Today -100: April 18, 1922: Naturally furious

Michael Collins fights off an assassination attempt by a dozen men in Parnell Square, Dublin, personally capturing one. What a guy.

During the first week of the Genoa Conference, it became clear to the Germans that they wouldn’t be getting any concessions, so they signed a treaty with Russia (the Treaty of Rapallo, well, a Treaty of Rapallo, since there was another one of those in 1920) which they’ve supposedly been negotiating for months, reestablishing diplomatic relations, canceling all indemnity claims from the war as well as pre-war debts and compensation for nationalization of Germany properties in Russia. Which is the deal Russia wants from the conference, and isn’t getting. Lloyd George sends Germany a letter expressing “pained surprise,” while the French are “naturally furious.” Naturally.

The Belgian Socialist Party votes against women’s suffrage for provincial elections, out of fear that the Catholic Party would gain women’s votes. Women will get the vote at the provincial and national level in 1948.

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Today -100: April 17, 1922: Now we can have a fight in peace among ourselves

What counts as good news for the Irish Free State administration: Pres. Arthur Griffith makes a speech in Sligo without even being kidnapped. Griffith went to Sligo in defiance of an IRA ban on his speech. He came with a bunch of soldiers, who got into desultory bloodless gunfights with the IRA. Before he went, he made out his will.

Michael Collins warns that Ireland is “rapidly developing a state of civil war.”

In Dublin, the IRA continues to occupy the law courts and other buildings, and the government has likewise fortified the buildings it holds, but neither side seems to be preparing for offensive action. The NYT passes along a joke: “The Black and Tans have gone and now we can have a fight in peace among ourselves.”

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Today -100: April 16, 1922: Take it!

The House of Lords is debating Nancy Astor’s bill to repeal the Saxon law under which wives who commit crimes in the presence of their husbands are deemed to be acting under their control. Some peers think the law should be updated to reflect the modern status of women, but former Lord High Chancellor Lord Buckmaster insists that women today, especially among the lower classes, do act under their husbands’ direction. The Saxons, he says, “knew as much about men and women as we do today.” Lady Frances Balfour, in The Times, points out other laws affecting married women, who evidently need permission from their husbands to have an operation.

Éamon de Valera issues an Easter message to the youth of Ireland: “Ireland is yours for the taking! Take it!” People are taking this to mean he’s planning a coup during Easter.

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Today -100: April 15, 1922: Of debts, the our Courts, and short skirts

At the Genoa Conference, Russia is refusing to take dictation from the other countries, which had assumed that Russia’s need for foreign loans put them in control. Russia keeps bringing up the issue of the compensation for damage during the war which they could have demanded from the Central Powers and for damage caused by Allies-backed Whites during the Civil War, as a counter-balance, or something, for the war debts it owes.

IRAers seize Dublin’s law courts and a nearby hotel. Commandant Gen. Rory O’Connor says this isn’t a coup, they just needed the room.

A high school board election in Kansas is fought on the issue of skirt lengths, with Perry Stevens, defending the 3-inches-below-the-knee rule, defeating Seth Fenton, who thinks the rule is a blow at national liberties.

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Today -100: April 14, 1922: Always a dagger in her pocket and holding a poignard between her lips

The Massachusetts Supreme Court says women are indeed eligible for elective and appointive offices, contrary to what Attorney Gen. J. Weston Allen said.

Puerto Rico’s Gov. E. Mont Reily and president of the Puerto Rican Senate Antonio Rafael Barceló sent Secretary of War John Weeks a joint telegram saying they’d worked out their differences. Barceló now denies this. The confusion is being blamed on the fact that Reily speaks no Spanish and Barceló no English. 

The grand jury that recommended Gov. Reily be indicted has been dismissed, even though it still had matters before it. Just so subtle.

NYC Mayor John Hylan says the whole “crime wave” thing is being ginned up by people afraid he might run for governor, you know, gamblers and “smug, surface respectables” opposed to public ownership of utilities, people like that. Incumbent Gov. Nathan Miller recently vetoed a bill to increase the mayor’s pay.

Headline of the Day -100:  

The Wall Street Journal reports the leasing by Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall of the Teapot Dome oil reserves to Sinclair Oil. I don’t have access to the whole WSJ story, so I’m not sure if it makes it clear that this deal was done in secret. (Update: ok, I thought the Journal broke this story, but there’s also an article on p.34 of today -100’s NYT).

Australian aviator Sir Ross Macpherson Smith and his mechanic are killed in the crash of a Vickers amphibious plane which was intended to travel around the world, or at least more than a few feet. In 1919 he and his brother flew from England to Australia.

French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou, leading the French delegation to the Genoa Conference, complains that France is misunderstood in the US & Britain: “they conceive of France as concealing always a dagger in her pocket and holding a poignard between her lips.” Kinky. He defends France’s refusal to allow reparations or disarmament (even of poignards) to be discussed at the conference.

Pittsburgh police are issued riot guns because of the crime wave, and told “shoot to kill.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has thoughts about what the afterlife is like. This is so embarrassing.

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Today -100: April 13, 1922: Out of the fire

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle is acquitted in his third trial. The jury deliberated for about a minute and also came back with a statement that the trial was “a great injustice” against Fatty, against whom, they say, there was no evidence whatsoever. It’s unclear who actually wrote the statement for them, as they weren’t out long enough to have written it themselves. The Famous Players-Lasky Corporation announces it will release a new Arbuckle picture and... see how it goes from there.

Puerto Rico District Attorney R. Diaz Collazo refuses Gov. E. Mont Reily’s order to leave his post, saying his dismissal is illegal. So Reily has him thrown out of his office by the cops. So subtle.

Russians’ right to own personal automobiles is restored.

