Today -100: October 17, 1922: Of liberty, chicken oaths, and limits

Theodore Schierlman, mayor of Liberty, Kansas, is kidnapped by 15 Klansmen, taken out of town and whipped for having spoken against the Klan. His lawyer says he will sue the town for $100,000 under the Kansas mob law.

Judge Talley of General Sessions (NYC), after a Chinese witness is sworn in, asks the interpreter how much the oath “really means to a Chinese.” The interpreter explains that it would only count if the witness placed their hand on a dying sacrificed chicken. The judge doesn’t go along with it.

Britain rejects a proposal from the US to extend the 3-mile territorial limit to 12 miles, within which the US could search ships for booze. This is aimed at the Bahamas and other British colonies.

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Today -100: October 16, 1922: Of Fascists and geishas

Some members of the Italian cabinet think they should give in to the Fascists’ demand for a new election on new rules, but the majority of ministers don’t want to do that, so the cabinet will just resign and let the king decide who the next prime minister should be. Possibly frequent prime minister Giovanni Giolitti, who is already sounding out people for cabinet positions, including, possibly, some Fascists. An AP story says the government realizes it lacks sufficient authority and prestige to re-establish respect for the law, and the Fascists are “the real rulers of the country,” who, despite their “excesses,” are credited with preventing the Communists taking over.

The appellate court of Osaka, Japan rules that girls are not bound by contracts made by their parents or guardians without their consent. Geishas, we’re talking about geishas.

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Today -100: October 15, 1922: Of phones, drummers, new cities, and criteria

Automatic phones are inaugurated in NYC, so one can now dial, say, Pennsylvania 6-5000 without going through the operator, if one has a dial phone and lives in the Pennsylvania exchange, which is so far the only one with this service.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Sounds like an ill-conceived children’s book. The drummer goes by “Sambo.”

The president of Brazil is authorized to begin construction of a city in the center of the country to serve as the new capital. They’ve been talking about this for decades, and it will actually take a few more decades for work to begin on Brasilia.

T.S. Eliot founds The Criterion, a literary magazine, which he will edit. The first issue includes his poem The Waste Land.

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Today -100: October 14, 1922: Of coalitions

Tory Party leader Austen Chamberlain opposes breaking up the Coalition government, saying the only choice is coalition or (gasp, horror) a Labour government. So he is happy keeping Lloyd George (Lib) in office as prime minister, but are the Tory MPs?

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Today -100: October 13, 1922: Every time I see the name Learned Hand it’s always startling

US District Judge Learned Hand issues a temporary injunction against the feds enforcing their rule against liquor on ships. The shipping companies complained, among other things, that Italian passengers and crew have to have wine. I mean, they just have to. (Update: I think it’s literally a requirement that crew on French and Italian ships are provided with wine).

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Today -100: October 12, 1922: Of sleeping firemen, immigration, and drug dealers

Headline of the Day -100:  

Which is NYC Mayor John Hylan’s excuse for denying them a pay raise. And he’ll remove the beds from fire stations. Also night school teachers pad their rolls, so no pay raise for them either. Or for cops.

Immigration officials like to “inspect” disabled foreigners before allowing them into the country, even for short visits, to ensure they don’t become a public charge. So they hold up Brunel Cohen, a former major and current Member of Parliament whose legs were shot off at Ypres, on his way to an American Legion convention. Other passengers of the Cunarder liner Berengaria who are inspected include actor Frederick Worlock, coming to act in a play, who lost a hand in Flanders, and Henry Biggs, a University College, London professor coming to give lectures, who has bad hearing.

Startling Ad of the Day -100:

You can get a tube of Listerine tooth paste at certain drug stores. The first one is free; after that it’ll cost ya 10¢, cause that’s how drug dealers roll.

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Today -100: October 11, 1922: Whither shall I lead 400,000 exiles?

The (Greek) governor of Eastern Thrace, Xenophon Decasos, asks “Whither shall I lead 400,000 exiles?”, now that Greece has agreed to give up the province. He figures Christians “will find life intolerable under this new and more terrible Turk”.

The Fat People’s League for Copeland is launched to support the Senate run of NYC Health Commissioner Royal Copeland. “Recruits are coming in by the ton”. Har fucking har.

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Today -100: October 10, 1922: Of queens and smooty prayers

The British Labour Party demands new elections, responding to the possibility that Lloyd George’s Near East policies will lead Britain into war with Turkey. 

