Today -100: July 25, 1922: Of independence, republic defense, and rum-running

The Philippines now has three political parties, the latest being the Collectivist Party (Partido Nacionalista-Colectivista) of Manuel Quezon, president of the Senate and future president of the country. All 3 parties want independence.

The German state of Bavaria is resisting implementation within its borders of the federal Republic Defense Act (Republikschutzgesetz) which was just passed in response to the assassination of Walther Rathenau and is aimed at terrorist groups. The Bavarian governing coalition breaks up over this stance, and the left is threatening a general strike. The ability of the central government to get the Bavarian military to enforce the law is questionable.

The US asks Britain to help suppress rum-running from its Caribbean colonies. Britain has no treaty obligation to do so, and I’m not sure any non-US law is being broken.

And isn’t “rum-running” a rather delightful phrase? Say it out loud: rum-running rum-running rum-running.

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

Today -100: July 24, 1922: Of klandidates and hearses

The big winners in the Texas Democratic Party primary (votes not all counted yet): the Ku Klux Klan and the candidates it supports. Among the latter: Earle Mayfield, who is well ahead of former impeached governor James Ferguson and will indeed be the next US senator; incumbent Gov. Pat Neff; and many down-ballot races.

After some act(s) of violence, Britain is already threatening to take back control of Egypt.

A hearse transporting a corpse from Long Island to Manhattan is stopped five separate times by prohibition agents sure it was carrying booze.

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

Today -100: July 23, 1922: Of flatheads, wool battles, masks, and radio

Headline of the Day -100:  

What the hell is going on in the Senate?

KKK “Acting Wizard” E.Y. Clarke orders klansmen to refrain from wearing masks, except in their lodge rooms. This is in response to Gov. Thomas Hardwick of Georgia’s threat to ban masks.

The German Reichstag passes laws allowing women into the legal profession and exempting women employees of the federal government from disciplinary measures because of unwed motherhood.

In May, NYC metropolitan area radio stations agreed to divide up daily broadcasting hours between them. The popular (and high-wattage) WJZ, Newark refused to go along, and the other stations are demanding it be forced off the air. This wouldn’t be an issue if the Commerce Dept didn’t restrict radio stations to 360-meter waves.

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

Today -100: July 22, 1922: Of aerial traffic cops, arsenic, and limericks

The NYPD’s aviation dept will start sending up planes to pull over private planes violating the new minimum flying height of 2,000 feet, “using force if necessary.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

They say it’s so they can poison boll weevils cheaply. A likely story.

The Irish Free State captures Limerick & Waterford from the rebels.

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

Today -100: July 21, 1922: To any reaction we will answer with insurrection

Two men are executed in Sing Sing. One of the official witnesses is a blind man who wants to “sense the feeling” of an execution.

In the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Mussolini says of the prospective new Cabinet, “Soon the Fascisti will have to decide whether to continue their struggle in a legal or insurrectionary form.” He says no government will be able to govern Italy “should machine guns against the Fascisti figure in its program. We have numerous disciplined well-organized forces. We will react with extreme violence against any attempt to oppress us.” “To any reaction we will answer with insurrection.”

The NYT thinks the next Italian government may not have the same problem with violence: “Communists and Fascisti fight hard enough, but their energies are usually exhausted after a few days and they go home till the next inspiration moves them.” So much New York Timesiosity in that combination of ethnic stereotype and both-sidesism.

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

Today -100: July 20, 1922: Of domestic peace and shylocks

Italian PM Luigi Facta loses a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies when the Catholic party turns against him. Evidently he’s failed to secure domestic peace. Mostly because he hasn’t tried.

Russian delegate to the Hague Conference Maxim Litvinov tells an AP reporter between acts of a gala performance put on for the conference of “Shylock,” which... yeah, that Russia won’t attend any more conferences.

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

Today -100: July 19, 1922: We die for our ideals

Two of the 3 assassins of German Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau (the other is in custody) are cornered by police in the tower of a ruined castle – I’m telling you, silent films are really documentaries – after being spotted by two clerks on a walking holiday. They shoot themselves, yelling “We die for our ideals!”

They also shout “Long live Ehrhardt,” a leader of the Kapp Putsch. Although himself on the run, Hermann Ehrhardt takes the time to deny any involvement in the assassination by Organization C, which he explains has been dissolved, and which only existed to combat Bolshevism, international Socialism, and – of course – the Jews.

A black man is lynched at Lake Jennie Jewel, Florida.

Things have more or less calmed down in Cremona, Italy, as the Fascists who invaded the town have taken their rampages on the road. It’s unclear if Luigi Facta’s government will survive the current political turmoil. In his newspaper, Benito Mussolini complains that Socialists use the Chamber of Deputies to spread “the most infamous propaganda, aiming to rouse passions and keep up hatred.” And if there’s one thing Mussolini hates, it’s rousing passions and keeping up hatred.

Russia officially denies that Lenin was poisoned on a train a couple of weeks ago and his body thrown into the Don River, and that he is now being impersonated etc etc.

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

Today -100: July 18, 1922: I therefore invite you to return to your mine properties and resume operation

The coal strike in West Virginia leads, as was the custom, to a battle that left the sheriff of Brooke County and some others dead.

