Today -100: November 26, 1923: Hello America

Radio broadcasts from Britain are heard in the US for the first time. US stations stop broadcasting at 10pm Eastern to facilitate the test, although some jackasses in Chicago and San Antonio couldn’t manage to stay off the air the whole 30 minutes. 8 British stations from London to Cardiff to Glasgow participated in the experiment.

Former German treasury minister Heinrich F. Albert will attempt to form a caretaker government. This would be a cabinet of non-partisan technocrat types, without the backing of a majority in the Reichstag. Albert was in the US before it entered the Great War trying to keep the US out but also overseeing spying and sabotage.

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Today -100: November 25, 1923: Of maybe-chancellors and bombings

The feds & the Philadelphia cops think the bombings of the Spanish and Italian consulates was the work of Spanish Communists boomily protesting the agreement between Mussolini and Primo Rivera, or the Prime-Duck Pact, as no one calls it.

Siegfried von Kardorff of the German People's Party (DVP) refuses Pres. Ebert’s request that he attempt to form a government, after he fails to get support from the right-wing German National People’s Party (DNVP) or to get Stresemann to take the post of foreign minister. So Oskar Hergt of the DNVP will try to do so. And fail.

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Today -100: November 24, 1923: I know of only one man who was flogged and did not get what he deserved

Bombs explode at the Spanish and Italian consulates in Philadelphia.

Gustav Stresemann loses a vote of confidence 230-155 and resigns as German chancellor. He and his cabinet will continue in office until a replacement is named.

French PM Raymond Poincaré wins a vote of confidence 506-70.

Gen. Hans von Seeckt, commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr (didn’t he challenge Stresemann to a duel some time back?) bans and orders dissolved the Communist Party (KPD), the Nationalist Party, and the National Socialists.

Pro-Klan members of the Oklahoma Legislature defeat a bill to make membership lists of secret organizations public. One senator declares that the Klan stands for law n’ order: “I know of only one man who was flogged and did not get what he deserved.” Ousted Gov. Jack Walton is indicted for 7 counts, coinciding with 7 of the charges for which he was impeached.

A circuit court orders Chicago to issue a license for a birth control clinic. Judge Fisher thinks knowledge of birth control methods would not materially lessen morality.

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Today -100: November 23, 1923: If you have a better man, bring him out

German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann admits that “the development of internal German conditions is driving toward radical tendencies,” which he blames on France. Facing forthcoming motions of no confidence from the left and right, he proclaims, “If you have a better man for the job, bring him out.”

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I’m assuming being only slightly drunk is illegal in Russia. This is Serge Essenin, Isadora Duncan’s husband. She will shortly announce that she is done with him.

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Today -100: November 22, 1923: Of notes, Saxons, and surprisingly feisty dead Bavarians

Britain gets France to tone down the note to Germany on monitoring the size of its military. The issue of the return of the crown prince is dropped entirely.

Ousted Saxon Prime Minister Erich Zeigner is arrested, while Beer Hall Putsch leaders like Ludendorff still roam free.

Bavarian radical Kurt Eisner kills a peasant trying to assassinate him. Which is impressive, since Eisner was actually assassinated in 1919.

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Today -100: November 21, 1923: Of spies, hunger, and butterfly jazz

Lothar Witzke, the only German spy convicted in the US during the Great War, is released from prison and will be expelled from the country.

Hunger-striking prisoner Dennis Barry dies in Newbridge internment camp, the first hunger-strike death under the Irish Free State.

Giacomo Puccini wins a lawsuit against the Ricordi music publishers for a fox-trot containing an excerpt from Madame Butterfly. Puccini claimed his dignity had been affronted by the jazzing of his music.

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Today -100: November 20, 1923: Brain fever, huh? That’s one term for it.

The Oklahoma State Senate removes Gov. Jack Walton from office on the first count of impeachment, abusing his pardon & parole power, by a unanimous vote. Walton’s defense had withdrawn from the trial. The Senate goes on to convict on 10 other counts: padding the state payroll, dispersing a grand jury, suspending habeas corpus, issuing deficiency certificates when there was no deficiency, raising excess campaign funds, illegally seeking gifts, and general incompetence. He is acquitted of other charges.

Vienna University is closed after violent attacks on Jewish students. Similar attacks take place in the university of Jassy, Romania.

Adolf Hitler, held in Landsberg fortress under guards “selected for their powers of resistance to Hitler’s magnetic personality,” is said to have brain fever.

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Today -100: November 19, 1923: Of occupations, konklaves, and broken clubs

French PM Raymond Poincaré says France will occupy the Ruhr not only until reparations are paid, but until every other provision of the Versailles Treaty is met.

