Today -100: July 11, 1925: Cranks and freaks

Headline of the Day -100:

Yup, the Scopes Monkey Trial is in full swing.

It starts with a 15-minute prayer, because of course it does. The jury has been chosen. It includes 9 or 10 farmers, a shipping clerk, and, of all things, a teacher. No women. One is illiterate (Darrow tells him, “Well, you are fortunate”), 3 say the only book they read is the Bible, none believe in the theory of evolution. Attorney General Tom Stewart objects when Clarence Darrow tries to exclude with cause evolution-denies, saying if he were allowed to do so then the state could exclude evolution-believers. Darrow responds, “If you can find any one around here who believes in evolution you are welcome to challenge him.” He does get excluded a Fundamentalist “minister of the mountains” who has preached against evolution.

H. L. Mencken, describing Dayton, Tennessee in The Baltimore Evening Sun: “To call a man a doubter in these parts is equal to accusing him of cannibalism”. While he spies an “air of a religious orgy” in Dayton (religious orgies are the worst kind of orgy), he did point out a couple of days ago the absence of the Klan in Dayton. Today he adds, “If it has any bootleggers, no visitor has heard of them” and “No fancy woman has been seen in the town since the end of the McKinley administration.”

Headline of the Day -100:

A coup, which must indeed be pretty upsetting.

Acting Secretary of War Dwight Davis tells New York City to stop dumping its garbage in the ocean. New Jersey was complaining about all the whatever washing up on its beaches.

Kinky Headline of the Day -100:

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

Today -100: July 10, 1925: Dayton decorates

The head of Coolidge’s Secret Service detail valiantly alerts him to the presence of an open elevator shaft at Fort Andrews by falling into it himself, sustaining minor injuries, allowing Coolidge to leap back instead of also falling into it. Fort Andrews is a bit of a mess, which is why Coolidge wanted to inspect it.

In Dayton, Tennessee, they’re cleaning up the courthouse, putting a big ol’ “Read your Bible” sign on it, and putting up bandstands for the Circus Trial of the Century. Judge Raulston has announced that due to the heat he will allow men to take off their coats. In the town, if one is tired of listening to many assembled religious fanatics orate and longs for the silence of the cinema, one can see “The She Devil,” which is presumably the 1918 Theda Bara film; if it isn’t already clear, Dayton is a little behind the times.

A NYT op-ed denies that William Jennings Bryan is using this trial as a springboard for yet another presidential run. “All he asks is that the world recognize him as the greatest moral statesman of his time. And if the world doesn’t do it, he will talk it blue in the face.”

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

Today -100: July 9, 1925: William Jennings Bryan likes potatoes

William Jennings Bryan says if he loses the Monkey Trial, he will campaign for a constitutional amendment to ban the teaching of evolution. Evidently he’s been working on his closing speech for two months and, the NYT predicts, “It will undoubtedly be his greatest oratorical effort since his famous ‘Cross of Gold’ speech”. And boy will Bryan be pissed off when he isn’t allowed to give that closing speech.

Dayton, Tenn. is a small town. So just as John Scopes’s father is in a drugstore explaining that he dislikes Bryan because Bryan is too well-read to believe the shit he’s spouting, why there the Commoner is in the next aisle. John then politely introduces Bryan to his father and they shake hands.

Scopes expresses astonishment at Bryan’s nutritional ignorance: Bryan claims to be on a diet and to have has given up white bread because of the starch but chows down on potatoes.

Former Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby was supposed to be one of Scopes’s lawyers, but the overturning of Home Rule in New York City, whose attorney he is, will keep him too busy to come to Tennessee.

John Hylan says he’ll run for a third term as mayor of New York City even if Tammany Hall doesn’t nominate him, so presumably running as an independent.

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

Today -100: July 8, 1925: A duel to the death

William Jennings Bryan arrives in Dayton, Tennessee. He says “The contest between evolution and Christianity is a duel to the death. ... the two cannot stand together.”

The Washington D.C. commissioner of public buildings and parks, who issued the permit for the big Ku Klux Klan parade next month, refuses one for an anti-Klan meeting because it would be “political.”

The English Lord Chamberlain bans Ernest Vajda’s play “The Harem,” which recently finished a 183-performance run on Broadway, because “the plot is objectionable, the dialogue nasty, and the whole atmosphere salacious.” Sounds cool.

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

Today -100: July 7, 1925: Of rum-runners, home rule, skyscrapers, and excessive laws

Pres. Coolidge, annoyed at watching rum-running ships visible from his “Summer White House” in Swampscott, Massachusetts, orders the Coast Guard to put a stop to it. The rum-runners’ cache was stored in the very next cottage. The Swampscott police chief was recently arrested under the Volstead Act.

The appellate division of the NY Supreme Court rules that the change in the state Constitution granting home rule to NYC was not legally adopted, the 1920 and 1922 Legislatures having passed different versions of the constitutional amendment. So a bunch of laws passed under home rule are null and void, including pay raises, the city running buses and setting routes, police licensing of taxi cabs, etc.