Pres. Harding meets coal company owners at the White House and explains to them that coal is jolly important to the country and “I therefore invite you to return to your mine properties and resume operation.” Who knew it could be so simple? He doesn’t seem to ask them not to cut miners’ pay. Probably slipped his mind.

The British Parliament debates how honors, peerages etc are awarded, which is that Lloyd George sells them, and pretty openly too. The MP introducing a motion for a joint committee to investigate is named Godfrey Loocker-Lampson, which is a name to conjure with (Update: dammit, that’s a NYT typo, he’s actually called Godfrey Locker-Lampson, which is about a third as funny).

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

Today -100: July 17, 1922: Of dealers in air

Lenin is supposedly slowly resuming his leadership tasks. Or they’re lying. One or the other.

Pravda says the Soviet delegation to the Hague Conference arrived with concrete proposals, but the allies are “merely dealers in air.”

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

Today -100: July 16, 1922: Of overbearing attitudes, Edison Bucks, and ukelele riots

Italian Fascist bands occupy several towns, including Viterbo, Cremona, and Alatri, complaining of the Communists’ “overbearing attitude” in those places. And if there’s one thing followers of Mussolini hate, it’s an overbearing attitude.

Thomas Edison suggests an alternative form of money based on products held in a government warehouse, or something. Because “tech guy endorses a new type of currency” always works out so well.

Headline of the Day -100:  

I feel like this story is missing a few steps. A Jeremiah Goldringer is seen by railroad cops in the Penn. Railroad Yards in Chicago, carrying the ukelele. Naturally they chase him, and send him to the loony bin for examination.

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

Today -100: July 15, 1922: My voice is too feeble to be heard, so I used the gun

Another day etc.: At the Bastille Day military review in Paris, Gustave Bouvet – “a pale, emaciated youth of the type so common among militant anarchists” – takes a couple of shots at President Alexandre Millerand’s carriage. Well, the carriage he thought was carrying President Alexandre Millerand. It was actually the police prefect’s carriage, but the assassin missed him too. One bystander’s arm was slightly burned. Bouvet, who is subdued by the crowd, first admits trying to kill Millerand, then says he wasn’t really trying to kill anyone, just to “make a demonstration that would attract attention to the condition of the proletariat.” “My voice is too feeble to be heard, so I used the gun.” He’ll be sentenced to 5 years in prison plus 10 years’ banishment, but will only serve 25 months, released partially paralyzed. He will die in 1984.

Armed men on horseback invade Radin/Radun in Poland (now Belarus), round up the Jews, flog and rob them. It’s a famously Jewish town, at least for the next 20 years; now it has no Jews.

The Hague Conference ends (give or take a few more recriminations) with a failure of the Western powers and Russia to come to any agreement. Russia refuses to restore nationalized foreign-owned property and everyone else refuses to offer credits to Russia.

H.G. Wells will accept an invitation to run for Parliament as a Labour candidate for the University of London seat (voted for by graduates of the university).

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

Today -100: July 14, 1922: Of crowns and bowler hats

No one wants to be king of Albania. The crown’s been offered to a Bonaparte, to an Italian duke, and to a Bulgarian prince. Now they’re thinking about finding some rich American.

Making front-page news, King George wears a bowler hat to the races rather than the traditional top hat. The 1920s have fully arrived.

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

Today -100: July 13, 1922: Of reparations, dropping gas, and seltzer

Germany, facing a financial crisis, as was the custom, asks for a halt to cash reparations payments through 1924.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Same.

Actually, the US Army will no longer produce poison gas. Well, except for “research” and for developing defenses against poison gas.

The negroes of Harlem, increasingly annoyed about being excluded from Republican Party decision-making in the district, say they will run a black candidate against sitting Republican US Rep. Martin Ansorge, who has actually been working quite hard on the doomed anti-lynching legislation and who took a lot of shit for nominating a black man to Annapolis. They haven’t chosen their black challenger yet, maybe William Ferris, editor of Negro World and author of Typical Negro Traits.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Sadly not one of those times where silent comedies are revealed as documentaries, with a court case degenerating into a seltzer fight. Rather, publisher Thomas Seltzer is being sued by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice for putting out D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love, Arthur Schnitzler’s Casanova’s Homecoming, and A Young Girl’s Diary, anonymously published by Hermine Hug-Hellmuth, an Austrian Freudian psychoanalyst who performed some sort of psychoanalytic experiments on her nephew, who murdered her in 1924.

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

Today -100: July 12, 1922: Of railroad strikes

Pres. Harding issues a Proclamation demanding that railway workers accept the reduced wages decreed for them by the Railroad Labor Board, and he “directs” everyone to refrain from interfering with interstate transportation and the carrying of mail.

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

Today -100: July 11, 1922: We have no room for invisible government in this State

Alfred E. Smith’s name will be put before the NY Democratic Convention as candidate for governor despite his increasingly non-credible protestations that he just wants to be left alone to do whatever it is he does with trucks.

