Today -100: May 22, 1925: Of mobs & peeresses

A 300-person mob attacks the county jail in Dallas in an attempt to lynch two black men, but is driven back by cops & firemen with about 30 shots fired, mostly in the air. There does seem to be a general trend towards law enforcement actually trying to enforce the law in the face of lynch mobs.

The British House of Lords defeats a bill to allow women to sit in the Lords, by only 2 votes. Lord Lamington worries that a government in conflict with the Lords would swamp it with wives and daughters of its MPs; why, we might even be “inundated by a number of very seductive ladies”. Women will be allowed in from 1958 (life peers) and 1963 (hereditary peers).

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 21, 1925: Talking takes away all the illusion

In the German Reichstag, the Socialists bring a motion of no confidence, focusing on the government’s plans for protective tariffs, especially on foodstuffs, showing, they say, the domination of the government by Prussian Junkers.

Kansas’s former governor Jonathan Davis, who was arrested on his last day in office in January for selling pardons, is acquitted despite being guilty as fuck. He declares himself vindicated, as “I expected and deserved.” Other charges remain. He’ll beat those too, but will never hold elected office again, despite running for governor & US senator a bunch of times.

The Wisconsin State Assembly petitions Pres. Coolidge to call a constitutional convention to repeal the 18th Amendment (Prohibition). It also calls for a state referendum on legalizing 2.75% beer. The Drys attempt to substitute “milk” for “beer” and are shouted down by calls of “We want beer,” which I believe is the state motto.

Thomas Edison says static will never be completely eliminated from radios, and that talking-type and color motion pictures will never be commercially viable. “Talking takes away all the illusion and spoils many scenes that would otherwise be effective.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 20, 1925: Competing monkey trials

Dayton, Tennessee is very upset about Chattanooga’s plans to indict one of its teachers for teaching evolution, potentially stealing publicity away from Dayton’s trial and maybe even beating it to the punch.

Mussolini finally musters a quorum in the Chamber of Deputies to ban secret societies (i.e., the Freemasons). The vote is unanimous.

French Impressionist painter Armand Guillaumin, 84, proclaims himself rejuvenated by a procedure involving blood transfusions from young girls.

Headline of the Day -100:

Charles Amador is also enjoined from calling himself “Charles Aplin,” as well as wearing the distinctive mustache, cane, baggy pants, etc. (Except for the name thing, the injunction will be overturned in July).

If Chaplin now has one copyright-protected face, his opposite must be “The Man of a Thousand Faces,” Lon Chaney, whose film The Unholy Three, directed by Tod Browning, premieres today.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 19, 1925: I want to see war considered a crime

Sen. William Borah (R-Idaho) says he opposes the League of Nations and World Court because their underlying principle is that force is the mainstay of government. “I want to see war considered a crime.”

Rep. Louis McFadden (R-Penn.), chair of the Banking and Currency Committee and a massive anti-semite, as well as two brokerage firms, are sued for lying on an affidavit, something about a stock issue for a radio company that claimed it did radio shit that it did not do.

Headline of the Day -100:

William Cavalier, 14 at the time of his trial for killing his grandmother.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 18, 1925: Log cabins

Bird Sim Coler, NYC commissioner for public welfare, laying the cornerstone of a hospital, says that with hospital births supplanting home ones, there will soon be no more presidents born in log cabins. In fact, the last president born in an actual log cabin was James Garfield, in 1831, but presidents were all born at home until Jimmy Carter, the first prez born in a hospital.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 17, 1925: The greatest possible good to our friends, the greatest possible harm to our enemies

The US demands that 9 nations with debts from the Great War start repaying their loans (and this means YOU, France).

Mussolini fails to get Parliament to pass his ban on secret (i.e., Masonic) societies after deputies walk out, preventing a quorum. And this even after the Duck gave this rationale for the ban: “We must do the greatest possible good to our friends, the greatest possible harm to our enemies.”

The municipal women’s suffrage bill Mussolini supported has been narrowed in the Chamber of Deputies: women over 25, but only if they have military medals or ones for civil valor or merit in elementary teaching or... public sanitation; or mothers of war dead or war widows; or guardians of children; or who have elementary education; or pay 40 lire in taxes and are also able to read and write. Women can hold local offices except mayor, assessor, or council head.

Another Mussolini bill: Prince Umberto’s allowance would be increased 50% if he married. He’s 20.

Dayton, Tennessee teacher John Scopes, who the NYT is for some reason calling Professor Scopes – do they think small-town Tennessee high schools are staffed by professors? – says he didn’t even know he was breaking the law when he taught evolution. He says he’s heard that Clarence Darrow and Dudley Field Malone have offered to defend him (without taking pay or expenses) and he’s pleased. He will later insist on them participating over the ACLU’s objections, demonstrating a better understanding of what was going on than they did.

King George V has taken to wearing horn-rimmed glasses, which are an American thing and have been widely mocked in Britain, although presumably that all stops now.

Headline of the Day -100:

They’re all like, “’Sup, dude.”

