Today -100: January 20, 1921: Of daily stars, reapportionment, and independence in any form whatever

Harding will escape the pressures over his Cabinet appointments by going on a 12-day cruise. And he’ll announce the whole Cabinet at the same time, rather than naming Charles Evans Hughes secretary of state early as he’d planned. He says it will be a Republican Cabinet. He resigns as president of the Harding Publishing Company. The Marion Daily Star will just have to get along without him.

The House of Representatives decides not to increase its size to 483 members for reapportionment after all. Where that plan (and districts of 218,979 people) would not have reduced the size any state’s delegation, keeping membership at 435 (242,267 people each) would reduce the delegation of 11 states and increase that of 8 states. Rep. George Tinkham (R-Mass.) proposes to cut representation for the Southern states as called for in a never-used clause of the 14th Amendment because of their suppression of black voting rights This is ruled non-germane although it is totally fucking germane.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Says Manuel Quezon, president of the Philippines Senate.

Speaking of independence in any form whatever, the Philippines Territorial Legislature drops a bill to require men to wear trousers.

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Today -100: January 19, 1921: Of roots, needful repose, constitutional kings, and prosecutors

Republican senators are pressuring Harding not to name Charles Evans Hughes secretary of state, threatening not to work with him. They’d prefer Elihu Root, mostly because they like saying his name out loud over and over – try it, it’s fun – but to be honest they don’t much like him either.

Poet-Aviator-Looooooser Gabriele d’Annunzio leaves Fiume, anticlimactically, in a simple automobile. He is going to Switzerland for “desired solitude and needful repose”. Italy’s blockade of Fiume has been lifted.

Charles, the former emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is willing to accept a demotion to constitutional king of Hungary, although he seems to be conditioning that on his being (re-)coronated between June and September, which is crowning season, I guess.

Cook County (Illinois) State’s Attorney Robert Crowe says in future all women tried in the county will be prosecuted by women deputy prosecutors.

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Today -100: January 18, 1921: Of crown princes, trademark infringements, chefs, and black runners

Congress votes a resolution to reduce the Army to 175,000 (yes, it was supposed to be 150,000 last week) and asks Secretary of War Newton Baker to stop recruiting until it gets down to that level.

Supposedly the Netherlands asks former kaiser Wilhelm and all his family to leave the country, since the crown prince, the Don Jr. of the Hohenzollerns, has been violating the terms of asylum by plotting a coup in Germany. (This will be denied by the Dutch government tomorrow).

Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard William Simmons offers a $100 reward for anyone using the KKK name “in an unlawful manner or in connection with any purpose or movement not sanctioned by law.”

Sing Sing Prison chef Jim Blanche, himself a prisoner, although one with only 3 weeks left in his sentence, quits as death row chef because the inmates just kept complaining (and not tipping)(are they really expected to tip, or was this a joke?), in part because their food always arrives cold from the distant kitchen.

Senate Republicans decide to refuse to convene in any executive session called by Wilson so they don’t have to confirm any nominations he makes. There are thousands pending (I think mostly post office jobs).

Winston Churchill is moved from his post as war minister to colonial secretary. Oddly, he’ll still be Air Minister. I’m not sure why he’s being demoted.

The Harvard varsity track team cancels its planned trip through the South after the University of Virginia and Annapolis cancel meets because the Harvard team has two negroes.

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Today -100: January 17, 1921: Of cabinets, anti-Semitism, Dadaist hoots, and Tibbles the Great

France: Peret couldn’t form a cabinet, so Aristide Briand will. This will be Briand’s 7th time as prime minister (but not the last), because the Third Republic was ridiculous that way.

A protest against anti-Semitic propaganda is signed by, among others, Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, William Jennings Bryan, Jane Addams, Charles Beard, Clarence Darrow, George Creel (who knows something about bullshit propaganda), Robert Frost, and Charles Dana Gibson. No Jews were involved, by design. Harding refused to sign, because it would be a bad precedent and he’d be inundated with memorials, but he says anti-Semitism is narrow, intolerant and un-American.

Arty Headline of the Day -100:  

P. T. Selbit (the stage name of Percy Thomas Tibbles – Selbit is sort of Tibbles spelled backwards) becomes the first magician to saw a woman in half (in public at least), at the Finsbury Park Empire in London. The woman is called Betty Barker, if you can believe it. Christabel Pankhurst turned down the job.

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Today -100: January 16, 1921: Quitter

Mrs Sadie Harrington of Danville, Illinois gives up her hunger strike after 48 days of failing to coerce her husband into joining her church. Except she was probably faking the fast.

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Today -100: January 15, 1921: Of armies, karpovs, hammer & scalpel, missing liquor, and the propeller

The Senate votes to reduce the Army to 150,000, ignoring the pleas of the secretary of war and “Black Jack” Pershing to keep it at at least 200,000. The 34-28 vote cut across party lines.

Gosh, it really was a guy named Karpov who died, not Lenin.

French President Alexandre Millerand chooses Raoul Peret, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, as prime minister. If he can form a cabinet, that is. It’s already going badly. Peret wanted Raymond Poincaré as minister of finance, but Poincaré would only take the post if he had a free hand against Germany on indemnities.

Hungarian dictator Adm. Horthy pardons 4 members of the government he overthrew who had been sentenced to hanging, after a polite reminder from Lenin that Russia still holds Hungarian prisoners with very cuttable throats.

