Today -100: September 8, 1922: Of royal matches, juices, and blossoms

Greece asks for an armistice, which the Turks are unlikely to give because they’re, you know, winning. The Greek government resigns.

Ex-kaiser Wilhelm is considering marrying Princess Hermin of Reuss-Greiz; his family is trying to get him not to. For a start, she comes burdened with 5 children from her first marriage. Plus, she isn’t of royal birth; she’s only durchlaut, which is a rank above noble but below royal, and German royalists are super-snobby about shit like that. We’ve come across the two principalities, states, statelets, whatever, of Reuss before, by the way, they’re the ones where all the males of the royal family are named Heinrich and have been since c.1200 AD; thus, Hermin’s father was Prince Heinrich XXII, whose brothers were Heinrich XXI and Heinrich XXIII. It’s thought that Willy’s been dissuaded from the match, but it won’t stick. Both have recently lost their spouses (hers fell off a horse, as was the custom). She’s 34 and he’s 63.

A black man named O.J. Johnson, “twice tried on a charge of murder,” is lynched in Newton, Texas.

Brazil celebrates the 100th anniversary of independence.

Sarah Winchester, of Winchester Mystery House fame, dies.

At the second Miss America pageant, the prettiest contestant is named as... wait for it... Thelma Blossom of Indianapolis. She won’t be Miss America though; the crown will go to a 16-year-old who lied about her age. What the hell is a rolling chair parade, anyway? 

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Today -100: September 7, 1922: Imprescriptible rights are the imprescriptiblest rights

The Vatican is livid about the Earl of Balfour’s proposal for safeguarding the holy places in Palestine, because Catholics will only be a minority on the sub-commissions. It threatens that Catholic countries will “safeguard the ancient and imprescriptible rights of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land.”

As the final loss of Greece in its war with Turkey draws near, Britain, France, Italy, and the US are sending warships to Smyrna to protect their nationals. The NYT, in an editorial entitled “The White Man’s Burden,” says that Britain, France & Italy have “the responsibility of defending civilized European peoples against a hopelessly unprogressive Asiatic foe.” (To be fair, the hopelessly unprogressive Asiatics are celebrating their victory with a massacre of Armenians and various other Christians, including some American citizens.)

In another op-ed page appeal to civilization, the NYT accuses the railroad employees of “Uncivilized Strike Methods.” Which consist of, um, striking. Did you know that if RR workers don’t work, the RRs don’t run? Fact Check: True.

Rumors that Éamon de Valera and Erskine Childers have been captured. Fact Check: Not so True. Also, “two reliable men” tell the Chicago Tribune that Arthur Griffith’s body has been exhumed and... he was poisoned. Fact Check: Oh, what do you think?

Vice President Coolidge is booed at the Minnesota State Fair, loudly enough that he is forced to stop his speech. Nothing against the veep, I think, they just want the racing to start.

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Today -100: September 6, 1922: And in the box there was...

A. Philip Randolph, editor of the negro magazine The Messenger, receives a box containing a white human hand and a letter signed “K.K.K.” I think they’re annoyed that Randolph writes about lynchings.

The Texas Democratic State Convention rejects resolutions condemning the KKK.

Greece issues reports of victories in its war with Turkey, but actually its soldiers are running away just as fast as their little legs can carry them.

The Anti-Saloon League cheers the retirement of Supreme Court Justice John Hessin Clarke, who gave a speech in February saying prohibition hurt respect for the law.

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Today -100: September 5, 1922: Of justices, phosphates, and squaws

Supreme Court Justice John Hessin Clarke, a Wilson appointee, resigns, effective in a couple of weeks on his 65th birthday. He plans to campaign for the US to join the League of Nations and to enjoy not having to see Justice McReynolds every day.  Harding will nominate his friend and campaign adviser, former senator George Sutherland of Utah, to replace him. Sutherland is not a Mormon, by the way; all senators from Utah since him have been Mormons. He will move the Court to the right.

Greece, losing its war against Turkey, claims the Soviets are backing Turkey. The article says General Trikoupis, the commander-in-chief, has been “replaced.” It neglects to elucidate that he has been captured by the Turks.

The Third Assembly of the League of Nations opens, and will get stuck into the work of determining whether Britain, Australia and New Zealand are violating the terms of their joint L of N mandate over Nauru by establishing a monopoly of bird shit.

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Also 10 buckets of war paint and several bales of feathers.

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Today -100: September 4, 1922: Of derision while drunk, tanks, and restoring order

Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty’s injunction against railroad strikers is put to use to nab dangerous miscreants: one Hugh Noonan is arrested in Chicago, “alleged to have derided railroad employees bound for work”. He will be released because he was drunk.

The Turks are defeating the Greeks in, um, whatever their war is called. And they’re using tanks, which sounds like a first for Turkey. There’s a turducken joke in there somewhere, probably, and if you can come up with it, post it in comments.

Communists demonstrate on Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm and get into scuffles. Since the cops don’t carry night-sticks but only guns, rifles, and... hand grenades... hand grenades, really? they “could do nothing else to restore order but fire into the crowd.” 