Roberta Birmingham files papers to run for justice of the peace in St. Joseph, Missouri. She promises not to marry during her term of office. Miss Birmingham, a clerk in the justice’s office, “is called one of the prettiest women in the Court House.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: April 12, 1922: Of firings, conferences, and bonuses

Puerto Rican Gov. E. Mont Reily fires the district attorney, R. Diaz Collazo, who the grand jury just directed to indict him. Subtle.

The archbishop of Dublin and the lord mayor of Dublin call a peace conference, with Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera. 

Russian Foreign Minister Georgy Tchitcherin objects to the presence at the Genoa Conference of Japan, which is occupying part of Siberia, and Romania, which is occupying Bessarabia. France and Belgium object to Germany and Russia being on the principle committee. 

NY passes a $1 million bonus bill, giving a max of $250, in monthly instalments, to wounded veterans unemployed more than 14 days.

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Today -100: April 11, 1922: Europe needs quiet

Germany rejects the Reparations Commission’s demand for Allied control of German finances and massive new taxes.

The US Supreme Court rules that citizens of Puerto Rico do not have a 6th Amendment right to trial by jury for misdemeanors. Chief Justice William Howard Taft says, “Puerto Rico belongs to the United States, but is not part of the United States. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory and even though Puerto Ricans have American citizenship, they do not have the same rights as the common American citizen.” Since the case was one of criminal libel, this effectively means that Puerto Rico doesn’t have 1st Amendment protections either. The Biden Administration continues to rely on this and the other Insular Cases in claiming that US possessions are not strictly part of the United States and their residents have only those rights specifically given them. A 2020 Circuit Court case, for example, ruled that goods arriving in the US Virgin Islands could be searched without a warrant.

A Puerto Rican grand jury calls for indictments against Gov. E. Mont Reily, his secretary, and an auditor, for misappropriation of funds.

At the Genoa Conference, everyone is talking about Russian Foreign Minister Georgy Tchitcherin’s silk top hat. There were long debates back home over whether he should wear this bourgeois affectation, but he was ordered – ordered! – to buy one (in Berlin along the way to Genoa) and wear it. Then he mislaid it at the border with Austria and had his train stopped while a courier was sent to retrieve it. There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere.

Lloyd George makes a speech at the conference that doesn’t even mention the hat. “There is no real peace in Europe,” he says. “Fighting has ceased, but snarling goes on, and as there are many dogs in every country who imagine that the louder they bark and the longer they bark the deeper impression they make of their ferocity, Europe is deafened with this canine clamor. It is undignified, it is distracting, it destroys confidence. It wrecks the nerves of a nerve-racked continent, and we shall make a real contribution to the restoration of Europe if at this conference we can stop that snarling. Europe needs quiet. We can get peace if we act together, but not if we act in a spirit of greedy vigilance over selfish interests.” French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou, who may have recognized himself in that last bit, says: “The French delegation will never pronounce one word of hate. It desires no one’s humiliation. ... It is inspired by good faith and good will.” FACT CHECK: No it isn’t.

NYC Police Commissioner Richard Enright calls up the police reserves “as emergency attack on the alleged crime wave which he says does not exist.” The 75 motorcycle cops normally used to halt speeders will patrol the streets at night. Enright asks the public to lend cars and horses to the cops.

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Today -100: April 10, 1922: Is it by civil war and the shedding of the blood of our brothers that we can win peace and freedom?

Michael Collins warns, “Is it by civil war and the shedding of the blood of our brothers that we can win peace and freedom?” That’s a trick question, right? “That is the language of treason, not patriotism.” If there is a civil war, as he says looks likely unless there is “an immediate change in tone and tactics” – and he’s lookin’ at you, De Valera – the British will return.

The IRA attempt to wreck a train they wrongly believe Collins is on.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (both great, as Alan Sherman said) is in the US, lecturing (sigh) on spiritualism. He says he’s personally spoken with 20 ghosts.

The Countess Markievicz is also lecturing in the US, attempting to drum up support for the Irish Republic and against the Treaty. I wonder if she and Doyle came over on the same ship. That would have been awkward.

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Today -100: April 9, 1922: Of the big five, bobbed hair, anti-Semitic bombs, and gerrymanders

Russia is moving away from the idea of making major concessions at the Genoa conference. Russia’s “big five” leaders aren’t attending, including Commissar for Labor and Peasant Inspection Stalin who, although he was made general secretary of the Communist Party last week, is mentioned for what I believe is the first ever time in the NYT today.

The Philadelphia Board of Education says teachers won’t be fired for bobbing their hair.

A bomb that exploded at a dinner in Budapest of the Liberal Party last week which killed 8 was probably an anti-Semitic thing.

The NY Legislature’s reapportionment map for congressional seats carves out a Republican seat in lower Manhattan, where there should be no Republican seat, but my question is... what reapportionment? With Congress having given up on national reapportionment for this decade, it hadn’t occurred to me that state legislatures might still go ahead with their own. Oddly, they’re using the 1910 census as their basis.

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Today -100: April 8, 1922: Guns and automobiles, the American dream

After gangsters from NY were found to be buying guns in New Jersey, the NJ Legislature attempted to pass a law requiring gun permits, but somehow during the legislative process wound up passing one making it easier to get a gun, as is the custom. So now anyone who owns a car or other vehicle can purchase a gun without a permit.

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Today -100: April 7, 1922: Of brigands, boycotts, and bosses

Grigory Semyonov, the Ataman of the Cossacks, is arrested at Penn Station, not for the massacres he was responsible for during the Russian Civil War, but because of a civil action brought by one of the trading companies he stole from back in Siberia. He says he has immunity because his actions were supported by the Allies; they say he was nothing more than a brigand. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Also, we don’t use the word brigand enough these days.

