Today -100: November 22, 1919: A question between patriotism and politics

Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.) issues a statement:  “After four months of careful consideration and discussion, the reservations were presented to the Senate. They were purely American in their character, designed solely to Americanize the treaty and make it safe for the United States.” The reservations were voted down “under the President’s orders,” he says, but there was also a majority against the treaty without the reservations. “There is no room for further compromise between Americanism and the super-government presented by the League. All I ask now is that we may have the opportunity to lay those reservations before the American people.” In other words, he plans to fight the 1920 elections on this issue.

Acting Senate minority leader George Hitchcock (D-Neb.) responds: “It would be entirely welcome to us if the reservations should be taken into the campaign, but I do not consider that it would be very patriotic. It appears to have become a question between patriotism and politics. The patriotic thing to do is to work out a compromise.”

The US threatens to invade Mexico (again) if it does not release consular agent William Jenkins, who is under arrest for allegedly masterminding his own “kidnapping.”

The Supreme Council of the Allies decides that Eastern Galicia will go to Poland for the next 25 years as a League of Nations mandate and then become part of Poland properly.

Yet another dastardly Red plot is uncovered, this one to murder the head of the NYPD bomb squad, an assistant district attorney and a Justice Dept agent. The latter two are engaged in anti-Red investigations in New York.

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

Today -100: November 21, 1919: Some detective force!

France, Britain and Italy will put the Treaty of Versailles into effect in December, without waiting for the dubious prospect of US participation.

Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.) says the peace treaty is “inert.” Sen. George Hitchcock (D-Neb.) disagrees.

A couple of days ago there was a train robbery in Wyoming, which was believed to have been pulled off by “Wild Bill” Carlisle, who a few days before escaped from prison, where he was serving a sentence for train robbery. Now Carlisle walks into a Western Union office in Casper, Wyoming and sends a telegram to the Union Pacific Railroad offices: “Thanks for haul on your limited. Some detective force!”

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

Today -100: November 20, 1919: So, still at war with Germany then

The US Senate votes on the peace treaty three times. With Henry Cabot Lodge’s reservations attached to it, it loses 39-55, after a letter is read from Pres. Wilson (or whomever) to Democrats saying that the reservations amount to nullification and urging rejection. Another vote on the amended treaty loses 41-50. Finally, a vote on the treaty without reservations loses 38-53. All attempts at even beginning to craft a compromise fail. Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge says the treaty is dead and he’ll introduce a simple resolution to the effect that the war is over. The Senate then adjourns. Wilson may re-submit the treaty next session (December).

The Philadelphia police claim to have uncovered a Red plot to send mail bombs disguised as Christmas gifts to officials all over the country involved in the persecution of alleged radicals.

NYC is investigating teachers believed to be members of the Communist Party and firing them.

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

Today -100: November 19, 1919: If they’d had the internet it would have been Warry McWarFace

Pres. Wilson is again wheeled onto the White House lawn, where he is “much interested” in the flock of sheep there. I think that’s literal sheep, but you never know in Washington.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Official according to the US War Department. 

When Hungary has elections in December (in the unoccupied parts of the country anyway), men and women over 24 will have the vote, plus younger men who served at least 13 weeks at the front.

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

Today -100: November 18, 1919: Zara today, Spalato tomorrow!

Woodrow Wilson is rolled on to the White House lawn, er, in a wheel chair, the first time he has left the building since the beginning of last month. Mary Pickford drops by, but is not allowed to see the president. So I guess she just shows up places?

And we’ve finally heard from Wilson (or whomever) on what he will do if the reservations to the peace treaty pass: he will pocket veto it (or just “pocket” it? – can a treaty be vetoed?). There is some talk of possible compromises that he might accept (Sen. George Hitchcock passes this on to the Senate while staying reticent on some of the details, possibly because Mrs. Wilson hasn’t decided on them yet). The Senate is still working on reservations (40 more to vote on!).

Ernest Lundeen, until recently the Republican congresscritter for Minnesota’s 5th district, in which capacity he voted against entering the Great War and against conscription, is about to speak in the Orontville, Minn. opera house against the League of Nations when a bunch of American Legion types (and the sheriff) grab him, march him to the train station and lock him in a refrigerated car on an outbound train, as was the custom.

Poet-Aviator Gabriele D’Annunzio is given (presumably by himself) a new title: Commander of Fiume and Commander of Dalmatia. On his triumphal entry into conquered Zara, he proclaims “It is Zara today, it will be Spalato [Split] tomorrow.” Censorship is keeping news of this out of Italian newspapers.

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

Today -100: November 17, 1919: Fortunately, we had guns and ammunition

Ludwig Martens of the Russian Soviet Government Bureau in New York says that many large US businesses are aiding Soviet agents pushing for US recognition of the Soviet government. He presents himself as interested only in restoring trade relations, not spreading revolutionary propaganda.

Mexico arrests US businessman and consular agent William Jenkins for being complicit in his “kidnapping.”

Lady Astor: “There is a place in politics for women. They have the spiritual qualities needed in politics. Men may have them, but they haven’t the courage to show them.”

The center & right do well in French parliamentary elections, Socialists not so much. The clergy, who in the past boycotted the polls because of the Vatican’s displeasure at the introduction of secular education in public schools, seem to be voting this time.

A black man is lynched in Moberly, Missouri, one of 4 who allegedly beat up a man and robbed him of $12. The other 3 may or may not have escaped.

French aviator Etienne Polet, who is trying to fly from Paris to Australia, was forced by engine trouble to land in India. He wires: “One day the inhabitants wished to kill us, taking us for devils. Fortunately, we had guns and ammunition.”