Nelson Rockefeller, son of John F. Rockefeller Jr., spent his 14th birthday in the hospital after shooting himself in the foot with an air rifle a few days before. And if that doesn’t qualify him to be Gerald Ford’s vice president, I don’t know what does.

Gov. Thomas Hardwick of Georgia says if members of the Ku Klux Klan don’t unmask he will sponsor legislation to make mask-wearing in public illegal. “We have no room for invisible government in this State,” he says.

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

Today -100: July 10, 1922: The Ku Klux Klan is going to make this a white country

Communist Party circulars call on railwaymen to strike, ignoring injunctions and the, you know, US Army.

At a speech before the Universal Negro Improvement Association, Marcus Garvey says “The Ku Klux Klan is going to make this a white country,” he says, so negroes should go back to, you know, Africa.

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

Today -100: July 9, 1922: Of assassinations and asparagus

German authorities are confident that the attempted assassination of editor Maximilian Harden was ordered by the Deutschvölkische Partei, which is big among Bavarian monarchists and in whose newspaper, “extinction of Jews, distinguished Republicans and members of the Entente commissions is preached with impartiality.” Anti-Semitic publisher Albert Grenz has admitted acting as go-between to hire the two assassins.

The Harding Admin has been pushing the idea of allowing members of the Cabinet to sit in Congress as non-voting members.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Today -100: July 8, 1922: Of indices, ectoplasm, immigrants, and breaches of promises

The Vatican puts all of Anatole France’s works on the Index.

Experiments at the Sorbonne, conducted with three actual Sorbonne professors and a medium Eva (they may mean spirit guide), fail to detect ectoplasm during seances.

The start of the immigrant-quota year on July 1st saw a race of ships from Europe, as last year. The annual Greek quota has already been filled. Indeed, of the 165 arriving on the Acropolis, only 60 will be admitted. This is a monumentally stupid system.

Conservatives do well in the elections for the Dutch upper house, the first in which women can vote. 7 women are elected (no, I don’t know of how many who ran, or how many seats there are, and don’t feel like looking it up). The paper says the majority of women didn’t vote the same way as their husbands – how do they know that? is there no secret ballot?

Cathal Brugha (aka Charles Burgess), the Irish minister for defence from 1919 until January 1922, who commanded rebel forces in O’Connell Street, is killed whilst failing to surrender.

Mary Sterner wins $250 in a breach of promise suit against actor John Pauls. 6 years after they met, he said he’d marry her in Vienna. She sailed, he didn’t, and when she came back she found that he’d married someone else. Which led me to wonder when breach of promise suits stopped being a thing in law. Evidently they’re still a thing in half the states and do occasionally wind up in court (I think mostly to recover costs of weddings that didn’t happen).

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

Today -100: July 7, 1922: Of horse bridges, metropolitans, and naughty newsreels

The Irish Free State calls on young men to join the army, which has up until now consisted almost entirely of IRA men.

From now on, the Brooklyn Bridge will be reserved for the exclusive use of horse-drawn traffic and the Manhattan Bridge for motor-drawn traffic. The Brooklyn Bridge will be horse-only until 1950. And get a bike lane in 2021.

Russia sentences 11 people, including the Metropolitan of Petrograd and various bishops and archbishops, to death for interfering with the seizure of church treasures. 

The NY Supreme Court’s appellate division rules that the State Motion Picture Commission can censor newsreels. Evidently Pathé showed a girl/woman in a bathing suit in Atlantic City.

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

Today -100: July 6, 1922: Of flags, extraditions, and overly exciting sports

A. Bruce Bielaski, the former head of the Dept of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation, who escaped kidnappers in Mexico after 3 days, is ordered arrested. Newspapers have been claiming he connived at his own kidnapping to discredit the Obregón government. 

The last rebel stronghold in Dublin surrenders. The Free State is now in charge of what remains of Dublin. Let the executions begin! 

No one knows where Éamon de Valera is.

Awkward NYT Juxtaposition of the Day -100:  

In Germany, tensions are high over the recent assassinations. In Saxony, a bunch of republican workers demand Count Gneisenau remove the imperial flag from his chateau. The graf’s lackeys respond with fatal rifle and machine gun fire. The workers then raid a sharpshooters’ association and return to the battle, with more deaths on both sides. The next day a bunch of Communist miners arrive, heavily armed, and get that damned flag down. There are a bunch of other violent incidents scattered throughout Germany, but this was the most entertaining. The Wirth government is working on a bill to increase powers to Defend the Republic, but will need Communist votes in the Reichstag.

Gov. Harry Davis (R) of Ohio refuses to extradite a black man to Georgia to face murder charges, saying he’d be lynched.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Today -100: July 5, 1922: Of fancied senses of personal liberty and popcorn time at the Sorbonne

The Irish Free State forces are bombarding rebel-occupied hotels on O’Connell Street in Dublin. And they’re getting 3 planes from England for use tomorrow to bomb Dublin if Éamon de Valera refuses to surrender.

Polish authorities prohibit an anti-Semitic lecture in Vilna (Vilnius), resulting in a riot in which a cop is killed.