Headline of the Day -100:

Funny, I always figured them more as butt guys.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 16, 1925: All this does not change the poetry of life

Gen. Nelson Appleton Miles, who joined the army during the Civil War, becoming a general at 25, and later killed him some Injuns and some Pullman railroad strikers, and was military governor of Puerto Rico and commanding general of the US Army, dies at 85 in a manner befitting his life: dropping dead at Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus. In 1904 he refused the Prohibition Party nomination for president; it instead went to (ahem) Silas Swallow. He was wounded several times in the Civil War. 36 years after a Confederate sharp-shooter shot him in the belt buckle, they met and the soldier said that all things considered he was glad he hadn’t killed Miles.

Mussolini succeeds in convincing Parliament to give women the vote. Well, the vote in municipal elections anyway. Ironically, it’s an exercise in macho dominance because most Fascists deputies do not like the idea at all, but fall in line anyway. The Duck says “I have never met a woman who asked me for the vote.” He says in this, the “century of capitalism,” women are obliged to work. “However, all this does not change the poetry of life.” Not the limericks, anyway. Oddly, he says he’s actually “pessimistic” about the value of women’s suffrage: “I know it will not bring a cataclysm, but I do not believe it will bring much good, or, in fact, change matters much.” He also says that in his forthcoming mobilization orders, women will be conscripted during wartime.

Pres. Coolidge rejects the Anti-Saloon League’s suggestion that he use the Navy to enforce Prohibition.

After school board elections in Elmsford, Westchester County, New York, school principal Howard Lee Holden is forced out because of his habit of beating pupils with a rubber hose.

The late Anatole France had a very light brain.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 15, 1925: Rhenium! Don’t put it on ice creamium!

During the January solar eclipse, a new element was discovered in the sun by x-ray spectroscopy. According to Prof. Frederick Slocum of the Van Vleck Observatory, who had nothing to do with the discovery, scientists are not prepared to bestow a name on the element at this time. This blog can reveal, exclusively, that that element was ultimately named rhenium (it would have been nipponium if its original Japanese discoverer some years ago hadn’t mistaken it for element 43).

NY Mayor John Hylan gets vaccinated against smallpox to set a good example. There are currently 6 cases of smallpox in the city, but it has a stronger hold in other cities.

The Italian Parliament opens. Mussolini’s priorities: women’s suffrage (which is not popular among Fascists in general), a new constitution, and cracking down on Freemasons and the press.

H. Rider Haggard, author of King Solomon’s Mines, She, etc., dies at 68.

A mob pulls black man Jack West from a train and lynches him near Longwood, Florida.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 14, 1925: One lord a-leeping

Headline of the Day -100:

He says the battle is between 11,000 members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science versus 109 million Americans. “For the first time in my life I’m on the side of the majority.”

Leon Trotsky is back in Moscow after an 8-month absence officially attributed to illness but which no one believes was due to illness. He is elected to the Presidium to louder applause than, say, Stalin.

Lord Alfred Milner, the 1st (and last) Viscount Milner, 71, governor of the Cape Colony (1897-1901) and of the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony (1901-1905), secretary of state for War (1918-1919), sec. state for the Colonies (1919-1921), and, like all arch-imperialists, prominent opponent of women’s suffrage, dies of sleeping sickness after a visit to South Africa, or, as the NYT index puts it,

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway is published.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 13, 1925: Guess who’s going to Tennessee!

At a NYC Board of Aldermen meeting, Aldercritter George Harvey condemns the NYPD’s issuing of special “P.D.” plates to at least 250 people whose identities have been kept secret and who use them to drive however they damned well feel like. Harvey wants a list of plate-holders. Some rich dudes admit to possessing them including the presidents of the American Car and Foundry Company, the Empire Safe Deposit Company, and Brooklyn Edison; also the maître d'hôtel of the Waldorf. Harvey calls for the withdrawal of plates from non-cops.

Headline of the Day -100:

Paul von Hindenburg, 77, is sworn in as president of Germany. Is there goose-stepping? You bet your ass there’s goose-stepping.

Three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan will act as lawyer for the World’s Christian Fundamental Association in the Scopes trial. I think he last practiced law in the 1880s.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 12, 1925: Of monarchist roars, little ententes, and reasonable racist laws

Headline of the Day -100:

Monarchist roars are... not the worst kind of roars ever heard in Berlin. Republicans and Communists stay away, maybe less a boycott and more fear of violence and arrest. “One old man who boasted the honor of cheering three Kaisers in Berlin streets dropped dead when the Presidential car sped by.”

Bulgarian courts-martial convict 8 for the Sofia church bombing, sentencing them to death by public execution, but only 3 are actually in custody.

The Little Entente (Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia) conference, meeting in Bucharest, issues what amounts to an ultimatum to Austria: expel Communists from Vienna, reduce government spending, end the demand for union with Germany. Austrian Vice-Chancellor Leopold Waber responds that Austria is burdened with having to pay pensions and such for Czechs living in Austria who should have been expelled (I suspect he’s most irked by the presence of foreign Jews).

