Today -100: March 19, 1924: We deserved to be shot if we had any other intention

The Soldiers’ Bonus Bill passes the House 355-54. It would provide $50 for short-termers and $1 a day for longer-serving soldiers for each day of home service and $1.25 overseas, to a maximum of $625, in the form of a 20-year endowment policy. It would cost $2 billion with a b over 20 years. Coolidge is expected to veto it.

In the Senate, Pres. Coolidge is accused of, among other things, watching a screening of the Carpentier-Dempsey fight at the home of WaPo publisher Edward McLean, which is a crime.

Questions are asked in the House of Commons about the Prince of Wales’s habit of falling off horses. The subject has also been much discussed in the papers.

At the Beer Hall Putsch trial, Hitler proudly proclaims that his intention was to march on Berlin and overthrow the Republic. Co-defendant Ludendorff denies having had any such plans. The prosecutor upbraids Hitler for the serious consequences of the putsch, to which he responds, “Naturally it had serious consequences. That was the idea. We deserved to be shot if we had any other intention.”

Eugene O’Neill complains about the “irresponsible gabble of the sensation-mongers and notoriety hounds” complaining about his play “All God’s Chillun Got Wings,” which hasn’t opened yet but will star Paul Robeson and Mary Blair as an interracial couple. He asks for a fair hearing by people who’ve actually seen it performed and says it will offend no one. He is wrong about that, of course.

The Senate votes 63-7 for a constitutional amendment to move the presidential inauguration to January from March.

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Today -100: March 18, 1924: Of finks, goats, and scab dinners

Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty accuses Roxie Stinson, the witness against him at the Senate committee, and her representative A.L. (ahem) Fink, of trying to blackmail him He says they wanted $150,000, later dropped to $50,000, to hand over incriminating documents & leave the country so she couldn’t be forced to testify.

Former Justice Dept special agent Gerald Holdridge accuses William Burns, head of the Bureau of Investigation, of undermining the investigation of the bribery involved in the illegal distribution of Carpentier-Dempsey fight films in 1921, which he says involves Daugherty. Asked if he believes Burns & Daugherty are both crooks, he says, “I do.” Holdridge says he and other agents were reassigned and transferred (one to Haiti!) to stop their work. The scheme involved “goats,” men who would be arrested in each state for the showing of the film and pay a small fine, with the collaboration of the local prosecutor and judge.

Sen. Frank Willis (R-Ohio) proposes limiting presidents to a single term. The vote is 70-4 against.

Walter Cohen, a black man twice rejected by the Senate for the post of controller of customs at the Port of New Orleans and twice recess appointed, is confirmed in a closed-door session. He’ll get back pay for all the months he worked without pay.

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Premiere of the film The Thief of Bagdad, starring Douglas Fairbanks, so shirtless it’s almost sarcastic, with a surprise appearance by Anna May Wong

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Today -100: March 17, 1924: Of raw materials

Commerce Sec Herbert Hoover calls for legislation to prevent foreign monopolies on imported raw materials. He thinks such monopolies exist in sisal, potash, raw rubber, tin, mercury, quinine, etc.  He wants to create joint buying organizations, which will certainly pass along their savings to the consumers, why would you doubt it?

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Today -100: March 16, 1924: If you are elected, it will be quite unintentional

Aviator-poet Gabriele D’Annunzio is named Prince of Montenevoso, coinciding with Fiume being formally annexed to Italy.

The Prince of Wales (the future Edward VIII) falls off a horse, twice, or possibly two different horses, as was the custom. The second time his horse kicks him in the head. He “was winded and dazed.” And then the horse kicked him in the head.

And the German former crown prince attends a screening of Fritz Lang’s film Die Nieberlung, which is being considered some sort of nationalist signal.

F.C. Quimby, head of a film company, testifies to the Senate committee investigating the DOJ that half the profits for the illegal showing of films of the Carpentier-Dempsey boxing match in 1921 went to 3 men representing themselves as friends of Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty: “Jap” Muma, who works for Edward McLean, publisher of the Washington Post; William Orr, former secretary to Gov. Charles Whitman; and Ike Martin, owner of a Cincinnati amusement park.

George Bernard Shaw writes to Fenner Brockway, the Labour candidate standing in the Westminster by-election against, among others, Winston Churchill: “Westminster once elected John Stuart Mill, but it has never recovered from the shock of finding that it had elected a really good man. If you are elected, it will be quite unintentional.”

Gen. Otto von Lossow is fined for storming out of the Hitler-Ludendorff trial and refusing to return to the witness stand.

The Federal Council of Churches says there were only 28 lynchings in the US last year, taking place in only 9 states. So, um, yay? 26 of the victims were black.

China and Sweden establish diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia. (Update: er, possibly not for China).

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Today -100: March 15, 1924: Of vicious piffle and truly royal sports

Gaston Means, a former Bureau of Investigation agent, con man, forger, blackmailer, probable murderer, and so much more (he will die in prison after conning a millionaire out of a huge sum of money because he said he could get the Lindbergh baby back), who is currently under indictment for fraudulently selling glass coffins through the mail, as one does, testifies to the Senate committee investigating Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty. He says Dirty Harry received $100,000 from a Japanese bank. He says that his agents broke into and searched Sen. Robert La Follette’s office after the latter began investigating Teapot Dome. He says he conducted an undercover investigation of Treasury Sec Andrew Mellon at Pres. Harding’s request, something about permits for whisky. Oh, and so on. Some of it may even be true.

Treasury Sec Andrew Mellon calls Gaston Means’s testimony “vicious piffle,” which is the worst kind of piffle.

Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty denies all the charges against him made by Roxy Stinson. He says she blames him for her dead ex-husband Jess Smith having failed to make her his sole beneficiary.