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Today -100: September 3, 1922: Of public welfare, lynchings, and talk radio

The coal strike is settled, on the old pay scale for a year, without the wage cuts the owners wanted. This isn’t being presented as a win for the miners but as everyone complying with Harding’s letter calling for everyone to agree “in the name of the public welfare.”

A black man is lynched near Winder, Georgia.

William Jennings Bryan says radio will be a great boon to the Democrats, since it will give equal time to the parties, compared with newspapers, which are Republican. Also he wants to divide colleges into Christian, atheist, or agnostic, depending on whether they want to teach evolution, and students could choose a college which doesn’t threaten their existing beliefs. Win win.

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Today -100: September 2, 1922: There comes a time in the history of all nations when the people must be advised whether they have a government or not

Without any advanced warning or hint, Attorney General Harry Daugherty gets an injunction against railroad strikers, forbidding them interfering in any way with the operation of RR’s. Daugherty says “there comes a time in the history of all nations when the people must be advised whether they have a government or not.” He talks about the sacred Open Shop, a lot. He compares the “right to work” with the right not to be compelled to work. So unions are just as bad as slavery, or something. The American Federation of Labor will consider responding with a general strike.

The US refuses to adhere to a League of Nations plan to restrict private arms sales, effectively killing it.

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Today -100: September 1, 1922: Of bonuses, consulates, and ghosts

The Bonus Bill passes the Senate, with 27 R’s and 20 D’s voting in favor. Harding is expected to veto it.

The State Dept denies that Gen. Enoch Crowder was directed to issue that ultimatum to Cuba and he probably wouldn’t have done it all on his own, er, would he?

Britain orders the US consulate in Newcastle closed because its consul and vice consul were refusing visas to Brits traveling to the US unless they used American steamship lines. Which I assume means they were bribed to do so, but the officials are simply transferred to other countries.

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The alleged g&g supposedly being at 1587 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn, the site of a former roadhouse, in a building now being torn down, whose owner’s spirit appeared to a woman and mentioned having buried gold in it.

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Today -100: August 31, 1922: Of meat courses, popemobiles, lynchings, and suck it, PS 127!

Bad crops and the fall of the mark have Germany worried about its food supply. They may ban the manufacture of strong beer, and restaurants will be told to offer only one meat course. ONLY ONE MEAT COURSE! It’s like they don’t even know Germans. Cologne bans the sale of necessary daily goods to foreigners crossing the border to take advantage of the collapse of the mark; Czech traders are buying goods in Dresden and attempting to smuggle them over the border. Marks are in short supply since the government can’t print them fast enough.

The House of Representatives rejects proposals giving the president power to seize mines and railroads, after being told Harding doesn’t want it.

Pope Pius is now the first pope to have a car. Italy gives him a diplomatic plate, after some discussion, number CD 55-325.

A Shreveport, Louisiana mob lynches Thomas Rivers, a black man.

Gen. Enoch Crowder, Harding’s “special representative” in Cuba (in lieu of an ambassador), tells Cuba that if it doesn’t pass 5 reforms he laid out for them (judicial reform, something about the civil service, and floating a loan), and within 10 days, he will leave the country. He doesn’t threaten to send in the Marines, but I think they get the gist.

Supposedly all of Southern Russia, starting with Odessa, is in revolt against Bolshevik rule.

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Today -100: August 30, 1922: Of bluffs, gliders, hirams, and finks

Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover says Henry Ford’s announced plans to shut down all his plants over coal shortages/high costs are a bluff and that only $1.50 would be added to the cost of a car. There are also rumors that Ford’s plan is that his laid off workers would get jobs as scabs with the railroads to help break the strike.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Gliders! Giant gliders! They’re planning to map out wind currents so these giant motorless airships can just fly and fly for thousands of miles.

Contrary to the NYT’s predictions, Hiram Johnson is winning the Republican primary to keep his US Senate seat. Upton Sinclair is unopposed for the Socialist nomination for Senate. But more interestingly, in California, there are 927,000 registered Republicans, at least a plurality in every county, 305,000 Democrats, 22,511 Socialists, and 21,250 Prohibitionists (plus 173,000 decline to states).

Italy’s idea for an economic & customs union with Austria has crashed and burned.

Henry Fink, who wrote the songs “I’ve Wasted My Love on You” and “The Curse of an Aching Heart, or You Made Me What I Am Today,” is getting divorced.

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Today -100: August 29, 1922: An orgy of theology, morals and ancient history

It would have been nice if the NYT had offered better coverage of the Texas Democratic primary campaign. I mean, they sure make it sound entertaining in this op-ed piece: “The last weeks of the campaign provided an orgy of theology, morals and ancient history such as must have edified the whole voting population.” Former governor James Ferguson brandished affidavits of people who swore they’d seen prohibitionist Earle Mayfield having a drink. Ferguson, impeached as governor in 1917 in part for trying to blackmail the University of Texas, attacked higher ed as a scheme for making a living without having to work. Mayfield sent alleged moral leaders like the formidably named Rev. Hubert Knickerbocker around the state making speeches like “The Kaiser, the Devil and Jim Ferguson.”