Poland says if Germany and Bavaria don’t stop persecuting Jews, Poland will persecute Germans.

The New Jersey state organizer of the Ku Klux Klan says the Klan will soon be strong enough in the state that they can take off their hoods. Dr. William Gudlidge, National Konklave (that’s a title), at a Klan-only meeting at the First Reformed Church of West Hoboken, claims there are negro societies in Chicago and New York pledged to marry only white women. And that the Catholics plan to take over the Navy in 1926, expelling all Protestants. And that Jews are trying to destroy pure womanhood through their control of commercial vice.

A Citizens’ Vigilance Committee forms in Atlantic City to combat the Ku Klux Klan. Mayor Edward Bader (business partner of Nucky Thompson, a very fictionalized version of whom was played by Steve Buscemi in Boardwalk Empire) tells cops to “break your clubs over their heads.”

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Today -100: November 18, 1923: Of protection, equal rights, spotless generals, and zebras

The British elections begin. PM Stanley Baldwin’s platform includes: higher duties on imported manufactured goods, using those as a bludgeon to negotiate lower foreign tariffs, imperial preference in imports. He claims to be concerned by unemployment and thinks protective tariffs are the only way to deal with it. It’s only been a year since the last elections, so this one is entirely down to Baldwin, who wants a mandate for protectionist tariffs. He might come to regret this decision.

The Duchess of Atholl is standing for Parliament, despite having been a prominent campaigner against women’s suffrage. She will win.

Pres. Coolidge meets a delegation from the National Woman’s Party, who ask his support for the Equal Rights Amendment. Sidestepping that, he tells them he’s sure Congress will respond favorably.

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The Bavarian branch of the German Officers’ Association finds his behaviour “spotless” and says the poor naif was deceived by Hitler.

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Countess Hardwick of the Hohenlohe royal line, after an ill-fated trip to the Budapest Zoo. I haven’t been able to confirm this story, but Christian Prinz zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, who I presume is related to her, was charged in 2008 with killing mountain zebras in Namibia. Not sure if the Hohenlohe-Zebra feud continues.

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Today -100: November 17, 1923: Of the spirit that is necessary for cooperation and entente, acquittals, and royal furniture

Britain won’t agree to any further sanctions on Germany, especially France’s plan to seize ports. And it won’t agree to an ultimatum to Germany to expel or surrender former crown prince Friedrich Wilhelm, a demand Britain points out is not covered by the Treaty of Versailles. Yesterday PM Stanley Baldwin suggested in Parliament that France is being so bitchy that Britain “could not continue indefinitely to maintain the spirit that is necessary for cooperation and entente.” French PM Raymond Poincaré responds that France has not been stubborn and intransigent. France has sooooooo been stubborn and intransigent.

Mussolini also opposes expanding the occupation.

The two men who assassinated Vatslav Vorovsky, the Soviet delegate to the Lausanne Conference, last May, are acquitted by a Swiss jury after a trial that largely focused on the evils of the Bolshevik government. The Soviet Union will start a boycott of Switzerland.

Former kaiser Wilhelm says he had no idea former crown prince Friedrich Wilhelm was going to Germany. Indeed, he goes to court to get back some of the family furniture the crown prince was sending to his estate in Silesia.

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Today -100: November 16, 1923: Of revitalized parties and territories

Sen. Hiram Johnson (R-Cal.) and William Gibbs McAdoo (D) announce their candidacies for president. Johnson calls for a “revitalized Republican Party, the instrument neither of static reaction nor destructive radicalism.” McAdoo just reminds everyone he’s Woodrow Wilson’s son-in-law, probably. 

The American Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines (i.e., white people), finding Filipino agitation for independence and opposition to appointed Gov.-Gen. Leonard Wood to be interfering with bidnizz, calls for the Philippines to be declared a territory, ending what little autonomy it has.

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Today -100: November 15, 1923: Yay Yeats

Former Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, back in Silesia on his 50,000-acre estate, says he intends to mind his own business.

Germany will stop paying unemployment in the Rhineland and Ruhr on the 25th.

William Butler Yeats is awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.

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Today -100: November 14, 1923: Of reconciliations, passports, and crown princes

In the UK, the divided Liberal Party is divided no more. Asquith & Lloyd George reconcile and will march off into irrelevance hand in hand.

Germany denies having issued passports and visas to ex-kaiser Wilhelm.

France proposes that Germany be punished for letting the crown prince return and for non-compliance with Allied inspections of its military (Germany says it can’t ensure inspectors’ safety in the current climate) with the seizure of Hamburg.

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Today -100: November 13, 1923: Caught!

Hitler is captured.

Rumors say that former kaiser Wilhelm has received passports from Germany, will return, and he or his son will be reinstalled as kaiser next month.

