Today -100: February 3, 1920: Are ghosts kosher?

Germany asked that the Allies not demand that “war criminals” be handed over as specified in the Treaty of Versailles, as it might cause a counter-revolution to break out. The Allies tell them to suck it and hand over 780 men.

France is still executing wartime spies, in this case an Austrian who was in Paris during the war and reported to Germany where its long-range shells were hitting.

The French, as usual, are concerned about the country’s low birth rate and its effect on military readiness. There is now a “Supreme Council of Natality,” because of course there is.

Russia asks Poland if it would like to put an end to all the fussin’ and feudin’.

Estonia has made peace with Russia. Estonia is an independent country. For now.

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Charles Thomas, president of the Commonwealth Trust and Security Company of Chicago, is arrested for having a hip flask, but are the trousers he kept it in a “vehicle” under the dry law, and therefore subject to seizure and sale? Federal prohibition agents will argue before the US District Court that they are.

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Today -100: February 2, 1920: FDR does crimez

The Russian Soviet government gives permission for Russian cooperatives to trade with companies in foreign countries, evidently dropping its previous demand for an armistice before the resumption of commercial relations.

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt tells a meeting that after the US entered the Great War, he did lots of totally illegal things to prepare the Navy, including spending $40 million for guns (presumably cannons on ships) that had not yet been authorized by Congress. That seems to be the only crime to which he specifically admits.

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Today -100: February 1, 1920: Of poles, arrests, and low bodies.

40,000 Poles have applied to leave the US, most stating as their reason, you guessed it, prohibition.

The British arrest dozens of Sinn Féin leaders, including the just-elected members of the Dublin council and Lord Mayor Tom Kelly, whose office makes him an ex officio captain in the British Army. And they’ve finally caught up with Michael Collins.

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“Low bodies” is a typo, tho’ a fun one; they meant low bodices. One anonymous French doctor says today’s fashions allow a salutary “double aeration of the skin”.

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Today -100: January 31, 1920: We will make you chew wood

The bipartisan Senate talks about the peace treaty collapse, with Henry Cabot Lodge refusing to contemplate any compromise on his reservations.

The forces of Gabriele D’Annunzio kidnap an Italian general who’s been critical of the Poet-Aviator.

The new Cork and Limerick Corporations (city councils) declare allegiance to the Irish Republic. And the council of Derry/Londonderry in Northern Ireland elects its first Nationalist and its first Catholic mayor, Hugh O’Doherty, as audience members taunt the Ulsterites, “Derry has surrendered. We will make you chew wood.” Jennie Wyse Power, a member of Dublin Corporation is disqualified by the town clerk for signing the roll in Gaelic.

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Today -100: January 30, 1920: What wine goes with pneumonia?

French spies have allegedly uncovered a Bolshevik plot for an uprising in India.

Russia, making an offer to Poland to discuss peace, accuses the agents of Churchill and Clemenceau of inciting a “senseless, criminal war against Soviet Russia” (it’s funny cuz it’s true).

The feds announce rules for the use of liquor for medicinal purposes (i.e. the spreading influenza outbreaks): doctors and pharmacists with permits may dispense no more than one pint per patient within ten days. There’s no set limit on wines.

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Today -100: January 29, 1920: Of signals from Mars, secret treaties, and referenda

Marconi is still investigating those mysterious signals or whatever that wirelesses are picking up. He says he can’t exclude them being extraterrestrial in origin.

The Allies gave Yugoslavia an ultimatum to accept their proposed revision of its borders with Italy (Fiume, Dalmatia, etc) or they will implement the Treaty of London with the bribes offered to Italy to enter the war in 1915. Yugoslavia says no, pointing out that it doesn’t even know what it’s being threatened with, since the treaty was a secret one and its terms have still never been officially published.

Meanwhile, an Italian ship en route to Albania with stores for the Italian occupation soldiers there as well as pay for those soldiers of 2 million lire, which is roughly the equivalent of some money, sails instead to Fiume, where Poet-Aviator-Pirate Gabriele D’Annunzio seizes the cargo and the money.

Mississippi, like Virginia, will punt on the question of women’s suffrage, putting the federal Amendment up to a popular vote – in November. The South Carolina Legislature rejects it outright.

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Today -100: January 28, 1920: Of women’s suffrage and aliens

Wyoming ratifies the federal women’s suffrage Amendment. 27 down, 9 to go. Or possibly 26. Did I miss one?

Marconi wirelesses have been experiencing interference. Could they be signals from aliens? Sir Frank Dyson, the Astronomer Royal, thinks they might.

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Today -100: January 27, 1920: Of treaties, assassination attempts, Americanization, and anti-gas

Hungary will refuse to sign the peace treaty, which would limit its army to 35,000, which it says is too small.