The Supreme Court upholds California’s racist land law, saying the ban on American citizens selling land to Japanese does not violate the 14th Amendment (perish the thought) or the 1911 treaty between the US & Japan. The opinion, written by Harding appointee Pierce Butler, says the ban is perfectly reasonable.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 11, 1925: Astir

Berlin is “all astir” over Hindenburg’s forthcoming inauguration. The Communists are certainly all astir, which is why the police have banned them from demonstrating against the former field marshal. They’ve also banned bands, so no oompahing (or possibly oom-pahing; the internet is divided on the correct spelling) for Mr. von H. Also no monarchist marches.

Interesting (but ridiculous) rumors about George Bernard Shaw: 1) He’s writing a play called “The Trial of Jesus,” 2) He’s converted to Catholicism.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 10, 1925: Of imperial colors

Evidently the oath Hindenburg will have to swear is not only to the Weimar Republic’s constitution but also to its flag, so republicans are arguing that monarchist plans to display banners for his inauguration in the imperial colors (black, white, red) are inappropriate. Berlin police ban carrying arms in the celebratory events.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 9, 1925: Multi-fasching

The Coast Guard claims that rum-runners are sabotaging its vessels, which keep mysteriously blowing up. They’re setting the stage for a shoot-to-kill policy.

Accumulating more and more government posts, Mussolini names himself Minister of the Navy. He is also currently in charge of foreign affairs, the army, and the air force.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 8, 1925: Of anti-Reds, refugees, and duties

Bulgaria is trying to start a Balkan anti-Red union. Looks like Bulgaria is taking advantage of the attack on the Sofia church to try to assert leadership in the region, like after the First Balkan War when it thought it was going to lead a Balkan Empire and even started designing royal crests, only to have all the other countries turn on it in the Second Balkan War.

Austria refuses to expel political refugees from Vienna, as has been requested by neighboring countries complaining about Communist plots.

The British Parliament restores the duties, originally imposed by the last Liberal government and then dropped by the last Labour government, on motor cars, musical instruments, films and timepieces. Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill says too much fuss is made about duties and he only reimposed them because Philip Snowden’s cancelling of them was a partisan act and he (Churchill) wants to underline that. Churchill is accused in return of being forced to do this to prove his new loyalty to the Tories.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 7, 1925: In which we learn what job has no place in a republican form of government. Is it a king? It’s probably a king.

The German Social Democrats call for the election of Paul von Hindenburg as president to be annulled because of election irregularities. Schools in Prussia will close for Field Marshal H’s inauguration.

Michigan Gov. Alex Groesbeck vetoes a bill allowing him to appoint a state poet laureate, calling it a “monarchical custom” which “has no place in a republican form of government.” 

By arrangement, Dayton, Tennessee teacher John Scopes is arrested for teaching evolution.

An anti-evolution bill is being considered in Florida, whose ban on evolution-teaching would include universities that receive state funds, which I believe the Tennessee law does not.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 6, 1925: Altruistic twaddle is the... you know, I don’t know

NYC Mayor John Hylan announces his bid for re-election for a third term. He is currently resisting the state government and indeed state law in attempting to dig a Staten Island tunnel that can accommodate freight cars; the state insists it be used only for passenger train service. Although ground was broken in 1923, that dispute will have halted work by the end of the year. The incomplete tunnel is still down there. Other Hylan issues are also mostly public transportation things, which he expresses in slogan form as the five-cent fare, the traction trust, the billion-dollar prize, and the subsidized press. The “billion-dollar conspiracy” consists of “the traction ring” scheming to replace the current Board of Estimate so it can increase fares, take over the transit system and profit from giving out bus routes.

Bulgaria outlaws Communists, who are being hunted and killed, and killing government forces in return.

Washington Gov. Roland H. Hartley (R) refuses to name a delegate to a national conference on child welfare, saying children are “being made to pay the penalty for an overabundance of altruistic twaddle.” We should “stop a lot of this uplift gush. ... Can we wonder that our children go wrong? Petted, pampered, educated at the expense of the State, robbed of self-reliance and independence, we send them forth as weaklings to take up the rugged path of life for themselves.” Probably best not to google “uplift gush.” I mean I don’t know that for sure, taking my own advice, but you do you.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 5, 1925: Or burnings at the stake

France bans any Joan of Arc Day parades in Paris on Sunday because they might lead to violent clashes.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 4, 1925: Klux around and find out

King Alexander of Yugoslavia orders his brother Prince George interned as insane. George is given to wild behaviour and in 1909 George was forced to renounce any claim to the throne after he kicked a servant to death. He’ll remain incarcerated until freed by the Germans during World War II. After the war, He’ll be the only member of the royal family not banished by Tito (or assassinated earlier, like King Alex) and will die in 1972 at the age of 85.

El Salvador’s Congress passes a motion banning entry by non-whites.

Another attack on a Klan rally. Protesters throw stones at the kluxxers as they leave a field outside Berlin, Massachusetts. And in Baldwin, Massachusetts, Arthur Baker is hit by a stone while leading a Klan parade. I strongly condemn this action because, and only because, they might have hit the horse he was riding. He & 2 others are arrested for holding a parade without a permit.