The Supreme Court upholds California and Washington laws banning people who are barred from citizenship (i.e., Japanese) from owning land.

Albert Einstein flees Berlin after receiving anti-Semitic threatening letters.

Treasury Sec. Andrew Mellon proposes reducing taxes on earned income.

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Today -100: November 12, 1923: Monstrous fallacies are the worst kind of fallacy

Bavarian Dictator Gustav von Kahr calls the Beer Hall Putsch “utopian,” attempting “to pick the fruit before it was ripe.”

Winston Churchill declines to stand for Parliament in Bonar Law’s old seat. He does say that the Conservative Party’s turn towards protective tariffs is “a monstrous fallacy.” 

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Today -100: November 11, 1923: Of deeply ignoble shit, words of honor, and unexiles

Woodrow Wilson addresses the nation on radio through 3 powerful radio stations, other stations agreeing to go off air during the 10-minute speech. He calls the US’s isolationism since the Great War “deeply ignoble,” “cowardly and dishonorable.”

Ludendorff, who was indeed captured, is released on his word that he won’t do another coup. Reports are that he then went home and committed suicide. He did not.

Former Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm leaves his Dutch exile for his estate in Silesia. Everyone’s in a tizzy. The Allies present the Netherlands a note objecting to the departure, handing it over 15 minutes after the princeling crossed into Germany.

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Today -100: November 10, 1923: The beer probably didn’t help

The Beer Hall Putsch is over. 16 putschists are dead and a few cops.

There really doesn’t seem to have been a plan. Hitler declared a coup and then everyone sat around the beer hall drinking for several hours. Eventually, Erich Ludendorff shouts “We’re marching” and leads an attack on the Bavarian War Ministry. Today’s paper is saying the storm troops are fought off by soldiers (police?) and pretty easily dispersed. This is wrong. In fact, they occupy the building without a shot fired.

Bavarian “Dictator” Gustav von Kahr, Reichswehr Gen. Otto von Lossow, and police chief Col. Hans Ritter von Seisser, who had all pledged support for the putsch at the beer hall but were unaccountably then allowed to leave by Ludendorff after they solemnly promised to come back later (hoo boy was Hitler pissed at that one), now say they were acting under duress and didn’t mean it. God knows they’re all hostile enough to the federal German government and insubordinate to its orders that it was not unreasonable to assume they’d go along with the putsch.

Ludendorff and Hitler are variously reported to have been captured or to be in the wind, with Hitler possibly suffering a gunshot wound.

The NYT calls the attempted putsch “a crazy movement inspired and directed by persons better fitted for the comic opera stage than for a serious effort to overthrow the Berlin Government,” referring more to Ludendorff than Hitler, who the editorial fails to mention.

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Today -100: November 9, 1923: Of putsches with beverages

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This is the Beer Hall Putsch. Invading a meeting in the Bürgerbräukeller beer hall in Munich called by Bavaria Minister-President Eugen von Knilling, Hitler, accompanied by a few hundred SA, fires a shot into the ceiling,  shouting “The national revolution has broken out!” and announces the overthrow of Bavaria’s government, naming State Commissioner Gustav Ritter von Kahr as National Protector (Reichsverwehr) and Gen. Erich Ludendorff as head of the German army. Von Kahr takes a while to agree, saying he’s only doing it as a viceroy of Prince Rupprecht. Hitler says he’ll be German chancellor. He says there will be a march on Berlin.

In Berlin, a proclamation by Chancellor Gustav Stresemann and Pres. Friedrich Ebert points out that Hitler is a foreigner who only recently became a German citizen (actually, he hasn’t done that). “The success of this crazy mutiny can bring only a new catastrophe to Germany.”

No one thinks the army (Reichswehr) can be trusted to put down the putsch.

France warns Germany that it won’t tolerate a dictatorship in Germany.

The Netherlands says it will prevent former Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm going to Germany.

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Today -100: November 8, 1923: Of surpluses, duels, impeachments, and inspections

Candidates backed by the Ku Klux Klan sweep Ohio elections.

The Senate is investigating Charles Forbes, who was head of the Veterans’ Bureau until Harding fired him last February for continuing to sell off “surplus” hospital supplies, presumably for a kickback, after Harding told him to stop doing that. This was one of many, many, many grifts he engaged in, which I believe are only being made public now.

Supposedly Gen. Hans von Seeckt, commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr, challenges Chancellor Gustav Stresemann to a duel, evidently because he thinks the chancellor is being too soft on Bavaria.

The federal district court rejects Jack Walton’s request to stop his impeachment as Oklahoma governor.

France demands that Germany allow the resumption of inspections to ensure its military isn’t larger than the 100,000 allowed by the Versailles Treaty. I think the idea is to include all the paramilitary groups, storm troopers etc towards that limit.

