Thursday, October 10, 2019
Today -100: October 10, 1919: Another good day
The latest White House bulletin: “The president has had another good day.”
Former kaiser Wilhelm offers a large bribe to a paparazzo not to publish candid pictures of him doing... nothing in particular. And the German Officers’ League protests against a film, “Wilhelm’s Good Fortune and Bad Finish,” which it says will lower Germany’s reputation.
The Industrial Conference called by Pres. Wilson meets, obviously in his absence. There are proposals from various members for a national board of conciliation and arbitration, for a 3-month industrial truce, for a suspension of the steel strike pending arbitration (that from Samuel Gompers), and for each individual plant or corporation to come to deals with its employers (John D. Rockefeller Jr). Secretary of Labor William Wilson wants joint boards of employers and employees in each industry. I think it’s already pretty clear how effective this conference is gonna be.
German forces under Gen. Rüdiger von der Goltz, who Germany claims is a renegade acting on his own in association with something called the West Russian Government, are attacking Riga, Latvia.
The Cincinnati Reds “win” the World Series.
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100 years ago today
Wednesday, October 09, 2019
Today -100: October 9, 1919: Of stronger wilsons, treaties, Latin seas, and air races
Headline of the Day -100:
Kinky!
They’re still going with the “nervous breakdown” story.
NYPD break up a demonstration “in the guise of a protest against the Russian blockade,” beating protesters, as was the custom.
The ratification of the peace treaties by Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel is, indeed, not sufficient. The parliament will have to ratify them when it reconvenes in December, but evidently the king’s decree does allow the League of Nations to be booted up.
Gabriele D’Annunzio appeals to Yugoslavia (well, Croatia) to join with Italy to keep the Adriatic a “Latin sea” by preventing the League of Nations internationalizing Fiume. “Recognize the rights of Italy so that Italy can recognize yours,” he suggests. The League, he says, is not a league of nations but of international Jewish bankers. LOIJB for short.
63 airplanes begin a military/civilian trans-continental aerial race, the longest such race. And at the end of the first day, 58 of them haven’t crashed! The race is drawing a lot of interest, and will encourage people to take up flying and replace the flyers killed in this race (3 so far!).
The White Sox win the seventh game of the World Series, 4-1. The Reds seem to be having difficulty winning even a fixed ball game.
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100 years ago today
Tuesday, October 08, 2019
Today -100: October 8, 1919: You are a poor man with whom to talk business
The White House again claims that Wilson’s health is improving – slightly – but he is still forbidden from doing any work. “You are a poor man with whom to talk business,” Wilson allegedly told Dr. Grayson, who replied, Doctor-McCoy-like, “I am not a business man, but a doctor.” I’m enjoying these phony dialogues, in which the ailing president displays such perfect grammar.
Italian King Victor Emmanuel ratifies the peace treaties with Germany and Austria by decree. Or maybe he doesn’t, since the king doesn’t really have that power.
Over 1,000 federal troops are patrolling Gary, Indiana to “prevent disorder” in the steel strike, i.e. protect the scabs. The troops have machine guns, cannons, hand grenades, etc. The “Intelligence Department” (department of what is not clear, maybe the federal Justice Department) has been seizing anarchist and communist literature.
Headline of the Day -100:
Not the explosive, but the eponymous town in West Virginia, built during the war around factories producing nitro. Various corporations are trying to buy the town from the War Department.
The Allies are considering sending Germany another note telling it to pull its troops out of the Baltic or else. Germany has just informed them it will stop the pay of those soldiers, which has pissed off the Allies, who hadn’t known Germany was still paying troops it’s been portraying as mutineers acting against orders.
A mob near Macon, Georgia lynches a black man who had been sentenced to 10 years for attacking a white farmer.
The White Sox win the sixth game of the World Series, 5-4.
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100 years ago today
Monday, October 07, 2019
Today -100: October 7, 1919: A race of children
Dr. Rear Admiral Grayson’s official bulletin of bullshit for the 6th: “The President had a fairly comfortable day, with a slight improvement.” But his doctors are insisting on absolute abstention from mental work – just to prevent a relapse, you understand, not because he’s had a stroke or anything – so William Gibbs McAdoo, presidential son-in-law and former secretary of the Treasury, now a private lawyer, is in DC to be the president’s “alter ego” and supervise the executive branch, although he doesn’t seem to be doing any of that yet.
