Today -100: September 26, 1924: Inefficiency, Insincerity and Laxity ‘24!

In California, Robert La Follette will have to run on the ticket of the Socialist Party, which is already on the ballot, after the state Supreme Court bars his electors standing on the ballot as independents. La F. assails the court’s 4-3 decision to ignore the 50,000 who signed petitions.

The NY Republican Convention nominates Theodore “Ted” Roosevelt Jr. (age 37) for governor on the first ballot and an honest-to-gosh woman, Florence E. S. Knapp, for secretary of state. It passes the platform plank condemning the Ku Klux Klan by name. The platform denounces Al Smith’s administration for “inefficiency, insincerity and laxity in the conduct of the Government.”

Roosevelt will resign as assistant secretary of the Navy to run for governor. He’s the last of three Roosevelts to hold that post.

The NYT says of TR Jr.’s gubernatorial nomination, “As the son of his father, he was brought forward mainly as a figurehead [for US Sen. James Wadsworth], and a second-choice figurehead at that” after Assembly Speaker H. Edmund Machold pulled out.

After getting the play “What Price Glory”’s language toned down, the cops will now be visiting every Broadway show. It seems that last year the Legislature snuck through some language in a disorderly conduct bill supposedly just dealing with pickpockets that lets the cops interfere with plays whose language they deem offensive. However, the objections by military officials to What Price Glory go beyond language. An official report “attack[s] the play for making the marines swear, drink, quarrel over women and exhibit faulty discipline.” Imagine marines in real life behaving like that! The wearing of military uniforms, which is illegal for civilians, is allowed for plays, but only if they aren’t “discreditable” to the military. The play’s producer, Arthur Hopkins says he’s cut out 3 expressions “that are used in the best families and by our noblest public officials.”

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Today -100: September 25, 1924: By name

The New York state Republican convention’s Committee on Resolutions votes 25 to 24 behind closed doors, and after a long fight, to condemn the Ku Klux Klan by name.

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Today -100: September 24, 1924: Of juniors and prices of glory

Certain elements of the NY Republican Party are lobbying hard against Theodore Roosevelt Jr. being named as nominee for governor. Some object to him as a “wet” (when he was in the Assembly he voted for 2.75% beer), some are worried about his loose connection to Teapot Dome as assistant secretary of the Navy, and some are kluxers, because he once gave a speech denouncing the Klan. State convention fights over the Klan have become rather a theme this year, for both parties.

NY Mayor John Hylan orders the commissioner of licenses to censor Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stalling’s recently opened play about the Great War, “What Price Glory” (which you might know from the 1926 movie version directed by Raoul Walsh or the 1952 John Ford version with Jimmy Cagney) – too much of marines talking like, you know, marines. All that language has been removed from the Cagney film.

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Today -100: September 23, 1924: Of missing links, governors, old colonies, and contemptible conspiracies of fraud and deceit

There is supposedly a tribe of “missing links” in Indonesia. Or possibly monkeys. Either way, the Dutch colonial administration is sending an expedition to find them.

Two days before the NY Republican Convention, itself being held only 6 weeks before the general election, Assembly Speaker H. Edmund Machold, who was expected to win the nomination easily, withdraws from the governor’s race, presumably realizing that Al Smith’s re-entry into the race means he’d be crushed. So... Theodore Roosevelt Jr.?

Women delegates to the convention will push for Florence E. S. Knapp to be nominated for secretary of state.  She’s the only Republican woman candidate for any office in NY.

The German cabinet will decide whether to apply for League of Nations membership. And whether to demand its former colonies back, or at the very least Tanganyika.

The French cabinet omits funding for the embassy at the Vatican from the next budget, reversing the post-war moves towards reconciliation with the Church. This is partly due to the fierce anti-clericalism of the Socialists and Communists and partly due to the Church’s attempts to retain the powers it had in Alsace-Lorraine when it was part of Germany.

Disgraced former attorney general Harry Daugherty demands that John W. Davis stop talking about him and calls the charges against him “a contemptible conspiracy of fraud and deceit”. Which is the worst kind of conspiracy of fraud and deceit.

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Today -100: September 22, 1924: No courage test, either

Pres. Coolidge speaks to a meeting of the (Catholic) Holy Name Society, which cheers when he says there will be no religious test for holding office, which the audience “apparently interpreted... as a reference to the Ku Klux Klan.” He makes, of course, no actual reference to the Klan.

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Today -100: September 21, 1924: When war is outlawed, only criminals will have wars

Headline of the Day -100:  

NYC Mayor John Hylan pulls out of the race for governor, knowing that Al Smith would crush him.

William Allen White of the Emporia Gazette will run for governor of Kansas an an independent, “this distateful [sic] but necessary task,” as part of his long-time campaign against the Klan. The NYT honors the editor by that typo, I assume. Republican candidate Ben Paulen, White says, accepted Klan support & prevented an anti-Klan plank, “degrading my party and allying it with the forces of ignorance and terror,” while Democratic candidate Jonathan Davis refuses to disavow the Klan.

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Today -100: September 20, 1924: Alfred E. is back-ee

Al Smith will accept the nomination for another term as NY governor after all (the D. state convention is next week; I’d forgotten how close to the general election they wait before picking a nominee).

