Today -100: October 30, 1925: Of evacuations, elections, and courts-martialses

Greek troops evacuate Bulgaria by the time set by the League of Nations, which appoints a commission of inquiry to figure out who, human or canine, started this nonsense and what compensation they should pay. Both countries have agreed in advance to accept its decision.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Aleksandar Tsankov’s brother Danoso is assassinated on the streets of Sofia. Danny T is a member of parliament but supposedly estranged from his brother and it’s unclear what this has to do with the war or anything.

Conservatives gain seats in Canada’s general elections, but without winning a parliamentary majority. Prime Minister Mackenzie King (Lib) loses his seat in York North and will have to find another one next year, but he’ll continue as prime minister anyway.

At Col. Billy Mitchell’s court-martial for violating army discipline by expressing his opinions on air defenses, the prosecution admits he was given no opportunity, as the rules require, to defend himself during the investigation stage, and there is some doubt there was such a stage. In other words, the prosecution is reluctant to admit that this court-martial was simply ordered by Calvin Coolidge who, the defense points out, said in June at Annapolis that naval peeps have wide latitude to express their opinions. The court decides the president can just change the rules whenever he sees fit.

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Today -100: March 29, 1925: Of socialism, inferior babies, and words

The Socialist Party intends to contest the next NYC elections on a platform of 5¢ transit fare.

The international birth control conference being held in NYC is going seriously off the rails. Neuropathologist Max Schlapp says women who “go about getting themselves excited and overwrought in an emotional way” are producing inferior babies. Clarence Little, president of the University of Maine, compares the different races to soda flavors – strawberry, pineapple, chocolate, etc – and says mixing them together is just icky. Eugenic laws should guide races to blend desired racial characteristics (Little will spend the 1950s and ‘60s shilling for the tobacco industry, denying that smoking causes cancer or any other disease). The delegates pass a resolution calling on eugenic societies to recognize birth control as an essential part of eugenics.

The Oxford English Dictionary is adding phrases from the Great War, such as “strafe,” “dud,” “getting the wind up.” Strafe is defined here as “to punish,” used by British and American military prisoners for short sentences for disobedience. It derives from the German catchphrase “Gott strafe England,” meaning “May God punish England.” The later usage for planes machine-gunning ground positions is a World War II one.

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Today -100: July 3, 1924: 31 to 42

The British Cabinet decides against building a Channel tunnel.

The Conference for Progressive Political Action will open on the 4th in Cleveland and will create a 3rd party called the Progressive Party (which was the official name of Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party), which will nominate Fightin’ Bob La Follette for president. Now we hear officially that he will (gasp) accept. The Progressives don’t have a consensus on Fightin’ Bob’s running mate, but Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis seems favored.

The Georgia Lege rejects the proposed constitutional amendment to regulate child labor by 170-3. “State’s rights,” you know. Viola Napier, one of the two women in the House, votes for it. The state senate will reject it unanimously tomorrow.

The Democratic Convention holds presidential ballots 31 through 42. Al Smith’s support remains quite steady, holding between 310 and 323 votes all day, ending at 318. McAdoo recovers, reaching 503. John W. Davis sinks back into double figures.

William Jennings Bryan, a member of the Florida delegation, gives a speech in which he names eight people he thinks would be acceptable presidents – including his brother. In other words, he thinks McAdoo no longer has a chance.

A recount is ordered in the close Maine Republican primary. State Sen. Ralph Brewster claims he really won. Brewster is the Klan candidate and ran on a platform of defunding sectarian schools. Spoiler Alert: he will be the next governor (and congresscritter and US senator after that).

Portugese Prime Minister Álvaro de Castro fights a duel (with swords) with Flight Captain Teófilo José Ribeiro. He wins.

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Today -100: March 29, 1924: I’d rather be right here in Atlantic City than anywhere else

Pres. Coolidge finally fires Attorney General Harry Daugherty, who writes an open letter defending himself. He warns of “government by slander, by terrorism and by fear” and calls the campaign against him a conspiracy of “powerful individuals and organizations” (which he does not name) responsible for violent strikes and of other “powerful individuals and organizations” he was investigating for graft during the Great War.

