Today -100: January 20, 1921: Of daily stars, reapportionment, and independence in any form whatever

Harding will escape the pressures over his Cabinet appointments by going on a 12-day cruise. And he’ll announce the whole Cabinet at the same time, rather than naming Charles Evans Hughes secretary of state early as he’d planned. He says it will be a Republican Cabinet. He resigns as president of the Harding Publishing Company. The Marion Daily Star will just have to get along without him.

The House of Representatives decides not to increase its size to 483 members for reapportionment after all. Where that plan (and districts of 218,979 people) would not have reduced the size any state’s delegation, keeping membership at 435 (242,267 people each) would reduce the delegation of 11 states and increase that of 8 states. Rep. George Tinkham (R-Mass.) proposes to cut representation for the Southern states as called for in a never-used clause of the 14th Amendment because of their suppression of black voting rights This is ruled non-germane although it is totally fucking germane.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Says Manuel Quezon, president of the Philippines Senate.

Speaking of independence in any form whatever, the Philippines Territorial Legislature drops a bill to require men to wear trousers.

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

Today -100: January 19, 1921: Of roots, needful repose, constitutional kings, and prosecutors

Republican senators are pressuring Harding not to name Charles Evans Hughes secretary of state, threatening not to work with him. They’d prefer Elihu Root, mostly because they like saying his name out loud over and over – try it, it’s fun – but to be honest they don’t much like him either.

Poet-Aviator-Looooooser Gabriele d’Annunzio leaves Fiume, anticlimactically, in a simple automobile. He is going to Switzerland for “desired solitude and needful repose”. Italy’s blockade of Fiume has been lifted.

Charles, the former emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is willing to accept a demotion to constitutional king of Hungary, although he seems to be conditioning that on his being (re-)coronated between June and September, which is crowning season, I guess.

Cook County (Illinois) State’s Attorney Robert Crowe says in future all women tried in the county will be prosecuted by women deputy prosecutors.

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

Today -100: January 18, 1921: Of crown princes, trademark infringements, chefs, and black runners

Congress votes a resolution to reduce the Army to 175,000 (yes, it was supposed to be 150,000 last week) and asks Secretary of War Newton Baker to stop recruiting until it gets down to that level.

Supposedly the Netherlands asks former kaiser Wilhelm and all his family to leave the country, since the crown prince, the Don Jr. of the Hohenzollerns, has been violating the terms of asylum by plotting a coup in Germany. (This will be denied by the Dutch government tomorrow).

Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard William Simmons offers a $100 reward for anyone using the KKK name “in an unlawful manner or in connection with any purpose or movement not sanctioned by law.”

Sing Sing Prison chef Jim Blanche, himself a prisoner, although one with only 3 weeks left in his sentence, quits as death row chef because the inmates just kept complaining (and not tipping)(are they really expected to tip, or was this a joke?), in part because their food always arrives cold from the distant kitchen.

Senate Republicans decide to refuse to convene in any executive session called by Wilson so they don’t have to confirm any nominations he makes. There are thousands pending (I think mostly post office jobs).

Winston Churchill is moved from his post as war minister to colonial secretary. Oddly, he’ll still be Air Minister. I’m not sure why he’s being demoted.

The Harvard varsity track team cancels its planned trip through the South after the University of Virginia and Annapolis cancel meets because the Harvard team has two negroes.

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

Today -100: January 17, 1921: Of cabinets, anti-Semitism, Dadaist hoots, and Tibbles the Great

France: Peret couldn’t form a cabinet, so Aristide Briand will. This will be Briand’s 7th time as prime minister (but not the last), because the Third Republic was ridiculous that way.

A protest against anti-Semitic propaganda is signed by, among others, Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, William Jennings Bryan, Jane Addams, Charles Beard, Clarence Darrow, George Creel (who knows something about bullshit propaganda), Robert Frost, and Charles Dana Gibson. No Jews were involved, by design. Harding refused to sign, because it would be a bad precedent and he’d be inundated with memorials, but he says anti-Semitism is narrow, intolerant and un-American.

Arty Headline of the Day -100:  

P. T. Selbit (the stage name of Percy Thomas Tibbles – Selbit is sort of Tibbles spelled backwards) becomes the first magician to saw a woman in half (in public at least), at the Finsbury Park Empire in London. The woman is called Betty Barker, if you can believe it. Christabel Pankhurst turned down the job.

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

Today -100: January 16, 1921: Quitter

Mrs Sadie Harrington of Danville, Illinois gives up her hunger strike after 48 days of failing to coerce her husband into joining her church. Except she was probably faking the fast.

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

Today -100: January 15, 1921: Of armies, karpovs, hammer & scalpel, missing liquor, and the propeller

The Senate votes to reduce the Army to 150,000, ignoring the pleas of the secretary of war and “Black Jack” Pershing to keep it at at least 200,000. The 34-28 vote cut across party lines.

Gosh, it really was a guy named Karpov who died, not Lenin.

French President Alexandre Millerand chooses Raoul Peret, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, as prime minister. If he can form a cabinet, that is. It’s already going badly. Peret wanted Raymond Poincaré as minister of finance, but Poincaré would only take the post if he had a free hand against Germany on indemnities.