Russia will create two new central Asian republics in an attempt to reduce ethnic tensions: Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Composer Giacomo Puccini is named to the Italian Senate.

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Today -100: September 19, 1924: Of fasts and secretaries

Gandhi begins a 21-day fast to protest Hindu-Muslim violence.

The Klan endorses T. Frank Appleby for the Republican nomination for Congress in New Jersey’s 3rd district after rival Maj. Stanley Washburn refuses their demand that he fire his Catholic secretary.

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Today -100: September 18, 1924: Of caravans, mutinies, and klans

The Coolidge campaign, which by the way includes an alliterative “Coolidge caravan” of speakers, is mostly ignoring John W. Davis and pretending Cal’s only real opponent is Progressive Fightin’ Bob La Follette. I guess there’s not much traction to be gained in attacking Davis, who lacks a, you know, personality, and whose most recent public jobs were solicitor general and ambassador to Britain. Also, there’s some worry that Coolidge might fail to win a majority in the Electoral College, throwing the election into the House where La Follette has friends but Davis might win.

5 black former soldiers serving life sentences for the Camp Logan, Houston “mutiny” of 1917, in which soldiers protested racist violence by the Houston PD, are paroled.

The New Mexico Democratic convention adopts a plank specifically condemning the Ku Klux Klan.

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Today -100: September 17, 1924: Silence

 

Headline of the Day -100:  

 

But not with the NAACP, whose secretary James Weldon Johnson points out in a letter to Coolidge that he seems to have forgotten to make a statement disavowing Klan support. Funny that. He warns that black voters will vote against candidates, even Republicans, backed by the Ku Klux Klan.

Presidential candidate John W. Davis has to wear his arm in a sling because of all that hand-shaking at the farm of a Dr. Arthur Nelson in Bunceton, Missouri. The mass of hand-shakees also raided the kitchen, taking all the food intended for Davis and Dr. Nelson’s family.

30 klansmen enter the African M.E. Church in Galesburg, Illinois during a fund-raising social to donate $65. The church gives it back.

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Today -100: September 16, 1924: Lock them up! Lock them up!

Sen. Burton Wheeler promises that the La Follette-Wheeler administration will send corrupt Republican officials to prison. He says the “grafting by the Ohio gang and by those thieves who infested Washington during the last four years was the direct result of the system by which presidents are nominated by conventions of corrupt politicians and corrupt business men,” which can only be remedied by direct primary elections.

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Today -100: September 15, 1924: Of war criminals, Daimlers, devil’s islands, and straw

For the first time, the French have been able to lay their hands on a German “war criminal,” Peter Lohmann, who as a stretcher-bearer in 1914 supposedly killed a French soldier. He’s from Lorraine, so he’s now French.

There’s some fuss over British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald accepting a gift of an automobile, a Daimler no less, and some stock to pay for its upkeep, from digestive biscuit tycoon Sir Alexander Grant, a childhood friend who MacDonald gave a baronetcy.

France says it is closing Devil’s Island prison, the South American hellhole where Dreyfus was incarcerated. Actually, it won’t be closed until 1953.

Coolidge wins a straw vote conducted by the Yonkers Record. To be fair, if straw could vote, it would definitely vote for Coolidge.

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Today -100: September 14, 1924: Replaced by the vendetta

John W. Davis attacks Republican tariffs, suggesting the repeated increase on the duty on imported aluminum is down to high officials having US Aluminum Company stock.

The NYT on the retaliatory assassination of Fascist Deputy Armando Casalini: “One of the principal purposes of the Fascist uprising was to substitute patriotic efficiency for a decrepit and discredited parliamentarism. It now remains to be seen whether parliamentarism, in part at least, has not been replaced by the vendetta.”

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Today -100: September 13, 1924: Down with shame!

Armando Casalini, a Fascist deputy, is assassinated on a Rome trolley by three shots from carpenter Giovanni Corvi to avenge the murder of “my brother in idealism” Giacomo Matteotti. The Fascist Party forbids reprisals, at least officially. Corvi will be put in a mental hospital (he probably wasn’t insane but I guess that avoids a public trial), then sent to the gulag on the Tremiti Islands. He was killed by the Germans in 1944.

A plan is being worked out for France to pay off its war debt to the US by oh, say, 1991.

The French Academy bans the use of the English word “cocktail.”

It’s Defense Day all over the US. Parades and mock battles and cosplay. It’s supposed to demonstrate... something.

The NYT advises Coolidge not to take up the many offers to go on a speaking tour, because his oratorical skills suuuuuuck: “His presence is not commanding and his speeches are not moving.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

Little detail about what this is about, but these are “several young athletes of both sexes,” not entirely nude, with ribbons reading “Down with shame!”

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Today -100: September 12, 1924: Klandidates

Klan-backed candidates (indeed, Klan members) win the Colorado Republican primaries for governor (Clarence Morley) and US senator (Rice Means). Both will (Spoiler Alert) win the general election. Morley will be a notably bigoted governor, even by 1920s standards; later he’ll go into 1) the mail fraud business, 2) Leavenworth.