Coolidge had been planning to let the investigation play out and letting Dirty Harry having his say, but the final straw was his refusal to turn over documents to that Senate DOJ committee investigation, documents relating to his siccing the Bureau of Investigation on Sen. Thomas Walsh after he started investigating Teapot Dome (I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s been revealed to the public which documents Daugherty withheld). Bureau of Investigation head William Burns is also expected to be ousted (he will be; incidentally, Burns has continued running his own private detective agency all the time he has headed the proto-FBI).

Where does a disgraced former attorney general go? Atlantic City baby! He tells reporters there that everything said about him was a lie, and anyway the Senate committee didn’t have legal authority to investigate them. He doesn’t use the words “rigged” or “witch hunt,” but you get the idea.

Sen. Kenneth McKellar (D-Tenn.) introduces a resolution for the Judiciary Committee to investigate whether Treasury Sec Andrew Mellon is holding that office in violation of the law forbidding treasury secs to engage in trade or commerce. The law applies to several Treasury positions. They also can’t own a sea vessel. Republicans complain that the D’s are going after the Cabinet one by one by one.

Headline of the Day -100:  

J. Van Vechten Olcott, former NY congresscritter (1905-11) and current lawyer, tells the Senate DOJ Committee that he was offered a federal judgeship – for $35,000, to be distributed “among the boys.” It’s not clear that the lawyer he spoke with actually had the ability to make him a judge, or who “the boys” might be. Anyway, he turned him down. Olcott is in the witness seat when the news of Dirty Harry’s resignation is heard.

The US Senate Committee on Territories and Insular Possessions is considering holding a plebiscite in the Philippines on independence – in 1935.

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Today -100: January 4, 1924: Chin out

40 or so people die in a starch explosion at the Corn Products Company in Pekin, Illinois.

There have been disturbances at the vault in Marion where Warren G. Harding’s body is entombed, possibly aimed more at the guards than Harding, possibly by children: bugles blown, stones thrown at the guard houses, etc. So Lt. Harriman, in command of the guard, sends for riot guards and says he’ll shoot at future people causing disturbances.

Rep. William Upshaw (D-KKKGeorgia) demands that Pres. Coolidge “begin a righteous crusade by breaking every jug and bottle in official Washington and by using the Executive guillotine on the neck of every drinking official including army, navy and Cabinet officers.” In other words, that Cal fire every government official who engages in “drinking devilment.” Upshaw also wants to deport aliens who break Prohibition (we’ve been hearing that idea frequently of late). And a lot more ideas along those lines.

Mabel Normand has an appendectomy in the same hospital in which Courtland Dines is staying after being shot by Normand’s chauffeur. Memphis censors say her films will be banned in the city forever. They haven’t decided about Edna Purviance yet. Kansas Attorney General Charles Griffith will ask the censor board to ban films featuring both women. Will Hays is rushing to California to look into the affair, “and I have my chin out,” whatever that means.

John D. Rockefeller, 84, likes to play golf, and to be praised for how he plays golf. He keeps dimes in his pocket to hand out to anyone who applauds one of his shots.

For weeks before he was exiled, King George of Greece wouldn’t have his hair cut because he was afraid Greek barbers would do a Sweeney Todd on him, I guess. The first thing he did when he arrived in Bucharest was to get a haircut.

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Today -100: November 11, 1923: Of deeply ignoble shit, words of honor, and unexiles

Woodrow Wilson addresses the nation on radio through 3 powerful radio stations, other stations agreeing to go off air during the 10-minute speech. He calls the US’s isolationism since the Great War “deeply ignoble,” “cowardly and dishonorable.”

Ludendorff, who was indeed captured, is released on his word that he won’t do another coup. Reports are that he then went home and committed suicide. He did not.

Former Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm leaves his Dutch exile for his estate in Silesia. Everyone’s in a tizzy. The Allies present the Netherlands a note objecting to the departure, handing it over 15 minutes after the princeling crossed into Germany.

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Today -100: June 3, 1923: Of speed, deportations, and proven historical facts

The London Underground has been advertising that its trains are faster than the New York City subways and London pedestrians walk faster than New Yorkers (2½ to 3 mph on Fifth Ave vs. 3¼ mph on Oxford Street) (it’s the silly walks that do it). Also, London taxis are faster than NY ones and passengers are called guv’nor.

