Today -100: July 4, 1919: Of police power, fireworks, treaties, fraternization, and bunny punches

Headline of the Day -100: 

In New York and elsewhere, cops are guarding government buildings, churches, the Stock Exchange, and members of the Lusk Committee, etc.  Just in case.

Fireworks are illegal under wartime explosives laws, but Congress failed to appropriate anything for enforcement this year, so have at it.

Romanian Prime Minister Ion Brătianu resigns, both as prime minister and as Romania’s chief negotiator at the peace conference, because he objects to provisions of the Austrian peace treaty which allow big powers to interfere to protect minority populations in smaller states.

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George tells Parliament that former kaiser Wilhelm will be put on trial before an international tribunal in London. Also u-boat commanders.

France releases the texts of new Franco-US and Anglo-French treaties committing the US and Britain to defend France against German aggression. Woodrow Wilson had asked them not to make the treaty public until the US Senate authorized publication, as was the custom. France promised not to, and then did it anyway, because France.

140 US army soldiers & officers up to the rank of major have applied to marry German women (and one German woman has applied on behalf of her fiancé, who’s too shy to apply himself), but evidently the anti-fraternization rule everyone thought had expired with the signing of the peace treaty is still in effect until the treaty is ratified.

Missouri ratifies the women’s suffrage Amendment. 11 states down, 25 to go.

The meeting determining the rules for the Dempsey-Willard bout rejects Dempsey’s demand to ban the “bunny punch,” in which the neck is hit with a fist. Which is about as dangerous as it sounds. Unless performed by a bunny.

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Today -100: July 3, 1919: Radicals do love a picnic

Prohibition: the good ship Waco is launched with a bottle of ginger ale.

The NYPD orders Carnegie Hall to cancel a July 4th meeting by anti-Bolshevik Russian groups, claiming there might be a response from Reds. Or at least the cops say that since it’s a holiday they’ll be too busy to protect the Hall if a riot breaks out. There are also dark rumors afoot that there will be another spate of bombings on the 4th, but Elizabeth Gurley Flynn says most of the radicals she knows will be at a picnic.

Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, doctor, minister, and former president of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, dies at 72.

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Today -100: July 2, 1919: Of dirigibles, nancies, and hoovers

The British dirigible R34 begins an attempt at a trans-Atlantic crossing. There’s only one engineer (I’m not sure how large the crew is – one larger than they realize, it will turn out when they find that a crew member they’d decided to leave behind to save weight had snuck aboard), so he’ll have to be awake the entire trip, but he says he’s flow 108 hours without sleep before, which oddly is the exact time this voyage will turn out to take, so that’s lucky.

A US Navy dirigible blows up on landing near Baltimore.

Headline of the Day -100: 

The city in north-east France, not a person named Nancy.

Poland is officially a country now (again), recognized by the peace treaty, which includes a provision that Poland has to be nicer to its Jews (Spoiler Alert: it won’t be especially nice to its Jews).

Herbert Hoover will retire from his roles as US Grain Administrator and European food dictator extraordinaire. He will donate his wartime papers to Stanford University, forming the basis of what is now the Hoover Institute, which I’m told also has a very large collection of ‘70s hardcore porn.

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Today -100: July 1, 1919: Of prohibition, war brides, non-partisans, and prince-priests

“Wartime” prohibition goes into effect. The Justice Dept is still waiting for the district courts to rule on whether beer which is less than 2.75% alcohol is intoxicating and therefore banned.

Pres. Wilson, on the voyage home, signs a couple of bills at sea, which is evidently a first. Not a very interesting first, but a first nonetheless.

Wilson agrees to let some French war brides of US soldiers travel to the US on his ship.

An American pilot dropping pamphlets informing residents of the Rhineland of the signing of the peace treaty crashes and dies.

North Dakota voters pass 7 referenda sponsored by the Non-Partisan League, including state-run banks, grain elevators, and newspapers.

