Today -100: October 19, 1919: Of decrees, debates, and grips

Poet-Aviator Gabriele D’Annunzio decrees that anyone expressing sentiments hostile to the cause of Fiume will be executed.

NY Gov. Alfred E. Smith, pissed off at the constant attacks on him by the Hearst press, challenges William Randolph Hearst to debate him publicly.

Headline of the Day -100:

Doomed, doomed I tells ya!

The (modern-day) NYT obit of Samuel Hynes fails to mention two of his books possibly of interest to readers of this blog: War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture and The Edwardian Turn of Mind. Both recommended.

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Today -100: October 18, 1919: We cannot be beaten because death is our victory

White general Nikolai Yudenich’s forces are quite near Petrograd, although not actually inside the city, as the article’s headline claims.

Woodrow Wilson’s prostate became enlarged from an infection, and was thought to require surgery, but Wilson was considered too weak for surgery because of his stroke (the White House isn’t saying that part, obviously), so they’ve held off while Wilson lay close to death (they’re not disclosing this either). The White House also finally says what Wilson has been suffering from all this time: fatigue neurosis.

The Senate defeats some more amendments to the Peace Treaty, and discusses whether the US should accept a mandate over Armenia. There are some questions about whether there is oil in Armenia, but it’s agreed that if there were, the British wouldn’t be withdrawing their troops from it, that’s just science.

Poet-Aviator Gabriele D’Annunzio has plans:  “If nobody will attack me – and I am ready to fight any aggression – I will march on Rome, or I will throw myself against the nearest enemy with my comrades. We want to offer ourselves in sacrifice. We want to light a fire that will burn high. It will awake in a portentous flame the deceived hopes of oppressed peoples, and no power of arms and money will be able to put it out. ... We cannot be beaten because death is our victory.” Put a pin in that idea, “march on Rome,” for 3 years.

Two striking picketers are shot outside the American Steel and Wire Company plant in Cuyahoga, Ohio, by guns, possibly machine guns, fired from inside the plant.

Hunger-striking Irish political prisoners are released from prison.

After Thomas Bellon is executed at San Quentin, glands are taken from his body and implanted in a 60-year-old inmate to see if they make him younger.

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Today -100: October 17, 1919: A fairly satisfactory day

The House votes 284-1 to extend wartime passport regulations on incoming aliens  for a year, so that “radicals” can be excluded from the country.

Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge’s amendments/reservations to the Peace Treaty are rejected by the Senate, 35-35, 3 D’s joining 32 R’s in favor. This vote focused on the award of Shantung to Japan.

The latest White House bulletin:  “The President had a fairly satisfactory day.” His doctors allow him to be told of the Senate vote.

A “high military source” in Gary, Indiana informs the press that seized documents prove that the steel strike’s leaders are linked to Soviet Russia. Tear gas shells are being sent to Gary, which is odd because my understanding is that tear gas wasn’t used for crowd control until 1921.

A Waukegan, Illinois deputy sheriff posts a notice: “If you do not like this country, go back to your own. If you have no country, go to hell.”

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Today -100: October 16, 1919: Build build build pay pay pay

The latest White House bulletin: “The President has had a satisfactory day.” The US delegation to the Peace Conference asked, last week I guess, who is currently responsible for giving it instructions, and has been told that Wilson will be incapacitated “for some weeks.” Which doesn’t answer the question.

The commander of the British naval forces in the Baltic tells the German troops to evacuate the suburbs of Riga or be shelled out.

Latest RussiaRumors™: Petrograd’s fall imminent! Entente invites Germany to join the blockade of Soviet Russia!

The American Legion is campaigning against German opera.

Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels says that if the US doesn’t join the League of Nations, it should be prepared to build a huge navy – “build, build, build, while the rest of our country must pay, pay, pay.”

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Today -100: October 15, 1919: Of restless and uncomfortable days, Red plots, passports, insignificant annexations, and divorces

The latest White House bulletin: “The President had a restless and uncomfortable day, but is better tonight.”

The feds claim to have uncovered a “Red” scheme for a general uprising, beginning with those bombings in May and June, which they’re linking with Gary, Indiana “Reds” in an unsubtle attempt to discredit the steel strikers. They name several alleged bombers, only one of whom is in custody, and say one of them made his bombs in the Indiana Steel Company factory. There is/was also a plot to blow up Gary Mayor William Hodges who, to be fair, is something of a dick.

Secretary of State Lansing recommends that wartime passport restrictions be continued another year, so the government can exclude foreign “undesirables.”

Italian Foreign Minister Tommaso Tittoni thinks he has the solution to the Fiume mess: make Fiume a buffer state, with Italy doing an “insignificant annexation” of the land between Fiume and Trieste.