The acting prohibition chief for the Boston region, Charles Smith, asks that two men convicted of manufacturing liquor (a misdemeanor) be deported. Assistant US Attorney Elihu Stone says don’t be ridiculous.

South Carolina Gov. Thomas McLeod addresses the negro exodus, warning about “the proven historical fact that while the Northern people love the negro en masse and as a race they have no affection or consideration from him as an individual.” The SC whites will do just fine, he says. In other words, there’s no need to improve conditions for black people.

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Today -100: February 4, 1923: America knows nothing of love, food or art

At the League of Nations, Lithuania threatens war with Poland, something about a neutral zone. The League Council responds that any use of force will be met with a blockade.

Isadora Duncan finishes her tour of the US and says she’ll never be back. The bootleg liquor she found to be especially bad (“would kill an elephant”). “I would rather live in Russia on black bread and vodka. ... America knows nothing of love, food or art.” Also, she doesn’t even know where the Bronx is (don’t ask). In other words, she faced a press hostile to her politics and love life, lost money on the tour and cut it off early.

Two black men are lynched in Milledgeville,  Georgia. Alleged robbers, they shot one of a posse pursuing them.

NYT Index Transcription Error of the Day -100:

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Today -100: February 14, 1922: Of coups, lynchings, censors, and women police

A day after Éamon de Valera held a large rally in Dublin against the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Michael Collins accuses republicans of planning a coup. This in a cable to the US trying to head off Americans raising funds for the republicans.

The British have stopped the withdrawal of troops from Ireland, but will probably just reinforce Northern Ireland and not occupy the Free State.

Russia will strip Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious bodies of their treasures to pay for famine relief.

The Klan, presumably, have been active in Texarkana, Texas, flogging 5 white men and lynching a black man. 

And in Fort Worth, 3 men are arrested for participating in a lynch mob a couple of months ago. 2 of them are cops in Niles City.

The film censors of Lynn, Massachusetts “request” that movies featuring any actress mentioned in the investigation of William Desmond Taylor’s murder not be shown, starting with one with Mary Miles Minter, who did nothing more than be friends with someone who was murdered. And they’ve stopped a Mabel Normand movie after one showing.

The police investigating that murder have moved on from the theory that Taylor was killed by a blackmailer to something about a narcotics ring. Also there’s a milkman who claims that Taylor’s valet once said something about Taylor being found dead some morning. In other words, they got nuthin.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police Sir William Horwood says there’s no need for women police and they’re “too costly to maintain as a luxury,” so he’ll be abolishing women’s patrols.

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Today -100: October 28, 1921: Of strikes, censures, fatal germs, ethnic cleansings, and duels

The railroad strike is off. The unions blame the successful propaganda of the roads convincing the American public that the strike would have been against the government (the Railroad Labor Board) instead of the railroad companies.

The House of Representatives votes 203-113 to expel Thomas Blanton (D-Texas) for inserting naughty words in the Congressional Record, where they might be read by children – CHILDREN!  That vote is shy of the 2/3 needed. They then censure him, 293-0. After the censure is read to him, Blanton runs out of the chamber, faints in the corridor, and makes his way to his office weeping.

Sen. Pat Harrison (D-Miss.) worries that Harding’s speech yesterday encouraging, as he sees it, negroes to seek political equality “is a blow to the white civilization of this country that will take years to combat.” It would allow the black man to become president or hold a cabinet position. (I just had to look this up: the first black man to hold a cabinet position was Housing and Urban Development Secretary Robert Weaver in 1966, and the first black man to become president was someone called Barack Hussein Obama – that can’t be right, can it?). And Sen. Thomas Watson (D-Georgia) complains that Harding “should go down in the South and plant there fatal germs in the minds of the black race.” Other racist senators chimed in as well, but I’m sick of typing out their words.

A day after cops kill two black men in Enid, Oklahoma, a parade of autos carrying hooded Klansmen politely suggests that all black people leave the town.