The Arkansas governor’s special committee’s investigation into the recent racial violence finds that it was “not a race riot. It is a deliberately planned insurrection of the negroes against the whites” fostered by a black man, Robert Hill, “who saw in it an opportunity of making easy money.” “He simply played upon the ignorance and superstition of a race of children – most of whom neither could read nor write.” Hill remains at large.
A large Lincoln County, Georgia mob burns two black men at the stake. Here is an actual sentence from the article: “The lynching is said to be in no wise an evidence of ill feeling toward the negro race in Lincoln County as the anger of white citizens was directed solely at the negro Gordon and his accomplices.” So that’s okay then.
In Britain, the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors will decide which of eleven claimants actually invented the tank and is entitled to the bounty.
The Cincinnati Reds win the fifth game of the World Series 5-0.
What to See on Broadway: Hitchy-Koo 1919, which the NYT thinks the best of the three Hitchy-Koo reviews so far. Music by Cole Porter.
Some of the songs are embedded in this post, though not “When Black Sallie Sings Pagliacci.” I’m also curious about the song “That Black and White Baby of Mine,” which was cut before the opening.
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100 years ago today
Sunday, October 06, 2019
Today -100: October 6, 1919: We’ve just begun
Pres. Wilson’s doctor lies that he is somewhat better and “had a restful and fairly comfortable day.” A hotel two blocks from the White House has been asked to refrain from playing jazz in its roof garden, as it’s annoying the president. Dr Grayson has been consulting with Doctors Stitt and Ruffin, which sounds like a vaudeville act. Everyone’s trying to keep Wilson from doing president stuff, we are told; he asked for a stenographer but was persuaded against, being told it was Sunday.
Headline of the Day -100:
A lynch mob runs wild through the swamps of Lincoln County, Georgia, looking for a particular black man but perfectly willing to shoot or whip any others they happen to come across, as was the custom. The mob is currently holding five black man it intends to lynch in a group once it captures the one it’s looking for.
Arrested black men in Phillips County, Arkansas “confess” that there was a conspiracy to kill all the white people today. The password for the uprising: “We’ve just begun.”
Fiume has been sending out girls to Italy to seduce soldiers into deserting to Fiume. Evidently they’ve recruited entire battalions.
Headline of the Day -100:
The actress, Fernanda was filming... something. It doesn’t appear in IMDB, but maybe I have the wrong single-name-only Fernanda, there are a surprising number of them.
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100 years ago today
Saturday, October 05, 2019
Today -100: October 5, 1919: A more encouraging day
The official bulletin from Woodrow Wilson’s doctor: “The President has passed a more encouraging day. The improvement is slight but not decisive.” Supposedly when Dr. Grayson told him Wilson temperature was normal, he replied “My temperature may be normal, but my temper will not continue so if you keep me in bed much longer.” I’m just not feeling this dialogue.
There are riots related to the steel strike in Gary, Indiana.
Italy lifts its blockade of Fiume. Food and mail are now allowed in (people are still banned from entering the city, not that that’s stopped anyone).
The Army Air Service announces that the US had 66 “aces” during the war (defined as shooting down 5 aircraft, and balloons count).
France and Britain are pressuring Italy and Japan not to sign the peace treaty, because they want the US to be the third ratifier, putting the treaty into effect and creating the League of Nations. It would be easier to do all that with the US participating from the start, is their thinking.
Gen. Leonard Wood, commander of the Central Department of the Army and current military ruler of Omaha, Nebraska, says the IWW was “undoubtedly” behind the disturbances in Omaha, because if there’s one thing the Wobblies are known for, it’s racist lynch mobs, I guess. He thinks officials should stop “the spread of un-American influence” and that foreign languages should not to be taught in grade school. Or to put it another way, Gen. Wood is planning to run for president.
Headline of the Day -100:
Out of golden pots, because they’re the king and queen of Belgium and that’s how they eat beans.
The feds execute a warrant at the Union Terminal Cold Storage Company in Jersey City, seizing 2,792 tubs of butter they consider to have been hoarded.
The Reds win the 4th game of the World Series, 2-0. The odds are now 7:2 for the Reds.
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100 years ago today
Friday, October 04, 2019
Today -100: October 4, 1919: Of slight improvements, treaties, avowed enemies, and tantalizing flies
Woodrow Wilson’s doctor reports a “slight improvement” and that the president is now “sleeping naturally.” In other words, Woodrow Wilson’s doctor is now openly lying. Rumors are flying, including one that Wilson will be operated on for a growth on his nose.