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

Today -100: November 16, 1919: The breath of life will never be put in it again

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer sends the Senate a draft of a proposed anti-sedition law aimed at the IWW, communists, etc. He sorrowfully reports that at present “the preaching of anarchy and sedition is not a crime under the general criminal statutes of the United States,” nor is “openly advocating the unlawful obstruction of industry”.

18 miles from Centralia, Washington, two American Legion posses exchange shots with IWWers, killing one of the former. The article has a long quotation from a “confession” by one Wobbly, which said the IWW planned the Centralia clash 3 weeks in advance, although it actually sounds like he said they planned to defend the IWW hall if it was attacked.

The San Francisco police order all IWW members to leave the city.

Senate Republicans adopt 10 more reservations to the peace treaty. Some exempt the US from various activities of the League of Nations, others reserve to Congress decisions on accepting mandates or paying League dues. Democrats promise to vote down ratification of the treaty so amended, after which, Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.) says, “the treaty may be considered as dead. It may lie in the Senate inert, but the breath of life will never be put in it again.”

Ludwig Martens of the Russian Soviet Government Bureau, the self-proclaimed embassy of Soviet Russia in New York, rejects a subpoena from the Lusk Committee of the NY Legislature.

Gabriele D’Annunzio invades Zara (aka Zadar), the capital of (Yugoslav) Dalmatia, evidently in order to revive Italian enthusiasm for his little Fiume adventure ahead of Italian parliamentary elections. Yugoslavia, afraid of an all-out war, is not putting up resistance.

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

Today -100: November 15, 1919: Of porches, vigilante legions, and Bolshevik et anti-Bolsheviki

On Armistice Day, Pres. Wilson was allowed out of bed for the first time since returning to the White House, in a wheeled chair. Today he was rolled to the rear porch. Did no one find it strange that he’d been confined to bed for a month and a half, with no explanation of his condition offered beyond “nervous exhaustion?”

Members of the American Legion are sworn in as special constables in Spokane, which is expecting a mass invasion of Wobblies. 52 supposed Wobblies have already been convicted of “criminal anarchy.” They refused to put up a defense and were sentenced to 30 days and a $100 fine. In Kansas City, Poughkeepsie and elsewhere, American Legion branches are organizing vigilante squads.

The Centralia, Washington coroner’s jury fails to place the blame for the deaths of those 4 American Legionnaires on the IWW, after hearing testimony that the Legion attacked the IWW hall. But the prosecutor says he has other witnesses who say shots were fired before the attack on the building.

The NYT says the only issue in the French parliamentary elections is “Bolshevik et anti-Bolsheviki.”

Italy raises its blockade on Fiume.

Yesterday I marked what I think is Mussolini’s first mention in the NYT. Then today’s would be the second. Not all of it is legible, but someone is killed and 8 more wounded when a gunfight breaks out at an election meeting in Lodi at which the future Duce is speaking.

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

Today -100: November 14, 1919: What won the war? Rum!

The Senate votes 46-33 to attach reservations to Article X of the peace treaty, the mutual defense provision, saying the US isn’t obligated to do anything. At all. Ever. Pres. Wilson once described this idea as a knife thrust at the heart of the treaty, and he’s not wrong. The vote is almost entirely partisan.

A letter from Lenin to Turkestan Communists celebrating restored communications between Russia and Turkestan as “open[ing] the way for a struggle against universal imperialism headed by Great Britain” is taken as a threat against British India.

North Dakota takes over the 30 union coal mines in the state, coal companies protesting all the while.

More Palmer Raids™ on IWW branches in Washington and Oregon. Washington Gov. Louis Hart (R) says he will wipe out the IWW in his state. As does Gov. Samuel McKelvie (R) of Nebraska, who wants any member arrested and charged under “criminal syndicalism” laws.

The visiting American prohibitionist “Pussyfoot” Johnson is kidnapped from his speech at Essex Hall, London, by medical students and forcibly taken along the Strand to Oxford Circus, hit with flour and other objects, one of which will cause him to lose an eye, etc. They have rough banners saying things like “What won the war? Rum!”

Supposedly Austria, which is in terrible economic shape and whose newborns are dying of cold in large numbers because of lack of coal, is considering simply dissolving the Austrian Republic and allowing each province to declare itself part of Germany.

The Catholic Committee of Rome, whatever that might be, wants the newspaper Popolo Italia prosecuted for insulting the pope. The NYT doesn’t describe the nature of the insult, but the paper is edited by one “Professor Benito Mussolini.” This may well be the first mention of him in the NYT.

A letter from Samuel James Meltzer, a physiologist, recounts the discussion of Einstein’s theories at the National Academy of Sciences on Monday. One speaker called Einstein a mere philosopher (ignoring the scientific evidence from the solar eclipse), which he ascribes to Einstein being a Jew. The second speaker pointed out that Einstein wanted Germany to lose the world war, and that cancels out his Jewiness. Comments Meltzer, “Undoubtedly the mental rays of some of our scientists suffered a more or less perceptible deviation from the normal, brought about by the course of Mars in the last four years.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

I get anarchist gases every time I eat beans.

Sorry.

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

Today -100: November 13, 1919: Law and order shall prevail

A mob of veterans break into the Oakland, California hq of the Communist Labor Party, destroying it and burning furniture and literature. The police were warned in advance, but chose not to protect the building. The mob leaves a note: “Hereafter, Oakland will be unsafe for radicals and for anti-Government propaganda. Law and order shall prevail.” Some law. Some order.

Wobblies are arrested all over Washington State, following the Centralia contretemps.

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer plans to deport radicals to Russia, but won’t say to what part of Russia.