When Princess Hermin of Reuss-Greiz marries former kaiser Wilhelm, they’re planning to call her Queen Wilhelmina of Prussia. Wilhelm and Wilhelmina, like Pinky and Pinkie in Adam’s Rib, isn’t that cute? No word yet on whether Germany will be banning the “queen” from entering Prussia like Wilhelm is.

Sen. Reed Smoot says First Lady Florence Harding recovered from her illness because of Mormon prayers.

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Today -100: October 9, 1922: I’ve had enough

Uncle Joe Cannon, former speaker of the House, is retiring after spending 46 of the last 50 years in Congress (a record). “I’ve had enough,” says the 86-year-old, who attended the first Lincoln-Douglas debate.

Greece says it will accept the decisions of the Allies at the Mudania conference – provided they’re unanimous. Which is kind of a big condition, but Greece does seem to have accepted, maybe, that it’s lost Thrace. Eastern Thrace, anyway.

The World Series is won by the New York team.

WJZ, Newark’s news leader, invites the NY Republican and Democratic candidates for governor and US senator to speak on the talking-type wireless.

Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) premieres in NY, with Spencer Tracy as a robot. The word robot now enters the English language.

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Today -100: October 8, 1922: A little of what you fancy

Although the assassins of Germany Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau killed themselves rather than be captured, 15 of their alleged conspirators are on trial, and some of them got sick. Naturally, rumors are spreading that they were given poisoned chocolates to stop them implicating high-up reactionaries. (Update: actually this is true).

It is discovered that insulin might help fight diabetes, but it is very expensive.

British music hall singer Marie Lloyd dies at 52. She was known for such songs as “The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery,” “When you Wink the Other Eye,” “Twiggy Vous,” “A Little of What You Fancy” (below), “My Old Man Said Follow the Van” and other slightly naughty songs. She was almost refused entry into the US in 1913 because she was traveling with her the man who was not yet her 3rd husband; the labor secretary intervened to let her in.

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Today -100: October 7, 1922: Of booze cruises, and fictitious governments

Harding and Attorney General Daugherty ban the sale of alcohol on American ships even outside US territorial waters. The order also bans foreign ships entering US ports with alcohol even as cargo not destined for the US.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Mussolini says “In Italy there exists two governments – a fictitious one, run by [Prime Minister] Facta, and a real one, run by the Fascisti. The first of these must give way to the second.” There has been “much talk” of the Fascists occupying Rome.

Mayors of a bunch of towns near Boston say they won’t allow the KKK to operate or hold meetings in their towns.

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Today -100: October 6, 1922: Winner takes 3/5

Mussolini and the Fascists demand general elections before the end of the year, and that any party receiving a majority of votes, like they think they would, get 3/5ths of the parliamentary seats. The Fascists got 35 of the 535 seats in the May 1921 elections, which was fought on proportional representation.

The second game of the World Series (my money’s on the New York team) is called on account of darkness, thus ending in a tie, infuriating the fans, who accuse the owners of a scheme to wring more money from the series. So the teams hastily agree to turn over the game’s takings to New York charities, disabled soldiers and the like.

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Today -100: October 5, 1922: We are still the biggest lot of talkers that ever lived

Talks are beginning over the Near East. Both sides want the Allies to send troops to Thrace to keep the other side out until it is turned over to Turkey.

The Italian Socialist Party convention votes to purge moderates willing to work within the system as opposed to working to overthrow it. Can’t wait to see which method establishes the Socialist utopia in Italy.

The Italian Fascists occupy Trent and Bolzano, both new additions to Italy taken from Austria. They oust Julius Perathoner, who has been Bolzano’s mayor since 1895.

Kansas Gov. Henry Allen insists his Industrial Court doesn’t infringe on free speech. “We are still the biggest lot of talkers that ever lived,” he says. He says he told shopkeepers that putting placards in their windows in support of the rail strike was illegal under the anti-picket law, and then had the editor of the Emporia Gazette arrested for saying that that was a violation of free speech.

Swedish voters reject prohibition 924,874 to 889,078.

Rebecca Latimer Felton says “I shall not strive to win glory in statesmanship” in, um, the one day she will spend as senator when the Senate is not in session. She also talks some shit about flappers.