With the Italian parliament dissolved, the king may ratify the peace treaty by decree. Otherwise, they’d have to wait until December. The treaty has been ratified by Britain and France and will go into force when a 3rd Ally ratifies, either Italy or (cough) the US.
The residents of Fiume who want annexation by Italy are upset that PM Franceso Nitti won that vote of confidence. Poet-Aviator Gabriele D’Annunzio calls Nitti “the avowed enemy of Italy.”
The Alabama grand jury investigating the lynching of 3 black men this week did its darnedest but simply can’t identify even a single member of the lynch mob.
The White Sox win the 3rd game of the World Series, 3-0. The odds are now 3:2 for the Reds.
Now Playing: Max Fleischer’s The Tantalizing Fly:
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100 years ago today
Thursday, October 03, 2019
Today -100: October 3, 1919: Of very sick men, race riots, and eggs
Headline of the Day -100:
Five doctors including a “nerve specialist from Philadelphia” (there’s a joke in there somewhere) examine Pres. Wilson. They prescribe complete bed rest and no seeing anyone except doctors & family members and no thinking about presidenting. The word that doesn’t appear in the article is “stroke,” the thing he had that morning.
The Yugoslavs supposedly shoot at an Italian ship carrying troops. Elsewhere in the paper, a story claims that if Yugoslavia attacks D’Annunzio’s forces, the Italian army will go to his aid.
The Senate defeats all 35 of Sen. Albert Fall (R-New Mexico)’s amendments to the peace treaty, which would have stopped US participation in the various international commissions (mostly setting European borders).
The French Chamber of Deputies ratifies the peace treaty.
The Arkansas race riots go into a second day, with 16 known dead in total. Locals are blaming a white former postmaster for stirring up the blacks into an uprising against the whites. Or at any rate talking to them about social equality, which is obviously pretty much the same thing.
Oklahoma Gov. James Robertson, whose name the NYT gets wrong, says Sen. James Reed (D-Missouri) “got what was coming to him” when an Ardmore crowd threw eggs at him because he had come to Oklahoma to, as the governor terms it, “grossly insult” the president over the peace treaty. Reed says the incident suggests that we need to learn to better govern ourselves before trying to run the rest of the world.
The Reds miraculously win the second day of the World Series, 4-2.
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100 years ago today
Wednesday, October 02, 2019
Today -100: October 2, 1919: Of jaded presidents, race riots, and sox
Headline of the Day -100:
“Jaded” is from the official bulletin.
Race riot in Elaine, Arkansas. 9 dead (actually a lot more) after blacks fight with sheriff’s posses responding to organizing by black cotton workers demanding higher wages for the next crop. Naturally, local whites see this as forerunner to a general massacre of whites by blacks and respond with mass murder, as was the custom.
Another white woman is (allegedly) assaulted, possibly by a black man (the victim’s account is curiously unclear on little details like that) in Omaha, Nebraska, but this time the authorities keep the news quiet for a while lest it cause more race riots in the city. I guess they held off reporting it until after federal troops march through the streets in a show of force and then position machine guns at major intersections. Thomas Reynolds, president of the State Federation of Labor, ascribes the earlier riots to the importation of “many worthless negroes” as strikebreakers, though he says the white mob consisted of unorganized laborers, not union members.
The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago White Sox in the first day of the World Series in a, let’s say, surprisingly one-sided 9-1 win.
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100 years ago today
Tuesday, October 01, 2019
Today -100: October 1, 1919: You see the enthusiasm of the people of Fiume to be annexed
Gen. Leonard Wood, commander of the Central Department of the Army, orders
the arrest of the Omaha, Nebraska lynch mob. The army has taken control of the citiy police. “Those who attempt to interfere with the military authorities will find themselves fighting the United States Army,” Wood says. Governor Samuel McKelvie (R) deplores the participation of so many young boys in the riots.
The Allies demand that Germany remove its troops from the Baltic. Under the armistice agreement, Germany wouldn’t have to do that until told to. That finally happened in August, but Germany replied that it was no longer in control of those troops (who are now enlisted in White Russian corps commanded by German General Rüdiger von der Goltz). The Allies respond that they don’t believe it.