The rebel IRA are searching trains to enforce their boycott on goods from Northern Ireland.

Former NY governor Al Smith meets with Tammany’s Boss Murphy, evidently to deny the rumors that he’ll be running for governor again this year. He says he will stay in the trucking business. Tammany is especially worried that William Randolph Hearst might try to run.

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Today -100: April 6, 1922: I left my heart...

The House of Representatives votes 222-73 for a bill to deport aliens convicted of violating federal or state Prohibition laws.

The IRA seize Lenaboy Castle in Galway. Wondering how big a deal this was, I googled “how many castles are there in Ireland.” 30,000! Lenaboy Castle was used by the Black and Tans to torture and murder prisoners and later as an orphanage run by the Sisters of Mercy, and may or may not have a secret burial site for all the babies the nuns mercied to death.

The former heart of the former emperor Charles of Austria-Hungary is removed to be sent (in a glass jar in a silver coffin, if you’re wondering how royal hearts are transported) for burial in Austria, while the rest of his body will be buried in Hungary, authorities permitting. Hungary seizes newspapers that published the Legitimists’ proclamation that 10-year-old Otto is now king of Hungary.

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Today -100: April 5, 1922: Of guns, crappy feminists, and half drachmae

25,000 pistol permits have been issued in NYC since the beginning of the year. Wall Street bankers and brokers are arming to the hilt, fearing stickups, which have been on the rise. The cost of a permit recently increased to $1.50.

All members of an all-women ticket for municipal offices in Altus, Arkansas are disqualified for failure to pay poll tax, which they didn’t realize was required for office (were they also not planning to vote for themselves?). They blame men, presumably the male candidates who took office unopposed, for failing to inform them of the law.

The Greek government, short of money for its endless war with Turkey, proposes a forced loan requiring everyone with paper currency to lend half of it to the government. Literally: each drachma banknote would be cut in half, with the left half be exchanged for a government bond and the right half worth half as much as the original.

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Today -100: April 4, 1922: Relatively snubbed

Albert Einstein has been lecturing in Paris, but cancels an engagement at the Academy of Sciences since some members planned to protest his appearance by standing up and leaving. What is their objection? Do they reject the theory of relativity or Einstein personally for being a German, or a Jew? The NYT does not inform us. He can lecture in French and has done this week, so it’s not that.

(Update: a general who is one of those who pledged to protest says it’s because Germany is not in the League of Nations.)

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Today -100: April 3, 1922: Of parades, cannibals, and ottos

Rebel IRA troops parade in Dublin. Thousands of them take an oath of non-allegiance to the Dáil Éireann. 

More claims of starving people resorting to cannibalism, this time in Armenia.

The Hungarian government declares a day of national mourning for deceased former emperor/king/putschist Charles. Austria does not. Monarchists in Hungary are taking heart from the fact that while the Allies forced Charles to abdicate last year, they forgot to do the same for former empress Zita, so if the monarchy were restored she could act as regent until Otto comes of age in 8 years. Monarchist deputies plan to move legislation to bring Otto to Hungary so he can be educated by Hungarian teachers.

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Today -100: April 2, 1922: Of strikes, red armies, and dead emperors

The coal miners’ strike shuts down most mines in the US and Canada. So far, only one scab shot. Actually, it turns out that April 1, the start of the strike, is also traditionally a day coal miners take off anyway to celebrate the winning of the 8-hour day in 1898.

Lloyd George will, reportedly, suggest to the Soviets at the Genoa Conference that the Red Army be cut in half, and then cut further in stages, in exchange for a promise that no one will attack Russian territory for 10 years. However, this is part of LG’s plan for a general European disarmament, which would be strongly resisted by France. Also, Russia is still fighting a civil war.

Charles I, former Austro-Hungarian Emperor, dies of pneumonia in Madeira, where he was exiled last year after twice attempting coups in Hungary. He was 34. The former empress Zita is pregnant. The NYT snidely describes the Habsburgs as being as intelligent as the Jukes family (a NY family studied for their criminality and used by eugenicists as a prime example of the need for sterilization) and says Charles had “delusions of grandeur” and was “merely a few centuries behind the times.”

Senator (and former Texas governor) Charles Culberson calls on Texas authorities to shut down the Ku Klux Klan, saying otherwise it will “usurp the functions of the State and be destructive of government itself.” Culberson will lose his bid for a 4th senate term this year, defeated in the Democratic primary by Earle Mayfield, an actual (probable) klansman.

Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach dies at 37. Make of that what you will.

The NYT has started printing daily radio schedules, This is for Sunday, so the programs are rather religion-heavy.

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Today -100: April 1, 1922: Of strikes, mules, radio, choleric chickens, and Siamese twins

The great coal miners’ strike against wage cuts begins. As mines shut down, mules are brought out, many experiencing sunlight and fresh air for the first time in years.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Parliament ratifies the Irish treaty.

Both parties plan to use radio-telephone service to deliver speeches to distant constituents during this year’s congressional elections. Some congresscritters are already making use of the Navy’s radio service. And by “some,” I mean only Republicans have been allowed to do so.

Some of the chickens which Germany sent to France as part of reparations died, evidently of cholera. Le Matin is sure that Germany inoculated the chickens with the disease to spread it to French humans.

Siamese twins, Rosa and Josefa Blazek, died a couple of days ago, 12 minutes apart, after their brother refused surgery that might have saved one of them (the autopsy shows it wouldn’t have). The 44-year-old twins had been exhibited since they were 13. Rosa leaves an 11-year-old son Franz, father unknown, and the Chicago courts dealing with the twins’ rather large estate must decide if they counted as separate people – it sounds an awful like the court will have to determine if they had one or two souls. If the former, Franz inherits everything, if the latter Josefa’s money would be divided among her relatives, including the brother who decided against separation. (Update: actually, it turns out they only left $400, not the $200,000 this article claimed). It’s unknown what happened to Franz, who may have actually not been Rosa’s son at all, but adopted to revitalize their act.

