Today -100: October 10, 1920: They have grievances, but so have we all

Harding complains that while the US was attempting to impose altruism on the world, Britain gobbled up 80% of the world’s known oil reserves.

The commission in charge of building the (as yet unnamed) Holland Tunnel, ground for which will be broken Tuesday, says they’ve worked out the problem of ventilation, probably. This will be the first vehicular tunnel built for motor vehicles rather than trains.

In a speech in Carnarvon, Wales, British Prime Minister Lloyd George says Sinn Féin crime will be suppressed by “stern methods.” He says “police and soldiers do not go burning houses and shooting men down wantonly, without
provocation”. It is “all very well for people who are sitting comfortably at home here” to “pompously criticise” police in Ireland “about outrages and discipline when they are defending themselves.” He explains that when Sinn Féin don’t wear uniforms, and witnesses are unwilling to come forward, the police, when they, say, shoot fleeing suspects in the back, are “defending themselves.” “And that is what they call reprisals.” He is asking the country to “reserve its judgement about the men who in great difficulties have shown infinite restraint, and not to think that they are mere murderers wandering about Ireland and shooting innocent civilians.” And burning down whole towns, don’t forget about that, Dave.

He says some people want to go beyond the Home Rule Bills that Gladstone in the 1880s and Asquith in the 1910s thought “safe,” noting that these measures no longer satisfy the Irish people. He asks if it is necessary to satisfy Ireland in “an angry mood, which I think will pass... when it has that sulky disposition which we all have now and then” [ed.: wow]. He says even if Ireland were given independence, it would just want more, like the inclusion of Northen Ireland. And Ulster wouldn’t tolerate an independent state to its south, so there’d be civil war. And if Ireland were independent and had an army headed by the likes of Michael Collins, Britain would have to maintain a large army, which would mean conscription. And Ireland could side with Britain’s enemy in “our next war.” “What a chance you are asked to take to trust the destinies of Britain and the empire to a people who are apt to get fits of passion that sweep away all reason and make them swing violently from one extreme to another... They have grievances, but so have we all.” Irish Nationalist newspapers call this speech a declaration of war on Ireland.

Bombs blow up Cork City Hall.

Vice presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt flies to Kansas City for a campaign speech in an aeroplane, which is probably some sort of first.

King Alexander of Greece is feeling not at all well after that monkey bite.

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Today -100: October 9, 1920: Of dangerous propositions, ethnic cleansing, and reapportionment

Harding calls the League of Nations Covenant’s Article X “the most dangerous proposition ever presented to the American people.” His new tagline is that you can have the Covenant or the Constitution. And while he’s admitting that the claim that the League could vote the US into a war without congressional approval is false, the US would be morally obligated, or something.

Hungary orders the expulsion of all Jews who have arrived in the country since 1914. There have been recent reports of anti-Semitic violence, some of it by the military.

Now that the census report is out, Congress has to decide whether to increase the size of the House of Representatives by 50 in line with population growth, which was past practice but is beginning to seem a bit much, keep it at 435 with more residents per rep, or even reduce it to 300. No one’s suggesting the thing that will actually happen.

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Today -100: October 8, 1920: The world is ready to recognize our moral leadership

The 1920 census is out. The US population is 105,683,108, up 14.9% from 1910. This doesn’t include the colonies (Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, the Panama Canal zone, etc). New York State leads with more than 10 million, followed by Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio. Nevada is least populous, with under 100,000. For the first time, more people live in urban than rural areas (urban defined as 2,500 or more).

Answering questions in Des Moines, Harding clarifies, or not, his stance on the League of Nations: “I do not want to clarify these obligations. I want to turn my back on them. It is not interpretation, but rejection, that I am seeking.” He says staying out of the League wouldn’t mean lessening US influence in the world: “We stand almost alone among the great nations in our disinterested relation to the problems of the world. Because of this the world is ready to recognize our moral leadership.” He says he will create “an association of nations for the promotion of international peace” which will allow the US complete freedom of action. Presumably every nation in the world would have to agree to drop out of the League and join this thing. Asked about Ireland, he says he wouldn’t tell Britain what to do in its internal affairs any more than he’d let Britain tell the US what to do with the Philippines.

Dublin Castle issues a list of “offenses” carried out in Ireland since the start of 1920, including 16 soldiers and 109 police killed, 63 court houses and 504 police barracks destroyed, etc. It notes that very few of those responsible are arrested. “In this fact might be found the motive for reprisals,” it says, almost as if the purpose in compiling this list was to justify Black and Tan terrorism

Alma Simpson, whoever that is, gives a concert in Carnegie Hall, singing “not too clearly, in half a dozen tongues,” including some Brahms and Schumann, the first time German has been sung in concert in New York since the war.