Pres. Harding gives a speech at Marion, Ohio for July 4th. He mentions Prohibition, which he almost never does, saying it’s the will of America, so it must be “sustained by the Government and public opinion” against a minority denied “a fancied sense of personal liberty.” He also talks about the “right to work,” by which he means the government will help corporations which hire strikebreakers.

In Paris, surgeon Jean Louis Faure films an operation he performs, the removal of a fibroma from a stomach, and shows it in a class at the Sorbonne. Which reminds me of an obscure fact I happen to know: the first autopsy shown on British tv was performed by Jonathan Miller of Beyond the Fringe.

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

Today -100: July 4, 1922: Outlaw strikes are the coolest kind of strikes

11 railroad companies centered in New York say strikers will be fired, and re-employed only with loss of seniority, while the new strikebreakers will be retained. This after the Railroad Labor Road declares the strike an “outlaw strike.”

The NYT correspondent in Dublin reports that the Free State forces have nearly won, that many of the republicans are boys or “mere roughs,” that the Army is restraining itself in a “clean, humane fashion” and.... yeah, the story was passed by the army censor, although one could be forgiven for thinking it was actually written by the army censor.

I missed a phrase used by British Prime Minister David Lloyd George at the Hague Conference: he warned against “hungry Russia armed by angry Germany.”

Another day, another assassination, this time a failed attempt to kill Maximilian Harden, editor of Die Zunkuft. Two men stab him on the street. One is captured; he’s carrying a membership card in the Association of National-Minded Soldiers, a reactionary anti-Semitic group (Harden is Jewish).

Forcibly retired kaiser Wilhelm still hasn’t denounced the assassination of Walther Rathenau.

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

Today -100: July 3, 1922: Of civil wars and orphan pity

Irish Free State troops bombard rebel strongholds in Dublin.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Today -100: July 2, 1922: Of thankless jobs, snipers, lynchings, opium, and aluminum

The fall of the Four Courts is not the end of it. Anti-Treaty IRAers are occupying 40 or so buildings, from which they’re merrily sniping, as was the custom.

Two black men, James Harvey and Joe Jordan, are seized from a deputy sheriff by a mob and lynched in, ahem, Liberty County, Georgia. Surprisingly, 4 of the lynch mob will be convicted of murder.

As Alien Property Custodian during the war, Francis Garvan gave a bunch of German patents to the Chemical Foundation of New York, which is headed by... Francis Garvan. Pres. Harding demands the Foundation give up the patents.

In 1912 the US and other countries created the Hague opium convention to cut down the illegal drug trade. That has since been superceded by the League of Nations, which has been trying to get information from the US about why it’s importing so many drugs, but the US has been pretending that the League of Nations doesn’t exist and the Hague convention still does. Finally, someone got the Dutch government to ask the US the same questions the League has been asking, and this time the US answered, and the Netherlands turned over the information to the League. 

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Today -100: July 1, 1922: Zero courts?

The rebels occupying the Four Courts in Dublin surrender after explosions, either deliberately set by the rebels or from their explosives store blowing up accidentally, destroy the  building and most of the national archives.

Churchill, naturally, blames a mine laid by the rebels.

400,000 railroad workers go on strike. They want to reverse a wage cut ordered by the Railroad Labor Board, as well as rules ending overtime pay, etc.

John Vitelle, the former Exalted Cyclops (that’s the best kind of cyclops) of the Taft, California Ku Klux Klan, is convicted of assaulting a doctor as part of a Klan mob. Don’t know what they had against the doc.

The Tuskegee Institute says 12 of the 30 lynchings in the US from January to June of 1922 were in Texas, 7 in Mississippi, and 4 in Georgia. 2 of the victims were white, 28 black.

At the Hague Conf, Russia ups its demand for credits to $1.6 billion, in exchange for paying its Romanov debts, eventually.

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

Today -100: June 30, 1922: Recreant Irishmen are the worst kind

The Irish Free Staters are steadily taking charge of, or at least blowing to bits, the Four Courts, which is (are?) built like a fortress. The rebels proclaim: “The fateful hour has come. At the dictation of our hereditary enemy our rightful cause is being treacherously assailed by recreant Irishmen.”

British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill says the Free State hasn’t asked for any assistance; “This is purely an Irish quarrel”. Funny how sometimes Ireland is an integral part of the British Empire and other times... not.

Metaphor of the Day -100:  Three of retired-kaiser Wilhelm’s state carriages are sold at auction. They are purchased by an undertaker to use for funerals. 

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

Today -100: June 29, 1922: Whoop for Hooper

Maxim Litvinoff, head of the Soviet delegation to the Hague Conference, says Russia will only recognize its debts (not, I think, including war debts) if it’s assured of a moratorium on paying them of, say, fifty years. He’s also resisting giving any details of Russia’s budget.

And we get the second-ever woman candidate for the US Senate. Selected by the Democratic convention, Jessie “Mrs. Ben” Hooper, the president of the Wisconsin League of Women Voters, will run against Fighting Bob La Follette. Her slogan will be “Whoop for Hooper,” which is super dooper. The convention also selects not one but two candidates for governor, one wet and one dry.

