Today -100: March 12, 1921: Of split infinitives, refugees, race riots, and laddie boys

Headline of the Day -100:  

A letter from Pres. Harding to Adm. Benson calls on him “to immediately advise”.

8,600 Iroquois in Ontario are trying to arrange for asylum in the US to escape an order requiring them to take Canadian citizenship.

There’s a “race riot” in Springfield, Ohio following several days of tumult after an unknown black man allegedly assaulted a white girl, so they’ve been hassling every black man, one of whom shoots a cop trying to frisk him. 14 black people are shot and I guess just the one white cop. A white man is arrested while scattering dynamite in a negro district – to blow out stumps, he says.

Enrico Caruso is eating solid food.

Since the papers have been running stories about Warren Harding’s dog Laddie Boy – He brings Warren G’s newspapers! A negro messenger has been named unofficial Master of the Hounds! – here’s a picture, from Laddie Boy’s... Wikipedia page.

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

Today -100: March 11, 1921: Of leprosaria, curfews, medicines, cabinets, and disorderly conduct

Massachusetts closes its leper colony on an island in Buzzards Bay, sending its 13 prisoners to the federal leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana. 

The IRA posts notices of a “curfew” for soldiers and police, warning that any of them found on the streets after 10pm are liable to be shot.

One of former Attorney Gen. A. Mitchell Palmer’s last acts was to say that there are no limits on the amount of beer that can be prescribed by doctors. NYC breweries say they’re quite ready to supply the market for medicinal brewskies. There are 4,500 doctors in NYC with authority to write alcohol prescriptions.

Lenin blames the Kronstadt rebellion on France and Social Revolutionaries (SRs) and says it will be crushed in a few days. He does admit having made mistakes: trying to restore industry too quickly, problems in distribution of food.

800 Russian soldiers are said to have drowned trying to cross the ice to reach Kronstadt when the Kronstadthoovians, predictably, shelled the ice. The incident happened, not sure about the death toll.

“The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” will open next month in New York. It’s described by the NYT as “the first photoplay built on the idea of cubism”.

Elsie Fisher makes a bet with friends that she can dress in men’s clothes and walk from West 90th St to 66th without being detected. She is detected, and a crowd starts following her until she is arrested for “disorderly conduct.”

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

Today -100: March 10, 1921: British subjects are not for sale

Assassinated Spanish Prime Minister Eduardo Dato will be made a duke, posthumously. Evidently the police guard for Dato’s auto were on bicycles; the assassins were on a motorcycle.

Rep. Horace Towner, chair of the House Committee on Insular Affairs, writes to Pres. Antonio Barceló of the Puerto Rican Senate warning against pro-independence propaganda, which just makes it harder for PR’s friends in the States to help them and anyway they’ll never get it.

Wow, the Bolsheviks have fallen, again, all fleeing Petrograd as the Kronstadt rebels capture the city. I never see the NYT apologize for getting these stories wrong. Another version is that Trotsky is still in Petrograd, making a last stand in the Peter & Paul Fortress.

Speaking about the suggestion that Britain sell its West Indian colonies to the US to cover its war debt, the Prince of Wales says “British subjects are not for sale.” To which the people of Jamaica, Barbados etc say, “You mean not lately.”

Headline of the Day -100:  “Caruso Tries to Sit Up.” I commented a while ago about the obsessive coverage of certain people’s health.

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

Today -100: March 9, 1921: The Allies are only creating fresh embarrassments for themselves

Spanish Prime Minister Eduardo Dato is assassinated. The three assassins escape on a motorcycle with a sidecar, which may not be a first in assassination history, but I can’t think of an earlier example off the top of my head. Spain has had so much upheaval recently that it’s not clear which group wanted Dato dead (Catalan anarchists, as it will turn out).

Germany is calm about the occupation of Rhine cities. German newspapers think Allied penalties on Germany will fail to pay and they’ll be forced to negotiate more reasonable terms. Chancellor Constantin Fehrenbach says “The Allies are only creating fresh embarrassments for themselves.” Pres. Ebert says Allied demands are “impossible of fulfillment. Not only ourselves but our children and grandchildren would have become the work-slaves of our adversaries by our signature. ... We must not and cannot comply with it. Our honor and self-respect forbid it.” He says the occupation violates the Versailles Treaty but Germany is “defenseless” to resist. Communists are calling for a general strike, but unions refuse. France preempts repeats of German complaints by declaring that none of the new occupation troops will be black or colonial.

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

Today -100: March 8, 1921: Aroused

Headline of the Day -100:  

France will occupy Düsseldorf, Duisburg, and Ruhrort. The Germans “would do well to remember that France has become aroused.” Germany will appeal against the sanctions to the League of Nations. 

The Supreme Court by a 7-2 vote upholds Postmaster General Burleson’s 1917 ban of Victor Berger’s Milwaukee Leader from the US mails, a ban still in effect. Justice John Clarke in his majority opinion says the paper could have been reinstated if it had “mend[ed] its ways”; also something about the US protecting itself against such “insidious foes.” Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes, dissenting, see the actions of Burleson as a threat to free speech, which no kidding.