Richard Halsey, the immigration director for Hawaii, commits suicide after being accused of complicity in the smuggling of Chinese into the territory.

A teacher in Grant, Colorado writes Pres. Coolidge inviting him to a lion hunt, which she calls a “truly royal sport.” But Coolidge, filthy commoner that he is, declines.

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Today -100: March 14, 1924: Of dissolutions, injunctions, and bumpers-and-friends

German Chancellor Wilhelm Marx dissolves the Reichstag after a fight over the government’s special powers. And since no Reichstag means no parliamentary immunity, the police arrest 17 Communist deputies.

Coolidge appoints Curtis Wilbur, the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, as secretary of the Navy. This is his first appointment, the rest of the Cabinet still consisting entirely of holdover Harding appointments.

The federal court for Wyoming issues a temporary injunction against drilling at Teapot Dome by Harry Sinclair’s Mammoth Oil Company, in response to a government petition asserting that the lease was made after bribes to Interior Sec. Albert Fall and false claims by Fall to Harding.

The Teapot Dome Committee questions Teddy Roosevelt Jr. about sending in marines in 1922 to eject trespassers of the oil-extracting variety  from the Teapot Dome region when he was assistant Navy secretary. He says it was done at the insistence of Interior Sec Albert Fall, allegedly with Harding’s approval. Sen. Thomas Walsh suggests they sent troops rather than go through the courts because that would have brought legal scrutiny to the lease. Col. Roosevelt admits having asked Harry Sinclair to give his brother Archie a job.

Roxy Stinson, ex-wife of Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty’s “bumper and friend” (whatever that means), Jess Smith – the bagman who had no government job but had a desk outside Daugherty’s office and who committed “suicide” in mysterious circumstances last May – spills the beans to the Senate committee investigating Dirty Harry: secret meetings, oil speculation, payoffs to facilitate the illegal circulation of films of the Carpentier-Dempsey boxing match, bribes for pardons, illegal withdrawal of liquor from government-bonded warehouses, etc. Some of it may even be true.

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Today -100: March 13, 1924: More tempest in a Teapot Dome

The House of Representatives authorizes an investigation of the Chicago federal grand jury charge that two congresscritters took bribes to facilitate pardons from Daugherty’s super-corrupt Justice Dept.

At the Senate Teapot Dome Committee, Washington Post publisher Edward McLean admits that last December his friend Interior Secretary Albert Fall asked him to say that he’d lent Fall $100,000 as a cover for the bribes Fall had taken from oil companies, though Fall told him it had nothing to do with Teapot Dome. McLean did tell the lie he was asked to do, evidently without asking what was going on if it wasn’t Teapot Dome.

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Today -100: March 12, 1924: Utterly impossible

Coolidge asks Congress to cut federal taxes 25% by March 15th so people filing on or by that day can take advantage of it. Congressional leaders say it’s impossible to do it by then.

The Dictator of Bavaria at the time of the Beer Hall Putsch, Gustav von Kahr, insists at the Hitler-Ludendorff trial that neither he nor Gen. Otto von Lossow could possibly have worked with Hitler because “We considered Hitler, Hitler’s followers and Hitler’s plans as utterly impossible.” Says he took Hitler showing up at the Bürgerbräukeller with a revolver and a mob as a comedy over which he was laughing secretly.

The German sense of humor is a mysterious thing.

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Today -100: March 11, 1924: Of peculiar and natural functions and swashbuckling little ward politicians

Government lawyers will, finally, file suit for an injunction against Harry Sinclair operating the Teapot Dome oil leases and Doheny for his leases. The lawyers will have to travel first to Cheyenne, then to LA to do so.

The US Supreme Court upholds the NY law banning night work by women in restaurants (except as singers, actors or cloakroom attendants). Justice George Sutherland says the law is not unreasonable or discriminatory because it’s hard to sleep in the day in large cities, which is more dangerous for women because of their “more delicate organism,” and night work “threatens to impair their peculiar and natural functions, and... exposes them to the dangers and menaces incident to night life in large cities”.

Gen. Otto von Lossow, the former illegally appointed chief of the Reichswehr in Bavaria, testifies at the Beer Hall Putsch trial, calling Hitler a “swashbuckling little ward politician”.

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Today -100: March 10, 1924: The miasmic air of scandal is the worst kind of air of scandal

The congressional hearings on Harry Daugherty and the Justice Dept begin this week, starting with rumors that DOJ agents and oil men have been stirring up revolution in Mexico.

The NYT quotes unnamed people in touch with the thoughts of Americans who say there’s a “reaction” against “the prevailing tendency to tear down honorable reputations through the circulation of rumors and open accusation.” Albert Fall, Dirty Harry Daugherty, those sorts of honorable reputations? The article, which reads more like a “NYT Pitchbot” editorial than a front-page news article, exults that Coolidge’s reputation has not been damaged. The Senate, it says, not entirely unfairly, has accomplished nothing this term since “Its atmosphere has been so permeated with the miasmic air of scandal”.

Oil tycoon Edward Doheny says the naval reserve oil leases were signed with the authorization of Congress and navy secs Daniels & Denby also knew exactly what was going on. Doheny mocks Sen. Thomas Walsh, chair of the Teapot Dome Committee, and “his fellow-howlers, who are too busy wind-jamming to stop to learn the truth”. He also deploys the always delightful phrase “flim-flam.”

Eleutherios Venizelos leaves Greece, saying he was mistaken to believe he could help the country.

Germany, which will have elections soon, asks France to restore freedom of speech and the press in the areas it occupies.

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Today -100: March 9, 1924: Of naming names

Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty refuses to name the 2 congresscritters identified by the Chicago federal grand jury as involved in the corruption at the Veterans’ Bureau until such time as he personally sees evidence that convinces him of their guilt, because justice.