Headline of the Day -100:
Or poet-AVIATOR, to give him his proper title. D’Annunzio tells an AP reporter who smuggled himself into the city under some coal on a train (which is suspiciously dramatic when no one else seems to be having much difficulty reaching Fiume), “You see the enthusiasm of the people of Fiume to be annexed.”
The steel strike seems to be petering out.
The Utah Legislature ratifies the women’s suffrage Amendment.
World Series Headline of the Day -100:
Well maybe not the most important.
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100 years ago today
Monday, September 30, 2019
Today -100: September 30, 1919: Slightly better
Headline of the Day -100:
Federal troops have Omaha locked down. And they have the crowd-control tool of choice of 1919: machine guns. Also a strong storm helped, because no one enjoys ethnic cleansing in the rain.
Three black men are lynched in Alabama, accused of assaulting white women. One of them is shot to death in a hospital.
The Italian Parliament is dissolved, and new elections will be held in November. While anything could happen between now -100 and then, it seems likely the elections will be fought largely on the Fiume issue. Prime Minister Franceso Nitti says the choice is between annexing Fiume and continuing to try to safeguard Italy’s rights. If the former, “the country will have to endure in terrible sacrifices. If, despite this, they still desire annexation, nobody more than I will enthusiastically approve it.”
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100 years ago today
Sunday, September 29, 2019
Today -100: September 29, 1919: Of worn & shaken presidents, confidence, and lynchings
Headline of the Day -100:
His doctor, Admiral Cary Grayson, forbids anyone talking to Wilson about the peace treaty or other governmental business and has banned the president playing golf.
Italian Prime Minister Franceso Nitti wins a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies, 208-148. His failure to acquire Fiume has left him very weak, but defying Britain and France, his foreign minister explains, would leave Italy alone in the world.
A mob demonstrates in Vienna, calling for the expulsion of Jews (I think this is aimed at Romanian and Polish Jews). They also target a newspaper and coffee shops, and stop cars to see if there are any Jews in them.
Both sides in the steel strike took the weekend to persuade workers to continue/abandon the strike. In Pittsburgh, the sheriff forbade any language but English at strike meetings.
A large mob in Omaha, Nebraska attacks the brand-new court house with fire bombs in order to capture and lynch a black man who had allegedly raped a white woman. While the attack is going on, there’s a race riot in which several people are killed (though fewer than the article suggests), shops and pawnshops are looted of their firearms, random black people are beaten up, police are shot at, and the crowd attempt to lynch Mayor Edward Parsons Smith – twice – after he appeals for calm. Cops drive a car into the crowd and rescue Smith as he’s hanging from a traffic signal. Smith (now in the hospital) will not run for re-election next year. There is some evidence, believe it or not, that racial tensions in Omaha were stirred up by henchmen of the local crime boss attacking women while in blackface. No one (and I know you’ll believe this) will ever go to jail for any of this.
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100 years ago today
Saturday, September 28, 2019
Today -100: September 28, 1919: Of good sleeps, scabs, and strike bans
Headline of the Day -100:
The Allegheny Steel Company puts up placards advertising for American citizens to replace striking foreign-born steel workers, presumably permanently.
The Alabama Legislature bans strikes.
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100 years ago today
Friday, September 27, 2019
Today -100: September 27, 1919: America is big enough
Woodrow Wilson cuts short his barnstorming tour of the country at Wichita, suffering from “nervous exhaustion,” no doubt brought on by the excitement of being in Wichita. His doctor insists his condition is not alarming, but he will have to rest for some time. Which means he can’t meet the king of the Belgians, who’s coming to the US. On this grueling tour, he traveled 8,200 miles and made 40 speeches, some of them no doubt in considerable discomfort. His train is returning to Washington (and not to a spa resort, which reassures the NYT that his condition is not especially serious).
Incidentally, the reports on the president’s health are pretty specific and seemingly honest and transparent, which will not be the case next week when he has his (Spoiler Alert) stroke.
The Senate discusses Hiram Johnson (R-Cal.)’s amendment to the peace treaty giving the US 6 seats in the League of Nations Assembly to match Britain & its colonies because, sez Johnson, “America is big enough, powerful enough, America is good enough to have just as many votes as the British Empire.” And doggonit, people like us. Johnson seems pissed off at some of Wilson’s recent accusations against League critics: “The time has gone by when you can frighten the American people by epithets or abuse, by calling them pro-Germans, or any other names.” And with that, Johnson resumes his interrupted anti-League tour of the West, which has raised his profile so high that it is assumed he will run away with the Republican nomination for president next year.