Speaking of slogans, campaign buttons appear for William Randolph Hearst: “A Business Man for Governor.” It’s not exactly “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war” or “Rosebud,” is it?

Irish Free State forces try to drive Rory O’Connor’s anti-Treaty IRAers out of the Four Courts, which now sport many new holes, as do many civilians and an unknown number of combatants on both sides. O’Connor issues a statement, posted all over Dublin – several NYT reporters are perplexed as to how a man under siege can do this – saying that none of his forces have been killed yet and “The boys are glorious and will fight for the republic to the end.” He points out that “Mr. Churchill cracked the whip in his speech Monday night when he ordered the Provisional Government to attack the Four Courts. His Free State agents have obeyed.” Éamon de Valera agrees with all that, saying the Republicans “are not willing that Ireland’s independence should be abandoned under the lash of an alien government.” Churchill issues a statement saying the Free State is acting entirely on its own and not in response to his statement telling them to do what they’re now doing and yes, we’ll certainly give them arms to suppress the Republicans if necessary.

The Free State claims the real reason it’s attacking the rebels now is that they’ve been extorting companies under the pretext of the boycott of Belfast, “which has no authorised existence.” Also, the rebels kidnapped a general.

The Communist Party of Great Britain applies to be affiliated to the Labour Party (like the Fabian Society and other groups), but is turned down by the Labour Conference. 

Russia lifts the limit of two letters a month that could be received by Russians from the US.

A. Bruce Bielaski escapes his Mexican captors while they’re sleeping.

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

Today -100: June 28, 1922: Of hostages, credits, and parking lots

Mexican rebel Gen. Gorozave, whoever that may be, is holding 40 American employees of the Cortez Oil Company in the Tampico district hostage, as well as the company’s equipment, demanding 15,000 pesos, which is the equivalent of some money.

At the Hague Conference, Russia says it won’t talk about debts or property until there’s some sort of agreement on credits. Guess what subjects the other powers are saying should come first.

This time, none of the Russian delegates are wearing top hats.

Alderman Rudolph Hannock of the Bronx has an idea for the Board: public parking stations. You know, parking lots.

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

Today -100: June 27, 1922: Of ultimata, indefinite occupations, and goodykoontzes

In the British Parliament, Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill demands the Provisional Government of Ireland suppress the anti-treaty IRA faction. The present situation, he says, is a violation of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and if the Irish government doesn’t crack down Britain is free to renounce the treaty and step in. Prime Minister David Lloyd George also makes a speech, which is considered “gloomy.”

The Senate committee on the US occupation of Haiti and Santo Domingo calls for “indefinite” continuation of the occupation of Haiti, as withdrawal would lead to revolution and brigandage. It dismisses most of the complaints of cruelty by Marines as false or hearsay testimony by illiterate natives and complains about “the process by which biased or interested individuals and committees and propagandists have seized on isolated instances, or have adopted as true any rumor however vile or baseless in an effort to bring into general disrepute the whole American naval force in Haiti.” They claim the majority of Haitians actually quite like being occupied.

$5,000 in ransom is sent for the release of former proto-FBI head A. Bruce Bielaski. The Mexican government orders that anyone connected with the kidnapping should be immediately executed.

Rep. Wells Goodykoontz (R-West Virginia, including Mingo) denounces the coal strike murders in Illinois and says the UMW should help the state prosecute its members. Rep. Edward Denison (R-Illinois, including Herrin) says Goodykoontz shouldn’t believe everything he reads in the newspaper. And yes, I’m only including item this to point out that there’s a congresscritter named Wells Goodykoontz. Which is also his porn name.

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

Today -100: June 26, 1922: A state of political bestiality prevails

A coroner’s jury puts the whole blame for the murders of 19 scabs and two union miners in Herrin, Illinois last week on the Southern Illinois Coal Company.

At the party celebrating Illinois Gov. Len Small’s acquittal, his wife has a stroke which, well, I’ll let her doctors’ statement say it: “Absolutely no hope. Fatal case. Sinking rapidly.”

There are worries that the assassination of Sir Henry Wilson means the IRA will continue killing people in London, but it is decided not to arm the police because that would be un-English.

German Chancellor Joseph Wirth accuses the Pan-Germans of creating the atmosphere in which the assassination of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau took place. “A state of political bestiality prevails. ... Our enemies are those who pour poison into the nation’s wounds. These enemies are on the Right.” Steps are taken to ban any meetings or processions inciting the destruction of the Weimar Republic’s constitution and to ban organizations doing the same.

Postmasters are complaining that dry police are storing seized liquor at post offices, which are now too smelly to work in.

A. Bruce Bielaski, the former director of the forerunner to the FBI (1912-19), is kidnapped in Mexico.

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

Today -100: June 25, 1922: Of Organization C, acquittals, and embittered factions

Another day, another assassination. This time it’s German Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, killed in a drive-by utilizing submachine guns and hand grenades by members of the Organization Consul (or “Organization C,” to give it the Bond-villainous-organization name it likes to call itself), a far-right nationalist terrorist group banned after the Kapp Putsch, the same group that tried to kill former chancellor Philipp Scheidemann earlier this month and which has assassinated literally hundreds of people, starting with Matthias Erzberger last year.