The NYT praises the appointment of Felton, saying that Georgia “speaks with no jarring note of sex antagonism,” compared to the condition Alva Belmont attached to her gift of a headquarters building to the National Woman’s Party barring men from holding office or receiving a salary from the NWP. The NYT considers that “arbitrary discrimination against one-half the sum total of the Creator’s handiwork.” When will men catch a break? The NYT invokes “Southern chivalry” because of course it does.

A couple of days ago furrier Abraham Seligman was hit by an arrow through the window of his 3rd-floor 5th-Avenue shop. Turns out Douglas Fairbanks, in town to promote Robin Hood, was playing with bows and arrows with his entourage on the roof of the Ritz-Carlton and... something something. The next day Fairbanks read about Seligman in the newspaper and visited him, after which Seligman mysteriously was no longer interested in pressing charges.

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Today -100: October 4, 1922: It’s going to thrill the nation

Rebecca Latimer Felton accepts the appointment to fill Georgia’s US Senate for a day. “It’s going to thrill the nation,” she predicts. Alice Paul of the National Woman’s Party says women throughout the world will be pleased by this recognition of the new position of women. Paul mentions Felton’s work for women but not that it included repeatedly advocating protecting white women by lynching as many “ravening human beasts” as necessary.

The Irish Free State offers an amnesty to rebels who turn in their arms and stand down by October 15th. Until October 15th: party!

The Italian Socialist Party convention, which has been bitterly divided on whether to 1) join the government or 2) have a revolution, devolves into fisticuffs.

The NYT notes Pres. Harding & SecState Charles Evans Hughes are reportedly “dumfounded” by the expectation of many people, especially churchfolk, that the US should intervene in Near Eastern affairs, to protect Christians if nothing else. I mean, don’t they realize that Harding was elected on a platform of isolation?

Henry Ford plans to start making cars in China.

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Today -100: October 3, 1922: Of empty honors, dead Alexes, modest villas, Borgia rings, and lynchings

In what the NYT calls an “empty honor,” Georgia Gov. Thomas Hardwick will appoint Rebecca Latimer Felton to the US Senate to fill the seat vacated by Thomas Watson’s death. He’s already offered it to Watson’s widow, but she is expected to (and will) decline. Hardwick is running for the seat, so this is mostly a bid for the female vote. Felton would be senator for one (1) day, when the Senate isn’t supposed to be in session, thus the emptiness of the honor. Felton, who is 87, is the widow of a congresscritter whose campaigns she managed. She  be the first woman senator and the last senator who had owned slaves. She’s a loud proponent of lynching. It will be nearly a decade before there is another woman senator.

Disappointing Headline of the Day -100:  

Disappointing because at first I thought it must be about that monkey whose bite took the life of Greece’s King Alexander a couple of years ago denying the whole thing. Turns out the story is actually that the Hungarian News Agency has retracted its report that there was a revolution in Yugoslavia and Yug. King Alexander had been assassinated.

Ex-king Constantine of Greece has decided to live in Sicily in a “modest” rented villa, because it’s cheap and he’s claiming poverty, as was the custom with deposed kings, although we know he moved his investments and the queen’s jewels out of the country in preparation for just such an event.

Isadora Duncan and her entourage are let into the US after a couple hours’ interrogation by immigration officials. “[T]hey wanted to know what I looked like when I danced. I said I could not tell because I have never seen myself dance.”

A curio collector who bought a 15th-century ring in the shape of a snake from the Borgia period is poisoned by it but not killed, yet anyway, presumably because the poison weakened over time. The ghosts of the Borgias are disappointed.

After a mob in Montgomery, Alabama are told that the guy they’re looking for was sent to another jail, they grab a black fireman (presumably any black guy will do) from his home and lynch him instead.

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Today -100: October 2, 1922: The soul of Russia and the soul of America are about to understand each other

The Prohibition Party asks New York Gov. Nathan Miller (R) if he would accept the Prohibition Party nomination for re-election. He’s not a prohibitionist, but he does stand for enforcing all laws, which is good enough for them. Miller says no, he’s not a prohibitionist and doesn’t want to be mistaken for one. They’ll wind up endorsing him anyway.

The Anti-Saloon League tells its Illinois members to just ignore next month’s referendum on beer and light wines, which the head of its Ill. branch says is just a referendum on obedience of the law.

The NY Republican state convention adopts a plank for equal rights for women.