That said, the names are pretty widely known. Rep. Frederick Zihlman of Maryland says he wants his name cleared and will testify whenever & wherever. The other is Rep. John Langley of Kentucky, who will be arrested for something else entirely later this month.

The House Census Committee gives up attempting to reapportion the House’s seats, you know, the thing they were supposed to have done 3 years ago according to the Constitution. John Rankin (D-Miss.) and E. Hart Fenn (R-CT) support doing nothing because the 1920 census showed a shift of population to the cities, which is scary.

Eleutherios Venizelos, who rode in to rescue Greece from itself but then had a bunch of heart attacks, is riding back out again. And Prime Minister Georgios Kafantaris and his cabinet are forced to resign by the Army for refusing to abolish the monarchy in advance of the referendum on whether to abolish the monarchy.

The latest New York newspaper/police obsession:

She’s been robbing chain stores and pharmacists for weeks.

Philippines newspapers suggest that Coolidge is backing the much-despised Governor Leonard Woods to keep him from coming back to the US and running for president against him.

The Soviet Union bans the buying or kidnapping of women to be brides in Turkestan, Khirghizstan, etc. Also bigamy and child brides. Also, murderers won’t be able to get out of legal consequences by paying bribes to their victim’s family.

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Today -100: March 8, 1924: Of duels and petroleum boots

French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré challenges Deputy De Launay to a duel over remarks he made in the National Assembly. The seconds call the thing off after determining that he misheard those remarks.

Sen. James Reed of Missouri thinks William Gibbs McAdoo can’t win the presidential election: “no man wearing boots filled with Mr. Doheny’s petroleum can carry a State in the general election.”

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Today -100: March 7, 1924: Everyone’s a fucking drama queen in this courtroom

Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty will be ousted within 48 hours... is something that has been said before, and is now said again.

The prosecutor in the Beer Hall Putsch trial storms out, complaining about the insults from alliterative defense lawyer Karl Kohl about his failure to prosecute high Bavarian officials implicated in the putsch. He turns the prosecution over to his assistant, who asks for an adjournment.

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Today -100: March 6, 1924: Evidence that something is yet lacking in development of political consciousness and capability

Pres. Coolidge says the Filipinos are not ready for independence in a letter to Speaker of the Philippines House of Representatives Manuel Roxas, currently in the US as part of a mission to demand... independence.  Coolidge congratulates the independencers for talking about using “all lawful means in our power,” such moderation being of course a tribute to the progress the Filipino people have made under US auspices. Anyway, without US “protection,” the Philippines couldn’t maintain its independence in this wicked world. The Filipino mission to the US, he says, is actually “evidence that something is yet lacking in development of political consciousness and capability.” So if they ask for independence, they’ve proven they’re not ready for it, got it. Another sign of Filipino “unpreparedness for the full obligations of citizenship”: complaining about, and resisting, the high-handed tactics of Governor Gen. Leonard Wood (who was, of course, not elected by the Filipino people), who Coolidge thinks is doing just great, having discussed it with people who are almost certainly all white. He does hold out the hope that if there is a time when independence would be better for the Filipino people and if they still want it, the US will grant it. If. If.

The Michigan Supreme Court upholds the Michigan State Normal School for “upholding some of the old-fashioned ideals of young womanhood” by expelling a student for smoking. This rule, which the student says doesn’t even exist, is not applied to male students.

The left wing of the British Labour Party revolts over, of all things, irrigation in the Sudan, which amounts to subsidizing of private enterprise.

German Deputy Carl Craemer says he’s too busy to take up the 3 duel challenges by the deputies he called traitors, but he is willing to repeat the statements outside the Reichstag and they could try to sue him for libel. Some joker puts out toy guns in the Reichstag.

France and Britain both suggest candidates to replace the caliph deposed by Turkey, candidates, obviously that they think they can control and who can tamp down discontent in their colonial empires. France is offering the Sultan of Morocco, Britain King Hussein of the Hedjaz (Saudi Arabia).

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Today -100: March 5, 1924: Of high traitors, crims, and misinterpretations

Ah, so Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty’s mysterious trip to Chicago was so he could testify to the grand jury investigating bribery at the Veterans’ Bureau, which fingered two (still unnamed) congresscritters.

Also, there’s an Assistant Attorney General Crim. John Crim. That’s his name. He’s refusing to give the Senate committee investigating the Vets’ Bureau the names of the congresscritters.

The Beer Hall Putsch trial holds a secret session to examine how Reichswehr weapons were handed over to Hitler’s followers.

Carl Graemer of the German People’s Party (DVP) refers to Albrecht von Graefe of the German Völkisch Freedom Party (DVFP) as a “high traitor” (that’s the worst kind of traitor) for his participation in the Beer Hall Putsch.  Von Graefe and two other right-wing deputies challenge Graemer to a duel – they even give him the convenient option of dueling with all 3 of them at once.

Winston Churchill officially announces that he is running in the by-election in the Abbey division of Westminster. I think he’d expected the Liberals and the Tories not to run candidates against him so he could run an anti-“Socialist” campaign as a “Constitutionalist,” but both parties, and Labour, will run their own. The Liberal will be a man much persecuted during the Great War as a conscientious objector, the unfortunately named James Duckers. The Tory will be the Otho Nicholson, nephew of the MP who died.

Mexican Pres. Obregón sets the next presidential and legislative elections for July 6, saying the rebellion has been quelled enough to hold them.

The NYT says the proposed bill to make the Philippines independent will be “misinterpreted” in the colony as suggesting that the Philippines will actually be made independent in the near future. Meanwhile, Secretary of War John Weeks thinks it would be better to set a date; he suggests 1949.

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Today -100: March 4, 1924: Where is the pain?

The Chicago federal grand jury which indicted Charles Forbes, the ex-director of the Veterans’ Bureau, failed to name the two congresscritters it says took money from the Bureau. Rep. Jasper Tincher (R-Kansas) will demand those names.