Hungarian dictator Adm. Horthy pardons 4 members of the government he overthrew who had been sentenced to hanging, after a polite reminder from Lenin that Russia still holds Hungarian prisoners with very cuttable throats.

Euphemistic Headline of the Day -100:  

An abortion, they’re talking about an abortion. I never know when I see euphemisms like this what percentage of readers knew what wasn’t being said.

Some of the liquor seized by dry agents in Chicago and stored in a government warehouse is missing. And by some, I mean 400,000 gallons.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Filippo Marinetti has some ideas about dance. The dancer of the Aviator will have gauze wings “which she will keep in a perpetual state of palpitation.” I bet she will, I bet she will. And a propeller on her chest... I don’t think devotees of the fox trot have anything to worry about.

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

Today -100: January 14, 1921: The people of Philadelphia need not be afraid to go to bed tomorrow night

A French court orders the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) dissolved because of its failed strike last May to force the government to nationalize the railroads, that is, because it struck for political rather than economic reasons, or, as the judge put it, “a phantasmagoric of revolutionary ideals more or less deceiving and more or less in opposition to the fundamental laws which regulate life and society”.

The NYPD mobilizes, placing guards around churches, public buildings, Grand Central, the homes of prominent men like Rockefeller, etc. Seems to be related to a radical plot to raze Philadelphia...

...Which the Philly police superintendent denies ever existed. “There won’t be any bomb outrages,” he says. “The people of Philadelphia need not be afraid to go to bed tomorrow night.” There was a planned parade of the unemployed at midnight, but it’s been called off.

Russia announces the death of M. Karpov of the Supreme Economic Council. Since no one’s heard of him and Karpov was one of Lenin’s old noms de guerre, obviously it’s actually Lenin who died. Again.

The US census shows that more Americans live in urban areas (generously defined as places with 2,500 or more people) than rural areas for the first time.

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

Today -100: January 13, 1921: Of kluxers, prohibition, and reminders of monarchical days

The NYPD have been searching for signs of the Ku Klux Klan in the city for two weeks, but have found none.

The government of Georges Leygues in France falls after less than four months, by a humiliating 463-125 vote in the National Assembly, which thinks he’s not hard enough on the Germans in the ongoing negotiations over indemnities. Leygues was essentially ousted by President Alexandre Millerand, who thinks that the president of the Third Republic should have more power, and the prime minister less. He’s pushing for a tame puppet PM, Charles Dumont. 

New NY Gov. Nathan Miller wants the state and local governments to start enforcing Prohibition.

Headline of the Day -100:  

The minister of interior says monocles are an “affectation and a reminder of the monarchical days.”

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

Today -100: January 12, 1921: Of deportations, surrenders, and class antagonism

The State Dept asks the Labor Dept to deport Cork Lord Mayor Donal O’Callaghan, presumably before he has a chance to testify to the Committee of 100.

The Austrian government announces that it gives up, it doesn’t have the resources to continue, and on the 15th will turn over power to the Reparations Commission, whether it wants it or not.

NYC Mayor John Hylan writes the police commissioner, asking him to keep the Ku Klux Klan out of the city: “there is no room in this city for any group which runs counter to law and order and tends to create class antagonism.” The Klan has recently announced plans to expand into the northeast.

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

Today -100: January 11, 1921: Of no-frills inaugurations, blondes in sunglasses, affections of the throat, and climbing Everest

The US withdraws from the Council of Ambassadors, starting with a meeting next week to discuss German disarmament and reparations.

Harding wants his inauguration to feature no extravagance. No parade, no ball, nothing but sex with his mistress in every room of the White House, as was the custom.

Dr. R.C. Augustine, president of the American Optometric Association, advises that if your blonde wife or girlfriend is too temperamental, put dark glasses on her. “Blondes are not adapted to this climate. The glaring sunlight irritates their nerves.”

De Valera surfaces, back in Ireland as everyone suspected, to deny British charges that the Irish conspired with Germany in 1918. He says documents displayed in a government White Paper purporting to be written by him are obvious forgeries.

Gabriele d’Annunzio is still in Fiume, busily writing up a report to the Italian Parliament, which didn’t ask for one. He plans a holiday on the Riviera, “in the hope of obtaining relief from an affection of the throat caused by delivering speeches.” I assume that’s a a mistake, but if there’s one thing the poet-aviator-loser suffers from, it’s an affection of the throat. Most of his legionaires have left Fiume, but 550 want to stay because they are engaged to local women.

French Senate elections (it’s like the US Senate, 1/3 of the seats are contested every 3 years for 9-year terms) resulted in a triumph for moderates and a loss for extreme right and left candidates. None of the candidates of the new Communist Party (PCF) won.

Some British people announce plans to climb Mt. Everest. They have permission from the Tibetan government. It’s gonna take a lot of recon work just to figure out paths to get to the mountain.

Edmund Hillary is one and a half years old.

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

Today -100: January 10, 1921: Of plots, resignations, and hunger strikes

A meeting between British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Sinn Féin emissary Father O’Flanaghan does not go well. LG insists on the Irish accepting the Home Rule Law. In fact, Sinn Féin is now reconsidering plans to boycott the devolved Irish parliament and instead stand in the elections, inevitably winning most of the seats, and then refusing to take those seats.