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Today -100: September 11, 1924: Let them now be obliterated from the sight and thoughts of all wholesome-minded men and women

Justice John Caverly sentences Leopold n’ Loeb to life imprisonment +99 years, sparing them hanging on account of their age and “the progress of criminal law all over the world and... the dictates of enlightened humanity.” So the judge is simply disregarding all the questionable but no doubt expensive psychiatric testimony put up by the defense. Says the NYT: “Let them now be obliterated from the sight and thoughts of all wholesome-minded men and women.” Loeb will be shanked in the prison shower room in 1936. Leopold will be released in 1958 and become a medical technician in Puerto Rico and then teach at the University of Puerto Rico, dying in 1966.

The US lands 100 sailors in Ceiba, Honduras, to protect the consulate. There’s a little rebellion going on.

The Missouri Democratic Party adopts an anti-Klan plank.

The Chilean Congress (Parliament? whatever) gives Pres. Arturo Alessandri a 6-month “leave of absence” as he flees the county for Argentina. Oddly, after one or two more coups, he will actually return in 6 months and resume power.

Texas lawyer Charles Dickson files suit to keep Miriam “Ma” Ferguson’s name off the Texas ballot for governor, arguing that her husband James is the real candidate and he is barred from holding state office again by his impeachment. Dickson also argues that women can’t hold office and the governorship in particular, since the governor is commander-in-chief of the militia and the militia is composed of “able bodied male citizens.”

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Today -100: September 10, 1924: Cut out the Klan

Since the Republicans did so well in the Maine elections after pretending that their being backed by the Ku Klux Klan wasn’t even an issue and that the election was really about backing Coolidge, it is thought that Coolidge, who was delaying making some sort of statement about the Klan until after Maine voted, will now continue to refuse to engage with the Klan issue. The Washington Post takes from the Maine election the lesson that everyone should “cut out the Klan,” that is, stop picking on it.

After a military takeover of the Chilean government, President Arturo Alessandri resigns and hides out in the US Embassy, but the Senate refuses to accept his resignation.

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Today -100: September 9, 1924: Of groundswells

Reacting to the Chinese civil war, the US, Britain, Italy and Japan land forces in Shanghai to defend their nationals.

In the Maine general elections, Republicans win the Senate seat and all 4 House seats, with Ralph Brewster elected governor. The Democratic campaign against him focused on his Klan backing.

The German cabinet discusses whether to officially inform other nations of Chancellor Wilhelm Marx’s repudiation of the war guilt clause of the Versailles Treaty.

Robert La Follette says Progressives are now even with Republicans. Evidently there’s a groundswell.

Coleman Blease will win today’s South Carolina Democratic primary for the US Senate (and – Spoiler Alert) the general election. Blease was this blog’s frenemy back when he was governor (1911-15), so a quick recap of some of the highlights of his record is in order. Blease supported lynching (“where black men commit crimes against white women, and are lynched for it, I declare Constitutions do not apply. For that, there is a higher law than the Constitution”). He opposed black people going to school, and opposed the drinking of Coca-Cola. He revoked the licenses of 3 notary publics who supported the accusation by a railroad ticket agent that he tried to cut in line and got abusive when she refused to let him. He sold pardons but also pardoned thousands for capricious reasons such as “he has the same name as my childhood friend,” almost emptying the state prisons before he left office. He opposed medical inspection of school children and promised to pardon any father who killed a doctor who tried to examine his daughter.

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Today -100: September 8, 1924: Of endorsements, rallies, and, um, bonds

Not surprisingly, Thomas Edison endorses Coolidge.

Responding to Wisconsin Gov. John Blaine’s declaration of war on the Ku Klux Klan, it calls for a rally in Capitol Square on the 23rd. At night in hoods and sheets, natch.

NOT OK, New York Times, NOT OK:  

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Today -100: September 7, 1924: On remaining American

Coolidge attacks (although not by name) Robert La Follette: “The question is whether America will allow itself to be degraded into a communistic or socialistic state or whether it will remain American.”

The Earl of Cromer, who as Lord Chamberlain is Britain’s theatre censor, licenses George Bernard Shaw’s “problem” play about prostitution, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, after 30 years of lords chancellor refusing to do so. There were private performances in London in 1902, and it played on Broadway in 1905, only to be raided by the police.

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Today -100: September 6, 1924: Of common honesty and temples of peace

John W. Davis tells a Rockford, Illinois audience that he will bring “a government of common honesty.” Which would certainly have been an interesting experiment, having never been tried.

French Prime Minister Édouard Herriot responding to Ramsay MacDonald at the League of Nations, says arbitration is necessary but not sufficient. “Arbitration, security and disarmament are three pillars of the temple of peace you are building here, and if that temple is to rise the foundations must be solid.”

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Today -100: September 5, 1924: Pacts or no pacts, you will be devastated

At the League of Nations conference on disarmament in Geneva, British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald says military alliances (France’s policy) won’t bring security. Only a system of arbitration will, and without one there won’t be disarmament. Or peace. He wants Germany in the League and the US and who knows maybe even Russia some day. He tells small nations, presumably those allied to France in the Little Entente: “In a military world, pacts or no pacts, you will be invaded; pacts or no pacts, you will be devastated.”

Italy denies that anyone tried to assassinate Mussolini, saying yesterday’s report was a “Bourse maneuver.”

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Today -100: September 4, 1924: A corncob pipe in every garage

Someone tries to assassinate Mussolini but hits the car behind his instead. No one is hurt.

