Today -100: June 2, 1921: Tulsa

The Greenwood/Tulsa Race Massacre. The whites of Tulsa, Oklahoma burn out the negro section, destroying 30 blocks of the city and shooting blacks trying to escape their burning houses. It started, as so many of these things do, with an accusation of assault by a black man, Dick Rowland, against a white woman – he tripped in an elevator and grabbed the arm of the elevator operator for balance, that’s it. He’s arrested; a white mob, spurred by headlines like “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator,” gathers at the court house; armed blacks show up to save Rowland from lynching; someone fires a shot, and away we go. Incidentally, the elevator operator will refuse to press charges and Rowland will leave town (along with many other black Tulsahoovians) and disappear from history. As of this first NYT story, the “race riot” is over, and 6,000 blacks are being held in makeshift detention camps. Tulsa police say racial animosity has been stirred up for months by the Wobblies.

Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood tells Parliament that there just hadn’t been enough soldiers in Ireland to guard important buildings like the now smoldering Dublin Custom House. He says that reprisals can’t be ordered by any officer below Brigade Commander; I’m not sure when they stopped denying that reprisals were official policy.

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Today -100: June 1, 1921: Rum and paper do not mix

In addition to the almost daily reports of mistakes in the War Dept’s list of alleged WW I draft deserters, many cases have had to be dropped in federal court when it turns out the men had actually served or were too infirm to have passed a medical. Not that this will stop the War Dept from putting out error-ridden lists.

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Sometime this month Booth Tarkington’s novel Alice Adams is published. It’s like a Jane Austen marriage plot novel set in a 1920s small town. ... Okay I’ve tried out that take on it and it doesn’t really work. Anyway, it’s short, so the Katharine Hepburn 1935 movie doesn’t cut anything out and is remarkably faithful right up to the last few minutes, where it has brighter conclusions to all the plot threads.

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Today -100: May 31, 1921: In which is revealed what would disgrace a Hottentot

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Somehow I doubt the accuracy of this report.

Well, that Upper Silesia armistice didn’t last long. Each side blames the other for starting up again.

The prime minister of Bavaria, Gustav Ritter von Kahr, says he just can’t disarm the Bavarian population, specifically the paramilitary Einwohnenerwehr, as the federal government agreed with the Entente would happen.

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“Nearly solid for German fusion” sounds like a particularly unpleasant sex act, but this is in fact a referendum, held by local authorities against the orders of the Austrian government, for Austria to merge with Germany. Close to unanimous.

The German war crimes court in Leipzig convicts its second war criminal, a captain who made POWs work even when they were sick, and who rode his horse into groups of prisoners. Sentenced to 6 months. The British are complaining that the terms aren’t long enough - “An outrage on decency,” howls the Daily Mail, which says Capt. Müller’s crimes “would disgrace a Hottentot”.

Tonight on PBS (check local listings): “Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten” on the massacre this day -100.

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Today -100: May 30, 1921: Of armistices and ticket choppers

An armistice is negotiated between Polish and German forces in Upper Silesia.

Horace Porter, the last living wartime aide to General Ulysses Grant, who witnessed Lee’s surrender, dies at 84. He was a general at 27, assistant secretary of war under Sec. Grant, personal secretary to Pres. Grant, then a railroad executive who invented the ticket chopper (which is what it sounds like, destroys used tickets so they can’t be re-used), then ambassador to France under McKinley & Roosevelt.

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Today -100: May 29, 1921: In which is revealed which is the only government that cares about art and children and who are the most care-free men in the South

Whites in southwestern Utah are worried about an Indian (Ute) uprising.

The French education minister orders the firing of all teachers who encourage Communist ideas.

Isadora Duncan accepts an offer from Russia to open a dancing academy in Moscow. “The Soviet is the only government that cared about art nowadays and children,” she says.

Charles Ortner was sentenced to 2 to 4 years for assault in 1917 and sent to Sing Sing. He liked it so much that he refused to apply for release on good behavior after 1½ years or parole when that was available at 2 years, although he was a model prisoner to whom it would certainly have been granted. They’ve finally thrown him out.

An article in the NYT Sunday Magazine explains the Southern peonage system to silly northerners who think the black peons are badly treated. The author, one James Young, explains that black farm workers are in constant debt to white farmers, and hence are never paid by them, because “The negro is not thrifty by inclination. He lives for the day and lets the next one care for itself. This is a reflection of his really childish and often happy nature. It would be difficult to find a more care-free man than the negro field worker of the South.” Meanwhile, the hapless white farmers are gouged by bankers and stores and are “the real economic slaves of the cotton field.”