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Today -100: October 7, 1920: The roof of the house was off

Russia and Poland sign an armistice.

And Russia and Finland agree a peace treaty.

B.J. Jones, the black chairman of the Columbia County Republican Club of Florida, who has been encouraging black women to vote, is kidnapped from his bed, a noose put around his neck, and driven some miles, where he is let go. Presumably this is intended as intimidation rather than actual attempted murder.

Former British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith has been talking about offering Ireland “Dominion home rule.” Current Prime Minister David Lloyd George says Asquith refuses to explain what that even means. LG is particularly keen that Ireland never be allowed an army. Or control over taxation.

The mayor of Wexford in County, um, Wexford, Ireland, Richard Corish, is arrested.

An airplane lands at night in Long Island, using magnesium flares and “torches such as are used on Fourth of July” reflecting off mirrors on the underside of the wing to illuminate the landing strip. So planes can safely land at night for the first time, yay.

During the Democratic convention in San Francisco, orders were given for 40 barrels of whiskey and gin to be released from warehouses for the use of the delegates. The city health officer signed off. Supervisor (and acting mayor) Ralph McLeran (a Republican) says everyone knew about it. “The roof of the house was off, and San Francisco was entertaining in the San-Francisco-knows-how way.”

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Today -100: October 6, 1920: Of lynchings, occupations, and dynamite

Four black men accused of killing a white farmer are taken from the county jail in MacClenny, Florida and lynched.

The Commander-General of the Marine Corps, Gen. John Lejeune, insists that Haitians like being occupied and just love them some marines.

The Justice Dept rules out Florean Zelenska as the Wall Street Bomber. But he will be charged for taking dynamite across state lines.

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Today -100: October 5, 1920: Of equality and anschlusses

The Workmen’s Independent League sends questions to Harding, including whether, as propaganda circulating among negroes asserts, he gave them a pledge of absolute social equality between the races in Ohio, with blacks able to enter any place whites can.

On Oct. 1st (unreported until now, I think), the Austrian National Assembly voted for a motion for a plebiscite on union with Germany, to be held within 6 weeks. France says hell no.

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Today -100: October 4, 1920: Of pocket dynamite, gross ignorance and impudent audacity, and roads

The feds arrest a suspect in the Wall Street bombing, one Florean Zelenska. Caught with dynamite caps and fuses, the Brooklyn resident claims to be a miner tho’ “His hands... are soft as a woman’s.” He’ll turn out to be some weirdo who liked to carry bits of dynamite in his pockets and bring them out to impress dates. As you do.

Woodrow Wilson finally joins the campaign with an address to the American people about the election, which he calls “a genuine national referendum” on “Do you want your country’s honor vindicated and the Treaty of Versailles ratified?” and, of course, the League of Nations. He fails to mention Gov. Cox at all. He says the people have been “grossly misled” by the opponents of the League (should he not have said that those opponents attempted to mislead? Wilson is such a condescending ass). He accuses the anti-Leaguers of “gross ignorance and impudent audacity” – impudent audacity is the worst kind – “which have led them to attempt to invent an ‘Americanism’ of their own, which has no foundation whatever in any of the authentic traditions of the Government. Americanism, as they conceive it, reverses the whole process of last few tragical years. It would substitute America for Prussia in the policy of isolation and defiant segregation. Their conception of the dignity of the nation and its interest is that we should stand apart and watch for opportunities to advance our own interests, involve ourselves in no responsibility for the maintenance of the right in the world or for the continued vindication of any of the things for which we entered the war to fight.” Blah blah light of the world blah blah subordinate role in the affairs of the world...

H.G. Wells is visiting Russia (there will be a book). He meets Gorky, he will meet Lenin. He says “Your road is toward communism; ours is toward collectivism.”

Lenin, who does not believe in different “roads,” orders the Italian Socialist Party to expel moderate leaders, adhere to all the articles of the Third Internationale. The Executive votes to comply.

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Today -100: October 3, 1920: Of sitting down with the Senate, hecklers, and weak war beer

In Kansas City, Cox says Ireland will soon be independent, and as president he would bring the matter before the League of Nations. He denies what some people have been saying, that Article X of the Covenant would require the US to help Britain put down Irish rebellion (it really wouldn’t) (that said, it’s far from clear that the League has any jurisdiction while Ireland is still part of the UK). Cox says he would “sit down with the Senate” and work out any necessary reservations to the Peace Treaty.