They’re really going to report every single thing the Prince of Wales does in America, aren’t they? Anyway, he’s playing polo and shit.

Civil war breaks out in China, as was the custom. Izvhestia blames American capital and Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes.

Vice presidential nominee Charles Bryan adopts as his symbol the corncob pipe because the Democratic team is just that exciting.

The Texas Democratic Convention adopts a platform denouncing the Ku Klux Klan as “undemocratic, un-Christian and un-American,” although the word “treason” is dropped from the draft. It calls for registering the names of the membership of such organizations and for a law against masks.

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Today -100: September 3, 1924: The only issue

William Pattangall, the Democratic candidate for governor of Maine, says the Ku Klux Klan is the only issue in the Maine campaign. He says Coolidge won’t dare denounce the Klan until after the Maine election – which is next week. Republican candidate Ralph Owen Brewster is very much Klan-backed.

The Texas Democrat Convention is purged of Klan delegates.

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Today -100: September 2, 1924: The Delos Duty sounds like a paperback in a crap series of Robert Ludlum ripoffs

Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes rebuffs a League of Nations request for the US to send a rep to the committee drafting a treaty to control the arms traffic, but it will send reps to any conference to consider the plan.

On Labor Day, Prez. Coolidge tells union leaders in the White House (whose expenses might have been paid by the RNC) that immigration restriction and protective tariffs are the best policies for labor and will “prevent America from producing cheap men.” Republicans are running a little scared of labor defecting to what Coolidge calls the radicalism and paternalism of Robert La Follette.

John Davis, addressing union members in Wheeling, West Virginia, calls for: the anti-child-labor amendment to the US Constitution, abolition of the Railroad Labor Board, and limiting anti-strike injunctions.

A bomb is discovered in Lenin’s tomb. Student groups had visited the tomb, so the Cheka tortures false confessions out of many, many students, as is the custom.

Herrin, Illinois Sheriff George Galligan is arrested by the coroner (I didn’t know they could do that), along with 2 of his deputies, for allegedly starting the gun fight with the Klan that resulted in 6 deaths. There are warrants out, not yet served, on a judge and State’s Attorney Delos Duty. The gloriously and alliteratively named Duty thinks the general in charge of the troops sent into Herrin and the governor himself are secret klansmen. Also every preacher in Williamson County.

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Today -100: September 1, 1924: Of defectives and princes

Secretary of War John Weeks says half the population is “subnormal” and/or “defective,” which means the US will have to “defend itself with one arm tied behind its back.” He wants children inspected so the next generation is better, but I’m unclear on what he’s suggesting be done.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: August 31, 1924: As I go in, the Klan will go out

Emma Goldman gets permission to move to Britain from Berlin.

In the latest shenanigans in Herrin, Illinois, Sheriff George Galligan and his deputies get into a gun battle with Klansmen, then barricade themselves in Herrin Hospital, while the kluxers occupy city hall, possibly with a machine gun. The sheriff telegraphs Springfield calling for state troops. 6 dead so far.

I guess we know the German Nationalists’ demand for passing the railroad part of the Dawes Plan: Chancellor Wilhelm Marx disavows the war guilt clause of the Versailles Treaty. France is (spoiler alert) pissed.

Future Texas governor Miriam “Ma” Ferguson tells the NYT that the main issue of the election is the Ku Klux Klan. She won’t hire any kluxers for state offices: “As I go in, the Klan will go out.”

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Today -100: August 30, 1924: Dawes done

The German Reichstag passes the Railroad bill required to implement the Dawes Plan after days of fighting by Nationalist and Communist deputies. Many of the former gave in, presumably not wanting to face a new election or having been bribed in some way.

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Today -100: August 29, 1924: The last supreme shock of the world

Nathan Leopold promises that if he is executed his last words will be “the last supreme shock of the world.” “I really think I can make it worth any one’s while who is fortunate enough to obtain an invitation.” Also, there’ll be hard punch and a good jazz band. Dickie Loeb plans to play in the jail baseball league.

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Today -100: August 28, 1924: Cities are doomed

After NY Gov. Al Smith meets with new Tammany boss George Washington Olvany, the latter says Smith is definitely not running for re-election, leaving the Dems without an obvious replacement. Smith wants FDR to run, but FDR is ruling himself out on health grounds.

The South Carolina Democratic primary fails to produce a majority winner for the US Senate race, so there will have to be a second primary next month (shouldn’t that be called a secondary?) between ex-Gov. Coleman Blease and Rep. James Byrnes.

Coolidge has decided on the subjects on which he will run: common-sense farm relief, unofficial cooperation in Europe without political “engagements,” and, of course, tax cuts.

The Idaho Democratic convention condemns the Klan.

Marcus Garvey says the black people he intended to settle in Liberia will now go instead to... some other African country tbd. He says Britain, France, and Firestone Tire and Rubber Company forced Liberia to say it didn’t want the immigrants.

Henry Ford says cities will eventually vanish and industry and population be decentralized. Cities are simply too expensive to be maintained. Farmers will work in these factories during the dull season.

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Today -100: August 27, 1924: What do we care about that, anyway?

Headline of the Day -100:  

Evidently the “Ku Klux Klan issue” is a real head-scratcher for Cal.

The Ohio Democratic convention condemns the Klan.