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Today -100: March 31, 1922: Let’s just throw the ship out and buy a new one

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: March 30, 1922: Of treaties, radio umbrellas, and annulments

The Senate ratifies the naval limitation treaty and the treaty limiting submarines and poison gas, the former by 74-1, the latter unanimously.

A French inventor, unnamed in the story, hopes to invent a parasol/radio receiver.

NY Gov. Nathan Miller signs a bill removing the absolute right of annulment for a marriage entered into by someone under 18. And another bill firing teachers who are not citizens unless they are taking steps to become citizens. 

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Today -100: March 29, 1922: I make it a policy in my administration never to interfere with the ladies

Pres. Harding plans to stay out of the 1922 congressional elections entirely.

Yup, the NYC ordinance against women smoking that the police started enforcing yesterday definitely does not exist. A clerk sent Police Commissioner Richard Enright a draft ordinance without noticing that the aldermen had voted it down. “It looked authentic,” Enright says, although it wasn’t actually signed by the mayor. Mayor Hylan says “I make it a policy in my administration never to interfere with the ladies – for they will do as they please anyway.” The ladies were pretty pissed by the supposed ordinance and increased their smoking in restaurants in response.

Northern Irish PM Sir James Craig responds to Michael Collins’ accusation that he was breaking the agreement that Catholics in Ulster not be fired or, you know, killed, by saying that it’s Collins breaking his word and the South is sending armed men to create unrest in the North. They both have a point.

The prosecution rests in the 3rd Fatty Arbuckle trial, which is getting waaaay less coverage in the NYT and elsewhere than the first two. There’s a surprise witness, a secretary at the sanitarium where Virginia Rappe died, who has come forward suspiciously late in the game to relate that right before dying Rappe gave a complete account to her, blaming Arbuckle.

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Today -100: March 28, 1922: In which it is revealed what menaces the morals of young girls

NYC Police Commissioner Richard Enright orders cops to crack down on restaurants, hotels or places of public entertainment which permit women to smoke, based on an ordinance passed 2 weeks ago and signed by Mayor Hylan. Which is a surprise to the aldermen who supposedly passed this ordinance, although Alderman Peter McGuinness insists it was passed. It was not in fact passed; the cops are enforcing a non-existent law. When he introduced the proposed ban, McGuinness said, “The morals of our young girls are menaced by this cigarette smoking. ... young fellows go into our restaurants to find women folks sucking cigarettes. What happens? The young fellows lose all respect for women and the next thing you know the young fellows, vampired by these smoking women, desert their homes, their wives and children, rob their employers and even commit murder so that they can get money to lavish on these smoking women. It’s all wrong and I say it’s got to stop.”

30,000 Fascists march in Milan to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of the founding of the Fascist Party. One Communist is killed in a clash, as was the custom.

An assassination attempt on former Russian foreign minister Pavel Milyukov in Berlin goes awry, the bullet instead killing former secretary of state Vladimir Nabokov, father of the novelist.

Several women are running for Congress this year, including Ellen Duance Davis, the great-great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin, and two sisters,  Irene Cleveland Buell, city prosecutor of Ashland, Nebraska, and Mrs. A.K. Gault, mayor of St. Peter, Minnesota. Their mother was a cousin of Grover Cleveland.

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Today -100: March 27, 1922: Human needs are overlooked

Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, blames the forthcoming coal strike on financiers who manipulated the profits of the industry, whose operators then demanded wage cuts based on the manipulated data. He says when purely financial interests control an industry, “human needs are overlooked in the race for a balance sheet showing.”

2/3 of the Fiume Constituent Assembly ousted by Fascist raiders are hiding out and holding sessions in Yugoslavia. Fiume is occupied by the Italian military, which bans anyone wearing uniforms except those of the Italian Army.

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Today -100: March 26, 1922: Let’s head to the river with a long straw

Although federal Prohibition Director Roy Haynes ordered agents not to make ostentatious displays of destroying seized liquor, the Chicago director orders 350,000 gallons of alcohol dumped into the Chicago River.

Parisian restaurants will no longer have orchestras, because the tax man classifies restaurants with music as places of amusement, subject to a 25% luxury tax and a new extra 13% public assistance tax.

The Post Office explains that there is no risk of catching typhus from mail sent from Russia.

Helicopter technology is really coming along. Pateras Pescara’s chopper rises 6 feet into the air.

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Today -100: March 25, 1922: Be vewwy, vewwy quiet, I’m hunting plesiosaurs

Headline of the Day -100:  

The director of the Buenos Aires Zoological Garden, who authorized the expedition, says “I am laughed at, but I am convinced that some large, strange animals exist in Patagonia.” 

The US Senate ratifies the Four-Power Treaty, 67-27.

Former federal Prohibition Director for Pennsylvania William McConnell and some of his associates are indicted for issuing fraudulent permits to withdraw liquor from bond to bootleggers – 700,000 gallons during his 70 days in charge last August to October.

The NYT op-ed page suggests it was not “a real kindness” for Rep. Ansorge to name a black man to take the Annapolis entrance exams, because he would not be welcomed by racist cadets. “Race prejudice in the United States is a mountain that reason and moral indignation cannot remove.” So why even try?

Ford Motors will establish a 40-hour week. Edsel Ford says men need more time with their families.

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Today -100: March 24, 1922: Of subs, bonuses, cadets, and death penalties

A British submarine collides with a destroyer in the Mediterranean during a training exercise and goes down, with all 24 crew lost.

The Bonus Bill passes the House, 333 to 70.