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Today -100: November 7, 1923: Of elections, impatient fascisti, the influence of passion and prejudice, and hunger strikes

In yesterday’s elections, NY voters approved a bonus for veterans of the Great War. Ohio, by 56%, removes words in the state Constitution restricting the franchise to white males. Vermont elected Porter Dale (R) to the US Senate. Governors: Albert Ritchie (D) in Maryland, Henry Whitfield (D) in Mississippi, and William Fields (D) in Kentucky.

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This article entirely fails to mention the head of the Klan in Indiana, D.C. Stephenson, who will probably show up in the news at some point.

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The dick pics in question are paintings put up by former Ohio Sen. Charles Dick as collateral for a loan. His wife’s name, I mention for no particular reason, is Carrie Dick.

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Gov., er suspended Gov. Jack Walton of Oklahoma appeals to federal district court to stop his impeachment, saying he can’t get a fair trial in the state senate, where many members are “under the influence of passion and prejudice” against him.

The Glasgow Central Division Liberal Party invites Winston Churchill to stand for Parliament in the by-election to replace the late Andrew Bonar Law. Churchill, meanwhile, is suing Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas for libel.

Some of the IRA hunger strikers held by the Free State give up after being told that Éamon de Valera isn’t joining them.

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Today -100: November 6, 1923: Of knight hawks, traditional German sports, and crown princes

In Atlanta, Philip E. Fox, editor of the Ku Klux Klan newspaper The Knight Hawk, shoots dead William Coburn, lawyer for the Klan’s Wizard-Emeritus William Simmons.

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The German army masses on the Bavaria-Thuringia border to prevent Nationalist/monarchist/Nazi forces in the former attacking the latter. Pres. Ebert issues a proclamation warning of the dangers of civil war, saying that Germany has the facilities to put down any putsch and will use them ruthlessly.

The French military order German police out of Kaiserslautern’s town hall so separatists can occupy it and declare a Palatinate Republic.

During all this, former Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm has been given a passport by Germany allowing him to end his exile and move to Silesia, but the Allies are discussing whether to allow it.

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Today -100: November 5, 1923: Of Hitler bluffs

Wels, Austria, imposes a special tax on plays by Jewish and French authors.

The Third International says it’s the time for German Communists to take over Germany and form a Versailles-Treaty-busting army of all the unemployed.

Nationalists and Nazis are getting ready for some sort of action on the 7th. Would the Reichswehr fight back against a nationalist rising? Very unclear. Is this all a “typical Hitler bluff”? Er...

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Today -100: November 4, 1923: The Klan issue or anti-Klan issue will not be raised here

A Ku Klux Klan newspaper in the Southwest, Mayfield’s Weekly, announces opposition to the presidential candidacies of Sen. Oscar Underwood, Al Smith and, surprisingly, Henry Ford, who recently gave a special Lincoln to a Catholic Archbishop. They like William Gibbs McAdoo, though. 

In Morristown, New Jersey, black people accuse Republican candidates for county offices of being in sympathy with the Ku Klux Klan. Mayor Clyde Potts (which is as New-Jersey-mayor a name as it is possible to have) responds by threatening to have them arrested: “The Klan issue or anti-Klan issue will not be raised here... Anyone who attempts to incite race or religious feeling among us will be dealt with as a public enemy.”

A mixed-race or possibly Mexican man is lynched at Eufaula, Oklahoma.

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Today -100: November 3, 1923: Of sick days

New air speed record: 259 mph, by a US Navy plane.

“Rhineland Republic” separatists occupy the Aix-la-Chapelle Town Hall. Then Belgian troops kick them out of town (having to protect them from angry Aixlahoovians on the way out), evidently in response to pressure from Britain and the Netherlands, although it’s a little murky. France will not be pleased.

The 3 German Social Democratic members of  Stresemann’s cabinet withdraw. They’d given him an ultimatum regarding Saxony and Bavaria, and he literally faked illness to avoid answering them.

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Today -100: November 2, 1923: A dictatorship can last forever if properly managed

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His lawyers’ request to ask each senator if he’s a member of the Ku Klux Klan is denied.

At the Imperial Conference in London, Indians complain about their unequal treatment in other British colonies. Canada says Indians have full legal rights there, er, except for British Columbia. South Africa’s Jan Smuts says if he gave rights to Indians he’d have to give them to blacks and then where would white rule be?

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“A dictatorship can last forever if properly managed,” Mussolini tells foreign reporters. He brags about how few strikes there are now.

Chicago may lose the Republican Convention unless it offers more reasonable hotel rates (those smoke-filled rooms don’t come cheap). Cleveland will get the convention.