Dancer Isadora Duncan and her husband, Russian poet Sergei Yesenin, plus a secretary and her children, arrive in the US, but immigration officers order them kept on the ship until a board of inquiry decides whether to allow them into the country. She denies coming to disseminate communist propaganda, she’s all about the art: “We believe the soul of Russia and the soul of America are about to understand each other.”

While sticking up a Dublin pub, robbers shoot Pres. Cosgrave’s father dead when he grabs one of their guns. This isn’t the pub owned by Pres. Cosgrave himself that was robbed last week, but another pub owned by some relative.

The NYC Post Office is reopening the old pneumatic mail tube system shut down by Woodrow Wilson in 1918. Cool.

The medical commissioner for insanity in Cook County, Dr. James Hall, says the number of people going crazy in Chicago has doubled since prohibition.

Headline of the Day -100:  

“Skillfully severed”.

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Today -100: October 1, 1922: Being a king is no fun these days

Ex-king Constantine (or Prince Flukesbouren, as he now styles himself), ex-queen Sophie, and still-prince Nicholas leave Greece on a steamer for Sicily. Conny plans to live in Italy, as Switzerland and (allegedly) Britain have told him no. He says “being a king is no fun these days.”

Russia introduces conscription for all men aged 20 to 40 for terms between 1½ and 4½ years, depending on the military branch.

Speaking of former emperors, the NYT relays the hot goss about the minor royal family that Wilhelm will be marrying into. It seems Princess Hermin’s father Heinrich XXII insisted on personally administering corporal punishment to public school children of both sexes at the palace, and that her brother Heinrich XXIV is deaf, blind and “imbecilic,” the latter possibly because of the eye operation that also rendered him blind because his mother insisted it be done while she held him on her lap and she... flinched.

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Today -100: September 30, 1922: Perfect freedom of the limbs

The military government in Greece arrests several members of the ousted government and will put them on trial for treason for the crappy job they did in the Asia Minor military campaign.

Britain and Turkey are exchanging ultimatums & offers to meet, as was the custom.

The New York Democratic Party state convention names Al Smith as candidate for governor, William Randolph Hearst as candidate for nothing, and president of the NYC Board of Health Royal Copeland, who did such a bad job during the Spanish Flu, for US Senate. After Hearst is rejected, NYC Mayor John Hylan stalks out of the convention and goes home.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: September 29, 1922: I wish to be considered as dead

I could have sworn the Turks promised to respect the neutral zone around the Straits just a couple of days ago. Anyway, the Turks occupy the neutral zone around the Straits.

There are rumors that Mohammed VI has abdicated as Sultan of Turkey. No, that’s still a little ways off.

Headline of the Day -100:  

That would do it. (Greece, by the way, not Turkey). Troops enter Athens and form a “revolution committee” to take temporary charge of the government and restart the war against Turkey in Thrace. New king George is sworn in. Old king Constantine might go to Denmark, where he’s a prince. The US has also been rumored. Former prime minister Eleutherios Venizelos is still in Paris, showing no signs of returning to save Greece. He says “I wish to be considered as dead” when asked what role he might play.

The Michigan Democratic Party Convention declines to endorse Henry Ford for president in 1924, because that’s two freaking years from now. 

John Sumner of the NY Society for the Suppression of Vice still wants to ban the Satyricon, maybe shopping around for a more congenial magistrate. He complains that someone repeating the language in it on a street corner could be jailed for 6 months. He further complains that the purchasers of the Satyricon “are not limited, as is claimed, to highly moral, intellectual and sophisticated readers.” Why, anyone with $20 can buy it. If anyone really has to read it, there are copies in libraries under lock and key – in Latin.

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Today -100: September 28, 1922: It took me back to school days once more

I guess the people have said they don’t want him any more. King Constantine, after first offering to go to Thrace to lead the Greek Army, abdicates the Greek throne in favor of Crown Prince George, but his wishes for the succession may not prevail, some preferring Prince Christopher; for now, there’s no king. And who will be prime minister? There’s a demonstration in favor of exile former PM Eleutherios Venizelos; the army kindly offers to form a government.

No doubt a complete coincidence, but the abdication of King Constantine is followed immediately by news that his niece, Princess Olga, and Crown Prince Fred of Denmark have broken off their engagement. They only met twice before announcing the engagement, which “gave rise to the belief that it was a case of love at first sight” in people who don’t understand how royal marriages work. She’ll have to settle for a Yugoslav prince.