Professors from Northwestern, Columbia, and Antioch transmit thoughts on radio station WJAZ, you know, psychically: numbers, animals, food, “Ouch, it hurts... where is the pain?” And listeners hear/feel the thoughts, so it must be real.

Turkey deposes the caliph (who is the cousin of the deposed sultan) and abolishes the caliphate. The caliph will be exiled to... Switzerland, along with his harem (Update: actually, he leaves his harem and eunuchs behind, whether from choice or not is not clear). Religious teaching is also banned. There is no longer an ostensible head of the Muslim world. Britain is worried about what that means for India.

In the Beer Hall Putsch trial, the testimony for the defense, which evidently precedes that for the prosecution, has concluded, following super-long speeches by Hitler & Ludendorff, who blame Bavarian officials Dictator Gustav von Kahr, Gen. Otto von Lossow, and police chief Hans Ritter von Seisser for sneaking out of the beer hall after initially agreeing to back the putsch, thereby ensuring the putsch’s failure. I’m not sure how admitting to attempting treason but failing because of “betrayal” amounts to a defense. That said, they did have their own plans for marching on Berlin and overthrowing the Republic, so...

One of the accusations Ludendorff made at the trial was that the Vatican backed the Entente during the Great War. Not so, says the Vatican.

Russia is going to put a bunch of professors on trial for plotting against the government and spying for Poland.

Ku Klux Klan endorsements play a significant role in the elections of the (Republican) mayors of Saco & Rockland, Maine.

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Today -100: March 3, 1924: Of primaries and independent & constitutional candidates

NY Gov. Al Smith withdraws from the Illinois primaries after his name was filed without his permission. Evidently his strategy is to avoid all the primaries, which will then choose favorite son candidates with no chance of winning the national vote, who will give him their endorsement at the national convention after they see they have no chance of winning the national vote. I can see nothing that could go wrong with this strategy.

Winston Churchill, who lost his seat at the last general election, will stand in the Westminster by-election as an “independent and constitutional” candidate, which I guess means no longer a Liberal but not yet ready to rejoin the Tories. He’s positioning himself as an anti-Socialist.

Seán O'Casey’s play Juno and the Paycock premieres at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.

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Today -100: March 2, 1924: Of demoralized parties and automobiles

The NYT says the Republican response to the Teapot Dome and other scandals shows a demoralized party, “men who had lost their nerve,” “panic-stricken,” “an attitude of surrender.” Congressional Republicans fail to show any support for Coolidge, who they’d prefer be replaced.

An automobile “census” finds there are about 18,241,477 cars in the world, 15 million of them in the US (11% of which are trucks). Behind the US, in order, Britain has 655,000, Canada 642,000, France 460,000, Germany 152,000.

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Today -100: March 1, 1924: Of bribery, hotel butterflies, and freedom of the German nation

US Marines intervene, as was the custom, in the conflict in Honduras between the 3 competing presidents.

Charles Forbes, the ex-director of the Veterans’ Bureau, is indicted by a federal grand jury for waste, fraud, and... debauchery. Also indicted is contractor John Thompson, who paid bribes to Forbes.

By a 282 to 72 vote, the House of Commons passes the second reading of a bill to equalize the terms for suffrage between the sexes, reducing the age for women to vote from 30 to 21. The Duchess of Atholl, who was anti-suffrage back in the day but then got elected to Parliament, opposes the bill, saying young wives wouldn’t have time to study politics. She then gets into a discussion with Rhys Davies over the relative merits as voters of traveling tinkers and “hotel butterflies.”

At the Beer Hall Putsch trial, Erich Ludendorff gives a political, anti-Semitic speech: “We want a Germany free of Marxism, semitism, and papal influences.” “Freedom of the nation cannot be expected from [the Jew].”

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Today -100: February 29, 1924: Physicians astonished

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: February 28, 1924: Super-important government business

Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty refuses to resign until after he receives a fair hearing. And then rushes off to Chicago for some unspecified “important Government business,” after which he’ll go to Florida. It is not clear, perhaps even to himself, what Coolidge will do about this flouting of his demand that Dirty Harry resign within 48 hours.

Cops in Lufkin, Texas shoot at a lynch mob trying to storm the jail to seize a black prisoner. Four are wounded. The mob has not dispersed and the sheriff asks the governor to send Texas Rangers.

One of the Beer Hall Putsch defendants, former Bavaria Chief of Police Ernst Pöhner, insists that former Bavaria Dictator Gustav von Kahr supported the putsch.

3,000 people break up a meeting at a hotel in Waukesha, Wisconsin to organize a Ku Klux Klan branch.

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Today -100: February 27, 1924: Not ruffled in the least

Coolidge has supposedly told Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty to resign within 48 hours. He also wants him to resign as a delegate from Ohio to the Republican National Convention. I guess it was Dirty Harry buying Sinclair stock that finally got Coolidge to get off his ass.

The Beer Hall Putsch trial of Hitler, Ludendorff and 8 others begins. “Hitler showed plainly the strain of the excitement he was laboring under, while General Ludendorff apparently was not ruffled in the least.” It is decided to allow members of the public to observe (after being searched, of course). Many of the witnesses have come down with mysterious illnesses that will prevent them coming to testify. Hitler says he’s not guilty of treason.

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Today -100: February 26, 1924: Of rounded out holdings, Guv McCrayCray, and collectors

Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty admits having bought some Sinclair shares after the Teapot Dome lease was signed, but not many and only to “round out” his holdings. As one does.

Indiana Gov. Warren McCray is indicted for violation of banking laws and using the mails to defraud.