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Today -100: May 28, 1921: What the well-dressed woman wears

Unionists decisively win the Northern Irish Parliament elections, winning 40 seats out of 52. Sinn Féiners who won include Éamon de Valera, Michael Collins, and Arthur Griffiths, but the party wound up with far fewer seats than expected, in part because the proportional representation voting system disfavored them, so they won’t have the numbers to cripple the parliament through abstention.

Buster Keaton and actress Natalie Talmadge are going to marry.

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Today -100: May 27, 1921: Of riots, war crimes, and battlers

Ada Dozier wins a lawsuit against the city of Chicago for the death of her husband in the summer 1919 race riots. She’s awarded $2,300.

One provision of the Versailles Treaty required Germany to hold war crimes trials. The first, of a sergeant who beat up British POWs, results in a 10-month sentence.

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“Many critics have openly declared that Wills is the best big negro in the ring today.”

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Today -100: May 26, 1921: Of customs, polygamous cohabitation, and winey tennis players

The IRA burn the Dublin Custom House, as was the custom. The building has been used by the Local Government Board (rather than customs) and other government bodies for some time, and lots of important records are gone. Also the dome fell in. Reading the account, it sounds like they may just have intended to burn records but the fire got out of hand, forcing IRAers to flee the building, where they were taken prisoner.

House Speaker Frederick Gillett introduces a proposal for an Amendment to the Constitution banning polygamy and “polygamous cohabitation.” It’s aimed at.... Connecticut, evidently.

The Senate unanimously adopts an amendment to the Navy budget asking Harding to to hold a naval disarmament conference with Britain and Japan.

The German government is cracking down on Freikorps groups recruiting men to fight in Silesia.

French tennis players refuse to come to the US for the Davis Cup unless they receive assurances that they will be able to have wine.

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Today -100: May 25, 1921: Thoughtless aspersion is the worst kind

The Senate rejects the House proposal to reduce the size of the Navy to 100,000.

Navy Secretary Edwin Denby names a new military governor for Santo Domingo (the Dominican Republic), Rear Admiral Samuel Robison.

The elections are held in Northern Ireland.  “In some districts revolver firing was indulged in, but not with serious results.” A lot of children voted, including a 2½-year-old who voted for one Thomas Moles, probably because he thought the name was funny.

French Prime Minister Aristide Briand tells the Chamber of Deputies that Germany is fulfilling its promises. On Silesia, he says that it’s never really been German in spite of being part of Germany for 200 years.

The Presbyterian General Assembly calls for prohibition to be imposed on the Philippines, and for federal movie censorship and marriage & divorce laws in the US.

The Women’s City and Country Club adopts a resolution, offered by Eleanor Roosevelt no less, condemning remarks (“thoughtless aspersion”) by Vice President Coolidge, I guess in an article in The New Republic which I can’t find in which he complains that women’s colleges are full of radicals and attacks Vassar drama professor Winifred Smith in particular. The NYT renders her name Finifred Smith; Wikipedia had no results under that name so it showed results for “fingered smith” instead, which was not what I had in mind at all.

There are reports/wishful thinking that the former kaiser Wilhelm has committed suicide. He hasn’t. 

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Today -100: May 24, 1921: Tears of a clown

France tells Germany that sending troops into Upper Silesia, as Germany is doing, would be regarded as an act of war. PM Briand does not say what he regards Poland’s sending troops into Upper Silesia as being. In making this threat, France is acting independently of Britain and Italy.

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37 are killed in riots in Alexandria in British-occupied Egypt. It seems to have been started by Greeks. The Times of London claims it was the work of paid agents, because of course it does. The NYT isn’t sure if the riots are anti-foreign or an internal squabble among nationalists, who “could not be expected long to maintain their solidarity. Only in their hatred of English rule and their desire to get Egypt into their own hands, to do with it they know not what, are they at one.”

The NYT supports the new restrictive immigration law, saying “The great menace of the new immigration of recent years is that, by introducing large numbers of varied races whose languages and traditions are alien, the nation may lose unity and solidarity. Already the processes of Americanization have been severely checked, standards of living have been lowered and highly inflammable material has been afforded for radical agitators.” And this bit is not at all telling: “Scandinavians, though foreign to us in language, are racially and politically close kindred.”

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Today -100: May 23, 1921: Of recognitions, and aristocracies of thought action

The US still hasn’t recognized the Obregón government in Mexico and is demanding as a condition of recognition that Obregón sign an agreement to safeguard American interests, change the Constitution to reverse the nationalization of subsoil rights, etc., with demands down to shit like exempting US ministers from laws that apply to Mexican priests. Obregón for some reason thinks this would be a humiliation for a sovereign nation.

German troops defeat Poles in Silesia.