The NY Society for the Suppression of Vice prosecutes the publisher of The Satyricon and once again loses in court. The magistrate, who’s done an extraordinary amount of research in coming to this judgment – “it took me back to school days once more” – suggests that the law didn’t intend to produce censorship of literature from the first century AD. The publisher, who glories in the name Horace Liveright and whose attorney is Arthur Garfield Hays, a man named after three mediocre presidents (really), plans to sue the Vice Society for libel.

The Irish Free State government will set up military courts with the power to inflict the death penalty.

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Today -100: September 27, 1922: Of Schrödinger’s king and kkkommies

The Irish Parliament is discussing a new Irish constitution. It rejects Gavan Duffy’s amendment to omit any mention of the British king.

The Irish government is thinking about creating a prison camp for Republican rebels on some island.

The AP reports that King Constantine says he will stay on the Greek throne “until the people say they want me no more”; Central News reports that he has abdicated. So the NYT just sticks the two contradictory reports in a single story and lets them fight it out.

Albert Einstein, who fled death threats in Germany last month, is going on a 6-month lecture tour of Japan.

Michigan authorities, after a raid on a Communist meeting in the woods, claim to have seized papers showing Communist plans to infiltrate unions . Okay, fine. And the Ku Klux Klan. Ummmmmm?

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Today -100: September 26, 1922: Of bail, kletters, stickups, memoirs, and paparazzi

A couple of hundred miners, I guess, in Herrin, Illinois were indicted for murders and rioting and whatnot during the coal strike. Unionists and the mayor of Herrin, A.T. Pace, went around to businesses and raised millions of dollars of bail for several dozen of them. Many more don’t need bail at the moment, because they haven’t shown up at court.

The Pittsburgh Ku Klux Klan order the local federal prohibition agent to raid a particular saloon Saturday, with more to be named later. Agent Hawker, for that is his (awesome) name, says he can’t do that without actual evidence to support a search warrant. This is evidently the first time dry agents have received a Klan letter, or kletter as they probably call it.

“The allied decision to deprive Greece of Eastern Thrace has caused great consternation in Athens.”

The Dublin pub owned by Irish Pres. William Cosgrave is robbed by 8 armed Republicans while Cosgrave is present, which sounds like a sub-plot on Peaky Blinders.

Former kaiser Wilhelm’s memoirs are being serialized in Germany (and the NYT), and monarchist/right-wing Germans are upset that he’s pissed all over Bismarck’s memory. For them, it’s like if Trump made disparaging comments about Reagan; they just hate to see mama and papa fight.

A plane trying to take pictures of the estate of Wilhelm’s fiancee, the Princess Hermin of Reuss-Greiz, crashes and the princess has to take care of the pilots and an American reporter.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: September 25, 1922: Of sikis and fezes

A Parisian crowd at the world light heavyweight match of Georges Carpentier and Battling Siki force officials to retract the referee’s decision giving the win to the unconscious Carpentier because of alleged fouling (tripping) by Siki (photos show he didn’t trip him, but Carpentier did commit several fouls). What’s interesting is that Siki is black, from Senegal, but the crowd preferred fair play over race, in contrast, for example, to the riots following the 1910 defeat in the US of James Jeffries by Jack Johnson.

Siki was supposed to throw the match but changed his mind sometime during the fight. Ernest Hemingway, one of the audience members, partly based his 1927 short story “Fifty Grand” on this fight.

The changing circumstances of Turkish military victory has brought a major increase in the demand for fezes in Constantinople. They’re even having to import them from Austria.

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Today -100: September 24, 1922: Of thraces, war guilt, and prop guns

Britain, France and Italy graciously grant eastern Thrace to Turkey, even Constantinople, while the Straits would be under League of Nations guardianship (of course the League lacks a navy, so in event of trouble it would have to call on Britain) (Turkey, incidentally, is not a member of the League). This would all require a new treaty to replace the Treaty of Sèvres enforced upon Turkey at the end of the Great War. The Allies are inviting Turkey to talks, and pointedly not inviting Russia.

Bulgaria will have a referendum on the fate of the government ministers who got the country into the Great War. If 50% of voters find them guilty, they will be exiled for 10 years. If 60%, they will be imprisoned for 10 years. If 70%, they’ll get life.

During filming of the movie Quicksands, Helene Chadwick accidentally shoots Noah Beery (father of Noah Beery, Jr., who played James Garner’s father, despite their mere 14-year age gap, in The Rockford Files) (I may have gotten distracted on imdb) with a prop gun that turned out not to be a prop gun. The movie, now lost, was written by Howard Hawks and Oliver Hardy.