Ex-kaiser Wilhelm pays taxes for the first time in his life, Amsterdam municipal income tax.

In Brest, a drunken American naval officer tears down a French flag. The incident escalates into a full-fledged brawl between French civilians and American military, leaving 2 of the latter fatally wounded.

Prince Georg of Bavaria enters a monastery. He was married before the war, to an archduchess and everything, but they separated during the honeymoon and the marriage was annulled due to non-consumation.

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Today -100: June 30, 1919: Of taxes, pilots, firemen, and fraternization

Germany is going to have to drastically raise taxes to pay all those reparations.

The Peace Conference adopts minimum standards for international aerial navigation: pilots must be 19 and have a license and be medically examined and come from good families and have no mental, moral or physical defect, must “possess heart, lungs, kidneys, and nervous system capable of withstanding the effects of altitude and also the effects of prolonged flight,” not be color-blind, etc.

Peace Conference talks with Turkey are at an impasse, and the Turkish delegates are told to go home.

Former German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg offers to be put on trial in place of ex-kaiser Wilhelm, saying he takes responsibility for Germany’s actions during the war (until July 1917 anyway).

Chicago firemen threaten to go on strike – on the Fourth of July. The cops also want a raise.

The ban on fraternization between US soldiers and civilians in occupied Germany is lifted. 20 soldiers immediately announce their hitherto secret engagements.

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Today -100: June 29, 1919: Peace-ish

The peace is signed, the Great War is over. Now it only needs a proper name...

The signing yesterday was on the 5th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and was conducted in the same hall in Versailles where the French were forced to sign their own abject surrender after the Franco-Prussian War. The Chinese refuse to sign. Jan Smuts, representing South Africa, signs but adds a protest that it is too hard on Germany. Lloyd George signs with a fountain pen, which is a first in diplomatic history. Not a very interesting first, but a first nonetheless.

Wilson begins his voyage home.

Woodrow Wilson says he’ll lift the “wartime” prohibition, but not before it goes into effect in 2 days, only when demobilization is complete. He blames the terms of the law for tying his hands.

The government is going on a deportation binge, 15 in the last week, 18 upcoming, including editors of two anarchist newspapers. It’s claiming that late in the war foreign agitators were smuggled into the US by Germany. They’re a mixed bag of Spaniards, English, Italians, and the occasional Scandinavian. None are Russian. None are accused of actually doing anything violent.

Almost all the US forces pull out of Archangel, ending the hot war against the Bolshevik government.

A Brooklyn magistrate rules that teachers can slap students in the face.

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Today -100: June 28, 1919: What’s black and white and red all over?

Headlines of the Day -100:

• REDS SPREADING GERMAN REVOLT
• Evidence Before Lusk Committee Shows Reds Prepared to Meet Militia
• REDS DRIVEN FROM ODESSA AND KHERSON
• REDS FEEL, "HOUR HAS COME."; German Situation Becoming More Critical, Swiss Hear
• Revolution in Italy Plotted with the Aid of Teuton Reds
• REVOLT IN BUDAPEST; BELA KUN SHOT AT; Outbreak Following Split in Soviet Cabinet Put Down by Red Guards

Lotta “Reds,” is what I’m saying.

Asked if Hungarians actually want Communism, Béla Kun says “The majority is passive, but the minority is active.”

German Foreign Minister Hermann Müller and Colonial Minister Johannes Bell arrive in Versailles for the treaty signing. They had to leave Germany in secret so they wouldn’t be assassinated, which probably isn’t the greatest portent.

There was a rumor that the former German crown prince Friedrich Wilhelm had returned to Germany. He hadn’t.

Troops arrive in Hamburg to put down the “red revolt.” Threatening to court-martial and execute anyone found with arms. The Commission of Twelve, whatever that might be, says the riots are actually just protests against adulterated food.