Mussolini says the newly elected Fascist members of the Chamber of Deputies, of which he is one, won’t attend the opening because the king will be there. He predicts, “Our comportment in the Chamber will be correct, as the Fascisti represent the aristocracy of thought action. ... We shall set a good example of discipline and order, of dignity and good-will” unless of course the Socialists shout at them, in which case “we shall immediately bring into Chamber our system of fighting and we will spare no one.” But he thinks they can work with the Socialists on the 8-hour day if the Socialists aren’t assholes about it.

And that was the second time the NYT ever mentioned Mussolini.

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Today -100: May 22, 1921: A collar leads to a collar

Poet-Aviator Gabriele d’Annunzio’s former followers in Fiume have evidently formed hit squads and are assassinating Autonomists who won last month’s election.

Fugitive former Florida Gov. Sidney Catts is arrested on those peonage and bribery charges when an eagle-eyed clothing store clerk in Albany, Georgia notices the initials SJC in a customer’s discarded collar and calls the police. While being escorted by those police, Catts reaches in his pocket for a lead-filled billy (a truncheon-type thing). He says it’s a valued gift from a friend and he certainly wasn’t thinking of slugging a cop and going on the lam.

A London bootmaker’s shop is using an x-ray machine you stick your feet into to determine how well a shoe fits. The store claims the device uses too little radiation to make your foot actually fall off. This (unnamed in the article) store may be the first to have done this stupid thing, but the practice continued for decades.

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Today -100: May 21, 1921: Of mingos, radium, and beer

French Prime Minister Aristide Briand has been making excuses to refuse Lloyd George’s request for a meeting to discuss various German issues (occupation of the Ruhr, Upper Silesia), because he’s afraid that LG will insist that Allied decisions be made by majority rule (Britain + Italy outvoting France) instead of unanimously.

Mingo County, West Virginia (in which Matewan is located) is declared to be in a state of insurrection in an attempt to put down the violent coal strike which has been going on forever. The proclamation of martial law bans the carrying of arms by anyone other than the authorities (presumably that won’t be enforced against the coal companies’ thugs, just guessing). However the coalfield extends into Kentucky, where there is no such ban...

Northern Ireland prepares for elections (on the 24th) with a massive show of military force.

In the White House, Warren G. Harding ceremonially presents Dr. Marie Curie with a vial of radium as was, I assume, the custom.

Pure-food expert Dr. Harvey Wiley testifies to the House Judiciary Committee that beer is not a medicine.

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Today -100: May 20, 1921: Panned

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Michael Llewelyn Davies, actually one of four brothers J.M. Barrie adopted after their parents’ deaths, drowns in the Thames along with his possible boyfriend and fellow Oxford student Rupert Buxton, possibly in a suicide pact. He was 20, and the cousin of Daphne du Maurier (who is 14 years old).

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

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

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

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

Rumor of the Day -100:  Trotsky has cancer!

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Today -100: May 18, 1921: Of dying justice, national coalitions, and what does Einstein know anyway?

Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Douglass White’s doctor says he’ll probably be dead by morning.

The French Communist Party conference decides that the party’s MPs can keep their salaries instead of handing them over to the party and being given a worker’s pay.

The “National Coalition Party” of Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti wins a small majority in the Italian general elections (221 seats in the Chamber of Deputies), so he should continue in office. The Socialists and Communists lose some seats, to 125 and 15 respectively), Fascists have 28, one of them Mussolini. There are also 4 German and 5 Slav deputies representing territories acquired from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 40+ people are killed in election violence (later figure: 63). An editorial says “the verdict of the election is strongly against the subversive elements,” by which the NYT means the left wing, not the Fascists.

Albert Einstein, visiting Boston, is asked some of the questions on Thomas Edison’s test. Einstein does NOT know the speed of sound off the top of his head.

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Today -100: May 17, 1921: Reading Gandhi

An Irishman is executed in Cork for possession of a revolver and 12 rounds of ammunition.

The Earl of Reading, the Viceroy of India, met with Gandhi.

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Today -100: May 16, 1921: Of false mustaches, draft dodgers, fair mothers, and sun spots

Men from, presumably, the IRA, well-disguised with trench coats and false mustaches, attack houses in London and Liverpool of people connected to the Royal Irish Constabulary. A bit of arson, a bit of shooting, none of it very fatal, but it’s happening on the mainland.

Adalbert Korfanty, head of the Polish insurrection in Upper Silesia, complains that the British look on Poles as “less than negroes.”

The War Department plans to continue issuing lists of draft evaders, despite embarrassing reports every single day about people falsely included on those lists.

The Romanian police raid the Romanian Communist Congress and arrest 72 delegates, including 3 MPs, after it votes to join the Third Internationale. The cops claim the party is subsidized by Russian jewels.