Police supposedly capture a Sinn Féin plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament with what sound like RPGs, which hadn’t actually been invented yet.

Warren Harding formally resigns as US senator, effective on the 15th, when a new, Republican, governor of Ohio can appoint his replacement.

OK, I’ve been resisting this story, but there’s a woman in Illinois, Mrs Sadie Harrington of Danville, Illinois, who is on the 41st day of a fast aimed at forcing her husband to convert to the Church of God, give up his poultry business, and become a preacher. He seems pretty adamant about not doing those things.

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

Today -100: January 9, 1921: We will go to the limit to keep them out

Newly elected Davenport, Iowa Mayor C.L. Barewald quits the Socialist Party and orders the police to rid the town of Wobblies and radicals: “Load up the riot guns for immediate use and give them a reception with hot lead. We don’t want any Reds here, and we will go to the limit to keep them out.”

There’s an op-ed piece in the NYT about India’s new viceroy, Chief Justice Lord Reading, and the new agitation, “far stronger and more menacing” than previous ones, led by Gandhi, “half saint, half agitator,” who is calling for non-cooperation with local elections and boycott of British goods.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Well, that’s a humorous image...

Well that took a turn, didn’t it?

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

Today -100: January 8, 1921: Of evictions

A “committee” of the American Legion, Chamber of Commerce, and assholes in general in Brownsville, Texas meet the train of a Japanese man arriving to take up his farm land, and tell him to fuck off within 48 hours or else. What I want to know is how they always know what train Japanese will be arriving on?

The California State Senate votes 29-0 to ask the federal government to make no treaty with Japan which affects the state’s racist land laws or which allows Japanese to be naturalized. (The Assembly will concur, also unanimously.)

The 7th District Municipal Court of NYC has frequently blocked landlord requests for evictions. Their response: they serve an eviction notice on the 7th District Municipal Court.

Speaking of evictions, Poet-Aviator-Squatter Gabriele d’Annunzio is evidently refusing to leave Fiume, at least until after he writes a history of his Fiumian adventure. 

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

Today -100: January 7, 1921: This everlasting standing on one’s guard spoils a man

The feds discover 1,000 forged permits for whisky, millions of gallons of which were transferred from distilleries and warehouses to New York City.

Newark follows Chicago in banning movies that show crimes.

Calvin Coolidge’s two years as governor of Massachusetts end. That’s two terms, because they elected governors every single year. They’re going to two years now. His successor is Channing Harris Cox, as Massachusetts-governor a name as you could ask for. At Cox’s inauguration, some of the music is... German.

Two Japanese families arrive in Harlingen, Texas intending to farm land they’d bought, only to be met at the train station by “a committee of citizens” to tell them that they will not be staying. This is not the first time this has happened this week. The American Legion is lobbying for legislation to ban Asians from the Rio Grande Valley.

Warren G. Harding is promoted to grand poobah, or something, in the Masons. He tells them how sad he is now that he’s president-elect: “There is an aloofness of his friends, and this is one of the sad things. ... I have found already that intrigue and untruth must be guarded against. One must ever be on his guard. This everlasting standing on one’s guard spoils a man.”

Harding’s been getting push-back within his party on some of his preferences for office. And Charles Evans Hughes won’t even respond to offers of Secretary of State.

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

Today -100: January 6, 1921: The fat lady will sing

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George reportedly invites Irish President Éamon de Valera to London for talks. However, LG’s insistence that Ireland will not be allowed to secede and that Northern Ireland must be given separate treatment means that de Valera going to London would mean he accepted those preconditions, and that ain’t gonna happen.

According to the Daily Sketch, a police raid turned up Sinn Féin plans, with maps and everything, to blow up the part of the Tower of London with the crown jewels.

The local military general orders the destruction of five houses in Meelin, County Cork, after an ambush of a military patrol.

German music is played in Paris for the first time since the war, Wagner’s Die Walküre at the Paris Opera. There are no protests. It was a lot longer after the 1870 Franco-Prussian War before anyone attempted to play German music in Paris (also Wagner), and it did not go well.

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

Today -100: January 5, 1921: Of censorship, effeminate fools, martial law, and stowaways

Chicago Police Chief Charles Fitzmorris orders censors to ban any film showing a crime being committed, even if the criminal winds up behind bars.

The Public Morals Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church announces a campaign to stop the “contemptuous treatment of Protestant ministers by some cartoonists, writers and actors.” In movies and plays, they say, “the Protestant minister is seldom represented except as an effeminate fool.” The effeminate fools would like this to stop.

Martial law in Ireland is extended to four more counties: Clare, Waterford, Wexford, and Kilkenny.

Sinn Féin issues a list of Irish people assassinated by the British in 1920. 175 young men, 6 women, 12 children, 10 men over 60. Of these, 9 were killed during armed conflicts, 36 while prisoners, 69 in their homes, and 98 by indiscriminate firing (such as today, after a bomb explodes under some police on Parnell Bridge in Cork, and the cops randomly machine-gun nearby houses).