House of Representatives Chaplain James Montgomery says there are too many laws, which just confuses the average citizen. What we really need in terms of laws is the suppression of seditious publications, heathen churches, and undesirable immigration.

The Tribune Tower opens in Chicago. I do love a skyscraper with buttresses.

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

Today -100: July 6, 1925: Princey goes bang bang

In Rhodesia, Edward, Prince of Wales shoots the largest blue wildebeest ever shot there, because he’s a dick.

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

Today -100: July 5, 1925: Of birthday harmonicae

Pres. Coolidge is visited in his “Summer White House” in Swampscott, Massachusetts by a local boy on his 13th birthday and Coolidge’s 53rd (yes, the 4th of July, the only president born on that date, if you’re looking for a bit of trivia with which to delight your friends and confound your enemies). He is turned away, but his note and a gift of chocolates are sent in and Cal sends a car to bring him back to White Court, where they give him some of the president’s birthday cake (made by the former pastry chef of King Albert) and a harmonica.

At a Garibaldi fête in NYC, anti-Fascist red shirts and Fascist black shirts have a little brawl after the Fascisti attack an actual 82-year-old veteran of the Garibaldi movement as he walks to the offices of the radical newspaper Martello on East Fourteen Street, which takes him past Fascist hq; the two buildings are so close to each other I’m surprised this sort of thing didn’t happen all the time.

July the Fourth was Defense Day. 8 million Americans either take part in a little parade or enroll themselves for military service in the event of a national emergency. Gen. Pershing and VP Dawes have a phone conversation which is broadcast over the radio.  One person not so ready for a national emergency: Secretary of War John Weeks, who hasn’t exactly announced that he’s resigning due to ill health, but has sold his D.C. home.

Some interesting info about the film biz in the Daily Mail (London) from an English owner of 24 cinemas in France, who says that after trying to fill up a weekly program of 90 minutes (the normal length in Britain is 150 minutes), he runs out of French films, few of which are made because the French market is so small (1,500 cinemas, 1/10th the number of the US) and French films just don’t sell in the US, which doesn’t like them any more than the French like American films, but since he needs to fill that 90 minutes the French audiences can watch American films and lump it (British audiences, on the other hand, love American films).

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

Today -100: July 4, 1925: Of eccentric music and safety first

John Scopes’s lawyers, or at least Clarence Darrow, plan to get his trial transferred to federal court in Chattanooga or Knoxville, considering that the circus atmosphere in Dayton would be a problem and that the constitutionality of the anti-evolution law needs to be adjudicated pronto, before other states pass their own versions.

The Dayton school superintendent has evidently asked the evangelist Billy Sunday to assist the prosecution. AP reached Sunday’s wife, who says he won’t do it.

A man dies of blood poisoning in Niagara Falls after a “Safety First” sign falls on him.

Headline of the Day -100:

59.

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

Today -100: July 3, 1925: But what about gorilla gods?

Black groups protest to Pres. Coolidge over the march in D.C. the Ku Klux Klan plans for August 8th, suggesting it might lead to a race riot. Catholic and Jewish groups also object.

Alfred W. McCann, author of the error-filled anti-evolution book God — or Gorilla? (1922), declines William Jennings Bryan’s invitation to testify at the Scopes trial  because he believes in free speech.

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

Today -100: July 2, 1925: Of Scopeses, charters, red archduchesses, and deposed archbishops

Lela Scopes, 28, sister of John Scopes is fired/not hired as a teacher in Paducah, Kentucky (she’d taken some time off to take college classes) after refuses a demand to denounce evolution, in case it affects her teaching of math, I guess. She’ll be offered a job in Winnetka, where she’ll teach for 30 years.

The Kansas Charter Board denies the Ku Klux Klan a charter, saying it lied in its application when it said the Klan does benevolent and charitable work.

Former archduchess Elisabeth Marie of Austria, granddaughter of penultimate Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph and daughter of Crown Prince Rudolf of Mayerling suicide pact fame (when she was 5), is “engaged” (the headline says “wed”) to Social Democratic deputy Leopold Petznek, despite still being married to, though legally separated from former Prince Otto Windischgrätz, whose actress mistress Elisabeth shot to death back in the day because the Habsburgs were just like that. Otto didn’t even want to marry her, but she got the hots for him and had Granddad-Emperor order him to drop the countess he was engaged to and marry Erzsi instead, which he did in 1902. She won’t actually be able to divorce Otto and marry Petznek, who will spend some time in Dachau, until 1948. Honestly, there’s so many more salacious details that I don’t have room for. It shocks me that there’s never been a biopic and the only biography of her hasn’t been translated into English.

NYPD cops (from the Bomb Squad for some reason) force entry into Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Nicholas after the NY Supreme Court deposes the archbishop, Platon Rozhdestvensky, in favor of Archbishop Adam Phillipovsky, which wasn’t a power I knew the New York courts had.