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Today -100: August 28, 1922: Meeting good faith with good faith and good-will with good-will

Éamon de Valera has supposedly been injured.

British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill telegraphs William Cosgrave, the acting head of the Irish government, that the Anglo-Irish Treaty still stands, despite 2 of its 5 Irish signers having died this month, 1 having retired, and another having deserted to the nationalist side. He says Britain “will meet good faith with good faith and good-will with good-will,” which kinda sounds like a threat.

Copper mines in the West are complaining about a shortage of miners due to the new immigration laws. Also they pay less than the oil fields but sure, it’s probably the immigration thing.

All of the Klan-supported candidates in the Texas Democratic primary win except impeached former governor James Ferguson, who’s just as racist as anyone else, god knows, but also supports light wines and beer.

Radio station WEAF of NYC broadcasts the first radio commercial, a 15-minute infomercial for an apartment complex in Jackson Heights. “You owe it to yourself and you owe it to your family to leave the hemmed-in, sombre-hued, artificial apartment life of the congested city section and enjoy what nature intended you enjoy.”

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Today -100: August 27, 1922: Of banishments, shutdowns, klandidates, men of mystery, and states of incoherence

Russia orders the banishment of 1,500 intellectuals from Russia. This includes university professors, Kerensky’s minister of education, and the lawyers who withdrew from the show trial of Social Revolutionaries. 

Given the coal shortage caused by the strike (and speculators), Ford will shut all his plants on September 16th, putting over 100,000 employees out of work plus many more in Ford’s supply chain. Ford says he has “not the remotest idea” when he’ll reopen.

A bunch of Klan candidates win in the Texas Democratic primaries.

The NYT Sunday Magazine has an article about Sir Basil Zaharoff, “man of mystery” and possibly the richest man in the world. Look him up. This arms dealer and owner of the Monte Carlo Casino achieved this by sabotaging his competitors, starting arms races between opposing countries, such as Greece and Turkey, selling to both sides, and generally being evil and buying anything he wanted, including that “Sir,” which I assume Lloyd George sold him for a hefty sum. The article says he’s never made a public statement about anything. Ian Fleming supposedly based Blofeld on him. You wouldn’t get almost any of that from this article.

Russian Minister of War Trotsky, in a press conference, says Russia would be happy to demobilize completely if the rest of Europe did the same but, sadly, “Never has Europe been in such a state of incoherence.” He says that while people accuse Russia of paying its foreign collaborators, it’s actually French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré who is doing the most to bring about world revolution by his pressure on Germany, which might well force it into revolution. He says Russia’s new policy of banishment is more humane than “crushing” its opponents and that the freedom of party organization will be restored when capitalism is beaten.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: August 26, 1922: But how much does one of those wheelbarrows cost?

Okay, what sort of parents are taking their children to see Michael Collins’s body in Dublin City Hall?

The German mark is re-markably unstable (see what I did there?), its value ranging between 1700 to a US dollar to 2600 to a dollar on the Berlin Bourse yesterday. Communists call protest meetings as the price of bread and other staples doubles (bread went up 40% just today). There’s talk in the government about rationing, but Chancellor Joseph Wirth wonders whether the German people still have the moral strength to bear it.

Paterson, New Jersey schools have reintroduced the teaching of German, and the Klan is not best pleased.

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Today -100: August 25, 1922: Of coal and cyclops-reverend-doctors

Italy warns everyone that it opposes Austria either being absorbed by Germany or joining the Little Entente. Says doing either would be a casus belli. 

The Senate is debating having the president take over the coal mines if the strike isn’t ended in, say, 48 hours.

Michael Collins was killed on the very day he was due to get married. But there’s no truth to the rumor that he was 3 days from retirement and getting too old for this shit.

Former Pres. Woodrow Wilson denies the accusation of KKK Cyclops Rev. Dr. A.C. Parker of Dallas that 85% of his appointees were Catholics.

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Today -100: August 24, 1922: Of curses and medium ententes

The NYT thinks that the deaths this month of Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins have caused people to think that Ireland is under a curse and that its efforts to govern itself are doomed to failure and maybe they should just call the English back in. The editorial doesn’t quote any actual Irish people who think this. And it isn’t saying that itself, mind, it just wants the Free State to come down hard on de Valera (if he can ever be found) and the bands of anti-Treaty republicans.

France is trying to force Austria to join the Little Entente to serve as another buffer state between France and Germany. Italy sees this as a reestablishment of a weaker version of the Austro-Hungarian Empire containing its biggest rivals, Yugoslavia and Austria. So some in Italy are proposing an economic union with Austria, essentially making Austria a protectorate of Italy.

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Today -100: August 23, 1922: Of Collins, old-fashioned heavy beer, and klan fans

Michael Collins goes on an inspection tour of military posts in County Cork.. When his motorcade comes under attack by a large band of IRAers in a well-planned attack, he decides to stop and fight rather than, say, drive away in his nice safe armored car. So he’s dead now. The chief of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State and commander-in-chief of its army was 31.

