Today -100: December 20, 1920: Of considerable confusion, population explosions, and unknown bodies of men

When the order of Daniel Cohalan, bishop of Cork, excommunicating anyone guilty of murder, ambush or kidnapping, is read out in St. Fibar’s South Church in Cork, “a majority of the congregation left the church amid considerable confusion.”

The military commander in the Kerry district says IRA prisoners will be used as human shields on army transports.

Prof. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins predicts the US population will reach 197 million by the year 2100, which is the absolute maximum the continent can support.

A Jacksonville, Florida real estate guy, John Bischoff, is tarred and feathered by “an unknown body of men” (my guess: Ku Klux Klan) after writing to a local paper complaining about its anti-German editorial policy.

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Today -100: December 19, 1920: Of searches, mandates, bandit-on-bandit banditry, outposts of white civilization, and isolated incidents

The German army begins searching every house in Germany for arms, per the Versailles Treaty.

The first Assembly of the League of Nations adjourns until next September. The Council has decisively won every power struggle with the Assembly, so fuck you, small countries. The Assembly passes an act that countries holding mandates are not allowed to raise troops or exploit them. Balfour responds that Britain intends to do whatever it wants in the mandates no matter what the Assembly votes now or in the future.

Pancho Villa, retired from the rebel business, asks the government to protect him from the bandits who keep stealing his horses.

California Gov. William Stephens asks congresscritters from the West Coast to support California’s racist anti-alien land laws, saying the West is “the outpost of white civilization and must stand as a unit to resist the encroachment of the Japanese and other Oriental races.”

The US Navy Court of Inquiry into the killings of Haitians by US Marines finds, totally believably, that there were only two “isolated acts” and the marines involved in them were punished. It also finds that the invading Americans were greeted as liberators etc. Harding repeated the accusation of indiscriminate killings during the campaign, so he and the military may be off to a rocky start.

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Today -100: December 18, 1920: When is he coming?

Headline of the Day -100:  

But he won’t say what it is. He did just have lunch with William Jennings Bryan, though, and Bryan is pushing a plan for countries to agree to hold referenda before going to war.

House Republicans decide that reapportionment should increase the size of the House of Representatives to 483. This would mean no state would lose a seat, while 25 would gain (5 for California, 4 NY, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, etc). Naturally, this plan would mostly benefit Republicans. The caucus rejects Rep. Tinkham’s move to investigate black voter suppression in the South.

Supposedly, police auxiliaries in Ireland are driving around with the mayor of Kilkenny as a hostage to prevent attacks.

Sidney Catts, the governor of Florida and a reverend, threatens to shoot Big Joe Earman, the editor of the Palm Beach Post, due to the latter’s “tyranny, arrogance and big-stick bossing” (big-stick bossing is the worst kind). “When is he coming?” responds Earman. The paper had taken the reverend governor to task for reinstating a state’s attorney who drank up the evidence against a bootlegger.

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Today -100: December 17, 1920: Of mandates, veeps, race riots, anonymous letter writers, and concentration camps

The League of Nations Council’s big powers refuse to let the Assembly know anything about how they plan to run the former Turkish colonies (Mesopotamia, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine) as mandates. Similar opacity reigns over the mandate system in the former German colonies, with France already planning to break the mandate rules by raising troops in its African mandates and Britain by trying to monopolize oil production in Mesopotamia.

Bulgaria, Finland, Luxembourg and Costa Rica are admitted to the League. Armenia is rejected, as are Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. French rep René Viviani explains that the Covenant calls for mutual defense and who would defend the Baltic states? No one, that’s who.

Calvin Coolidge agrees to sit in the Cabinet. No VP has ever done this before, and Harding had to pressure him into accepting. Also, Coolidge says he doesn’t need an official residence (there wasn’t one until 1974).

The Senate votes for a bill against strikes, which is brought up suddenly without notice when opponents are not on the floor. It outlaws writing or speaking or advising or persuading anyone to engage in a strike in a common carrier that disrupts commerce between states or with foreign countries or threatens strikebreakers.