Headline of the Day -100:
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100 years ago today
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Today -100: September 26, 1919: Hyphens are the knives that are being stuck in this document
Woodrow Wilson says (for the first time) that if the Senate adds reservations to Article X (mutual self-defense) of the League of Nations covenant, he will consider the Peace Treaty to have been rejected. I’m not sure how that works constitutionally. (Update: possibly by withdrawing the treaty after it’s amended but before it’s ratified). Speaking in Denver, he repeats his new taunt that opponents of the League are the “hyphenated Americans” who “tried to defeat the purposes of this Government in the war.” “Hyphens are the knives that are being stuck in this document”.He also says the weapons used in the Great War “were toys as compared with what would be used in the next war.”
For some reason, the Italians have decided that Wilson is their biggest obstacle in Fiume. There are rumors that he threatened Italy with an economic blockade if it annexes Fiume, but I haven’t seen any evidence that he’s especially interested in the issue.
Meanwhile, D’Annunzio has ramped up his goals, demanding that not just Fiume and its hinterland, but all of Dalmatia be annexed to Italy. Thus, the Headline of the Day -100:
To be clear, Dalmatia is part of Yugoslavia.
The latest rumors from Russia:
1) Lenin has been assassinated.
2) Lenin is alive but being held prisoner in the Kremlin by Felix Dzerzhinsky.
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100 years ago today
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Today -100: September 25, 1919: Of toguires, Kolchak’s rear, strikes, and angry Mexicans
Renegade Italian soldiers seize the port of Toguire on the Dalmatian coast, defeating a small number of Yugoslav soldiers. Toguire is 150 miles from Fiume, so this may indicate a copy-cat action. And that the Italian government has no control over the Italian army. To the extent that there is a functional Italian government, since ministers are at daggers drawn over Fiume policy; yesterday Foreign Minister Tommaso Tittoni was (falsely) reported to have resigned.
D’Annunzio claims to have a “Fiuman navy” consisting of 4 warships and the battleship Dante Alighieri.
Dirty-Sounding Headline of the Day -100:
They capture Tomsk, which the NYT explains is 500 miles from Omsk.
Steel companies claim more workers are returning to work, while unions claim more workers are coming out on strike. Most plants are running, but well below capacity. Pennsylvania Gov. William Sproul responds to strike leader William Foster’s letter complaining about the police. Sproul insists that police actions in clashes resulting in deaths were entirely reasonable and banning public gatherings was entirely reasonable. He says that agitators, “hostile alike to our institutions of Government and to the organization which you represent, have taken advantage of the disturbed conditions to come into Pennsylvania to spread wicked propaganda and to endeavor to incite the ignorant and the vicious to riot and pillage. These persons are enemies of the State”. He also says that “dangerous and evil disposed persons” in other states are trying to recruit armed mobs to come into Pennsylvania. These mobs will be treated as “armed invaders”.
Headline of the Day -100:
The White Sox win the American League pennant and will play the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series.
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100 years ago today
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Today -100: September 24, 1919: Of medals, cyclonic furies, the impulses of courage and cowardice, and medicinal whisky
Gabriele D’Annunzio issues bronze medals to the invaders of Fiume, “by national decree”. What nation? Does he think he runs Italy now?
Er, evidently yes. Evidently last week (I assume it’s Italian censorship that’s making some of the news from Fiume arrive days late) the poet-aviator called for the overthrow of the Italian government.
Steel strike: more fighting between cops and strikers at various locations, mostly in Pennsylvania, more dead. From his prison cell, Eugene Debs says the strike could expand to miners and railway workers. He says workers, pissed off at the killings by company guards, may “be swept into a revolution with cyclonic fury.”
Hearing that some Democratic senators are now supporting reservations to the peace treaty, such as Hiram Johnson (R-Cal.)’s amendment giving the US equal votes in the League of Nations Assembly with Britain and its dependencies’ six, Woodrow Wilson, in Salt Lake City, says such reservations would force the treaty back to the Peace Conference for renegotiation. He says his tour has shown him that “the people are against changes.” He figures 80% are in favor of the League, but “All the elements that tended [during the war] toward disloyalty are against the League,” thereby serving Germany’s goal of disuniting the Allies. He escalates his criticism of his senatorial critics:
I am not afraid to go before the jury of mankind at any time on the record of the United States with regard to the fulfillment of its international obligations; and when these gentlemen who are criticizing it once feel, if they ever should feel, the impulse of courage, instead of the impulse of cowardice, they will realize how much better it feels.