Emile Holley is named by Rep. Martin Ansorge (R-Harlem, NY) as a candidate for the entrance exams at Annapolis, the first black man since the 1870s if he succeeds (he will not).

The Northern Irish Parliament extends the death penalty to bomb-throwing, and the attorney general is thinking about also applying it to carrying firearms without a permit.

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Today -100: March 23, 1922: You can call it what you like

Oklahoma Gov. J. B. Robertson (D) is arrested for taking bribes to allow an insolvent bank, the Guaranty State Bank of Okmulgee, to continue operating, as are a bunch of officials of several bankrupt banks and the former state banking commissioner.

Anti-Treaty IRAers will hold a convention to renounce the authority of the Dáil Éireann and the government. Commandant Roderick “Rory” O’Connor, announcing this to the press, is asked if this means a military dictatorship. “You can call it what you like,” he says. “[T]he rank and file is always right. It is the leaders who have failed.” Pres. Arthur Griffin bans the convention, for all the good that will do.

Constable Charles Hamby will run for sheriff of Travis County, Texas (which includes Austin) on an anti-KKK platform against incumbent Sheriff W.D. Miller, a Kluxer.

Mayor George Oles of Youngstown, a wacky grocer who ran as a joke promising, among other things, to permit spooning in public parks, rescinds his order that the police salute him, because he spent so much time saluting back that he didn’t have time for anything else.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: March 22, 1922: Of secret agreements, floggings, failed banks, dictated convictions, and Saxon laws

Harding is pissed at Congress for not doing his bidding after it voted to reduce the army and navy below the level he wants, specified troop levels for Hawaii and the Panama Canal Zone, which he considers his sole prerogative, and will be voting for the veterans’ bonus. But since he ran on reestablishing “normalcy” after the “dictatorship” of Woodrow Wilson, he can’t be seen telling Congress what to do, so he has to seethe quietly and, presumably, leak to the press that he’s seething quietly.

The White House and State Dept deny that there is a secret US-UK anti-Japan agreement.

The Dallas KKK insists they weren’t the masked men who flogged a lumberman, and even offer a reward.

The Okmulgee County, Oklahoma grand jury indicts a bunch of people for bank failures, but their names have not yet been made public.....

South African PM Jan Smuts says the white miners’ strike was aimed at setting up a soviet republic.

50 congresscritters petition Harding for the release of prisoners convicted during the war under the Espionage Act only for expressions of opinion. More than 2/3 of the signers are Republicans.

The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals reverses the death sentence on Harry Lattimar in Mingo County, as “the mob has dictated this conviction.” Lattimar, presumably a black man, was convicted of assault on an 8-year-old white girl.

The UMW calls for a strike at coal mines in the US and Canada next week.

In England, Mrs. Owen Peel is acquitted of betting fraud under a very old Saxon law which presumes that if a woman commits a crime in the presence of her husband she was under his power. The case stirs some outrage, and Lady Astor introduces a bill to repeal the law.

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Today -100: March 21, 1922: Of border troubles and occupations

The IRA makes incursions across the border they don’t acknowledge into Northern Ireland. There’s a lot of sniping, machine gun fire, etc. at the border.

Harding orders US occupation troops on the Rhine (currently 4,000 of them) home by July 1st. This coming right after the Allies failed to accede to the US demand for compensation to cover the cost of occupation is completely coincidental, says Secretary of War John Weeks.

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Today -100: March 20, 1922: Of inflation and KKKidnappings

The Reparation Commission will demand that Germany stop printing so much damned money. In exchange, this year’s reparation payments would be reduced.

The Toronto black community, as well as the police, are bodyguarding Matthew Bullock, the black man Canada refused to extradite to North Carolina, because of threats by the KKK to kidnap him.

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Today -100: March 19, 1922: Wading through blood

Gandhi is sentenced to 6 years for sedition.

Lord Peel, grandson of PM Robert Peel, is named the new Secretary of State for India. He knows jack shit about India, but he’s a viscount, so...

During the Irish election campaign, Éamon de Valera keeps speaking about the possibility of civil war, saying fighters for full independence may need to “wade through the blood of soldiers of the Irish Government, and perhaps through that of some members of the Irish Government, to meet their freedom.”

Colorado rejects the state KKK’s request for incorporation. The secretary of state says its stated purposes are too vague.

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Today -100: March 18, 1922: There is no sex in the quality of virtue

The Virginia Legislature passes a measure for film censorship. Thomas Dixon, author of The Clansman, speaks against the bill. Interestingly, the board of censors can ban obscenity, vulgarity, and elements likely to incite crime, but not sacrilege. 

A couple of days after the British arrested Kenyan nationalist Harry Thuku for sedition, protesters surround the Nairobi police station demanding his release. Police and white settlers fire into the crowd, killing 25 or more. After reading the Riot Act, of course, because there’s a right way to slaughter natives and a wrong way.

The article goes on to give a primer on Kenya, “land of great possibilities.” It notes that the natives are annoyed about agricultural wage cuts. See, the white settlers “depend entirely upon black labor for the cultivation of their estates, but the black man does not take kindly to work, so that problem is how to make him work.” The answer: forced labor, slavery if you will. 

Italy will send troops to occupy Fiume in order to establish a proper government there after the coup and certainly not to annex it, perish the thought.

Headline of the Day -100:  

This is Frederick MacMonnies’s statue/fountain Civic Virtue, discussed here 2 days ago. The sculptor, who plans not to attend the “art inquisition,” says the sculpture’s just a fucking allegory; “There is no sex in the quality of virtue,” which he just happened to portray as a guy with his dick out standing over some women with snake tails.

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Today -100: March 17, 1922: Of kings, strikes, and male citizens

The German Reichstag removes illegitimate motherhood as grounds for dismissal from government work.