Britain’s Prince Edward wins over Boer nationalists in Cape Town by speaking to them in Afrikaans, having painstakingly memorized and haltingly recited, “Meneere, ek is baie bly julle vanaant te ontmoet, en ek bedank julle nogmals vir julle warme welkom!” (“Gentlemen, I am very pleased to meet you tonight, and I thank you again for your warm welcome!”). Eddie didn’t like the “Dutch” at all, as letters to his mother show, but hid it well.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 3, 1925: When you’re tired of Morocco, you’re tired of life

Headline of the Day -100:

President Primo de Rivera thinks subjugating Spanish Morocco, which Spain has been signally failing to do, is a waste of time because it will never pay off economically.

The ACLU places an ad in the Knoxville Journal calling for any Tennessee teacher to volunteer to be a test case of the new anti-evolution law.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 2, 1925: Of non-riots, tunnels, subversive opinion and unscrupulous propaganda, and circuses

Yesterday was May Day and, sadly, there were no proper riots anywhere.

Coolidge wants business to be “undisturbed” by the government during the congressional recess (until December), with no announcements or agitation. He’ll be leading his fellow politicians by example by taking a six-week vacation during which he will say and do nothing.

Bulgaria claims to have thwarted another attempt to assassinate Tsar Boris by tunneling under the royal palace and blowing it up, as you do.

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill gives a speech complaining about “subversive opinion and unscrupulous propaganda” coming from outside the country (from you-know-where). He accuses the Labour Party, which he calls the Socialist Party, of “having needlessly and wantonly corrupted...” – that’s the worst kind of corrupting – “...large masses of the British nation” with doctrines that would “starve a large proportion of the population of this crowded island.”

Headline of the Day -100:

Al Smith and the freaks. But I repeat myself. No explanation is given for his failure to bring any girls. Aren’t they entitled to gape at the freaks as well?

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 1, 1925: Of murderous vaccines, dole habits, bibles, and murder rates

14 people have died of a highly lethal strain of smallpox in D.C. since the start of the year. Government employees are being asked to get the vaccine. Pres. and Mrs. Coolidge are believed to have done so. So there are picketers outside government buildings with signs saying that hundreds have been “murdered by vaccines.”

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill continues to defend his budget in Parliament, making himself no friends on the Labour side by suggesting unions should discourage “the dole habit.”

Ohio Gov. Vic Donahey (D) vetoes the alliterative Buchanan Bible Bill, which is backed by the alliterative Ku Klux Klan and would have required mandatory daily Bible-reading (of at least 10 verses) in public schools and for 4th-graders to memorize the 10 Commandments. Donahey’s veto message mentions religious freedom and the US & Ohio constitutions, but points out that local school boards can just ignore that shit and mandate Bible-reading.

Field Marshal Hindenburg will take his presidential oath in civilian dress after all.

NYC Police Commissioner Richard Enright, responding to remarks by Harold Aron, chair of the Republican Publicity Committee, denies that the murder rate in the city has increased substantially since Mayor Hylan appointed him in 1918 and denounces people (Republicans) who claim the NYPD is inefficient, saying they’re greater foes to society than the criminals. He says there haven’t been 1,900 murders, there were only 1,747 (he doesn’t count accidental or justifiable homicides or infanticide). He blames the recent increase on the Tong War and bootlegger contretemps. He criticizes juries who acquit criminals because “their confessions under certain circumstances cannot be used against them”.

Don Okle resigns as an undercover federal Prohibition agent in San Francisco because his job entailed taking 50 drinks a day on average “to obtain evidence.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 30, 1925: Of rich man’s budgets, plots, and smells

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill presents his budget to Parliament. His Labour predecessor in the job, Philip Snowden, calls it “the worst rich man’s budget ever presented.” It indeed drastically reduces income tax for the super-rich.

The British Foreign Office denies newspaper stories that there’s a “Red plot” to assassinate Foreign Minister Austen Chamberlain.

Indiana’s new prohibition enforcement act admits as evidence cops’ claiming that they smelled liquor.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 29, 1925: Of war games, world mental poise & equilibrium, uniforms, and fines

War games in Hawaii indicate that an enemy could capture the territory’s naval bases if they have good enough weather.

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill announces that Britain will return to the gold standard. Adolph Miller of the US Federal Reserve says this is a great step “toward establishment of a world mental poise and equilibrium.”

Hindenburg is trying to decide whether to wear his military uniform or civvy clothes when he’s sworn in as president in the Reichstag, where it is against protocol to wear a uniform, but right afterwards he’ll review a military parade, where it is against protocol for the former field marshal not to wear a uniform.

150 Klansmen hold a meeting in a field in Northbridge, Massachusetts, then are blocked from leaving by a larger group of anti-kluxxers.

A Sunday school class in Mount Holly, New Jersey pays $25 towards the fine of bootlegger Mary Storline, who told the court at her trial in November that she was supporting her 5 children and a sick husband. The judge remitted the rest of the $350 fine.

I’ve been noticing that the “Great War” is increasingly being referred to as “The World War.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 28, 1925: A defiance of the Allies and a defiance of Europe and America

The French are not best pleased by the election of Hindenburg as German president. Le Temps says, “It is because the German people seek to wipe out the memory and sentiment of their defeat that they have given this honor to the great defeated of 1918. ... The election of Field Marshal Hindenburg is a defiance of the Allies and a defiance of Europe and America.”

