Today -100: June 21, 1923: Of seizures, stars, commutations and vicious talk, ridicule, and false imitations

France says it will seize all industries in the Ruhr and any Germans refusing to work in them will be sentenced to jail for up to 15 years. Which sounds like an admission that they plan to occupy the Ruhr for at least 15 years, else how will they keep them in jail? Anyway, anyone found guilty by a French military court of sabotage can be executed.

Harding gives up control of his Marion Star, which he bought 39 years ago when he was too young to vote.

Harding commutes the sentences of 27 political prisoners who opposed the Great War. 24 prisoners, mostly Wobblies or people who did shit instead of just saying shit, remain. 2 of the commutees will be deported to Britain and Italy – the Justice Department  says they were “guilty of vicious talk and were weak men influenced largely by their associations.” The rest are released only on condition of being good little boys. (Update: the IWW and the ACLU will object to those conditions, since they can be returned to jail whenever some official decides they’ve committed a crime, without a, you know, jury trial.)

Headline of the Day -100:  

Man, I can’t wait for the Scopes trial.

Radcliffe College President Le Baron Russell Briggs warns the graduating class against “false imitation of man by woman.”

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Today -100: June 20, 1923: Of attempted lynchings, non-invasions, and airplanes

Police, fire hoses, and militia machine guns hold off a lynch mob trying to seize a negro charged with beating a white woman from the county jail in Savannah, Georgia.

Yugoslavia says it won’t invade Bulgaria. 

Russian Minister of War Leon Trotsky calls for lots of airplanes, the warfare of the future, so Russia won’t have to submit to demands by Britain etc.

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Today -100: June 19, 1923: Of newspaper talk, budgets, damned dirty liars, and medicinal liquor

Henry Ford says he’s not running for president because he’s too busy and any talk about him being a candidate is just “newspaper talk.” The people pushing his candidacy say they’ll continue and will draft him as an independent candidate.

Pres. Harding says he can keep the federal budget below $3 billion, and any government officer who asks Congress for more money than the administration’s budget calls for will be fired.

NYC Controller Charles Craig challenges Mayor Hylan to a fist-fight after Hylan calls him a liar and he calls Hylan a damned dirty liar (which is the worst kind of liar). Hylan suggests Craig should be examined by Bellevue. New York politics as usual.

The US gives in on allowing foreign ships to carry “medicinal liquor” as required by the laws of their home countries. This will be interpreted broadly enough to allow passengers and crew as much wine and whatnot as they want.

Last week French troops occupied some Ruhr railroad lines, whose German employees immediately went on strike. Now, the Ruhr faces starvation, which France says is the Germans’ fault.

Marcus Garvey is convicted for fraud in the sale of shares in his Black Star ship line after he knew it was insolvent.

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Today -100: June 18, 1923: Of anti-saloonitarians, grand lictors, and macedonians

The Anti-Saloon League will hold a conference later this month for the purpose of making sure NY Gov. Al Smith, who signed the bill repealing NY’s prohibition enforcement act, is not allowed to be a candidate for president next year.

The Fascisti of America deposes one of its officers and says the group will no longer be affiliated with any foreign fascists or use foreign titles like “grand lictor.”

The Bulgarian coup regime is trying to get the Macedonian province of Serbia to revolt.

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Today -100: June 17, 1923: Of outrages by organized mobs, and eugenics

Irony of the Day -100:  

Complain that their meetings have been subject to “outrages by organized mobs,” and if there’s one thing the Klan can’t stand...

Harry Olson, the chief justice of the Chicago Municipal Court, is also president of the Eugenics Research Association. So that’s good.

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Today -100: June 16, 1923: Of tiles (for some reason), prohibitions, and helicopters

Deposed Bulgarian PM Aleksandar Stamboliyski is killed in a gun battle between soldiers and peasant backers trying to free him. Part of Stamboliyski’s escape plan involved making a purchase, in disguise, of a large quantity of tile. But the tile merchant recognized him and finked him out. Anyway he’s tortured, the hand he used to sign a peace treaty with Yugoslavia cut off, and his head... 

Li Yuan-hung takes back his resignation from the Chinese presidency, says it was made under duress.

Constantinople goes dry. Except for bars serving foreign occupying troops. (Update: nope, postponed until August).

A French helicopter built by Étienne Oehmichen, holding 2 passengers, reaches 5 meters. 

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Today -100: June 15, 1923: Banquets are detrimental to the dignity of the Fascismo

The Belgian government resigns after losing a vote in the Senate about replacing French with Flemish language in the University of Ghent.

Hero of the Day -100:  

Bloomfield, New Jersey. The local American Legion post refused to participate in the Flag Day parade after hearing the Klan would be marching in it. I guess they didn’t consider the egg option.

Mussolini bars Fascists from attending banquets because “banquets are detrimental to the dignity of the Fascismo, which must be inspired by austerity.” Also tomato sauce really shows up on black shirts.

Chinese Pres. Li Yuan-hung resigns, after being subject to the “third degree,” whatever that means. And he gives up the seals, which his wife did have.

Deposed Bulgarian PM Aleksandar Stamboliyski is captured. The new government restores several letters his Agrarian regime had dropped from the Bulgarian alphabet.

