Today -100: July 18, 1920: Of escapes and ulimata

Béla Kun, the ousted Hungarian dictator, and other prisoners escape from the train taking them from Vienna to Russia. They still intend to go to Russia, they just didn’t think it was safe to travel through Czechoslovakia.

The Allies respond to the Turkish request for changes in the peace treaty with an ultimatum, as was the custom, to accept it by the 27th or the Allies will respond by “ejecting the Turks from Europe once and for all.”

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Today -100: July 17, 1920: Of clubs and fiery court houses

Warren Harding refuses to, as his secretary puts it, “wield a club” to get Connecticut Gov. Holcomb to call a special session of the Legislature to pass the federal women’s suffrage Amendment.

The Buncrana (County Donegal) court house, at which the trial of Sinn Féin MP Joseph O’Doherty for raising funds for the Irish Parliament was due to start, mysteriously burns down, as was the custom. Also the Burnfoot court house, where it was originally scheduled.

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Today -100: July 16, 1920: Of booze cruises, liars and grifters, mail, and life-jackets

The Americas Cup is going on. It has what I imagine is an unusually high number of spectators this year, a combination of prohibition and international waters.

The Rev. Purley Baker, president of the Anti-Saloon League (whose name the NYT spells wrong), calls its executive to meet to decide how to fuck over Gov. James Cox, who once called Baker “a liar and a grafter.”

50 Sinn Féiners raid the Dublin General Post Office, as was the custom, and grab all the governments mail.

A life-jacket from the Lusitania, “bearing a strand of faded blonde hair,” surfaces in the Delaware River.

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Today -100: July 15, 1920: Of readjusting the affairs of civilization

Headline of the Day -100: 

Harding asks Republicans in the Tennessee and North Carolina legislatures to vote for ratification of the federal Amendment and “don’t worry who gets the credit for putting it over.” He thinks the Republican party is getting insufficient credit for its role in suffrage, noting that of the 35 states which have ratified the Amendment so far, 29 are Republican, while 6 Democratic and 1 Republican state legislature have rejected it (he’s ignoring the Republican governors who refused to call their legislatures into session, most recently Percival Clement of Vermont).

Gov. James Cox says his campaign will be dedicated to bringing “peace with honor” and “readjusting the affairs of civilization.” He accuses Harding of wanting to live 30 years in the past, which no kidding.

The new Farmer-Labor Party nominates Parley Christensen, a Utah lawyer who defended the first Wobbly prosecuted in Utah. He beat out Dudley Field Malone for the nomination after Robert La Follette’s son informed the convention he would not run under the party’s radical platform. 

The British government has taken to firing Irish railway workers who refuse to work on trains carrying munitions or soldiers, causing increasing labor shortages and delays. Also, when 5 workers do agree to work on those trains, they’re abducted by Sinn Féin.

Germany agrees to deliver 2 million tons of coal per month (about 20% of Germany’s total output), following Allied threats to occupy the Ruhr (French PM Millerand also wanted to occupy Hamburg).

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Today -100: July 14, 1920: Of strikes, coups, twenty-odd wars, and dominant races

Britain’s Trades Union Congress votes in favor of strikes against the manufacture of munitions intended for use against Russia or Ireland (the actual strike decisions will be made by the individual unions).

There’s a coup in Bolivia, as was the custom. The Times thinks it’s about the question of where a seaport should be.

Warren G. Harding says FDR’s acceptance of the League of Nations as the paramount issue of the campaign shows that Wilson is forcing the League on his party. If the Democrats win, he says, the US would join the League and become “at once a party to the twenty-odd wars now going on in the world.” In other words, Harding is happy to accept that this election be a referendum on joining the League, and he would also prefer to ignore Cox and run against Wilson.

The Soviets capture Minsk.

An article about complaints made by the Japanese government about discrimination against Japanese people in California explains that it’s not really about race but economics: “The physical attributes of the Japanese settlers, together with radical differences in their customs, and manner of living, preclude competition with them in the economic field by the white races in California, enabling the Japanese to accomplish more work at lower living cost than the native inhabitants of the State. This economic advantage, coupled with the high rate of reproduction, which prevails among the Japanese people, it is now realized, must render it a matter of decades before the Japanese, at their present rate of progress, will supplant the white race as the dominant element in the population of California.” Gov. William Stephens sent a letter to Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby pointing out the rise in the Japanese population and asking the federal government to do something about immigration.