Cork Lord Mayor Donal O’Callaghan and Peter MacSwiney, brother of the late lord mayor, arrive in the US to testify to the unofficial Villard Committee investigating Irish stuff. They arrived as stowaways, as was the custom. Actually MacSwiney didn’t have to, but the British wouldn’t have allowed the lord mayor to come and MacSwiney chose to keep O’Callaghan company. The lord mayor will be tied up in red tape for a while since he arrived without a passport.

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

Today -100: January 4, 1921: Of boycotts, capitols, gas bombs, and delicious marines

The Supreme Court rules 6-3 that unions are not immune under the Clayton Act from prosecution for secondary boycotts.

Pres. Wilson’s veto of a Congressional joint resolution ordering him to revive the War Finance Corporation to subsidize foreign exports is overridden, easily.

Reports of the violence of the Great Fiumo-Italian War of 1920-1 were over-stated, as the final death count seems to be about 18 on each side.

West Virginia’s capitol burns down.

The Chicago Police Department will be getting gas bombs.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Today -100: January 3, 1921: Of whole foreign policies, balloons, harmonium taxes, poet-aviator-theatre-producers, reprisals, and moose & dynamite

“France starts the New Year with the resolution to make Germany pay and make Germany disarm. The whole foreign policy of her Government will be shaped by those considerations.”

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, German chancellor 1909-17, dies.

In a story I haven’t bothered covering, a US Navy balloon went missing after leaving Long Island, with three on board, on December 13th. There’s been a lot of fuss since then. Surprisingly, it turns up, in Canada with the balloonists (I refuse to call them aeronauts) safe and sound in Moose Factory, Ontario (I believe these days Moose Factory just assembles the finished moose from parts manufactured in China. Globalization, eh?).

Parisians are now being taxed if they own a piano (or a harmonium or an organ; I guess harpsichords are tax-free) or keep a servant.

Italy refuses to let d’Annunzio leave Fiume at the head of his legionaries. He is expected to travel to Rome, give all his wartime medals to the king, then go to Paris to write his memoirs and become a theatrical producer (when has he ever been anything else?). This may all be bullshit.

An attack on a police patrol at Midleton, County Cork leads, as was the custom, to reprisals. The local brigade major issues a proclamation that houses near the ambush will be destroyed, “as the inhabitants were bound to have known of the ambush and attack and that they neglected to give any information either to the military or police authorities.” They’re given an hour before their houses were burned, and allowed to take valuables but not furniture. In the future, the proclamation says, anyone who doesn’t “do their utmost” to prevent attacks “will be liable to be confiscated or destroyed.” So this is an official policy of reprisal, the thing they used to say was just the actions of a few troops/Black and Tans/police.

Headline of the Day -100:  

“The mule was unhurt.”

The man not so much.

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

Today -100: January 2, 1921: That damned elusive Pimpernel

Éamon de Valera is definitely back in Ireland, probably. Maybe.

Householders in Ireland are ordered to post on their doors a list of all residents, which isn’t ominous at all.

Michigan State Pen is going to “cure” criminals through brain surgery. That should go well.

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

Today -100: January 1, 1921: 1921, bitches!

Fiume accepts the terms Italy imposes on it, including giving back all the munitions stolen from the Italian military and the departure of any “legionaries” not native to Fiume.

Harding will break tradition and use an automobile in his inaugural parade instead of a carriage. Jackson rode a horse, because of course he did.

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

Today -100: December 31, 1920: Don’t know when he’ll be back again

Headline of the Day -100:  

Actually, he hasn’t, yet. Where will he go when he does leave? Possibly to Ireland, possibly to South America, possibly to a palace in Venice. He’s given up his powers to a council and is not part of the negotiations of the terms of surrender.

The House Census Committee discusses negro voting rights in the South, and by “discuss” I mean Southern congresscritters yell at NAACP witnesses who talk about violence committed against blacks during last month’s election. Samuel Brinson (D-NC) explains that the “intelligent negroes” in his district agree with the whites that ignorant negroes should be stopped from voting for the safety of the country. At the end of the hearing, a photographer comes in to take a group picture, but Southern-fried members refuse to be photographed with black people in the background, so they go into executive session to take the picture.

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

Today -100: December 30, 1920: I regret that death has once again passed me by

Fiume surrenders after a last stand involving sniping, concealed machine guns, and hand grenades. Poet-Aviator d’Annunzio issues a proclamation saying that he had offered his life for Italy “hundreds of times smilingly in my war, but it is not worth while to throw it away in the service of a people who could not be distracted even for a moment from their Christmas greediness while we were assassinated by their government.” In that proclamation or possibly a different one, he says “I regret that death has once again passed me by, thus prolonging my shame of being an Italian.” I believe the takeaway here is that he hates Italy and Christmas. 

A federal judge rules that whisky confiscated in Philadelphia shall be distributed among hospitals at $3 a gallon.

The deadline issued under martial law for everyone in Ireland to turn in weapons has expired, and, surprisingly, no one has turned in weapons.

The French  Socialist Party splits after the majority votes to join the Third Internationale.

Woodrow Wilson turns down an offer from a newspaper syndicate of $150,000 for his first post-presidency article. He says no article is worth that much.

Blog posts are totally worth that much, and there’s a PayPal link right on this page. Just saying.

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

Today -100: December 29, 1920: Work or eviction

Italian troops now occupy half of Fiume. Talks are going on and a temporary suspension of – I think not fighting, just the Italians bombarding Fiume – agreed upon.