The rebel sailors in Kronstadt and the Soviet army in Petrograd are exchanging shellfire.

Costa Rica complies with the US demand that it withdraw its troops.

Secretary of State Hughes is pissed that newspapers printed, correctly, that he sent identical notes to Panama and Costa Rica and in future wants them to only report things officially authorized by the State Dept.

There’s been a lot of ferment over the recent “Horror on the Rhine” meeting in Madison Square Garden which I neglected to cover, in which objections were made to France using black colonial soldiers in the occupation of the Rhine. The meeting also featured protests against British violence in Ireland. Anyway, the American Legion calls for NYC Mayor John Hylan to be removed for office by the state Legislature for allowing “pro-German meetings while this country still is in a state of war with the Central Powers.”  Does it actually have the power to do that? Similar meetings planned in other cities including Philadelphia have been banned.

Headline of the Day -100:  

More Dr Seuss than limerick, really. Not only Sinn Féin Mayor George Clancy, but former Limerick mayor Michael O’Callaghan as well are shot dead in their respective homes/beds by Royal Irish Constabulary Auxiliary death squads, probably in retaliation for the ambush of Brig. Gen. Cumming. Clancy’s wife is shot defending him. Clancy dies while members of the household are afraid to venture out in search of medical aid because of the curfew.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Today -100: March 7, 1921: Of fomented disorder and exaggerated sex plays

Pres. Harding fails to attend religious services on his first Sunday in office. But no golf either, since he doesn’t believe in playing golf on Sunday.

The NYT sees the exit of Woodrow Wilson from the White House as a signal to tell all the tales it’s been keeping to itself about his health, for example that he was unconscious for a week and that the Cabinet discussed replacing him with Vice President Whatsisname.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and others are arrested in Philadelphia to stop them holding a meeting. The charges are “organizing and originating a radical movement contrary to the laws of the state,” “possessing seditious literature” and “fomenting disorder.”

The National Association of the Moving Picture Industry agrees on a self-censorship plan. It will ban films that are “exaggerated sex plays,” that make virtue odious and vice attractive, offend religious beliefs, weaken the authority of the law, or “instruct the morally feeble in methods of committing crime”.

Germany makes another offer to the Allies, slightly increasing reparations. An offer a couple of days ago to provide German labor to rebuild the war zone in France was instantly rejected.

Brig. Gen. Cumming is killed in an IRA ambush in West Cork.

Panama rejects the border with Costa Rica assigned by arbitrator Chief Justice Edward White of the US, saying that White exceeded his authority and set an arbitrary line, thus showing he hadn’t studied the question sufficiently.

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

Today -100: March 6, 1921: Of wars, lightning rods, and horsemen

The Harding administration sends notes to Costa Rica and Panama ordering them to stop their war (which Costa Rica seems to be winning at the moment) at once, at once I say! The US pretext for ordering Latin American countries around is the US’s authority to protect the Panama Canal. The Wilson admin had already sent a cruiser to protect the United Fruit Company’s property, as was the custom.

Burglars steal Notre Dame Cathedral’s lightning rods (for the platinum) and copper from, I assume, its roof.

On his first night as president, Harding and the Duchess attend a theatre performance of Sinbad, starring Al Jolson in (sigh) blackface.

They could have gone to see The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, starring Rudolph Valentino in his break-through role, directed by Rex Ingram. An anti-war World War I movie. Haven’t seen it.

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

Today -100: March 5, 1921: Of rumble and bumble

Warren Harding is now the 29th president of the United States. His inaugural address (delivered via loudspeaker, a first I believe) is described by the NYT as confirming “the popular impression of him as a man who makes no pretense of uncommon wisdom or force,” while H. L. Mencken reviews it thusly: “He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm (I was about to write abscess!) of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.” I dunno, H.L., the phrase “we must strive for normalcy to reach stability” is surely as fine an example of presidential oratory as we’ve had. Mencken does admit that the speech is not intended to be read but to be heard and that it might appeal to you “if you are the sort of man who goes to political meetings, which is to say, if you are the sort of man that Dr. Harding is used to talking to, which is to say, if you are a jackass.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

Movie cameras are not allowed to film Wilson’s slow, painful walk to the car, and he gives up on his plans to stay through the ceremony.

The NYT says:  “Whatever opinion history may eventually record of Mr. Harding’s abilities and accomplishments, there is no doubt that as he came down the steps amid a burst of hearty cheering by the crowd he looked every inch a President.” Well, give him an inch... and he’ll still suck. He kisses the bible after taking the oath. Is that a thing other presidents have done?

Harding’s cabinet choices are confirmed. All of them. Just like that. The only delay comes when Harding names Albert Fall to be interior secretary before Fall has resigned the Senate. Which he does, at which point the rest of the Senate starts yelling “Get out” and “You are no longer one of us” at him, because they’re all overgrown frat boys.