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Today -100: July 13, 1920: Of campaigns, special sessions, coal, states of fatigue, machinations, and discrimination

Cox and Roosevelt plan to campaign in every state, with FDR focusing on the West. FDR says he sees the League of Nations as the dominant issue of the campaign. One problem: he’s stuck in his day job as assistant secretary of the Navy until Secretary Daniels returns next month from a cruise in Alaska.

Vermont Gov. Percival Clement (R) refuses to call the Legislature into special session to ratify the federal women’s suffrage Amendment. He’s not so much against suffrage as he is against any federal amendment being passed without a referendum, which the Supreme Court ruled out earlier this year. Alice Paul and other suffragists blame Harding for not pushing Clement on this. Harding claims to be disappointed.

Another day, another ultimatum at the Spa Conference, where Germany is given until 3 pm tomorrow to agree to deliver 2 million tons of coal a month.

French President Paul Deschanel has “suffered a new relapse into a state of fatigue,” which is French for barking mad. They’re thinking it might be time to create an office of vice president. Deschanel will be unable to officiate at the Bastille Day parade, which is pretty much the only thing the president of France had to do during the Third Republic.

Sir Edward Carson warns that if the government doesn’t “protect us from the machinations of Sinn Féin,” they will organize to protect themselves. The British poured soldiers into Northern Ireland to guard the July 12th Orange parades precisely in order not to give the Ulsterites an excuse to organize paramilitary forces.

With complaints from Japan about a November California referendum to restrict Japanese leasing of land (ownership is already banned), the NYT editorializes that there are two sides to the issue: on the one hand, such restrictions are discriminatory and humiliating; on the other hand, “the people of California are opposed to any increase in the Japanese population”. So hard to balance those two perfectly legitimate sentiments.

The Japanese Diet rejects women’s suffrage.

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Today -100: July 12, 1920: I fail to see where that contrivance can in any way be associated with art

A German newspaper reports that Prince Heinrich of Prussia, Wilhelm’s brother, was killed by a gang of field laborers. No.

Actual deaths: some guy who went over Niagra Falls in a barrel, as was the custom. A specially designed barrel, too. Tomorrow it will be reported that while his body is not recovered, there is a “severed arm thought to be his.”

And Empress (50 years ago) Eugénie of France, widow of Emperor Napoleon III, dead at 94.

The Canadian province of New Brunswick votes to retain wartime prohibition.

The warden at Sing Sing refuses an artist’s request to be allowed to paint the electric chair. “I fail to see where that contrivance can in any way be associated with art.”

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Today -100: July 11, 1920: Cox above Harding is also a common PornHub search term

Headline of the Day -100: 

They point out that while Harding currently supports women’s suffrage, he has an uninterested and uneven history on the subject.

The NYT mentions an editorial by Henry Ford in his Dearborn Independent, which it thinks was published today but will actually be delayed until next week, denouncing both parties. The Republican Convention, Ford says, “was openly and shamelessly dominated” by big business, the Democratic Convention by the whisky business. He calls for a “citizens’ party,” presumably with himself as the candidate. I’m not sure why this article was bumped from this issue of the weekly; perhaps to make room to ask this vital question: 

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Today -100: July 10, 1920: Of disarmament, parallel courts, and surrenders

The German delegates at the Spa Conference accept the disarmament ultimatum, subject to a vote in the Reichstag, which the Germans insist is required under the Weimar Constitution because the Allied threat to occupy the Ruhr in event of non-compliance is an alteration of the Versailles Treaty (Lloyd George disagrees that it is). Then the two sides bitch at each other about war crimes trials, which Germany would be happy to hold, they say, but their judges have failed to find sufficient evidence in even a single case. Also the lists provided by the Allies misspelled a lot of names. And some of them have moved.

Even Unionists are using the Sinn Féin courts, since the official Crown courts no longer have any authority.  Sinn Féin has also been setting pub closing hours and keeping order at race tracks.