Lady Nancy Astor accuses the Labour candidate running against her of being “a red-hot independent of the type that advocates all sorts of Trotsky-tainted issues.”

I went to my doctor with Trotsky-tainted issues and he prescribed an ointment.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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

Today -100: November 12, 1919: I think that I would rather perish in the exclusive company of members of my own sex

The non-alien Communists will evidently be tried under state law. In NYC, Chief Magistrate William McAdoo reads the constitution of the Communist International Party and declares it to be an “organized conspiracy against the United States Government and the Government of the State of New York, and each member of the party is guilty and responsible for the acts, writings and sayings of each and every member,” astonishingly citing as precedent the cases arising from the Gordon Riots in London in 1780. He then insisted that the US is at war with Russia.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Actually, there are two versions of this, one in which Wobbly snipers shoot at members of the American Legion marching in an Armistice Day parade in Centralia, Washington, and another version (which makes no appearance in the NYT) in which the Legionistas storm the IWW Hall and the Wobblies shoot in self-defense. Either way, 4 veterans are dead, and the rest lynch Wobbly Wesley Everest (not Britt Smith as the article says) and dump his body in the river, as was the custom. Tensions already existed in the town: last month the Citizens’ Protective League announced plans to drive radicals out of the city.

The White House reports that Pres. Wilson has sat up for the first time in well over a month “and is declared to have been none the worse for his experience.”

The British House of Lords rejects a measure to allow women to sit in the Lords. The Lord Chancellor the Earl of Birkenhead (an Anti-suffragist from way back), moving rejection, says “If we [the Lords] are to be abolished, I think that I would rather perish in the exclusive company of members of my own sex.” Lord Haldane expresses surprise that Birkenhead did not wish “to see the gentle touch of ministering angels about us at the moment that that extinction came.”

Many coal miners are obeying the court and going back to work, but North Dakota’s Gov. Lynn Frazier (Non-Partisan League) takes advantage of the strike to proclaim martial law and seize control of the mines.

Ohio voters rejected ratification of the Prohibition Amendment (which has of course already been ratified) by a narrow majority.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Demanding them from Germany, anyway. They don’t just go around demanding cows from passing strangers. Probably. 

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

Today -100: November 11, 1919: Of injunctions, cops, cut and dried affairs, raids, and captains

The UMW are still debating whether to obey that federal judge’s order to call off the strike.

Boston has 600 new cops, mostly ex-military, to replace the fired strikers.

The House of Representatives votes 309-1 not to seat Victor Berger, the elected Socialist congressman from Wisconsin’s 5th district who was convicted earlier this year under the Espionage Act (the conviction will be overturned by the Supreme Court in 1921). Before the vote, Berger addressed the House, saying he expected his ejection to be a “cut and dried affair” because “I am a Socialist and an opponent of war and profiteering.” He says he takes back none of his words. He notes that the “conspiracy” of which he was convicted was with four other Socialists he hadn’t actually met, much less conspired with; the prosecutors claimed the conspiracy consisted of a “meeting of minds” because they all belonged to the Socialist Party. He points out that his position of neutrality in the war was the same as that expressed by Woodrow Wilson in 1916. The seat is declared vacant.

More Palmer Raids™: the government now holds 391 aliens under deportation warrants. For some reason 145 of those were arrested in Hartford.

Capt. William Turner of the Cunard Line retires. He was the captain of the Lusitania when it was sunk, and another ship that was sunk in 1917. He has (somehow) reached the mandatory retirement age of 63.

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

Today -100: November 10, 1919: Only astronomers are affected. Also: in your face, Newton!

The American Federation of Labor calls the injunction against the coal strike so “autocratic” as to “stagger the human mind” and offers its support to the miners.

More Palmer Raids™ Saturday, on 71 “radical headquarters.” 25 tons of literature are seized, including addresses from Lenin to the US people and “disguised or open pleas for revolution in many languages”. Assistant US Attorney General Francis Garvan says the Federation of Unions of Russian Workers approved a plan for the overthrow of the US government via assassinations and bombings. The document, captured in the Baltimore raid, was printed only in Russian. So they’re planning to deport any alien who’s a member.

Evidently Russian plans for a world revolutionary uprising on the 7th were thwarted by various governments (Germany, Italy) taking “stern measures,” or simply came to nothing (Switzerland).

Headline of the Day -100: 

This is the dethronement of Isaac Newton by Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. He published the theory in 1916, but it has now been proven by Arthur Eddington’s expedition to the island of Principe and Andrew Crommelin’s to Brazil last May to observe the solar eclipse and measure the bending of light. If you want a proper explanation of that, it won’t come from the president of the Royal Society, where these results are presented. He says it’s pointless to try to explain relativity to the man in the street. But there are several books just out for the centenary, including one with the title Einstein’s War: How Relativity Triumphed Amid the Vicious Nationalism of World War I. Astronomer W.J.S. Lockyer (son of the inventor of helium) says Einstein’s discoveries “do not personally concern ordinary human beings; only astronomers are affected.”

Parliamentary candidate Lady Nancy Astor says “Women are essential to the introduction of a policy of thrifty, national housekeeping, which is imperative to establishing the empire on a sound post-war foundation.” I wonder how many servants it takes to oversee the thrifty housekeeping at Cliveden.

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

Today -100: November 9, 1919: The first big step to rid the country of these foreign trouble-makers

Federal judge A.B. Anderson orders the UMW to rescind its coal strike order, which he says violates the (wartime) Food and Fuel Control Act.