NY state Attorney General Charles Newton plans to revoke the charter of the Rand School of Social Science. Amongst the evidence cited against them from the papers seized in that raid is a plan to organize among the negroes by such insidious means as: “1. Condemn all acts of injustice to the negro. 2. Socialists must stress lynchings in the South and condemn them.” State Sen. Lusk says the plans to spread Bolshevist propaganda among Southern blacks is the greatest menace discovered. The NYT will agree (6/30/19) that the worst thing the Rand School is guilty of is trying to “undermine the loyalty of the negroes”, who are “ill prepared by education or experience for judging the value of these doctrines.” “White Southerners must have quite clear-cut opinions as to the propriety of inculcating their colored neighbors with the tenets of Bolshevism.”

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Today -100: June 27, 1919: Nobody can keep the inevitable from happening

Wartime prohibition (as opposed to 18th Amendment prohibition) will go into effect on the 30th (because the war isn’t officially over), but Congress hasn’t passed enforcement legislation. So they’re thinking of writing legislation that will provide enforcement for it and the 18th when it goes into effect. This is being spearheaded by chair of the House Judiciary Committee Andrew Volstead (R-Minn.). Fun fact about Volstead: he sat in Congress 20 years and is also famous for... no, there’s only one thing he’s famous for.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Supposedly Communists & Spartacists use food riots as cover to seize City Hall. Also, a crowd invade a preserved meat factory and discover the remains of dogs, cats, and rats. The owner & foreman are then forced to eat their own repulsive product.

John Hartfield, a black man, is lynched in Ellisville, Mississippi for an alleged sexual assault. A posse chased him for days, during which time Gov. Theodore Gilmore Bilbo, a huuuuge racist, declared himself “utterly powerless” to intervene because the state has no troops and “excitement is at such a high pitch throughout South Mississippi that any armed attempt to interfere would doubtless result in the deaths of hundreds of persons. The negro has confessed, says he is ready to die, and nobody can keep the inevitable from happening.” Well not with that attitude, mister. Hartfield is hanged from a gum tree, shot while he strangles, and his body burned.

Germany has finally found people willing to sign the peace treaty: Foreign Minister Hermann Müller and Colonial Minister Johannes Bell.

Turkey’s position at the peace talks seems to be that Turkey has no responsibility for the war and was actually entered into the war against its will by a German admiral and any massacres of Armenians are the responsibility of the previous government and anyway lots of Muslims were also slaughtered, so Turkey should be allowed to keep all its territory. The Allies’ reply displays some slight scepticism about this viewpoint and says that peoples should be held responsible for the actions of their government, even ones that installed themselves by a coup. It “wishes well to the Turkish people and admires their excellent qualities. But it cannot admit that among those qualities are to be counted capacity to rule over alien races.”

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Today -100: June 26, 1919: As far as it is possible

The Allies give an ultimatum to Hungary to remove its troops from Czechoslovakia by the 28th. At that time, Romanian troops will leave Hungary.

German President Ebert, Chancellor Bauer & the current government issue a proclamation asking the German people to carry out the peace treaty, “as far as it is possible to carry it out.”

That’s if they can get someone to go to France to sign it. Foreign Minister Hermann Müller refuses. Hindenburg resigns as head of the army.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis is going to Palestine.

A Coney Island magistrate reprimands the police for arresting a woman for wearing a bathing suit underneath a skirt and sweater.

Éamon de Valera wrote Georges Clemenceau last month informing him that Ireland would not be bound by the peace treaty, since the British have no authority to sign on Ireland’s behalf. He did offer to send an Irish delegation, including himself, to sign.

Massachusetts ratifies the women’s suffrage amendment, 185-47 in the House, 34-5 in the Senate.

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Today -100: June 25, 1919: It will be used for the Irish Republic

With the new Bauer government in Germany shaky and not expected to survive long and German emissaries to the Peace Conference mostly having left, there’s some question over when the treaty might be signed by Germany, and by whom. Edgar Haniel von Haimhausen is the highest-ranking diplomat remaining at Versailles, but he’s just the delegation’s secretary and the Allies don’t think he has high enough rank. Which is okay, because his wife has told him if he signs he needn’t bother coming home.