Egyptian Sultan Ahmed Fuad Pasa celebrates Egyptian (semi-)independence by changing his title to king, which to my ears sounds like a demotion but evidently not to his.

The New Jersey Legislature overrides Gov. Edward Edwards’s veto of the prohibition bill. However the attempt to override of another of  the bills sponsored by the Anti-Saloon League and vetoed by Edwards, banning curtains on the windows of pool halls and other places where beverages are served, fails by a single vote.

The South African Industrial Federation calls off the miners’ strike. The government has been claiming the whole thing is a Bolshevik plot, which it is not. The government now has 6,000 prisoners.

The Iowa attorney general stops Bessie Farnsworth running for the lower house of the state legislature because the state constitution says only “male citizens” are eligible. So she may run for the state senate, for which there are different qualifications.

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Today -100: March 16, 1922: Order shall reign

Éamon de Valera forms the Republican Association (Cumann na Poblachta), which will seek international recognition of the Irish Republic and which repudiates the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

Last month the New Jersey Supreme Court invalidated the state’s dry laws. Gov. Edward “Edward” Edwards, who ran as a wet, vetoes the Legislature’s attempt to replace those laws with more constitutional ones copied from the federal Volstead Act and this time including jury trials. Edwards says enforcement should be left to the federal government. 

Italian Prime Minister Luigi Facta tells Parliament that his government will restore order, acting impartially between the factions. “Order shall reign,” he predicts. It will, but not in the way he thinks.

South African troops occupy Fordsburg, near Johannesburg. Leaflets were dropped warning women and children to leave before the bombardment began.

An anti-Ku Klux Klan organization is formed in Oklahoma, called the Knights of the Visible Empire.

Isaiah Moore, indicted in Indianapolis for 12 counts of bigamy (he was arrested right before he was due to get married again and immediately started confessing, although he can’t remember the last names of all of the women he married), as well as grand larceny and embezzlement, says he’d like to become an evangelist when he gets out of prison. Of course he does.

There are protests over Frederick MacMonnies’s statue/fountain Civic Virtue, soon to be installed in front of NY City Hall in Manhattan.

The nekked dude is Civic Virtue, standing on two female figures with snake tails representing Vice and Corruption, which some criticize as sexist, like Mary Garrett Hay of the League of Women Voters, who says that in this age, woman should be placed not below man, but side by side with him in any representation of civic virtue. Such attacks and protests continued over the decades, including by (ahem) Anthony Weiner. Mayor LaGuardia hated the statue, which he called Fat Boy, and seized on the opening of Queens Borough Hall in 1941 to send it over as a gift. In 2012, after Queens let the marble deteriorate for 70 years, it was sent to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

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Today -100: March 15, 1922: Of wine and factional fighting

It’s Wine Week in France. The message: if the US wants France to pay its war debts, it’ll have to allow imports of French wine, that’s just science.

What the NYT calls “factional fighting” resumes in various parts of Italy, although it sounds like it’s mostly Fascists murdering Socialists.

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Today -100: March 14, 1922: They regard the discovery of the bones of a five-toed horse as a greater event than the birth of the Christ

German newspapers report on the marital infidelities of Princess Eitel, aka Sophia Charlotte, the wife of former kaiser Wilhelm’s second son Prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia, after she admits them in court in a divorce case (Prince Eitel is denying this, and the transcript is not public record, so he thinks he can get away with lying) (in a few years he will cite her many infidelities when divorcing her) (he started fucking around before she did, by the way).

The KKK sends a note to Colorado Gov. Shoup’s negro messenger, George Gross, ordering him to leave Denver. Gross is president of the local NAACP, which protested the local Klan’s application for incorporation.

Willliam Jennings Bryan replies in the NYT letter pages to a couple of professors who criticized his views on evolution as ignorant. “[I]t is evident that they regard the discovery of the bones of a five-toed horse as a greater event than the birth of the Christ.”

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Today -100: March 13, 1922: Of sedition, revolutions, smallpox, and vowels

Gandhi on trial. The “sedition” turns out to be some articles he wrote that caused disaffection against the colonial government. He (and some banker on trial with him) say they won’t put on a defense but will plead guilty.

South African planes bomb strikers/“revolutionists” on the Rand. Clashes all over Jo’burg. Many strikers captured. Someone shoots at PM Jan Smuts but only hits his car.

There’s a revolution in Albania.

The Connecticut State Health Department threatens to quarantine Bethel unless every Bethelhoovian gets vaccinated for smallpox after an outbreak there. There is some vaccine resistance, and some are questioning whether there even are any cases of smallpox.

The faculty of Sofia University declares a strike against the Bulgarian government’s plan to eliminate a letter from the alphabet.

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Today -100: March 12, 1922: Of air strikes, telephones, coarse lies, limerick truces, and moral disarmaments

The striking white miners in South Africa are now occupying Johannesburg suburbs. A government plane bombs the Benoni Trades Hall, killing many strikers. An airplane, possibly even that one, is reported shot down and its pilot killed. Shootings between strikers and police are widespread, with the police seeming to get the worst of it, for now. 

New York City, which is expected to have 1 million telephones soon, is replacing the “Sweetheart, get me Klondike 555” system with one where users dial – “punch” is the word the article uses – their own desired numbers, although “telephone girls” will still make the actual connections. The automatic system is expected to take 10 years to phase in.

The secretary of Prince Eitel Friedrich, second son of former kaiser Wilhelm, denies to reporters that Princess Sophia Charlotte admitted adultery in the divorce case of Baron and Baroness Plettenberg. A “coarse lie,” the prince has authorized him to call the factually correct charge. The prince is also threatening libel suits against the NYT and any foreign newspapers publishing the story (German papers have been obediently silent, as they are in all divorce cases).