Johnstown, Pennsylvania is still drinking beer. That “old-fashioned heavy beer” is being openly sold “is the experience of the New York Times correspondent.” I’ll bet. The federal prohibition director for Pennsylvania claims that what’s being sold is actually near-beer, and customers are just fooling themselves that they’re getting drunk, or something.

James Ferguson, the impeached former governor of Texas running for the US Senate, is jeered at a campaign speech in Houston when he starts attacking the KKK. The same occurs at a Sacramento speech by Los Angeles DA Thomas Woolwine, running for governor of California as a Democrat against possible Klan member Friend Richardson. Woolwine is Catholic.

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Today -100: August 22, 1922: Man, that would buy a lot of rifles

The Irish Free State gets a NY Supreme Court justice to stop Éamon de Valera withdrawing any of the $2.3m raised in the US. They don’t really intend to accomplish that – the Dáil might have legal standing to ask for the funds, the government does not. The move is more about dissuading Americans from contributing to the IRA.

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Today -100: August 21, 1922: I won’t tell you

As assassination attempt is made on Michael Collins, as was the custom. Or at least on his car, with rifles and a bomb, but he is not in the car at the time. The IRAers are fought off by the soldiers in the car, or the assassins just realized that Collins wasn’t there.

The Chicago Ku Klux Klan initiates 4,650 new idiots at night in a field outside the city, with a large cross illuminated by hundreds of automobile headlights (no mention of whether they set it on fire).

Henry Ford, asked by Collier’s whether he’d accept a presidential nomination: “I won’t tell you.”

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Today -100: August 20, 1922: Of beer & free food, tariffs!, women marshals, and banishments

Johnstown, Pennsylvania responds eagerly to Mayor Joseph Cauffiel’s permission for beer to be served. Saloons make a big deal of serving it alongside free food. Evidently the trick is to put out a ham, but no knife. It is assumed the feds will crack down heavily come Monday, which is evidently the point. Cauffiel is actually a long-time prohibitionist, who recently called for 100 volunteers to wipe out booze and got 2, and who complains that his crusade against alcohol has not been supported by the courts, the state or the feds. So this whole thing is a ruse to get the feds to crack down on his town, I guess. But what about the buggy, wormy water?

The Senate passes the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Bill on a mostly party-line vote. It will raise tariffs on a broad range of agricultural and industrial products, and give the president the power to raise tariffs on his own. Some of the senators who voted in favor say they will vote against the final bill if certain things aren’t fixed in conference; for example, Irvine Lenroot (R-Wisc.) says he’ll vote no if the cutlery tariff is not reduced.

Mrs Bertha Ward, the first (probably) woman marshal in the US, in Des Lacs, North Dakota, quits because men just laughed at her and she was never able to arrest anyone.

Russia resumes the Czarist practice of banishing its enemies.

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Today -100: August 19, 1922: The country is at the mercy of the United Mine Workers

Pres. Harding addresses Congress about the coal and railroad strikes. He doesn’t like them. “The country is at the mercy of the United Mine Workers,” he decries. “Wherefore I am resolved to use all the power of the government to maintain transportation and sustain the right of men to work.” He plans to introduce legislation to make decisions of the Railway Labor Board binding. He also wants a government body to buy, sell & distribute coal, which pretty much no one thinks is a good idea. And he has a bill allowing the federal government to move in to punish offenses against aliens protected by treaties with the US (such as the 2 Mexican strikebreaker-miners supposedly killed in Herrin, Illinois).

But here’s the big news out of Harding’s congressional address:

Federal Prohibition agents are going to go after hip flasks in New York restaurants, night clubs, etc, punishing the latter for customers bringing in their own alcohol, but only if they pour it into a glass, since the dry cops aren’t allowed to search people. They do plan to peek under tables.

Johnstown, Pennsylvania Mayor Joseph Cauffiel says that the water in his town is so terrible (worms, bugs coming out of the faucets, etc) that saloons will be permitted to sell beer and drug stores can sell ale, as long as it’s cold.

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Today -100: August 18, 1922: Of cheap professors and pashas

Northwestern University will no longer hire unmarried professors because it pays so little – $35-40 a week, which is the equivalent of some (but not a lot) money – that they can’t afford to maintain a family in expensive Evanston.

Enver Pasha, one of Turkey’s leaders during the Great War and one of the architects of the Armenian Genocide, is killed by the Red Army in Tajikistan.

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Today -100: August 17, 1922: Of hearsts and bullets

Al Smith’s announcement that he’s running for NY governor does not immediately result in William Randolph Hearst pulling out of the race. Some Hearst backers want him to switch to the US Senate race instead.

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A month later! The three other bullets he shot into his skull were removed then! This story is not remotely plausible, but what could it be covering for?

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Today -100: August 16, 1922: Of candidates, red-baiting, and tickling

Al Smith will run for governor of New York after all. He announces this in a reply to FDR’s letter. He’d still prefer to stay in trucking, for his family, but when his party calls...

Attorney General Harry Daugherty blames the railroad strikes on the IWW – remember them?