Éamon de Valera’s goal in the US, he says, is not just to get the US to recognize the Irish Republic, but to raise part of a £1 million loan. What will all that dosh be spent on? “It will be used for the Irish Republic.” See, the State Dept (quoted in yesterday’s paper) said that de Valera, escaped jailbird tho’ he is, won’t be detained as long as he doesn’t raise money in the US for a military force in violation of the Neutrality Acts. So with that “used for the Irish Republic” thing he’s carefully not saying that is the purpose nor denying that it is. (Also, de Valera was born in the US and may or not be a citizen).

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Today -100: June 24, 1919: The Government of the German Republic declares that it is ready to accept and sign the peace conditions imposed

Éamon de Valera, Sinn Féin’s putative president of Ireland and escaped British prisoner, is in New York.  Staying at the Waldorf, no less. On his fund-raising tour of the US, he’s spoken with several US senators and a cardinal or two.

The Canadian government, eager to blame the general strike in Winnipeg on foreign agitators, says it will put foreigners who take part in demonstrations in internment camps.

One of the planes of the “Flying Circus,” on an exhibition tour to encourage recruiting for the Air Service, lands on Franklin Field, Boston, more specifically it lands on some children on Franklin Field, killing at least 2 of them.

The German National Assembly authorizes the government to sign the peace treaty without reservations, after the Allies refused a request for a delay of just 48 hours The German government graciously informs the peace conference: “It appears to the Government of the German Republic, in consternation at the last communication of the allied and associated Governments, that these Governments have decided to wrest from Germany by force acceptance of the peace conditions, even those, which, without presenting any material significance, aim at divesting the German people of their honor. ... Yielding to superior force, and without renouncing in the meantime its own view of the unheard of injustice of the peace conditions, the Government of the German Republic declares that it is ready to accept and sign the peace conditions imposed.”

A couple of Republican senators (Walter Edge and Albert Fall) each offer resolutions to simply declare the war over. The idea is that the US can take its time ratifying the treaty – or not – and so be able to resume trade with the former enemy nations like the signatories of the treaty.

An English postal inspector gets a divorce based on a letter a waiter wrote to his wife, which he opened.

Britain says it will court-martial Admiral Ludwig von Reuter for scuttling the German fleet, thus violating the armistice.

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Today -100: June 23, 1919: The time for discussion is past

The German National Assembly votes 237 to 138 to sign the peace treaty. However, the government plans to reject the war guilt part of the treaty and the try-the-kaiser provision and say that since the reparations exceed its ability to pay, Germany won’t accept responsibility for fulfilling them. The Allies respond: “the time for discussion is past” and no qualifications are acceptable.

Marshal Ferdinand Foch is preparing for a possible invasion of Germany in case it refuses to sign. He’s drawn up a proclamation telling Germans not to resist the occupation and hand over weapons, warning that any house from which civilians shoot at Allied troops will be burned down, as was the custom. The NYT correspondent points out a problem if it comes down to a shootin’ war on German territory: will US soldiers be able to identify German soldiers, when pretty much everyone in Germany wears uniforms, from cops and telephone operators to messengers and street-car conductors?

Romania grants citizenship to Jews born in Romania. Or if they served in the military during the Balkan Wars or WW1.

Admiral Ludwig von Reuter says he scuttled the interned ships because he thought the armistice had been terminated, and the kaiser’s wartime orders were for no German ship to be surrendered. The NYT calls the scuttling “a characteristic piece of German treachery”.

British troops in Surrey have been refusing to salute or obey orders, and are especially displeased at orders to go to France. Troops with, yes, machine guns, are sent in to subdue them.