An agreement is reached in Limerick. Both Free State & Republican IRA forces will evacuate the city. Some of them are traveling out on the same trains, but in separate compartments.

Blacks in Harlem, who largely voted Democratic in last November’s mayoral election, much to the Republicans’ shock, are demanding greater representation on the Republican county committee. 

German Defense Minister Otto Gessler denies accusations in, I’m assuming, French newspapers, that Germany is secretly training secret soldiers not in the regular army. Responding to complaints that Germany disarmed militarily but not morally, he says it is impossible to disarm morally because of the Entente’s unfair attitude toward Germany.

Czech Pres. Tomáš Masaryk amnesties the Communists and others from the December 1920 rising.

So what is this full-page ad on p.82 of the NYT actually advertising?

Weirdly enough, it’s D.W. Griffith’s film Orphans of the Storm, now playing at the Apollo Theatre on 42nd Street at popular prices.

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Today -100: March 11, 1922: Of sedition, wool kings (well, wool king – there can be but one), electric chairs, teapot foreshadowing, and putsches

Mohandas Gandhi is arrested and charged with sedition. Sounds like Secretary of State for India Edwin Montagu, before he was removed from office this week, had been holding off taking this step, which British newspapers have been baying for.

Sen. Robert “The Wool King” Stanfield (R-Oregon), who claims to be “America’s largest producer of wool and mutton,” presumably not from his own person, is accused by his creditors of defrauding them (he’s been badly hit by the drop in wool prices). Stanfield has been threatening to sue the Idaho agriculture commissioner for criminal libel for saying that the senator’s companies failed to pay for hay at the same time he somehow had money to buy hundreds of thousands of sheep dirt cheap. (Yes yes, pay for hay, sheep cheap, I see it too).

A black man, James Wells, is executed in Little Rock in the electric chair. The inexperienced electrician takes twelve (12!) shocks to kill him.

From the NYT’s news-in-very-brief section: “The National Popular Government League’s session yesterday was devoted to attacking Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall, who was charged with championing the Doheny oil interests. There were hints of a Congressional investigation.”

The US asks the conference of wartime Allied nations’ finance ministers currently divvying up German reparations for some of that money for the cost of the American Army of Occupation. The Allies just laugh. You negotiated a separate treaty with Germany, so don’t come to us to collect your money for you under the Versailles Treaty you refused to ratify, they snigger.

The German Supreme Court of Leipzig rejects Wolfgang Kapp’s offer to surrender for trial for high treason for the Kapp Putsch.

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Today -100: March 10, 1922: Of the unity of imperial foreign policy, rebellions, and ratifications

Because British Secretary of State for India Edwin Montagu allowed the publication of that call by the Government of India for revision of the Treaty of Sèvres, he has been forced out. Something about collective cabinet responsibility. He says he never considered suppressing the Indians’ views or preventing them informing the Indian people of the views the government puts forward in their name. Lloyd George, on the other hand, insists that the unity of the Empire’s foreign policy can only be maintained by the various colonies shutting the fuck up.

The South African government is mobilizing the armed forces, including planes with machine guns, to put down the white miners’ strike, which at some point they’ll call the Rand Rebellion. The strikers’ executive has told strikers to stop shooting at black people.

The New Jersey Legislature ratifies the already-ratified 18th Amendment. I’m not sure why this is a big deal.

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Today -100: March 9, 1922: Their natural tendency toward violence has been skillfully utilized by Gandhi

In an unusual move, the Government of India calls on the Secretary of State for India to revise the unratified Treaty of Sèvres to accommodate Turkey more. The Muslims of India are supposedly super worked up about this. Lord Sydenham, who was governor of Bombay until 1913, explains that Indian Muslims are “wholly uneducated, intensely fanatical and wholly ignorant... Their natural tendency toward violence has been skillfully utilized by Gandhi,” who recruits them by claiming that British troops have attacked the holy places in Arabia (the Baron will later express similarly complimentary views about the Jews).

Pres. Harding turns down the invitation for the US to participate in the Genoa Economic and Financial Conference. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes says the US has decided it isn’t really an economic and financial conference but “rather a conference of a political character in which the Government of the United States could not helpfully participate.” 

Genoa should be a lovely site for the conference. It’s spring and the Fascist-Socialist gun fights are in bloom. Fascists burn a labor newspaper, and unions declare a general strike in protest (which they later call off).

The Irish Free State Bill passes the House of Commons.

St. Paul juries are evidently required to sleep on cots in the same room during deliberations, so a mixed-sex jury is causing some furore. At least one county is avoiding this problem by refusing to call up women jurors.

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Today -100: March 8, 1922: I trust everyone appreciates how I’m avoiding limerick jokes

Henry Ford closes down his car factory in Cork, Ireland after the town tries to force him to, among other things, hire a lot more people than he wanted to.

Nothing much going on in Limerick, despite the presence of three military forces there (regular IRA, “rebel” anti-Treaty IRA, British military). The rebel IRAers are patrolling the streets, though, as the Morning Post says, “the purpose of the patrols is not altogether clear.” Meanwhile, sectarian clashes kill five in Belfast, as was the custom.

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Today -100: March 7, 1922: Crucified to Italy’s flag

The rebel IRA forces that moved into Limerick give an ultimatum for the Free State forces to surrender the Limerick police barracks. They’ve also seized 3 hotels for billeting, or possibly they’re playing life-size Monopoly.

Dr. Laura Black Stickney (R) and Lois McKiever (Ind) lose elections for mayor of Saco, Maine and Bath, Maine respectively. There has yet to be a woman mayor in New England.

