2) he doesn’t want a global arms race.

A Prussian Diet investigating committee finds that the Black Reichswehr murders of supposed traitors within the paramilitary body were ordered by 3 deputies in the Diet. The convicted assassin Robert Grütte-Lehder also claims that the prosecutor in his closed-door trial suppressed evidence of the deputies’ involvement.

Badly Written Headline of the Day -100:

500 German women send proposals to professional hunger artist “Jolly” (real name: Siegfried Herz), who has been sitting in a glass box in Berlin restaurant The Crocodile for a week without eating. He will continue for a total of 44 days. Presumably the women are interested in marrying him “as means of cutting down kitchen drudgery.”

Madrid bans the killing of horses by bulls in bull fights.

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Today -100: February 23, 1926: Sometimes I want to kill, kill, kill

Arthur Findlay, manager of Wanamaker’s department store in New York, fails to get the pope interested in building a 6-hole golf course on Vatican grounds. It’s unclear whether he pitched this to Pope Pius personally.

Omaha captures its sniper. He’s a 45-year-old farm hand from Iowa. “Sometimes I want to kill, kill, kill,” he tells reporters.

The New York State Assembly kills a bill to outlaw “petting parties” in cars parked on highways. Assemblycritter Stone says the only supporters of the bill in the Assembly are men past the age where they’d enjoy a good petting party. Ass. Hutchinson, who supports the bill, denies having “passed the age when I am averse to such devotion.”

Politicians celebrate George Washington’s 194th birthday by debating whether he would have supported American participation in the World Court  and whether he’d have supported Prohibition.

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Today -100: February 22, 1926: Of social crimes

Vera, the Countess Cathcart is allowed into the US for 10 days on a  $500 bond. No one seems to know who made this sudden decision or why. (Update: A Labor Dept solicitor will admit tomorrow that it was he, but won’t discuss his reasons, which seem likely to be about preempting a habeas corpus hearing, which you can’t have if the government doesn’t habba your corpus. He says the whole thing may come down to whether “the commission of a social crime,” i.e., adultery, counts as a crime in the US even though it’s not a crime in South Africa, where it was committed.)

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Today -100: February 21, 1926: I didn’t know that one was expected to lie in order to enter the United States

A sniper haunts the streets of Omaha, shooting into lit windows and killing 2 people over the last 3 weeks.

In recent discussions of Prohibition in Congress, Rep. John Hill (R-Maryland) claimed beer is not intoxicating. Schlitz Brewing Company helpfully offers to send each congresscritter a case of beer to test this proposition for themselves.

Vera, Countess Cathcart, explains that she’s in this mess with US immigration because she told the truth about her divorce: “I didn’t know that one was expected to lie in order to enter the United States.”

German novelist and screenwriter Artur Landsberger says German movies are failing in the export market because of all the hand-kissing. Non-Teutonics prefer to see that newfangled lip-kissing.

The NYT runs a State of the Klan survey showing kluxer decline, in influence as well as hood count, in every state.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: February 20, 1926: Of whiskey, minor Georgians, and things not to do under the elms

Coolidge nixes the idea of the federal government buying up all the medicinal whiskey.

Georgia Attorney General George Napier says that the marriages of Georgians (mostly minors) who elope to other states to evade Georgia’s 1924 law requiring 5 days’ notice before a marriage license is issued will not be recognized by Georgia. This will affect hundreds of marriages.

The LAPD arrest the cast – all of it – of a production of Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms on a charge of obscenity. At least the vice squad lets the performance finish before sweeping in, after consulting with members of the PTA, the Board of Education, and some ministers they brought along.

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Today -100: February 19, 1926: If they want to start something they’ll get what’s coming to them

Pres. Coolidge has the flu.

Rep. Charles L. Underhill (R-Mass.) warns the Philippines independence movement (now including both major Filipino political parties) “If they want to start something they’ll get what’s coming to them.” Continuing to make the movement’s case for them, he says Filipinos are “no more fit for self-government than a lot of children.”

Anthony Bimba, a Lithuanian-born Communist and editor of left-wing Lithuanian-language newspapers, will go on trial in Massachusetts for blasphemy under a law passed during the witch trials in Salem (39 miles from Brockton, where Bimba made his speech, in Lithuanian). He denied that there was a God. He’s also charged with sedition.

PM Theodoros Pangalos banishes former PM Alexandros Papanastasiou, former interior minister Georgios Kondylis and other opposition figures to the tiny island of Anafi. The government says the move is to “allay public anxiety.” Also, all private firearms, except those used in sport, naturally, are ordered turned in.

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Today -100: February 18, 1926: Of baby sopranos, cathcarts, pests of pests, and cotton

Marion Talley makes her debut as prima donna at the Metropolitan Opera in Rigoletto. She’s 19 years of age. 19! There’s been so much fuss about this that the Met is mobbed and thousands can’t purchase tickets. The cops arrest several scalpers. The Associated Press reports live by telegraph from the wings, which has not been done before for an opera.