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Today -100: June 22, 1919: Scuttled

Since the Armistice, much of the Germany Navy has been interned at Scapa Flow, Scotland, while the Allies argue about what to do with them. With the signing of the peace treaty imminent, rather than turn the ships over,  Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, using a pre-arranged flag signal, orders the ships scuttled. Which is a fun word to say. Try it now: scuttled scuttled scuttled. 10 battleships, 5 battle cruisers, 5 light cruisers, and 32 torpedo boats are sunk, all without benefit of explosives. Just one capital ship survives. The German sailors then take to life boats. As they approach shore, the British order them to surrender and fire on those that don’t, killing 9, who are the last dead of World War I (unless you count all the people blown up by unexploded ordinance for decades to come).

Winnipeg is placed under martial law after the Royal Northwest Mounted Police shoot into a crowd of strikers, killing 2. Troops with machine guns are stationed throughout the city. Sort of a theme of 1919: the willingness of authorities in many countries to deploy machine guns for crowd control.

The Lusk Committee of the NY Legislature orders raids on the socialist-founded Rand School of Social Science and the offices of the local IWW and of John Reed’s Left Wing Socialists and seize tons of documents . They’re also searching for seditious books and pamphlets.

A new German cabinet forms, with Gustav Bauer (Social Democratic Party) as chancellor. Funny that there’s still a colonial minister.

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Today -100: June 21, 1919: The Huns of the East have come

Headline of the Day -100: 

Literally the Antichrist.  “The Bolsheviki, it is said, are opposing the movement by means of an active propaganda.”

Pres. Wilson will appoint a commission to investigate the pogroms in Poland, headed by Henry Morgenthau, who as ambassador to Turkey did so much to investigate and make public the Armenian Genocide. 2 other members of the 7-person commission will be Jews-to-be-named-later.

German Chancellor Philipp Scheidemann and his cabinet resign because no one wants to take responsibility for Germany signing the peace terms, even though pretty much everyone grudgingly accepts that there is no alternative. The Reichstag is considering putting the thing to a referendum.

Sen. James Phelan (D-California) tells the House Immigration Committee that the US should ban all Japanese immigration. “The Huns of the East have come. Already they have spread over California and are stripping the state of its Americanism.” Also they’re taking over Mexico. They “must be eliminated entirely like a swarm of locusts.” The problem, he says, is that they want to become landowners and work for themselves (just like locusts!), so they take the means of livelihood from whites, who naturally become Bolsheviks and Wobblies, that’s just science.

F.E. Morris of the National Safety Council says that during the 19 months the US was in the war, 56,000 soldiers died while in the US 226,000 people were killed in accidents. Morris has also discovered that women get into accidents getting off street cars at much higher rates than men because they do so backwards, which he explains with some nonsense about women being right-handed and men more ambidextrous.

Catholic priests in Loreto, Italy, go on strike for higher wages.

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Today -100: June 20, 1919: Of ruins, confidence, brutality, and brass & machine guns

Headline of the Day -100: 

Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando 

loses a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies, 259-78. I’m not sure to what extent this is about disappointment over the peace terms and how much about internal matters, namely the high cost of living. (The NYT suggests tomorrow that Orlando took up the annexationists’ maximal territorial demands in order to distract from economic conditions, which just lead to disappointment when he failed to get the Allies to agree to all his demands.)

Headline of the Day -100:  

The lower house of the Ohio Legislature passes a resolution asking Governor James Cox to block the Jack Dempsey-Jess Willard heavyweight world champion boxing match, saying such matches are “brutal in their nature and not conducive to good morals.” I assume their real reason it that they all put money on Willard before seeing how fat he’s gotten.

A strike at brass factories in Waterbury, Connecticut leads to violence between picketers and scabs and fights with the cops, one of whom is probably fatally wounded. Machine guns are set up on roofs, but not used on the strikers, yet.

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Today -100: June 19, 1919: Of rejections, noisy incidents, canals, and censorship

The German delegates to the peace conference recommend that Germany reject the terms.

French Prime Minister Clemenceau apologizes to the German delegates for “some noisy incidents” at Versailles, by which he means a crowd throwing stones at the delegates’ cars, hitting one or two in the head. The prefect of the Seine and the police commissioner have been fired.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is considering a new treaty with Colombia, giving it $25m in compensation for stealing Panama, but not apologizing for stealing Panama.