On his way out the door, Wilson pocket-vetoes the immigration restriction bill, and regular-vetoes the Emergency Tariff Bill and the Army Bill reducing the army to 156,666.

Italian Fascists burn Labor Bureaus in Siena and Empoli. “Those responsible for the Empoli fire said it was set in protest against the violence of the Communists.” Fascists are not big on irony.

Sean MacSwiney, brother of deceased Lord Mayor of Cork Terence, is sentenced to 15 years for waging war against the Crown and having arms and explosives.

The Allies suggested that an international commission look into the dispute between Greece and Turkey over Smyrna and Thrace. Greece says no.

A 20-year-old sailor, the alliterative Harold Hammond, does indeed have a woman in every port. A wife, in fact, 14 of them. He interspersed abandoning wives with going AWOL, first from the army, then the navy.

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

Today -100: March 4, 1921: Of Haavaard, Wilson & Colby, negotiating with murderers, tariffs!, and princesss

Harvard University’s finances are not doing well, so it’s forced to raise tuition to $250 a year, $300 for the medical school.

Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby will form a law firm, which is a little puzzling since Wilson hasn’t practiced law in decades and wasn’t very good at it and also, you know, stroke. He’s evidently talking about arguing before the Supreme Court.

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George tells Parliament he’s willing to meet Irish representatives but not murderers. Asked whether Boers with whom the government meets (or met? it’s unclear if Devlin means now or at the end of the Boer War) didn’t do the same things as the Irish, LG says the Boers wore uniforms.

Wilson vetoes a bill to greatly increase tariffs. The House fails to override.

Poland, Hungary, and Romania sign an alliance against Russia.

The Russian military has reportedly crushed the Kronstadt rebellion.

Harding’s stuff starts arriving at the White House, including the all-important presidential golf clubs.

Russian Princess Catherine Radziwell gives a lecture at the Hotel Astor about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, whose forgery by the Czarist secret service she’d personally witnessed. Someone in the audience questions whether she’s a real Disney princess and how she can deny that Jews murdered czars.

Obit of the Day -100: Gen. Auguste Mercier, the French minister of war who helped railroad Dreyfus, at 87.

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

Today -100: March 3, 1921: The only asset of Germany today is the working hour of the German workmen

The House and Senate compromise on reducing the size of the Army to 156,666.

Former speaker of the House James Beauchamp “Champ” Clark dies. The NYT has been tracking his health’s ups and downs in detail for days in a way it would never do now. Also Enrico Caruso’s. It says something about the period, but I’m not sure what.

The German government denies having any other counter-proposal to offer on reparations: “The only asset of Germany today... is the working hour of the German workmen, and it is no good our professing to be willing to pay more than the German workmen can produce. ... Remember this: If you kill the willingness of the German workmen to work, the whole of your proposals, whatever they may be, will go into the cellar.” The Allies are threatening dire consequences if a better answer is not forthcoming, such as occupying Hamburg, separating the left bank of the Rhine from Germany, seizing customs, etc. France is moving long-range guns to within shooting distance of Essen.

Ramsay MacDonald fails to get back into Parliament in a by-election in Woolwich, losing to a Captain Gee. Gee got a Victoria Cross during the war; MacDonald opposed the war.

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

Today -100: March 2, 1921: Of dead ex-kings, armies, counters-proposal, ex-congresscritters, and thank you Jews

King Nikola I of Montenegro, who was made redundant when Montenegro was absorbed into Yugoslavia when it was created (he did not abdicate and continued to claim to be king of the country that no longer existed), dies in exile in France. He reigned for 50 years as prince before taking the title of king as an anniversary present to himself, and then was king for 8.

Panama’s Assembly meets to consider, among other things, authorizing Pres. Belisario Porras to raise an army, which really should  have been sorted out before he declared war on Costa Rica.

Germany makes a counter-proposal on reparations, a fixed sum of 50 billion in gold marks, which is the equivalent of some... wait, the NYT says that’s $7.5b... in exchange for Germany retaining Upper Silesia and restoration of the exports it needs to earn the money for reparations. This is instantly rejected by the Allies.

For reasons that are unclear to me, Congress ousts the Alaska Territory’s non-voting representative, George Grigsby (D), in favor of James Wickersham (R) for the remainder of the 66th Congress. Which is 3 days. For which he’ll be paid $7,000 per day. I assume that’s the sum for the entire period since the 1918 election.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Today -100: March 1, 1921: What sort of holidays do Irish schoolboys go on, anyway?

Panama captures the entire Costa Rican force that invaded Coto province. Panamanian Pres. Belisario Porras says something about Coto being valueless land and a war over it would be absurd, which is odd since he did declare war. Some Panamanians want him to resign; they attack the presidential palace, which is now being protected by US soldiers. The US sends notes to both governments asking them to please knock it off.

More rumors from Russia: the Communists overthrown in Petrograd, Trotsky is in hiding...

British soldiers are attacked in Cork, at least 5 killed.