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: August 15, 1922: Of religion in schools, newspaper magnates, Zaghlulists, and smiths

Allegedly, there is a new provision of the Russian legal code punishing the teaching of religion to children in educational institutions with one year hard labor.

British newspaper magnate Lord Northcliffe (The Times, Daily Mail, etc) dies. Lloyd George must be happy today -100. In a rather lovely typo, the NYT says he died of “an affection of the throat.”

Poet-Aviator Gabriele d’Annunzio falls out a window at his villa. Falling off a balcony would have been more appropriate, but we take what we can get.

In supposedly independent Egypt, a British court-martial sentences seven “Zaghlulists” (supporters of Saad Zaghloul, who the Brits exiled to the Seychelles, to death for expressing, you know, opinions [in 1919, I think?]), then commute the sentence to 7 years plus a fine. The Egyptian government is currently at odds with King Fuad over a new constitution. Faud wants more power, naturally.

FDR writes to Alfred E. Smith asking him to shit or get off the pot about accepting the Democratic nomination for governor of NY.

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Today -100: August 14, 1922: Of red clergy

The Soviets are trying to put reformists, aka Red clergy or Living Church, in place of the Orthodox Church (the “dead church”). Clergy and monks can marry now.

Slow news day -100.

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Today -100: August 13, 1922: Of dead griffiths and national anthems

Arthur Griffith, president of the Dáil Éireann and Irish foreign minister, dies suddenly from... a heart attack following a tonsillectomy? 

For the celebration of the 3rd anniversary of the Weimar Republic’s Constitution, “Deutschland Über Alles” is played. Pres. Ebert has decided it’s not an imperial song after all and names it the German national anthem (Weimar hasn’t had one), citing the alleged republicanism of the poet August Hoffmann, who wrote the words in the 1840s and attached them to a Haydn tune which was definitely an imperial song, written in 1797 for Holy Roman Emperor Franz II’s birthday.

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Today -100: August 12, 1922: Of dry jokes, expulsions, and presidential chewing baccy

The Keith chain of vaudeville theatres bans jokes about Prohibition. They claim they’re not taking sides, just that there have been sooooo many of the jokes that they’ve become boring and annoying.

France responds to Germany’s refusal to compensate French holders of German securities by ordering the expulsion of 500 German citizens from Alsace-Lorraine. The amount of baggage and cash they’re allowed is limited.

Headline of the Day -100:  

God only knows what Edison gave him in return.

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Today -100: August 11, 1922: Of fokkers, pistols, burnt cork, and stunts

Headline of the Day -100:  

An average speed of 160 kph. That’s one fast Fokker.

Italian Fascist leaders deny rumors that they’re planning to seize Rome. So that’s okay then.

The American Bar Association’s Committee on Law Enforcement recommends banning the manufacture and sale of pistols, which “serve no useful purpose in the community today.”

Britain executes the two IRA men who assassinated Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson.

Irish Free State forces capture Cork. Rebels blow up a few buildings, set more on fire, and retreat.

Actor/stuntman John Stevenson dies leaping from a bus to an elevated train girder and hitting his head on the latter. In a stunt; he wasn’t doing it for fun. He was standing in for Pearl (Perils of Pauline) White for the serial Plunder, wearing a white dress, white stockings, and a blonde wig. Pathé claims that Pearl White always does her own stunts, despite the rather obvious evidence to the contrary.

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Today -100: August 10, 1922: You would not want to be crushed by armed force

Henry Ford says the rail and coal strikes could be solved if the financial kings of Wall Street were muzzled. Jews, he means Jews. He doesn’t say Jews, but we all know what he means. Evidently, and see if you can follow Ford’s logic, unions are also all created by the capitalists, the better to control workers.

The War Dept is getting its khaki knickers in a twist over Communist circulars “undermining the morale” of soldiers. They do this by requesting that they “Do not shoot your brothers, the railway and mine strikers.” You know, morale. “Remember this, the workers are never your enemies. Soon you may be in their ranks, and you would not want to be crushed by armed force. ... It is not treason to refuse to become an assassin of the workers.” I suspect the Army would differ on that.

The Moscow show trial of the Social Revolutionaries ends after two months with 14 SRs sentenced to death, 3 acquitted and the rest sentenced to prison for up to 10 years. Some of the condemned had turned informer, so they’re pardoned. But no one will be executed immediately. Rather, they’ll be held hostage to SR good behaviour, that is ceasing “all underground and conspirative acts of terrorism, espionage and insurrection.” (The SR prisoners will be killed by Stalin in the ’30s, I believe, but who wasn’t?).

Huh, “conspirative” is a real word. Who knew?

The Texas Republican Party convention’s platform accuses the Democrat Party of being dominated by the Ku Klux Klan. Which is an exaggeration but holy shit have you seen what’s in the 2022 Texas Republican platform?

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Today -100: August 9, 1922: Of black Republicans, greater battles, and eclipses

Black Republicans elect a black chairman of the Montgomery County, Alabama Republican Party convention, so the whites walk out and hold their own separate-but-no-doubt-equal convention. Both groups elect delegates to next month’s state convention, which will have to decide who to seat.