47 federal Prohibition agents in New York City are fired. Some of them have been buying cars and diamonds lately.

Former Speaker of the House Joseph Cannon has set a record for membership in the House at nearly 44 years. John Dingell’s 59 years is the current record, and his were consecutive, where Cannon lost a couple of times. He was first elected to the House in 1872. He’s hoping to reach 53 years to beat Gladstone’s record in Parliament. He won’t.

The Circuit Court in Pikeville, Kentucky, allows the Auburn Coal Corporation to evict 27 families of striking miners from their company homes. Work or eviction, the company says.

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

Today -100: December 28, 1920: Of fine deaths, malicious injuries, deportations, broken atoms, and blums

Italian forces push back d’Annunzio’s legionaries to within a mile of the center of Fiume and capture the railroad station and the Public Gardens. The town is under bombardment. The ships that defected to Fiume from the Italian Navy are being sunk. The poet-aviator has 4 bridges blown up and roads mined.. He clearly intends to bring Fiume down in rubble on the invaders’ heads, so it’s all very dramatic. One Paris newspaper says, “A poet is having men killed in order to have a fine death for himself.” Repeating his wartime feat, d’Annunzio drops leaflets from his plane on Italian troops asking they desert.

The British Parliament passes a law making local Irish councils responsible for paying compensation for IRA “malicious injuries” as a priority over all other budgetary items. The IRA responds by demanding that rate collectors either resign or hand over their collections.

Preliminary talks flounder immediately when the British demand that all IRA weapons be handed over as a condition of any truce.

Rep. Julius Kahn (R for Racist-CA) says Japan can be satisfied by California passing a law banning all foreigners, not just Asiatics, from owning land. In exchange, Japan would ban all its citizens from emigrating to the US. I think I detect a big ol’ racist loophole, which the NYT does not point out: Asians are barred from ever becoming citizens of the US, but other immigrants (Kahn, for example, came from Germany) can.

Mariane Duszak arrived from Poland with her 3 children aged 5 to 7 to join her husband, but she fails her literacy test and they’ll be deported, after the kids get out of the hospital for measles, because of that immigration law passed over Wilson’s veto.

German engineer Willi von Unruh has invented a device that can break up the atom. He’s demonstrated it in his house, and been offered £1 million if it can be removed and tested, but he refused. Anyway, he’s in jail now, and it’s beginning to look like his wooden box with copper plates can’t actually split the atom after all.

The Allies are considering how to deal with Germany’s refusal/inability to disarm right-wing paramilitary groups in Bavaria, preeminent among them the Einwohnerwehr (“Citizens’ Defence”). The French previously ignored the growth of the groups because they hoped Catholic Bavaria could be split from Germany, possibly by a wooden box with copper plates, but now realize that Bavarian right-wingers want to restore the Wittelsbach monarchy in Bavaria and then impose it on Germany as a whole.

The French Socialist Congress is debating Lenin’s conditions for joining the Communist Internationale. Léon Blum wants to stay out and remain plain ol’ Socialists. This is the first mention I’ve noticed in the NYT of the future prime minister, so hi Léon!

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

Today -100: December 27, 1920: Of monks, dishwashing, lynchings, and celibacy

Edward “Monk” Eastman, possible real name William Delaney, who was leader of the Eastman Gang in NYC until he went to prison in 1904, a petty criminal after his release from prison, then a soldier in the Great War (for which Gov. Al Smith restored his citizenship), then a petty criminal again, is killed in a fight over the division of bootlegging profits, shot by one of his gang who was also a prohibition agent (which is not known yet). In 1903 Tammany Hall decided to end the gang war between the Eastman Gang and the Five Points Gang by having Eastman and Paul Kelly have a boxing match, which came to a draw after 2 hours.

Contrary to predictions in the press, Calvin Coolidge did NOT wash the dishes after Christmas dinner.

A black man who killed a cop in Jonesboro, Arkansas during a raid on a game of dice is taken from jail and lynched.

Pope Benedict says the Church will never change the requirement of celibacy for priests.

Romania decides not to intern those Jewish refugees.

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

Today -100: December 26, 1920: This loafing, thieving and prowling around has got to stop

Japanese Foreign Minister Count Uchida tells the Diet that a new US-Japanese treaty will probably abrogate California’s racist land laws.

Klan members wander around Columbus, Georgia, handing out circulars warning “Undesirables, both white and black, we are after you. We know you! Take warning! This loafing, thieving and prowling around has got to stop. Ku Klux.” 

A movie is shown to the inmates of Sing Sing’s death row and, because the NYT does NOT know how to write a human-interest story, we don’t know what film it was.

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

Today -100: December 25, 1920: We have spoken and written too much

Woodrow Wilson orders US military rule in Santo Domingo to be relaxed. The proclamation refers to the “friendly purposes of the United States in the employment... of its military force” in the DR. So it was friendly 4 years ago and now it’s relaxed. A commission of “representative” Dominicans will be appointed to come up with an election and rewrite the constitution. With an American veto, of course.

Poet-Aviator-Duce d’Annunzio is issuing increasingly desperate-sounding proclamations to the people of Fiume: “We have spoken and written too much. If our words are not made good we shall lose our honor, having already lost all else. There is but one duty – resist.”