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Today -100: November 1, 1923: Picky picky picky

Britain reminds France and Belgium that the “Rhineland Republic” would violate the Versailles Treaty, which sets Germany’s borders.

Thousands of men of the many right-wing groups in Bavaria – monarchists, Hitlerites, etc. – are massing on the Thuringian border.

The German occupying forces allow the Saxon State Assembly to meet and elect a new prime minister, Socialist Alfred Fellisch, to replace the one they deposed.

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Today -100: October 31, 1923: Of fords, saxons, and reparations

Henry Ford’s secretary writes to the Ford Presidential Club saying Ford won’t accept any nomination.

The German Socialists in the Reichstag seem to be wimping out on opposing Stresemann’s deposition of the Saxon government. 

The European countries and the US will participate in an inquiry by a commission of experts into how much reparations Germany can afford, subject only to the French conditions that it not change anything in any way. Britain evidently thinks that the results will be so clear that France will be forced to accept them by the power of reasonableness.

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Today -100: October 30, 1923: Of saxons, expulsions, and angorra

Former British Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law dies.

The Rhenish Republic says it will pay its share of reparations and blames the Great War on those fucking Prussians.

German troops are sent in to depose Saxony’s government, arrest Prime Minister Erich Zeigner and other members of his cabinet, and occupy public buildings in Dresden. Federal Chancellor Gustav Stresemann appoints Carl Heinze to rule Saxony. The Saxon State Assembly is ordered suspended. Communist newspapers are suppressed.

Bavaria’s dictator Gustav von Kahr orders the expulsion of 200 Jewish families who are German but not Bavarian. Their houses will be seized, ostensibly for refugees from the Ruhr. Hitler’s newspaper is publishing names of Jews who have yet to be expelled.

Turkey is now officially a republic, and its capital will be moved from Constantinople to Ankara (Angora).

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Today -100: October 29, 1923: Our government will last because we recognize the influence of will power in history

Saxony’s cabinet refuses Chancellor Gustav Stresemann’s demand that it resign, saying only the Saxon Diet can dismiss it.

Italy celebrates one year of Fascist rule. Mussolini: “Our government will last because we recognize the influence of will power in history, because we wish it to last, because we are ready to do anything to make it last, because we will systematically rout all our enemies, because our government is not merely the triumph of one party, but is the resurrection of our race.”

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Today -100: October 28, 1923: Germany is kind of a mess right now

Britain will oppose any attempt to establish the Rhineland Republic in its occupation zone (Cologne etc). Reuters reports that the French will officially recognize the separatist movement as lawful.

German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann demands the resignation of Saxony’s government (does he have any authority to do that?) and a new cabinet with no Communists. And oh-so-politely requests that Bavaria’s government stop asserting control over federal troops. Saxony’s is an elected but left-wing government while Bavaria’s is far-right, run by a “dictator,” bellicose towards neighboring Saxony and contemptuous of the central German government. 

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Today -100: October 27, 1923: Of republics

French and Belgian troops actively prevent authorities in the Rhine doing anything to stop separatists seizing buildings (and early in the occupation they disarmed the police). Coblenz is now the capital of the “Rhineland Republic,” its public buildings occupied by the separatists while the French enforced a curfew (and gun restrictions) on everyone else.

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Today -100: October 26, 1923: Of Fords

Henry Ford says he’s for Coolidge if he enforces prohibition.

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Today -100: October 25, 1923: Of palatinates and tasty evidence

Another day, another German separatist coup attempt. In this case a provisional government for a Palatinate Republic is set up, even as the Rhineland Republic effort is failing, mostly because no one in the Rhineland wants it.

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Today -100: October 24, 1923: Yeah, we all get older

The Oklahoma State Senate votes 36 to 1 to suspend Gov. Jack Walton pending impeachment.

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Today -100: October 23, 1923: Of separatists, oaths, and bears

Several more small Rhineland towns have been seized by separatists.

German army (Reichswehr) troops in Bavaria take an oath to Bavaria (rather than the Reich). Rumors say Bavaria will shortly attack Saxony.

The University of Bologna wants to give PM Mussolini an honorary degree as doctor of laws, but he insists he’ll sit the exam.

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Today -100: October 22, 1923: All resistance will be pitilessly suppressed

The ACLU protests Boston Mayor James Curley’s ban on Ku Klux Klan meetings.

An independent Rhineland Republic is declared in Aix-la-Chapelle after a coup. “All resistance will be pitilessly suppressed,” the proclamation says, but there isn’t any. This is the Belgian zone of occupation and Belgian soldiers are of course doing nothing.