Mussolini will order Fascists to stand down so he can declare victory over the general strike. His manifesto calls on Fascists to prepare “for the greater battle which will crown our work.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

Well that’s very ambitious.

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Today -100: August 8, 1922: Of life expectancy, extraordinary measures, tongs, and haircuts

Life expectancy in the US is highest in Kansas, at 60. Well, white Kansans. Most of the Commerce Dept statistics reported here, based on the 1920 census, are just for white folks (New York City residents’ life expectancy, for example, is reported as 51.5 years for white males & 52.7 years for white females). Well down in the article we see that the life expectancy of black males in big cities is 37.9 years, compared to 51.55 for white males. Which is actually an improvement over past years.

Italy’s Interior Ministry orders the army to put down the civil war and prevent all demonstrations. The movement of trucks has been prohibited, since Fascists have been using them to move squadristi around the country. In Genoa, 200 Fascists evade the authorities’ “extraordinary measures” to prevent them attacking the offices of the Socialist periodical Lavoro by the clever ruse of going in through the back door, and then burn the building. Pope Pius thinks everyone just needs to pray more. Mussolini’s Popolo D’Italia says those monks the Fascists killed in Ancona were really Communists in disguise as monks.

Chinese tongs in San Francisco sign a peace treaty. The police immediately raid the conference hall and seize the document, saying they won’t open it unless the violence resumes, at which point every signer will be arrested.

William Jennings Bryan gets a haircut.

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Today -100: August 7, 1922: Beavers against the Klan!

Every publisher and author unsuccessfully prosecuted by the NY Society for the Suppression of Vice (the late Anthony Comstock’s baby) will file suit for false arrest, hoping to smother the Society in litigation. Since a recent appeal court ruling laid it open to such lawsuits, the Society has been pushing a plan for a “jury” of prudes, or whatever, to pre-censor all books, like exists for plays and, after a fashion, movies.

5 Italian provinces, including Milan and Genoa, are put under martial law. Troops with machine guns are guarding the Chamber of Deputies in Rome from possible Fascist attack. Fascists force the dissolution of Milan’s Socialist-run Municipal Council.

Atlanta Police Chief James Beavers, running for mayor, demands the other candidates, especially Councilman Walter Sims, declare their opinions on the Ku Klux Klan. Beavers doesn’t like ‘em. Sims will win the election.

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Today -100: August 6, 1922: Of hibernians, Fascists, einsteins, and crittendens

The Ancient Order of Hibernians declares war on the Ku Klux Klan. 

Violence has slowed down in some parts of Italy, but the Fascists order a general mobilization of their forces. The Facta Cabinet meets this threat by deciding to issue a politely worded appeal to the country. Facta, giving off a strong Biden-talking-about-Republicans vibe, says he trusts the sense of responsibility of the leaders (!), the sense of fraternity among the masses (!) and the goodness of the Italian people (!) to prevent a recurrence.  An anonymous Socialist deputy tells a newspaper that the Fascists are planning to march on Rome. No spoilers, anonymous Socialist deputy!

Death threats drive Albert Einstein out of Germany. Since they come from Organization C, the group that assassinated German Foreign Minister Rathenau, he’s right to take them seriously. One assumes their problem with Dr. Einstein is that he’s Jewish.

Crittenden Clark is nominated by the Missouri Republican Party to be a Justice of the Peace. He would be (and indeed will be) the first elected black judge in Missouri.

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Today -100: August 5, 1922: Evil shepherds are the worst kind

Fascists seize Milan’s Municipal Building. Gabriele d’Annunzio addresses the crowd from its balcony, because the dude loves him a balcony. He calls for unity and brotherhood: “Every workman, every peasant and every sailor led astray by evil shepherds must be convinced of this.” Because nothing says unity and brotherhood like accusing everyone who thinks differently from you of being led astray by evil shepherds.

Lots of street fighting and other violence in Genoa, Milan, and all over Italy really. Can’t tell how many dead - a few dozen? This isn’t a Fascist uprising or anything, it’s just everyday life in Italy now. The NYT’s coverage of Italy is at best beset by both-sidesism, at worst outright pro-Fascist: “Police and Fascisti are keeping the disorderly elements well in hand.” Beating up parliamentary deputies, burning anarchist clubs and chambers of labor, you know, keeping the disorderly elements well in hand.

In Texas, the Anti-Saloon League and the KKK join together to support US senatorial candidate Earle Mayfield against impeached former governor James Ferguson in the second Democratic primaries (although the Drys don’t all seem entirely happy about who they’re in bed with). Mayfield refuses to say answer questions about whether he’s a Klan member and will continue to refuse.

US Marines are sent into Teapot Dome naval oil reserve to oust a Mutual Oil Company drilling crew. The White House says the operation was done “sweetly and without conflict.”

Blood and Sand, the bullfight movie starring Rudolph Valentino and Lila Lee, premieres.