Georgians are organizing to impeach Gov. Hugh Dorsey (whose term expires next month) for his pamphlet on the treatment of black people in the state. The “Guardians of Liberty” accuse him of “blackening... the character of the fairest mother ever had – Georgia.” One person attacking Dorsey is President of the state Senate Sam Olive, who says the only way to end lynching is for assault to cease.

High sun spot activity is blamed for railroad tie-ups (electrical interference with the signaling system).

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Today -100: May 15, 1921: To hell with hooch

An anti-Prohibition parade in Brooklyn is cheered by Mayor Hylan and his family as it passes his house. Placard: “To Hell With Hooch: We Want Beer.” 

Victor Daly, business manager of The Messenger, the Harlem Renaissance magazine, and his wife and mother-in-law are awarded $100 each for being refused service (after refusing to sit in the rear room) at the Pig and Whistle Restaurant in the West Village.

Oh, look, the same thing happens to Grace’s Garret in Washington Square after it refuses to serve negroes, one of them from the NAACP. I begin to suspect a campaign. The owner of the Garret insists it’s not really a public restaurant and she often refuses to serve people who seem “not to be congenial to the little group that comes to the Garret.”

A new California law bans capital punishment for people under 18 (although it’s up to them to prove their age).

Sen. Thaddeus Caraway (D-Ark) introduces a bill to ban negroes enlisting in the army or navy.

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Today -100: May 14, 1921: Of respected commas, spikes, and measurements

In Parliament, Lloyd George calls for fair play in Upper Silesia, saying Poles don’t have a historical claim on the region and didn’t win their own freedom during the War, rather it was won for them by the Allies even while many Poles serving in the German military shot at them, so “Poland above all lands ought to respect every comma in the Treaty of Versailles.” He says the Poles in Silesia only thought about fighting for their “freedom” once the Germans were disarmed. He suggests that the Polish government, rather than denying any responsibility for the actions of Adalbert Korfanty, should follow Italy’s example in (eventually) dealing with Poet-Aviator d’Annunzio.

Nominations are made for the Southern Irish Parliament. Only Sinn Féin nominates any candidates for the 124 of the 128 constituencies (the other 4 are 4 pro-Union types selected for Trinity College Dublin), with no opponents. Since the SFers will refuse to take the oath to the king (half are in prison anyway, many of the rest on the lam), the Southern Parliament is effectively dead. Among those nominated: Éamon de Valera, Michael Collins, Mary MacSwiney, sister of Terence, the Cork lord mayor who died in prison from a hunger strike, and his brother Sean, “who recently escaped from Spike Island internment camp,” because OF COURSE there’s a Spike Island internment camp.

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Today -100: May 13, 1921: Now I want to see an IMDB user review by Shakespeare of City Lights

Bernard Shaw supports the plan of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford to show movies during the off-season. He says Shakespeare would have loved Charlie Chaplin.

Canada warns US aviators to stop flying over the border without a permit. Under the International Air Convention, countries are supposed to license pilots and certify planes’ airworthiness, but the United States doesn’t do any of that.

With a general election pending in Italy, Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti says Italy is on her feet again. He admits Italy badly needs to get rid of its surplus population and is not happy that the US is cutting back on immigration (Italians are currently the largest number of immigrants to the US).

Claquers (people paid to attend theatrical performances and clap wildly) in Buenos Aires want to join a union of (real) theatre employees.

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Today -100: May 12, 1921: Of truces, cancers, famines, and daylights

The Polish forces in Upper Silesia commit to a truce, which they immediately break.

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Or die trying!

The British claim the IRA are destroying seeds to promote their claim in the US of a famine in Ireland.

The Connecticut Senate refuses to pass the bill the lower house passed penalizing people and cities who adopt Daylight Saving Time.

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Today -100: May 11, 1921: Up to the present Irishmen have been fighting each other

Joseph Wirth (of the Catholic Zentrum [Center] party) becomes German chancellor in a new “Surrender Cabinet.” He then gets the Reichstag to vote 221-175 to accede to the Allied ultimatum, um, to the capacity of the nation to do so.

Thomas Edison has been complaining that college grads are failing the test he makes prospective executives take, so colleges must suck. Questions include: What country consumed the most tea before the war? In what country other than Australia are kangaroos to be found? (New Guinea) Where is Korea? What causes the tides? From where do we import figs/prunes/dates? Who composed “Home, Sweet Home?” What voltage is used in street cars?

Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood says the problem in Ireland “arises through century-long dissension among Irishmen,” so when the Irish “get together and stay together on a common all-Ireland policy the Irish question will be settled. Up to the present Irishmen have been fighting each other.” The Black and Tans must be feeling very overlooked right now. Supposedly, the British government has offered Dominion status (like Canada or South Africa), with a high degree of autonomy, but only as a final settlement and only to a united Ireland, you know, the thing British policy has been working hard to prevent since Cromwell.

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During the war he gave the Navy some sort of submarine-detection device. Now he’s on trial for murder.

The NYT supports a proposed NY constitutional amendment to require a literacy test for voting. “Is it undemocratic,” the editorial asks, “to exclude from the rule of the people those who won’t take the trouble to learn the language of the laws, the Constitution and the majority of the people?” Um yes, yes it is.

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Today -100: May 10, 1921: Of kisses, sedition, lynchings, and due care

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A Lucerne newspaper claimed that a hotel owner, who is also a colonel in the Swiss Army, kissed Charles’ hand. The colonel denies it and is suing for libel.

New York has two new “anti-sedition” laws, one requiring private schools to be licensed by the state and banning them from teaching the overthrow of the government by unlawful means, and the other requiring a loyalty test of all public school teachers.

NY Gov. Nathan Miller rejects the opinion of 40 police chiefs that prohibition can’t be enforced by uniformed cops and that plainclothes cops would quickly become known to bootleggers, especially in small towns and certainly after the first time they had to testify in open court. Miller threatens to have mayors in those towns charged with.... something. 

A mob in Starke, Florida hangs a black man accused of shooting a deputy sheriff.

In a lawsuit over a dog hit by a car, the dog’s owner insists that the beast (the NYT in two articles fails to ascertain the dog’s name or even gender) “was in the exercise of due care,” but the driver claims the dog... committed suicide.

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Today -100: May 9, 1921: Of plane crashes, mountain bad men, and where the hell is the author?

The largest aeroplane ever built in the US, with room for 26 passengers, crashes on takeoff on its maiden flight, as was the custom. Sounds like it needed a longer runway. Hit a tree and a telegraph pole.

More violence in Italy, with a new (I think) feature: Fascists breaking into prisons to release their arrested colleagues. 

The German organization of steel & iron companies votes to defy the Allied demands, figuring the occupation of the Ruhr is just a matter of time no matter what Germany does.

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A white man, sure, but a “mountain bad man.” He murdered a woman 6 months after he got away with murdering her husband by a mistrial.

John Dillon of the Irish Nationalist Party will advise that the party put forward no candidates for the Southern Irish Parliamentary elections, leaving the field to Sinn Féin.

Sweden abolishes capital punishment.

Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author premieres in Rome.

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Today -100: May 8, 1921: Of fascists, and dogs & moose

A (more or less pro-Fascist) NYT article on the increasingly frequent pre-election clashes in Italy between Fascists and Communists claims that the general population sides with the former during these fights while the cops ignore them or somehow show up too late to protect the Fascists’ victims. It names as one of the Fascists’ goals “to restore the authority of the State,” because nothing says restoring the authority of the state like mobs destroying buildings and fighting in the streets.

The Most Alaska Headline of the Day -100:  

To be clear, these are members of the Loyal Order of Moose (loyal to whom or what?) headed to the international convention in Toledo a month and a half from now. Also coming: 75 members of the Jacksonville, Florida lodge dressed as Simon Legree, the evil slave-owner from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and, in case that was too subtle, the Alabama delegation will come dressed as Klansman. Yeah, “dressed as.”

Lloyd George says if Germany disarms in accordance with the Versailles Treaty, it would be entitled to ask the Allies to force Poland to disarm too.

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Today -100: May 7, 1921: Of governors, councils, assassinations, and voter suppression

Harding picks as governor for Puerto Rico (governors weren’t elected until 1948) E. Montgomery Reily, a businessman from Kansas City, which is obviously just like Puerto Rico so he should feel right at home. Reily was an early supporter of the Harding presidential campaign.

The US will rejoin the Allied Supreme Council, without feeling bound in any way by its decisions.

Franceso Nitti, former prime minister of Italy (1919-20), says Fascists tried to assassinate him but shot at the car ahead of his.

William Friese-Greene, the “reputed inventor of movies,” who indeed invented some of the first movie cameras but put more money into his inventions than he ever got out, dies.

c.70 Allied casualties since the Polish invasion of Upper Silesia.

The House of Representatives rejects efforts to investigate negro disfranchisement in the South, 285-46.

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Today -100: May 6, 1921: The cost of springing forward

Adalbert Korfanty is identified as the new Polish “dictator” of Upper Silesia. Poland is pretending to be totally surprised by the uprising of Poles in Silesia – an uprising which is clearly highly organized, planned well in advance, and supported by Polish soldiers and military planes – and claims not even to be in contact with Korfanty. The new German chancellor, Constantin Fehrenbach, says Germany is ready to send in the Reichswehr if the Allies don’t stop the Polish invasion.