Former kaiser Wilhelm, on the other hand, is quite pleased, and says he would also be quite pleased to return from exile and resume his kaisership if, and only if, he’s invited (according to a vaguely sourced story).

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 27, 1925: Oh the huma... no that doesn’t really work

Paul von Hindenburg wins the German presidential election run-off (can it be called a run-off if he wasn’t in the first round?) with 49.3%, Wilhelm Marx getting 45.3%, and Communist candidate Ernst Thälmann getting 6.4%. The field marshal did well in right-wing areas like East Prussia, as expected, but also in Bavaria, where some expected the Catholic Marx to do better.

The NYT says Washington is “unperturbed” by the election of the monarchist militarist.

Women in the Communist “Red Cat organization” ride around Berlin on trucks singing “the famous Miau-Maiu song,” whatever that might be (it can’t be the Rossini thing, right? that would make no sense at all).

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 26, 1925: Of trials, huge boys, and straw hats

Franz Kafka’s The Trial is published, posthumously, in German. It won’t be translated into English for more than a decade.

Headline of the Day -100:

Well, a huge boys’ waddle.

Headline of the Day -100:

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 25, 1925: My most sacred hope is to banish the horrors of war

The prospects of a Bulgaria-Yugoslav war seem to be fading, as France and Britain tell them to knock it off.

London police are pretending to think that the Reds will do a Sofia St. Nedelya Church thing and blow up the church where the service will be held for Gen. Lord Rawlinson, the commander-in-chief of the Indian Army since 1920, whose body has been returned from Delhi. The cops are inspecting every inch of St. Margaret’s Church for infernal devices, not neglecting the organ’s pipes.

Sen. Burton Wheeler is acquitted of the bullshit charge of representing an oil company before the Dept of Interior. The jury deliberated 10 minutes. They got dinner first. A minute later Wheeler got a telegram informing him that his wife had given birth back in DC while he was stuck in Montana with this nonsense.

German presidential candidates Hindenburg and Wilhelm Marx both make 15-minute radio addresses to the nation. The field marshal: “I proclaim to the world my most sacred hope is to banish the horrors of war”. Oh sure, you say that AFTER you lose a war.

The German republicans have been claiming that the US will halt loans to Germany if Hindenburg wins.

Outside a political meeting in Montmartre, a clash between Communists and Nationalists (probably Action Française or a similar nationalist/proto-fascist group) leaves 3 of the latter dead, allegedly shot from behind. In the National Assembly, the Right demands the suppression of Communist organizations.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 24, 1925: Some good ones

Calvin Coolidge meets Will Rogers for 10 minutes at the White House. Afterwards, Rogers says Cal does have a sense of humor and has “some good ones,” but gives no examples. (I do know that Cal liked to buzz for the Secret Service, then hide under his desk while hilarity ensued).

5 British Fascisti are acquitted for the kidnapping last month of Harry Pollitt to keep him from a Communist-adjacent conference. I guess they portrayed it as a jolly jape and the jury swallowed it.

Fayette Avery McKenzie resigns as president of historically black Fisk University. He’s spent his presidency cracking down on the students, closing their newspaper, abolishing the student council, banning students from walking with students of the opposite sex, etc., and students and alumni are suggesting maybe replacing him with an actual black person. The first black president will in fact take office in 1947.

Wilson Godfrey Harvey, governor of South Carolina for 8 months in 1922-3, is convicted of violating banking laws at his Enterprise Bank (possibly for accepting deposits after he knew the bank was going bankrupt) and sentenced to either 4 months in the pokey or a fine of $400. He opts for the latter.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 23, 1925: Something something cheese

The Wisconsin attorney general decides that the Ku Klux Klan cannot incorporate within the state.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 22, 1925: If you can’t trust a poet to forecast elections, who can you trust?

In the Montana trumped-up trial of Sen. Burton Wheeler, the government sprung a surprise witness yesterday, George B. Hayes – not to be confused with George “Gabby” Hayes – a lawyer who claims that Interior Dept solicitor E.S. Booth, acting for Wheeler, called him to ask him to meet Wheeler at the Waldorf-Astoria, where Wheeler asked him to intervene with the Land Office re oil & gas prospecting permits. Wheeler is calling a Bell Telephone employee to come from DC to Montana to testify that there was no such phone call.

The NYT goes to the experts for intel on the forthcoming German presidential elections: passengers on a ship arriving from Hamburg. Evidently, Hindenburg is gonna lose, at least according to a couple of bankers and the poet Christoph Kaergel.

Headline of the Day -100:

The Puerto Rican Legislature passed a bill legalizing cockfighting. The ASPCA is lobbying Gov. Horace Towner to veto it.

Some time earlier this month, The Lost World was shown on a plane flight between London & Paris, the first feature-length in-flight movie.

It is pointed out to NYC Mayor John Hylan that the reason people keep getting run over crossing the street to get to the 4th Street entrance to the subway in Brooklyn is that it’s IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING STREET.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 21, 1925: We are destined to live in peace for all time

The Bulgarian army, despite its treaty-limited size, seems perfectly capable of killing suspected Communists on the street by the hundreds.