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Today -100: August 4, 1922: Ask not for whom the Bell doesn’t toll

Germany, whose currency is still in free fall, has been resisting French demands for repayment of old debts to French citizens, so France, as was the custom, is threatening not only to occupy the Rhineland, but to remove it from Germany altogether and set up a separate country, under Allied financial control. 

Alexander Graham Bell’s funeral will be marked by a one-minute silence. That is, all telephone service in the US and Canada will be suspended.

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The Irish Civil War reaches the inevitable kinky phase.

Oh dear, I wrote that before seeing the sub-hed:

Evidently, “landing forces in Dingle Bay” is the Irish euphemism for, um, striking irregulars in the rear.

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Today -100: August 3, 1922: Ask not for whom the Bell tolls

Indiana Gov. Warren McCray declares martial law over the coal miners’ strike and calls for “volunteer miners.” Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover approves plans for the federal government to take over the distribution of coal.

Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell, 75, dies. Among other things, he played with big box-kites, taught Helen Keller, and was prevented by Pres. Garfield’s idiot doctors from possibly saving his life.

And the phone thing.

Rep. Lemuel Padgett of Tennessee dies, which I only mention to point out that you don’t see the name Lemuel nearly as often these days.

The Italian Fascists are threatening to move 14,000 squadristi into Rome with “solid arguments” against the general strike which the Communists called in protest of previous Fascist violence. Someone shoots at the mayor’s car. Companies whose workers are among the strikers are politely requested by the Fascists to fire them and replace them with... Fascists. 

Mayor Jack Walton of Oklahoma City takes the Democratic nomination for governor on an anti-KKK platform.

Since the start of Prohibition, 22 federal dry agents have been killed.

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Today -100: August 2, 1922: Just the factas

Harding offered a plan to solve the railroad strike, but the railway execs reject it out of hand. They’ve been especially interested in using the strike to take away seniority from strikers. They’re also not thrilled by Harding’s demand that they follow any and all decisions of the Railroad Labor Board without question (or lawsuit).

Britain sends a note to Yugoslavia, France, Italy, Romania, Portugal, and Greece saying that Britain would like to cancel Allied countries’ debts to Britain but can’t because the US is demanding payment of British debts to it, but Britain will reduce the amount it’s demanding in proportion to US debt forgiveness. The Balfour Note says it would prefer a general cancellation of debts, including German reparations.

Luigi Facta does the impossible and forms another Italian government. It’s a mix of the same centrist parties as the last Cabinet. No Socialists or Fascists.

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Today -100: August 1, 1922: Or our revolvers will proclaim their doom

In the prosecution of publisher Thomas Seltzer by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice for publishing D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love and two other books, the defense calls Carl Van Doren, Columbia U professor and literary editor of The Nation (and uncle of the Quiz Show guy); Gilbert Seldes, editor of The Dial; the editor of the New York Medical Journal, and others to testify to the non-obscene nature of the books. Prosecutor James Wilson complains that these witnesses are “no authorities on morality or immorality” and says obscenity can only be determined by a cross-section of people unable to weasel out of jury duty.

Recently deposed Italian PM Luigi Facta is now trying to form a new government after everyone else has had a go. The Socialists have called off their threatened general strike because they are afraid of Fascist violence, with good fucking reason. Mussolini says: “Either the Socialists must cease attempting to break the peace of Italy” – the WHAT now? – “or our revolvers will proclaim their doom.” Il Popolo d’Italia, the Fascist newspapers, issues an ultimatum to both the strikers and the state itself, the Fascists threatening to stop the strike itself if it doesn’t stop, or the state stop it, within 48 hours. After that, “Fascism will claim full freedom of action and will replace the State, which will once again have shown its powerlessness.”

Greece does indeed proclaim a protectorate in Smyrna. It will be called Occidental Asia Minor. Greece claims the announcement was received with much enthusiasm by everyone in the region, regardless of race or religion, but especially Muslims. Greece actually thinks everything’s going swimmingly, and is lobbying the Allies to be allowed to occupy Constantinople. But if you’re looking for a map showing “Occidental Asia Minor,” it’s going to have to be printed before the end of the month.

The Irish Free State captures Tipperary.

Connecticut Gov. Everett Lake says there is no “serious or semi-serious” evidence of KKK activity in his state, beyond “a comic opera midnight initiation”.

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Ouch.

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Today -100: July 31, 1922: Of excommunications, Asia minors, and klandidates

Cardinal Michael Logue, the octogenarian primate of Ireland, threatens to put the town of Dundalk under excommunication for being all violent and shit.

Trotsky says Lenin’s health has improved and he’s at work again.

Vittorio Orlando gives up trying to form a government for Italy after the Socialists threaten a general strike if he includes the Nationalists, Conservatives or Fascists. Mussolini says a center-left government wouldn’t represent the will of the majority of Italians; he wants a new election.

Greece, having been told by the Allies that it won’t be allowed to occupy Constantinople, now says that areas it occupies in Asia Minor, Smyrna and environs won’t be given back to Turkey but will be turned into an autonomous state, or protectorate or something. Which is very much against the Allies’ idea of what peace should look like.