The NYT review praises Ms Talley’s voice but finds that she “has not at present the artistic knowledge to make the most of her gifts.” But you can hear for yourself what she sounded like singing Rigoletto in February 1926:

https://youtu.be/kk_NhUMxaHk

The Treasury Dept is investigating whether it’s feasible for the federal government to purchase the country’s entire supply of medical whisky so it doesn’t keep going astray.

Secretary of Labor James Davis decides that Vera, Countess Cathcart will be thrown out of the country after all. He points out that the 1924 Immigration Act moved the burden of proof from the government to the alien. Next step: To the courts!

The National Woman’s Party points to other examples of the double moral standard in the law: 38 states make prostitution illegal while letting their clients off the hook.

Mexico bans teachers from running for public office.

Manila City Councilman-Elect Antonio Paguia, who last month was sentenced to 2 months in prison for calling Gov. Gen. Leonard Wood “a big tree without a shadow,” is now convicted of sedition, this time for calling Wood a “pest of pests,” “usurper of Philippine autonomy,” and “the worst emissary of the imperialists ever sent here.” The court says this is sedition because an attack on Wood is an attack on the United States government. 

Greece arrests a bunch of opponents of PM Theodoros Pangalos, including former PM Alexandros Papanastasiou and former interior minister Georgios Kondylis.

The Senate votes to compensate Wynona Dixon, 75, for cotton seized by Union forces from her family plantation in Louisiana during the Civil War. $7,666.67. It now goes to the House.

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Today -100: February 17, 1926: Semi-legal points are the most semi kind of legal points, or something

Labor Secretary James Davis postpones his Florida vacation so he can review Vera, Countess Cathcart’s appeal of her deportation order and consider the “semi-legal” question of whether adultery counts as “moral turpitude” for the purposes of the 1917 Immigration Act.

Two Hungarian officers, members of a thuggy right-wing group, try to assassinate former justice minister and current Member of Parliament Vilmos Vázsonyi, who has been pushing an investigation into the plot to counterfeit French francs to fund a royalist coup.

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Today -100: February 16, 1926: Craven cowards are the worst kind of cowards

The roof of the White House is in serious need of repair, but Coolidge refuses to spend the $500,000 it would cost to prevent it falling in during, say, a snowstorm. But has he even considered building a big beautiful ballroom? HAS HE?

An arrest warrant is issued for the Earl of Craven for deportation on the grounds of “moral turpitude” for illicit fucking. Did Immigration wait until after he’d left for Canada? Possibly.

Meanwhile, the Labor Dept, which controls Immigration, holds a hearing for 

Vera, Countess Cathcart’s appeal of her own deportation order. Delegations from the National Woman’s Party and the ACLU are denied entry.

Alliterative Headline of the Day -100:

What was your first clue?

T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) will publish Seven Pillars of Wisdom (under the title Revolt in the Desert) in a limited edition at a cost of $150. He had to rewrite the whole thing after leaving the first draft on a train.

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Today -100: February 15, 1926: Of deportations and beer for workers

Immigration Commissioner Henry Curran responds to the complaints about the double standard in the order to deport Vera, Countess Cathcart by ordering the arrest of the Earl of Craven (!) too, although he does so by press release, which suggest he’s trying to get Craven to flee into Canada.

Headline of the Day -100:

The Association Opposed to Prohibition surveys Illinois manufacturers. Of 1,850 replies, 1,427 favor loosening of Prohibition.

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Today -100: February 14, 1926: Catchcart & Craven

Vera, Countess Cathcart, while waiting on her appeal of the deportation order against her, points out that the man she did all the adultery with, the Earl of Craven (!), was allowed to enter the US (earlier; they’re not together anymore and he’s back with his wife). So now the authorities are looking for him... 

The National Woman’s Party and Rep. Fiorello LaGuardia protest this double moral standard, although it sounds like they’d be content if men were treated equally badly for their private moral actions as women are.

When Germany joins the League of Nations, it will probably get a seat on the Council and might well align itself with Britain against France. So France wants to balance it out by adding Poland, as well as Spain and Brazil. Britain disagrees.

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Today -100: February 13, 1926: Of coal and straw hats

The anthracite coal strike is indeed over, after half a year. Miners will return to work this week on the exact terms they had before, without the wage reductions and compulsory arbitration the mineowners tried to force on them. Coolidge, as was the custom, was no help at all.

Pres. Coolidge orders tariffs on imported straw hats (mostly from Italy) worth more than $9.50 increased from 60% to 88%. 1) $9.50? For a straw hat? Why, that’s the equivalent of some money! SOME MONEY. 2) Taxing the most 1920s of all hats? I dunno.

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Today -100: February 12, 1926: Crimes involving moral turpitude are the funnest kind of crimes

Vera, the Countess Cathcart is ordered deported by the special board of inquiry at Ellis Island. Immigration Commissioner Henry Curran says she “admitted the commission of the crime involving moral turpitude, adultery.” Crime?