Coolidge will not appoint a replacement for William Cohen, the black man whose nomination for controller of customs in New Orleans was rejected twice by the Senate due to the opposition of Louisiana’s Democratic senators. Instead Cohen will continue in the job until Congress recesses, then Coolidge will give him another recess appointment. Of course he can’t actually be paid, but he’s rich and hasn’t been paid for the job for the last 9 months.

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Today -100: February 25, 1924: Of camel’s steps, fake news, intellectuals, and fertilizer

The Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano attacks modern dances, especially the shimmy and the camel’s step.

Red revolution in Bulgaria! Prime minister and Cabinet killed! Etc! Or none of this happened.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: February 24, 1924: Of resignations, assassination attempts, jubalands, naughty dances, and poles

Sen. William Borah (R-Idaho) tells the Senate that the resignation of Attorney General Harry Daugherty is necessary for the good of the country and of the Republican party. If Coolidge doesn’t act, he says, impeaching of the attorney general will be the only course. During the Senate discussion, no R. defended Dirty Harry.

Albanian Prime Minister Ahmet Zogu (the future King Zog) is shot twice by an anarchist student in the Assembly building, but not seriously.

Mussolini writes to the British Foreign Office demanding Britain hand over Jubaland (currently part of British Kenya). Jubaland was one of the bribes offered to Italy in 1915 to get it to join the Great War on the Allies’ side.

Interior Secretary Hubert Work responds to a petition from the San Ildefenso Pueblo of the Tawa tribe of New Mexico asking the government not to interfere with their ceremonial dances. Work says that “those who are the guardians of the Indians” don’t wish to ban dances “which are not degrading” or go against the law of nature or moral laws.

The Navy gives up on its plans to send a dirigible over the North Pole.

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Today -100: February 23, 1924: Of invasions, fanatics, and reichstags

The Yugoslav ambassador to France claims that Bulgaria is plotting an attack on eastern Serbia.

Indian troops shoot dead 14 Sikh “fanatics” in Nabba State.

German Chancellor Wilhelm Marx threatens the Reichstag: if it attempts to annul any martial-law decree, he will dissolve it.

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Today -100: February 22, 1924: Of compensation and oil

The Mixed Commission’s umpire in the cases arising from the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania awards $1 million to Americans, although human lives are only valued in pecuniary terms, so if a survivor was not financially dependent on a victim, they get nothing.

Sen. Burton Wheeler (D-Montana) accuses Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty of having bought Sinclair oil stock. Dirty Harry is defiantly refusing to resign and claims the charges against him are just politics.

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Today -100: February 21, 1924: Of coxes, patriotic tragedy, and competing relics

James Cox, the Democrat candidate for president in 1920, announces that he’s running again.

The (German) National Association of Ex-Officers declares next week’s trial of Gen. Erich Ludendorff a “patriotic tragedy.”

Yesterday I told of the sale by auction of the coat Abraham Lincoln was supposedly shot in. It seems the Chicago Historical Society has, um, another coat Lincoln was shot in, owned by a different former White House doorkeeper, that they’ve been displaying for years.

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Today -100: February 20, 1924: A bigger fool than the people of the United States give him credit for being

A White House spokesmodel, annoyingly unnamed, says the American people can rest assured that most government work is done without wrongdoing, and they should just ignore all the rumors.

The clothes worn by Abraham Lincoln when he was assassinated sell at auction for $6,500. Mary Todd Lincoln had given them to a White House doorkeeper.

Sen. Burton Wheeler (D-Montana) denounces Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty for protecting criminals, selling public offices, and says he may well have known about Teapot Dome. “If the attorney general has not actually got the money that has been collected in these various cases from one end of the country to the other, he is a bigger fool than the people of the United States give him credit for being.” Wheeler offers a resolution for an investigation of the AG. Since he wants a “real investigation,” he takes the unusual step of naming the senators he wants on the investigating committee, including, of course, himself.

The National Republican, the RNC organ, engaging in both-sidesism, says Democrats are trying to shield other Democrats who might be “smeared with petroleum.”

Louisiana Lt. Gov Hewitt Bouanchaud, who has been running for governor as an anti-Klan candidate, is given a big Fuqua You, as he is defeated by Henry Fuqua in the Democratic primary.

William Gibbs McAdoo would prefer not to do a grueling presidential campaign tour, so he’s applied for a permit to put up a radio broadcasting plant at his Los Angeles home capable of reaching the entire country.

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Today -100: February 19, 1924: Back to Honesty

Navy Secretary Edwin Denby resigns, effective next month, then issues a statement that the Teapot Dome etc leases were legal and in the best interests of the government. Coolidge accepts his resignation, telling him “You will go with the knowledge that your honesty and integrity have not been impugned.” Assistant Navy Sec. Teddy Roosevelt Jr. wasn’t told about this in advance. He goes to the White House to ask if Coolidge wants him to resign too. No. But he won’t be promoted to Secretary. And we hear he won’t be running for governor of NY.

William Gibbs McAdoo’s supporters tell him his connection with oil tycoon Edward Doheny, unrelated to Teapot Dome, isn’t enough to harm his shot at the presidency, so he announces that he will continue his campaign. He says he’ll drive corruption out of Washington; the supporters suggest the slogan “Back to Honesty.”

NY Gov. Alfred E. Smith, asked if he’s a candidate for president, says “I am a candidate for nothing.”

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The 2 senators from Louisiana (Democrats) objected to Cohen as “personally obnoxious” to them. Cohen was originally nominated by Harding but was blocked, then re-nominated by Coolidge.

Gustav von Kahr quits as dictator of Bavaria, along with Gen. Otto von Lossow, who was illegally named by Kahr as commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr in Bavaria back in October. Kahr says he’s resigning because he was totally undercut by the Interior Ministry allowing demonstrations, although his forthcoming appearance as a witness at the Beer Hall Putsch trial may also have something to do with it. Lossow’s resignation may be a response to the deal between Bavarian PM von Knilling & federal Chancellor Marx requiring members of the Reichswehr in Bavaria to redo the old oath to Germany instead of the oath he introduced in October to Kahr & himself.