The Oklahoma Democratic party also opposes the Klan, but Republican Sen. John Harreld says klansmen are welcome in his party. “What do we care about that, anyway?” Gov. M.E. Trapp (D) says the KKK controls the R. party in the southwest. Oh sure, some kluxers are Democrats, he says, but they’re taking orders from Grand Dragons who are Republicans.

State’s Attorney Robert Crowe sums up: Leopold n’ Loeb are perverts, rattlesnakes, mad dogs, etc. He also has insults for the defense psychiatrists and Clarence Darrow.

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Today -100: August 26, 1924: Poor young Jews

The deadline for Germany to ratify the Dawes Plan is Saturday. Chancellor Wilhelm Marx tells the Reichstag he will ratify it no matter what they do.

Day 3 of Clarence Darrows’s concluding speech pleading for mercy for “these two poor young Jews”.

Charles Dawes says he and Coolidge didn’t actually talk about the Klan.

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Today -100: August 25, 1924: Of zeppelins, the Klan in politics, and Mars

The ZR-3, an airship built for the US Navy by the Zeppelin company in Germany will soon fly to the US. Any stowaways will be thrown over the side, with a parachute. Over the Atlantic?

“Ma” Ferguson increases her lead. She says it’s the death knell of the Klan in Texas. And when governor, she’ll fire kluxers holding government jobs.

The Ku Klux Klan’s prominence as an issue in this election cycle continues to grow, given further impetus by the victory of Ma & other anti-Klan candidates in the Texas Dem. primaries. Coolidge has called Dawes in to meet in person in Vermont, and the speculation is that it’s to talk about the Klan. Ohio Democrats are divided over how to deal with the Klan issue in their state convention. Georgia’s former governor/US senator Thomas Hardwick, who is running to reclaim the Senate seat from William Harris, accuses him of being a kluxer, specifically a member of the super-secret adjunct called the Imperial Klan. Professional Klan lecturer Rev. Oscar Haywood says the Klan is actually politically neutral; he says he won’t say anything against Davis, who is a “splendid man” but “I am not going to vote for him.”

With the Earth and Mars at their closest (physically, I mean, not emotionally), astronomers and others have been turning their telescopes and radios to the red planet. They haven’t found signs of life – yet – but have confirmed that Mars has water and an atmosphere.

H. L. Mencken, in his Baltimore Evening Standard column, says Davis is a bystander in the presidential campaign: “The actual combatants are the Hon. Mr. La Follette and the Hon. Mr. Coolidge. Each of these great statesmen stands for something that is simple and obvious—something that anyone may understand. Dr. Coolidge is for the Haves and Dr. La Follette is for the Have Nots. But whom is Dr. Davis for? I’m sure I don’t know, and neither does anyone else. ... La Follette is belaboring Coolidge, and the friends of Coolidge are belaboring La Follette, but no one seems to think it worthwhile to belabor Davis. He is simply concealed in the crowd, like a bootlegger at a wedding.” Read the whole column.

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Today -100: August 24, 1924: Of domestic controversy or discord, women in the Reichstag, and let’s invade Denmark!

Miriam “Ma” Ferguson is well ahead, so far, as votes are counted in the Texas Democratic primary election for governor. She answers  the question of whether she’ll be the “dummy” for her husband, while rejecting the advice of those who want her to announce she won’t be listening to him at all. She says she will be “guided” by him on subjects he knows better, like fiscal affairs, taxes, prisons, etc., while using her own judgment on education, social affairs, women, children, etc. “By adopting this course I believe I will be able to render service to the people of Texas without creating any domestic controversy or discord.”

Gen. Charles Dawes, Republican vice-presidential nominee, gives a speech in Augusta, Maine in support of Republican candidate for governor Ralph Brewster. In it, Dawes denounces the Klan, which... is behind Brewster’s candidacy.

The German Reichstag has 29 women deputies out of the 472.

The Danish government plans to eliminate the army.

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Today -100: August 23, 1924: When the public thinks as one man it only thinks of killing someone

Clarence Darrow at the Leopold n’ Loeb trial: “For God’s sake, if the State in which I live is not kinder, more humane and considerate and intelligent than the mad act of these mad boys, then I am sorry to have lived so long.” “When the public thinks as one man it only thinks of killing someone.”

At a campaign rally in Seagirt, New Jersey, John W. Davis condemns the Ku Klux Klan by name and invites Coolidge to join him, thus removing the Klan issue from the presidential campaign. Which Coolidge declines to do. The Seagirt crowd is jubilant at the Klan diss, some shouting “Hang ‘em!” and “Throw them in the river!,” which seems to rather miss the point.

Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans says the Klan is neutral between Davis and Coolidge, but will fight against Bob La Follette.

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Today -100: August 22, 1924: No Ma for me

VP candidate Charles Dawes refuses to pose for newsreel cameras: “Hell, they’re not going to make a damned movie man out of me!”

Headline of the Day -100:  

The White House releases a letter Coolidge wrote to the president of the National Negro Business League in which he congratulates the “economic emancipation being splendidly wrought out by the colored people for themselves; so I believe their full political rights will be won through the inevitable logic of their position and rightfulness of their claims.” Which is a good way of saying he doesn’t actually intend to help in any way, they’re on their own.

The Klan’s inevitable riposte to Miriam Ferguson’s “Me for Ma” slogan is “No Ma for Me.”