The Senate passes the first “reservation” to the Peace Treaty, saying that if the US leaves the League of Nations, the US will be the sole judge of whether it has met its obligations. The vote, 50-35 with all R’s voting in favor, is strong enough to suggest that all the Lodge Reservations will pass.

35 of those seized during the Palmer Raid on the Russian People’s House are sent to Ellis Island for deportation, and 150 released. “Most of them also had blackened eyes and lacerated scalps as souvenirs of the new attitude of aggressiveness which has been assumed by the Federal agents against Reds and suspected Reds.” Other “reds” seized in other Raids throughout the country are also sent to Ellis Island. Says Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, “This is the first big step to rid the country of these foreign trouble-makers.”

Germany is also arresting its trouble-makers, members of the Communist and Independent Social Democratic parties who were preparing to, wait for it, celebrate the 2nd anniversary of the Russian Revolution.

The Supreme Council of the peace conference orders Britain to release Austrian POWs.

British Prime Minister Lloyd George endorses Nancy Astor, saying Parliament needs “woman’s point of view presented by a woman” on, you know, women’s issues like housing, child welfare, prices and other things men don’t care about.

New York decides to build a tunnel to Staten Island. Now the only question is whether it will connect SI with Brooklyn or Manhattan. Spoiler Alert: construction will begin in 1923 but never finish.

NYU Medical College admits its first women students.

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

Today -100: November 8, 1919: Of Palmer Raids, egg stamping, assassinations, and monocles

Headline of the Day -100: 

The Palmer Raids™ begin, in NYC, Detroit, Philadelphia, Newark, Jackson... Scores are held for deportation as “criminal anarchists.” The NYPD prevents a meeting of the Communist Labor Party to celebrate the anniversary of the Russian Revolution. The Russian People’s House is raided by NYPD under federal orders and 200 arrested, some badly beaten; those with US citizenship are released.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Thomas Brewster, the chair of the Coal Operators' Scale Committee, says the coal strike is being financed by Lenin and Trotsky.

Hugo Haase, leader of the German Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), dies a month after being assassinated by one Johann Voss who Haase, a lawyer, was prosecuting for extortion.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Today -100: November 7, 1919: Of superior rights, lady pilots, and ransoms

The federal government will ask a federal judge to order UMW officials, who are already under injunction not to direct the coal strike, to call off that strike. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer says there are some callings so important that “the right to strike in those cases must be subordinated to the superior right of the public to enjoy uninterrupted service.” He also suggests that the public respond to the higher cost of living not by strikes, but by spending less and saving more, wearing old clothes, that sort of thing, the sort of helpful life advice the rich like to dispense to the poor. Secretary of Labor William Wilson was against going the injunction route, but was overruled in Cabinet.

The Aero Club, which is organizing an around-the-world aerial derby for next summer, with a prize of $1 million, says women pilots (the word elegant if sexist word aviatrix hasn’t been coined yet) may enter.

The State Department says that William Jenkins, the consular agent kidnapped – or possibly “kidnapped” – in Mexico will have to reimburse the ransom paid for him; the US won’t pressure Mexico to pay it unless some negligence by it can be found.

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

Today -100: November 6, 1919: Of women’s suffrage, intercourse with enemy troops, justice *cough* in Arkansas, and direct defiance or opposition to the government

Maine ratifies the federal women’s suffrage Amendment. 19 down, 17 to go.

Supposedly Pres. Wilson is pleased that Calvin Coolidge won re-election as governor of Massachusetts, because the D. had supported the Boston police strike.

The IRA orders women in Ireland not to consort with British soldiers – “intercourse with enemy troops” as they phrase it. One has had her hair cut off in punishment. And men are ordered not to drink in pubs that serve soldiers.

37 more black men are sentenced for participation in the Elaine, Arkansas race riots, and zero whites. We’re up to 11 death sentences. The trials for the 11 were super-short.

A federal judge dealing with citizenship applications rejects those of 5 striking coal miners (4 of them veterans of the late war), saying they are striking “in direct defiance or opposition to the government.”

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

Today -100: November 5, 1919: There is nothing like the stubbornness of the American men in such matters, is there?

Today -10 years ago, I wrote the first of these posts.

Calvin Coolidge easily wins re-election as governor of Massachusetts, helped by his hardline stance against the Boston police strike. Coolidge attributes his victory to “all who have supported the great cause of the supremacy of the law.”

Rep. Fiorello La Guardia (R) is elected president of the NYC Board of Alderman. Tammany Hall has been slaughtered this election.

Although Socialists have been gradually disappearing from US elected offices, Lackawanna, New York elects John Gibbons mayor, defeating an incumbent backed by both the D & R parties, evidently because he banned strike meetings.

Samuel Gompers explains that striking coal miners just want more regular employment than they’ve been getting, but owners don’t want the miners working full-time because the price of coal would soon come down. He also points out that the restraining order barring the United Mine Workers’ leaders from directing the strike also means they can’t negotiate an end to it.

Supposedly, Soviet Russia bans babies being given Christian names. Henceforth, they will be... numbered.

The NYT has been covering Nancy Astor’s parliamentary campaigning every day, because she knows how to give good quote. She is asked by AP whether women will get a better reception in British politics than in the US; the Virginia-born Lady Astor says “There is nothing like the stubbornness of the American men in such matters, is there?” She says she is willing to abide by Commons rules banning hats. Thanks, AP, for the penetrating questions on the important issues of the day. To be fair, a lot of what she’s doing in response to electors’ questions sounds like evasion, like telling a woman who asked about old-age pensions that she was too young & pretty to worry about that. She offers fortune cookie slogans like “You cannot say the world is at peace unless we ourselves are at peace.”