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Today -100: February 18, 1924: Of dry cases, fanatics, and Jewish problems

In the first 4 years of Prohibition, 115,000 criminal cases have been prosecuted at the federal level. 80% resulted in convictions. This is putting a strain on federal courts.

Rebels in the Philippines are fighting (i.e., being massacred), and this must be the 6th time they’ve been referred to in NYT headlines as “fanatics.”

Russia is considering establishing a Jewish autonomous state on the Crimean peninsula. This would solve the “Jewish problem,” a phrase used a couple of times in this short article but never defined.

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Today -100: February 17, 1924: Funny how you never see heterodyne and super-heterodyne in the same place

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The Organization of Teachers of Colored Children of New Jersey complains that black teachers are paid $100 to $200 less per year than white ones in several NJ counties (no, it doesn’t say less than what figure).

Japan claims to have stopped a Russian-backed Communist plot to take over the government last June.

The American Engineering Standards Committee is trying to standardize the colors of traffic signs and signals. In Chicago, for instance, green means stop.

A bill is introduced in the NY Legislature to require licenses for people flying airplanes. Stunt flights over populated areas or too close to the ground would be banned, as would hunting from planes. Planes approaching each other would pass on the right, and lighter-than-air aircraft would have right of way over heavier-than-air ones. Marriages (and other contracts) entered into in aircraft would be legal, subject to the laws of the land underneath.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Bitten by a radioactive heterodyne?

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Today -100: February 16, 1924: Of shoot-outs, dirigibles, and radio wars

A prohibition agent gets in a shoot-out with bootleggers on Capitol Hill and accidentally shoots US Senator Frank Greene in the forehead.  Oops. The wound will leave Greene partially paralyzed.

Coolidge suspends plans to send a dirigible over the North Pole until Congress gives permission. Some congresscritters have been criticizing the expensive expedition.

Whenever “Deutschland Über Alles” is played on German radio stations, there’s mysterious interference coming from the direction of France.

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Today -100: February 15, 1924: Japanese then would come into possession of all our land

The Paris Excelsior claimed that France was making a deal to give the French West Indies (Guadeloupe, Martinique, etc) to the US in exchange for writing off the French war debt. The US would then pay the amount of the French debt to Britain to buy Jamaica off it. The British Foreign Office denies this.

Rep. John Raker (D-Cal.) rejects Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes’ call for the Japanese to be treated the same as other nationalities in the immigration bill, that is, being limited to 2% (or 3%, it’s still being worked out) of those in the US in 1890, rather than being banned outright. 2% would mean 246 Japanese immigrants per year, but evidently that’s too many. Raker warns it would be a slippery slope towards abrogating the Western states’ racist land laws: “Japanese then would come into possession of all our land.” The Immigration Committee’s minority report notes that Germans would be the most favorably treated using the 1890 census and the US’s allies during the Great War less favorably treated.

German dictator Gen. Hans von Seeckt gives permission to President Ebert to lift martial law at the end of the month.

Sen. Thomas Heflin (D-Alabama) says he is not a Ku Klux Klan member.

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Today -100: February 14, 1924: Of precipitate diplomatic relations

The latest Teapot Dome rumor is that oil tycoon Edward Doheny tried to hire Woodrow Wilson’s law partner but failed because the firm was dissolved.

The US no longer recognizes the Honduran government, which now has 3 people claiming to be president, none of them legitimately under the constitution.

Britain’s new Labour government ends the crusade against the Poplar (East London) local government paying more in unemployment benefits than the Tory national government thought it should.

In Parliament, Stanley Baldwin criticizes the “precipitate” establishment of diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia, a mere 6 years after the October Revolution.

And, hey, the NYT finally spells Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s name correctly.

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Today -100: February 13, 1924: Keep cool

The Senate Teapot Dome committee hears that the Albuquerque Journal was bought in 1922 to shut it up about Teapot Dome.

I believe I’m seeing the first appearance of the 1924 campaign slogan “Keep Cool and Keep Coolidge.” I mean, it’s no Make America Great Again, but...

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Today -100: February 12, 1924: Of exclusive executive functions, martial law, and sausages

The Senate votes 47-34 to ask Coolidge to fire Navy Sec. Edwin Denby. The yes votes includes 10 R’s, the no vote 1 D.

Coolidge responds, telling Congress to jump in a lake: “The dismissal of an officer of the Government... other than by impeachment, is exclusively an executive function. I regard this as a vital principle of our Government.”  He might do something when the special counsel reports but, he says, he won’t sacrifice any innocent man for his own welfare, or retain any unfit man for his own welfare.

The Illinois National Guard are coming to Williamson County with machine guns and everything. Glenn Young, the KKK-paid dry raider, resigns as police chief of Herrin after a day. The coroner’s inquest in the case of Constable Cagle is delayed by Young arresting the jury foreman.

Former Italian PM Vittorio Orlando will run as a Fascist after all.

A German critic complains about the habit of eating sausages at the opera. Almost as bad as Americans with their chewing gum, he says.

George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue premieres at New York’s Aeolian Concert Hall. No doubt with many in the audience chewing gum.

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Today -100: February 11, 1924: All for a purpose

Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty writes to Rep. George Graham saying he wasn’t involved in Teapot Dome (I think that’s true; there are just too few hours in a day for him to have been involved in every corrupt action of the Harding administration). He blames attacks on himself for his action or inaction on Teapot Dome and on war-fraud cases on “innocent but used, and ignorant but ill-disposed persons [which] generally have back of them the hand of those who expect to profit by inspiring lack of confidence, procuring newspaper attacks, insinuations, abuse and falsification – all for a purpose.”  Whatever that means.