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

Today -100: July 1, 1925: Of widow-reps, replenished Jessicas, German aviation, and foreign anti-Semitism

Edith Nourse Rogers, widow of Rep. John Jacob Rogers (R-Mass.), who died in March, wins a special election to replace him, beating former governor Eugene Foss, who ran as a “Coolidge Democrat,” whatever that might mean. She wins 70% of the votes. She’s the 6th woman elected to Congress, the first from New England, and she’ll remain in office until her death in 1960 at 79.

2 employees of publishing company Boni & Liveright are indicted for publishing Replenishing Jessica, by bohemian Greenwich Village author Maxwell Bodenheim, who later wrote Naked on Roller Skates (1930). Evidently the book is “salacious.” We’ll see if anything comes of this, but I’m kind of intrigued by the book’s title.

The Council of Ambassadors impose new restrictions on German aviation. They allow themselves to ban any German aircraft that might possibly be converted for military use, restrict the size of zeppelins, and bar Germans from international airplane races. They are also demanding a list of all planes, motors, spare parts, and pilots in training. Germans correctly think this is all aimed at restricting competition from German commercial planes, which is not a legitimate part of the Versailles Treaty.

The Bulgarian minister of war orders garrison commanders to crush anti-Semitism, which he says is foreign to Bulgaria.

It is not.

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

Today -100: June 30, 1925: Earthquake

6.something magnitude earthquakes destroy much of Santa Barbara, killing 13.

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

Today -100: June 29, 1925: Of kids, rubber, and erroneous assumptions

The NYT announces the birth of a son to Charlie Chaplin and Lita Grey, Charles Spencer Chaplin III, the 2nd of his 11 children by 3 wives (the first died shortly after birth). I’m guessing the reason III’s birthday is announced as having just happened instead of the real date, May 5, is to disguise how young Lita was when impregnated, i.e. below the age of legal consent. III acted a little under the screen name Charles Jr. in such classics as Sex Kittens Go to College (1960),

which also featured Harold Lloyd Jr and “The Kid” co-star Jackie Coogan. I have not had the pleasure.

Kinky Headline of the Day -100:

H. L. Mencken, writing in The Baltimore Evening Sun: “Such obscenities as the forthcoming trial of the Tennessee evolutionist, if they serve no other purpose, at least call attention dramatically to the fact that enlightenment, among mankind, is very narrowly dispersed. It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone – that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous.”

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

Today -100: June 28, 1925: Of sterilizations, seasonal indictments, and operas without pachyderms

Wisconsin Gov. John Blaine vetoes a bill allowing the Board of Control to sterilize the mentally ill before their release from state institutions. Not because it would be, you know, wrong, but because it would make families hesitate before institutionalizing family members and because patients’ knowledge of their impending sterilization might interfere with therapy. Also, people & families rich enough to afford private hospitals would escape sterilization.

Sen. Burton Wheeler accuses the RNC’s agent Blair Coan of trying to influence witnesses in the trumped-up case against Wheeler with women and liquor. Wheeler says “I am becoming so accustomed to being indicted by the Department of Justice that my only hope is that in the future they will indict me in the North in the Summertime and in California or Florida in the Winter.”

The massive staging of Aida at Yankee Stadium is less massive than planned, after it was realized that the stage might not be able to support elephants. There are camels, though. The audience consists of 20,000 people, meaning there are 20,000 people who want to see an opera.

The Polish government negotiated with the reps of the Jewish community to remove some laws, such as restrictions on licenses to Jews to trade and quotas for higher education, the army and civil service, and to allow 2 hours of trading on Sunday. In return, Jewish parliamentary deputies will end opposition to the government and tell foreigners that everything’s okay now.

The Italian Senate, acting as the High Court of Justice, exonerates Gen. Emilio De Bono for his role in the assassination of Deputy Giacomo Matteotti a year ago.

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

Today -100: June 27, 1925: Of coups

Greek coup leader Gen. Theodoros Pangalos forces provisional president Adm. Pavlos Kountouriotis to name him prime minister and war minister.

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

Today -100: June 26, 1925: Why indeed

After the London Times criticizes Mussolini’s Fascist regime, he writes a letter to the Times, as one does, demanding they “rectify” their silly claim that he has attacked basic constitutional liberties. He asserts that the opposition is a “small, dispossessed group” and the Fascists constitute the majority bigly. The Times asks, if that is so, “why is it necessary to gag the press, forbid free speech, forbid public meetings and arm the executive with arbitrary and irresponsible powers?”

Gen. Theodoros Pangalos overthrows the Greek government. It’s described as a bloodless coup, if only because the Cabinet resigns after Pangalos threatens to bombard the Presidential Palace and the War Office. “The populace seems strangely unmoved by the event, and is evidently becoming accustomed to such coups, which have been increasingly frequent in recent years.”