Mexico will nationalize all church property, including property belonging to individual priests, and deport all priests who aren’t native Mexicans.

The 164-day anthracite coal strike seems to be coming to an end.

Showbiz Headline of the Day -100:

A likely story.

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Today -100: February 11, 1926: Maybe just shut up about the plight of Sudeten Germans, Duck?

Mussolini warns Germany (and Austria) against appealing to the League of Nations against his treatment of ethnic Germans in South Tyrol, which was annexed as part of the post-war settlement. He says Italy won’t allow the League to discuss the issue, which he considers an internal one. He says that while there are millions of Germans outside Germany, Germany only complains about the treatment of those in Italy; he points out the Czech language was just made compulsory for conducting government business in Czechoslovakia.

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Today -100: February 10, 1926: Unjustifiable and insultingly phrased attacks and sneers are the worst kind of attacks and sneers

All parties in the German Reichstag except the Communists approve a declaration rejecting Mussolini’s “unjustifiable and insultingly phrased attacks and sneers” and defends Germany’s right to demand just treatment for ethnic/linguistic German minorities in South Tyrol.

Vera Cathcart, Countess Cathcart, after sailing to the US to try to sell some of her plays, will face a board of enquiry on Ellis Island because when she got divorced from the Earl Cathcart in 1922 (1921?) he accused her of (shock gasp horror) adultery.

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Today -100: February 9, 1926: Of bread trusts, ponzi property, and racial integrity

Federal tax returns will once again be private following an unrecorded vote in the Senate.

The federal government files suit under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to prevent the merger of several baking companies into the Ward Food Products Corporation, calling it an illegal “bread trust.”

In Georgetown, Delaware, a lynch mob is held at bay by the state militia, armed with machine guns, hand grenades, and tear gas (they use the tear gas) while black man Harry Butler is tried for an attack on a 12-year-old. He’s convicted and sentenced to hang.

Charles Ponzi’s latest business activities have been in the always above-board field of Florida real estate, as he supposedly tries to pay back his previous fraud victims (he got out of prison last year). He and his wife are now indicted for doing business without complying with any of the Florida regulations.

The Virginia Legislature is working on yet another “Racial Integrity” Bill, but some people are worried that its one-drop definition of race would classify some of the state’s upper crust as “colored,” including a dozen members of the Legislature. One problem is that people with Native American blood count as colored, although the bill excludes descendants of white/Indian couples who married before 1619.

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Today -100: February 8, 1926: Of smog and moods

The NYT says the US Weather Bureau “has given a new word, ‘smog,’ to the American language.” The British coined the word 20 years ago, which I guess is new by NYT standards.  (Update: Philip Hitti, a Princeton professor, will correct them on this.)

Headline of the Day -100:

No fucking kidding.

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Today -100: February 7, 1926: What I said does not apply to clowning or political oratory

Some Germans are boycotting Italian products over Italy’s treatment of Germans in South Tyrol (or the Alto Adige as Italy calls the province annexed after the Gerat War), among other things forcing them to Italianize their names. In the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Mussolini threatens retaliation: “two eyes for an eye and a whole set of teeth for the loss of only one tooth.” He calls the German campaign “nefarious and ridiculous,” which I believe is the Duck’s dating profile. He says “We will render that region Italian because it is Italian, both historically and geographically. The new boundary of the Brenner Pass is a frontier traced by the infallible hand of God.” He says most of the Germans in the Alto Adige “are Italians who have become Germans and whom we will redeem by making them feel the pride of belonging to the great Italian nation.” The rest of the Germans are just “residues of barbaric invasions.”

Five people dig up  Pancho Villa’s body and make off with his skull. They leave a note saying they’ll send it to the US for $5,000. They won’t, and it will never be seen again, except maybe at Yale’s Skull and Bones Club.

Contributing to a debate in the letter pages of the Daily Telegraph on applause in theatres, George Bernard Shaw puts “applause during a performance on the footing of brawlings in church” (like those aren’t fun too). “The first condition of an artistic performance is that the players should be able to forget the audience and the audience to forget itself.” “The only entertainments at which loud laughter and applause should be countenanced are those which have laughter and applause for their object. Therefore, what I said does not apply to clowning or political oratory.”

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Today -100: February 6, 1926: Hyde and seek

The appeal of Sir Basil Thomson, former head of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, against his conviction for hanky panky in Hyde Park, is rejected at the London Sessions. No fewer than 50 justices of the peace attend the case. His lawyer says he was merely there to gather material for a book about social conditions after dark.

A meeting of German Jews called by the B’nai B’rith enters into an anti-suicide compact; they will “continue to live and hope for better times.” Oh dear.

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Today -100: February 5, 1926: Of black shriners and the Charleston

New NYC Police Commissioner George McLaughlin tells the National Urban League that they should try to enroll black youths in churches and social organizations, stop them gambling, and stop white slumming parties who go to Harlem black and tan cabarets because they’re trouble-makers. But he does say black youths should be allowed to do the Charleston.