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Today -100: August 21, 1924: Savages v. fiends

Sen. Nathanial Dial and his South Carolina Democratic Party primary opponent Insurance Commissioner John McMahan are both arrested at a campaign meeting at which the former swings a chair at the head of the latter, as was the custom, after MacMahan called him a “dirty liar.”

Charles Dawes made a particularly combative acceptance speech for his nomination for Republican candidate for vice president a couple of days ago, accusing Democrats of being hypocrites and demagogues and of denigrating the rule of law (i.e., Prohibition). There’s a lot of talk about the speech, which I skipped at the time but the thought of reading it now just makes me tired.

Assistant State’s Attorney Joseph Savage (!) sums up the case against Leopold + Loeb, calling them “fiends” and “dastardly cowards” (that’s the worst kind of cowards) who deserve hanging.

Two, possibly 3 are dead in violence in Weehawken, NJ among the chicken pullers. Whatever the hell those might be.

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Today -100: August 20, 1924: Of racial censorship and sap buckets

NY Mayor John Hylan bans the participation of a mixed group of black & white children in Eugene O’Neill’s All God’s Chillun Got Wings.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Not a metaphor. Or a sex toy.

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Today -100: August 19, 1924: The big cucumber that will give us all the bellyache

The NAACP protests the exclusion by the National Woman’s Party of black speakers from the Inez Milholland memorial. “If capitulation to race prejudice is to be the price of election of women to office we sincerely hope that every one of your candidates will be defeated in the coming election.”

Former Texas Gov. Oscar Colquitt supports “Ma” Ferguson, arguing that it is a question of constitutional government or secret Klan government: “If the Klan gets into power it will be the big cucumber that will give us all the bellyache.” She’s even supported by the Republican candidate, Thomas Lee, who, as a Republican in Texas, has no chance in hell.

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Today -100: August 18, 1924: It was no place for colored people to speak

The National Woman’s Party holds a memorial for its old standard-bearer Inez Milholland (d. 1916) in Lewis, New York in conjunction with the NWP convention for organizing to elect women to Congress. Inez’s father John brought 3 black guests: Dr. Emmett Scott, the secretary/treasurer of Howard University; Lucy Slowe, a Howard professor; and Mrs. Addie Waites Hunton of the NAACP. He complains that they were very much not invited to speak. Alice Paul, VP of the NWP, says “This was arranged as a demonstration of women, and it was no place for colored people to speak. We had invited them to carry a wreath to the grave and their feelings were not hurt.” When alive, Inez (a NAACP member) intervened more than once to prevent the exclusion of black women from suffrage parades.

Marcus Garvey has bought a steamship to take negroes Back to Africa™, and charges his followers 50¢ to... look at it.

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Today -100: August 17, 1924: Me for Ma

Miriam Ferguson, described by the NYT as “a typical Texas woman,” is running for governor in the Democratic primary as the anti-Klan candidate, although I seem to remember her husband, impeached former governor James Ferguson, as pretty racist himself. Slogan: Me for Ma. Which sounds like baby talk. Her opponent, Judge Felix Robertson, is trying not to mention his Klan links and is even claiming to support Catholics, while focusing on Prohibition. In its desperation, the Klan, which used to oppose the “Jew, Jug and Jesuit,” has dropped the first and third J-word.

The Dawes Plan agreement is signed. France and Belgium will remove their troops from the Ruhr within a year.

Giacomo Matteotti’s body is found, more than 2 months after he disappeared. In a culvert, a few miles outside Rome.

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Today -100: August 16, 1924: Boom

The house of Magistrate Henry Tennyson of Slovan, Pennsylvania is dynamited in a huge explosion that takes out pretty much every window in town. The house is destroyed but the Tennyson family survives, somehow. The judge hears a lot of prohibition cases.

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Today -100: August 15, 1924: A government of common sense

Coolidge gives a boring acceptance speech. “The people,” he says, “want a government of common sense.” Has he MET the people?

The prosecution’s two alienists admit that they only spoke briefly to Leopold n’ Loeb, with lots of people around, before concluding they were sane.

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Today -100: August 14, 1924: Of married names and brain sand

The federal government rules that married women employees of the government aren’t allowed to use their maiden names.

At the Leopold n’ Loeb trial, State’s Attorney Robert Crowe puts a couple of alienists on the stand to assert that the boys are perfectly normal (“except so far as commission of a deliberate, cold-blooded murder indicates disordered mentality,” which seems like a big exception) and their endocrine systems are fine. In fact, you can’t rely on x-rays of the pineal gland, which contains “brain sand,” which is evidently a real thing.

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Today -100: August 13, 1924: Of bad motives and fat Germans

Coolidge declines to respond to John W. Davis’s acceptance speech, with its accusations of Republican corruption.

Henry Ford rather belatedly withdraws from the Michigan Republican primary for US senator. He says he doesn’t know the motive of the people who put his name forward, “but believe it cannot be a good one”.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: August 12, 1924: Deeper and more widespread corruption than any that this generation of Americans has been called upon to witness

At the Leopold n’ Loeb trial, “More than five minutes was taken up in trying to ascertain the difference between a blush on Loeb’s cheek and a similar glow on that of Leopold.” “[State’s Attorney Robert Crowe] tried to force admission that cunning directed them and not emotion”.