A race riot in Independence, Kansas has resulted in 2 deaths and several wounded, possibly fatally. It started when a black man held up a grocer. Hundreds of white men then searched the houses of every black family in town looking for him, leading to gun fire from both races.

Notices signed “Ku Klux Klan” appear in Anniston, Alabama, threatening “Reds, undesirables and anonymous letter writers.”

The US orders the deporation of Soviet Russia’s unofficial ambassador to the US Ludwig Martens because he is affiliated with an organization seeking the overthrow of the US government by force and violence. That organization: the Russian government. No one is suggesting Martens did anything bad himself.

The Boston Election Department says women are going to have to re-register if they want to vote next year. This year they were only required to give their age and obviously the Election Department needs to know their height and weight as well.

Headline of the Day -100:  

The British Labour Party commission that investigated conditions in Ireland reports that the burning of Cork was definitely done by Crown forces deliberately targeting valuable properties according to a preconceived plan. Also, the fires were started after Black and Tans forced the Corkonians indoors.

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Today -100: December 16, 1920: The name Wellington Koo will never stop being funny

The League of Nations Assembly elects China to the League Council, which up to now has been exclusively populated by European or North & South American countries. Japan is not best pleased, since this is one step in Wellington Koo’s plan to use the League to lever Shantung out of Japan’s control.

The Assembly votes to admit Austria to the League. France is not best pleased.

Romania is preparing for war with Russia over Bessarabia.

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Today -100: December 15, 1920: That’s a lot of whoops

Argentina says it won’t withdraw from the League of Nations... because it never joined the League of Nations. 

Black and Tans beat up a couple of priests in Cork, one of whom is late Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney’s brother. Evidently a coincidence. They make him kneel and try to force him to write “To hell with the Pope” on the pavement, but they’d neglected to bring writing materials. Meanwhile, MacSwiney’s widow Muriel visits the US Congress.

The Labour MPs (PLP) in Westminster reject Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood’s claim that government forces were not behind the burning of Cork, citing the findings of Labour MPs who visited Cork. They demand a proper independent inquiry, not one by the military. The current lord mayor and the 2 MPs representing Cork call on Corkonians (no, really, that’s what they’re called) to boycott the military inquiry.

Rep. John Small (D-NC) has for years bought a suit of clothes for each new child of constituent R.C. Bland, a farmer. Informed that he’s now on the hook for a 14th kid since this all started, Small says the deal is off when he retires at the end of this session of Congress. Bland, 65, has had 34 kids, 15 by his first wife and 19 by his second, 26 of whom are still living. He says it’s easier to raise children after the first ten, since the older ones help out. One time 14 of the children had whooping cough at once.

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Today -100: December 14, 1920: Of war laws, corks, and immigration pauses

The House of Representatives votes to repeal most of the laws which were enacted for “the duration of the war.”

In Parliament, Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood refuses demands for a civilian investigation of the burning of Cork, because Cork is under military control.  He insists the military couldn’t possibly have been responsible (the Black and Tans were) because they don’t even have incendiary bombs. He also says the military and police actually helped put out the fire (they did not, and shot at firemen and cut fire hoses, which Greenwood denies).

The bishop of Cork says he’ll excommunicate anyone ambushing Crown forces.

The House of Representatives passes an immigration bill banning new immigration for a year (it was originally 2 years, so that’s something, I guess), but letting in siblings of resident aliens.

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Today -100: December 13, 1920: Of arson, big navies, trucking, and African farms

Much of Cork, including the Town Hall, is burned down in retaliation for an ambush in which 3 military police are killed. There’s also looting.

Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels says if the US doesn’t join the League of Nations, it should begin a 3-year program to build 88 new ships. If it does join, the present navy is good enough.

When he leaves office in 3 weeks, NY Gov. Al Smith will join a trucking company as director.

Olive Schreiner, South Africa women suffragist leader and author of The Story of an African Farm (1883) and other novels as well as Woman and Labour (1911), dies at 65.