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Today -100: September 23, 1922: It would be more fun if they were defending Zeus-worshipping civilization

Palestinians will boycott the Legislative Council elections decreed by the British, and Jewish rabbis are complaining that Muslim courts are granted more powers than the Jewish religious courts.

The Cable Act becomes law, allowing an American woman who marries a non-citizen to keep her citizenship if her husband is eligible to become a citizen (i.e., not an Asian or an anarchist or a polygamist). Non-citizen women who marry US citizens will have to naturalize independently of their husbands. This reverses a 1907 law that made a married woman’s citizenship status depend entirely on that of her husband. Various remaining discriminatory provisions will be dealt with by amendments from time to time through 1934.

Two white men are indicted for being part of a mob that lynched two black men, the first time this has happened (the indictment, not the lynching, obvs) in southeastern Georgia (Liberty County, no less).

Greece, which just badly lost a war with Turkey, threatens to go to war with Turkey if it invades Thrace. Greece says Thrace is part of Greece and the massacres in Smyrna shows that “Greece is defending Christian civilization.”

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Today -100: September 22, 1922: Too many men are going to college

Ford plants reopen after being closed 5 days, Henry Ford thinking he’s made some sort of point about the coal & railroad strikes.

Rumors say that the Turkish nationalists are about to issue an ultimatum to the Allies to get out of Thrace in 48 hours. Regardless of the truth of that, they are threatening to declare war on Britain if it interferes with the movement of Turkish troops into Thrace. The Morning Post (London) says British troops in Constantinople will respond to disturbances with “concentrated fire of machine guns and Lewis guns which the undisciplined Turkish mobs could not confront for long.”

Dartmouth College President E. M. Hopkins tells the opening assembly of the academic year that “Too many men are going to college” and it should be reserved for the “aristocracy of brains, made up of men intellectually alert and intellectually eager... if democracy is to become a quality product rather than simply a quantity one”.

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Today -100: September 21, 1922: Of bonuses, klandidates, sabers, and diplomats

The Senate upholds Harding’s veto of the Bonus Bill by 4 votes, after the House voted to override it by a large margin (258-54). Many senators who supposedly support the bonus choose not to show up.

Walter Sims wins the Democratic primary for mayor of Atlanta. He is the KKK’s candidate, though it is not known if he’s a member. He is currently on the City Council, where he fought to fire a teacher for being Catholic (the article doesn’t say if he succeeded) and introduced an ordinance to bar the races mixing in church services, which the mayor vetoed.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Literally. Not especially subtle. They’re still clearing the bodies but Standard Oil is already back at work.

Harding appoints Lucile Atcherson secretary of an (undecided) embassy or legation, the first female diplomatic officer. The State Department will not take this lying down.

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Today -100: September 20, 1922: Harding to World War Veterans: Drop Dead

Pres. Harding vetoes the bonus bill. He objects to distributing, “whether inspired by grateful sentiment or political expediency,” so much money to a mere 5 million people out of 110 million Americans, “a bonus which the soldiers themselves, while serving in the World War, did not expect.”

In the Democratic primaries in Erie County, New York, William Randolph Hearst gets exactly zero (0) delegates in his gubernatorial run. Pundits think that might not portend well for him.

The US will keep out of the whole Near East thing, diplomatically and militarily.

Kemal Pasha informs France that he won’t attack Constantinople or the neutral zone along the Dardanelles if Turkey is allowed to take eastern Thrace, including Constantinople and Adrianople.

The Bulgarian prime minister announces that King Boris is looking to marry a rich, beautiful, rich, young, rich American girl. He doesn’t have anyone in particular in mind. 

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: September 19, 1922: Of applications, Turk-fighting, studios, graciousness, and technicolor

For the first time, the Harvard entrance application asks students for their race and color, and whether they or their father have changed their name (presumably looking for secret Jews).

Britain sends its Atlantic Fleet to the Mediterranean to keep the bloody Turk out of the Dardanelles

The Canadian government deflects Britain’s request for troops to fight the bloody Turk, saying public opinion would demand a vote by the Canadian Parliament first. 

Artists in NYC are hard-pressed for studio space as bootleggers have been taking over studio apartments in Greenwich Village.