Bertrand Russell gets divorced, which is actually true, unlike that very premature obit two weeks ago.

Former Florida Governor (until January 1921) Sidney J. Catts is indicted by the grand jury for taking bribes in exchange for pardons. $700 for a pardon for the murderer of a deputy sheriff, allegedly.

Not sure if the NYT has simply failed to mention the proposed Sheppard–Towner maternity and infant care Bill or if I’ve just missed it, but an article today quotes a couple of doctors testifying against the bill, one saying it is demanded only by “a few women who have money to burn and time to waste,” plus socialized medicine and government control of blah blah blah.

The Connecticut House of Representatives votes to impose a $25 fine on any business with a clock displaying Daylight Saving Time, as well as officials who countenance Daylight Saving.

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Today -100: May 5, 1921: Of resignations, naval holidays, forced hands, draft dodgers, and annoying notes

The German government resigns rather than receive the Allied ultimatum, but agrees to Pres. Ebert’s request to stay on temporarily. No one else wants to do it.

Former Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt says the US should join Britain and Japan and halt battleship-building for 5 years, and the US should scrap half its navy, preferably the obsolete half.

Polish troops march into Upper Silesia, clashing with Allied troops (although French troops don’t seem to be resisting very strenuously). Poland is afraid it won’t be given the parts of Upper Silesia that voted to join Germany rather than Poland.

The Senate Navy Committee rejects Sen. William Borah’s proposal for a disarmament conference between the US, Britain and Japan after Harding warns Congress against attempting to “force his hand.” However Harding’s insistence that the issue of disarmament is solely the province of the Executive branch is unlikely to persuade congresscritters.

The War Dept makes public its list of “draft dodgers” in New York City. The US attorney admits that the lists are not good and has to ask for the dismissal of indictments against 106 men who were not, in fact, draft dodgers. For example, some had voluntarily joined up some time after registering for the draft, others moved and were registered at more than one draft board, etc.

The losing streak for enforcement of NY State’s new prohibition law continues, with the first 5 trials in Brooklyn all resulting in acquittals.

In Jersey City a policewoman, a fireman for some reason, and a whole mob of Jerseycityhoovians capture a black man, who is sent to the pen for 90 days for... writing an annoying note to a woman.

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Today -100: May 4, 1921: Of primaries, amusing terror, draft dodgers, and dangerous music

New York abolishes primary elections for state offices and for the US Senate, reverting to nomination of candidates by party conventions. Primaries will continue for the House of Representatives, the state Legislature, and city and county offices.

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Some weird shit winds up on the “Amusements” page.

Secretary of War John Weeks says he’ll bring to trial every single man who signed up for the draft during the Great War but failed to turn up, who he deems deserters subject to courts-martial.

It seems that despite what Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge said during the Senate debate on the Knox Resolution revoking the declaration of war, Harding has NOT definitely decided against re-submitting the Versailles Treaty to the Senate in a modified form and in favor instead of negotiating a separate peace with Germany and Austria.

The bill restricting immigration passes the Senate 78-1. Hiram Johnson’s amendment to allow in victims of religious or political persecution loses 60-15.

France announces it will only use white troops to occupy the Ruhr.

U.S. Steel reduces the wages of 150,000 of its employees by 20%.

The mayor of Noeux les Mines in Northern France bans music in public buildings because he thinks music is dangerous to public morals. Protesters will treat him to nightly serenades, so maybe it was his plan all along was to get free music?

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Today -100: May 3, 1921: Of war machines, primaries, immigration, and silver

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For the occupation of the Ruhr, 130,000 men are being called up.

The conviction of Senator (and former navy secretary) Truman Handy Newberry (R-Michigan) for election irregularities in his primary battle with Henry Ford, is reversed by the Supreme Court, which rules that Congress can’t regulate primaries, which are “in no sense election for an office.” Senators are talking about writing a constitutional amendment to give Congress that power. Newberry crows that his associates have been “vindicated,” which is plainly not what happened, and the Senate is still investigating the general election, which it does have the power to regulate.

The US federal government is making a major push to round up WW I draft dodgers.

The immigration restriction bill is held up by an amendment by Sen. Hiram Johnson (R-CA) to exempt victims of religious or political persecution. An amendment to stop all immigration for 2 years loses 47-19.

“Justice” in Ireland is nothing if not swift. Patrick Casey is executed by firing squad not 24 hours after he participated in an attack on Crown forces in Mitchellstown, County Cork, shooting at an officer.