Bavaria’s military dictator Gustav von Kahr justifies illegally overturning the federal government’s firing of Gen. Otto von Lossow as commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr (military) in Bavaria. Something about internationalism and Marxism, presumably including the federal government.  “Bavaria considers it her holy duty in this hour to be the stronghold of threatened Germandom.”

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Today -100: October 21, 1923: Of bread and hajjis

More bread riots in Berlin.

The 5th Baron Headley, a convert to Islam, returns from the Haaj, supposedly the first European Muslim ever to go on the Haaj.

Bavaria’s military dictator Gustav von Kahr, who does not have the power to do this, appoints Gen. Otto von Lossow as commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr (military) in the Bavarian region after federal Pres. Ebert had fired him. The worry is that Bavaria’s gonna invade Saxony.

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Today -100: October 20, 1923: Of the greatest issue in America today, reparations, and parade-stopping

A conference of all 52 state and territorial governors endorses Prohibition. Louisiana Gov. John Parker resigns in protest, saying “The Ku Klux Klan is the greatest issue in America today.”

German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann says Germany will stop paying reparations now that it has been shown from Poincaré’s refusal to negotiate that his real objective is the destruction of the German Reich. The London Times points out that France said it would negotiate only when passive resistance ended but it didn’t negotiate when passive resistance ended.

A plot by Romanian Fascists to assassinate government ministers is uncovered, leading to the resignation of the interior minister and others.

The Youngstown, Ohio chief of police says he will stop a planned KKK parade, shooting to kill if need be.

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Today -100: October 19, 1923: How is “diplomatic relations” even a thing here?

Bavaria and Saxony break diplomatic relations.

Pres. Coolidge joins the First Congregational Church in DC.

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Today -100: October 18, 1923: Of funereal foxtrots

The federal German government is, allegedly, preparing to militarily invade Saxony. Excuse me, “Soviet Saxony.” They would do this to prevent far-right Bavaria (excuse me, “Blue Bavaria”) invading Saxony. Excuse me, “Red Saxony.” Gen. Mueller demands the Saxon government repudiate a speech by Finance Minister Paul Böttcher (Communist) saying it might come down to a fight with counter-revolution. Mueller’s threat rather seems to make his point.

The Oklahoma House reverses itself, voting to investigate whether the Ku Klux Klan controls the Legislature and renders city and county governments impotent.

The Philippines Legislature calls for the recall of Gov. Gen. Leonard Wood.

Police in Udine, France, stop a jazz band playing at a funeral. It wasn’t the jazz they object to, per se, but the dancing (foxtrotting) that broke out.

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Today -100: October 17, 1923: A question of the very existence of the state

Henry Ford has no objection to the formation of Ford-for-president clubs in South Dakota.

In an interview with Italian Fascist newspaper Corriere Italiano, Hitler says the fundamental principle of the National Socialists is anti-Semitism: “the Jewish question in Germany is a question of the very existence of the State.”

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Today -100: October 16, 1923: Of worthless marks and worthless masked legislators

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The Oklahoma House of Reps refuses to investigate Gov. Jack Walton’s claim that a majority of its members are kluxers.

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Today -100: October 15, 1923: Of recalls

The Ku Klux Klan is supporting a recall petition for Oregon Gov. Walter Pierce (D), although they supported his election last year.

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Today -100: October 14, 1923: Of dictators and lynchings

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Wish: granted.

That’s the Reichsermächtigungsgesetz, transferring powers to the government regardless of whether they violate the Constitution. 

A lynch mob shoots a black man in Virginia.

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Today -100: October 13, 1923: Of Fords and red saxonies

Henry Ford lets Nebraskaites put his name on the presidential primary ballot for the Neb. Progressive Party, possibly out of pique at losing his bid for the nitrate plant at Muscle Shoals. Does he actually want to run for president? His personal secretary says he doesn’t wish to say.

Saxony, or “Red Saxony” as it will evidently now be known, has a new Socialist-Communist Cabinet (the Communist part is new), which the federal government is not thrilled about. To be fair, they’re not happy about Bavaria’s far-right dictator Von Kahr either. Bavaria will stall and passively resist implementation in the state of federal measures under the emergency act.

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Today -100: October 12, 1923: Of special sessions, black shirts, and executioners

The Oklahoma Legislature meets in special session. It changes its mind and allows Gov. Walton’s message to be read (Walton stays away). The message calls for anti-Klan legislation to end the war between the invisible and all-too-visible governments. The Lege leaps into action and ignores his proposals, moving instead to appoint a committee of investigation and impeachment. Walton declares an end to martial law.

Switzerland bans black-colored shirts. Italian Fascists have been making themselves obnoxious lately.