Calvin Coolidge publicly responds to some dude who wrote asking him to step in to prevent the Republican Party running a black dentist, Charles Roberts, for Congress in New York’s 21st district. Cal says it’s a local matter but does give a pretty strong defense of equal rights. (Roberts will run as Republican candidate, and lose badly).

And in a letter to the Jewish Forum, Coolidges praises American Jews for assimilating so nicely.

John W. Davis is officially informed of his nomination for president (he’d probably already heard about it). He accepts. He accuses the Republican Party of “having exhibited deeper and more widespread corruption than any that this generation of Americans has been called upon to witness... I charge it with gross favoritism to the privileged, and with utter disregard of the unprivileged. I charge it with indifference to world peace, and with timidity in the conduct of our foreign affairs.”

Andrew Anderson, the Democratic nominee for governor of South Dakota, is gored to death by a bull, as is the custom in South Dakota, probably.

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Today -100: August 11, 1924: Of constitution days and fiorellos

It’s Constitution Day in Berlin, celebrating the 5th anniversary of the Weimar Constitution, and... no one shows up. Well, 5,000, but most of the major parties boycott it and many people fly monarchist flags in protest. Germany, it is said, is a republic without republicans. I’m sure that won’t be a problem.

Rep. Fiorello La Guardia of New York, currently serving his first term in Congress, leaves the Republican Party, whose platform he dislikes, in favor of La Follette’s Progressives. He will be re-elected under his new banner, and then return to the Republican fold next in ‘26.

Non-silent Cal: Calvin Coolidge is filmed with sound (4 minutes).

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Today -100: August 10, 1924: Of glands

Dr. Harold S. Hulbert testifies at the Leopold n’ Loeb trial that Nathan Leopold Jr has irregularities in his pineal, pituitary, adrenal and thyroid glands. Shows x-rays and everything.

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Today -100: August 9, 1924: It cannot long survive

Robert La Follette says he is opposed to the Ku Klux Klan, but sounds annoyed that the issue is distracting from the big issue, which is the power of the private monopoly system over the US’s economic life. He says the Klan “cannot long survive” because of the “sound judgment and good sense of our people”.

The Connecticut state fire warden bans the burning of crosses without permission of a fire warden.

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Today -100: August 8, 1924: Of non-kluxers and moral violence

John W. Davis denies rumors that he was once a member of the Klan.

Mussolini makes his first speech since the disappearance of of Giacomo Matteotti two months ago, vowing to remain in office, “to which am bound not by caprice or by desire for power, but by a religious sense of duty.” Does he give the speech from a balcony? Of course he gives it from a balcony. He complains that “The Opposition is daily guilty of moral violence against Fascism by painting it as something which it absolutely is not.” Obviously moral violence is much worse than murdering an opposition leader and dumping his body in the woods.

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Today -100: August 7, 1924: Of treaties, fascist extremism, and ponzis

The Anglo-Soviet talks succeed after all. A commercial treaty and a general treaty will be signed.

At the Leopold n’ Loeb trial, one of the defense’s psychiatrist witnesses spills the beans on one of the great mysteries: it was Loeb who actually murdered Bobby Franks.

Bullshit Headline of the Day -100:   

Although the sub-hed is better:

The vague resolutions adopted by the National Council of Fascismo include “further development of the Fascist revolution” and “bringing about a loyal acceptance by the whole country of Fascismo and its revolutionary advent to power.” But Musso has retreated from an earlier draft calling for rewriting the Constitution and maybe further neutering Parliament, which would have pissed off Liberals, which is something he still cares about a little, especially in the context of the wobbliness of Fascist legitimacy after the murder of Giacomo Matteotti.

Charles Ponzi is released from federal prison after serving 3½ years (with time off for good behaviour), and is immediately arrested on Massachusetts state charges.

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Today -100: August 6, 1924: Sane as far as this court is concerned

Treaty negotiations between the Soviet Russian and British Labour governments break down after four months.

Leopold n’ Loeb judge John Caverly rules that they are “sane as far as this court is concerned,” refusing State’s Attorney Robert Crowe’s demands for a jury trial to address the issue. Crowe’s questioning of psychiatric witnesses has focused on 1) getting them to admit that The Boys are so smart they could be deceiving the alienists, and 2) trying to trick them into use the word insane which they keep telling him is a legal term, not a medical one (one shrink used the term psychosis and Crowne asked if that wasn’t the same  thing as insane. Or bughouse). The judge shuts down anything that approaches the subject of homosexuality, although it sounds like he may hear that stuff behind closed doors.

Turkey bans polygamy, except in “unusual cases.”

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Today -100: August 5, 1924: We have heard nothing from the Republican Party

Gov. Al Smith will not run for re-election, the NYT says (he will).

The National Woman’s Party will hold a “women for Congress” conference next week. VP Alice Paul says the NY Democratic Party has promised to cooperate with the NWP in nominating a woman in one (1) congressional district. “We have heard nothing from the Republican Party.”

A federal grand jury indicts Marcus Garvey for income tax fraud & perjury, and Liberia bans his followers entering the country. He’d planned to start a colony there in autumn.

The 1st Little Orphan Annie comic strip appears in the New York Daily News (my cursory search failed to find it).