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Today -100: June 14, 1923: Of seals, alliterative vigilantes, speedsters, and cannibals

Chinese Pres. Li Yuan-hung tries to flee Peking but his escape train is stopped on the order of the governor of Zhili province, supposedly because he took government seals. Li’s wife, who is not on the train, may have them.

The Louisiana federal prohibition chief announces the formation of a secret group of “Volstead Vigilantes,” 300 of the first 400 of whom are women, to help with prohibition enforcement.

Eleanor Roosevelt is fined for speeding through Earlville, New York. I imagine there’s a commemorative plaque there now.

France tells the League of Nations that something should really be done about cannibalism in Cameroon, the former German colony France holds as a League mandate. It needs League permission to impose the death penalty and fines for cannibalism. There is no cannibalism in Cameroon, but European explorers have convinced themselves for decades that there is.

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Today -100: June 13, 1923: Of war-like adventures, hostages, and counterfeits

I guess Bulgarian PM Aleksandar Stamboliyski wasn’t arrested yesterday after all, but he is under siege, supposedly. There’s a story that as he was fleeing, a soldier shot at his car, hitting his chauffeur and he ran into the woods (a later version has him disguised as the chauffeur, with his mustache shaved off, not shot, but still with the escaping-into-the-woods part). The new government reassures everyone that it will abide by the Versailles Treaty, saying Bulgaria “is absolutely opposed to any sort of war-like adventure.” War-like adventures are the worst kind of adventure.

The Chinese bandits release the last 8 of the hostages they seized off a train 5 weeks ago after receiving ransom. Sorry, that’s the last 8 non-Chinese hostages. The Chinese hostages, who knows or evidently cares.

Watch out for counterfeit $1,000 bills, with badly drawn eagle claws and Alexander Hamilton’s right eye is too dark.

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Today -100: June 12, 1923: This will not turn out well for his body

Ousted Bulgarian PM Aleksandar Stamboliyski is arrested by his own bodyguards. Ouch.

The federal prohibition commissioner for NY, Roy Haynes, says non-citizens make up half those arrested for dry law violations in the city, which evidently means they’re proportionately four times as drunk as citizens and certainly not that they’re four times as targeted for alcohol-related arrests. He says only 10% of those arrested in the city for booze in 1922 were even indicted but it’s still a deterrent. 

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Today -100: June 11, 1923: Of tall cedars, coups, and dancing

Pres. Harding joins a Masonic group and is now a “Tall Cedar.” But did they give him a silly hat to wear?

Is this his last ever silly hat? We shall see.

Civil war in Bulgaria, with Aleksandar Stamboliyski supposedly leading a peasant militia against the coup regime. The new prime minister, appointed by Tsar Boris III, is Aleksandar Tsankov (aka Zankoff), poli sci professor at Sofia University. There is talk about Greece having encouraged the coup in order to get a more anti-Turk government in Bulgaria.

New dancing record: Bernie Brand of Dallas danced 217 hours, winning a prize of $5,000.

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Today -100: June 10, 1923: Bulgarian liberty dawns again

There’s a coup in Bulgaria by an organization of reserve army officers (i.e., a private group, not the army itself, but with support from the tiny army, which is all that’s allowed by the punitive post-Great War peace treaty). A new government is formed from all the opposition parties except the Communists, but they’re still working out who the prime minister will be (no, wait, there’s an AP story further down naming... the wrong person). The overthrown cabinet and parliament are all under arrest (no they aren’t). A statement by the coup leaders says “Bulgarian liberty dawns again. The regime of deceit, violence and murder has collapsed under the weight of its crimes, and a new era of law, harmony and peace has arrived.” So that sounds nice (it won’t be).

Henry Ford says prohibition should be enforced by the army and navy which don’t have anything to do in peacetime anyway.

China protests Japanese marines shooting Chinese rioters in Hunan province and demands the withdrawal of gunboats. So Japan sends 4 destroyers. Japan replies that it was just protecting its nationals, who are facing a boycott movement.

A circuit judge refuses to grant an injunction against the Chicago police interfering with a planned 7-day dance marathon, saying “there is a moral danger which must be considered” and they attract the “morbid curiosity seeker,” just like bullfights and cockfights.

Today -100’s Sunday NYT has an article covering all the anti-Darwin activity in state legislatures that the paper’s been ignoring the last few months. Oklahoma banned the purchase of textbooks including evolution, with just one no vote; Florida is considering banning the teaching of the theory; Kentucky’s Monkey Bill failed by a single vote; Tennessee’s Legislature declined to invite William Jennings Bryan to speak, saying it had more important matters to deal with – that won’t last.

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Today -100: June 9, 1923: I am not practicing to be an Emperor

As the largest-denomination German note, the 100,000 mark note, is now worth just $1.30, they’ll start printing million mark notes.

France won’t reject the German reparation proposal, it will simply ignore it, because it is not accompanied by an end of passive resistance in the Ruhr.

Mussolini denies planning to proclaim himself dictator and/or emperor: “Do not be afraid because I ride horseback every morning. I am not practicing to be an Emperor; I am young and I like to ride.”

The British House of Commons votes to equalize the law of divorce. Under the existing law, a husband could divorce his wife for a single act of infidelity but a wife would also have to prove cruelty or desertion.