After the Reichstag is told of the murder, left-wing deputies rage at the Nationalists, who hated Rathenau because of the Treaty of Rapallo with Russia and because he was a, you know, Jew (his assassins thought him one of the Elders of Zion, of Protocols fame). The Socialist & Communist deputies are especially pissed at Karl Helfferich of the DNVP, who made a vituperative speech about Rathenau just yesterday.

Germans worry that this is the start of a reactionary coup.

Of the 3 assassins, 2 will die in a shootout with the police (monuments will be erected to them after 1933), while the 20-year-old driver Ernst Werner Techow will be captured, tried, convicted of accessory to murder, and... released in 1928 an amnesty. He’ll join the Nazi Party but quarrel with them. He’ll be killed after being taken prisoner by the Russians in 1945.

Illinois Gov. Len Small and Lt Gov. Fred Sterling are acquitted of conspiracy by a corrupt jury.

The AFL conference supports Gompers in refusing to call for the US to recognize Soviet Russia.

Final Irish election results: Of 128 seats, 58 go to “Treatyites,” 36 to Antis (both groups part of Sinn Féin), the rest going to Labour (17), the Farmers’ Party (7), Commercial Independents (6), and Trinity College, Dublin (4).

Headline of the Day -100, or any day, really:  

But Northern Ireland PM Sir James Craig says “Ulster people are too sensible to be provoked into retaliation by the murder of the Field Marshal.”

Japan says it will remove its troops from Siberia by October 30. And it promises a non-aggression policy in the future.

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

Today -100: June 24, 1922: Of shaking hands with murder, lynchings, and governments of savages

The widow of the assassinated MP Sir Henry Wilson tries to ban Cabinet members from his funeral, because... he opposed the government’s Irish policy, evidently telling Lloyd George after the latter began negotiations with Sinn Féin that “You have shaken hands with murder,” and somehow that lead to his death? ... but she is browbeaten into allowing them after she’s told it would be disrespectful to the king. They’re coercing her a day after she saw her husband killed but they’re talking about respect.

The IRA denies responsibility for the assassination, saying we’d certainly admit it if we’d done it, hell we wouldn’t shut up about it, have you met us? So does Éamon de Valera, who doesn’t seem exactly upset by it.

Although the two assassins were captured, Scotland Yard is rounding up the usual suspects, as is the usual custom.

Warren Lewis, an 18-year-old black man, is lynched in New Dacus, Texas.

The American Federation of Labor re-elects Samuel Gompers as president. He is immediately challenged by members who want the AFL to support recognition of Russia or, as Gompers puts it, “this government of savages.”

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

Today -100: June 23, 1922: Of assassinations, show trials, and bad gonads

Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, former Chief of the Imperial General Staff, current MP for North Down in Northern Ireland, is shot dead outside his house in London by two IRA men. He tried to defend himself with his sword. I mean he retired from the Army when he stood for Parliament a few months ago, but I guess he was still just wandering around London in uniform, with a sword. The assassins are captured (one of them has a wooden leg, which probably didn’t help) after a chase in which they shot a constable and a bystander; they’ll be executed. (Reading further in the story, I begin to doubt the sword thing). With no evidence whatsoever, Northern Ireland PM Sir James Craig blames “a wide conspiracy against those who are fighting the battle of Ulster.”

Workers, quite possibly orchestrated by the Soviet government, demonstrate at the Social Revolutionaries’ show trial in Moscow, demanding the death penalty. Prosecutor Nikolai Krylenko (who will later experience Soviet justice from the other side) allows representatives of the demonstrators to enter and address the court because “we are only carrying out their wishes.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

A whole bunch of scab coal miners are killed in Herrin, Illinois. There’s a “death march” and everything. And a lot of mine equipment is dynamited.

Medical Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Today -100: June 22, 1922: Of mandates, funky vitamins, menaces, shameful documents, tools of international bankers, and barrels

The British House of Lords rejects the League of Nations mandate for Palestine for violating the pledges Britain made to the people of Palestine by giving the Zionist minority more power than the Arab majority.

Several thousand striking coal miners attack a mine near Herrin, Illinois, killing 22 scabs.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Sounds like the title of a late ‘60s movie that Vincent Price was ill-advised to agree to. Casimir Funk, by the way, discovered vitamins and came up with that word, although he spelled it vitamine.

The Illinois state Supreme Court affirms the imprisonment of 19 Communists for, you know, being Communists. “Communists are a menace,” says the court.

Éamon de Valera says the proposed Irish constitution will “exclude from public service, and practically disfranchise, every honest Republican” by the required oath to the king and Empire. The Republic of Ireland newspaper, edited by Erskine Childers, who lost his election race for the Dáil, calls it a “shameful document.”

The Paterson, New Jersey Ku Klux Klan protests the closing of public schools to honor the late Dean William McNulty of St. John’s Catholic Church, which they say violates the separation of church & state.

NYC Mayor John Hylan denounces Democratic women who prefer Alfred E. Smith over William Randolph Hearst for governor of NY as “misguided” tools of “international bankers who have their clutches on the Government at Washington” and “public utilities and corporate interests which are in control of the State Government”. 