Bulgarian police kill Capt. Ninkoff, the supposed Communist ringleader of the St Nedelya Church bombing – which I don’t think he was – “resisting arrest.”

A US Navy cruiser lands at Ceiba, Honduras. I guess there’s a revolt going on.

Japanese Ambassador to the US Tsuneo Matsudaira tells the Harvard Club that war between the US & Japan is “a matter of physical impossibility, and we are destined to live in peace for all time.” So that’s reassuring.

The Treasury Dept says it’s pretty much stopped rum-running.

The Associated Press, which has hitherto banned the broadcast of its articles on radio, will now allow it for news “of transcendent importance.”

Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson is finally in prison, awaiting trial. I’m expecting intensive coverage, as previewed by the NYT describing his first prison meal: fried liver and gravy, mashed potatoes, bread & water. He enjoyed it.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 20, 1925: I am not the class murderer which I am pictured

Bulgaria is trying all public order offences in military courts, resulting in death penalties galore, some of which, possibly hundreds, are being immediately carried out.

Paul von Hindenburg, “77 years old and looking it,” gives the opening speech of his presidential campaign in Hanover. He complains about his candidacy being portrayed as signaling “imminent military reaction” (imminent military reaction is the worst sort of military reaction) and looks back fondly to the period when “I had the good fortune to hold the enemy back from our borders with a united nation behind me.” And a large heap of dead soldiers in front of him. He does acknowledge the Weimar Constitution, semi-believably. “I am not a militarist,” he says, not especially believably. “Also I am not the class murderer which I am pictured.”

Tonight is... the night they raided Minsky’s (not the first nor the last time). I’ve recently rewatched that movie and realized I’ve been mixing up Britt Ekland and Elke Sommer my entire life.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 19, 1925: Of cavaliers, dragons, aviatrixes, and shallow ponds

Bulgaria is said to be rife with fighting, assassinations, and plundering, but who knows since the government imposed censorship and cut off all communications with the outside world. It’s afraid the church bombing was the signal for the start of a revolution. Martial law is declared, and house-to-house searches commence in Sofia. One theory: this is all about Yugoslavia trying to absorb Bulgaria. But there many other conspiracy theories making the rounds. The leaders of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, which probably doesn’t rhyme so delightfully in Bulgarian, supposedly disappeared days before the explosion. Bulgaria asks the Powers to allow it to increase the size of its army, which is limited by the Neuilly peace treaty to 30,000, and to lend Bulgaria some planes so they can bomb Communists.

The National Bureau of Information and Education protests to Pennsylvania Gov. Gifford Pinchot against the planned execution of William Cavalier, now 15 but 14 when convicted of murdering his grandmother.

Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson and 2 others are indicted for 1st degree murder of Madge Oberholtzer (the 1st-degree part is that they didn’t get her to a doctor after she took poison after D.C. raped her).

The NYT says that Jews in Eastern European countries are stuck there, given the limited capacity of Palestine and the US’s immigration quotas. So Jews and their Polish, Russian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Romanian neighbors “must make up their minds to live together.”

The French Federation of Aeronautics bans women pilots and demands that Adrienne Bolland return her license. She tells them to suck it.

Headline of the Day -100:

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 18, 1925: A most difficult period

The left-centrist candidate for president of Germany, Wilhelm Marx, comes out for annexation of Austria. That’s... new.

Bulgarian PM Aleksandar Tsankov says “Bulgaria is passing through a most difficult period,” blaming the various assassinations and bombings and shit on Communists supported by Russia. Which is actually true.

I can’t find a date for this more specific than April, so I’ll just stick it here. The Crisis quotes Sen. Coleman Blease (D-SC): “I think the greatest mistake a white man ever made was to put his hand in his pocket to educate a nigger. You can’t educate a horse or a mule or a cow, and you can’t educate a nigger. They weren’t made to be educated. We don’t need them for lawyers or pharmacists and all that. They were made to cut wood, draw water, and work in the fields.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 17, 1925: A cunning plan

Remember the assassination of Gen. Konstantin Georgiev in Sofia, Bulgaria a couple of days ago? Turns out it was bait. During his funeral, attended by many generals and the Cabinet, the roof of the St Nedelya Church is blown up by an “infernal device” (which is the worst sort of device), killing 213 people, including Sofia mayor Paskal Paskalev; Gen. Stefan Nerezov, chief of Staff of the Bulgarian Army; former minister of war Kalin Naydenov; and several other generals and MPs. Cabinet members, who the positioning of the bomb suggests were the primary targets, escape because of the timing of the explosion. There was a large crowd in part because the Bulgarian Communist Party forged invitations and sent them out. Tsar Boris missed the funeral fun, at least that particular funeral fun, as he was attending the funerals of the people who died in the assassination attempt on himself.

The new Painlevé Cabinet in France will no longer have a “Ministry of the Devastated Regions.”