Ettore Ciccotti, wrongly identified in the NYT as a communist editor, loses a sword duel with Benito Mussolini, or really the duel is called after more than an hour because Ciccotti is too poorly to continue.

The German government grudgingly accepts the division of Upper Silesia. Poland already has.

Hungarian PM Count István Bethlen says Charles must abdicate. He calls the attempt to seize the throne a “putsch” and says the Chuckster cannot be trusted.

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Today -100: October 26, 1921: Of failed coups, strikes, business man’s cabinets, bats, and dirty, dirty words

Former emperor/king Charles accepts the Hungarian government’s terms of surrender, renouncing the throne for himself and his son (Update: No, he hasn’t). They’re stashing him in an abbey until the Allies decide what to do with him – Switzerland says he can’t come back and his entourage have to leave the country. There are stories that he tried to commit suicide, only to be dissuaded by former empress/queen Zita, which is the sort of thing the super-dramatic Hapsburgs would do but is also the sort of rumor that gets spread about them. I don’t think it’s true.

The Railroad Labor Board asks the railroads to postpone their request for a second double-digit wage reduction, in the interests of averting a strike. The railroads say no. Conflicts between various unions make the strike actually look increasingly less likely, but various governors are preparing to use troops to keep the trains moving, and 700 Harvard students volunteer to man the roads as scabs (Columbia will refuse to let its students do the same, or at least will penalize them for missed classes).

Joseph Wirth, who resigned as German chancellor Saturday, is chosen to be chancellor again and form a “business man’s” cabinet.

“Bat” Masterson dies. The last of the Olde West gunfighters, sheriff of Dodge City, etc., but more recently a sports writer and editor, he dies at his desk at the Morning Telegraph in NYC at 67.

The House of Representatives is outraged at something Thomas Blanton (D-Texas) slipped into the Congressional Record, a purported conversation between a union and a non-union printer for the Record – Blanton hates hates hates unions – and they’re considering expelling him altogether. They don’t like him anyway because he keeps demanding roll call votes and calling other congresscritters liars. They vote 313-1 to expunge whatever the offending matter was. The NYT certainly won’t tell us what it was, but we are assured it is so filthy it could not legally be sent through the mails.  And here’s some of it, exactly as it was printed: “G__d D___n your black heart, you ought to have it torn out of you, you u____ s_____ of a b_____. You and the Public Printer has no sense. You k_____ his a____ and he is a d_____d fool for letting you do it.” (I can’t figure out what the U-word is).

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Today -100: August 27, 1921: They were not made in any haggling spirit

Matthias Erzberger, the former finance minister/vice chancellor of Germany (1919-20, Zentrum party), is assassinated while on vacation in the Black Forest by two men, who escape. Erzberger signed the armistice in 1918, for which the Freikorps types who killed him never forgave him. 

The two assassins will live in hiding in Hungary, Spain, Spanish Guinea and elsewhere until Hitler issues a general amnesty for old political murders in 1933. In 1946 Heinrich Tillessen will be tried for the murder by a German court but released because it decided to respect Hitler’s impunity order; he’ll then be grabbed by the French and tried for the assassination by another German court which will decide the amnesty is no longer in operation, and sentenced to 15 years, of which he’ll serve 5. Heinrich Schulz also returned to Germany in 1933 and joined the SS. He was convicted of manslaughter in 1950 and released in 1952.

The Dáil Éireann unanimously rejects the British proposals, and de Valera writes Lloyd George to so inform him. LG writes back, complaining that de Valera showed no recognition of the liberality of LG’s proposals, which “were not made in any haggling spirit.” In other words, take it or leave it. The British are increasingly patting themselves on the back for their incredible generosity and shocked at the sheer lack of gratitude by the Irish.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Wesley Redding is promoted to detective, the first black detective in the NYPD, after only 18 months on the force. He is 28 and will die in 1924 of TB.

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Today -100: July 8, 1921: Too many du Ponts

The US sends the warship Cleveland to Tampico, Mexico to protect American interests (i.e., property, especially oil) against anticipated labor disturbances but also possibly as a subtle way of registering displeasure over the recent increase in taxes on oil exports.