Ahead of the Reichstag vote on giving dictatorial powers to the government (the Reichsermächtigungsgesetz), Chancellor Gustav Stresemann gets authorization from Pres. Ebert to dissolve the Reichstag if it fails to do his bidding.

Isidore Hespel used to be the official executioner in French Guiana, which used prisoners for the job; he was sent there for 2 murders during a robbery committed in France. Now he is to be executed for killing a fellow prisoner who berated him for all the, you know, executions. He wants to erect his own guillotine. Which he will be allowed to do.

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Today -100: October 11, 1923: Of masks, presidents, and vigilance

Oklahoma Gov. Jack Walton’s offer to resign if the Legislature passes his anti-Klan bill isn’t being rejected by legislators, it’s being ignored. And they won’t let him speak to tomorrow’s special session.

Oklahoma KKK Grand Dragon N. Clay Jewett claims to support the unmasking legislation.

Tsao Kun (aka Cao Kun) is sworn in as president of China, a position he bought fair and square (the post is elected by the eminently bribable Parliament). Sun Yat-Sen declares war.

A “vigilance committee” orders black people out of Stowe Township, Pennsylvania. The cops didn’t interfere as the vigilantes went vigilantly issuing threats from house to house, because there was no violence.

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Today -100: October 10, 1923: Of death sentences

Oklahoma Gov. Jack Walton makes a rather odd offer: if the Legislature passes his anti-Klan bill, which would ban masking and make secret societies’ membership lists public, he will resign, immediately. What makes it odd is that he’s been claiming for months that cops and judges throughout the state are klansmen or at least klan-adjacent and are failing to enforce laws against Klan crimes such as floggings. So adding new laws for them not to enforce would accomplish what, exactly?

Convicted murderer Felix Gueydan is guillotined in Aix-en-Provence. It would have happened 18 months ago but they, er, forgot about him. They might have continued to forget about him but he sent a letter asking what was up.

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Today -100: October 9, 1923: Of borers, boycotts, and emergency powers

Headline of the Day -100:  

The coalition that won the Philippines elections says the Legislature will refuse to pass anything recommended by Governor Leonard Wood.

The German Reichstag will consider a bill to give the government emergency powers to do almost anything by decree, including departing from constitution rights, but not, in a concession to the Socialists, to alter the 8-hour day.

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Today -100: October 8, 1923: Of special sessions, warding off attacks of robbers, sick mayors, and German confusion

Oklahoma legislators are saying that sure, they’ll consider Walton’s anti-Klan legislation in the special session but only after they impeach him.

Bavarian Dictator Gustav von Kahr says “Germany must regain sufficient strength to ward off the attacks of robbers,” meaning France. In his war against Socialists he’s swarming Munich with police acting in cooperation with Hitler’s storm troops.

NYC Mayor John Hylan has been sick since August. He may be allowed to leave his bed in a week but probably won’t be mayoring until January. Seems a long time for a major city not to have a working mayor.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: October 7, 1923: 20% off beer!

Gustav Stresemann has put together a new coalition, composed of the same 4 parties as the last one, and a cabinet with only the finance minister changed. No one’s happy about it. Communist deputies in the Reichstag call Stresemann “Stinne’s representative, office boy and stage scenery.” That’s industrialist Hugo Stinnes, head of the Deutsche Volkspartei (People’s Party, DVP), which is only part of the coalition because it has given up (for now) on the scheme for a dictatorship under Erich Ludendorff. Stinnes is also heavily funding the Nazis, so he personally hasn’t given up on the idea of Ludendorff dictatorship. Stresemann says martial law was necessitated solely by the Communists.

Bavarian dictator Gustav von Kahr orders the price of beer reduced by 20%. He may get around to doing the same for milk, but, you know, priorities.

Oklahoma Gov. Jack Walton has sort of reversed himself on the subject of special sessions of the Legislature, calling one for the 11th (6 days before the one called yesterday by legislators themselves to impeach him), which would have as its purpose “the enactment of a law to protect the people from masked and lawless marauders and secret organizations”. Its sole purpose. Not anything else. Definitely not impeaching him.

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Today -100: October 6, 1923: The time is not ripe yet

An Oklahoma state representative invokes the newly voted (but not certified) constitutional amendment to call a special session of the Lege for the 17th. There’s some precedent in OK for acting on initiatives before they’re certified, as in 1907 when the governor moved the capital from Guthrie to OK City on the very day of the vote on an initiative to do so.

Bavarian PM Eugen von Knilling says the only answer to the unsettled political situation in Berlin is either new elections or for the Reichstag to be dissolved and replaced by a dictator. Asked about putting Crown Prince Rupprecht on the Bavarian throne, he says “the time is not ripe yet.” He says Bavarians aren’t the separatists, the real separatists are those in Berlin who try to make Bavaria accept their Red government; Bavarians don’t like all those Marxists and Communists (Marxist is replacing Bolshevik as a term of abuse in Germany).