BREAKING NEWS OF THE DAY -100:

President-Elect Harding issues a normal human greeting: “Like every normal human being I wish everybody a very merry Christmas.”

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

Today -100: December 24, 1920: Good for Taft

A white man is lynched in Fort Worth. He’d killed a cop while drunk.

And an old black preacher accused of killing a black girl is lynched in Purvis, Mississippi. The sheriff says blacks lynched him.

Civilians are leaving Fiume as the Italian blockade has cut off the food supply. Poet-Aviator-Duce d’Annunzio has placards posted saying such traitors are subject to the death penalty.

Lenin calls for electrification of Russia. Which will cost so much it will require foreign capital and timber exports.

The Soviets are reportedly planning to abolish the right of private ownership of books.

The NAACP asks for the KKK to be banned from using the mails.

Former President Taft denounces the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Henry Ford specifically for spreading them. He says anti-Semitism has no place in free America.

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

Today -100: December 23, 1920: Of tariffs, legionnaries, klan parades, and dukes

The House of Representatives passes “emergency” tariffs on imported agricultural products. But they aren’t expected to go anywhere in the Senate.

An article on Harding’s possible Cabinet picks mentions that he will have to take geographical balance into consideration. Have recent presidents done that?

The Italian military finally seriously clashes with Gabriele d’Annunzio’s forces in several places outside Fiume, where the poet-aviator-duce has sent small groups of “Legionnaires” in order to disrupt the Rapallo Treaty. The Italian commander has suggested civilians might want to leave Fiume, nowish.

Headline of the Day -100:  

In Jacksonville, Florida.

The former duke of Brunswick (ex-kaiser Wilhelm’s son-in-law), who left precipitately at the end of the war, demands back pay of 250 million marks, which is the equivalent of some money. He asserts his right to several castles, forests, the national library and the national museum, some horses and carriages, etc. Tomorrow, Brunwick’s premier and justice minister will say he gets nothing because he abdicated.

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

Today -100: December 22, 1920: Of sharpshooters, propellers, hip liquor, home rule, and narrow-chested bigots

In more anti-crime performance theatre, the NYPD sends 20 ex-army sharpshooters out cruising the city with repeating rifles. Patrolmen are ordered to stop gabbing with each other.

The son of Secretary of Commerce Joshua Alexander, Walter Alexander, a former miliary pilot in the reserves, walks into an airplane propeller, dying instantly. Evidently he was always absent-minded.

Russia is about to invade Estonia, maybe?

Romania orders the internment of 12,000 Jewish refugees from the Ukrainian pogroms.

Headline of the Day -100:  

While federal dry agents are threatening to arrest anyone with a hip flask celebrating New Years in Chicago, Chicago PD Chief Charles Fitzmorris says Chicago cops will be too busy dealing with real crime.

Parliament passes the Irish Home Rule Bill, though it only comes into effect when the British government, um, feels like it. And it won’t come into effect if either the North or South of Ireland don’t accept it. It provides for two bi-cameral parliaments, North and South, and a Council covering the whole island.

I’m not sure why everyone was so sure that De Valera was returning from the US onboard the Aqitania, but it was searched by the crew, searched when it arrived in France, and is searched again in Southampton. No De Valera.

The British ban bars in Palestine. Gov. Ronald Storrs also bans stucco and corrugated iron.

William Simmons, Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, writes to NY Assistant District Attorney Alfred Talley, asking whether in an interview Talley described the Klan as “narrow-chested bigots” (I think it was actually narrow-minded) for whom there is no room in New York. Talley replies, yup and I was talking specifically about you guys. Funnily enough, the first Google search result for “talley ku klux klan” is a Trump judicial nominee, Brett Talley, who praised the first Klan’s Grand Wizard. 

The only other thing Alfred Talley, later a judge, is known for is once debating Clarence Darrow on capital punishment. Reading that made me realize I’d never heard Darrow’s actual voice. Here it is. Closer to Spencer Tracey than Henry Fonda.

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

Today -100: December 21, 1920: Of returning kings, bankers, and crime

Ex-and-current-or-is-it-still-future King Constantine is back in Greece. He says he will use the Greek army to foster good relations with the Allies, whatever that means. He will also foster ancient Greek culture, which probably means... well, you can write your own sodomy joke.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt will have a new job at the start of the year: running the NY office of the Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland.

There’s a crime wave in New York City, hold-ups and the like, so they’re hiring  more police, searching people found outside late at night, and eliminating cops’ lunch breaks. The American Legion is offering to supply ex-servicemen as emergency posse members, or something.

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

Today -100: December 20, 1920: Of considerable confusion, population explosions, and unknown bodies of men

When the order of Daniel Cohalan, bishop of Cork, excommunicating anyone guilty of murder, ambush or kidnapping, is read out in St. Fibar’s South Church in Cork, “a majority of the congregation left the church amid considerable confusion.”

The military commander in the Kerry district says IRA prisoners will be used as human shields on army transports.

Prof. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins predicts the US population will reach 197 million by the year 2100, which is the absolute maximum the continent can support.