Incidentally, the Liberal candidate running against her, Isaac Foot, was the father of future Labour Party leader Michael Foot, and of Dingle Foot, future solicitor-general and famous possessor of the name “Dingle Foot.”

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

Today -100: November 4, 1919: As wet as the Atlantic Ocean

Six negroes are sentenced to death for last month’s race riot (or whatever it was) in Elaine, Arkansas. A lot more blacks than whites were killed, but indictments have mostly fallen on blacks, you’ll be surprised to hear.

The Supreme Council of the Entente once again orders Romania to remove its troops from Hungary. One could be forgiven for thinking that their main concern is that they can’t wrap up the Peace Conference and go home until Hungary signs a peace treaty, which it can’t do that without having a proper government, which it can’t form while under occupation. Meanwhile, Romania denies that it has annexed Bessarabia. Rather, it says, Bessarabia annexed it by holding a referendum, so whaddaya gonna do?

Today -100 is election day in New Jersey’s gubernatorial race, which I have neglected here despite the fact that the Republican candidate rejoices in the name Newton Bugbee. Newton Bugbee will lose to Edward Irving Edwards, who in 3 years will run for the US Senate and defeat Joseph Frelinghuysen, which sounds like a name Jerry Lewis would say. Edwards wins in part because he promised to use the state machinery to obstruct prohibition and make Jersey “as wet as the Atlantic Ocean.” Which is quite wet. Bugbee calls that position “nullification of the Constitution.” Another issue between the parties in New Jersey is the federal women’s suffrage Amendment, which NJ has yet to ratify. Republicans support a referendum, D’s want the Legislature to just ratify it.

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

Today -100: November 3, 1919: Of profiteering, fires, and leather

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer pretends that the government isn’t siding with coal companies against miners by declaring that the government will come down on any company trying to take advantage of the situation by profiteering. Sure it will. Sure it will.

Former soldiers burn down the Germania Hall in Stanton, Nebraska (a heavily German area) after a German group holds a Halloween party there. The (non-German) fire dept takes its sweet time getting to the fire.

Headline That Sounds Kinky But Probably Isn’t Kinky of the Day -100: 

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

Today -100: November 2, 1919: Of suffrage, dry raids, and too many toes

California ratifies the women’s suffrage Amendment. 17 states down, 19 to go.

H. W. Mager, head of Internal Revenue Agents (i.e., revenooers), says there will be no more “spectacular” raids on saloons, presumably in response to that Wild West-style shoot-em-up on West 42nd in NYC a few days ago. Instead, agents will go undercover to collect information, and subpoenas will be issued.

Russian Minister of War Leon Trotsky declares Petrograd saved from the threat of capture by White forces.

Peter Dieptro was injured by a pipe falling on his toe while working for a contractor in Syracuse. Thing is, it was the 6th toe on that foot, so there was objection that he didn’t deserve compensation because he’s only entitled to 5 toes per foot (he has 6 on the other foot as well) (and a couple of extra fingers), and if he’d had the right number of toes he wouldn’t even have been injured. However, it is decided that compensation law doesn’t discriminate against polydactyls.

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

Today -100: November 1, 1919: Of ethnic cleansing, injunctions, questions of national dignity and sentiment

A mob in Corbin, Kentucky rounds up all but the most elderly blacks in the town and drives them out, on train and foot. One is killed.

A federal court issues an injunction against UMW officials directing a coal strike. In other words, the right to strike is not officially under attack, just the right for it to be organized by leaders. So that’s the end of that. Or....
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/11/01/118174703.pdf

Italian Prime Minister Francesco Nitti complains that the Allies do not recognize that Fiume holds for Italy not an economic value, “but a moral value, being a question of national dignity and sentiment.” In Fiume, Poet-Aviator Gabriele D’Annunzio announces elections on the 16th for Fiume’s delegate to the Italian Chamber of Deputies – Fiume is, of course, not a part of Italy, that’s the whole point. He also names Commander Luigi Rizzo as chief of Fiume’s sea forces.

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

Today -100: October 31, 1919: Of sickbeds, deportations, and ratifications

Pres. Wilson supposedly received the attorney general to talk about the coal strike, the first time he’s seen a cabinet official in a month.

He also sees the Belgian royal family.

Oklahoma Governor James Robertson sends a telegram to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer asking him to deport any aliens who join the coal strike.

Japan ratifies the peace treaty.

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

Today -100: October 30, 1919: Of illegal strikes, prohibition in New York, kidnappings, and enemies of the peoples

Pres. Wilson’s doctors announce that they will stop issuing daily bulletins about his health because it is so improved.

The coal miners’ unions are disregarding Pres. Wilson (or whomever)’s plea to postpone their strike. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer says the strike is illegal under wartime laws.

The federal government’s first effort to enforce in New York City the Wartime National Prohibition Enforcement Act that passed over Wilson (or whomever)’s veto is a raid on a saloon on West 42nd, in which 2 people are shot by revenooers. One of them was a passerby on the street, hit in the leg.

The Cleveland police claim to have uncovered a nationwide bomb plot conspiracy, part of a planned anarchist uprising.

Mexico arrests the lawyer of William Jenkins, the US consular agent who was kidnapped by bandits and released after a ransom of $150,000 was paid. Mexico says the lawyer was complicit in the kidnapping. It also thinks that Jenkins faked the whole thing to create an international incident or just for the money (he was in debt for... just under $150,000).

William Randolph Hearst fails to show up at Carnegie Hall to debate Gov. Al Smith, so Smith makes a speech calling Hearst a “character assassin” and, um, an “enemy of the people.” He accuses the Hearst papers of distorting the truth, but doesn’t use the phrase fake news.