A man arrested at Warren Harding’s campaign meeting in Baltimore for trying to ask a question about the League of Nations sues Republican officials and the cops for $100,000. To be fair to Harding, he did invite the man onto the stage, but the cops grabbed him as he was making his way forward.

Beverage of the Day -100: 

Weak war beer is the worst kind of war beer.

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Today -100: October 2, 1920: Of hit lists & reprisals, non-murder societies, and monkeys

The fiercest anti-Leaguers, William Borah and Hiram Johnson, will no longer campaign for Warren Harding (but when did they ever?), thinking he might join the League with reservations. Borah cancels speeches scheduled under RNC auspices but will campaign for Senate candidates who also hate the League.

Arthur Griffith, founder of Sinn Féin, shows the press various captured secret government documents showing that reprisals such as the sack of Balbriggan were not done by a few bad black-and-tan apples but on government orders. Other documents reveal a plan to assassinate moderate SF leaders, including Griffith, and blame it on radical Féiners (which is exactly what was done with the Lord Mayor of Cork Tomás MacCurtain in March, so it’s very much not implausible).

The Chief Secretary for Ireland, Sir Hamar Greenwood, warns the Royal Irish Constabulary against reprisals, buuuuuut goes on to justify and downplay them, talking about the number of cops killed (over 100 now) and saying newspapers “frequently misrepresent cases of justifiable self-defense as reprisals”. Fake news, to coin a phrase.

Black and Tans attack Tubbercurry, County Sligo after a cop is killed there, throwing bombs and setting fire to the town.

Sinn Féin publishes a list of 269 soldiers and police they have captured but then released unharmed (and disarmed), proving that SF is, in their words, “not a huge murder society.”

Harding proposes the establishment of a new federal Department of Public Welfare.

A federal grand jury indicts Charles Ponzi on 86 counts of using the mails for fraud.

King Alexander of Greece is bitten by a monkey.

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Today -100: October 1, 1920: Of appeals to racial bigotry and friendly association

Gov. James Cox enunciates a list of reasons veterans should vote for Democrats, mostly about the League, but point 7 is: “Because the Democratic candidates despise to appeal to racial bigotry.” Not sure what he’s accusing the R’s of, but has he ever met a Southern Democrat? Or heard himself on Japanese immigration? Don’t despise to appeal to racial bigotry, hah!

A couple of days back, FDR publicly asked Harding what his stand was on the League of Nations. Harding responded “I will never favor any alliance, league or compact that can impose its will by its vote on the people of the United States. I will favor friendly association and conference of the peoples of the world.” FDR simplifies the question to a more specific version that will be harder for Harding to tapdance around (and no, “Harder for Harding” was not a 1920 campaign slogan). But FDR doesn’t think Harding can answer without losing the support of either Hiram Johnson and the anti-Leaguers or Taft and the pro-Leaguers.

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Today -100: September 30, 1920: It is not coercion

The White House has to admit that Pres. Wilson is not as recovered as they’ve been claiming, in order to explain why he won’t be making any speeches for Cox.

A German ambassador arrives in Paris, re-establishing diplomatic relations.

Harding’s train jumps the track in West Virginia.

A placard in Drogheda, Ireland warns that if any cop is shot, 5 Sinn Féiners will be shot. “It is not coercion. It is an eye for an eye.”

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Today -100: September 29, 1920: Of semi-official lynch law, eight men out, and something else for Samuel L. Jackson to have had it with

Sinn Féiners raid an army barracks at Mallow, County Cork and seize a large quantity of arms. Later, the town is burned, presumably by Black and Tans, although the article is short on details. A curfew prevents the Cork fire brigade coming to help put out the fire. The Black and Tan state terrorism is being denounced in English papers, the Times deploring “semi-official lynch law.” The Chief Secretary for Ireland, Sir Hamar Greenwood denies that “the Government  connives at or supports reprisals.” The government totally connives at and supports reprisals. He also says there have only been a few reprisals and the damage done during them has been exaggerated.

The Cox campaign has been begging Woodrow Wilson to help, and WW has finally decided to... write some letters. Not about Cox. About the League of Nations.

8 players in the Chicago White Sox (7 still on the team) are indicted for fixing the 1919 World Series. Owner Charles Comiskey suspends the 7, so the team probably won’t be winning the pennant this year after all. The Yankees’ owners offer Comiskey the use of their players, but that would be against the rules. Two of the players have already admitted their guilt to the Grand Jury and implicated the others.