With the Oklahoma primaries coming soon, the Klan distributes model Democratic tickets to every Protestant church in Oklahoma City. The NYT only tells us their candidate for governor, but he will lose lose lose.

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Today -100: July 30, 1922: Of cockeys, unconvincing parades, and women candidates

The Italian Socialists may form the next Cabinet, everyone else having failed.

In Macon, Georgia, Deputy Sheriff Walter Byrd is shot by a black man named “Cockey” Glover, and all hell breaks loose, with lots of black people being shot at. Glover is still at large (but will be lynched).

Sarcastic Headline of the Day -100:  

Izetta Brown, former actress and widow of Democratic congresscritter William Gray Brown Jr, is running for the US Senate in West Virginia, the first such woman candidate in the South.

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Today -100: July 29, 1922: Of betrayed war ministers, hungry hungry intellectuals, lynchings in hope, assassination plans, and helicoplanes

The movie “How Kitchener Was Betrayed,” which portrays the sinking of War Secretary Earl Kitchener in 1916 as being the result of the nefarious actions of a German spy, female of course, rather than by his ship simply hitting a mine, is held up by US customs officials and will ultimately be banned at Britain’s request.

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The Fascists occupying Ravenna have taken over the federated labor unions’ building, burned a co-op and several Socialist and Republican clubs. But one Fascist gets shot in his car, and suddenly the Fasc are claiming to be the victims.

A quarrel between a black street-paver and his white boss in Hope, Arkansas, birthplace of Bill Clinton, leads to the former being lynched. The fight was over a drinking cup – possibly a whites-only drinking cup? unclear.

The French government claims that German monarchists (“Organization C,” presumably) are planning an assassination attempt on French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré. Unclear if this is based on information passed to them by the German government. 

Anna Tynan’s claim for compensation for blood poisoning in her Brooklyn job as a hat-maker is rejected because her employer refuses to tell the Workmen’s Compensation Commission what chemicals it uses. Hat-making is notoriously dangerous.

A “helicoplane” which can supposedly rise vertically and hover is tested in Britain. It travels 5 yards and rises one (1) foot into the air (which is as high as its controls can be operated from the outside, because who would dare ride inside the thing).

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Today -100: July 28, 1922: Of crashes, jazz, pleasing and serving white people, and prison escapes

Two US army reserve aviators are arraigned for violating NYC’s minimum 2,000-feet limit for flying machines. They were actually flying their military plane at 0 feet at the time they crashed in Far Rockaway, but they were pretty low even before that. If they question the ability of cops to determine if they were flying at 2,000 feet, evidence will be introduced that people could see their faces.

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James Vardaman, the former governor and US senator from Mississippi, says Woodrow Wilson only opposes his run for senator because the last time he was senator, “I performed my duties... with the intention of pleasing and serving the white people of Mississippi and not to please or flatter the occupants of the White House.”

The IRA blow a hole in the wall of Dundalk Gaol in County Louth, and 105 prisoners, I think just IRAers, escape. Half are recaptured by evening.

Italian Fascists are pouring into Ravenna to fight Socialists & Communists. Several dead. The Fascists give Socialist, Communist & Republican leaders (all of them, or just in Ravenna?) 24 hours to leave the country.

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Today -100: July 27, 1922: Of shipwrecks and Italian governments (but I repeat myself)

A British company will try to salvage gold from the wreck of the Lusitania. An American company that wanted to do the same asked the US government to protect its plans, since the ship was sunk in international waters, but the government says no.

While the German federal government has yet to use its brand new Republic Defense Act, Bavaria has used its version (which the German Cabinet calls “illegal and unconstitutional”) to ban two anti-Semitic newspapers. I guess this is in aid of the claim that Bavaria’s rejection of the federal act is about some sort of state’s rights principle rather than an attempt to protect monarchists and far-right terrorists.

In Italy, political leaders (Vittorio Orlando, Ivanoe Bonomi) are either refusing or failing to form a government. Outgoing premier Luigi Facta suggests the king get Catholic Party leader Filippo Meda, who brought down Facta’s coalition, to do it.

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Today -100: July 26, 1922: Of putting the people to work, defying Berlin, and fish civil wars

Henry Ford has a cunning plan to end civil strife in Mexico by opening motor assembly factories and “putting the people to work.”

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Bavaria has passed its own version of the central government’s Republic Defense Act and will reject any enforcement inside Bavaria of the federal law by the courts and police set up by that law. But it’s their justification that’s most startling: the Weimar constitution allows states to promulgate extraordinary measures if there’s danger coming. In this case, Bavaria is saying that that danger would be the furious reaction of Bavarians to implementation of a federal law to protect the republic from terrorists.

Former kaiser Wilhelm is suing the author Emil Ludwig in a Berlin court to prevent the publication or performance of his play Bismarck’s Dismissal, not because it’s libelous, but on the principle that there should be no portrayal of his ex-highness during his lifetime. Willy’s real complaint is that Ludwig makes Bismarck look better than him (his lawyer is named Dr. Frankfurter, by the way).  (Willy will win the case).

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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.

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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.

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