The bathing suit war continues in Atlantic City, which has decreed that bathers must wear coats over their bathing suits as they walk to and from the beach. As a protest, the guests of one unnamed hotel buy barrels to wear instead.

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

Today -100: June 21, 1922: First women

Anna Dickie Olesen wins the Minnesota Democratic primary for US Senate, the first major party nomination of a woman for the Senate. This follows the D. party convention’s endorsement of her. She will lose the general election. Mrs Peter Oleson, as she and her husband would prefer she not to be called, reassures that women’s participation in politics need not interfere with housework.

The Countess Markievicz, the first woman elected to the British Parliament, although she didn’t take her seat, is defeated for re-election to the Dáil. 

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

Today -100: June 20, 1922: In complete order

Lenin’s doctors say he’s much better. Better from what is not clear, since they refer to symptoms (now gone) of the stomach and bowel tract, disorder in the blood circulation (now better), and say “All the internal organs are in complete order” (alphabetical?), but fail to mention his stroke, which Russia is presumably back to denying ever happened.

It’s also denying that Russia is now run by a directorate.

The KKK orders Pennsylvania Prohibition Director John Davis to resign within 10 days or be tarred & feathered. “If they come I am ready for them,” he says. It is unclear what the Klan’s quarrel with Davis is.

Illinois Gov. Len Small’s lawyers decline to put on a defense in his corruption trial, a bold move you can only make if you know your client is innocent or has bribed the jury. One or the other.

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

Today -100: June 19, 1922: Of vitamins, model citizens, and smoking

Johns Hopkins biochemist Elmer McCollum discovers Vitamin D. Vitamin A was also one of his. So now sunlight may replace cod liver oil as the cure for rickets.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Kansas Attorney General Richard Hopkins says state Superintendent of Public Instruction Lorraine Wooster has no authority to remove the accreditation of schools and colleges that allow smoking by administrators, teachers or pupils.

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

Today -100: June 18, 1922: Of elections, klans, and hearsts

The Irish elections are conducted, with relatively few raids on voting places, kidnappings, threatening notices, etc. Early results show strong pro-Treaty majorities.

The NYT Sunday Magazine has a longish piece about the Ku Klux Klan and its election activities this year.

Democrats are worried that if William Randolph Hearst is elected governor of NY this year, he’d be in a good position for a presidential run in 1924. So they’re putting increasing pressure on Al Smith to run for governor.

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

Today -100: June 17, 1922: Of thoughtful Jews, melons, and helicopters

A. Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard says that restricting the number of Jewish students in Harvard might be Good for the Jews: “The anti-Semitic feeling among the students is increasing, and it grows in proportion to the increase in the number of Jews. If their number should become 40 per cent. of the student body, the race feeling would become intense. When on the other hand, the number of Jews was small, the race antagonism was small also. . . . If every college in the country would take a limited proportion of Jews, I suspect we should go a long way toward eliminating race feeling among the students, and as these students passed out into the world, eliminating it in the community.” Alfred Benesch, the lawyer (and Jewish alum) to whose letter Lowell is responding, replies that the logical conclusion of Lowell’s argument is that a complete ban on Jewish students would solve the problem of anti-Semitism. Lowell says a committee on the proposed Jew Quota will be formed and it will “get into communication with the thoughtful Jews in this country.”

Harvard is also accused of segregating black students in dorms and dining halls.

Congressional Republicans tell Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon to fire Democratic officials (including some who actually aren’t) in the Treasury. He tells them to suck his melon balls.

A helicopter (a plane with lifting propellers on its wings, I’m not sure that really counts as a helicopter) rises seven (7) feet in the air in a demonstration before US Navy experts.

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

Today -100: June 16, 1922: Have no sensational announcement to make

The draft Irish constitution is released, a full day before the Constituent Assembly elections, which should give the voters plenty of time to absorb the details. Those details include equal suffrage between men and women (unlike in Britain), proportional representation, referenda, and Ireland not being forced into some war unless it’s actually being invaded. In general, the position of Ireland re Britain would be similar to Canada’s.

Supposedly Lenin’s German doctors are telling him he needs to rest at a sanitarium for at least 6 months. They recommend German sanitaria because there are no decent Russian ones. So they’re looking for one that will be happy to admit a patient with a battalion of guards.

The foreign communists supporting the Social Revolutionary defendants at the Moscow show trial withdraw, correctly claiming the judges have been obstructing the defense. The judges reply that the counsel have been unreasonable from the start and “They quit the Court because the political situation is against them.”

The World Court is open for business. There are only two things on its docket, advisory opinions on 1) whether the International Labor Organization covers agricultural workers and 2) whether the Dutch delegates to the ILO were properly chosen.

Marconi sailed to the US on his floating lab/yacht, trying to pick up radio messages from Mars but, replying to the AP, says “Have no sensational announcement to make.”

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

Today -100: June 15, 1922: Of troikas and the smoke of burning bodies

While Lenin recovers (or not) from his stroke, Russia will be ruled by a triumvirate of Stalin, Lev Kamenev, and... well, the NYT says Alexei Rykov, but actually Grigori Zinoviev. And no Trotsky.