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Today -100: June 8, 1923: Unacceptable in Belgium

Germany makes a new offer on reparations, which France and Belgium will certainly reject because it does not come with a command to end passive resistance in the Ruhr. Germany pledges income from railroads, the alcohol and tobacco monopolies, and pinky-swears to fund reparations of 1.2 trillion gold marks per year, which is the equivalent of some money and 365 days respectively. It wants an international commission to determine its ability to pay.

The German proposal is “held unacceptable in Belgium.”  I’m not sure why I find the phrase “unacceptable in Belgium” so amusing, but I do.

NYC Mayor John Hylan promises that the NYPD will cooperate with the federal prohibition authorities, although he does suggest that they do something about closing the Canadian border to smuggling.

At the Lausanne Conference, Turkey refuses to allow 250,000 Armenians who fled Constantinople last year during the Greco-Turko war to return.

The Kansas State Censor Board gives permission for The Birth of a Nation to be shown. Opposition from previous governors has hitherto prevented the 1915 film being screened in the state.

Russian serial killer Vasili Komaroff is ordered executed, along with his wife, who may or may not have been involved. Komaroff says “Well, it’s my turn to be put in the sack now” (like he did with his victims). The NYT’s correspondent says his “callousness is that of the typical Asiatic.”

Gov. Thomas McLeod calls on South Carolinahoovians to pray for relief from the boll weevil, which was sent by God as a punishment for our sins.

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Today -100: June 7, 1923: Of hushed phones, wolves, flying lions, and prosperous nipples

German police kill 6 at a demonstration against the cost of living in Leipzig.

Doodad of the Day -100:  

Vasili Komaroff, the Russian serial killer known as the Wolf of Moscow is on trial. He has confessed to 33 killings. He lured his victims to his house by offering to sell them a horse cheap and then killed them in a variety of ways. He just wants the trial over with: “I am 52, have had a good time and don’t want to live any longer.” He won’t.

A crowd breaks up a Ku Klux Klan meeting in Plainfield, New Jersey.

The famous French lion tamer “Marcel,” stranded by a Belgian railroad strike (I’ve been there), gets a mail plane to transport his 3 lions to Paris. I can only guess that this is the first time lions have flown. Three lions in a hot-air balloon would have been adorable.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: June 6, 1923: Secret fraternity is one thing; secret conspiracy is quite another

Pres. Harding addresses the Shriners’ convention, in preparation for which the feds have been cracking down on bootlegging in DC.  Harding attacks the Ku Klux Klan without ever actually naming it: “Secret fraternity is one thing; secret conspiracy is quite another. ... In the very naturalness of association, men band together for mischief, to exert misguided zeal, to vent unreasoning malice, to undermine our institutions. This isn’t fraternity; this is conspiracy. This isn’t associated with uplift; it is organized destruction. This is not brotherhood; it is the discord of disloyalty and a danger to the Republic.” But other fraternal orders, like the Fez Bros, are fine.

Not to be out-fraternal-ordered, NY Gov. Al Smith joins the Elks.

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Today -100: June 5, 1923: Of mere knowledge of the German knowledge, soused sailors, consternation, and long live Barry II

The US Supreme Court overturns the bans in 21 states against the teaching of languages other than English in schools (and not just public schools in some of these states). Justice James Clark McReynolds, authoring the majority opinion, writes that “Mere knowledge of the German language cannot reasonably be regarded as harmful.”

Stokers and firemen on French steamships threaten to strike unless they get the 2 liters of wine per day which French maritime law entitles them to, even in ships bound for the US, which now forbids alcohol on incoming ships.

Cardinal Soldevilla y Romero, 79, is assassinated by anarchists near Saragossa, Spain. The Chicago Tribune informs us that the news was received with “consternation” in Madrid. And with rioting in Barcelona, which is, like, extreme consternation. Before the last election in April, the cardinal ordered the government not to change the constitution, which I think means proposals to give greater freedom to non-Catholics.

People are criticizing Maine Gov. Percival Proctor Baxter for ordering the flag on the State House flown half-mast in honor of his dead Irish setter Garry II. Baxter responds that dogs are great.

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Today -100: June 4, 1923: Of clinging type!

A commission set up by NY Mayor John Hylan to examine US history textbooks recommends that 8 be thrown out as too pro-British. Some of them had been written or revised during the Great War so as not to criticize an ally too much, but commission head David Hirschfeld, who is not an educator or a historian, says “Any history which, after 150 years, attempts to teach our children that the War of Independence was an unnecessary war and that it is still a problem as to who was right and who was wrong, should be fed to the furnace and those responsible for those books branded as un-American.” He says the books are part of a plot to restore the US to the British Empire, or at least an alliance dominated by Britain, a movement he says is backed by “an international money power” which “knows no patriotism.” Hirschfeld also sees Rhodes scholarships and the World Court as part of this pro-British conspiracy.

Fashion of the Day -100:  

Also, more Frenchwomen seem to be blond lately, a fashion set by stage actresses, who are going blond to get into the pictures, where blondes show up better.

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Today -100: June 3, 1923: Of speed, deportations, and proven historical facts

The London Underground has been advertising that its trains are faster than the New York City subways and London pedestrians walk faster than New Yorkers (2½ to 3 mph on Fifth Ave vs. 3¼ mph on Oxford Street) (it’s the silly walks that do it). Also, London taxis are faster than NY ones and passengers are called guv’nor.