Also in Cork, 6 men sentenced by courts-martial are executed. 5 were charged with an ambush on Crown forces, one for simple possession of a gun and ammunition. Canon O’Sullivan says the men went to their deaths “like school boys on a holiday.”

A Porter, Indiana train wreck results in at most 37 dead. The coroner corrects his earlier announcement that it was more than 40, which he made before he put all the body parts back together.

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

Today -100: February 28, 1921: Of monstrous invasions, and pogroms

I haven’t been following the endless fights in New York over cable car rates, but in the latest Mayor John Hylan accuses Gov. Nathan Miller of aiding the “sack” of the city in a “monstrous invasion” of the city’s constitutional rights and its “heritage” of a five-cent fare.

In what is supposedly the first pogrom ever in Berlin, a bunch of high school and university students attack Jews in the Jewish part of town and the Ku’damm. Police pull some of the victims into trucks to protect them but otherwise don’t intervene to stop the beatings. This all follows right-wing (monarchist rather than fascist) victories in the Prussian state elections.

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

Today -100: February 27, 1921: Of wars, Roosevelts, racist land laws, and despairing Armenians

Panamanian Pres. Belisario Porras issues a decree declaring war on Costa Rica, suspending constitutional rights, and calling on all males 18 to 40 to register for military service. The only problem: Panama doesn’t have any weapons. Or an army.

Incoming Navy Secretary Edwin Denby will name Teddy Roosevelt Jr. assistant secretary of the navy, a post held until a few months ago by Franklin Roosevelt and which was held by Teddy Sr under McKinley.

The US marines who attacked the newspaper office in Nicaragua are court-martialed and sentenced to 2 years. I didn’t expect that.

Arizona enacts a racist Anti-Alien Land bill modeled after California’s law.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Today -100: February 26, 1921: Of short-termers, corking fights, and blacks in New York

Rep. Patrick McLane (D-Penn.), who was elected to Congress in 1918 but defeated in 1920 by Republican Charles Connell, is unseated by a 161 to 121 vote because of electoral fraud and corruption in the 1918 election, and replaced by his 1918 R. opponent John Farr, who can serve out the remaining... 7 days of the term. He’ll be replaced by Connell in the new Congress next week.

300-400 Sinn Féiners attack police in County Cork and a five-hour fight ensues.

The census shows a 67% increase in the negro population of NYC in the 1910s, compared to 16.9% for the white population. Harlem had barely any black people in 1910.

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

Today -100: February 25, 1921: Of states of war, departments of the first importance, invasions, and suicides

The King’s Bench in Dublin rules that a state of war exists in Ireland and therefore civilian courts have no oversight powers over the military. The case is of a man sentenced to death by a court-martial for having a gun, which is not a capital offense under regular law.

Herbert Hoover finally accepts the post of commerce secretary, meaning Harding accepted all of Hoover’s terms for taking the post, which Hoover made public just to show who’s boss. These include “upbuilding the department” and “making a real Department of Commerce,” “a department of the first importance,” with a bigger budget and wider powers. Harding also has to allow him to continue to run his European relief efforts. So a department of the first importance with a part-time head.

Costa Rica invades Panama, occupying Coto province, which arbitrators (US Chief Justice Edward White) had assigned to it.

Martin Drath, an unemployed machinist attempting to commit suicide by gas in his 4th Avenue apartment, gets into a fight with a cop trying to rescue him, thinking the cop was a burglar. So... he doesn’t want to live, but he doesn’t want his stuff stolen either?

The mutinying Kronstadt sailors are “said to be” shelling Petrograd.

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

Today -100: February 24, 1921: There is a scent of violets here

Herbert Hoover is still playing coy about whether he’ll take the commerce secretary job, which we know Harding offered him. “The matter requires consideration and I cannot discuss it,” he says. He reportedly told Harding that the post doesn’t have a wide enough field to interest him. Harding reportedly responded that Hoover would have a free hand and could make the post a wider one (which is what Hoover will do with it, involving himself in all sorts of policies normally not in the remit of the commerce secretary).

A performance of Arthur Schnitzler’s play Reigen (La Ronde) in Berlin is disrupted by a bunch of idiots, starting with a stink bomb thrown right after the line “There is a scent of violets here.” Police and military arrest c.40 demonstrators, who shouted “Down with the Jews” and “I’m a Prussian” and sang Deutschland über Alles, which the article points out “proved conclusively it was their so-called nationalistic sentiments and not their morals which had been shocked.”

An ambush in which two constables in Ballybunion, County Kerry, are killed is followed by the retaliation burnings of 20+ buildings, as was the custom.

The Atlanta Penitentiary has been holding Eugene Debs incommunicado as punishment for giving an interview criticizing Wilson for not pardoning him.

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

Today -100: February 23, 1921: Why should a great empire wish to sell any part of itself?