A silent parade of negroes in D.C. demands passage of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill. One of their signs says: Congress Discusses Constitutionality While the Smoke of Burning Bodies Darkens the Heavens.

Wow.

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

Today -100: June 14, 1922: Of oaths and oafs

British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill tells Parliament that members of the Irish Free State’s Provisional Government will be required to take the oath of allegiance to the king but members of the Provisional Parliament won’t, although members of the eventual permanent Irish Parliament will. “The House was a little mystified by the explanation.”

We last visited Annapolis earlier this year when everyone was saying how unkind it was to nominate a negro to study there when he would just be treated like shit by the midshipmen. Well, Sen. Howard Sutherland (R-West Virginia) brings to the attention of the Senate an insult to one of his constituents: the page in the Annapolis yearbook featuring graduate Leonard Kaplan is perforated, so it can be easily removed. The page is unnumbered and Kaplan is not listed in the index, so there’d be no sign that something was missing if a grad chose to tear it out. Kaplan is a Jew.

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

Today -100: June 13, 1922: We reserve the right to begin again

At the Moscow show trial of the Social Revolutionary leaders, Timefieff, speaking for the defendants, says they did indeed carry on armed resistance in 1918, but stopped after Kolchak’s defeat. “Even now, however, we reserve the right to begin again.”

Darrell Figgis, a pro-Treaty member of Ireland’s Constitution Committee and noted ginger, is attacked in his home by 3 men, presumably from the IRA, and forcibly shaved. Traumatized by the event, which she had not unreasonably assumed to be an assassination, his wife Millie committed suicide in 1924 (with a pistol given to her by Michael Collins after this incident) and he followed in 1925. Although Figgis says he would recognize the men, it was only in the 1950s that Robert Briscoe, Lord Mayor of Dublin, confessed to being one of the rogue shavers. 

Wolfgang Kapp of the 1920 Kapp Putsch dies before he can be tried.

The bidding war for the world-wide rights (excluding the German-language version) of former kaiser Wilhelm’s memoirs is won by a consortium that includes Harper & Brothers, the NY Times, the LA Times, the London Sunday Times, etc etc for more than it can possibly be worth.

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

Today -100: June 12, 1922: Watch out for snakes!

No rum can be found in Alipine, New Jersey to treat a man bitten by a copperhead snake. (In case this needs to be said, do not treat snakebite with rum).

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

Today -100: June 11, 1922: Of lynchings, scared Hottentots, Yankee enterprise, and nanooks

5 suspects in the lynching of a black man last month in Texarkana, Arkansas are arrested.

Headline of the Day -100:  

And by “scare,” they mean “bomb and machine gun.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

The semi-documentary Nanook of the North premieres, semi-documenting the Inuit people.

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

Today -100: June 10, 1922: Of the business we call show trial

The trial of 12 members of the central committee of the Social Revolutionary party (SR) and 10 other members begins in Russia. This is considered the first of the Soviet show trials. It has been carefully planned for many months and authorized by Lenin before his stroke. The charges, including armed struggle against the Soviet state, conspiring to assassinate Lenin, Trotsky, et al,  and treason through contact with enemy foreign nations, derive from a penal code that went into effect June 1st, after the alleged crimes took place. Foreign Communists are present in the court on both the defense and prosecution sides (and let me say how disappointed I am with Clara Zetkin). Some of the former challenge the right of the court to sit at all.

Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, says the Supreme Court decision that the Sherman Anti-Trust Act can be used against unions is a denial of the right to strike, reestablishing “slavery and involuntary servitude, not for the black man alone, but for the white men and women of labor of the United States.” 

Judge Robert Street directs a verdict of misconduct against Jefferson County, Texas Sheriff Tom Garner and removes him from office for being a member of a criminal organization, the KKK, in contravention of his oath of office.

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

Today -100: June 9, 1922: Of looting, cannibalism, fake counts, and entire approval

After stripping the treasures from many churches, the Russian government is raiding the tombs of emperors – except Peter the Great, who’s still pretty popular. Jewelry is stripped from the corpses of Catherine the Great and others.

The son of former Colorado Gov. Shafroth, doing relief work in Russia, claims Russians are digging up cemeteries and chowing down. No one’s eaten Catherine the Great yet, though.

The widow of Prince Joachim of Prussia – the former kaiser Wilhelm’s son who committed suicide in 1920 – nearly becomes engaged to Count Demuth-Stroemer. Who turns out not to be a real count and is under arrest as a con artist who also passed fake checks and deserted from the army.

Pres. Harding writes to the Senate giving his “entire approval” to Interior Secretary Albert Fall and Navy Secretary Edwin Denby’s leasing to private companies of the naval oil reserves in Elk Hills, CA and Teapot Dome, Wyoming.

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

Today -100: June 8, 1922: Of strokes and klans

Acting Russian Premier Lev Kamenev says Lenin didn’t have a stroke after all.

Lenin totally had a stroke.

The Los Angeles County Grand Jury indicts 43 members of the Ku Klux Klan for the attack on a family in Inglewood in April. I still don’t know what that was all about.

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