Albert Einstein, back home from his trip to America, says the “excessive enthusiasm” for him there is because the American people are “colossally bored” because there is intellectual poverty outside of New York, Boston and Chicago. Oh, and also women run the US.

The German war crimes court in Leipzig acquits Lt-Gen. Karl Stenger of ordering the killing of French POWs in 1914 (he actually didn’t issue any such order), while a major was convicted and given a light sentence for carrying out the order, if order there was. The French are pissed.

Sen. Josiah Wolcott (D) of Delaware resigns to become chancellor of Delaware (their name for attorney general). In other words, Gov. William Denney got him to give up his seat so he could appoint a Republican to replace him, T. Coleman du Pont, from the always contentious Delaware family (NYT: “There are too many du Ponts for so small a state.”)

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Today -100: May 19, 1921: Of dead justice, guvs on the run, and matters of European concern

Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Douglass White is dead. White was appointed as associate justice in 1894 by Cleveland and chief justice in 1910 by Taft. His father was a member of Congress and governor of Louisiana. He was a Confederate soldier, and prisoner of war (although the facts are oddly murky and contradictory), during the Civil War. If you’re wondering, two other ex-Confederate vets served on the Supreme Court.  White was the second Catholic justice, after Roger Taney.

Former Florida Governor Sidney Catts is indicted in federal district court for peonage of two black prisoners who he had delivered to his plantation. This isn’t his first indictment this month, the first being for selling pardons, but he hasn’t been found to be arrested yet; in other words, he’s currently a fugitive from justice, which I believe is the custom for former governors of Florida. He’s a minister, because of course he is.

The Polish government asks the US for help on the Upper Silesia question. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes responds that it’s just “a matter of European concern, in which, in accord with the traditional policy of the United States, this Government should not become involved.”

Rumor of the Day -100:  Trotsky has cancer!

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Today -100: April 13, 1921: Of world-governing super-powers, charms, lawful sovereigns, secret treaties, and peonage

Harding gives his first State of the Union address. “He wore a dark morning coat that fitted him well.” He’s still talking about forming a non-political association of nations “based upon the application of justice and right, binding us in conference and cooperation for the prevention of war and pointing the way to higher civilization and international fraternity,” which he has to know won’t happen. He says that with “the existing League of Nations, world-governing with its super-powers, this republic will have no part.” He will have Congress declare a “technical peace” with Germany. US occupation troops in the Coblenz region will remain, because they are there under the terms of the armistice of 11/11/18 rather than the Treaty of Versailles.

He says “Congress ought to wipe the stain of barbaric lynching from the banners of a free and orderly, representative democracy.” Spoiler Alert: It won’t. He doesn’t say a thing about racial voter suppression but does suggest... wait for it... a commission “embracing representatives of both races” to discuss the subject of race. Both races. Fortunately there were only two, evidently, which should make it easier. This part of the speech was greeted by “applause and then silence.”

The NYT provides a guide to presidential pronunciation, comparing how Harding pronounces words like either, personnel, maintained etc with how Wilson pronounced them.

Headline of the Day -100:  

The Hungarian government, while asking Switzerland to allow former emperor Charles to live there permanently, says it considers him Hungary’s lawful sovereign.

IRAers shoot military horses and mules, in separate incidents suggesting this is a new tactic. That’s one way to hamper military activity, and this blog does not approve.

Italy has a secret treaty with the Turkish nationalists, signed last month, to support them in their war with Greece, despite Italy being a signatory of the Treaty of Sèvres, which Greece is fighting to enforce. By “secret treaty,” I mean Italy didn’t inform the other Allies of its existence.

A superintendent and 3 foremen of the Southern Construction Company, which is building the Lee Highway in Tennessee, are arrested by federal agents for violating peonage laws by forcing 75 black men to work on the project. One described how he was beaten with a pine board after trying to escape. “The Government has forced the defendants to release every negro in the camp with the exception of the cook.” 

Sen. Ralph Cameron (R-Arizona) is sued by a man for alienation of affection. Cameron responds that Mrs. McFarlin was not married to the plaintiff at the time and that under AZ law the case is past the statute of limitations.