Harding’s “tentative” cabinet picks: Charles Evans Hughes for secretary of state, Harry Daugherty attorney general, former senator John Weeks secretary of war, former congresscritter (and third gunner’s mate during the Spanish-American War) Edwin Denby secretary of the navy, Sen. Albert Fall secretary of interior, banker Andrew Mellon treasury secretary, businessman/philanthropist Herbert Hoover secretary of commerce. Harding will leave under-secretary appointments to the secretaries. Not all of these men have accepted yet – Hoover’s being especially coy – but they will.

German War Minister Otto Gessler says Polish troops are massing on the border as part of a threat by the Entente that if Germany doesn’t agree to its terms on reparations and disarmament, Poland will be allowed to invade Silesia.

Brig. Gen. Frank Crozier, commander of the Royal Irish Constabulary’s Auxiliary Division (the Black and Tans), resigns to protest the reinstatement of 21 auxiliaries he’d fired for looting. There’s some confusion about this: Ireland Secretary Sir Hamar Greenwood tells Parliament that Crozier has it wrong and they were actually sent back to Ireland to be court-martialed. We’ll see.

There’s a coup in Persia.

There’s been talk, from ex-senator Arthur Beveridge and current Sen. James Reed that Britain and France should give the US some of their Caribbean colonies to pay off their war debts. The Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) asks “Why should a great empire wish to sell any part of itself?” Why indeed.

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

Today -100: February 22, 1921: Everyone’s a critic

The publisher and editor of The Little Review (motto: Making No Compromise with the Public Taste), Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap respectively, are each fined

$50 by a NY court for publishing an “improper novel,” James Joyce’s Ulysses, which the magazine serialized 1918-21. The judge calls it “unintelligible.” 

The Syracuse city council bans all forms of jazz dancing.

Harding names his campaign manager Harry Daugherty to be attorney general. The NYT notes that Daugherty is known as a politician rather than a lawyer and is not qualified for the post: “If a best mind is needed anywhere, it is in the Department of Justice. Instead, Mr. Harding has been content to choose merely a best friend.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

The Allied conference in London hears from Greek delegates about the Treaty of Sèvres. The Powers are thinking about revising it – it almost accidentally became more punitive towards Turkey than was intended – to give Turkey back some of the territory given to Greece, but Greece would really like to hold on to Smyrna and claims to be prepared to totally kick Atatürk’s butt.

The next vice president and the speaker of the House won’t get that salary increase after all. So they’ll get $12,000 per year instead of $15k. The speaker rejected the raise because other congresscritters weren’t getting one, so that sunk it for Coolidge as well.

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

Today -100: February 21, 1921: You should never be too busy to read books, and particularly history

In County Cork, near Midleton, British soldiers attack “armed civilians” in a house, killing 13.

Sinclair Lewis says Henry Ford is so stupid about Jews because he hasn’t read history. “That is a good object lesson for you business men in the audience. You should never be too busy to read books, and particularly history.” “Also history blogs,” he added, probably. 

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

Today -100: February 20, 1921: Free hands are the best kind of hands

Charles Evans Hughes, former NY governor + former Supreme Court justice + failed 1916 candidate for president, accepts Harding’s offer to be secretary of state. Harding says that only Hughes will speak for the State Department, or, as the NYT phrases it, he will have a “free hand.”

Many Mexicans believe that US oil companies are funding rebellion in Tampico and Tuxpan, possibly to provoke a US invasion, occupation and possible annexation of the oil-fields areas.

The US State Dept conducted an actual investigation into German claims that black French colonial troops on the Rhine were raping their women. Gen. Henry Allen’s report says French colonial troops are, as a general rule, “quite orderly and well-behaved.” And some of the German women... less so.

The US Senate votes 62-2 to restrict immigration to 3% of the number of people from each country who were in the US in 1910, if I’m understanding this correctly. How it deals with European countries that didn’t exist in 1910 or are much smaller or larger than before the war is unclear. Canada, Mexico and South America are exempt, and Asiatics are still barred. The decision to reduce the number from the proposed 5% was probably helped by the recent spread of typhus in Italy and Yugoslavia. Also, Bolshevism!

Thomas Pope, the postmaster in Greenville, South Carolina, challenges President-elect Harding to a game of golf to determine if he gets to keep his job. Harding replies that he’s too crap a golfer to make it the basis for appointments, although history suggests he might have done better if he had.

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

Today -100: February 19, 1921: Of dastardly crimes, the nature and temperament of women, and horsey lèse-majesté

The National Woman’s Party, Alice Paul’s radical women’s suffrage organization, is dissolved, and in its place a new body is formed, called... the National Woman’s Party. Its goal: to fight for the removal of the legal disabilities of women. Soon, this will take the form of 80+ years of advocacy for the Equal Rights Amendment. Proposals to work instead for world disarmament fail. 

The grand jury investigating the Wall Street bombing of last September comes to a conclusion: It was “a dastardly crime.”

British troops close off 20 blocks of Dublin with barbed wire and conduct house-to-house searches for IRAers. It will take 3 days, during which time no mail or newspapers will be allowed in. 