If that doesn’t win them over, I don’t know what will.
The majority of Mormons are in favor of the League, the NYT thinks.
In Haiti, which the US still occupies, two marines shoot and kill two other marines they thought were bandits.
Headline of the Day -100:
A federal judge in Pennsylvania tells a jury that it’s legal to sell whisky for medicinal purposes, so they acquit a bartender who sold whisky to someone who said it was for... a sick friend.
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100 years ago today
Monday, September 23, 2019
Today -100: September 23, 1919: Of strikes, planetary strikes, leaky blockades, and Wagner
Steel strike, day 1: guards and cops and strikers at the Carnegie Steel plant in Newcastle, Pennsylvania shoot at each other after guards try to protect scabs who are being pelted with stones and bricks. Smaller-scale incidents occur throughout the Pennsylvania steel region. The steel companies claim that only foreign and unskilled workers are striking.
NYT Index Typo of the Day -100:
Wow, that’s an impressive strike (ok, it’s plants, not planets).
Italy has (supposedly) asked the Allies to please send in soldiers to remove poet-aviator Gabriele D’Annunzio and his merry men from Fiume, because Italian troops can’t (won’t) do it. The Italian blockade of Fiume, which is already regularly breached by boats, I believe from Venice, and a continued influx of soldiers and other volunteers, is now broken by a train carrying supplies. How hard is it to stop a train?
The NYT editorializes on the poet-aviator’s place in the Italo-Greek rhetorical tradition: “His case is bad. His rhetoric is carefully calculated. This is what interests him. He keeps the secular tradition of Italy. He belongs to a race and a land where the airy phantasms of speech and song are facts listened to by a people still enthralled by the orators of the Rostrum, still swayed by remembrances of Roman, African, and Asiatic eloquence.”
The Royal Irish Constabulary are being supplied with grenades. Swell.
The Paris Police order a planned concert at the Tuileries Gardens canceled because people objected to the inclusion of music by Wagner. Everyone’s a critic.
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100 years ago today
Sunday, September 22, 2019
Today -100: September 22, 1919: Of debating societies, strikes, and foreigners
Woodrow Wilson explains that it doesn’t matter that Britain has 6 seats in the League of Nations Assembly (including Canada, Australia, South Africa & India) to the US’s 1, because the Assembly is just a powerless “debating society,” while real decisions are made in the Council. Also, the Assembly includes places like Cuba and Panama, which are as much under US “influence” as Canada is under Britain’s. That’s Wilson saying that.
The steel strike begins.
Poet-aviator Gabriele D’Annunzio expels foreigners from Fiume, except Yugoslavs, who he’s locking up.
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100 years ago today
Saturday, September 21, 2019
Today -100: September 21, 1919: Of lusks, protectorates, colonists, and infamous words
The anti-Red Lusk Committee of the New York Legislature takes credit for shutting down 10 radical publications, one of them in Finnish.
Headline of the Day -100:
Lord Curzon says the treaty signed this week between Britain and Persia does not amount to a protectorate and Britain toooootally respects Persia’s independence. No, Britain is just giving Persia “financial aid” (i.e., a loan, with customs revenues as collateral) and providing “expert assistance” (including military experts, paid for by Persia and given what the treaty calls “adequate powers”). For some reason he doesn’t mention the bit about gaining access to Persian oil. Probably slipped his mind.
Germany is allegedly “colonizing” Germans into Upper Silesia before the big plebiscite. Employers are being gently encouraged to continue paying the salaries of workers born in Silesia who take a little voting vacation there.
The Italian government sends Rear Admiral Cassanova (there’s a dirty joke in there somewhere) to Fiume to put a stop to the D’Annunzio occupation. Instead, the rear admiral has been “detained.” The Italian head of staff in the armistice zone informs D’Annunzio that officers who remain in Fiume will be considered deserters. D’A responds that “this infamous word” “does not touch me or my companions.” A bunch of planes (one carrying Prince Aimone) also fly in to help out the poet-aviator (there may come a time when I grow tired of that phrase, but that time has not yet arrived), just in case Fiume needs an air force, I guess. The poet-aviator’s men “marched up and down through the streets of Fiume, shouting their cause and demanding who had aught to say against them. It seems that if any one had they didn’t say it.”
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100 years ago today
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