Mussolini has been trying to recruit prominent members of non-Fascist parties to run under the Fascist umbrella in the next parliamentary elections in parts of the country like the south where Fascism is weak. They’re negotiating with former prime minister Orlando now, although he and others might join as members of their parties, in effect in coalition with the Fascist Party, rather than as individuals, as The Duck would prefer.

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Today -100: February 10, 1924: Of bribes, shootouts, and court uniforms

The Senate Teapot Dome committee questions Frederick Bonfils, publisher of the Denver Post, about whether the Post’s sudden dropping of its articles on the scandal in 1922 had anything to do with being bribed by Harry Sinclair. He is amazingly unprepared with an explanation for why Sinclair paid him $250,000. The money just appeared in his bank account and he just went with it, seems to be his explanation.

The participation of the KKK in liquor raids in Williamson County, Illinois, led inevitably to a wild shootout between cops and kluxers and an anti-Klan group called the Brothers of the Flaming Circle (the London Times says Knights of the Flaming Circle), with a (Klan-friendly) constable killed. Now 11 men, including Herrin Mayor C.E. Anderson and Sheriff George Galligan, are arrested (the London Times says the mayor and police chief are arrested by the sheriff). Martial law is declared. Glenn Young, the KKK-paid dry raider, claims that he is police chief now. Unclear for now whether anybody else says that.

Incoming British Labour Party Cabinet ministers have to fork out £200, which is the equivalent of some money, for gold-laced uniforms in which to appear at Court. That they’re willing to put up with this nonsense is seen as a reassuring sign that they aren’t a serious threat to the British way of life.

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Today -100: February 9, 1924: Brace up

The Senate expands its investigations of oil deals to include Colombia and Hawaii.

Medical and scientific observers at the Nevada gas-chamber execution insist it was swift and painless, “although the condemned man’s head continued to move up and down for six minutes,” which the doctors insist was probably post-mortem. Gee Jon was crying as they strapped him in, so the captain told him, “Brace up!”

Texas introduces death by electric chair, executing five (checks notes) black men. As is the custom.

There’s been an ongoing hissy fit by the American Legion and others over the German Embassy’s failure to lower their flags to half-staff for Woodrow Wilson, which might have a little something to do with, you know, the war.

The Prince of Wales falls off a horse, as was the custom. Breaks his royal collarbone.

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Today -100: February 8, 1924: Of falling and gas

The Senate Teapot Dome committee decides not to call former Interior Sec. Albert Fall as a witness, since they don’t want to give him immunity that would affect any future prosecution.

William Gibbs McAdoo says attempts to link him with Teapot Dome are “unfair and libelous,” but he’s stopped doing legal work for Doheny anyway.

Tomorrow Nevada will perform the first execution by gas (prussic acid) in the US on Gee Jon, a Chinese man, for a tong gang slaying. 2 cats are executed in the chamber to test it. 4 guards resign.

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Today -100: February 7, 1924: Thrilled and less-thrilled crowds

Headline of the Day -100:  

Gabriellino D'Annunzio, a director and son of aviator-poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, is being hunted by the authorities, along with the Princess Galles, on a charge of manslaughter after a lion that was supposed to be pretending to eat Christians in D’Annunzio’s Quo Vadis chowed down for realsies on an extra instead. D’Annunzio did not have a valid lion license.

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Today -100: February 6, 1924: Radio Dead

Mexican federal troops capture Vera Cruz from the Huertista rebels.

Woodrow Wilson’s funeral service will be broadcast throughout the country by radio.

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Today -100: February 5, 1924: Of funerals, Labour lords, and married students

Woodrow Wilson’s funeral will not be a state funeral, because he liked to think of himself as a humble man of the people, which he wasn’t, and he asked for a private funeral. Coolidge & Taft (the only living ex-president) get to go (Taft will be too ill to attend). He’ll be buried at the Chapel of Peter & Paul in D.C., still the only president buried in Washington. Former First Lady Edith Wilson will live another 38 years. Coolidge planned to close government offices on the day of the funeral, but there’s an 1893 law banning that for former officials. (A workaround will be found, Coolidge directing that no work is required in government depts after 12:30 pm that day).

Wilson had planned to present the Democratic Convention with the gift of his declaration of the principles the party ought to follow.

Austria recognizes the Soviet Union and Italy will soon. It just took the British Labour win to open the floodgates.

The British release Gandhi from prison, less than 2 years into his 6-year sentence for sedition, on health grounds.

Three members of the Labour government are elevated to the House of Lords, the first Labourites to be so.... honored? This is down to a law that there has to be at least one Cabinet member and one under-secretary in the Lords. They are Sydney Olivier, Secretary of State for India, Brig. Gen. C.B. Thomson, Secretary of State for Air, and Sydney Arnold, colonial under-sec.

Less than a month after returning to Greece to save it from civil war, Eleftherios Venizelos resigns as prime minister, along with his Cabinet, because he’s too sick to continue.

Outgoing Honduran president López Gutiérrez has decided not to go out (his term expired last week but Congress deadlocked in choosing a successor) and to name himself dictator, as is the custom. Gen. Tuburcio Carias rebels and names himself president, as is the custom. The US has informed Gutiérrez that it won’t accept his continuing in office.

Syracuse University expels a sophomore, Herbert Porter, for breaking the rule against students marrying.

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Today -100: February 4, 1924: He kept us out of war until he didn’t

Thomas Woodrow Wilson is dead. The 28th president of the United States was 67.

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Today -100: February 3, 1924: Of dying presidents and new prime ministers, non-testimony, duels, and cabbies v. goats

Woodrow Wilson is still dying.

Alexei Rykov is named Prime Minister of Russia and of the Soviet Union, replacing Lenin.