Black lawyers will be heard in the Texas Supreme Court for the first time, in a case about whether black people can call themselves Shriners.

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Today -100: February 4, 1926: Of mini revolutions, barbers, extradition, and jazz emotions

A revolution begins in Portugal. And ends 24 hours later.

Atlanta’s City Council may consider repealing the ordinance banning black barbers serving white people.

Last month, US immigration officials deported Huertaist former Col. Manuel Demetrio Torres to Mexico, which promptly executed him without trial (by firing squad), claiming he was a train robber. There is some... dispute... between Mexican Pres. Plutarco Elías Calles and the US over whether he had given reassurances before Torres was turned over that this would not happen. The US Senate now stops consideration of an extradition treaty.

The Salvation Army in Cincinnati gets a temporary injunction against a movie theatre next to its orphanage because the music emanating from it would implant “jazz emotions” in the babies born there.

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Today -100: February 3, 1926: 5'2"

Four members of the Black Reichswehr, the German secret army/death squad, are sentenced to death for killing a supposed traitor to the group.

Dr. J. Rendel Harris, biblical scholar, has determined that Jesus was 5 foot 2 (3 cubits).

Leon Trotsky has a forthcoming book, Whither England?, which suggests that the Labour Party should start a revolution, which should begin with a general strike. 

The feds plan to start fingerprinting Prohibition agents to weed out some of the “undesirables” they’ve been hiring (not unlike ICE). In the last 6 years, 916 agents, including 12 directors, have been fired for cause. Rep. George Tinkham (R-Mass.) has a bill for agents to be appointed on the merit system rather than through personal connections or recommendations by the Anti-Saloon League (the latter have proven the most corrupt).

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Today -100: February 2, 1926: Tell what to the Marines?

The first murder trial for a member of the Black Reichswehr, the paramilitary  organization/death squad formed to allow the German army to breach the Versailles Treaty limits on its size, begins in Berlin. In secret, which is not auspicious. The group’s goons killed members suspected of betrayal. The lieutenant in command of the 3 killers in this case is immediately released because of (cough) lack of evidence.

The Marine Corps gives MGM exclusive rights to film marines for the next year. They think that the forthcoming film “Tell it to the Marines” (directed by George Hill, starring Lon Chaney) will do for Marines recruitment what “The Big Parade” did for the Army.

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Today -100: February 1, 1926: Too close to big business? Unpossible!

Kentucky Gov. W.J. Fields, not to be confused with W.C. Fields (update: I have looked up Gov. Fields and found that his next 3 successors were named Flem Samson, Ruby Laffoon, and Happy Chandler, all of whom sound like characters in a W.C. Fields movie), will deploy 1,000 soldiers with machine guns, gas bombs, tanks, and more! to protect Ed Harris, alleged multiple murderer, from being lynched when he is transported to Lexington for trial. People are ordered to stay out of Lexington or remain in their homes. 

The murder was committed 12 days ago. The trial will take place in 3 days and last part of one day. He’ll plead guilty and the jury will take 3 minutes to sentence him to death. The execution will take place in a month. Who needs lynchings when you have all-white Southern juries?

Democratic party leaders meet at Sen. Walsh’s home to figure out what their principles will be in the 1926 congressional elections. The NYT’s principle is “Someone needs to invent Wikipedia,” because it thinks attendee Franklin Delano Roosevelt was “the Democratic candidate for Vice President in 1924,” which he was not. Anyway, D’s will be campaigning on tariffs and on the Coolidge Admin being too close to big business.

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Today -100: January 31, 1926: Liberté, égalité, funké

American dancer/choreographer/etc Harry Pilcer introduces a jazzy syncopated version of the Marseillaise in a Paris music hall. Rioting ensues. The Prefect orders that henceforth no one fuck with the Marseillaise.

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Today -100: January 30, 1926: No Civil War emotions

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Gasparri denies that there are ongoing discussions for an understanding, “Concordat,” as it will be called, between the Vatican and Italy. Throughout the interview Gasparri never utters the name “Mussolini,” referring to him only as “he.” The cardinal praises “him” for putting the crucifix back in public schools and restoring teaching of the catechism, exempting priests from military service, and banning the Freemasons.

Earlier this month, John Wesley Langley (R-Kentucky) resigned from Congress after being convicted of Prohibition law violations and sent to prison. His wife Katherine has now failed to gain the Republican nomination to serve the remainder of her husband’s term, defeated by Andrew Kirk. She says she’ll run again in the August primary, in which (spoiler alert) she’ll beat Kirk and then win the general election and serve two terms before losing the 1930 election.

The House of Representatives suspends in order to honor Rep. Charles Manly Stedman (D-North Carolina) on his 85th birthday. He is the last remaining Confederate vet in Congress. Dunno if there are any Union vets. The NYT will opine that “Americans of a later generation have no Civil War emotions, much less resentments.”