The acting prohibition chief for the Boston region, Charles Smith, asks that two men convicted of manufacturing liquor (a misdemeanor) be deported. Assistant US Attorney Elihu Stone says don’t be ridiculous.

South Carolina Gov. Thomas McLeod addresses the negro exodus, warning about “the proven historical fact that while the Northern people love the negro en masse and as a race they have no affection or consideration from him as an individual.” The SC whites will do just fine, he says. In other words, there’s no need to improve conditions for black people.

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Today -100: June 2, 1923: Of prohibition, women MPs, tombstones, and inKorporation

NY Gov. Al Smith signs the repeal of NY’s prohibition enforcement act but says this won’t bring back the saloon. The feds plan to send many dry agents into the state.

Mabel Philipson wins the Berwick-upon-Tweed by-election, becoming the 3rd woman member of Parliament (the 4th elected), garnering more votes than her husband Hilton Philipson did in the same seat in the 1922 general election. His election was invalidated because of excessive election spending and false reporting by his election agent, although he personally was cleared of wrongdoing. He’s banned from running in the constituency for 7 years, so she considers herself a placeholder for him although he was a National Liberal and she insists on running as a Tory; when he gives up on politics in 1929, she will too. Mabel, 37, is a former actress.

20 Polish soldiers invade a synagogue in Beuthen, Polish Upper Silesia to attack the congregation. Thwarted by police, they return at night to throw grenades at tombstones, as was the custom.

The Ku Klux Klan applies for incorporation as a benevolent society in New York in an attempt to evade the Walker Act which requires various groups – but not benevolent societies – to provide the government a list of members by June 23rd. Legal eagles think it won’t work.

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Today -100: June 1, 1923: Of obelisks, evil curbs, hay, and how many midgets can you fit in a taxi?

NY Gov. Alfred E. Smith holds hearings on whether to sign the bill repealing NY enforcement of prohibition, staying silent throughout the proceedings.

The British response to Russia’s response to Britain’s ultimatum includes a demand that Russia’s, representatives in Afghanistan and Persia, which Britain seems to have forgotten are not British colonies, be removed for doing propaganda.

The Boyne Obelisk, erected in 1736 in Drogheda, Ireland to celebrate William of Orange’s victory over the forces of Catholicism, is blown up. By the Irish government, although the NYT neglects to include that detail.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Headline of the Day -100:  

Aldous Huxley’s Antic Hay is published sometime this month. I read about a quarter of it before giving up, partly – but only partly – because he used a lot of fancy words that I didn’t know and which my Kindle’s dictionary didn’t know either.

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Today -100: May 31, 1923: Of mysterious deaths, pingers, undesirable tributes, and cardioscopes

Jess W. Smith, the, er, assistant to Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty (he had a desk outside Daugherty’s office at Justice but wasn’t actually on the government payroll – he was the massively corrupt Daugherty’s bagman), commits suicide in the hotel suite he shared with Daugherty (no, not like that, or maybe exactly like that), shooting himself in the head. The administration is putting it out that Smith had health worries, but the crime scene was scrubbed by Bureau of Investigation chief William Burns, who lives in the same hotel, and the gun mysteriously disappears and there’s no autopsy, and he seems to have shot himself in the left temple despite being right-handed, and...

The Chinese bandits release a couple of American hostages, including Maj. Roland Pinger, which is certainly the name of a person and not of a sex toy.

The Rockville Centre, Long Island, Ku Klux Klan leave a wreath at the local war memorial on Memorial Day. The commander of the local American Legion post discovers what he calls “an undesirable tribute to the American soldier,” and hands in the wreath to the police station. Immediately calls start coming in complaining, lots of calls (Rockville Centre is a big KKK town), and the town council orders it put back, without the card (which I think had already been torn up).

The American Association of Thoracic Surgeons announces that the cardioscope has been tested on animals and “perfected” by Dr. Duff Allen of Washington University and is ready for use on humans during heart surgery.

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Today -100: May 30, 1923: Of poll boycotts

After Arabs boycott elections for the Legislative Council in Palestine in protest at Zionist something or other, the British declares the elections null & void. Only 12 of the 23 members of the Council would have been elective, and I’m gonna hazard a guess that its powers would be pretty limited.

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Today -100: May 29, 1923: Laying aside your arms now is an act of patriotism as exalted and pure as your valor in taking them up

Dresden is now controlled by mobs of unemployed and/or Communists, who are ordering shops and restaurants closed, as well as the Opera House, “because the sight of wealthy men enjoying themselves while they must starve was too much for the unemployed.” The Opera House owners promise to take up a collection from the audience, and the fat lady is allowed to sing.

Éamon de Valera issued a cease-fire order last week that I guess the Free State is just finding out about. It admits that “The republic can no longer be sustained successfully by your arms. The continuance of the struggle in arms is unwise in the national interest. ... Do not let sorrow overwhelm you. ... You have saved the nation’s honor and left the road open to independence. Laying aside your arms now is an act of patriotism as exalted and pure as your valor in taking them up.” 

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Today -100: May 28, 1923: Of kluxers and poison gas

The Ku Klux Klan hold multiple meetings in New York (and one in Jersey) in defiance of the new law requiring it to reveal its membership lists. A speaker at one of the Long Island meetings says Gov. Al Smith has wrecked his presidential ambitions by signing that bill.