A Jacksonville, Florida real estate guy, John Bischoff, is tarred and feathered by “an unknown body of men” (my guess: Ku Klux Klan) after writing to a local paper complaining about its anti-German editorial policy.

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

Today -100: December 19, 1920: Of searches, mandates, bandit-on-bandit banditry, outposts of white civilization, and isolated incidents

The German army begins searching every house in Germany for arms, per the Versailles Treaty.

The first Assembly of the League of Nations adjourns until next September. The Council has decisively won every power struggle with the Assembly, so fuck you, small countries. The Assembly passes an act that countries holding mandates are not allowed to raise troops or exploit them. Balfour responds that Britain intends to do whatever it wants in the mandates no matter what the Assembly votes now or in the future.

Pancho Villa, retired from the rebel business, asks the government to protect him from the bandits who keep stealing his horses.

California Gov. William Stephens asks congresscritters from the West Coast to support California’s racist anti-alien land laws, saying the West is “the outpost of white civilization and must stand as a unit to resist the encroachment of the Japanese and other Oriental races.”

The US Navy Court of Inquiry into the killings of Haitians by US Marines finds, totally believably, that there were only two “isolated acts” and the marines involved in them were punished. It also finds that the invading Americans were greeted as liberators etc. Harding repeated the accusation of indiscriminate killings during the campaign, so he and the military may be off to a rocky start.

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

Today -100: December 18, 1920: When is he coming?

Headline of the Day -100:  

But he won’t say what it is. He did just have lunch with William Jennings Bryan, though, and Bryan is pushing a plan for countries to agree to hold referenda before going to war.

House Republicans decide that reapportionment should increase the size of the House of Representatives to 483. This would mean no state would lose a seat, while 25 would gain (5 for California, 4 NY, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, etc). Naturally, this plan would mostly benefit Republicans. The caucus rejects Rep. Tinkham’s move to investigate black voter suppression in the South.

Supposedly, police auxiliaries in Ireland are driving around with the mayor of Kilkenny as a hostage to prevent attacks.

Sidney Catts, the governor of Florida and a reverend, threatens to shoot Big Joe Earman, the editor of the Palm Beach Post, due to the latter’s “tyranny, arrogance and big-stick bossing” (big-stick bossing is the worst kind). “When is he coming?” responds Earman. The paper had taken the reverend governor to task for reinstating a state’s attorney who drank up the evidence against a bootlegger.

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

Today -100: December 17, 1920: Of mandates, veeps, race riots, anonymous letter writers, and concentration camps

The League of Nations Council’s big powers refuse to let the Assembly know anything about how they plan to run the former Turkish colonies (Mesopotamia, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine) as mandates. Similar opacity reigns over the mandate system in the former German colonies, with France already planning to break the mandate rules by raising troops in its African mandates and Britain by trying to monopolize oil production in Mesopotamia.

Bulgaria, Finland, Luxembourg and Costa Rica are admitted to the League. Armenia is rejected, as are Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. French rep René Viviani explains that the Covenant calls for mutual defense and who would defend the Baltic states? No one, that’s who.

Calvin Coolidge agrees to sit in the Cabinet. No VP has ever done this before, and Harding had to pressure him into accepting. Also, Coolidge says he doesn’t need an official residence (there wasn’t one until 1974).

The Senate votes for a bill against strikes, which is brought up suddenly without notice when opponents are not on the floor. It outlaws writing or speaking or advising or persuading anyone to engage in a strike in a common carrier that disrupts commerce between states or with foreign countries or threatens strikebreakers.

A race riot in Independence, Kansas has resulted in 2 deaths and several wounded, possibly fatally. It started when a black man held up a grocer. Hundreds of white men then searched the houses of every black family in town looking for him, leading to gun fire from both races.

Notices signed “Ku Klux Klan” appear in Anniston, Alabama, threatening “Reds, undesirables and anonymous letter writers.”

The US orders the deporation of Soviet Russia’s unofficial ambassador to the US Ludwig Martens because he is affiliated with an organization seeking the overthrow of the US government by force and violence. That organization: the Russian government. No one is suggesting Martens did anything bad himself.

The Boston Election Department says women are going to have to re-register if they want to vote next year. This year they were only required to give their age and obviously the Election Department needs to know their height and weight as well.

Headline of the Day -100:  

The British Labour Party commission that investigated conditions in Ireland reports that the burning of Cork was definitely done by Crown forces deliberately targeting valuable properties according to a preconceived plan. Also, the fires were started after Black and Tans forced the Corkonians indoors.

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

Today -100: December 16, 1920: The name Wellington Koo will never stop being funny

The League of Nations Assembly elects China to the League Council, which up to now has been exclusively populated by European or North & South American countries. Japan is not best pleased, since this is one step in Wellington Koo’s plan to use the League to lever Shantung out of Japan’s control.

The Assembly votes to admit Austria to the League. France is not best pleased.

Romania is preparing for war with Russia over Bessarabia.

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

Today -100: December 15, 1920: That’s a lot of whoops

Argentina says it won’t withdraw from the League of Nations... because it never joined the League of Nations. 

Black and Tans beat up a couple of priests in Cork, one of whom is late Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney’s brother. Evidently a coincidence. They make him kneel and try to force him to write “To hell with the Pope” on the pavement, but they’d neglected to bring writing materials. Meanwhile, MacSwiney’s widow Muriel visits the US Congress.