The French Senate refuses to remove from the section of Civil Code on marriage “The husband owes protection to his wife. The wife owes obedience to her husband.” The Commission appointed to consider the proposal said it would be contrary to good order, dangerous to family life, and “contrary to nature and the temperament of women.”

France is trying to get Poland and Czechoslovakia to form an alliance to work against not only possible German resurgence but the spread of Bolshevism. France would also like to get Romania to join. Slight problem: the Poles and Czechs do not get along. At all.

Britain’s Prince Henry is kicked in the head by a horse. But he’s a royal so you can’t tell the difference. He later became governor-general of Australia. Henry, not the horse.

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

Today -100: February 18, 1921: You poor fish

Headline of the Day -100:  

A performance in Vienna of Arthur Schnitzler’s 20-year-old play Reigen (La Ronde) is disrupted by 500 hooligans, mostly students, who beat up theater-goers and turn on the fire hose.

Petrograd residents are reportedly being forced to go to Communist plays, or pay a fine.

The German Foreign Office denies France’s insistence that it has pulled non-white soldiers from the Rhineland.

Mrs. Bridget Rupple of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania is tried as a common scold. She likes to greet her neighbors, “You poor fish.”

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

Today -100: February 17, 1921: These things are done because it is your will that they should be done

A lynch mob in Athens, Georgia burns a black man at the stake.

Arkansas Gov. Thomas McRae vetoes a repeal of the law against cigarettes.

There’s a proposal before the Idaho Legislature to split the state in two. It’s not clear what seething resentment exists between the Northern and Southern Idahoovians. Probably something about the baked potato setting on microwave ovens.

North Dakota can’t find any banks or investment companies to sell its state bonds. I think this is bankers trying to blackmail the ruling party, the Non-Partisan League, into abandoning its policies.

Éamon de Valera writes a letter to all British MPs accusing British troops of waging war on the Irish people “contrary to all the rules of civilised warfare.” He enumerates the war crimes, telling the MPs, “These things are done because it is your will that they should be done. If you willed otherwise they would cease. It is you, not your troops, who are primarily responsible.”

The IRA are destroying bridges and roads in County Cork to slow down military trucks so they can be more easily ambushed.

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

Today -100: February 16, 1921: Of improving situations, mustard gas, and stunt appendectomies

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George tells Parliament that the situation in Ireland is improving and that he won’t publish the report into the burning of Cork, although he claims 7 Black and Tans have been fired.

Bank robbers blow open the vault of the Farmers and Merchants’ Bank of Utica, Michigan, only to be hit by mustard gas that had been installed 10 days before as a security measure.

Dr. Evan Kane operates on himself, removing his own appendix, to prove the operation can be done under local anesthesia. Or that’s why he says he did it, but two years ago he amputated one of his fingers, so I suspect it’s some sort of fetish thing.

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

Today -100: February 15, 1921: Of big navies, perfect girls, dingles, and Trobach’s monster

The House of Representatives votes to continue the Navy’s massive ship-building program begun in 1916. Amendments to postpone until after the international disarmament conference Harding says he’ll call are defeated.

How Marriages Were Arranged in 1921:

The British blockade Dingle Peninsula. Which sounds like a sex thing.

Otto Trobach, a chef in Chicago, asks the sheriff for a gland from the corpse of the next man hanged in Cook County, to be transplanted into his body to bring back his youth, which was stolen from him by an accident, he says.

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

Today -100: February 14, 1921: Of premiers, fires, and rounds

Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood remarked that Irish Nationalist MP (i.e., a moderate) Joseph Devlin might become the First Premier of the Ulster Parliament. Devlin replies that it’s All-Ireland or nothing.

There have been fires at numerous factories and businesses in Manchester and throughout Lancashire. IRA? Manchester Chief Constable Sir Robert Peacock (!) thinks so.

Arthur Schnitzler’s 20-year-old play Reigen (La Ronde) is not only offending Nazis in Munich, but also the Minister of Interior in Austria, who orders performances halted. The province of Vienna objects to this interference by the federal government, leading to a heated discussion in Parliament. Socialists see reactionary Catholicism in the ban, Christian Socialists see secularism gone mad in the play.

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

Today -100: February 13, 1921: And if that’s not how you celebrate Lincoln’s Birthday, I don’t know how you do celebrate Lincoln’s Birthday

Britain keeps privately asking the US to forgive its wartime debt.

Headline of the Day -100:  

As was the custom.

A black man accused of assaulting an old white woman in Ocala, Florida is hanged by a lynch mob, after they have the woman identify him.

300 IRAers attack the police barracks in Drimoleague, County Cork. The military arrive and force the town’s entire male population to repair the damage at gunpoint, because there’s nothing like forced labor to give you a warm and fuzzy feeling towards the Union.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Stanley. His name was Stanley. How hard is that, scientists?

Blondes are out in Paris this season, brunettes are in.

What to Watch: the pre-release of Buried Treasure, with Marion Davies, “The greatest picture drama of reincarnation ever shown” with “a vivid sea battle with pirates”.