The army chemical warfare corps will use mustard gas, phosgene and chlorine gas on rattle snake nests in Texas, part of a program of proving the usefulness of Great War-era poison gas that includes using it to “cure” the flu.

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Today -100: May 27, 1923: Of Fords, executions, and parades

There’s been some chatter recently about Henry Ford running for president, none of it from Ford himself, at least not publicly. William Randolph Hearst says he’d support Ford if he ran, but he can only run as an independent.

The Lausanne Conference survives another crisis when Turkey gives up its demand for reparations from Greece in exchange for some territory. This after Greece threatened to walk out, evidently still under the impression that it didn’t lose the war it started with Turkey.

The French occupiers in the Ruhr execute one Albert Schlageter, a right-wing Freikorps type, for blowing up railroad tracks and bridges. That’s a German executed in Germany by the French.

The NYT has a 4-sentence story about a revolution that has broken out in Bulgaria and the prime minister fleeing. It hasn’t and he hasn’t.

The New York Fascisti withdraw from the Memorial Day parade after opposition from Samuel Gompers and the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union.

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Today -100: May 26, 1923: Of steel, women voters, lusks, and censors

A committee of steel bosses appointed by Elbert Gary, the founder of US Steel, at Pres. Harding’s request to investigate union demands for an  8-hour day, says that after thorough investigation, the 12-hour day in the steel industry is perfectly fine, and certainly not injurious to workers in any way. And steel workers aren’t demanding the 8-hour day, they like the extra pay. Gary had to leave the stage during his reading of the report when he became ill, possibly from suppressed snickering. Harding is said to be disappointed by the committee’s report, but what the hell did he expect?

A new New York law allows women voters to merely declare themselves over 21 rather than give their exact age.

And Gov. Alfred E. Smith signs the repeal of the Lusk laws requiring teachers in public schools to be subject to loyalty tests and for private schools as a whole to be subject to a similar test.

The chief British movie censor explains the 67 things that get American films banned, including the depiction of Jesus, cruelty to animals or children, disparagement of public characters, over-long death-bed scenes, too much revolver shooting, girls participating in crimes, drunk girls, women being branded, or the words “hell” or “devil.” 

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Today -100: May 25, 1923: We went to the Ruhr to get paid

Chinese government troops attack the Shantung bandits holding those train passengers.

Supposedly, the bandits got the idea for the train derailment from the movies.

Communists seize and burn the Gelsenkirchen (Ruhr) police hq and fight the citizens’... militia? neighborhood watch? and firemen. 8 dead. They propose a group of 400 workers – 100 Socialist, 100 Communist, 200 trade union – to take over the policing of the town, since the French fired all the security police in February. In the meantime, they enforce food price reductions. And then the looting begins, which is definitely a price reduction. French troops move into the town and... watch. As was the custom, when Germans were fighting Germans.

French PM Raymond Poincaré and his cabinet resign because the Senate refused his demand that it try Deputy Marcel Cachin and other Communists for sedition and/or treason. The deputies opposed the occupation of the Ruhr, but the Senate (in its role as high court) decides it’s not its job to try the cases – there are courts, you know. Pres. Millerand refuses to accept the resignations and Poincaré agrees to stay, although he had argued “we cannot allow these Communist conspiracies.”

Earlier in the day PM P told the National Assembly he would do to Germany what Germany did to France in 1871. He said the occupation of the Ruhr is succeeding in getting coal to France so “we are in no hurry and can wait as long as necessary for Germany to come to her senses.” No comment. “We went to the Ruhr to get paid.”

The new British prime minister’s 24-year-old son, Oliver Baldwin is.... DUM DUM DUM... a socialist. In fact, in 1929 he’ll be elected a Labour member of Parliament, embarrasing daddy no end. He’s already been a prisoner of both Armenian Bolsheviks and then, on his way home, Turkey, which held him 6 months as a suspected Russian spy, or something.

Newly elected Chicago Mayor William Dever says he found the city’s treasury is empty, indeed in deficit, and the municipal government may have to stop operating soon.

William Burns, director of the Bureau of Investigation, tells the Kiwanis Club in Atlantic City that if Congress passes two bills (dunno which ones), he will “drive every radical out of the country and bring the parlor Bolsheviks to their senses.” Every big strike in the US, he says, is caused by Soviet influence and propaganda.

The Connecticut Legislature bans flogging in prisons.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. gets a contract to act in motion pictures at $1,000 a week. He is 13 years old. Doug Senior knew nothing about this (Jr. lives with his mother).

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Today -100: May 24, 1923: On every essential point, the Bolshevists propose a conference

Looks like every member of Bonar Law’s Cabinet is willing to continue under Stanley Baldwin, including Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon.

By the way, Baldwin is a cousin of Rudyard Kipling.

Winston Churchill, who earlier in life left the Conservative Party for the Liberals, is thinking of jumping back. If you were wondering why no one really trusted him. Churchill was bounced from Parliament by the voters at the last election, so his old-new party would have to find him a seat.

Russia is conciliatory in response to Britain’s ultimatum to pay compensation for the seizure of a trawler and the execution of alleged spies and withdraw letters the British found rude. Doesn’t seem to promise not to propagandize in India, Afghanistan and Persia, which was another demand. The London Times complains, “On every essential point, the Bolshevists propose a conference.” 