The vice president of the United States Radium Corporation of Orange, NJ denies that it will close just because its female factory workers are getting radium poisoning making luminous radioactive paints for watches. Those workers are just on their summer vacations, he says.

Chaplin’s The Gold Rush premieres.

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

Today -100: June 25, 1925: Of secessions and considerations

The Chicago City Council unanimously passes a proposal to ask the corporate counsel how the city can secede from Illinois. It says the Legislature is failing to follow the state constitution by not having reapportioned after the 1920 census, which would have given Cook County 5 more state senators and 15 more representatives.

The Ku Klux Klan asks Coolidge to review its August 8 parade in D.C., even though they know damned well he has no plans to be anywhere near the White House until September. A press statement which the Times doesn’t seem entirely convinced comes from the Klan suggests it deserves “the same consideration” from Coolidge as the (Catholic) Holy Name Society procession last year.

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

Today -100: June 24, 1925: Of monkey glands, gun control, and ruining hospitals

As I briefly mentioned, China is a bit of a mess at the moment. Anyhoo, British and French marines in Canton fire machine guns at demonstrators.

Dr. Maurice Lebon of France wants large-scale breeding of monkeys, because monkeys are fun. No, wait, it’s because monkey glands can be used to “rejuvenate” humans.

A committee on gun sales appointed by NYC Mayor John Hylan endorses proposals before Congress to ban the sale of guns through the mails, to put a high sales tax on guns, and to ban toy pistols.

NYT Index Slip of the Tongue of the Day -100:

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

Today -100: June 23, 1925: Ferocious totalitarian will is the worst kind of totalitarian will, which is the worst kind of will

At the Italian Fascist Party’s fourth party congress in Rome, Mussolini says the party’s new slogan is “All power to Fascism,” and the Constitution must be changed because it’s just a hindrance now. He demands the Senate not obstruct him, or else. The NYT fails to note the reference in his speech to “our ferocious totalitarian will,” which is his first use of the recently coined word “totalitario.” The word “totalitarian” will not arrive in the English language until next year. “Totalstaat” will arrive in German in 1927.

The lower house of the Italian Parliament has passed a bunch of laws giving the Duck powers to pass laws without its approval, purge the civil service, suppress newspapers, etc etc. 

In a radio address, Pres. Coolidge calls for yet more tax cuts. The tax burden has been reduced, he says, but “the reduction has not reached the point where taxes have ceased to be a burden.”  Pretty much by definition. “Wastrels, careless administrators of the Government’s substance, are out of place in the Federal service. They will not be tolerated.”

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

Today -100: June 22, 1925: Which is the equivalent of some money

The ACLU announces a $10,000 Tennessee Evolution Case Fund.

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

Today -100: June 21, 1925: More fun and games in the Prohibition biz

In Huntington, West Virginia, federal and state prohibition agents looking for a still mistake each other for moonshiners and shoot each other up. Two dead, another possibly mortally wounded.

Rum-running cars near Baltimore use a smokescreen to evade capture.

French censors ban the sole British exhibit at the Paris Modern Arts Exhibition, which consisted of members of the public throwing tennis balls at a black man’s head.

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

Today -100: June 20, 1925: Of Fightin’ Belle La Follette, domes, Dirigo, and jay walking... in Paris? Heaven forfend.

Rep. John Nelson (R-Wisc., one of the two John Nelsons in the 69th Congress) is pushing for a change in Wisconsin state law to allow the governor to appoint Robert La Follette’s widow Isabelle to fill out his Senate term without a special election.

A federal district court judge in Wyoming rules that Sinclair’s Teapot Dome oil leases are valid, which is the opposite of the ruling by the district court in California against the Doheny Elk Hills leases. The judges disagree on whether the secrecy surrounding the deals had any military justification. The Wyoming judge says there is no evidence that Interior Sec. Albert Fall was bribed which, yeah, sure, whatever.

Donald MacMillan is planning an Arctic expedition. Maine Gov. Ralph Brewster throws him a farewell dinner and authorizes him to claim any lands he discovers in the name of... the state of Maine. “It will then remain for the federal government to determine whether it will recognize and protect our rights.”

The Italian Parliament gives Mussolini the power to fire civil servants who dare to hold non-Fascist political opinions, the “Fascistization of the Italian state,” as he likes to call it.

A Paris judge rules that jay walking is legal.

Actress Kathryn du Noule cross-dresses so she can enter that all-male space: a Chicago hanging.

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

Today -100: June 19, 1925: Of fightin’ bobs, poles, lynchings, and dog concerts

Fightin’ Bob La Follette, Progressive senator from Wisconsin, dies at 70. Whither the Progressive movement now?

The Roald Amundsen Arctic expedition is no longer missing, returning to Spitzbergen (Svalbard) in Norway. It got within 150, maybe 100 miles of the North Pole by plane but was thwarted by headwinds (and Amundsen’s underestimating how much gas he’d need). It returns without the plane, which turned out to be a seaplane but not so much an iceplane. They didn’t spot any land, so there may in fact not be land at the Pole. Bad luck, Canada, which already put in a claim for any land that might exist.