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

Today -100: October 29, 1919: Of semi-sitting positions, prohibition, lynchings, women on benches, and pussyfoot candidates

The latest White House bulletin announces that Pres. Wilson now takes his meals in a semi-sitting position. And the nation rejoices.

The Senate also overrides Wilson’s veto of the Wartime National Prohibition Enforcement Bill, 65-20. So the US will be dry until the ratification of the peace treaty, and then dry again once the 18th Amendment kicks in, if it hasn’t already.

A lynch mob murders a black man near Monticello, Georgia. Eugene Hamilton had been tried and convicted for shooting a white man.

Elections in Fiume for the local council are won by supporters of annexation of Fiume by Italy, if only because no one else was allowed to run and because the bridge to the Croatian quarter was closed.

Headline That’s More Interesting Than It Sounds of the Day -100: 

Jean Hortense Norris, the first woman magistrate in New York City, in the Women’s Day Court. She will eventually be removed for various forms of corruption and misconduct, including appearing in ads for Fleischmann’s Yeast in her judicial robes.

Headline of the Day -100:  

British slang for prohibitionist, named for the stealth prohibitionist campaign of a visiting organizer from the US’s Anti-Saloon League.

Lord Rothermere suggests selling Britain’s colonies in the West Indies to the US to pay off some of the war debt. West Indians are not amused.

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

Today -100: October 28, 1919: Of satisfaction in the company of crooked politicians, prohibition, provocative opera, and hog islands

William Randolph Hearst declines Gov. Al Smith’s challenge for a debate (a group, possibly Tammany-connected, had even booked Carnegie Hall for the debate). He says he won’t meet Smith “publicly, privately, politically, or socially” because he finds “no satisfaction in the company of crooked politicians.”

Pres. Wilson (or whomever) vetoes the Wartime National Prohibition Enforcement Bill, which does what it says on the box (yes there’s still a war on, technically). Wilson (or whomever, although this does reflect his pre-stroke thinking) says there isn’t a need for it anymore. The veto is then overridden by the House, 176-55. The drys sneakily rush it through in a single day while many wets are elsewhere.

NY Supreme Court Justice Giegerich rules that Mayor Hylan can ban opera sung in German until a peace treaty is ratified, calling the productions a “provocation.” The Star Opera Company argued that people doing a legal thing should be protected from people trying to stop them by doing illegal things, but the judge thinks otherwise.

Headline or Possibly Children’s Book of the Day -100: 

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

Today -100: October 27, 1919: There can be no compromise with anarchy

The latest White House bulletin: “The President has had a very good day.”

Sen. Miles Poindexter (R-Washington) announces his candidacy for president. Jeez, 1920, we could have had a President Poindexter. On the other hand, his platform, which is itself a bit of a novelty, is mostly about how he hates Bolsheviks, Socialists, Anarchists, and unions. “There can be no compromise with anarchy,” he says. He calls the threatened railroad strike “government by terror for the benefit of a special class.”

6 members of Sinn Féin, including elected members of Parliament Pierce Beasley and Austin Stack – and how are those names not totally made up? – escape from Manchester Prison, in broad daylight, using a rope ladder.

Headline or Possibly Title of a Short Story in a Pulp Magazine of the Day -100: 

“Desonna was convicted by a jury... after sensational testimony had been given by Kittie Irving, a pretty girl, from Virginia.”

Speaking of girls from Virginia, Lady Astor accepts the Plymouth Conservatives’ offer to run in the parliamentary seat her husband was removed from when he succeeded his father in the House of Lords – which he is not at all happy about, and is consulting lawyers about whether he can renounce the seat and stay in the Commons (a law will allow this in 1963).

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

Today -100: October 26, 1919: Of strikes, kidnappings, and sugar

The latest White House bulletin: “President Wilson is slowly gaining in strength.” The doctors have decided to reduce these bulletins from twice a day to once.

Despite all the talk about how Wilson isn’t allowed to do much work and his doctors aren’t letting him look at a prohibition enforcement bill, he magically revives enough to issue a statement about a possible coal strike. He’s against it.

The AFL says if Congress includes an anti-strike provision in the pending railroad bill, there will be a general strike.

The US demands that Mexico secure the release of a consular agent, William Jenkins, who has been kidnapped by bandits. It wants Mexico to pay the ransom ($150,000) itself if necessary.

The fighting near Petrograd continues. Latest rumor: all of Trotsky’s staff has been captured while Trotsky himself fled clinging to the side of a railroad car. Whoever started this story may have mistaken Trotsky for Buster Keaton. Trotsky’s the one with the mustache, guys.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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

Today -100: October 25, 1919: A good day

The latest White House bulletin: “The President has had a good day.” Good for him.

Supposedly, former kaiser Wilhelm “recently went through the solemn ceremony of loading his revolver in the presence of members of his family... and declared that the day the Entente demanded his extradition from the Dutch Government he would shoot himself.”

A House committee decides that Victor Berger, the elected Socialist congressman from Wisconsin’s 5th district, shouldn’t be allowed to take his seat because he was “disloyal” during the war.

Sen. Kenneth McKellar (D-Tennessee) introduces a bill to establish a penal colony for anarchists on some island in the Philippines.

Police and protesters clash, as was the custom, outside a New York City performance of Die Fledermaus.

The Industrial Conference ends after the withdrawals of the representatives of labor, capital, and the public, in that order, over the last couple of days. The chair of the employers’ group accuses labor of “showing a poor spirit of sportsmanship.” The American Federation of Labor will call its own conference of organized labor to consider the future of industrial relations.