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Today -100: December 12, 1920: Of disarming, hobos, experimenting in college, and mimetic satirists

The League of Nations disarmament commission agrees to ask members not to increase their military spending in 1922 and 1923 over 1921 levels, but Japan says it can’t reduce its military and naval spending while the US is increasing its.

A police raid in Dublin finds a bomb-making plant in a bicycle repair shop.

At the big hobo convention in Toledo, Ohio, two rival hobo organizations clash, with Gus Gramer, the Grand Dictator of the Social Order of Hoboes, accusing the International Brotherhood Welfare Association of “usurping the rights of the regular hoboes,” but they ultimately resolve their differences. Just what are the rights of regular hobos?

Headline of the Day -100:  

Goucher College in Baltimore.

Enrico Caruso bursts a blood vessel in his throat during Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore. He actually tries to continue singing, but fails. He’ll make a couple more attempts at concerts, but his career is over.

By coincidence, in a Sunday NYT interview with Charlie Chaplin, the “mimetic satirist,” as he calls himself in preference to “clown,” describes having met Caruso once, and it did not go well.

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Today -100: December 11, 1920: Of blockades, unauthorized uniforms, bombs, and is there a doctor in the house

The League of Nations Assembly decides that each nation may decide whether or not to participate in blockades. So the League is now essentially toothless. This is another Big State/Small State conflict, with the big states wanting sole control, through the Council, of when to impose a blockade.

Martial law is declared in Cork, Limerick, Kerry, and Tipperary. Irish people must hand in weapons and “unauthorized uniforms” or face the firing squad. But Lloyd George offers safe passage to London to any Sinn Féin MPs whom he does not deem criminals.

Someone throws a bomb at the Romanian Senate, killing a senator, a bishop/senator, and the justice minister, and wounding others. The government will use this as an excuse to arrest every communist they can find.

Federal prohibition enforcement agent Benson Laverty is sentenced to 18 months for extortion. Laverty says he was drunk at the time he took $200 from the owner of a road house in Queens, which may not be the defense he thinks it is.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: December 10, 1920: Ireland has always wished for peace, but Ireland is not the aggressor

Huh. The NYT only finds out about the Treaty of Alexandropol between Armenia and Atatürk’s renegade Turkish nationalist forces more than a week after it’s signed. Armenia gives up more than half its territory.

Bulgaria will join the League of Nations, despite being on the Wrong Side of the war.

Five men are executed at Sing Sing in a sing-single day, “one of the most trying days the prison officials have ever endured.” I hope the prisoners apologized for putting them through such a trying day. Two were insane and/or of “feeble mentality.”

In a letter to the Irish Bulletin, Michael Collins says that in the absence of Sinn Féin leaders De Valera (in the US) and Griffith (in prison), others “rush in to talk of a truce and willingness to have peace. Ireland has always wished for peace, but Ireland is not the aggressor. Her acts of force are acts of self-defense.”

Three “gangsters” accused of murdering a sheriff and a couple of detectives are lynched in Santa Rosa, California.

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Today -100: December 9, 1920: Of occupations, periods of quiet, bootleg evils, women students, and disarmament

The British military evicts Dublin city government departments (treasury, public health, etc) from their buildings to use them as officers’ barracks. Subtle.

Britain blocks the Villard Committee, a US group investigating conditions in Ireland, from sending investigators there. The British Embassy says the truth about those conditions can’t be established until after the Irish insurgency has been crushed and there’s been “a period of quiet.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

Cambridge University rejects allowing women students equal admission, with degrees and everything. They’ll have to wait until 1948.

The Greek government asks Constantine to abdicate the throne he doesn’t currently occupy in favor of the crown prince.

In Massachusetts elections this week, all women candidates for local office failed.

Woodrow Wilson declines the League of Nations’s offer for him to send a representative to its disarmament commission because, he points out, the US is not a member of the League of Nations.

