Today -100: July 15, 1919: Of booze, dirigibles, and java

The attempts to repeal wartime prohibition or loosen the definition of intoxicating beverages are defeated in Congress.

Britain is sending forth another dirigible, the R33, which will visit India by way of France, Switzerland, Rome, and Cairo.

The latest suggested location for former kaiser Wilhelm’s exile: Java (Indonesia).

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

Today -100: July 14, 1919: We want breakfast

Headline of the Day -100: 

“Wets” think they can repeal wartime prohibition, which is still in effect until demobilization is complete. Or if that fails, remove the definition of “intoxicating,” leaving it to the courts.

Sen. Elihu Root thinks the Senate can ratify the peace treaty after unilaterally adding reservations, without the Peace Conference  having to act on them. Really?

The British dirigible R34 ends its round-trip trans-Atlantic crossing, arriving at Pulham, England after a 75-hour trip from Long Island, a day of which was spent lost in the fog. “We want breakfast,” Major Scott says. He predicts there will soon be regular airship service between Europe and America. During the trip, one of the carrier pigeons escaped.

The Allies are considering headquartering the League of Nations in an internationalized part of Belgium in a new city, Geopolis, which would be built on some part of the Front. Which I guess would have the advantage of having literal buried unexploded mines alongside the metaphorical ones.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Dr. H.A. Zettel, a St Paul, Minnesota electropath, challenges Dr. H.W. Hill of the Minnesota Public Health Association to a duel... with germs. They will each expose themselves to typhoid, smallpox, bubonic plague, etc. Zettel, who does not believe in the germ theory, will protect himself from these diseases using only sanitation, pure air, and clean food and drink, while Hill will use vaccines. Whichever one survives will be a pallbearer at the other’s funeral. Sadly, they will not go through with it.

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

Today -100: July 13, 1919: Of innocent policemen, daylight saving, the Three Pashas, horses, and prohibitionists

Irish Unionist leader Edward Carson tells Americans to butt out of Northern Irish affairs (totally missing the irony of a Unionist complaining about outside interference in Ireland). He blames them for stirring up Sinn Féin and thereby encouraging “the campaign of assassination of innocent policemen”. He also complains that nationalist Count Plunkett is allowed into the Carlton Club.

Pres. Wilson vetoes the Agriculture Bill because it repeals daylight saving. He also vetoes the Sundry Civil Bill because it only appropriates $6 million to rehabilitate disabled military men and he wants $8 million.

A Turkish court martial condemns Enver Pasha, Talaat Pasha, and Djemal Pasha (no relation), the leaders of the previous government that messed up the war so badly and killed so many Armenians, to death. In absentia – they all fled into exile at the end of the war. Some lesser officials are given lesser sentences. Over the next couple of years Armenians will assassinate Talaat and Djemal in retaliation for the genocide.

John “Chick” Owens, a black vaudeville actor, is stabbed to death by a man who tried to bum a cigarette and was offered only the makings.

Édouard de Billy, France’s deputy high commissioner to the United States, slated to be the next ambassador to the US, falls off his horse in the Bois de Boulogne and breaks his neck. Silly de Billy.

Hashtag of the Day -100:

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

Today -100: July 12, 1919: Of corn

Sen. George Moses (R-New Hampshire) will offer a resolution inviting Pres. Wilson to come to the Senate every day at 10 am to discuss the treaty. He admits this is intended to prevent Wilson stumping the country on behalf of the League of Nations.

The Allies will end the blockade of Germany today.

The Corn Products Refining Company of Argo, Illinois will, as a result of its recent bloody strike, fire all its foreign-language-speaking workers.

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

Today -100: July 11, 1919: Of new roles and new responsibilities, amendments, and herring

Woodrow Wilson goes to the Senate to deliver the peace treaty. When he finishes speaking, explaining that the US now has “a new role and a new responsibility” in the world because God or destiny or something, the Republicans mostly fail to applaud. It’s almost like they don’t want a new role and a new responsibility.

They may try to amend the treaty. Wilson says that would take a 2/3 vote of the Senate, but Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge says a majority can amend it, the 2/3 is only for final ratification.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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

Today -100: July 10, 1919: Of travel bans, treaties, deportations, and elks

Rep. Philip Campbell (R-Kansas) introduces a bill preventing the president from leaving the country or indeed performing duties (such as signing bills) anywhere other than in D.C.

The German National Assembly votes 208-115, with 99 abstentions, to ratify the peace treaty.

The NYT thinks Woodrow Wilson is going to invade Mexico or something. To protect foreigners and restore law and order. Or, to put that another way, the Carranza government is trying to tax the US oil companies operating in Mexico.