Illinois Gov. Len Small gets a postponement of his corruption trial because the court accepted his argument that it is essential that he not be distracted from handing out spring road-building contracts. It’s not as long a postponement as he wanted, which would have had the trial starting after the primaries. Instead, it will begin on April 3rd, eight days before them.

Poet-Aviator Gabriele D’Annunzio writes messages of support to the Fascists who took over Fiume, but he seems to be staying away this time. He also sends some, for lack of a better word, poetry:

Wolfgang Kapp of Kapp Putsch (1920) fame, hiding in Sweden, offers to surrender for trial. The German government is not enthusiastic.

The movie Sherlock Holmes, with John Barrymore in the title role, premieres.

Rep. Fritz Lanham (D-Texas) complains that the Congressional Record reports him saying that no helium was lost from the sea serpent in any of its flights, when he actually said no helium was lost from the C-7 (a military blimp).

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Today -100: March 6, 1922: Should have stuck with strawberry

IRA units invade Limerick City. The IRA, or at least some of it, has declared that it doesn’t recognize the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State but supports “the existing Irish Republic.” The British Amy still hasn’t withdrawn from Limerick, so this could get interesting.

A duel between the current editor of Le Figaro and the former editor is called off, which is just spitting in the face of the long proud history of Le Fig editors fighting duels, when they’re not just being shot dead by wives of finance ministers.

10 are ill from ptomaine in ice cream cones.

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Today -100: March 5, 1922: If there is one trouble with this White House job, it is in being a human being

After speeches are made by Tory leaders, including Austen Chamberlain and Winston Churchill, backing Lloyd George’s continuation as prime minister, he withdraws his threat to resign, which would trigger snap elections. Churchill’s speech, in Loughborough, stressed the need for unity against the “growing peril of Communism.”

Colonial Secretary Churchill says that the British government is using two weapons to restore order in Ireland: British good faith and Irish responsibility. He said “British good faith” with a straight face, too.

At a party celebrating his first year in office, Pres. Warren G. Harding says the achievement of that year is “the long step toward getting back to normal ways of government,” possibly referring to massive corruption. He says he likes parties like this because “If there is one trouble with this White House job, it is in being a human being.”

Russia says it will pay all its debts, even those incurred by the czars.

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Today -100: March 4, 1922: Of Fascist coups, hangings, and nosferatus

Fiume President Riccardo Zanella surrenders after Italian Fascists fire cannons at the government palace.

A lot of Wall Street brokerage houses have collapsed in the last few days.

The House Appropriations Committee voted to cut the army to 115,000 men, but Harding doesn’t want it reduced below 130,000.

Matthew Bullock will not be extradited from Canada to North Carolina. A detail I’d missed: the state first tried to extradite him for “inciting to riot,” only later charging him for attempted murder. Bullock, a black man, was worried that if returned to NC he’d be lynched like his brother.

A black man, Terry Williams, is hanged in Virginia for an alleged rape. By the Virginia authorities I mean, not a baying mob, not that there’s a huge difference.

Illinois really does hang Harvey Church, in a coma (maybe) and tied to a chair. The coroner has a theory that Church was actually drugged into that state by someone who didn’t want him exposing his confederate in the murder of two car salesmen, but Church’s family refuse to allow an examination of the body.

F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu premieres in Germany, with Max Schreck.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: March 3, 1922: Of peeresses, women’s suffrage and duels

The House of Lords Committee on Privileges rules in favor of allowing Viscountess Rhondda to enter the Lords. This would also allow in 23 other peeresses (or maybe fewer). Margaret, Lady Rhondda, a suffragette from waaaay back and a Lusitania survivor, sued under the 1919 Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act. At some point this decision will be reversed, and no ladies will darken the towels of the Lords until 1958, just a few weeks after Lady Rhondda’s death.

The Dáil Éireann rejects a proposal to extend the vote to women over 21 in the upcoming elections (presumably it would otherwise be restricted to women over 30, as in Britain). Arthur Griffin says he’s not against it in principle, but regards the proposal as a delaying tactic by anti-treaty republicans, since, he claims, it would take months to organize. He’ll support women voting on equal terms with men under the Free State.

Prince Marino Torlonia is not excommunicated after his duel with Count Filippo Lovatelli over a sculpture the latter made of the former’s wife (yeah, I’d like to know more about that too). Evidently the Catholic Church is supposed to excommunicate anyone who dueled. (Update: ok, he was excommunicated and then immediately re-communicated, if that’s the term, after he claimed Lovatelli had attacked him and he only fought in self-defense.)

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Today -100: March 2, 1922: Of resignations, hangings, and mosquitos

Lloyd George has been threatening to resign as prime minister, saying the Tory MPs in the coalition are going all Joe Manchin. Tory party leaders would prefer to avoid an election right now and are trying to persuade him to stay in office.

Convicted murderer Harvey Church, who hunger-struck himself into what Illinois is claiming is a state of being “mentally dead,” which is not how hunger-striking works (also, the prison was force-feeding him), will be hanged tied to a chair. “Only two other men have been hanged bound to chairs in Chicago,” says the NYT without providing details.

New Jersey is going to war against its mosquitos.

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Today -100: March 1, 1922: Of royal marriages, special relations, and accompaniments of discreditable character

No links, NYT website still fucked.

Princess Mary, aunt of Queen Elizabeth II, marries Viscount Lascelles.

Britain ends the protectorate over Egypt, declaring Egypt an independent sovereign nation except for all the powers Britain plans to retain in Egypt (or as Lloyd George calls it, the “special relations” between the two countries). Martial law will remain until the Egyptian government passes an indemnity law for British interests.

Pres. Harding, in person, presents Congress his plan to support US shipping, including subsidizing it with 10% of customs duties.

The International Anti-Cigarette League ask Will Hays to ban cigarette smoking by women in movies, except “as the accompaniment of discreditable character.”

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