Near Castle Gate, Utah a black man, Robert Marshall, is lynched by a large mob, including Klansmen, after allegedly killing Town Constable James Milton Burns (whose father was also a law dude killed in action, in his case by sheep rustlers). The mob shoots Marshall a few times and hangs him twice. 11 members of the lynch mob will be arrested, including a deputy who basically handed Marshall over, as well as the city marshal, the superintendent of the Utah Fuel Company, and 4 charged with “pulling the rope.” None of the hundreds of witnesses will testify against them, so that will be that. This was the last lynching in the West. Supposedly it caused the fortunes of the Ku Klux Klan to decline in Utah, but 80% of the black people will leave Carbon County by the 1930 census.

There’s a demonstration in Vienna against a new regulation against bringing dogs on street cars and railways. The dog owners are threatening to hold a “dog concert” outside the house of the street car company’s director.

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

Today -100: June 18, 1925: Of chemical warfare

The Geneva Protocol for the Control of International Commerce is signed by 18 countries, including the US. A protocol on chemical warfare is signed by 29 countries, banning the use of poison gases but only against other signers of the protocol and not internally. It will go into effect in 1928.

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

Today -100: June 17, 1925: Of insecurity compacts

I haven’t mentioned that France is having a major colonial war in the Riff region of Morocco. Now I’ve mentioned it. Also, major upheavals in China.

Italy is refusing to adhere to a French-British security compact unless there’s a little sumthin’ sumthin’ in it for Italy. At the very least, it wants Britain to help protect the Brenner Pass on the Austro-Italian border. One element in the proposed Geneva Protocol which is especially pissing off Germany is the new French claim to a right to oppose by military means any union between Germany & Austria. Germany would also be required to negotiate arbitration deals with Poland and Czechoslovakia, which would allow France to send troops through Germany if those countries create trouble. The NYT’s source “close to Foreign Minister Stresemann” calls it an insecurity compact.

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

Today -100: June 16, 1925: A leopard-skin what now?

Secretary of State Frank Kellogg has been scolding Mexico over its supposed mistreatment of American property and citizens and property. Also property. President Plutarco Elías Calles called him out over the condescending nature of his statement, excuse me, “insult,” so Kellogg is preparing an insulting riposte.

Prince Edward, still in Swaziland, gets gifts, including a leopard-skin kilt. He suggests to Paramount Chief Sobhuza, who has been promoting education, that he focus a little less on book learning and a little more on learning from European farmers.

Lord Cromer, the English theatrical censor (the Lord Chamberlain), bans the performance of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, but only in English. It’s not clear why, and indeed it has been staged in London before, in English. So it has now been performed at the New Oxford Theatre in London in Italian. It’s not clear how many in the audience actually know Italian.

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

Today -100: June 15, 1925: I think he’s out-ranked

The Prince of Wales visits Swaziland (Eswatini) and meets the official rainmaker, who is the Supreme Chief’s mother. Can Edward even make rain? The people of Basutoland seemed to think so.

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

Today -100: June 14, 1925: Of Gennas and Hwerchnedneprowsker Progressives

In Chicago, tit-for-tat violence between the Genna Gang and the North Side Gang takes out Michele “Mike the Devil” Genna, leader of the Genna Gang. A shoot-out between the two gangs is followed by one with the cops, two of whom are killed, Genna receiving a fatal bullet in the leg. Time is running out on the Genna brothers as a force in gangland, and I think you can guess who the beneficiary of that will be (hint: he has a scar on his face).

A Brooklyn judge refuses to approve the incorporation of the Hwerchnedneprowsker Progressive Society, because “the name is un-American” and the organizers don’t even seem to be from Hwerchnedneprowsker. Which, as far as I can tell, isn’t an actual place, so the Hwerchnedneprowsker Progressive Society remains a mystery.

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

Today -100: June 13, 1925: Scopes in the big citiy

John Scopes, in New York City to meet with his attorneys, has been flooded with offers to write for syndicates and appear in films, $170,000 of offers in total. He has refused them all. When he goes to the Follies, not accepting a free ticket although shocked that it cost $7.50 – scalper’s rates, I think – he refuses to let his friend inform Will Rogers that he’s in the audience.

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

Today -100: June 12, 1925: Murder in the sky!

Another aviation novelty: A diamond merchant flying from Vienna to Budapest transporting diamonds is murdered by his secretary and the pilot. Chloroformed and thrown overboard. The secretary then kills the pilot and escapes to Bulgaria, never to be found. Anyway, this is the first murder on an aeroplane.

D.C.’s last 3 fire horses, all with more than a decade of service, will retire. When Washingtonians heard they might be transferred to the Street Cleaning Dept, they raised $100 to retire them to the farm of the Home for Feeble and Infirm. Rude.