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

Today -100: February 12, 1921: Better than a pail of warm spit

Harding’s presidential pay will be $75,000 a year, the same as Wilson’s (although he’ll have to pay income tax, which Wilson did not). However Congress raises the vice president’s pay from $12,000 to $15,000 for Coolidge. These days, the president gets $400k and the veep $235,000.

The NYPD raid a dance at the Odd Fellows Hall, arresting 600 (!) for indecent dancing or spectating at said dancing. Two cops acquired tickets through some sneaky means to the private event.

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

Today -100: February 11, 1921: There will be less talk and more thinking afterwards

A large meeting of Irish moderates in Dublin rejects the Irish Home Rule Act.

A large IRA force is moving on the delightfully named County Cork town of Skibbereen,. A preliminary raid is led by someone who claims, “I am Michael Collins, the killed and much-wanted man.”

Edward Brislane, due to be hanged Friday in Chicago, wants it to be public, in Grant Park. He thinks most supporters of capital punishment couldn’t stick it out, but “there will be less talk and more thinking afterwards.”

The US marines who attacked a Nicaraguan newspaper’s offices are arrested by the US military authorities. 

Warren G. Harding, who has already had to abandon one houseboat when he got it mired in the mud, has a fishing trip ruined by a black cat eating all the bait. Seems like enough metaphors for one vacation.

Sen. James Phelan (D-California) explains that his earlier comparison between negroes in the South and Japanese in the West simply meant that both are race problems because they are unassimilable. Also the Japanese breed like rabbits, so California could become “an Oriental colony tributary to an alien government.” 

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

Today -100: February 10, 1921: Dog bites finger

US Marines raid a newspaper in Nicaragua that said some bad things about marines (we are not informed what those bad things were), and destroy its presses.

NYC Special Assistant District Attorney Charles Whitman (presumably not the former DA and governor of that name)(a later article says it is that Charles Whitman, but I’m not sure) is investigating whether the NYPD is covering up murders. There were 679 murders in 1920 in NY County, for which there were 78 indictments and one (1) conviction for first-degree murder (plus 7 for second-degree and 28, if I’m reading the blurred numbers correctly, for manslaughter). Some of the 679 were suicides. Poor police work led to a lot of murder cases being plead out, one for a conviction for assault. Also, only 9 car thieves were sent to jail. And some cops are filling booze orders for restaurants and saloons.

France says it has no remaining black troops occupying the Rhine, though Germans have been whining about them endlessly. There are some Moroccans, who the NYT carefully explains “are not black men but are Moors” and “As a rule they are very well behaved.” There are also some Malagasy, who are used as officers’ servants because colonialism.

In Munich, the Nationalist Party and the Nationalist Labor Party (which is the NYT’s translation of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, Nazi for short) are refusing to comply with the Entente demand for disarmament. The NYT describes the Nationalist Labor Party as consisting “mainly of former officers, students disguised as workmen and unemployed who are hired with money furnished by royalists. They wear large red badges emblazoned with the swastika, which has become the emblem of anti-foreign sentiment”. They recently disrupted a performance of Arthur Schnitzler’s Reigen (La Ronde) since “theatre audiences are thought to consist largely of war profiteers and other drones” and they think the play is immoral.

President Harding will have a pet alligator. No word yet on its name. Or gender. I’m thinking Daisy in either case.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Today -100: February 9, 1921: Oh I knew I was forgetting something

The German government sternly tells Bavaria to comply with Allied demands on disarmament or face French occupation.

Learning that British soldiers would be on a train in West Donegal, IRAers roll boulders onto the track around a curve. The train hits it and derails, but no one is hurt.

OK, this time Prince Kropotkin really is dead.

 

There’s a mutiny in the Russian fleet at Kronstadt.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Eventually, after some discussion about whether the death warrant is still valid, the governor will just commute his sentence.

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

Today -100: February 8, 1921: Of armies and unions

The Senate votes 67-1 to override Wilson’s veto of the joint resolution instructing the War Department to end army recruiting until its size is reduced to 175,000 from its current 280,000. The House voted to override a couple of days ago.

Lenin complains in an article in Pravda entitled “The Communist Party in a Crisis” that unions are endangering the communist state by trying to win material benefit for their members.

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

Today -100: February 7, 1921: Of extreme eugenics, angoras, and hostages

A committee of the Connecticut Legislature is considering putting hopelessly insane people to death.

The Japanese Diet is considering a bill to remove the ban on women going to political meetings or joining political organizations. A petition in favor of the bill, signed by thousands of women, is presented, saying the measure is necessary to make women better wives and mothers.

Atatürk says he’ll move the capital of Turkey from Constantinople to Angora, as Ankara was called in the West, but there’s no song about that, is there?

Sinn Féin MP William Sears, editor of the Enniscorthy Echo, is used as a hostage, chained to a military truck as it drives through Dublin.