Mussolini purges Capt. Aurelio Padovani and all who follow him from the Naples Fascists for their “grave and prolonged indiscipline.” Padovani will later (1926) die the most Fascist of deaths when a balcony on which he is greeting his followers collapses.

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Today -100: May 23, 1923: Of primes minister, secret enticements, lynching, easter islands, and chicken scrambles

Stanley Baldwin will be the next British prime minister. The process by which he rather than Curzon was chosen is entirely opaque. It’s unclear whether Curzon will continue as foreign secretary, which sounds like more his choice than Baldwin’s.

North Carolina, facing an exodus of its negro population, decides to treat black people better. No, just kidding, they arrest labor agents for “secretly enticing” negroes to go to Pennsylvania and New Jersey, fining them $500 and $1,000 for soliciting labor without a license.

Pennsylvania has new laws making participation in a lynch mob murder and making a kidnapping resulting in death first-degree murder. It also makes trying to seize a prisoner a crime, and being an officer who loses a prisoner to a lynch mob a crime, and it will fine counties in which a lynching occurs $10,000 for their dependents, or the state if there are none.

Lady Constance Lytton, the British suffragette who, frustrated at the favoritism shown by prison authorities in not forcibly feeding her, disguised herself as a commoner and was force fed, has died at 54, her health permanently damaged by that force-feeding.

Headline of the Day -100:  

The earthquake was last November, but only a fishing boat has been there since.

A Brooklyn dry goods store’s “chicken scramble” promotional event is interrupted by the SPCA just as they were about to throw live chickens off the roof, with their legs tied with a ticket for a special prize, for customers to scramble over. The owner is summonsed for Friday, but I think we know what his defense will be: “As god is my witness...”

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Today -100: May 22, 1923: Wait, is there no prime minister?

Fascists in the Naples region resign in large numbers after the central Fascist organization orders them to accept a merger with Nationalist militia types, some of them former Communists who saw which way the wind was blowing. Most of the Neopolitan Fascist leaders, rank & file, and Fascist trade union members, maybe 40,000 in total, quit.

Former (as of yesterday) British prime minister Andrew Bonar Law has an operation for his throat cancer. The king has yet to ask anyone to form a government, waiting for the Conservative Party to make up its own mind.

New dance records: James Karnell in Youngstown, Ohio, at 161 hrs 56 min, and his partner Mrs Yarnell, who gave up at 132 hours but still broke the women’s record.

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Today -100: May 21, 1923: Of unspectacular premiers, lonely Aussies, and hooded parades

Andrew Bonar Law, who the NYT accurately describes as “the most unspectacular of British Premiers,” resigns as British prime minister on the recommendation of his doctors.

Earl Stradbroke, governor of Victoria, visiting England, tries to get English lasses who want to get married to come to Australia, which has an over-abundance of big, manly men who are successful but lonely (not sure if that’s a quote or a paraphrase).

109 Klansman have a little parade in Point Pleasant, New Jersey.

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Today -100: May 20, 1923: Of tired & ill premiers, bandit-soldiers, nameless dry agents, and basic stock

Headline of the Day -100:  

In the ongoing Chinese train kidnapping saga, the government has sent army commissions to bandit leaders, but the bandits are now demanding that the army be removed from the whole of Shantung Province, leaving the bandits as the sole military force. Messengers have been going back and forth, bringing messages from the captives saying things like “They’re threatening to eat us!” And the military seem to be refusing government orders to withdraw from the area. Also, troops haven’t been paid in months and are selling ammunition to bandits.

Federal prohibition agents have been slacking off since a new rule that any agent whose name appears in a newspaper will be suspended.

Labor Secretary James Davis says the US will never return to open immigration. He says the current 3% immigration rule doesn’t burden immigration from the UK, Germany and Scandinavia, “the basic stock of the American people,” just those filthy southern Europeans.

Germany seizes a French plane flying over its territory from Prague to Paris. Germany has banned French overflights. The pilot is arrested but the Romanian passenger is allowed to continue, presumably by train.

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Today -100: May 19, 1923: Of throats, consulates, hard & fast yearning, drums, and dye heads

British Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law has been consulting high-end doctors in Paris, and a Harley Street doc rushed over to Paris to consult, but his friends (in the absence of any official statement) are still saying it’s just a sore throat. It isn’t.

If he resigns, there’s a succession problem: Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India and head of the anti-women’s suffrage movement, current foreign secretary, would be the logical choice (certainly in his own mind), but there hasn’t been a PM from the House of Lords in more than 20 years and it’s no longer considered... appropriate by most people. Such is the nature of an unwritten constitution. Norms change slowly over time. The necessity for a PM to defend his policies and respond to questions in the Commons rather than the Lords would be underscored if Bonar Law steps down because he can no longer do those things (or speak at all, evidently). When this problem next comes up with the Earl of Home, they’ll change the law to allow peers to renounce their titles, making way for him to sit in the Commons as lowly Alec Douglas-Home, the eminently forgettable PM from 1963 to 1964.

The US consulate in Mexico City is bombed. Was it conservatives trying to make trouble for the Obregón regime? Bolsheviks? A cap is found at the scene with a Red button, which is probably good enough for the latter to be blamed. But a letter attached to a door suggests the target was actually the office of a lawyer who rented space in the consulate building; the office took most of the damage.

Announcing this, the State Dept belatedly admits that the US Embassy in Mexico was bombed two weeks ago.