The Mexican government rejects Pancho Villa’s peace offer, but if he wants to surrender unconditionally, that’d be swell.

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Today -100: July 9, 1920: Of disarmament, taxes, suffrage, and, I don’t know, irony or something

The Allies give Germany a 6-month delay in fulfilling the disarmament provisions of the Versailles Treaty, but Germany must disarm the security police, ask the public to surrender all weapons, immediately abolish conscription, and surrender guns and cannon above the treaty limit.

The Dublin County Council orders its officials to provide no information to the British income tax people, but give it only to the Republican Parliament.

The Louisiana Legislature adjourns without passing women’s suffrage, either by ratifying the federal Amendment as Cox asked for, or by passing a (whites-only, naturally) state measure.

A meeting protesting discriminatory anti-Japanese laws in California is held in Hiroshima.

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Today -100: July 8, 1920: Of lost rifles, duties to the Democratic Party, lynchings, and bowling

Germany asks the Spa Conference for a 15-month delay in reducing its army below 100,000, citing the threat of Bolshevism. The Allies say no. Also, Germany says it doesn’t know where all those rifles the Allies want handed over actually are. Lloyd George says it’s inconceivable that Germany just allows those rifles to be in the hands of general members of the public against the will of the government. German Foreign Minister Walter Simons reminds him that that’s also the case in a part of the British Empire (i.e., Ireland). Also, he says, we need a larger army to disarm the civilians.

One of the first things Gov. James Cox does as nominee is to ask Louisiana to ratify the women’s suffrage Amendment “as a duty to the Democratic Party”.

And vice presidential nominee Franklin Roosevelt... goes back to his job in the Navy Department.

The US lifts its restrictions on exports to Russia (other than munitions), the State Dept making it very clear that this does not entail recognition of the Soviet government. Passports for travel to Russia won’t be issued, nor mail to Russia accepted.

A black man is lynched in Roxboro, North Carolina, in a churchyard.

Pancho Villa agrees surrender terms with the Mexican government.

Headline of the Day -100: 

What to Watch, If You Have a Time Machine: the premiere of F.W. Murnau’s The Hunchback and the Dancer (Der Bucklige und die Tänzerin), a lost film.

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Today -100: July 7, 1920: Make the best of it

William Jennings Bryan for one is not happy with the nomination of a Wet, especially after the defeat of a bone-dry plank. “My heart is in the grave with our cause,” he says. Might he run for president under the Prohibition Party label?

The Democratic National Convention follows up the endless 44 ballots it took to choose Cox by taking just a few minutes in choosing his running mate, Assistant Navy Secretary Franklin D. Roosevelt. The choice seems to have been more that of the party leaders (the Tammany machine, with which FDR was often at odds when he was in the NY State Senate) than of Cox, who was consulted by phone.

William Gibbs McAdoo claims he’s “greatly relieved and delighted” not to have received the nomination.

Cox plans an extensive speaking tour, eschewing Harding’s front-porch approach. Maybe his front porch just isn’t as nice as Harding’s.

At the Spa Conference, the Poles ask for aid from the Allies to fight the Russian Bolsheviks, and are turned down flat, Lloyd George advising them to make peace – did he actually tell them to “make the best of it” or is that a paraphrase, I wonder?

Headline of the Day -100:  

Two black men accused of killing their landlord are burned at the stake in Paris, Texas. The sheriff thinks the landlord was actually killed by two other people.

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Today -100: July 6, 1920: Normal men and back to normality

The Democratic National Convention takes ballots #23 to 36 during Monday’s day session. McAdoo gains strength, surpassing Cox on the 30th ballot, and retains his lead thereafter, although the shifts in votes between ballots are minor. Several motions to break the deadlock by dropping the bottom candidate all lose. The convention reconvenes at night and finally nominates James Middleton Cox on the 44th ballot at 1:39 a.m.

On the 33th ballot, one vote is cast for Laura Clay, a Kentucky suffragist and a delegate, the first such vote for a woman. The second, 3 ballots later, went to another Kentuckihoovian, Cora Wilson Stewart. Ring Lardner gets half a vote from Missouri on one of the ballots.