There’s been a kerfuffle in the art world the last few months about the legitimacy of works of art in various museums such as the Louvre. Now a Prof. John C. Van Dyke of Rutgers says there are only 35 real Rembrandts extant, including none of the “Rembrandts” in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Today -100: October 5, 1923: Of pinchots, woods, and closed cars

Pennsylvania Gov. Gifford Pinchot (R), just finished negotiating a deal to end the coal strike and currently burnishing his Prohibitionist credentials by going to war with Philadelphia saloons, which are ignoring his order to close, may be running for president. Treasury Sec. Andrew Mellon has already been around trying to get him not to, as have other leaders of the Pennsylvania Republican Party.

Elections in the Philippines reject candidates seen as supporting Gov-Gen. Leonard Wood, but not by as large a percentage as was expected.

People increasingly prefer closed cars.

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Today -100: October 4, 1923: Stresemann does the hokey pokey

Oklahoma Gov. Jack Walton gets a temporary restraining order against the election being certified.

German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann resigns! President Friedrich Ebert asks... Gustav Stresemann... to form a new cabinet, which just seems lazy. The Social Democrats had voted to withdraw from the coalition, which was trying to abolish the 8-hour day.

German Socialists claim 100,000 monarchists participated in the attack on Küstrin’s fortresses.

The Daily Mail (London)’s Munich correspondent visits Hitler’s hq and “received a rather poor impression of the Bavarian Nationalist leader and his following.” Hitler is unsurprisingly opposed to the ending of passive resistance and says every factory and furnace in the Ruhr should have been destroyed.

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Today -100: October 3, 1923: The fight on Invisible Empire has just started in Oklahoma

With a quarter of ballots counted, the Oklahoma constitutional amendment allowing the Legislature to call itself into session is passing 4 to 1. Gov. Jack Walton issues a statement: “The fight on Invisible Empire has just started in Oklahoma. I am still Governor of the State.” Fact Check: correct. For now. In a couple of counties state police seize voting materials or prevent polling places opening, including Johnson County where voters instead vote by affidavit, mailing their ballots to the state election board.

Walton (and everyone) seem to miss the constitutional provision requiring a special election to have a 2/3 vote of the Legislature, which means this provision will be thrown out by the state Supreme Court, but not until 1930.

Russia gets a new triumvirate of Dzerzhinsky, Trotsky and Stalin (oh my!).

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Today -100: October 2, 1923: Elections a-comin’

Oklahoma Gov. Jack Walton offers a compromise, keeping his ban on elections Tuesday but holding them in 2 months. Counties are going ahead with preparations for the election anyway, ignoring Walton and his tame State Election Board and his attempt to dismiss county election boards defying him. A state district court enjoins Walton from interfering with elections officials and with the elections. The only direct interference by the governor’s forces today is an attempt by special police to prevent the distribution of ballot boxes in Tulsa; they are thrown out of the court house by 200 special deputies.

800 German royalists of the “Black Reichswehr” paramilitary group attack the Küstrin Fortress in eastern Germany in some sort of half-assed attempt at a putsch begun out of anger at the end of passive resistance in the Ruhr (and maybe to let Black Reichswehr chief Bruno Buchrucker escape an arrest warrant out for him). The Küstrin Putsch is a pathetic affair which does not last long. The government somehow blames Communists as well as monarchists.

Frederick Stock, director of the Chicago Symphony, returns from visiting Europe, predicting another European war because new European music is hysterical, new dances display weird frenzy, women’s clothing is brightly colored and sexalicious, which all shows that Europeans are fidgety, restless and frenzied. You heard it here first.

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Today -100: October 1, 1923: There may be bloodshed, but there will be no election

French PM Raymond Poincaré does not care for the tone of Germany’s proclamation ending passive resistance, he does not care for it AT ALL: “The surly proclamation of an inevitable truce is nothing; it is the execution which is everything.”

Oklahoma Gov. Jack Walton orders the indefinite postponement of tomorrow’s election, which he does not have the authority to do. He says there wasn’t 5-day’s notice of the inclusion on the ballot of the constitutional amendment allowing the Legislature to call itself into session, but that’s not actually a requirement and the OK Supreme Court said last Friday that the election is legal. To prevent the vote – “There may be bloodshed, but there will be no election” – Walton orders the mobilization of the National Guard plus 75,000 volunteers plus 22,000 secret service, which seems like a lot of secret service for a state with a little over 2 million people. Walton says he has been very patient but “one more crack and I am going to put this state under martial law that will be martial law. I will make them go to bed at 6 o’clock”.

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