The annual (and possibly only) convention of the Industrial and Commercial Council of People of African Descent hears that there are negroes ready to take over agricultural work in California if/when Asians are barred.

Inventor Parker Bradley demonstrates a fireproof airplane. Fireworks were set off... inside the plane while it was flying?

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Today -100: September 28, 1920: Just a little trim

After a police barracks in Trim, County Meath (pop. 1,500) is burned by Sinn Féin fighters and its weapons seized, Black and Tans burn down 40 houses, the town hall, and many shops, and generally shoot up the place.

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Today -100: September 27, 1920: Of brewers, retaliation, and duels

Gov. James Cox accuses the Anti-Saloon League’s general counsel, the alliterative Wayne Wheeler, of being “a mere chattel of Republican headquarters.” Wheeler sent questions to both candidates, but... they were not the same questions. Harding is blandly asked if he stands by his votes in the Senate, while Cox is asked the trickier question of what he’d do if the Volstead Act were amended. Cox also accuses Harding of being a “brewer” (he invested in a local Marion brewery years ago).

The killing of a cop on the Falls Road in Belfast is followed, as was the custom, by the murder of civilians by death squads.

Many dead in student riots against Japanese rule in Korea.

Greenwich Village portrait photographer Nickolas Muray and artist Jacques La Salle were supposed to fight a duel (over what is not disclosed), at the site of the Burr-Hamilton duel no less, but it is called off when their seconds forget, or possibly “forget,” to bring the rapiers. I don’t know anything about La Salle except that he was probably pretty lucky, since Muray claims to have fought several previous duels and will fence at two future Olympics (and indeed have heart attacks while fencing in 1961 and 1965, the latter fatal).

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Today -100: September 26, 1920: Of flying kings, farms, nervous derangements, puzzling hunger strikers, and traveling men

Headline of the Day -100 or Possibly an Animated Film With Patton Oswalt Coming Out in a Year or Two: 

He even flies over Vatican City, the first time he has laid eyes on it. He could even see the pope.

Financier/philanthropist Jacob H. Schiff dies. Big in Jewish immigration charities.

Cox accuses Harding of having adopted his current position of total opposition to the League of Nations, reservations or no reservations, in a deal with Hiram Johnson for the latter’s support in the West. Cox will keep demanding to see the letter supposedly setting out this deal. To be fair, Harding’s position on the League has changed with every gentle breeze.

Asked by an audience member about bonuses for soldiers, Cox says he knows something better: “giving every one of the soldier boys who desires it a home and a farm.” Because everyone wants a fucking farm and everyone hates cash.

French former president Paul Deschanel checks into “a sanatorium for nervous derangement” (one of Napoleon’s old châteaus, in fact), where the NYT thinks he will likely be confined until he dies. In fact, he’ll be sent to a different sanatorium for nervous derangement, the French Senate, in January. The Times can now drop its previous discretion and reveal that since becoming president a few months ago, Deschanel has suffered from persecution mania, believing there is a conspiracy against him. Imagine what it would be like to have a president like that. Just imagine it. The first clue that something might be wrong was that he kept doing things like walking into canals and falling out of moving trains. Also the occasional public nudity.

Headline of the Day -100:  

46 days; the doctors think they should be dead by now.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: September 25, 1920: Of treaties, lynching lynches, sextraditions, and thrift

The Jones Merchant Marine Act passed in early June gave Pres. Wilson 90 days to inform foreign nations that the US was ending every treaty provision restricting the US from imposing discriminatory shipping rates and customs duties on imports. He refuses to do so, saying the law is unconstitutional, which it is.

John Lynch, a Sinn Féin member of the Limerick County Council, is murdered in the Royal Exchange Hotel in Dublin by a military death squad. The Dublin Corporation orders the coroner to hold an inquest, but Gen. Macready orders him not to.

Georges Leygues is selected as the new French prime minister (and foreign minister).

Headline of the Day -100: 

The sextradition was an obscure early-twentieth-century legal procedure.

Harding has a solution to the high cost of living: thrift. Also tariffs.

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Today -100: September 24, 1920: Of world serieses, sacks, and internal matters

As the “Black Sox” investigation continues, rumors say the Chicago White Sox won’t dare cross the gamblers by winning this year’s World Series (the Sox are doing well this year).

The French National Assembly elects Alexandre Millerand president.