German troops are occupying parts of Berlin to prevent a royalist outbreak on the ex-kaiser’s birthday. Finance Minister Matthias Erzberger is shot in the shoulder by a would-be assassin with a small-calibre gun (one bullet was deflected by a button). Erzberger was leaving court, where he is suing former Vice Chancellor Karl Helfferich for libel. Erzberger is a hate figure for the far right, due to his financial policy and his role in signing the peace agreement. A more competent assassin will find him in 1921.

The Senate votes an “Americanization” bill, providing $6,500,000 to teach English to aliens and illiterate Americans. States accepting the money would have to make it compulsory for people aged 16 to 21 to take 200 hours of instruction in English a year.

The French are working on measures to counteract poison gas attacks. “Naturally the French chemists are guarding closely the secret of this anti-gas.” They’re also working on developing shells to fire at enemy planes to poison the air around them.

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Today -100: January 26, 1920: It is always well for men to walk humbly

Massachusetts Gov. Calvin Coolidge says he’s not a candidate for president, without quite saying that he would object to someone nominating him at the Republican Convention. He says he doesn’t want anyone to be able to say that he used the office of governor to influence the selection of Massachusetts’s delegates. He says “The curse of the present is the almost universal grasping for power in high places and in low to the exclusion of the discharge of obligations. It is always well for men to walk humbly.”

The Soviets announce that they have captured not only Irkutsk, but Adm. Kolchak and his government as well. The latter is true, the former is not.

The French winners of Nobel prizes in economics and medicine decline to accept the award because the chemistry prize went to Fritz Haber for his work on nitrogen, um, something or other, which is important in producing fertilizer but which he also put to use during the war in developing chemical weapons. (Update: or possibly this story is complete horseshit - see comments).

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Today -100: January 25, 1920: Of medicinal whisky, destroying the state in open combat, and armistices

As influenza spreads in New York and elsewhere, Assistant Supervising Federal Prohibition Agent James Shevlin says that “most druggists have little desire to handle whisky because of the legal restrictions, but that an appeal was being made to them on the ground that they were in duty bound, as purveyors of medicine, to carry a stock of liquor.” (I asked my GP about this a couple of weeks ago. He seemed to think using whisky to treat flu and pneumonia is a bad idea.)

Secretary of Labor William Wilson decides that membership by aliens in the Communist Party is a sufficient ground, all by itself, for deportation, because the Party is “seeking to destroy the State in open combat.”

The Allies (not including the US) are trying to resume commercial relations with the Soviet Union without actually recognizing the Soviet Union by dealing directly with Russian cooperatives. But Russia says that unless there is a military armistice first, it will sink any ships arriving at Russian ports.

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Today -100: January 24, 1920: Of emigration, extradition, and ugly duchesses

Japan is prohibiting emigration to Mexico, because of an “understanding” with the US.

The Netherlands refuses to extradite former kaiser Wilhelm. In truth, the demand by the Allies’ Supreme Council was a bit bizarre, saying that, had Willy remained in Germany, the peace treaty would have required Germany to extradite him, so, um, Holland should. The Dutch point out that they aren’t a party to the Versailles treaty because they weren’t actually, you know, in the war, and that there’s no international court to try war crimes anyway.

Quentin Matsys’s 16th-century painting The Ugly Duchess sells at Christie’s for 880 guineas.

The painting is now (2020) in the National Gallery in London.

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Today -100: January 23, 1920: Root and branch

Herbert Hoover is seriously considering running for president without committing himself as to which party’s banner he’d run under. This would be accomplished by the formation of Hoover clubs, dominated if not entirely comprised of business men. He would then  publish a platform, and either party would be free to adopt both him and it.

The mayor of Camden, New Jersey appoints a black man, Dr. Clement Branch to the city’s Board of Education. Immediately, the president of the board and another long-time member resign, with more threatening to do so, although no one’s admitting that Branch’s appointment is the reason.

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Today -100: January 22, 1920: Of communist laborers, flu, women’s suffrage, and whipping

A Chicago grand jury indicts 39 Communist Labor Party leaders, including John Reed (who is in Russia) and William Bross Lloyd, for conspiracy to overthrow the government by force.

Influenza is rearing its head again and the main problem is the difficulty in getting whisky for, you know, medicinal purposes.

The lower house of the Mississippi Legislature rejects the federal women’s suffrage Amendment.

Atlanta City Council orders an end to the whipping of women prisoners at the city stockade.

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Today -100: January 21, 1920: Of weak, doubtful, second-class men, and open arms

The Allied Supreme Council breaks up without resolving the status of Fiume. It sounds to me like Yugoslavia conceded to Italy almost everything it demanded, but that’s still not good enough for Italy.

The NYT editorial page expresses confidence that the Republican party will choose Henry Cabot Lodge as its presidential candidate. “The Republican party is not going to foist upon the country any weak, doubtful, second-class man.” (They’re being sarcastic).