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Today -100: January 29, 1926: Of collar bones and hip wiggles

The Prince of Wales falls off a horse, as was the custom. “I know what has happened. I’ve broken my collar bone,” the royal moron says.

Headline of the Day -100:

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Today -100: January 28, 1926: A gift certificate would have sufficed, maybe some socks

Communists in Berlin celebrate former kaiser Wilhelm’s 67th birthday by hanging him in effigy.

The Senate votes 76-17 to join the World Court... with certain reservations, including no legal relationship to the League of Nations, withdrawal at any time, etc etc.

The Prince of Wales falls off a horse, as is the custom.

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Today -100: January 27, 1926: Of wolves, disturbances of popular referenda, and salutes

Moscow is supposedly having a problem with roaming wolf packs. And rabies.

The death sentence for William Cavalier, who was 14 when convicted of murdering his grandmother and is now 16, is commuted to life imprisonment by the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons.

German Chancellor Hans Luther outlines his policies to the Reichstag, after which there is some hissing on the right and left and zero applause. Doesn’t bode well. There are objections to the government’s negotiations on entering the League of Nations and to his rejection of what he calls “the disturbance of a popular referendum” on expropriating the former royal families.

Italy is requiring all railroad employees who give salutes between chiefs and subordinates must utilize the Roman salute, I guess even non-Italians working on trains traveling through Italy.

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Today -100: January 26, 1926: Of SOS’s, jazz, and doctors in drag

They keep trying to run international radio tests, keeping radio stations off the air during the tests, but twice now the tests have been screwed up by ships broadcasting SOS’s.

Rep. William Vaile (R-Colorado) introduces a bill to retaliate against foreign countries (i.e., Britain & France) that ban or restrict US jazz musicians by refusing them visas.

M.V. Mayfield, a doctor practicing in Mena, Arkansas for the last decade, is discovered during an illness to be a woman. She will later say that after she was born in Britain, her parents dressed her as a boy to protect property rights, and she just kept on. She’s 74? 78? The M.V. stood for Mary Victoria but she went by Victor. She will die in 1929 and be buried in male clothes. Evidently she was the inspiration for the 1933 German film “Viktor und Viktoria,” which Blake Edwards remade in 1982 with Julie Andrews in the title, um, roles.

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Today -100: January 25, 1926: Honestly Mussolini IS a fucking ulcer

Mussolini has an ulcer! Oh noes!

The German Socialist and Communist parties are pushing for a referendum on expropriating the property of former royal families without compensation. Centrist parties are undecided.

In an editorial entitled “Dictator-Worship,” the NYT says “It is not that Americans desire or expect a dictatorship in this country, but some of them are expressing a good deal of satisfaction with the way in which it operates in other lands. ... this does not imply an abandonment of our belief in free institutions. More than anything else, it seems to be an instinctive admiration for success. Dictators are doing wonderful things, therefore they are to be applauded.” But the Times thinks dictators also do harm, especially in foreign relations, and while dictatorships are theoretically temporary (are they? someone ask Mussolini), the dictators decide for themselves when they have accomplished their aims.

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Today -100: January 24, 1926: Poisoned mushrooms of lascivious shape and noxious odor are the worst kind of mushrooms

Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier, the archbishop of Malines (Mechelen), Belgium, dies at 74. His open resistance to German occupation of Belgium during the Great War, including issuing a pastoral letter saying no obedience was owed to the occupiers, made him an important national symbol.

The British plan to force Maharajah Tukoji Rao Holkar III of Indore, an Indian princely state, to abdicate (this will happen next month). Last year Mumtaz Begum, who will be repeatedly called a “dancing girl,” escaped from his harem, blaming a nurse for the death of her female baby. She was taken in by a Muslim Bombay textile merchant. The maharajah sent men all the way to Bombay to take her back; they killed the merchant and injured her, but were fought off by... British officers with golf clubs? Really? One of the would-be kidnappers was captured and several put on trial, including an Indore general whose defense attorney was Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the future first president of Pakistan. Tukoji will marry an American woman and mostly live in exile in France, dying in 1978 at 87. Begum will attempt an acting career in the US; it’s unclear what happened with her.

New York cops, including the bomb squad, guard a performance of Carlo Tresca’s play “L’Attentato [Attack/Assassination] a Mussolini,” which makes fun of The Duck. Tresca, a leftie who made all the right enemies, was convicted in the US in 1923, supposedly at the request of the Fascist government, for printing an ad for birth control in his newspaper, but had his sentence commuted by Coolidge. He’ll be assassinated in NYC by the Mafia, or possibly the NKVD – as I said, all the right enemies – in 1943.

A couple of religious fanatics from a Bordeaux, France sect called Our Lady of Tears, are on trial for attacking the Abbé Desnoyers, the village priest of Bombon, 600 km from Bordeaux, with sticks and staves because of sorcery. There were 10 women and 2 men in the mob but only the men are on trial. Evidently the priest ensorceled some migrating birds, as one does, which then flew over Bordeaux where they caused the growth of “poisoned mushrooms of lascivious shape and noxious odor, which gave the residents on the banks of the Gironde shameful diseases in various forms,” so clearly he had it coming.