Russia will resume coining silver coins to assuage peasants, who were refusing to accept the paper money being churned out with nothing to buy with it. Peasants are funny that way.

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Today -100: May 2, 1921: I do know that no negroes have been murdered here at my instructions

May Day passes quietly, without a single riot or revolution. The NYT seems almost disappointed.

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I assume this is some sort of Last Tango in Paris thing.

France wants to occupy the Ruhr immediately, but is forced to accept a British & Italian compromise of issuing an ultimatum to Germany first, after it was pointed out to the French that it would take a few days to organize an invasion anyway.

Another Georgia plantation, another bunch of dead black people. Planter U.G.B. Hogan admits that 3 black men were killed on his farm in 3 separate incidents, but none of them was his fault, so that’s okay then. “I don’t know what peonage is, but I do know that no negroes have been murdered here at my instructions.”

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Today -100: May 1, 1921: Of negroes in Georgia, Knox resolutions, and bigamy

Georgia Gov. Hugh Dorsey puts out a pamphlet detailing 135 cases of abuse of negroes in the state, including lynchings and peonage. He wants a state constabulary set up, to be sent when necessary to prevent lynchings; a fine on any county that has a lynching; and the ability to appoint a commission of judges to investigate lynchings, with a view to removing officials who fail to stop them. Dorsey writes: “In some counties the negro is being driven out as though he were a wild beast. In others he is being held as a slave. In others no negroes remain.” Dorsey’s term expires next month.

The Senate passes the Knox Resolution revoking the 1917 declaration of war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. The vote is 49 to 23, 3 Democrats joining the Republicans, the rest denouncing the resolution as a betrayal of the allies. Andrieus A. Jones (D-NM) says the resolution is “an abject apology for having entered the war.” Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge announces that the Versailles Treaty, even if revised to meet US isolationist objections, won’t be resubmitted to the Senate by Harding, who will negotiate a peace treaty with Germany. It’s unclear if he’s actually speaking for Harding, whose public position is a bit nebulous, as was his custom.

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An Italian immigrant in Akron, whose wife that he thought died during the war showed up. Feds say he should just live with both of them and they agree. I suspect there’s a little more to the story.

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Today -100: April 30, 1921: Shakespeare won’t mind

The British military in Tipperary, Ireland warn that anyone with hands in their pockets is liable to being arrested or shot. And in Cork the military announces that in response to the burning of houses of two loyalist farmers, the houses of 3 “prominent active Sinn Feiners have been burned as official reprisals.” Remember when they were denying that there was any such a thing as official reprisals?

The Michigan State Senate rejects the bill banning newspapers attacking, misrepresenting or criticizing religious cults, intended to target Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic Dearborn Independent. One senator seemed to think it would ban reprinting the bits of the Bible about the crucifixion.

May Day is coming up, and the Chicago PD are preparing by arresting communists, anarchists and the like, and seizing pamphlets.

A 19-year-old black man accused of attempted assault on a 14-year-old white girl is seized by a mob from the police station in Bowling Green, Missouri and hanged.

The Fascist takeover of Fiume a few days ago was accomplished by incoming Fascists from Trieste who previously supported Poet-Aviator Gabriele d’Annunzio. They threatened the death penalty for anyone defying the “Exceptional Government of the Italian City of Fiume.” Since then, however, the man they named dictator, former mayor Ricardo Gigante, has fled the city.

The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon will show movies when not in use for Shakespeare festivals, and Shakespearistas are LIVID, although playwright J.B. Fagan (the NYT calls him F.B.) says “why not, after all, make the devil serve? ... I am sure Shakespeare won’t mind.”

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Today -100: April 29, 1921: We are going to do the German people a favor

French Prime Minister Aristide Briand tells reporters that the German offer is just one more sign of German bad faith. He says that in occupying the Ruhr, “We are going to do the German people a favor in helping them to get rid of those men who paraded themselves at Potsdam the other day, those men who learned nothing from the war, to whom defeat gave no lessons.” He’s referring to the kaiserin’s funeral, after which an American couple were beaten up by a crowd that thought they were French. Briand says Germany “has neither good faith nor good will and she plans revenge in her heart.” Note that he’s referring to “Germany” as a whole here.

Lloyd George calls the German offer “thoroughly unsatisfactory.”

A jury in Deming, New Mexico rather quickly decides to acquit 16 Mexicans for the 1916 raid by Pancho Villa’s troops on Columbus, New Mexico.

The British execute 4 more Irish nationalists in Cork after a military trial.

Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood tells Parliament that the IRA are murderers who are targeting Protestants.

So far two cases have been tried under NY’s new dry law, and both ended in acquittals. Just getting a jury has proved troublesome: in the case of a bartender, 57 prospective jurors said they were against enforcing the law. The grand jury has been dismissing cases of people arrested for possession of a hip flask.