Russia has evidently decided to accept all 249 deported radicals. As Maxim Gorky’s wife tells them, “Russia opens her arms to all who are politically persecuted.” Um, yeah, that’s totally what Russia does (I’m being sarcastic).

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Today -100: January 20, 1920: Of international duties, exiles, and the more extreme types of foolishness

The Allies send the Netherlands a note demanding she “fulfill her international duty” and hand over the former kaiser.

The “undesirable aliens” deported from the US arrive, finally, in Russia, crossing over the frozen Systerbak River from Finland. They are met by a military band and welcoming crowds. Emma Goldman says “This is the greatest moment of my life. After 35 years of absence I am returning to Russia with a feeling of awe. I am glad to leave America, but I love the American people and expect to return there some day.” She won’t.

Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, suggests that since there is “no human cure for some of the more extreme types of foolishness,” radicals should be rounded up and exiled to some island in the Philippines.

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Today -100: January 19, 1920: Of deserters and Gaelic

The Paris police plan to round up 1,000 US Army deserters they claim are living in Paris, many of them broke and engaging in crimes. The flics will arrest anyone in uniform without the proper papers. Wait, in all their criming they haven’t stolen some new clothes?

Sinn Féin win a majority of seats on the Dublin municipal council. They even win a few seats in Belfast. One of the new councilors, Michael Carolan, who fought in the Easter Rising, gives a speech thanking his voters... in Gaelic. In Belfast. Love it.

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Today -100: January 18, 1920: Of the most Bolshevist act in New York, arks, and Fenian councillors

The New York Bar Association condemns the Assembly’s refusal to seat those 5 Socialist members. Former governor and former US Supreme Court chief justice Charles Evans Hughes says that the Assembly, “in the name of hatred of Bolshevism commit the most Bolshevist act ever performed in this state by depriving a part of the population of the right to be represented by their duly elected representatives.”

The “Soviet Ark” drops its deported radicals off in Finland, from whence they will be taken to the Russian border by train. The Finns have informed the Soviets of this plan and requested that Soviet troops stop shooting when the train arrives, but they have received no reply. Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman say they will not stay in Russia, but return to the US to save it.

The French National Assembly elects Paul Deschanel president of the Republic. His term in office will be most notable for his descent into eccentricity/insanity.

Sinn Féin does quite well in Irish municipal elections. There aren’t that many women candidates, but those are mostly SF, including Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington, woman suffragist leader and widow of Francis S-S, summarily executed for no very good reason during the Easter Rising.

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Today -100: January 17, 1920: Of prohibition, leagues of nations, dumping grounds for agitators, rejected tigers, and brown October ale

Prohibition is now in effect.

So is the League of Nations, although it’s mostly just sitting around, waiting for the US to show up. There’s an empty chair and everything.

The “Red Ark” containing Emma Goldman and 248 other deported aliens still hasn’t reached Russia. The ship broke down and needed several days to repair, and now Finland and Soviet Russia are negotiating. The Soviets seem reluctant to “be used as a dumping ground for agitators from America.” Finland may take custody of them and trade them to Russia for Finnish prisoners.

French Premier Georges Clemenceau drops out of the French presidential race after his caucus rejects him in favor of Paul Deschanel, with whom he once fought a duel. Clemenceau says he didn’t really want to be president anyway and only ran because his friends wanted him to.

The Allies will resume trading relations with Bolshevik Russia. This comes out of the blue and the reasons are obscure. The speculation is that Lloyd George has realized that the White forces are doomed, which they totally are. “The only official explanation of the move is that it is intended to reach the Russian peasants and thus weaken the Soviet Government. Some statesmen say that this reasoning is not clear to them.” The US was never part of the blockade of Russia.

Reginald De Koven, American composer of songs such as “Oh, Promise Me,” and light operas, most famously Robin Hood (1890), dies at a dance held in celebration of his recently opened Rip Van Winkle. Here’s a song, such as it is, from Robin Hood, praising a substance no longer legal in the United States.

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Today -100: January 16, 1920: Of swarms, free cities, and Reds

Secretary of War Newton Baker tells Congress that Poland needs a large loan to enable it to withstand the onslaught of Soviet Russia. Loans should also be made to Armenia and Austria, he says. Gen. Bliss agrees with a suggestion by Rep. John Nance Garner that the Bolsheviks could “swarm over Europe.”

Italy agrees to give up its claim over Fiume, leaving it a “free city,” with its port and railroads controlled by the League of Nations and with its “Italian character” to be recognized, whatever that means. France and Britain are putting pressure on Yugoslavia to accept the deal.

A federal judge orders the release of 9 of the “Reds” being held for deporation on Ellis Island. 65 more will be bailed. The position of the Immigration Commission is that the burden is on the aliens to prove that they should not be deported.

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Today -100: January 15, 1920: Of citizens

The House passes a bill giving Native Americans US citizenship, although it sounds like it’s really more about breaking up tribal property.

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