Ohio Gov. Cox offers, if Harding wants to leave the Senate now and get on with president-electing, to replace him with a Republican, former Governor Frank Willis, who is senator-elect for the other seat. Harding says he wants to talk to Willis first. Also, Willis’s father is dying, so maybe not the best time.

Also dying: Augusta Victoria, the former kaiserin of Germany (i.e., Wilhelm’s missus). The Reichstag is discussing whether or not to pass a sympathy resolution when she does. The Socialists are opposed.

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Today -100: December 8, 1920: I thank no one for refraining from murdering me

Woodrow Wilson’s last State of the Union Address calls for Philippines independence, a loan to Armenia, tax reform, federal licensing of corporations engaged in interstate commerce, and rehabilitation and training for disabled vets, but nothing about the Peace Treaty (it’s still unknown whether he intends to re-submit it to the Senate).

Warren G. Harding leaves his card at the White House.

Several members of Dublin city council, supposedly IRA members, are arrested. From hiding, Michael Collins, head of the IRA, denies reports that an agreement to start peace talks includes a guarantee of his safety. In fact there is no such agreement, he says, and his personal safety “does not matter and does not count as a factor in the question of Ireland’s rights. I thank no one for refraining from murdering me.”

The Jersey City police chief orders all suspicious-looking negroes who are out at night rounded up. There have been no fewer than 3 crimes committed by black people recently “and it has got to stop,” says the chief.

Woodrow Wilson’s getting a Nobel Peace Prize, presumably because he kept us out of war. Wait...

Rep. Isaac Siegel (R-NY) objects to the bill suspending immigration for 2 years having passed through the Immigration Committee without a hearing. He says the bill is the result of Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic propaganda. He wants immigrants “Americanized” from the minute they arrive, and for them to be steered away from the big cities.

A bill in the Philippines Territorial Senate would require the wearing of trousers in public, under penalty of 5 years in prison. The senator proposing it says “The appearance of half-naked pagans is a most shameful exhibition, and is capitalized by the opponents of Philippine independence as demonstrating the incapacity of the Filipinos for self-government.” The government would distribute trousers free.

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Today -100: December 7, 1920: Of oligarchies and censorship

Harding is back in Washington. He visits the Senate to say goodbye (he’s not planning to resign as senator until next month) and give a little farewell speech, in which he says there is no such thing as a “Senatorial oligarchy” (there is totally such a thing as the senatorial oligarchy). Yesterday, he sounded ambivalent about reports that Wilson wanted to meet with him, saying he hadn’t actually received an invitation. Today, Mrs. Harding has tea with Mrs. Wilson at the White House but their husbands do not meet.

I didn’t know that Harding was the first senator elected president.

The Pennsylvania Board of Censors bans movies that glorify crime or make criminals fascinating or alluring.

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Today -100: December 6, 1920: Of lynchings and attempted lynchings, pockets, and kings

A black man is lynched in Holdenville, Oklahoma.

An attempt to storm the Wise, Virginia jail to lynch a black man is thwarted by the sheriff, who has a machine gun mounted on the jail. One of the lynch mob is killed. Good.

The police in Macroom, County Cork, issue a proclamation banning men from appearing in public with their hands in their pockets, on pain of being shot.

The Greek plebiscite massively supports the return of former king Constantine, ousted by the Allies in 1917. The ballot is not secret.

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Today -100: December 5, 1920: Of soviet republics, high heels, and moonshiners

Russian troops capture Armenia’s capital Yerevan. Armenia is now a Soviet Republic.

Argentina withdraws from the League of Nations until its demands are met for restructuring the League to remove the structural dominance by the big states and its status as a Great War victors’ club.

The 19th annual convention of the Massachusetts Osteopathic Society decides to seek a law against high heels.

An “expedition” of Federal prohibition agents into the Kentucky hills results in a major gun battle with moonshiners.