The Daily Chronicle (London) reviews the language of Harding’s address to Congress, sneering at phrases like “illy prepared for war’s aftermath,” “ready... to approximate disarmament,” “fritters energies,” and his coinage (which is not actually his coinage) of “hospitalization.” They’re still shuddering at “normalcy.”

Madrid police put up posters threatening punishment for men who accost women in the streets.

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Today -100: April 28, 1921: Of reparations, whipping posts, and queens of Sheba

The Reparation Commission fixes a figure of 132 billion gold marks, which is the equivalent of some money, for Germany to pay. This doesn’t include other obligations, such as paying Belgium the total of loans it took out during the war.

NY Supreme Court Justice Lewis Fawcett, at the trial of a stick-up man, says shorter sentences should be replaced by the whipping post.

Italian troops restore order in Fiume.

Fascists burn the “palatial” Chamber of Labor in Turin, with people still inside, though they are saved by firemen. In response, a general strike breaks out.

A Fox Studio ad on the amusements page talks about the controversy over the alleged threat of imported German films which some film companies have ginned up:

You see, “No picture in any country – Germany, France, England, America, Italy, Zanzibar or Hindustan – has ever been produced which we believe is the equal of ‘The Queen of Sheba.’” Which coincidentally was just released by Fox. This lost film starred Betty Blythe (after Theda Bara dropped out). Topless in some scenes, but only in the European release.

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Today -100: April 27, 1921: Or reparations and coups

France, you’ll be surprised to hear, rejects Germany’s reparations offer as insufficient. The US had rejected Germany’s request to act as arbiter, saying it would pass on the German proposal if it were good enough; it has decided that it isn’t.

In truth, the Germans are being rather vague about what they’re promising to pay, while demanding the end of all economic sanctions, the release of German-owned property abroad, the retention of Upper Silesia, etc.

Communists seize power in Fiume, as was the custom, after evidently losing an election to Autonomists. As they occupy City Hall, fascists and followers of the Poet-Aviator occupy other buildings. The ballots are destroyed.

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Today -100: April 26, 1921: Together at last

Dr. Daniel Russell Hodgdon, President of Valparaiso University in Indiana, resigns, calling the university a “hotbed of Bolshevism, communism and other cults.”

France and Britain are now demanding that Germany deposit 90% of the Reichsbank’s gold reserves in the Bank of France by the end of the month to guarantee that Germany will pay the reparations demanded of it.

Germany offers to pay 200 billion gold marks in reparations ($48b) rather than the 226b the Allies are demanding, spread over 30 to 42 years at a rate fluctuating with the German economy. It repeats its offer to help reconstruction in the war-devastated areas of France and Belgium, and you can imagine how thrilled France and Belgium are at the prospect of German workers coming in to do that.

In the semi-official plebiscite in the Austrian Tyrol, the vote is 98% to join Germany, although some of that suspiciously large majority are actually Germans brought in for the vote, including a trainload of 700 from Bavaria. In the South Tyrol, annexed by Italy at the end of the war, Fascists attacked costumed Tyrolese at the fair in Bozen/Bolzano on Saturday.

Rep. Volstead introduces a bill to ban doctors writing prescriptions for beer.

Albert Einstein goes to the White House. Pres. Harding admits he doesn’t understand relativity.

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Today -100: April 25, 1921: Of clocks and ghosts

The Connecticut Legislature’s law rejecting Daylight Saving (which went into effect yesterday, er, some places) is being flouted by Hartford and other cities, and the Legislature is threatening to declare the capital city in rebellion and suspend its charter. New Hampshire is not setting its clocks ahead either. It ordered the Boston and Maine Railroad not to use Daylight Saving in its time-table within the borders of the state, but the B&M is ignoring them. Yesterday some churches across the country used Standard Time and some didn’t.

Front Page Headline of the Day -100:  

(Update: lord, they actually followed up a week later):

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Today -100: April 24, 1921: Distracted boyfriend meme, 1921 version

The Dáil Éireann warns that anyone in Ireland using English courts will be regarded as waging war on the Irish community. It will also ban the importation of certain English goods next month. And it bans any election speeches in any language but Irish.

Nicaragua leaves the League of Nations. Not worth the expense, they say.

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Today -100: April 23, 1921: Getting them at last

The House passes the Immigration Bill restricting immigration for the next 14 months to 3% of the number of nationals of each nation in the 1910 census. Supporters of Irish independence propose an amendment exempting political refugees, but it fails.

An IRA innovation: a death squad shoots a former soldier, then call a priest to give him last rites, then shoots him some more. They leave a note: “Getting them at last. Beware.”

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