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

Today -100: February 6, 1921: Of armies, smoking, and bad luck

The House votes 271-16 to override Wilson’s veto of the joint resolution instructing the War Department to end army recruiting until its size is reduced to 175,000 from its current 280,000. The War Dept wanted 500,000.

Kitty O’Shea, widow of Charles Stewart Parnell, dies.

Headline of the Day -100:  

The Senate kills a measure to ban smoking in all executive branch offices. There is some discussion first about whether chewing tobacco should be included.

What to Watch: French comedian Max Linder’s Seven Years Bad Luck.

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

Today -100: February 5, 1921: Of strongholds, the battle of the Dimitrioses, mandates, and disarmament

Poet/playwright/fantasy author Lord Dunsany is court-martialed for possessing shotguns and ammunition, and is fined £25. Dunsany claims to be loyal to the Crown, having fought in the Boer and Great wars, and Dunsany Castle “was built as a stronghold to safeguard the power of the Crown.”

Dimitrios Rallis resigns as Greek prime minister after a fight with his Minister of War Dimitrios Gounaris over which one would go to the London conference, that argument being a proxy for the larger one over whether to go to war with the Turkish Nationalists.

Mary Ellen Smith, a suffragist who won her dead husband’s seat in the British Columbia Legislative Assembly in 1918 (slogan: “Women and Children First”), is given what may be the first appointment of a woman to cabinet office in the world, certainly the first in the British Empire, as minister without portfolio.

The League of Nations finally makes public the terms for the British mandate over Palestine, 2 months after they’re submitted. The British government “view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” while safeguarding the civil and religious rights of everybody. Aaaaannd...

Harding will call an international disarmament conference.  Meanwhile admirals and generals are talking up the importance of battleships, oh and they’d like some aircraft carriers too, please and thank you.

There is unrest in Japanese-occupied Formosa. Taiwanese nationalist Rin Kendo, which sounds like a Star Wars name, says Formosans have come to the conclusion that Japan is attempting to enslave them.

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

Today -100: February 4, 1921: Who’s a special session? YOU’RE a special session

Pres. Wilson calls a special session of the Senate, at Harding’s request, for inauguration day, to start approving Harding’s nominees.

The IRA claims to have sunk a British submarine two weeks ago, with a loss of 57 hands, using an “electrically controlled projectile.” Actually the K class was a pretty crappy sub, and it probably just sank. It was never recovered.

500 or so IRAers ambush Crown forces near Rosscarberry, County Cork. The latter seem to have gotten the better of it.

Police and army trucks now carry chained hostages.

Attacks on police in Dublin have become very frequent.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Today -100: February 3, 1921: Why does Europe make all this fuss over an outlaw?

The Coolidges will spend his veepship living in a hotel, the same one Vice President Whatsisname currently uses.

Scientific American’s $5,000 Will Someone Please Explain Einstein’s Theory to US? prize is won by one L. Bolton of the British Patent Office.

The Clonfin Ambush: in County Longford, Ireland, the IRA explodes a mine – this is considered for some reason to be more or less the first ever “IED” – under two military trucks crossing a bridge. They ten fire on the trucks, starting a two-hour firefight before the cops surrender. The IRA fighters escape with a shit-ton of weapons and ammo, but only after tending to the British wounded.

The Austrian government is demanding that former Emperor Carl return the crown jewels. He’s refusing.

King Constantine of Greece says there will be no negotiations with the Turkish Nationalists: “I do not recognize Mustapha Kemal [Atatürk] as a person worthy to be dealt with. Why does Europe make all this fuss over an outlaw? Mustapha Kemal is only a big bluff – a big bubble – and we could blow him off the map as we would blow a fly off a table.” SPOILER ALERT: No they can’t. Connie says the Greek army has beaten the Turks every time they’ve fought, which is not the case.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Today -100: February 2, 1921: Of nights at the theatre, pardons, finite universes, and the 20th degree of North Latitude

Woodrow Wilson goes to the theatre for the first time since what the NYT calls his “breakdown,” because evidently we’re just ignoring that everyone knows it was a stroke. What drew him to the theatre? John Drinkwater’s “Abraham Lincoln,” and yes that’s kind of weird.

Hearing that Wilson has refused to pardon him, Eugene Debs says it’s Wilson, not he, who needs a pardon.

Albert Einstein thinks the universe is finite.

The German government says it will reject the Entente’s reparations terms as going beyond the terms of the Versailles Treaty.

Former Louisiana Governor Ruffin Pleasant has a suggestion for the upcoming state Constitutional Convention: deny suffrage rights to anyone coming from south of the 20th degree of North Latitude, an area which “is credited with none of the civilization of the world.”

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

Today -100: February 1, 1921: Of pardons, plots, and rejuvenated women

Woodrow Wilson rejects Attorney Gen. Palmer’s recommendation to pardon Eugene Debs.

Nationalists (fascists?) in Florence, Italy claim to have uncovered, while they were looting a newspaper office before burning it, proof of a Communist plan for a national uprising on Feb. 3rd.

The Communists are alleged, as was the custom, to be planning a general European rising on May Day.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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