Proposed bills before the 67th Senate include: a Bonus for veterans, a ban on railroad strikes, racial segregation in D.C. street cars, recognition of Irish independence, a federal sales tax, forgiving British war debts in exchange for its West Indian colonies, ditto for the French Antilles, a two-cent Teddy Roosevelt coin, purchasing Baja California from Mexico, and banning foreign-language periodicals without English translations in parallel columns.

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Today -100: March 22, 1921: Of Austens, constitutions, trade, unjust and violent methods, duels, and “bombs”

The new Tory party leader, following Andrew Bonar Law’s “retirement,” is Austen Chamberlain (brother of Neville). Under the terms of the Coalition, this makes him leader of the Commons.

The new Polish constitution bans corporal punishment. And coats of arms. It includes women’s suffrage and equal rights for all religions, but Jewish proposals to ban discrimination were rejected, so, yeah.

Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover opposes negotiating a trade agreement with Russia. He says Russia has nothing to sell and won’t as long as the Bolshevik economic system continues. In other words, the US policy is still that Russia’s government must be overthrown. Interesting that this statement of policy towards Soviet Russia comes from the secretary of commerce rather than the secretary of state or the, you know, president.

The plebiscite in Upper Silesia goes in favor of the province being part of Germany rather than Poland. The Allies may not abide by the results, and might give Poland those parts of Silesia that voted for Polish annexation, votes which Ger. Pres. Ebert attributes to “a resort to unjust and violent methods.” German newspapers have been writing a lot about “Polish terror”. Before the plebiscite, German newspapers in Silesia claimed (falsely) that Poland was going bankrupt and its currency was now worthless and the Warsaw Stock Exchange had closed down, so who’d want to join that? One reason for the pro-German vote: Germany has no draft while Poland has two years compulsory military service. Also, German factory owners were threatening to shut down their plants if they lost. Also, Germany brought in a lot of Germans with historical connections to the region but who don’t actually live there to vote (it was legal). Still, a lot of Poles must have voted to join Germany.

Dueling is now legal in Uruguay, which two army captains celebrate by dueling with pistols. The Uruguayan army is now short one captain.

Headline of the Day -100:  

I believe I’ll leave you to make your own joke here.

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Today -100: October 16, 1920: Of indiscriminate killing, bomb warfare, souls, and waffles

Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels says he was completely unaware of the letter Gen. Barnett sent him a year ago about killings by marines in Haiti. Probably lost in the mail or something. And he’s pretty sure that Barnett “never meant to convey what these words [indiscriminate killing] have been interpreted to mean.” Oh, so the other kind of indiscriminate killing.

Headline of the Day -100: 

A couple of bombs are thrown at the Hotel Cazor in Milan, where British delegates to a League of Nations conference are staying. No deaths. And Italian nationalists in Trieste throw bombs into the Socialist newspaper Lavoratore and set it on fire. There are also local general strikes in various places. Italy is mess.

That article contains the first reference I’ve seen – although I haven’t read all the recent Italian stories – to Fascisti. The Associated Press seems to think that’s someone’s name.

Grigory Zinoviev, chairman of the Third Internationale, who is visiting the Independent Socialist Party convention in Halle, Germany, suggests they join the Internationale and create a German and world revolution. 

The German Foreign Ministry claims the actual revolt is one supposedly going on now in Moscow.

Dr. Duncan MacDougall, known for his experiments weighing dying people to determine the weight of the human soul because science, has died, and is now presumably 6 to 8 ounces lighter.

Priv. Paul Francis Jones of the US Marines wins what is touted as the US army-marines waffle eating championship. He sucks up 26½ waffles in 30 minutes. These days Americans are much better at the rapid ingestion of waffles, as they are in all speed-eating contests, with a Patrick Bertoletti setting a record in 2007 of 29 waffles in 10 minutes, just one of his many disgusting records.

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Today -100: October 2, 1920: Of hit lists & reprisals, non-murder societies, and monkeys

The fiercest anti-Leaguers, William Borah and Hiram Johnson, will no longer campaign for Warren Harding (but when did they ever?), thinking he might join the League with reservations. Borah cancels speeches scheduled under RNC auspices but will campaign for Senate candidates who also hate the League.