Former kaiser Wilhelm, or as his press statement describes him, “His Majesty, the Kaiser and King” has “graciously decided to contract a second marriage” with Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz. Graciously?

Hungary joins the League of Nations. 

A company called Technicolor Inc has been formed to produce color movies. Didn’t know the term was that old.

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Today -100: September 18, 1922: Fiendish tortures are the worst kind of tortures

France and Italy fail to back Britain’s threat of military force against Turkey to keep the Straits (the Dardanelles) open. The Daily Mail isn’t too thrilled either, noting that Lloyd George’s planning for a new war against Turkey has reached the stage of trying to get the Dominions to send troops for Gallipoli 2: This Time It’s Personal. 

Headline of the Day -100:  

Bavaria bans tourists (it’s a falling-mark thing).

Lev Kamenev is now the “substitute president of the Cabinet of Ministers and Council of Labor and Defence” in place of Lenin.

The Danish film Häxan premieres. It’s about witches.

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Today -100: September 17, 1922: Smyrna RIP

“Smyrna no longer exists,” exaggerates the Associated Press. And Greece claims that the Turks have massacred 100,000 Christians.

It’s not the first time a D.W. Griffith film has stirred controversy because of its depictions of history, but the people pissed off this time are French royalists, who disturb a Paris showing of Orphans of the Storm because of its depiction of pre-Revolution France. Griffith claims he was just following Dickens, whose A Tale of Two Cities was not the basis for this film. Remember: whenever in doubt, blame Dickens.

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Today -100: September 16, 1922: Turks will be Turks

Des Moines sheriff Rev. Winfred Robb resigned his pastorate so he could carry out (well, botch) an execution. It is believed he is the first ordained minister in US history to act as an executioner. He’s running for Congress, by the way. As a Democrat. He will lose.

A NYT editorial on the fires in Smyrna is entitled “Turks Will Be Turks.”

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The sticks with nails are used to skewer hats.

Can’t help noticing a lot of ads in today’s paper for non-straw hats.

There’s an ad for Ben Hecht’s book Gargoyles, which I haven’t read but will. Here are its first words:

The calendars said—1900. It was growing warm. George Cornelius Basine emerged from Madam Minnie's house of ill fame at five o'clock on a Sabbath May morning. He was twenty-five years old, neatly dressed, a bit unshaven and whistling valiantly, "Won't you come home, Bill Bailey, won't you come home?"

A 1922 book which mentions an alliterative brothel in the 3rd sentence has to be well worth reading, right?

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Today -100: September 15, 1922: Of Oklahomahoovian justice and... skin worms?

Elias Ridge, a black boy, is sentenced to die in the electric chair in Oklahoma in two months time for killing a white farmer’s wife, one Wellington Adair, if I have her first name right (mostly she’s referred to, even in court rulings, as Mrs George Adair). I say boy because Elias Ridge is 13 years and 8 months old. His brother-in-law will later be convicted for his involvement – evidently he promised Elias a pig for killing her. A stay will be issued on the day he was scheduled to be executed. Authorities will continue to try to prove that he’s older than his actual age. The appeals court will overturn the death sentence and he will die in prison in 1933, which is suspiciously young. George Adair will commit suicide on the 17th anniversary of his wife’s murder.

The Greek and Armenian sectors of Smyrna are on fire.

Kemal Pasha names Constantinople as his next target, and suggests Britain get its pale ass out of it. Also Adrianople, Thrace...

Following up on removing the word “obey” from the marriage ceremony, the Episcopal Church turns to the burial service and removes the phrase “and though after my skin worms destroys this body”. And the service can now be read over suicides. But divorced Episcopalians are banned from remarrying and all Episcopalians are banned from marrying divorced people unless the divorce was for infidelity. They also pass a resolution against the KKK.

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Today -100: September 14, 1922: Of mandates, duels, mad anti-hatters, and babbitts

The Universal Negro Improvement Association, which used to be Marcus Garvey’s group but is no longer, applies to the League of Nations for a mandate over some part of Africa, possibly taking over the British mandate in South West Africa, where the British distinguished themselves by bombing villages over the non-payment of dog licenses.

There is a question as to whether Hungary’s law restricting the number of Jews attending universities applies to refugees. Somehow this argument has resulted in the rector of Budapest University challenging the rector of the University of Szegedin to a duel, with swords.