A military intelligence officer testifies to the Senate Labor and Education Committee about radical propaganda in Gary, Indiana, much of which the military seems to have confiscated, which can’t possibly be legal. Lt. Donald van Buren warns darkly about the number of foreigners in Gary and the presence of many copies of the “Red Bible.” Van Buren is pissed that the US can’t simply deport Bolsheviks and IWW members.

Two Finns are convicted under NY’s law against “criminal anarchy,” for... writing articles. The law was passed in 1902 in reaction to the McKinley assassination, but has never been used before. They will be sentenced to terms of 4 to 8 years by a judge who tells them their writings were just as much treason as if they had actually organized an army to attack the government.

The Plymouth Tory party asks Nancy Astor to contest her husband’s former seat.

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

Today -100: October 24, 1919: Maternal

The British government loses a vote in Parliament, which might normally lead to it having to resign, but the vote was on whether aliens can have pilotage certificates, so c’mon. Earl Curzon of Kedleston and Arthur Balfour swap jobs, the former becoming foreign secretary and the latter Lord President of the Council.

France claims to have uncovered a German plot. It says the Ministry of Foreign Affairs paid 500,000 francs for Alsace-Lorraine independence activity. The French are arresting and deporting Germans in the province.

Mother Jones gives a fiery speech in Gary, Indiana, suggesting steel strikers hang scabs from telegraph polls.

Senate Republicans are thinking up still more reservations they can wrap arond the neck of the peace treaty, including one to exclude from League of Nations jurisdiction anything involving the “vital interests and national honor” of the United States.

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

Today -100: October 23, 1919: A comfortable day

The latest White House bulletin: “The President has had a comfortable day.”

Labor Secretary William Wilson finally reads Pres. Wilson’s letter to the industrial conference in a last-ditch effort to keep the conference going – “At a time when the nations of the world are endeavoring to find a way to avoid international war, are we to confess that there is no method to be found for carrying on industry except in the spirit and with the very method of war?” So the labor reps, led by Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor, having failed to get any agreement on the right of collective bargaining, walk out.

A temporary injunction is issued against NYC Mayor John Hylan’s order banning German opera at the Lexington Opera House. Albert Lortzing’s Zar und Zimmermann is performed, despite the occasional egg thrown at the singers and the occasional gas bomb. Outside, soldiers and sailors (this may mean former soldiers and sailors) try to capture an army truck to aid in their protest, only to be attacked by mounted police; one sailor may die.

Headline of the Day -100: 

He thinks the League of Nation’s “prestige” can stop them, whenever the US stops dithering about and helps start it.

Senate Republicans agree on 10 “reservations” to pretty much every important provision of the Peace Treaty, limiting the US’s obligations under the League of Nations to whatever it feels like doing, and requiring 3 of the 4 Allies to agree to those reservations.

Oxford is thinking about admitting women and maybe even giving them degrees.

Pope Benedict calls for Catholic women to form a league against indecent fashion.

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

Today -100: October 22, 1919: Of industrial conferences, war crimes, and the sound of German gutturals

The industrial conference is not going well. All proposals for collective bargaining and for arbitration of the steel strike are voted down. I’ll spare you the details, but the employers’ representatives are being total dicks. Which should mean the conference ends in disarray but it’s saved, for now, by a letter which Pres. Wilson totally wrote himself to Secretary of Labor William Wilson. Sec. Wilson doesn’t read it out, but makes it known that the letter exists and he’ll deploy the 600-word missive if anyone steps out of line.

Pres. Wilson, we are told, wrote (dictated) that letter against the advice of his doctors, and is now totally tired out (I assume the letter was actually written by First Lady Edith Wilson).

The French are demanding that 600 Germans be tried for war crimes, including Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria,

accused of being the first army commander to use poison gas. Rupey says he will never surrender.

The French claim to have foiled a plot for an uprising in Alsace on November 9th, timed to coincide with a Communist uprising in Germany.

NY Mayor John Hylan bans the Star Opera Company’s performance of German opera, so the theatre was dark last night. The company appeals to the state Supreme Court, where the city argues that the ban is proper because the peace treaty hasn’t been signed. The performance was to have been Albert Lortzing’s Zar und Zimmermann, a comic opera. The American Legion Weekly says “it might be said simply that we do not like the sound of German gutturals. The trouble with German opera in German is that our mind hears not the theme so much as the shrieks of the Lusitania’s dying. Its measured cadences picture not tender human emotions, but a firing squad marching at the goose step upon defenseless women and children. If it conjures up sequestered sylvan glades, we see lying thereon the moaning victims of poison gas.” Everyone’s a critic.

The NYT says the Germans have only themselves to blame for the hatred brought on by their “obstinate defiance of American opinion” in trying to sing in German.

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

Today -100: October 21, 1919: A better day than usual

The latest White House bulletin: “The President has had a better day than usual.” Bills are passing into law without a presidential signature.

Elbert Gary, chairman of US Steel (and the man for whom Gary, Indiana is named) tells the presidential Industrial Conference to stay out of the steel strike. He doesn’t want arbitration, compromise, or anything else. He doesn’t really say what he does want, but “industrial war” would seem to cover it.

Headline of the Day -100:

Funny, yesterday they were supposed to have already captured it. Now they’re approaching, but 8 miles away. Kronstadt has also been reported to have surrendered, several times.