Opponents of the Cabinet, and of Joseph Caillaux in particular, plan to ask him, the first time he appears in the Senate, “Who started the war?”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 16, 1925: Of diplomatresses, caillauxes, and singing sargents

Lucile Atcherson, 30, is appointed 3rd secretary of the US legation at Berne. A suffragist activist back in the day, Atcherson was the first woman in the diplomatic service, in 1923. Naturally, the NYT spells her name wrong. In 1922, Harding nominated her to the foreign service, but the Senate rejected her, considering it unseemly for a single woman to travel abroad. In a few years, lack of promotion (job assessments said the Swiss diplomats wouldn’t invite a mere woman to their reindeer games), a transfer to Panama, and an impending marriage will force her resignation.

The French United Socialists won’t join a Paul Painlevé-led government but agree not to block it either, as they would with Briand, so we’re a go. Painlevé asks Joseph Caillaux to be finance minister for what would be the third time, although the first since his wife shot the editor of Le Figaro dead and since he was convicted of treason. He asks Aristide Briand to be foreign minister, which should be fun because Briand is NOT a fan of Monsieur Caillaux. C’s ministership will not make it any easier to get approval of the of the government from the Senate (which was the body that held his treason trial). The right has never forgiven him for not starting a war with Germany when he was PM in 1912.

Maryland will stop hindering tourists driving home from vacations in Florida.

Gay or bi or whatever painter John Singer Sargent dies at 69.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 15, 1925: Clipped!

Headline of the Day -100:

Shots are fired at Tsar Boris III’s car, killing the director of the Bulgaria National Museum and a servant but not his tsarishness. “The King’s experience was a thrilling one...” One interesting detail: he and the remaining members of his entourage returned fire. Does the tsar carry a gun? 

Elsewhere on Assassinations Day, which is evidently a Bulgarian national holiday, Gen. Konstantin Georgiev, one of the leaders in the 1923 coup, is shot dead as he goes to his church in Sofia with his granddaughter for services. (Spoiler Alert: ... ... nah). His assassin, Atanas Todovichin, will escape to the USSR, where he’ll be executed in 1938, as was the custom.

Madge Oberholtzer, who was assaulted by KKK leader D.C. Stephenson, dies of the poison she took after the attack a month ago (the Grand Lizard, or whatever his current title is, prevented her getting medical assistance). She was 28.

Aristide Briand fails to form a French cabinet after the United Socialists refuse to participate, so the task ping pongs back to Paul Painlevé. It’s believed that if Painlevé fails again, Briand will be given a chance to fail again.

Georgia Superior Court Judge Ogden Persons rules that a man can spank his wife.

Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances, my favorite of his films, opens.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 14, 1925: Of industrial relations and license plates

The US Supreme Court overturns Kansas’s law requiring compulsory arbitration of labor disputes before the Kansas Court of Industrial Relations, saying it violates liberty of contract and property rights. AFL president William Green applauds the decision, so maybe I’m not understanding what’s going on here.

German republicans spread a rumor that Hindenburg’s presidential campaign is bankrolled by former kaiser Wilhelm. Probably not true. Probably. In response, the monarchist right accuses republicans of taking “foreign bribes.”

Temporary automobile license plates issued by Florida to tourists are not being honored by Maryland, so tourists driving through the state on their way home are being soaked for temporary MD plates and are getting stuck in their cars overnight waiting for offices to open or, if they’re really pissed off, taking the train to their home state and coming back with a plate.

The film The Wizard of Oz is released, starring Dorothy Dwan as Dorothy and Oliver Hardy as the Tin Woodman and, evidently, a “trained duck.” It doesn’t sound like it resembles the 1939 movie at all. The NYT says it’s “the type of rough and tumble farce that sends bright faces from the theatre.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 13, 1925: Painlevé feels the... levé

Paul Painlevé gives up on forming a French government, so it’s Aristide Briand’s turn to make an attempt.

Last Friday, Coolidge opined that the French government’s financial difficulties were not Herriot’s fault but inherited by him from previous governments. The French consider this unacceptable interference in their politics. (Of course these days J.D. Vance, if that is his real name, can lecture European countries on being unfair to fascist parties).

Newfoundland women get the vote from the age of 25 (men have it at 21).

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 12, 1925: Painlevé brings the... levé

Paul Painlevé of the Parti républicain-socialiste will be the next French prime minister, a job he briefly held in 1917. Aristide Briand, another former PM (I mean, who in the Interwar period wasn’t prime minister at some point?), will be foreign secretary.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 11, 1925: Rolling eggs? In this economy?

The traditional White House Easter egg roll will take place this year, despite being on the birthday of Calvin Coolidge Jr., who died last July.

The Earl of Balfour, of Balfour Declaration fame, is greeted in Damascus by a riotous mob which forces him to skedaddle out of town.

French PM Édouard Herriot resigns after losing a vote in the Senate on exceeding the legal limit on the circulation of bank notes. He was in office 10 months.

Roberto Farinacci, secretary of the National Fascist Party of Italy and basically the #2 man in Italy after The Duck, for now, responds to recent Fascist-Communist violence by calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty and for exile “to one of Italy’s islands” for enemies of Fascism. He names several deputies and senators he’d like arrested.