The Austrian ambassador to Germany says Austrians are “hard and fast in their yearning for union of Austria with Germany.” Which he thinks will happen sooner rather than later. German Pres. Ebert, in the audience, claps and claps.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: May 18, 1923: Of becoming erections, reparations, and inventions

Pres. Harding, speaking at the unveiling of a statue of his hero Alexander Hamilton (“It is a most becoming thing to erect”), attacks growing factionalism in the US, such as “the false cry of class” and the Ku Klux Klan. Okay, he bravely fails to specifically name the Klan, but that’s what his reference to groups “challenging civil and religious liberty” is taken to mean.

Greece and Turkey are still arguing over peace terms. Turkey wants reparations from Greece, so Greece is demanding reparations from Turkey.

The British Institute of Patentees issues a list of inventions that would be nice:

Glass that bends

A non-slip road surface

Non-shrinking fannel

Noiseless airplanes

Planes that can be operated by children

Less friction

Easily cleaned pipes (the smoking kind)

Non-alcoholic drinks that aren’t awful

Talking motion pictures

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Today -100: May 17, 1923: A nation can’t survive half sloshed, or something

Pres. Harding responds to a letter from a Dr. Wesley Wait, who Wikipedia identifies as “an American inventor, author, dental surgeon, and florist” – so why is Harding answering his letters? – who asked for some federal response if NY Gov. Al Smith signs the bill repealing the bill for the enforcement of Prohibition in the state. I think Wait wants the arrest of NY state legislators for treason. Harding invokes Lincoln’s assertion that the nation could not survive half slave and half free. Which is just a terrible comparison.

Harding uses a recess appointment to name Walter Cohen collector of customs at New Orleans. The Senate rejected Cohen during the last Congress, because he is black.

Leon Trotsky sends $125,000 of presumably government money to his brother in Berlin, who lost a bundle speculating on the German mark.

Last month Mussolini forced 4 Catholic (Popular) Party members out of his government because the party didn’t pledge to adopt Fascist policies totally and forever. Now the party reverses itself.

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Today -100: May 16, 1923: Of dyes, floggings, and the most powerful medium of influence over the people

France seizes 4 dye and chemical factories in the Ruhr.

Florida bans the flogging of convicts.

At a Federal Trade Commission hearing into the monopolization of the movie industry by Famous Players-Lasky, Thomas Edison says movies, and therefore who controls them, are super-important: “There is nothing so powerful as motion pictures in influencing people. ... Whoever controls the motion picture industry controls the most powerful medium of influence over the people.” And it’ll just get more powerful. In 20 years there won’t even be books in schools, just motion pictures.

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Today -100: May 15, 1923: Premier Mussolini has demonstrated evolutionary progress

Headline of the Day -100:  

Or so he says to the International Woman Suffrage Alliance holding its annual congress in Rome. Pres. Carrie Chapman Catt says “Premier Mussolini has demonstrated evolutionary progress. From doubt about women suffrage, he has arrived at the conviction that it cannot long be postponed.” However, the suffrage he is proposing is for “several classes of women” and is only in local elections, with national ones maybe later. Women will get the local vote in 1925 aaaaaand have it taken away again in 1928.

The Florida State Senate adopts a resolution that Darwinism, atheism & agnosticism should not be taught in public schools.

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Today -100: May 14, 1923: Making out like bandits

China gives the kidnapping bandits everything they want: withdrawal of government troops from the area, absorption of the bandits into the army. I assume there’s a cash component as well.

The German government forbids its citizens in the Rhineland and the Ruhr traveling on on trains run by the French or Belgians. Also, towns in the Ruhr are forbidden from paying fines levied by the occupiers and individuals are forbidden to apply to them for drivers licenses.

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Today -100: May 13, 1923: Of putsches, bridges, and kidnappers

In Hamburg, several generals and others are arrested for planning a putsch to overthrow the Hamburg government and hopefully inspire a national putsch.

A bridge over the Rhine-Heren Canal is blown up, nearly taking out a French troop train. The French respond by arresting the burgomaster of Osterfeld and fining the town 100 million marks, which is the equivalent of some money.

The ultimatum that the foreign ambassadors gave the Chinese government to obtain the release of the people kidnapped from the Shanghai-Peking Express expires, but 16 or 17 foreigners, including 5 Americans, are still in captivity. Plus some Chinese people, but of course they don’t count.

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Today -100: May 12, 1923: Nice work if you can get it

Bavaria is under martial law, because “Hittler [sic], who is rapidly losing his popularity,” may be planning a putsch.

Famous motion picture canine Prince Ski is dead. He was paid $30 a day “and his specialty was strolling through gardens with richly gowned women.”

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Today -100: May 11, 1923: One must have the courage to deliver Europe from the Bolshevist plague

Vatslav Vorovsky, the Soviet delegate to the Lausanne Conference, is assassinated in the restaurant of the Hotel Cécil, and two other Russians attached to the mission and dining with him are wounded in the attack. The assassin then hands his gun to the head waiter and tells him to call the police. He is Maurice Conradi, a Swiss citizen who served in the Russian military before and during the war and the White Army during the civil war. His father and uncle, he says, died of starvation and Russian cruelty (or it may have been that his father and brother were executed). “This evening I have done an act of justice which I do not regret, for one must have the courage to deliver Europe from the Bolshevist plague.” The Swiss Fascists, who had ordered Vorovsky to leave Switzerland, deny any connection to the murder. Russia blames Switzerland which, not having invited any Russian delegates to the conference, declined to give them any protection.