A lost Polish colony is discovered by a roaming Polish anthropologist in the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil. It hadn’t been heard from since 1873. The original settlers are all dead; their descendants still speak Polish. I couldn’t discover what happened to them.

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Today -100: January 23, 1926: Is it any wonder that banditry, murder, bribery and corruption flourish?

New US Attorney General John G. Sargent tells a New York State Bar Association meeting that violating Prohibition law is a gateway drug, as it were, to the breaking of other laws. People who insist on their right to have a drink are “bribing” bootleggers to risk breaking the law, but what is to stop those bootleggers deciding there’s more money in robbing their customers, possibly with lethal force? “Is it any wonder that banditry, murder, bribery and corruption flourish?”

John Logie Baird has perfected television (aka televisor). It’s pretty blurry, but it does include sound.

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Today -100: January 22, 1926: Of filibusters and the Prince of Wales NOT falling off horses

The US Senate opponents of the World Court finally admit that that thing they’re doing is a filibuster, indeed, as John Harreld (R-OK) puts it, “a filibuster to prevent immature action.”

The Ku Klux Klan is running a pressure campaign against the World Court. Who knew kluxers could even write letters?

Man Bites Dog: 

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Today -100: January 21, 1926: I just assume there’s a German compound noun for that

The US and Mexico are having a dispute over what Mexico’s oil & land laws actually mean. Mexico denies the US accusation that they are retroactive, confiscatory and discriminate against US citizens. US SecState Frank Kellogg says they are too.

Bavarian courts acquit a lieutenant & a major who took part in the extra-judicial executions of 12 radicals near Munich in 1919. The judge insists that the Red revolution™ had to be put down, so the soldiers were suffering nervous strain from all that Red-revolution-putting-down, and this is evidently extenuating for murdering prisoners.

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Today -100: January 20, 1926: Of diplomatic relations & ministerial crises

Switzerland is working on restoring diplomatic relations with Russia. This is important because the big upcoming international disarmament conference will take place in Switzerland, and Russia is still peeved at the assassination in 1923 of Vatslav Vorovsky, Russia’s delegate to the Lausanne Conference, and the subsequent acquittal of his killers; it’s been boycotting Switzerland ever since. Russia is demanding a pension from Switzerland for Vorovsky’s daughter Nina, who is 17 or so.

Headline of the Day -100:

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Today -100: January 19, 1926: The ultimate end

Alfredo Rocco, Mussolini’s minister of justice, admits in an interview that the Duck’s attempts to bring the Aventine opposition deputies to heel is part of his efforts to abolish individualism. “We contend that society, and therefore the state, is the ultimate end and that the individual is only a means to achieve the noble purpose of the state.” “Only” is doing a lot of work there. “As a result we feel completely justified in suppressing those who would retard the progress of the state”.

France claims to have discovered, and may have actually discovered, secret German airplane factories in Sweden and Switzerland with German engineers and skilled workers.

Real-estate developer Oscar Konkle starts construction of the “Christian-Missionary Building” on Broadway & 122nd Street, which at 66 stories would be the world’s tallest building, 8 feet higher than the Woolworth Building. He’s building it in gratitude for the recovery of his son, who will be a missionary (Oscar is also associated with Billy Sunday), and it will contain a church alongside 4,500 hotel rooms renting at up to $21 a week and a hospital on the top floor. Konkle will kick back 10% of the earnings to a missionary base in British East Africa. Drinking, smoking, and Sunday newspapers will be banned from the building.

The project will be abandoned during the Depression and litigation following 5 deaths during the excavation.

Next week International Radio Broadcast Tests will be carried out. They’ve gotten transatlantic and navy ships to refrain from broadcasting during the tests but we’ll see if their appeals to rumrunners to maintain radio-silence are obeyed.

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Today -100: January 18, 1926: Of scandalous tissues of falsehoods and overcoats

New York Republicans hold a conference and agree to accede to much of Gov. Al Smith’s agenda, because they’re afraid that otherwise he’ll run for re-election.

Mussolini says the Aventine deputies, who yesterday attempted to end their boycott of the Chamber of Deputies only to be chased out, will only be allowed to return to their seats if they admit that their accusations against him are “a scandalous tissue of falsehoods,” accept the Fascist revolution as an accomplished fact and abandon all resistance to it, renounce anti-Fascists operating outside of Italy, etc.

The Soviet film agency invites Charlie Chaplin to come and make a film of Gogol’s short story “The Overcoat.”