More violence in Herrin, Illinois, in the lead up to the mayoral election, but it’s Klan-on-Klan violence, so that’s okay. The store of Marshal McCormack, a kluxer candidate opposed by other kluxers, is dynamited.

Klansmen in Jasper, Alabama are being sentenced for flogging a hotel clerk who “talked about” the Klan.

The National Geographic Society thinks the Arctic expedition it’s sponsoring, led by Donald MacMillan, will find a whole new continent somewhere between Alaska and the North Pole. The use of Navy planes will make possible a summer Arctic trip, which should make visibility much easier (Spoiler Alert: it won’t).

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 10, 1925: Of typical expressions, confidence, copyrights, and boats against the current

The German right-wing parties know that the best way to keep presidential candidate Field Marshal von Hindenburg popular is to keep him quiet, so he’ll only be making a few speeches, mostly in Bavaria. Nationalists surround his house to keep reporters away from him – when did Hindenburg start to go visibly senile, anyway? surely not this soon? The NYT observes: “Political sentimentality is not lacking. ‘Our father Hindenburg, like children he led us back from the war-torn front to our homes and it is thanks to him that civil war was avoided in Germany,’ is a typical expression.” Ludendorff seems to have given up his own presidential run to back his former boss, presumably after the Bavarian Nazis decline to nominate him.

French PM Édouard Herriot wins a vote of confidence, though with a large number of abstentions, after a fight in the National Assembly over the increase of currency and Herriot saying he was bound to secrecy not to disclose that the government account at the Bank of France was over the legal limit and... oh, more stuff like that.

The 6th Court of Appeals in Cincinnati rules that radio stations can’t infringe copyrights on songs. It rules against the argument that radio broadcasts are not performances in the legal sense. Consider yourself warned, WKRP.

London theatres are experiencing a shortage of blonde chorus girls, as the trend toward bobbing means fewer women are dyeing their hair.

Speaking of bobbed hair, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is published. Spoiler Alert: 

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 9, 1925: Each year there are a million more Poles in the world

Paul von Hindenburg will run for president of Germany after all, backed by all the right-wing monarchist parties. He evidently agreed only after receiving a letter from ex-kaiser Wilhelm, which is believed to have relieved him of his oath to the monarchy. The Deutsche Volkspartei of Gustav Stresemann and is brought into line behind the former field marshal by threats from the big financial interests to destroy the party.

French PM Édouard Herriot threatens to resign after losing a vote in the Senate he had made a matter of confidence – a $20,000 appropriation for secondary scholarships, of all things – but then fails to resign. The Cabinet spends the evening discussing the price of bread, “which tends to show that whatever else Premier Herriot has lost he has preserved his sense of humor.” Really, all of Herriot’s financial plans, including a forced levy on capital, look like failing.

Polish War Minister Władysław Sikorski says Poland won’t give up an inch of its territory to either Germany or Russia and “gave an enthusiastic account of the ability of Poland to protect herself.” For example, “each year there are a million more Poles in the world. ...it will not be easy to crush Poland, with her 30 million inhabitants.”

Labor Secretary James “Puddler Jim” Davis foresees a time when labor and management understand that strikes and lock-outs are just silly. It’s all cooperation now, he says.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 8, 1925: Of tariffs and women’s suffrage

Coolidge seems to be content – I started to write happy, but it’s hard to picture Silent Cal as happy; oo, complacent, that’s better – about the existing rate of tariffs and rejects increasing them still further.

The French Chamber of Deputies votes 389 to 140 to give women the right to vote in municipal and cantonal elections, and to hold office. Now it’s up to the Senate, which has always killed women’s suffrage bills in the past, and will kill this one.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 7, 1925: Of thrilled dark Africans, petty motives, and hindenburgs

Headline of the Day -100:

The prince of Wales in Sierra Leone. That didn’t start out well with “Dark Africa,” but “mammies with babies”? Jesus.

The Earl of Balfour, of Balfour Declaration fame, visiting Palestine, says it is “preposterous that Jews and Arabs were unable to live together in harmony,” and any controversy comes from petty motives and should be stopped at once, at once I say.

Western Australia votes against prohibition, 65% to 35.

Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg says he won’t run for president of Germany after hearing that Gustav Stresemann, former chancellor and current head of the Deutsche Volkspartei, won’t back him. So the right-wing is stuck with Karl Jarres, maybe?

Hitler formally renounces his Austrian citizenship. He is now stateless.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 6, 1925: Of anthropoid apes and the divorce evil

North Carolina University cancels a planned series of lectures by U. of Berlin prof Wolfgang Köhler on “The Intelligence of Anthropoid Apes,” afraid that the subject might be close enough to evolution to provoke members of the Legislature. The University of Tennessee also cancels lectures, I think also by Köhler, who will emigrate permanently to the US, and a professorship at Swarthmore College, in 1935 after his refusal to begin his lectures with a Nazi salute and his public opposition to the firing of Jewish professors doesn’t go over so well.

A New Jersey Knight of Columbus calls the Ku Klux Klan cowardly and suggests they do something about “the divorce evil,” by which they mean the recent addition of cruelty as a ground for divorce in the state.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.