The Star Opera Company performs some German opera – selections from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger – despite a large “threatening crowd” outside the Lexington Theatre in Manhattan (including many from the American Legion and other ex-soldiers) and despite Mayor John Hylan having made it clear he didn’t want the show to go on. The company’s lawyer told them the mayor doesn’t actually have the right to ban opera. What’s the point of being mayor if you can’t ban opera? Hylan can’t get in touch with the city’s lawyer to find out if he has that power or not, so the police are forced to protect the performance against a crowd that throws chunks of masonry and cue balls at them. Lawyer Max Steuer (last seen here defending the owners of the Triangle Shirt Waist factory fire) says the protests are being got up by the Met to crush a competing opera company and the ex-soldiers are unwitting pawns. The NYT’s music critic thinks the performances sucked.

Lady Nancy Astor might be asked to run to fill the parliamentary seat her husband has vacated as he ascends to the Lords (Nancy, by the way, is American).

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

Today -100: October 20, 1919: Of falls, indigestion, longshoremen, Americanized peace, and Astors

Headline of the Day -100: 

And if they keep reporting it and wishing reeeeally hard...

Headline of the Day -100:  

Dr. Grayson says the president is “holding his own.” Wow, did a tasteless joke just occur to me.

No, not that joke. More tasteless.

New York Mayor John Hylan asks the federal government not to send troops to replace striking longshoremen at the Port of New York.

Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge says the peace treaty won’t be ratified without reservations to “Americanize” it. And senators are coming up with new reservations, including preventing the US from accepting a League of Nations mandate (Armenia, say) without Congressional approval. Which doesn’t seem unreasonable. Also, rejection of any ruling by the International Labor Council on immigration (i.e., the US’s racist immigration policy). There is also a proposal for the US to bring the issue of Irish independence before the League of Nations. 

Three French army officers who during the war wrote for the German-published Gazette des Ardennes are sentenced to death. 7 non-military writers get sentences of 5 to 7 years.

The American-born but British-naturalized Viscount Astor dies. He will be succeeded in the Lords by his son Waldorf Astor, who will therefore be removed from his House of Commons seat representing Plymouth (very much against his will, but them’s the rules). Whoever will they find to replace him?

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

Today -100: October 19, 1919: Of decrees, debates, and grips

Poet-Aviator Gabriele D’Annunzio decrees that anyone expressing sentiments hostile to the cause of Fiume will be executed.

NY Gov. Alfred E. Smith, pissed off at the constant attacks on him by the Hearst press, challenges William Randolph Hearst to debate him publicly.

Headline of the Day -100:

Doomed, doomed I tells ya!

The (modern-day) NYT obit of Samuel Hynes fails to mention two of his books possibly of interest to readers of this blog: War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture and The Edwardian Turn of Mind. Both recommended.

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

Today -100: October 18, 1919: We cannot be beaten because death is our victory

White general Nikolai Yudenich’s forces are quite near Petrograd, although not actually inside the city, as the article’s headline claims.

Woodrow Wilson’s prostate became enlarged from an infection, and was thought to require surgery, but Wilson was considered too weak for surgery because of his stroke (the White House isn’t saying that part, obviously), so they’ve held off while Wilson lay close to death (they’re not disclosing this either). The White House also finally says what Wilson has been suffering from all this time: fatigue neurosis.

The Senate defeats some more amendments to the Peace Treaty, and discusses whether the US should accept a mandate over Armenia. There are some questions about whether there is oil in Armenia, but it’s agreed that if there were, the British wouldn’t be withdrawing their troops from it, that’s just science.

Poet-Aviator Gabriele D’Annunzio has plans:  “If nobody will attack me – and I am ready to fight any aggression – I will march on Rome, or I will throw myself against the nearest enemy with my comrades. We want to offer ourselves in sacrifice. We want to light a fire that will burn high. It will awake in a portentous flame the deceived hopes of oppressed peoples, and no power of arms and money will be able to put it out. ... We cannot be beaten because death is our victory.” Put a pin in that idea, “march on Rome,” for 3 years.

Two striking picketers are shot outside the American Steel and Wire Company plant in Cuyahoga, Ohio, by guns, possibly machine guns, fired from inside the plant.

Hunger-striking Irish political prisoners are released from prison.

After Thomas Bellon is executed at San Quentin, glands are taken from his body and implanted in a 60-year-old inmate to see if they make him younger.

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

Today -100: October 17, 1919: A fairly satisfactory day

The House votes 284-1 to extend wartime passport regulations on incoming aliens  for a year, so that “radicals” can be excluded from the country.

Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge’s amendments/reservations to the Peace Treaty are rejected by the Senate, 35-35, 3 D’s joining 32 R’s in favor. This vote focused on the award of Shantung to Japan.

The latest White House bulletin:  “The President had a fairly satisfactory day.” His doctors allow him to be told of the Senate vote.

A “high military source” in Gary, Indiana informs the press that seized documents prove that the steel strike’s leaders are linked to Soviet Russia. Tear gas shells are being sent to Gary, which is odd because my understanding is that tear gas wasn’t used for crowd control until 1921.

A Waukegan, Illinois deputy sheriff posts a notice: “If you do not like this country, go back to your own. If you have no country, go to hell.”

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

Today -100: October 16, 1919: Build build build pay pay pay

The latest White House bulletin: “The President has had a satisfactory day.” The US delegation to the Peace Conference asked, last week I guess, who is currently responsible for giving it instructions, and has been told that Wilson will be incapacitated “for some weeks.” Which doesn’t answer the question.

The commander of the British naval forces in the Baltic tells the German troops to evacuate the suburbs of Riga or be shelled out.

Latest RussiaRumors™: Petrograd’s fall imminent! Entente invites Germany to join the blockade of Soviet Russia!

The American Legion is campaigning against German opera.

Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels says that if the US doesn’t join the League of Nations, it should be prepared to build a huge navy – “build, build, build, while the rest of our country must pay, pay, pay.”

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