Warren G. Harding gives his first speech as Republican candidate for president, from his front porch to a crowd of Marionaires, as Wikipedia tells me the residents of Marion, Ohio are styled (the article calls them Marionites). He says government needs “normal men and back to normality” rather than one-man government by “the superman,” a clear insult to Kryptonian-Americans. He also talks about restoring two-party politics. In other words, he’s downplaying his own future role in a very un-Trumpian manner.

The conference in Spa, Belgium, opens and goes badly from the start. The German delegates, including Chancellor Constantin Fehrenbach, want to discuss economic matters (reparations) before moving on to disarmament, and just to make sure of that they didn’t bring along the defense minister or the military chief. The Allies, especially France, tell them that disarmament must come first and end the session abruptly, telling them to come back tomorrow with those personages. There is some talk that French PM Alexandre Millerand was tricked, that in conceding that there be negotiations with Germany, rather than ultimatums as has been the policy until now, he accepted the possibility of a revision of the terms of the Versailles Treaty.

Black postal clerk James Spencer, who stabbed a white fellow worker on a mail car in Mississippi, is lynched.

Hungary’s minister of education orders high schools to limit Jewish students to 25% of total students, down from the current 50%.

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Today -100: July 5, 1920: Of mutinies, bryans, and train wrecks

A battalion of the Irish Connaught Rangers stationed in the Punjab mutinies after receiving the news from Ireland.

Former three-time Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan names 9 people he’d be willing to support for the nomination. None of them are actually running. He says any candidate must be Dry, a supporter of women’s suffrage, and against Wall Street.

Assistant Navy Secretary Franklin Roosevelt, in the New York delegation, is supporting McAdoo against very strong Tammany opposition, although over the course of 22 ballots he has also voted for Cox and Amb. John Davis. He’s trying to avoid offending any side which might oppose him running for the US Senate in November.

19 people are killed in a train wreck in Pittston, Pennsylvania, evidently caused by lightning.

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Today -100: July 4, 1920: And went there up from the San Francisco Civic Auditorium a chant of “We want Cox!”

The Democratic National Convention holds ballots 3 to 22. There is a more or less steady “drift to Cox” (if your drift to Cox lasts longer than four hours, consult a physician), passing McAdoo on the 12th ballot, but no one is getting close to the necessary 2/3. Vice President Whatsisname drops out after the 15th ballot. Delegates who’d hoped to go home by now realize they’ll still be here Monday (no convention on Sunday). Various telegrams are sent to the White House asking Pres. Wilson to help break the impasse, but response comes there none.

New York City Board of Education President Anning Prall tells the Rotary Club that “Americanizing” the children of immigrants isn’t enough, there needs to be compulsory Americanization of adults as well.

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Today -100: July 3, 1920: Don’t eat the dynamite

The Democratic National Convention’s first two ballots are both led by William Gibbs McAdoo, followed by A. Mitchell Palmer, James Cox, and Al Smith. No one’s even close to 2/3 at this stage. There were 21 candidates, some of whom got just half a vote, which has to be embarrassing.

The closed-door-produced, avoid-all-controversies platform is adopted by the convention, with all amendments voted down.

The Allies decide that Germany owes £6 billion in reparations (plus interest), to be paid at £150 million per year for 5 years, then increasing to £250 million. Now the Allies are squabbling over the division of that money. Italy wants 20%, which is ridiculous.

The Belgian parliament votes down women’s suffrage.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: July 2, 1920: There is no law, no order, and there is no punishment for crime

The Democratic convention is running behind schedule, thanks to booze. That is, battles over the prohibition issue are delaying the behind-closed-doors working out of the party platform, while the delegates on the floor amuse themselves singing “Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny” and “I Love You California,” which unlike the former has no racist lyrics at all, and then another few dozen songs before realizing that they’re not going to get any actual work done. At 4 a.m. the Resolutions Committee decides to make no mention of prohibition either way. William Jennings Bryan plans to have a floor fight on the subject. Decisions were also made for a weak-tea expression of “sympathy” for Ireland; to oppose cash bonuses for war veterans, described as putting “patriotism on a pecuniary basis”; for ratifying the League of Nations covenant without reservations; for rejecting Pres. Wilson’s hope for acceptance of a mandate over Armenia; and against establishing a Dept. of Education.