Hungary’s White Terror government annuls all the divorces granted by the Soviet government, except where one of the parties has since re-married.

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Today -100: October 14, 1919: Only one thing left

The latest White House bulletin: “The President’s condition is about the same.” Dr. Grayson says for the first time something I hadn’t realized he hasn’t said until now, that Wilson’s mind is “clear as a bell.” He says that while Wilson still needs absolute rest, he could sign bills if need be. Some Republican senators are not so sure about this, and are whipping out their magnifying classes and examining Wilson’s “signatures” on several recent communications.

Germany accedes to Allied demands and stops sending supplies to the Baltic for General Rüdiger von der Goltz’s troops, who will return home. Hey I guess Germany did have control over him after all. There are accusations by the Germans and the Letts over which of them is siding with the Bolsheviks.

A steel worker striking in Gary, Indiana is searched and four copies found of a leaflet, allegedly from the Communist Party, calling for the overthrow of the military in Gary. Col. Mapes responds, “Before we leave we intend to clean Gary of Red agitators.” He sends soldiers to printing shops to try to track down the authors.

And a circular from the “American Anarchist Federated Commune Soviet of New York City” (!) is discovered, threatening reprisals for every worker killed. “Since the Government has Czaristically Russianized its methods in clubbing and murdering you whenever you raise your voices in protest against injustice or dare to go out on strike, there remains for you, the workers, only one thing left, and that is to arm yourselves.” It also asks soldiers to stop clubbing workers. The police are now protecting cops and judges and DAs involved in the prosecution of anarchists.

The Kalihi Territorial Hospital in Hawaii claims to have found a cure for leprosy. It hasn’t.

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Today -100: October 13, 1919: A restful day

The latest White House bulletin: “The President is in good spirits and has had a restful day.” Dr. Grayson refuses to respond to Sen. Moses’s claim that Wilson suffered a cerebral lesion, although he does scoff at “long-distance diagnosis.” While wrong about the cerebral lesion, Moses is still closer to the truth than the official bulletins, which have yet to specify Wilson’s malady beyond “nervous exhaustion.” After two weeks, that’s beginning to wear a little thin.

The Allies order Germany to recall its ships from the Baltic, responding to German participation in a White Russian attack on Riga, Latvia. They also send  a note accusing Germany of duplicity for claiming to have no control over Gen. Rüdiger von der Goltz but not taking any action against him for this alleged insubordination, such as, f’r instance, firing him.  The NYT thinks this is “the beginning of a new war for German supremacy”. France is worried that Germany is doing a better job of cozying up to the anti-Bolshevik Russian forces (who are surely going to win, everyone knows that) than France is.

France declares the state of war over. Censorship is lifted, early closing-hour rules are ended, and the people of Paris may even have to pay rent again.

Headline of the Day -100:

Headline of the Day -100:

Aren’t they always?

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Today -100: October 12, 1919: A comfortable day

The latest White House bulletin: “The president has had a comfortable day.”
Nevertheless, his doctors are saying that he will need bed-rest for an extended period. For the first time, we’re hearing of discussions of whether Wilson is suffering a “disability” such that his powers should be transferred to Vice President Whatshisname. One problem is that many of his powers are new ones granted by wartime legislation and cannot be transferred. The Constitution, people are discovering, fails to specify who decides whether a president is disabled. Sen. George Moses (R-NH) writes a letter to a friend that mysteriously leaks to the press, in which he gossips that Wilson had a cerebral lesion and that while he “may live,” he “will not be any material force or factor in anything.”

An Italian steamer sets off from Genoa, bound for Vladivostok with a shipment for the Whites fighting in Russia. However, the crew mutinies and diverts the ship to Fiume.

The German government bans the film “Wilhelm’s Good Fortune and Bad Finish,” which conservative groups have been complaining about, unseen. Anti-Semitic groups have been giving out free rubber clubs in anticipation of protesting the premiere. I have no idea what the content of this film is, and neither imdb.com nor Wikipedia have heard of it.

A letter to the NYT asks for donations to the Home for Ex-Slaves in Nacogdoches, Texas, which it deems necessary to mention is “operated by a white advisory board.”

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Today -100: October 11, 1919: A good day, again

The latest White House bulletin: “The president has again had a good day.”

The Industrial Conference continues. The employers’ group demands the right to open shops and not have to negotiate with union officials who are not their employees (in other words, they want only plant-level unions, easily divided & conquered).

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Today -100: September 30, 1919: Slightly better

Headline of the Day -100: 

That’s a quote from his doctor.

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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