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

Today -100: June 11, 1925: Take me out to the oooooop’ra, Take me out with the crooooowd

Coming later in the month: a production of Verdi’s Aida in Yankee Stadium, with horses and camels and elephants and hundreds of performers and starring Marie Rappold. Prices will range from $1 all the way up to $1.50.

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

Today -100: June 10, 1925: Of stigmata of blockhead, cheese, and flags

Bainbridge Colby volunteers to join John Scopes’s legal team (for free). It won’t happen for whatever reason, like H.G. Wells appearing as a witness for the defense, but wouldn’t it have been fun to have two of Woodrow Wilson’s secretaries of state arrayed against each other? Come to think of it, the ACLU would really love to bring in another former secretary of state, Charles Evans Hughes, which won’t happen either.

To the criticism that Clarence Darrow shouldn’t be fronting this case because he’s an atheist, Darrow says he’s actually an agnostic. 

George Bernard Shaw weighs in on William Jennings Bryan’s fundamentalism: “It is a part of a stigmata of blockhead.” He adds, “What he calls fundamentalism I call infantilism.”

Headline of the Day -100:

I just assumed this is what the French Sénat discusses all the time. Sorry, but the following admittedly weak joke is kind of obligatory: If it’s not made in the Roquefort region of France, it has to be called sparkling fromage.

The German Reichstag rejects a motion to restore the flag’s colors to monarchist black, white & red.

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

Today -100: June 9, 1925: Every idea is an incitement

Benjamin Gitlow, a former one-term Socialist member of the NY State Assembly and the Workers Party of America’s candidate for vice president in 1924 who was convicted of “criminal anarchy” under New York’s anti-anarchism law in 1920 for his role as business manager of The Revolutionary Age and sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison, loses his appeal in the US Supreme Court. Justice Edward Sanford says the 1919 manifesto Gitlow published was a “direct incitement” rather than an “expression of philosophical abstraction.” He says states have the right to stamp down on ideas because a “single revolutionary spark may kindle a fire that, smoldering for a time, may burst into a sweeping and destructive conflagration.” Holmes, dissenting along with Brandeis, says the “clear and present danger” standard was not met and disagrees that the manifesto constituted incitement, writing “Every idea is an incitement.”

Free-speech wise, Gitlow v. New York wasn’t a total loss. In fact, it expanded the 14th Amendment’s due process clause to the states, in this case due process relating to 1st Amendment free speech rights.

On July 1st, Japan will hold a National Humiliation Day to protest America’s racist immigration laws.

Headline of the Day -100:

Philip Bonifant, 40, who had cancer and an interesting idea of fun.

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

Today -100: June 8, 1925: Fez-less

Turkish men now wear hats! A judge evidently found a loophole in the Koran. Straw hats are appearing in Turkey for the first time.

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

Today -100: June 7, 1925: Of measles and sabbaths

Dicky Loeb of Leopold ‘n fame is pronounced insane in Joliet Prison following a bout of the measles.

Texas Gov. “Ma” Ferguson postpones the executions of two black brothers for 5 days so they won’t take place on a Sunday. A lynch mob who tried to kill them was thwarted, but the article does not say on what day of the week that occurred.

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

Today -100: June 6, 1925: Deep Teutonic gloom is the worst kind of gloom

The Allies send a note to Germany listing steps they demand it take to rectify violations of the military provisions of the Versailles Treaty, including abolishing the general staff and reorganizing of the army, ending military training in private clubs and patriotic societies, ending military and gas warfare training, reducing the size of the national police, dismantling some factories and machinery in factories, withdrawing 8,000 steel helmets worn by cops, reducing the numbers of uniforms and gas masks and saddles and army officers beyond the requirements of the small German army as limited by the Treaty. To prevent the creation of an easily expandable core army, the training of reserve officers should be banned, only 12-year enlistments allowed, and soldiers must hop on one leg at all times. The Allies will continue occupying Cologne until Germany complies. Germany says the Treaty does not give the Allies the right to tell Germany how to run its army and that the demand for destruction of factories is aimed at German economic competition, for example in cheap automobiles. The Allied note “arouses only disapproval and anger, and deep Teutonic gloom.”

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

Today -100: June 5, 1925: Of astronomers and royal beds

For some reason, there’s an obit of French astronomer and weirdo Camille Flammarion on the NYT’s front page, with a picture and everything.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Germany will open the former kaiser’s former rooms at the Berlin Imperial Palace(Königliches Schloss) to the general public.

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

Today -100: June 4, 1925: Of new barbarians and bosh

Columbia Pres. Nicholas Murray Butler, addressing commencement exercises, denounces the “New Barbarians” who are trying to create a “sort of spineless corporate opinion which, operating by prohibitions and compulsions, aims to reduce all individuality, whether of mind or of character, to a gelatinous and wobbling mass.” He accuses Tennessee of “violently affronting the popular intelligence and [making] it impossible for a scholar to be a teacher in that state without becoming at the same time a law-breaker.” That’s a reference to the anti-evolution law, of course. He also deprecates Indiana, because, er, I’m not sure.