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Today -100: December 4, 1920: Of motorcycles, breeding places of iniquity, elementary duties of civilization, and simple spelling

Headline of the Day -100:  

In response to complaints from Canadian Christian missionaries operating in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Japan says it only burned churches and schools if there was proof positive that they were “breeding places of iniquity.” Also, soldiers had to execute villagers without even a court-martial, but took utmost care to avoid indiscriminate massacres. So that’s okay then. Also, if British missionaries keep supporting Korean malcontents, Japanese Buddhists are entitled to assist anti-British elements in India.

British Prime Minister Lloyd George says his political opponents are using the Irish reprisals as an excuse to attack him and that while “the police are discharging those elementary duties of civilization,” they are entitled to the support of every honest citizen, and Liberals should really be denouncing Sinn Féin.

The announced day for Fiume’s war on Italy to commence has come and gone without any actual war.

The Allies tell Greece, two days before the plebiscite, that if Constantine becomes king again, all financial support will end.

Republican NY Gov.-Elect Warren Miller wants the Socialists elected to the Assembly to be allowed, this time, to take their seats.

The Navy reverses a 1905 order allowing simplified spelling (“thru” for “through,” etc).

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Today -100: December 3, 1920: Of women’s work, champagne, bets, Jewish suffrage, and immigration

Speaker of the House Frederick Gillett offers the sole woman rep, Alice Robertson, the job of running the House restaurant. 

That’s not even slightly subtle, is it?

Countess Constance Markievicz, the first woman elected to the British Parliament, is being tried by court-martial for promoting the murder of police and military in Ireland and inciting disaffection (disaffection in Ireland? unpossible!). They claim when arrested she said she had once murdered English soldiers (presumably during the Easter Rising).

60,000 bottles of champagne are coming from France, authorized by the US government for medicinal purposes.

Britain, France and Italy send Greece a note saying they really don’t want Constantine restored to the throne.

Clarence Burk is joining the army because he lost a bet with his brother that if Cox lost the election, he’d enlist for 3 years. Had Cox won, his brother would have had to join the navy for 4 years.

This may be a rumor: the Hungarian political parties agree to deprive Jews of the vote.

The House Immigration Committee approves a bill to pause immigration for two years except for relatives of aliens currently residing in the US and seeking US citizenship.

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Today -100: December 2, 1920: IT’S WAR!

Headline of the Day -100:  

This is the poet-aviator’s response to Italy ordering the military men who’ve defected to Fiume to return to their units. Italy is also threatening a blockade, and it sounds like they might actually mean it this time. D’Annunzio’s announcement pencils in the start of that war for two days later. What sort of monster starts a war on a Friday?

Former kaiser Wilhelm demands one billion marks, which is the equivalent of some money, in compensation for the loss of lands, his civil list allowance, and an art gallery. Some of those properties actually belong to the Prussian/German state.

General Alvaro Obregón is sworn in as president of Mexico, using his left hand because he lost part of his right arm, shot off or something, which will naturally lead to a debate over whether that even counts.

Philippines Governor-General Burton Harrison says the Philippines are ready for independence.

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Today -100: December 1, 1920: Of burnt cork, secret meetings, mediation, and ponzis

Buildings, businesses, and Sinn Féin clubs are being burned in Cork, although two attempts to destroy the City Hall fail. Uniformed men in masks (is that a new thing?) prevent firemen from putting out fires by, you know, shooting at them. Corkahoovians are fleeing the town, while those who stay are showing increasing incidents of heart disease, admission to insane asylums, goiters, and St Virtus dance among children.

There’s a “secret meeting” of 3,000 Irish people, admission by password, at the Central Opera House, New York City. It forms the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic; everyone has to sign a pledge of support or be ejected, although it sounds like only one woman was.

Woodrow Wilson agrees to the League of Nations’s request to mediate between Armenia and Atatürk’s renegade Turkish nationalist forces.

Eugene Chafin, Prohibition Party candidate for president in 1908 and 1912, dies ten days after setting his clothes on fire trying to light a gas heater.

Charles Ponti pleads guilty to using the mails to defraud, and is sentenced to 5 years.

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