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Today -100: January 17, 1926: Of road warriors, Anastasias, and traffic lights

For 25 years, John D. Rockefeller has been trying to close a road that goes through his estate in the towns of North Tarrytown and Mount Pleasant in Westchester County, New York. The former now rejects his request, presumably in order to convenience passing headless horsemen (the town is the location of that Washington Irving story and has since changed its name to Sleepy Hollow). At first I thought the milkman fighting Rockefeller needed the road for his milk rounds, but actually his father owned a hotel and some years ago Rockefeller got the road leading to it closed. Revenge against a Rockefeller is the best kind of revenge.

The General Federation of Women’s Clubs asks Coolidge to support an amendment to the Constitution to establish uniform marriage and divorce laws, including preventing “the unfit” from marrying.

The Grand Duchess Olga travels to Germany to inspect a woman who claims to be the lost (i.e., dead) Grand Duchess Anastasia. Olga says the woman (who is in a sanatarium and may have been put up to this) looks nothing like Anastasia and furthermore speaks only German, a language Anastasia did not speak, and with a Bavarian accent no less.

Constantinople gets traffic signals, which are such a novelty that crowds gather to watch them change color, blocking traffic and rather defeating the point.

Bessie Lee Gambrill is named the first woman associate professor at Yale in a field other than nursing. Her field is elementary education. She’ll teach 30 years at Yale and die at 105 in 1988.

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Today -100: January 16, 1926: Coley Blease asks the tough questions

Senate opponents of the US joining the World Court are filibustering the bill, although they’ve kind of run out of arguments. Coleman Blease, standing in for an ill William Borah, resorts to reading out George Washington’s farewell address, interspersed with “extemporaneous comments on evolution and drinking by diplomats in Washington”, with likker (as we’re informed he calls it) causing “these foreigners” to “get drunk and... debauch our women.” Why, he asks, should a “cotton mill boy” be arrested for having a flask when “some little half-nigger from a foreign country” has diplomatic immunity?

Groups of monarchists are roaming the streets of Berlin, defacing police posters which describe Black Reichswehr members wanted for murder.

Turkey adopts a new Civil Code, consisting of the whole of the Swiss Civil Code, which is still being translated. It will abolish polygamy, make divorce more difficult, and eliminate the special protections of Jewish, Greek and Armenian minorities, since Switzerland Swiss minorities are treated equally.

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Today -100: January 15, 1926: Of antis, retirements, and radios

The Women’s National Republican Club elects as its president Alice Chittenden, who used to be president of the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage.

NY Gov. Al Smith says he’ll retire from politics when his current term ends in December (he won’t). He says he wants to go into some sort of business where he can employ his three sons. Some people think he really does want to make some money, having previously made the unusual decision to not be corrupt in his political career; others think he’s clearing his schedule to campaign for president in 1928.

Headline of the Day -100:

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Today -100: January 14, 1926: Of dirigibles, KKK Inc., and lynchings

An article on the disagreements within the Dept of the Navy has this delightful alliterative sub-hed:

The NY Ku Klux Klan is attempting to go around the Walker Anti-Klan Act, which was upheld by the NY Court of Appeals yesterday, by incorporating, thus relieving itself of the requirement to name its members.

A Coahoma County, Mississippi jury acquits G.O. Cain (!) of murder for his part in the lynching of Lindsey Coleman, who had been acquitted of killing a plantation storekeeper.

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Today -100: January 13, 1926: Of nyes, counterfeits, train robbers, and warm hearts

The Senate votes 41-39 to seat Gerald Nye, who was appointed more than 6 months ago by North Dakota Gov. Arthur Sorlie, who may or may not have had the legal authority to do so (badly written law). Nye is a La Follette Republican, which explains his support from Senate Dems.

Another day, another counterfeiting plot, although this one cleverly rested  not on actually forging Portuguese banknotes but on the simpler task of forging an order to the British company that prints Portugal’s currency. Or possibly not technically forged: signatures on the order may have come from actual government officials who are part of the plot, the aim of which was to acquire so much power in Portugal (they used the money to found banks and buy existing ones) that they could sell its colonies to Germany.

The NY Court of Appeals upholds the law requiring the Ku Klux Klan to file a list of its members, the text of its secret oaths, and its constitution with the state.

The Mexican Army is ruthlessly exterminating the bandits who attacked the Guadalajara-Mexico City train yesterday, including summary executions of bandits captured alive (and their alleged accomplices who were nowhere near the train). After they’ve confessed, of course.

Yesterday Helen Keller met Pres. Coolidge, today she meets First Lady Grace Coolidge, who used to teach deaf-mutes. Regarding Keller’s comment that Cal is not a cold man like everyone says, Grace says he thought only she knew he had a warm heart.

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Today -100: January 12, 1926: A dear president

Helen Keller, whose habit is to visit every president (from Grover Cleveland to LBJ), meets Calvin Coolidge, putting her finger on his lips to hear him (does that actually work?), and I CANNOT find a picture of it. She says, “They say you are cold, but you are not. You are a dear president.”

The Supreme Court refuses to stay the two-year sentence of Rep. John Langley (R-Kentucky) for violating Prohibition laws. Langley resigns from Congress, where he’s (ahem) served since 1907.