Conradi and his confederate Arkady Polunin will be tried in November. They’ll use the trial to attack the Soviet government and will be acquitted, though Conradi will be ordered to pay the costs of the trial. Russia will cut diplomatic relations. Conradi will continue to live in Switzerland for a bit, then move to France, join the French Foreign Legion, and die in 1947.

Pathé objects to the Motion Picture Commission censoring Good Riddance, a lost, I think, Hal Roach comedy short about a man trying to get rid of a dog his girlfriend objects to. The censor insisted on cutting a scene in which the dog is thrown out of an airplane and “all views of man’s leg exposed where trouser is pulled off by dog at dance” and a scene of a a fuse attached to a dog’s tail. She says these are inhuman and incite crime. Pathé Exchange suggests she didn’t realize it’s a comedy. It points out that the dog survives being thrown out of an airplane, landing unharmed in the back seat of a car. “We fail to see where the element of inhumanity enters.” It notes that films involve exaggerated actions: “For instance, one does not ordinarily hang a Chinaman out of the window by his hair, yet in this picture such a scene is shown.” And as for the naked leg, “It is not clear whether this scene is declared to be inhuman or would tend to incite to crime.” The case is now going to court. Gotta say, this film does not sound like a laff riot. Incidentally, the star is James Parrott, better known as a director of many Laurel & Hardy pictures. And he was Charley Chase’s brother, which I did not know.

(Update: an appellate court will reverse the Motion Picture Commission’s cuts to the film.)

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Today -100: May 10, 1923: It is none of our business whether Christ went to heaven or not

A French military court in the Ruhr sentences to death a German who led a gang which dynamited railroads, the first time the French have done so, despite the many, many threats. Supposedly the dynamiters were paid by Krupp (I think not). The gang members are also found guilty of (gasp, horror) spreading anti-French propaganda.

A US District Court voids the parts of the Volstead Act limiting how much liquor a doctor can prescribe to one pint per 10 days. That’s for doctors to decide, sez the judge.

Irish Free State Prez William Cosgrove rejects Éamon de Valera’s peace terms and declines further communication with him, including the personal conference the fugitive future president suggested.

At the Lausanne Conference, Turkey rejects a suggestion that they take the next day, Ascension Day, off. Riza Nur Bey says that would be an infringement of Turkish sovereignty somehow. “It is none of our business whether Christ went to heaven or not, nor do we care on what day he went there.” Meanwhile, the Russian delegates, who showed up without being invited to the conference, are being guarded by the police because of threats by the Swiss Fascists. How well guarded, we shall see.

Responding to the US decision to bar all ships entering US territorial waters from carrying liquor, even if it’s locked up, the House of Commons votes 184 to 128 to require passenger ships entering British waters to carry liquor. The bill is a jape, and won’t go any further.

I don’t think I’ve ever used the word jape before.

The New York City Memorial Day parade will feature Fascists marching in the Italian Fascist uniform. They were invited by the American Legion.

New dancing record: 160 hours & 55 minutes. I’m bored; can we do phone-booth stuffing now?

Headline of the Day That Sounds Dirty But Isn’t -100: 

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Today -100: May 9, 1923: That smile we know so well

Britain issues a snippy ultimatum to Russia. It will break off trade relations in 10 days unless Russia stops doing anti-British propaganda in India, Afghanistan and Persia; withdraws its refusal to receive official British complaints about the trials of religious figures; and accepts liability for offenses to individuals and ships (I guess they sunk a fishing boat?). And they complain that the British agent in Moscow has been subjected to “studied insolence,” which is the worst kind of insolence. The Tory government is obviously looking for an excuse to tear up the agreement Lloyd George made with Russia.

The French court-martial sentences Baron Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach to 15 years. And a fine.  Other Krupp company directors (some of whom are out of reach in Germany proper) are sentenced to 10, 15, or 20 years. This is for the incident on March 31 when French soldiers tried to seize Krupp company automobiles and got into a fight with workers while, according to the military prosecutor, the directors looked on from inside “with that smile we know so well from the days when German officers smiled while French villages, farms and homesteads burned.” So their crime is... smirking in the first degree. The prosecutor says the blood of the German workers killed by the French soldiers is on the directors’ hands (no French soldiers were killed). Chancellor Cuno calls the sentence a contemptible travesty, which is the worst kind of travesty.

The NYPD arrest 807 men for witnessing an immoral performance. They’re driven to the police station where they give their names (Jones, Smith, Brown) and addresses (vacant lots, public buildings). I think this is the NYPD’s nose-thumbing response to a magistrate who released a bunch of people Monday, saying it’s not actually against the law to view a performance the police consider immoral.

Diplomats in China from the countries whose citizens were kidnapped from the Peking express demand that China pay the ransom demanded by the bandits (the US is specifically demanding that the Chinese government pay it). The diplomats threaten to impose an indemnity on China if anyone is still being held on the 12th, increasing every day after that.

New York Health Commissioner Frank Monaghan says women should wear a corset: “It lends support to vital organs which need bracing, thus permitting them to function properly without strain.” Also, it makes them super-hot, which is good for their mental health.

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