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: August 4, 1924: Of anniversaries, vindications, sea writers, and bombs

A ceremony for the 10th anniversary of Germany sort of declaring war on France (no celebrations for sort of declaring war on Russia 2 days before?) is held outside the Reichstag building. Lots of talk about restoring Germany’s place in the world. Communists counter-demonstrate, interrupting the two-minute silence, and are attacked, as was the custom. One is killed. The police make sure no one gets near the French Embassy. A Jewish rabbi is prevented delivering a prayer, so the Jews of Berlin have to hold a separate ceremony.

Rep. John Langley is nominated for re-election in the Kentucky Republican primary, despite, or possibly because of, his conviction for conspiracy to violate the Volstead Act (he is out on appeal). He is campaigning for “vindication.”

A car bomb blows up the Proctorville, Ohio Municipal Building, nearly killing Mayor John Reckard. It is thought this is an act of revenge on him by moonshiners.

Joseph Conrad, “writer of the sea,” dies at 66. The fairly lengthy obit fails to mention Heart of Darkness.

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Today -100: August 3, 1924: Huck & Tom, Leopold and Loeb, compare and contrast

The London conference on the Dawes Plan invites Germany to send a delegation to discuss Germany’s future, which is an innovation, although I think all the decisions have already been made.

At the Leopold n’ Loeb trial, State’s Attorney Robert Crowe asks one of the alienists called by the defense if Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn exhibited criminalistic tendencies.

Former Austrian Empress Zita turns down an offer to become a movie actress, despite her current poverty.

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Today -100: August 2, 1924: Of the spirit of 1914, party fireworks, and elevated guns

Germany will be holding ceremonies and whatnot for the 10th anniversary of the start of the Great War (which they define as when Germany sort-of declared war on France rather than when it sort-of declared war on Russia two days before). Hindenburg writes, “May the spirit of 1914 again be the common property of all Germans.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

Britain has been complaining about US plans to elevate the guns on its battleships, which may or may not violate at least the spirit of arms limitation agreements. Retired Adm. William Rogers says Britain is just jealous.

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Today -100: August 1, 1924: The universe will crumble unless these boys hang

Clarence Darrow at the Leopold n’ Loeb trial: “The State’s Attorney’s office seems to feel the universe will crumble unless these boys hang.”

Turkey orders foreign Jews to leave the country.

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Today -100: July 31, 1924: No joy

Headline of the Day -100:  

Bavaria’s interior minister bans processions & other demonstrations on Constitution Day, August 10th, the anniversary of the adoption of the Weimar constitution. “The Bavarian Government respects the Constitution of the German Republic but derives no pleasure from it,” the proclamation says.

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Today -100: July 30, 1924: Cryin’ Loeb

In the Leopold n’ Loeb trial, State’s Attorney Robert Crowe reverses his plan to have his last witness be one of his assistants, to testify that Loeb was crying before he confessed. He’s afraid of triggering a requirement to have a jury called to assess their sanity. He will also object to the defense introducing alienists, threatening to blow up the boys’ guilty pleas if they’re brought in.

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Today -100: July 29, 1924: Of rebellions, witnesses, fruit packers, and radio

Brazilian government forces recapture São Paulo from the rebels, who mostly escape into the interior.

The Leopold n’ Loeb prosecutor puts on the stand Johnny Levison, a 9-year-old they had intended to be their victim but who took a different route home than usual on the day. He has a whale of a time.

Sacked California fruit packers attacked Japanese who replaced them in Mendocino County. Initial reports in Japan attributed the mob attack to the Ku Klux Klan, but the consul’s investigation doesn’t mention them.

Radio companies say they don’t want to broadcast more than an hour a day of political speeches, or more than 15 minutes per speech.

There are now 534 radio stations in the country, by the way.

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Today -100: July 28, 1924: Super-slow Sunday news day

550,000 people visit Coney Island on a single day, even though the water is quite cold.

Headline of the Day -100:  

The Loyal Order of Moose, not an actual moose.

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Today -100: July 27, 1924: Of diseased minds, reparations, and hylans

Clarence Darrow tells the Leopold n’ Loeb court that he won’t be arguing legal insanity but that “the boys” – he’s gonna be using that term repeatedly if unsubtly throughout the trial – “have diseased minds and... were not responsible for their acts.”

The US threatens to break off diplomatic relations with Persia unless it arrests those who killed Vice Consul Robert Imbrie and his plus-one, punishes cops and soldiers who were present and failed to intervene (or participated), pay for the warship sent to bring Imbrie’s body home, and attend the putting-the-corpse-on-the-warship ceremony.

NYC Mayor John Hylan says he might run for governor, if progressives want him to. It’s unclear if that means he’d run in the Democratic convention in September or would join La Follette’s Progressives. He’s in California, meeting with William Randolph Hearst, who does not get on with Al Smith or Tammany Hall and may have urged this move on Hylan.

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Today -100: July 26, 1924: Of refugees and kidnappppings

Greece tells 50,000 Armenian refugees that they need to go... somewhere. Somewhere else. The League of Nations is asking Russia to take them.

In the Leopold n’ Loeb trial, State’s Attorney Robert Crowe introduces into evidence a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, purely because its title is spelled with that double P, just like in the ransom notes (“kidnaped” being more common at the time). The judge allows it. It’s going to be that kind of trial.

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