The straw hat season is over, or will be on the 15th, so “rowdies” throughout New York City smash people’s hats, as was the custom. There are straw hat bonfires. Magistrate Peter (ahem) Hatting fines 7 hat-smashers $5 each before threatening that the next defendants will go to jail.

Gov. Thomas Hardwick of Georgia is defeated for re-election in the Democratic primaries due to his opposition to the Ku Klux Klan, losing to actual klansman Clifford Walker. 

Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt is published.

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Today -100: September 13, 1922: Of obedience, terrors of the air, seltzer, and bleases

The bishops of the Episcopal Church remove the word “obey” from their marriage ceremony.

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The long-range (1,000 miles) bomber “Cubaroo.”

Muslims in British India are elated over Turkey’s defeat of Greece and want it to retain as much territory as possible.

The new Miss America doesn’t use cosmetics.

The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice’s prosecution of Thomas Seltzer by for publishing D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love and other books, and a librarian for lending A Young Girl’s Diary, is dismissed by a NYC magistrate.

The attempt of Coleman Blease, who long-term readers will remember from his term as racist-even-by-South-Carolina-standards governor (1911-15), to return to the office of racist-even-by-South-Carolina-standards governor ends when he loses the Democratic primary.

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Today -100: September 12, 1922: The Greasy Turkey War?

France and Britain backed different sides in the Greco-Turko War or whatever it’s called, but they agree that Turkey cannot be allowed control of the Dardanelles.

Eleutherios Venizelos, who was Greece’s prime minister until he was forced into exile after King Alexander died of a monkey bite, has some demands before he’ll consider returning, including the abdication of King Constantine, the resignation of the government, and a plebiscite to see if Greece wants him back, which just sounds needy to me.

The luxuriantly named Nikolaos Triantafyllakos is sworn in as Greek prime minister.

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Today -100: September 11, 1922: I am confidently expecting a demonstration of your known virtues of patriotism and concord

Before Turkish troops entered Smyrna, their planes dropped leaflets advising the population to remain calm and “support the Turkish cause by joining the Nationalist movement. Or else.” I may have added that last bit.

Kemal Pasha refuses to guarantee to the League of Nations that victorious Turkish troops won’t commit massacres in Asia Minor. Or to put it another way, they’re about to start massacring Armenians.

And there’s typhus, because of course there’s typhus.

Returning Greek troops are piiiiiissed. King Constantine issues a proclamation about this “terrible trial” and the army’s “glorious deeds” (well, they did run away quite quickly). Conny says “I am confidently expecting a demonstration of your known virtues of patriotism and concord,” by which he means “please don’t riot and force me to abdicate.”

Bolivia, following Peru’s lead, withdraws from the League of Nations General Assembly, pissed that the Chilean Agustín Edwards has been elected League of Nations president.

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A  review of The Hound of the Baskervilles, the Eille Norwood movie adaptation (I’ve seen one or two of his Sherlock Holmes shorts, but not this one) suggests that “Maybe the Doyle stories are not suitable screen material.” Or maybe Norwood just sucked.

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Today -100: September 10, 1922: Of smyrnas, presidents, and fords

Greece surrenders Smyrna to the Turks.

The Irish Dáil elects William Cosgrave president of the Irish Free State.

Henry Ford will start firing employees with alcohol on their breath.

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Today -100: September 9, 1922: Of dog taxes, smyrnas, princesses, and trustees for the deity,

The League of Nations discusses whether South Africa’s League mandate over Southwest Africa gives it the right to drop bombs on Hottentots refusing to pay dog tax. Let’s unpack that: the Bondelswarts are rejecting a very high cash tax on their herding & hunting dogs (£1 for one dog, rising to £10 for 5). The idea, like all cash taxes in colonies, is to force the natives to work (cheaply) for the South African settlers who moved in to steal land. The bombing killed scores and soldiers burned Bondelswarts huts. This is brought to the attention of the Assembly by the delegate from Haiti.

The Greek Greek Commissioner “hands over” Smyrna to the Allies and then runs for his life.

Princess Hermin of Reuss-Greiz is back! Visiting ex-kaiser Wilhelm at Doorn! Engaging in animated conversation! Ex-crown prince Friedrich Wilhelm has also shown up, presumably to try to talk his randy father down.

Attorney General Harry Daugherty agrees to return funds seized as alien property during the war. Since they were owned by the Reformed Church of Hungary, he says it’s really God who owns them (the church is “trustee for the deity for religious purposes”), so it would be sacrilegious to keep them.

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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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