Some more presidential candidates are nominated: Sen. F.M. Simmons of NC, Sen. Carter Glass of Virginia, Amb. John Davis, and Francis Burton Harrison, the governor-general of the Philippines.

New York Gov. Al Smith “went to a leather store to buy sets of pony harness for his children”. Going into a leather store to buy a pony harness probably meant something very different in the San Francisco of 1920 than it does today. Probably.

McAdoo keeps refusing to answer reporters asking if he’d accept the nomination.

Sen. Harding meets Vermont Gov. Percival Clement and maybe persuades him to call a special session of the Legislature to vote on the federal women’s suffrage Amendment (which Clement personally opposes), although this is more hinted at than stated.

The self-styled Irish Parliament sets up a court system. The official British court system is having a little problem: none of the accused are showing up in court. The Lord Justice complains, “There is no law, no order, and there is no punishment for crime.”

China expresses regret that one of its warlords killed an American missionary.

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Today -100: July 1, 1920: We know that this is a convention in the open

10 candidates for president are nominated at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco: Gov. James Cox of Ohio, Gov. Al Smith of NY, William Gibbs McAdoo (who asked that his name not be put to the convention and went to bed before he was nominated anyway; his supporters give assurances that he’s willing to be drafted), Gov. Edward Edwards of NJ, Attorney Gen. A. Mitchell Palmer, Ag Sec Edwin Meredith, Sen. Gilbert Hitchcock (Neb.), Sen. Robert Owen (Oklahoma), James Gerard, and Homer Cummings. There will be more nominating speeches for yet more candidates tomorrow. Assistant Navy Secretary Franklin Roosevelt, seconding Al Smith’s nomination, says “We know he has been a governor in the open. We know that this is a convention in the open. We know that the nomination at this convention will not be made at 2 a.m. in a hotel room.”

The July issue of Pictorial Review begins serializing Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence.

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Today -100: June 30, 1920: I am here for the homes of this land and the children of this land

After the failure of his presidential bid, Frank Lowden announces that he won’t run for re-election as governor of Illinois either. He says governors (and presidents) should only serve a single term.

The Democratic National Convention votes that the DNC will consist of one man and one woman from each state.

And the Resolutions Committee votes down a Wet plank, in secret session. William Jennings Bryan demands to know who Theodore Bell, a former member of Congress who had just given an anti-prohibition speech, “represents.” Bell says the grape growers of California, and who does Mr Bryan represent? “I am here as a Democrat,” the Great Commoner replies; “I am here for the homes of this land and the children of this land, whom your damnable traffic would slay.”

There’s also a loud debate over whether to have a plank supporting the Irish people, with some claiming it’s an internal matter for Britain and that such a declaration would lead inevitably to war with Britain and wouldn’t we resent it if Britain recognized the Philippines’ independence?

There is, in fact, a Filipino delegate, J.P. Melencia, who pleads, “his eyes shining like shoe-buttons, his white teeth gleaming,” for independence.

There’s no smoking allowed in the Convention, and women delegates are supposed to remove their hats “in compliance with state law.”

McAdoo is still the leading candidate, despite supposedly not even being in the race. What say you about that, William G?

The British are using planes to search for Brig. Gen. Cuthbert Henry Tindall Lucas, kidnapped by Sinn Féin two days ago.

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Today -100: June 29, 1920: I wasn’t expecting an FDR fistfight today, but here we are

British soldiers run riot in Fermoy, County Cork at midnight in revenge for the kidnapping of Gen. Cuthbert Lucas, breaking shop windows and vandalizing their contents.

New York (or at least Tammany) delegates to the Democratic convention refuse to join in a procession in honor of Woodrow Wilson until Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt beats them up and takes the state standard.

The NYT, having learned nothing from the Republican convention, says that Gov. Cox is out of the race and McAdoo will probably win. Or possibly Vice President Whatsisname as a dark horse. There are 21 presidential candidates in all.

McAdoo supporters have buttons reading “Mac’ll do.”

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