US postal censorship will end this week.

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Today -100: June 18, 1919: Of hotbeds of war, ignored Ireland, and pastor piles

The Austrian delegation to the peace talks presents a memorandum complaining about the peace terms and saying that the creation of all those new Balkan states just creates “another hotbed of war.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

Secretary of State Lansing will pass the Senate’s resolution on Ireland along to the conference without comment.

The Illinois Legislature ratifies the women’s suffrage Amendment, again. There was some sort of error in the text the first time.

Headline of the Day -100:  

That’s Sgt. Alvin York’s pastor, accompanying him on a visit to Nashville, who says the show was not what he expected and “that was no place for Pastor Pile,” because of course Sgt. York’s pastor is called “Pastor Pile.”

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Today -100: June 17, 1919: Of suffrage, armies, and pointed toes

Both houses of the New York Legislature ratify the women’s suffrage amendment, with no opposing votes.

Ohio and Kansas also ratify.

The US troops that invaded Mexico are already back in the US, with a few prisoners and claims to have killed 50 of Pancho Villa’s men, with one US dead.

Secretary of War Newton Baker asks Congress to fund a 500,000-man Army instead of the 300,000 they voted for. Army Chief of Staff Gen. March says 500,000 would require conscription; Baker disagrees, provided soldiers are given education, entertainment, and girls. Baker says the Army needs to buttress the Mexican border and break down all the military installations it built in France, requiring a lot of warm bodies.

Also, the US is currently moving forces into place to, potentially, invade Costa Rica to crush the revolution there.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: June 16, 1919: Of alcocks, knoxes, and burning cars

Alcock and Brown successfully cross the Atlantic in a non-stop flight, sometimes upside down. 1,980 miles in 16 hours, 12 minutes, Newfoundland to Ireland.

Republicans in the Senate are pushing the Knox Resolution (sponsored by Philander Knox, Taft’s secretary of state), which demands that the treaty be rewritten so that the US and other nations can join the League of Nations at some later date or, you know, not. Others point out that the League is so woven into the treaty that the treaty falls apart without it.

US troops cross into Mexico to go after Pancho Villa’s followers, whose bullets crossed the border into El Paso during a firefight with Federal forces.

The US Army has lots of cars in France, and would prefer to sell them to French people rather than ship them home. But the French government says no as part of its protectionist policy. So the Army is burning them.

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Today -100: June 15, 1919: Of long flights, deadlines, and Charlie Chaplin sunnyside up

In yet another attempt at yet another aviation milestone, Capt. John Alcock and Lt. Arthur Brown begin an attempt to make a non-stop cross-Atlantic flight in a Vickers-Vimy biplane.

The Allies complete their reply to Germany’s objections to peace treaty terms with minor modifications (for example, Germany will be admitted to the League of Nations, after it fulfills every single requirement of the treaty). Germany will now have 5 days to sign or be invaded and blockaded again. Incidentally, the Big Five haven’t bothered informing other allies of the changes they’ve made. The changes we know about include changing the occupation authority in the Rhine from a military one to a civilian commission, with one member appointed by each Big Power.

Gen. Leonard Wood, the commander of the Central Department, says if ex-soldiers don’t get jobs, they’ll go Bolshevik, and you wouldn’t like them when they’re Bolshevik. There is a federal employment agency for discharged soldiers, but industry is lobbying to shut it down, because capitalism. The Re-Employment Bureau for Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines’ NYC branch says that some returning military folks are upset at not getting their old jobs back, because those were given to pacifists and aliens, and some aren’t getting their old salaries, because the women who filled their jobs during the war did the same work just as well for less money.

Now Playing:

Not the best Chaplin, not the worst. Also opening today, and also playing at the Strand: Fatty Arbuckle’s A Desert Hero (a lost film).

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