Anyway, there was a time when the Columbia administration was against spinelessness.

Tennessee Gov. Austin Peay, one of Butler’s New Barbarians, says evolution is “all bosh” and the Scopes trial won’t last more than 30 minutes.

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

Today -100: June 3, 1925: Not everyone’s cut out to be an actor

Coolidge scotches plans to have actor Ramon Navarro filmed at the Annapolis commencement receiving a dummy diploma from Coolidge for a scene in “The Midshipman.” Surprisingly, Navy Sec. Curtis Wilbur approved the idea before Coolidge rejected it (and he’ll take Coolidge’s place in the scene).

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

Today -100: June 2, 1925: The child is not the mere creature of the State

Thomas R. Marshall, aka Whatsisname, vice president under Woodrow Wilson and governor of Indiana before that, dies at 71 in the Willard Hotel, while reading the Bible. His Famous Quote, and the only thing he is remembered for: “What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar.”

Deciding the case Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the Supreme Court unanimously overturns Oregon’s Ku Klux Klan-backed law requiring children (as of 1926) to attend public schools, a law aimed at putting Catholic parochial schools out of business, which the Court says would be depriving them of their property without due process. Justice James McReynolds writes, “The child is not the mere creature of the State,” saying parents have the right to direct the upbringing and education of their children. This case marks the beginning of the extension of the 14th Amendment to the states. The NYT editorial page thinks this decision bodes ill for Tennessee’s anti-evolution law when it reaches the Supreme Court (Spoiler Alert: it won’t reach the Supreme Court).

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

Today -100: June 1, 1925: Of mayors and reading without comment

NYC Mayor John Hylan has put a little too much emphasis on the 5¢ transit fare as the basis of his reelection campaign. His Board of Transportation has scuppered that by reporting that the new subway system requires at least an 8¢ fare unless property taxes are increased, a lot, so his chances of a third term do not look good. Tammany Hall is looking around for a replacement candidate. The R’s very much don’t have a candidate.

The ACLU plans to challenge a Delaware law fining any teacher who fails to do compulsory Bible reading “without comment.”

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

Today -100: May 31, 1925: Of less-than-national defense

Gov. Albert Ritchie says Maryland will boycott Coolidge’s “National Defense Day” on July 4th because Marylandahoovians already have plans for that day.

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

Today -100: May 30, 1925: He Has Brought Rain and Peace!

In New York, a messenger is robbed of $20,000 worth of, well... “It was the first radium holdup ever reported in New York.” The messenger works for Dr. Isaac Levin, who has a private practice and is director of the Cancer Institute; the messenger carries radium between the two places. The police note that the robbers may wind up dying of radiation poisoning, or at least get nabbed when they show up at a hospital with radium burns, but they don’t seem to have a problem with the messenger carrying a box o’ radium under his arm on a street car every day. Dr. Levin thinks the robbers assumed they were getting a bag of cash or something and will probably just throw the radium away, which doesn’t seem to worry him; he says at least the radium was insured.

A newly discovered malady, “radium necrosis,” is killing women employed in brushing the stuff onto watch dials to make them glow-in-the-dark. See, they lick their brushes to maintain the shape...

On his tour of British colonies, the Prince of Wales is supposedly always greeted rapturously by natives. The people of Basutoland (Lesotho) shout “He Has Brought Rain and Peace!”

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

Today -100: May 29, 1925: This deprives disarmament demands of their moral basis

A District Court judge rules in favor of the government in cancelling naval oil leases granted by Interior Sec. Albert Fall in 1922 to Edward Doheny’s companies in Elk Hills and the contract for construction of oil storage facilities at Pearl Harbor, citing Fall and Doheny’s “fraud and conspiracy.” Judge McCormick also rules that Pres. Harding’s transfer of the Elk Hills and Teapot Dome reserves from the Dept of the Navy to Interior was illegal. He also notes that... someone... tore Fall’s signature from the note for the $100,000 “loan” from Doheny so that, if someone else got hold of the note, Fall wouldn’t be legally obligated to repay it.

German Defense Minister Otto Gessler insists that Germany “is disarmed. Germany cannot wage war. Germany is not preparing secretly for war.” It is, though. Oddly, he admits that in the past Germany broke the Versailles Treaty by enlisting excess numbers of military recruits and manufacturing excess munitions, but says they aren’t doing that now. He notes that the increase in size of European militaries – half a million more soldiers than in 1914, even with the limits on Germany, Austria & Bulgaria – “deprives disarmament demands of their moral basis.” He reassures everyone: “Germans are not the kind of people who can secretly prepare for war – they are too poor and too talkative.” Color me reassured.