64 Bisbee, Arizona men are charged with kidnapping and assault for the Bisbee Deporation almost exactly two years ago, in which 1,100 alleged IWW members and strikers were rounded up, put on a train, and dumped in the desert. The men named include the president of the Bank of Bisbee, a couple of city councilmen, the sheriff at the time, various mining company officials, a butcher, etc. I don’t think anything will come of this.

Headline of the Day -100: 

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, not the large mammal of the deer family.

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

Today -100: July 9, 1919: Of reservations, irritated Germans, and woodies

A majority of senators are now pledged to vote for the peace treaty & League of Nations covenant only with reservations.

Headline of the Day -100:

Some are more than irritated: German officers are committing suicide at a 38% higher rate than before the trial was announced.

Hindenburg is the latest to offer himself as substitute for Wilhelm at the trial. The NYT sees echoes of The Mikado.

Chief Secretary for Ireland Ian Macpherson outlaws Sínn Féin in County Tipperary, meaning membership is now a criminal offense. The government cites an alleged SF proclamation a few months ago declaring all cops in the South Riding of Tipperary to have forfeited their lives, ditto magistrates and anyone else upholding British rule. Also, snitches will totally get stitches. Éamon de Valera says the document is probably a fake. He does admit that the Republican Government has issued a call to ostracize the armed constabulary, you know, socially.

R. C. “Woody” Faulkner of California, a man who looks like Woodrow Wilson, decides on a visit to New York to dress like him, then gets upset when a crowd follows him down 42nd Street. He now vows never to impersonate the president again and says he wouldn’t want to be president “if that is the way you are treated.”

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

Today -100: July 8, 1919: Of plots, Mars, and garbage trucks

An alleged anarchist plot to blow up Rome is thwarted. Phew.

Astronomy Professor David Peck Todd of Amherst will join a balloon attempt to reach a record altitude, from which point he plans to communicate with Mars. This is by no means his first attempt to, um, get high and talk to Mars. He once hiked up the Andes, but found that even that wasn’t high enough for his instruments. There is no follow-up story, so I think the ascent didn’t come off. Todd has been trying to communicate with the Martians for years; his family will have him committed in 1922.

The Queens borough president wants motorized garbage trucks to replace horses & carts. Cart & truck owners just formed a union and demanded higher rates.

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

Today -100: July 7, 1919: The Allies can only have my dead body

The British dirigible R34 arrives at Long Island. It was storms all the way across the Atlantic. Major Pritchard parachutes from the airship for no apparent reason.

The former German crown prince, on his possible extradition from the Netherlands: “The Allies can only have my dead body. I will myself decide on my life or death.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

Article 246 of the Treaty of Versailles requires the Germans to turn over said skull, formerly belonging to Chief Mkwavinyika Munyigumba Mwamuyinga (1855-98) of the Hehe in German East Africa. However, the Germans say they can’t find it. Maybe it’s in a museum somewhere, maybe it’s still in Tanganyika (the skull was probably found, in a German museum, in 1954). (Most of what this article says about the chief is wrong).

The fee for the executioner at Sing Sing is doubled, to $100 per inmate fried.

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

Today -100: July 6, 1919: Of dirigibles, substitutes, champs, and big hats

The R34 dirigible now crossing the Atlantic radios that it’s running out of gasoline (it met greater headwinds than anticipated) and will have to make a stop at Boston. The US Navy is sending out ships in case it needs to be towed in.

Some of ex-kaiser Wilhelm’s sons (all but the oldest) offer to serve any sentence on behalf of their father. The tribunal will have the authority to pass a death sentence.

Jack Dempsey, the new heavy-weight champeen, says he will only defend his crown against white challengers.

London hat manufacturers are wondering why men are ordering larger hats than before the war. Some have consulted pathologists who believe it is the result of constant gunfire – the heads of men with shell shock have gotten bigger, that’s totally a thing. Or they might just be getting hats that cover more of their heads, like the helmets they’ve gotten used to.

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

Today -100: July 5, 1919: Of dempseys, communist republics, coups, and lynchings

Evidently there was no “Red” revolution or bombing campaign on the 4th. The Justice Department must be so disappointed.

Jack Dempsey wins the heavyweight bout against Jess Willard.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Returning soldiers set up a communist republic on the Cook Island of Mauke. Supposedly.

Military coup in Peru, deposing President José Pardo a month and a half before his term would have been over anyway, but the last election was... questionable.

The Tuskegee Institute finds that in the first 6 months of 1919 there were 28 lynchings. 25 of the lynchees were black, 3 white, 27 male.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.”

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

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.”

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

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.

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