Arthur Griffith, founder of Sinn Féin, shows the press various captured secret government documents showing that reprisals such as the sack of Balbriggan were not done by a few bad black-and-tan apples but on government orders. Other documents reveal a plan to assassinate moderate SF leaders, including Griffith, and blame it on radical Féiners (which is exactly what was done with the Lord Mayor of Cork Tomás MacCurtain in March, so it’s very much not implausible).

The Chief Secretary for Ireland, Sir Hamar Greenwood, warns the Royal Irish Constabulary against reprisals, buuuuuut goes on to justify and downplay them, talking about the number of cops killed (over 100 now) and saying newspapers “frequently misrepresent cases of justifiable self-defense as reprisals”. Fake news, to coin a phrase.

Black and Tans attack Tubbercurry, County Sligo after a cop is killed there, throwing bombs and setting fire to the town.

Sinn Féin publishes a list of 269 soldiers and police they have captured but then released unharmed (and disarmed), proving that SF is, in their words, “not a huge murder society.”

Harding proposes the establishment of a new federal Department of Public Welfare.

A federal grand jury indicts Charles Ponzi on 86 counts of using the mails for fraud.

King Alexander of Greece is bitten by a monkey.

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Today -100: September 3, 1920: Of enthnographic borders, real Americans, raids, carefully planned anarchy, and plain people

Poland refuses the US’s request that it not attack Russia across the ethnographic border established by the Peace Conference between Russia and Poland. In other words, it won’t promise not to try to seize territory.

Warren Harding has been complaining that his front-porch campaign has made him miss his beloved baseball games, so the owners of the Chicago Cubs bring them to Marion for an exhibition game. Harding tells the team he likes baseball “just like every other real American.” And he’s also for “team play” in government.

Sinn Féin fighters raid an RAF base near Dublin and steal a bunch of military documents including the military plan for Ireland, as well as the current code and cipher.

Sir Hamar Greenwood, Chief Secretary for Ireland, says appeals for clemency for Terence MacSwiney will be ignored: “None of the mercy which some seek to invoke for the lord mayor was shown the eighty policemen who have lost their lives in Ireland.” He says the current rebellion is the work of a small body of men who are trying “by carefully planned anarchy” to impose independence on the 80% of Irish people who don’t want it.

Carefully planned anarchy is the worst kind of anarchy.

What to Watch: D.W. Griffith’s Way Down East (“A Simple Story of Plain People”), starring Lillian Gish, premieres. Honestly, not an especially good movie – structural problems, shoehorned-in unfunny comic relief – but Gish is good

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Today -100: August 23, 1920: Of retaliations, bullfights, masculine deeds and feminine words, and jewel collectors

The Times of London thinks Britain will shortly recognize Egypt’s independence.

A Royal Irish Constabulary inspector, Oswald Swanzy, believed (correctly) to have been behind the murder of Cork’s Lord Mayor Tomás MacCurtain in March, is killed by an IRA hit squad by order of Michael Collins, as he leaves church in Lisburn, an Orange town near Belfast to which he was transferred for his safety. A constable who was with Swanzy is also killed, and two other cops wounded. Inspector Swanzy is killed (with MacCurtain’s own personal gun) in front of his family; to be fair, so was MacCurtain. Naturally, a pogrom against the Catholic residents of Lisburn ensues. The incident was one of several attacks on police in the last few days.

Democrats in Ohio are worried that a recent influx of blacks from the South is intended to affect the vote in Ohio, of something.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Staten Island detectives believe that a bootlegger killed Saturday was murdered by two dirty Federal prohibition agents to prevent him squealing on them for reselling confiscated whisky after he was arrested. The dry agents pressured a saloon-keeper to pay his bail so they could get at him.

Suffragists in Maryland want the state motto, Fatti Maschii, Parole Feminine (Deeds are Masculine, Words Feminine), changed. That’s old Italian, by the way, not Latin. It’s still the motto in 2020, although the state now claims it means “Strong deeds, gentle words.”

Prison authorities shut down the Sing Sing Bulletin after it featured an article by a famous bigamist that began “A good wife is a jewel. I have been a jewel collector.”

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