Vienna University is closed for 5 days (including the weekend) because of Hakenkreuzler (Nazi) students attacking Jewish Socialist students and women students with bobbed hair. The Jewish students have been fighting back, not sure about the bobbed-hair ones.

Headline of the Day -100:

Tom Lee, referred to as a negro, even a “swarthy Memphis negro,” 3 times in a two-paragraph article, saved 32 people when a steamer sank in the Mississippi River. The Memphis News-Scimitar brought him to the White House. Do we want to see a photo? Sure, why not.

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

Today -100: May 28, 1925: Of teapots and assassinations

Former Interior Sec. Albert Fall and oil tycoons (oil tycoons are the oiliest kind of tycoon) Edward Doheny and Harry Sinclair are indicted (again) for conspiracy to defraud the government in acquiring the Teapot Dome and Elk Hills oil leases. There’s not also a bribery charge because the only evidence that Doheny “lent” Fall $100,000 is that he, um, admitted it before a Senate committee.

Corneliu Codreanu, Romanian student and founder of the fascist Iron Guard, is acquitted for assassinating the Jassy police chief in retaliation for the alleged bad treatment of anti-Semitic dickhead students. There’s a large celebration of anti-Semitic dickhead students in Bucharest.

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

Today -100: May 27, 1925: Of gases and riffs

The Amundsen polar expedition is still missing! Coolidge is open to the idea of sending a giant dirigible to the rescue.

The conference on international arms trafficking will not ban or otherwise regulate the export of poison gases, but will recommend that there be another conference on chemical warfare.

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

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

Today -100: May 26, 1925: Of certain theory and theories, any aliens, and death in Bulgaria

The Amundsen polar expedition is still missing!

Coolidge approves a “National Defense Day” on July 4 to, I guess, muster every potential soldier. However, governors will be free to nope out their states.

Nope out? Did I use that correctly?

Dayton, Tennessee high school teacher John Scopes is indicted for teaching evolution. Judge Raulston, who will preside (badly) over the trial, reads out the first book of Genesis to the Grand Jury. Scopes is charged with “unlawfully and wilfully” teaching “certain theory and theories that deny the story of the Divine creation of man as taught in the Bible and did teach thereof that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”

Thereof?

The Supreme Court rules that Hidemitsu Toyota, who served 7 years in the Coast Guard and applied for citizenship under the law naturalizing “any alien” who served in the military, can’t be a citizen because he’s Japanese (he actually received citizenship in 1921 but it was subsequently revoked) and Congress couldn’t possibly have meant “any alien” to include filthy Japs. The Court also denies the petition of ethnic Chinese who have US citizenship because they were born in the US to bring in their Chinese wives.

I have been unable to determine what happened to Mr. Toyota.

The Supreme Court rules unanimously that it is legal for newspapers to publish the names of income-tax payers and the amounts they paid.

King Boris of Bulgaria disregards his past opposition to the death penalty, decreeing death for 3 of the plotters in the Sofia church bombing. They’ll be publicly hanged in two days by hangmen described as “swarthy gypsies.”

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

Today -100: May 25, 1925: Of assassination plots and quiet Anschlusses

Mexico claims to have thwarted a plot to assassinate Pres. Elías Calles. They arrest pretty much every official of the Mexico City suburb of General Anaya. Many weapons are discovered in the mayor’s house, but that may just be because town officials have a practice of holding up automobiles and grabbing any weapons found in them. As you do.

While Austria is so far getting no traction in its campaign to get the international community to let it merge with Germany, it’s been quietly adjusting its legal and educational systems to conform with Germany’s to make integration easier when it comes. Also, there are cheaper stamps for mail between Austria & Germany than with other countries, and they’re negotiating eliminating visa requirements.

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

Today -100: May 24, 1925: Oh, I don’t think they’ll have to worry about successors

Roald Amundsen’s North Pole expedition hasn’t been heard from since its planes took off from Spitzbergen. They may have ditched the planes.

Sanford White, the first US governor of Hawaii, appointed by McKinley, who before that was president of the Hawaiian Republic, tells the NYT that he opposes statehood because then governors would be elected rather than appointed by the president and that might result in (gasp) a Japanese governor.

Italians worry that poor Benito is working himself to death and there is no obvious successor.

That article says that under The Duck, the trains run on time.

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

Today -100: May 23, 1925: All things considered, I’d rather be divorced in Philadelphia

At the Geneva conference on international arms sales, Poland and Romania say they need special consideration due to their proximity to Russia (which is not participating in the conference – I’m not sure if that was its own choice). Greece says in that case, the neighbors of the neighbors of Russia should also get special consideration...

Philadelphia courts have been granting hundreds of divorces a month, Pennsylvania’s loose divorce laws (they never require a jury trial anymore) making it a destination divorce spot, certainly cheaper than Paris. The residence requirement is stricter than Nevada’s, at 12 months, but many just rent a room and don’t actually live there. There’s no legal requirement for divorce papers to be served, so one party may not even know they’re divorced now.

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

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.