70 German reactionaries sign a manifesto calling for the overthrow of the Weimar Republic, including 6 former generals, the odd prince, university profs, Reichstag members, etc.

Bandits attack the Guadalajara-Mexico City train, killing something like 50 passengers and crew, though American and German passengers are unharmed. They insist, not that anyone asks, that they are revolutionists, not bandits. After burning the coaches, they escape on the locomotive.

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Today -100: January 11, 1926: Dispersion of energy

Mussolini says democracy only works in the US because its resources permit luxury & waste, whereas Italy is poor and can’t afford the “dispersion of energy... inherent in a democratic regime.”

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Today -100: January 10, 1926: Of rights, common criminal cases without any political or patriotic features, and the best films of 1925

The US protests Mexico’s new oil and land laws, some bits of which apply retroactively, as violating American “rights.” The threat is that recognition of the Mexican government will be withdrawn.

The Hungarian authorities are pretending that the counterfeiting plot was just a “common criminal case without any political or patriotic features” rather than the means to finance a monarchist coup. But they have stationed cops on every corner, just in case another counterfeiter walks by, presumably.

The NYT gives its list of the top 10 movies shown in NYC in 1925:

The Big Parade

The Last Laugh

The Unholy Three

The Gold Rush

The Merry Widow

The Dark Angel

Don Q., Son of Zorro

Ben-Hur

Stella Dallas

A Kiss for Cinderella

None of which are lost films, so, you know, findable on YouTube, Tubi, etc.

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Today -100: January 9, 1926: A big tree without a shadow

The Manila Municipal Court sentences City Councilman Antonio Paguia to 2 months for insulting Gov. Gen. Leonard Wood by calling him “a big tree without a shadow” and an oppressor and an autocrat and a despoiler of Philippine liberty.  Which is funny cuz it’s true.

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Today -100: January 8, 1926: Away from Judaism, with its Jehovah

Former kaiser Wilhelm writes an article for a book, The Opposition of the Germanic Movement to Judaism and Christianity, urging Germans to “break away from the belief that Jehovah, the God of the Jews, is our God.” Evidently the real forerunner of Christianity is not Judaism but the Aryan religion of Zarathustra. “Our slogan must be ‘Away from Judaism, with its Jehovah,’” he sloganizes. 

A federal judge in Chicago gives a reduced sentence to a saloon owner and a bartender after their lawyer says that their liquor was “of high quality and wholesome content” (i.e., not adulterated). The judge agrees this is a mitigating factor.

Headline of the Day -100:

Vice President Charles Dawes forgets his wife’s birthday.

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Today -100: January 7, 1926: Of worlds court, state of the state messages, marching on Budapest, and B & A

The move to join the World Court progresses as the Senate, by a vote of 54-16, rejects James Reed (D-Missouri)’s resolution calling for investigation of pro-World Court propaganda and propaganda from international bankers to influence Congress in favor of war debt settlements with European countries.

New York Gov. Al Smith presents his program to the Legislature, including: extending the gubernatorial term to 4 years; biennial legislative sessions with state senators serving 4-year terms & assemblycritters 2; an executive (i.e., unified) budget rather than each department’s budget being voted on separately; consolidation of counties, including within New York City; abolishing the Motion Picture Censorship Commission (he calls film censorship a useless activity opposed to freedom & liberty); abolishing the state census; max. 48 hours work for women and minors.

Gyula Gömbös, head of the Hungarian National Independence Party (which the NYT calls Fascisti), is said to be gathering forces to march on Budapest in 2 or 3 days.

George Burns & Gracie Allen marry. Have you seen the short films they made together c.1930? You should.

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Today -100: January 6, 1926: Of killer cops, cells, crowns prince, and sensational trashy periodical literature

Samuel Kranin, a Brooklyn glazier, goes to the police station to report that a patrolman beat him up in his store after he refused his demand for $2. After he picks the cop, John J. Brennan, out of a lineup, Brennan shoots him dead. The police surgeon says Brennan is drunk.

Hungarian authorities make many arrests in a conspiracy of fascist types, anti-Semites & royalists, including the chief of state police and Prince Ludwig Windish-Graetz, to counterfeit French francs to use to create a dictatorship and make Prince Albrecht king, displacing “Regent” Miklós Horthy. The Princess Windish-Graetz is assured by the head jailer that her husband is occupying “the best cell in the building.” Most of the police work in uncovering this plot was done by the French.

Romanian Crown Prince Carol drops the “crown prince” business and is now calling himself Scarlat Mondstireanu, which is just a fun name. The royal family will pay his past debts but not support him financially in the future.

Columbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler gives his annual speech to the students, denouncing “sensational trashy periodical literature,” which cultivated types of people should ignore because life is just too short. He doesn’t seem to specify what literary elements make for such garbage lit, but we do know that in 1941 he will personally block Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls from winning the Pulitzer,  calling it “offensive and lascivious.”

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