Russia arrests an American (?) who took film footage of Lenin’s funeral, which foreigners were banned from doing.

Former Interior Secretary Albert Fall takes the Fifth before the Senate Teapot Dome committee. He also claims there were various irregularities in the setting up of the committee that make it null and void.

The Navy’s chief engineer, Rear Admiral Robison, defends the Navy’s contract with Doheny to construct fuel tanks at Pearl Harbor, saying Japan might try to invade the Pacific Coast, possibly acting in concert with Britain (less of a worry now that the British-Japanese naval alliance has expired).

Hungarian Prime Minister István Bethlen will fight a duel with Dep. Stephan Rakovsky over statements the latter made in the National Assembly. We’re not informed what those statements are.

In other dueling news, in Italy Prince Mario Colonna and the editor of the Tribuna fight quite a bloody one over an article attacking an organization of economic theorists headed by the prince.

Paris cab-drivers are complaining about the herds of goats that roam the city in summer, supplying milk to children.

Ernst Lubitsch’s film The Marriage Circle premieres. Lots of amusing little touches. Adolphe Menjou shaves.

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Today -100: February 2, 1924: I am ready

Woodrow Wilson is dying.

He says, “I am ready. I am a broken piece of machinery.”

Britain recognizes the Soviet Union, without conditions.

Since the US plans to send a dirigible to the Arctic to claim any previously undiscovered land for the US, Canada will send a steamer to claim it for Canada.

William Gibbs McAdoo would really prefer not to be dragged into the whole Teapot Dome thing – his law firm was employed by Edward Doheny in his dealings with Mexico but not with anything Teapot-adjacent.

The NYT says of the Teapot Dome hearings, “The Republicans seem to be possessed with a panic fear, the Democrats intoxicated with partisan zeal.” Everyone should just slow down, the editorial suggests.

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Today -100: February 1, 1924: Cancel culture

The Senate passes, 90-0, the resolution calling on Coolidge to cancel the Teapot Dome & Elk Hills oil leases.

A fight breaks out in the Japanese Diet over an attempt to derail a train carrying 3 opposition leaders. The prime minister threatens to call new elections.

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Today -100: January 31, 1924: Indisposed

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Speaking of indisposed, the Senate Teapot Dome committee appoints 3 doctors to see if former Interior Sec. Albert Fall really is too sick to testify (his own doctors testified today, behind closed doors).

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Today -100: January 30, 1924: No colonies, no remedies

Eleftherios Venizelos has another heart attack while debating opposition leader Alexandros Papanastasiou in the Greek National Assembly about unbanning royalist newspapers.

Navy Sec Edwin Denby says he won’t resign, even if the Robinson resolution calling for him to do so passes. He defends the legality of the Teapot Dome leases.

Responding to resolutions in the Senate calling for his removal from office, Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty says “I am not worried about the situation in Washington.” He says he doesn’t feel a need to respond to the attacks against him, and that’s why he’s in Florida instead of Washington. Sure it is.

Pres. Coolidge regrets that Americans are so pessimistic.

A German professor has supposedly found a cure for African sleeping sickness. The German Colonial Society wants to leverage that to demand the return of its pre-war colonies. “No colonies, no remedies,” says the head of the Bremen branch, Edouard Achelis.

Is this the most cynical approach to sleeping sickness? Well, the real cure these days is Eflornithine. The pharmaceutical company that owns the patent stopped manufacturing it in the mid-1990s because the disease affected poor sub-Saharan Africans and was therefore not very profitable. Fortunately, after a few years they resumed production when they discovered that Eflornithine also treats unwanted facial hair in rich white women, and that’s a population Big Pharma knows how to market to.

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Today -100: January 29, 1924: Of special counsels, noisy but negligible minorities, and have you driven a Ford lately, comrade?

The Senate passes a resolution calling on Coolidge to fire Navy Sec. Edwin Denby and any other Navy personnel who did bad shit in the Teapot Dome & Elk Hills leases. (I just had to correct a typo “Teapot Dom.” “Teapot Dom & Elk Hills” sounds like a middling porno. Just saying.)

The House gives Coolidge up to $100,000 for the special counsel he was forced to promise to appoint to look into Teapot Dome / Elk Hills. Dems complain that Coolidge claimed there were D’s as well as R’s involved in the scandal. Many of the attacks in the debate focus on Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty. House minority (D) leader Finis Garrett notes that Coolidge’s decision to appoint a special counsel, “admit[s] before the world that he cannot risk his own attorney general to protect the interest of the government, and at the same time that attorney general remains in the Cabinet.” Assistant Secretary of the Navy Teddy Roosevelt Jr. is also being called on to resign by congresscritters of both parties.

The NYT reports, from unnamed sources, that Teapot Dome has not proved profitable for Harry Sinclair’s Mammoth Oil and he might be willing to give up the lease if he was compensated for his investment so far (he expected to make $100 million).

Mussolini rejects the idea of an alliance during the next parliamentary election with any other parties, which he calls “a noisy but negligible minority.”

Mayor Daniel Hart of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, not only says he supports the American Legion for breaking up a Communist meeting yesterday, but in future the city will only license meetings approved by the Legion.

Ford has a deal to export automobiles to Russia, probably ones manufactured in its Danish branch.

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Today -100: January 28, 1924: Of cold funerals, reeds, and Fiume

Walter Duranty of the NYT reports that Lenin’s funeral is really cold, so cold, did I mention how cold it was?

Sen. James Reed of Missouri announces his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president.

American Legion members break up a Communist meeting in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in honor of Lenin. They force Communists to salute the flag. On their way to the meeting they ran across Mayor Daniel Hart, who said he’d send the cops to assist them.

Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini and Yugoslav Prime Minister Nikola Pašić sign the treaty annexing Fiume to Italy. And there’s a mutual defense provision.

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