As British authorities claim to be reestablishing discipline in its security forces in Ireland after the Sack of Balbriggan, three more towns are sacked. Cops burn houses and shoot people. And Gen. Sir Nevil Macready, commander of the military forces in Ireland, says more such reprisals may be necessary if IRA guerilla warfare continues.

Harding says the US should officially shut up about Ireland, which is an internal matter for Britain. The Senate vote of sympathy for Irish aspirations during the Paris peace talks last year is as far as he thinks the US can go (he doesn’t mention that he voted against it). It’s also none of the League of Nations’s business, he says.

Cox says Republican agents are going around the country in advance of Cox’s campaign tour,  telling newspaper editors not to print news of his events and providing them embarrassing questions to ask Cox (such as Hey, aren’t you totally controlled by the liquor interests?).

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Today -100: September 23, 1920: Of trains, squares, and un-American elements

Gov. Cox’s train derails in Arizona. No one is killed.

Assistant (Illinois) State’s Attorney Hartley Replogle tells the Grand Jury that the 1919 World Series was “not on the square.”

FDR accuses Republicans of appealing to “the hyphenated vote” and “seeking the support of un-American elements in the electorate” and people who put other countries’ interests (he specifically names Italy) ahead of those of the US. Harding’s attacks on the League of Nations are evidently a sign of this.

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Today -100: September 22, 1920: We are training our youth to recognize the evils of that race, which we do not detest, but which we will not endure

Headline of the Day -100: 

This is the Sack of Balbriggan and I believe the first time the NYT uses the term “Black and Tans” – the auxiliary police brought in to terrorize Ireland into submission. 150 of them destroy a town 22 miles from Dublin in revenge for a couple of cops killed outside a pub there earlier in the day. Dozens of homes, as well as factories and pubs, are burned, and two people shot and bayoneted to death, probably after being tortured to reveal the names of local Sinn Féin leaders. The B&T’s then leave, singing “Boys of the Bulldog Breed.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

University of California (i.e., Berkeley) President David Prescott Barrows gives an interview supporting California banning Asians from owning or renting land: “The doom of the United States is the possession of this region by Orientals”. He asks for the rest of the country to understand that California is on the racial front line. “[I]n order that America may lead we are training our youth to recognize the evils of that race, which we do not detest, but which we will not endure.”

And yes, UC Berkeley students are currently trying to get Barrows Hall “denamed,” mostly based on his History of the Philippines (1905), which says “the history of the black, or negro, race begins only with the exploration of Africa by the white race, and the history of the American Indians, except perhaps of those of Peru and Mexico, begins only with the white man’s conquest of America.”

Democratic presidential candidate James Cox, speaking in Long Beach, says he’d let California lead in forming national policy on the immigration of the Oriental races.

Police stop a crowd trying to lynch a black man who mugged a white woman for her purse, containing $5. In New York City, no less.

Poet-aviator-duce Gabriele d’Annunzio names his cabinet for the Italian Regency of Quarnero (Fiume). He will also be foreign minister. Fiume is celebrating its independence in the traditional manner, with an outbreak of bubonic plague.

The New York State Assembly again ousts 3 of the elected and re-elected Socialist members, but not the other two, who nevertheless resign, denouncing the Assembly as “un-American.”

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Today -100: September 21, 1920: Of women’s ages, occupations, black socks, and stupendous frauds

The Maine Supreme Court rules that women don’t have to reveal their ages (if 21 or older) to register to vote.

Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby defends the US invasion of Haiti in 1915 and subsequent occupation, which Harding is criticizing in order to undermine FDR.  Evidently it’s all been done for the benefit of the Haitian people and with their permission and will end soon (Spoiler Alert: 1934). And he denies handing over Haitian finances to the National City Bank of New York.

Speaking of that benevolent occupation, the US tells Haiti’s president, cabinet secretaries, state councillors etc that their salaries, which have been withheld since June, won’t resume until they show a less antagonistic attitude towards their American masters. Which I believe would be shown by agreeing to turn over the Bank of Haiti to the National City Bank of New York.

A grand jury in Chicago will investigate gambling in the 1919 World Series.

Harding calls the League of Nations a “stupendous fraud.” Stupendous frauds are the worst kind of frauds. He says the League has a dozen ambiguities in it, while the US Constitution had only one and one that led to the Civil War (whether or not states could secede). That is the oddest explanation of the origin of the Civil War I’ve ever heard – it was all because of... a loophole?

French Prime Minister Alexandre Millerand gives in to the pressure to take over the presidency from Deschanel. He really didn’t want to take the largely ceremonial position.

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