The Labour MPs (PLP) in Westminster reject Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood’s claim that government forces were not behind the burning of Cork, citing the findings of Labour MPs who visited Cork. They demand a proper independent inquiry, not one by the military. The current lord mayor and the 2 MPs representing Cork call on Corkonians (no, really, that’s what they’re called) to boycott the military inquiry.

Rep. John Small (D-NC) has for years bought a suit of clothes for each new child of constituent R.C. Bland, a farmer. Informed that he’s now on the hook for a 14th kid since this all started, Small says the deal is off when he retires at the end of this session of Congress. Bland, 65, has had 34 kids, 15 by his first wife and 19 by his second, 26 of whom are still living. He says it’s easier to raise children after the first ten, since the older ones help out. One time 14 of the children had whooping cough at once.

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

Today -100: December 14, 1920: Of war laws, corks, and immigration pauses

The House of Representatives votes to repeal most of the laws which were enacted for “the duration of the war.”

In Parliament, Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood refuses demands for a civilian investigation of the burning of Cork, because Cork is under military control.  He insists the military couldn’t possibly have been responsible (the Black and Tans were) because they don’t even have incendiary bombs. He also says the military and police actually helped put out the fire (they did not, and shot at firemen and cut fire hoses, which Greenwood denies).

The bishop of Cork says he’ll excommunicate anyone ambushing Crown forces.

The House of Representatives passes an immigration bill banning new immigration for a year (it was originally 2 years, so that’s something, I guess), but letting in siblings of resident aliens.

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

Today -100: December 13, 1920: Of arson, big navies, trucking, and African farms

Much of Cork, including the Town Hall, is burned down in retaliation for an ambush in which 3 military police are killed. There’s also looting.

Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels says if the US doesn’t join the League of Nations, it should begin a 3-year program to build 88 new ships. If it does join, the present navy is good enough.

When he leaves office in 3 weeks, NY Gov. Al Smith will join a trucking company as director.

Olive Schreiner, South Africa women suffragist leader and author of The Story of an African Farm (1883) and other novels as well as Woman and Labour (1911), dies at 65.

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

Today -100: December 12, 1920: Of disarming, hobos, experimenting in college, and mimetic satirists

The League of Nations disarmament commission agrees to ask members not to increase their military spending in 1922 and 1923 over 1921 levels, but Japan says it can’t reduce its military and naval spending while the US is increasing its.

A police raid in Dublin finds a bomb-making plant in a bicycle repair shop.

At the big hobo convention in Toledo, Ohio, two rival hobo organizations clash, with Gus Gramer, the Grand Dictator of the Social Order of Hoboes, accusing the International Brotherhood Welfare Association of “usurping the rights of the regular hoboes,” but they ultimately resolve their differences. Just what are the rights of regular hobos?

Headline of the Day -100:  

Goucher College in Baltimore.

Enrico Caruso bursts a blood vessel in his throat during Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore. He actually tries to continue singing, but fails. He’ll make a couple more attempts at concerts, but his career is over.

By coincidence, in a Sunday NYT interview with Charlie Chaplin, the “mimetic satirist,” as he calls himself in preference to “clown,” describes having met Caruso once, and it did not go well.

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

Today -100: December 11, 1920: Of blockades, unauthorized uniforms, bombs, and is there a doctor in the house

The League of Nations Assembly decides that each nation may decide whether or not to participate in blockades. So the League is now essentially toothless. This is another Big State/Small State conflict, with the big states wanting sole control, through the Council, of when to impose a blockade.

Martial law is declared in Cork, Limerick, Kerry, and Tipperary. Irish people must hand in weapons and “unauthorized uniforms” or face the firing squad. But Lloyd George offers safe passage to London to any Sinn Féin MPs whom he does not deem criminals.

Someone throws a bomb at the Romanian Senate, killing a senator, a bishop/senator, and the justice minister, and wounding others. The government will use this as an excuse to arrest every communist they can find.

Federal prohibition enforcement agent Benson Laverty is sentenced to 18 months for extortion. Laverty says he was drunk at the time he took $200 from the owner of a road house in Queens, which may not be the defense he thinks it is.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Today -100: December 10, 1920: Ireland has always wished for peace, but Ireland is not the aggressor

Huh. The NYT only finds out about the Treaty of Alexandropol between Armenia and Atatürk’s renegade Turkish nationalist forces more than a week after it’s signed. Armenia gives up more than half its territory.

Bulgaria will join the League of Nations, despite being on the Wrong Side of the war.

Five men are executed at Sing Sing in a sing-single day, “one of the most trying days the prison officials have ever endured.” I hope the prisoners apologized for putting them through such a trying day. Two were insane and/or of “feeble mentality.”

In a letter to the Irish Bulletin, Michael Collins says that in the absence of Sinn Féin leaders De Valera (in the US) and Griffith (in prison), others “rush in to talk of a truce and willingness to have peace. Ireland has always wished for peace, but Ireland is not the aggressor. Her acts of force are acts of self-defense.”

Three “gangsters” accused of murdering a sheriff and a couple of detectives are lynched in Santa Rosa, California.

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