Euphemistic Headline of the Day -100:  

An abortion, they’re talking about an abortion. I never know when I see euphemisms like this what percentage of readers knew what wasn’t being said.

Some of the liquor seized by dry agents in Chicago and stored in a government warehouse is missing. And by some, I mean 400,000 gallons.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Filippo Marinetti has some ideas about dance. The dancer of the Aviator will have gauze wings “which she will keep in a perpetual state of palpitation.” I bet she will, I bet she will. And a propeller on her chest... I don’t think devotees of the fox trot have anything to worry about.

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Today -100: January 14, 1921: The people of Philadelphia need not be afraid to go to bed tomorrow night

A French court orders the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) dissolved because of its failed strike last May to force the government to nationalize the railroads, that is, because it struck for political rather than economic reasons, or, as the judge put it, “a phantasmagoric of revolutionary ideals more or less deceiving and more or less in opposition to the fundamental laws which regulate life and society”.

The NYPD mobilizes, placing guards around churches, public buildings, Grand Central, the homes of prominent men like Rockefeller, etc. Seems to be related to a radical plot to raze Philadelphia...

...Which the Philly police superintendent denies ever existed. “There won’t be any bomb outrages,” he says. “The people of Philadelphia need not be afraid to go to bed tomorrow night.” There was a planned parade of the unemployed at midnight, but it’s been called off.

Russia announces the death of M. Karpov of the Supreme Economic Council. Since no one’s heard of him and Karpov was one of Lenin’s old noms de guerre, obviously it’s actually Lenin who died. Again.

The US census shows that more Americans live in urban areas (generously defined as places with 2,500 or more people) than rural areas for the first time.

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Today -100: January 13, 1921: Of kluxers, prohibition, and reminders of monarchical days

The NYPD have been searching for signs of the Ku Klux Klan in the city for two weeks, but have found none.

The government of Georges Leygues in France falls after less than four months, by a humiliating 463-125 vote in the National Assembly, which thinks he’s not hard enough on the Germans in the ongoing negotiations over indemnities. Leygues was essentially ousted by President Alexandre Millerand, who thinks that the president of the Third Republic should have more power, and the prime minister less. He’s pushing for a tame puppet PM, Charles Dumont. 

New NY Gov. Nathan Miller wants the state and local governments to start enforcing Prohibition.

Headline of the Day -100:  

The minister of interior says monocles are an “affectation and a reminder of the monarchical days.”

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Today -100: January 12, 1921: Of deportations, surrenders, and class antagonism

The State Dept asks the Labor Dept to deport Cork Lord Mayor Donal O’Callaghan, presumably before he has a chance to testify to the Committee of 100.

The Austrian government announces that it gives up, it doesn’t have the resources to continue, and on the 15th will turn over power to the Reparations Commission, whether it wants it or not.

NYC Mayor John Hylan writes the police commissioner, asking him to keep the Ku Klux Klan out of the city: “there is no room in this city for any group which runs counter to law and order and tends to create class antagonism.” The Klan has recently announced plans to expand into the northeast.

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Today -100: January 11, 1921: Of no-frills inaugurations, blondes in sunglasses, affections of the throat, and climbing Everest

The US withdraws from the Council of Ambassadors, starting with a meeting next week to discuss German disarmament and reparations.

Harding wants his inauguration to feature no extravagance. No parade, no ball, nothing but sex with his mistress in every room of the White House, as was the custom.

Dr. R.C. Augustine, president of the American Optometric Association, advises that if your blonde wife or girlfriend is too temperamental, put dark glasses on her. “Blondes are not adapted to this climate. The glaring sunlight irritates their nerves.”

De Valera surfaces, back in Ireland as everyone suspected, to deny British charges that the Irish conspired with Germany in 1918. He says documents displayed in a government White Paper purporting to be written by him are obvious forgeries.

Gabriele d’Annunzio is still in Fiume, busily writing up a report to the Italian Parliament, which didn’t ask for one. He plans a holiday on the Riviera, “in the hope of obtaining relief from an affection of the throat caused by delivering speeches.” I assume that’s a a mistake, but if there’s one thing the poet-aviator-loser suffers from, it’s an affection of the throat. Most of his legionaires have left Fiume, but 550 want to stay because they are engaged to local women.

French Senate elections (it’s like the US Senate, 1/3 of the seats are contested every 3 years for 9-year terms) resulted in a triumph for moderates and a loss for extreme right and left candidates. None of the candidates of the new Communist Party (PCF) won.

Some British people announce plans to climb Mt. Everest. They have permission from the Tibetan government. It’s gonna take a lot of recon work just to figure out paths to get to the mountain.

Edmund Hillary is one and a half years old.

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Today -100: January 10, 1921: Of plots, resignations, and hunger strikes

A meeting between British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Sinn Féin emissary Father O’Flanaghan does not go well. LG insists on the Irish accepting the Home Rule Law. In fact, Sinn Féin is now reconsidering plans to boycott the devolved Irish parliament and instead stand in the elections, inevitably winning most of the seats, and then refusing to take those seats.

Police supposedly capture a Sinn Féin plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament with what sound like RPGs, which hadn’t actually been invented yet.

Warren Harding formally resigns as US senator, effective on the 15th, when a new, Republican, governor of Ohio can appoint his replacement.

OK, I’ve been resisting this story, but there’s a woman in Illinois, Mrs Sadie Harrington of Danville, Illinois, who is on the 41st day of a fast aimed at forcing her husband to convert to the Church of God, give up his poultry business, and become a preacher. He seems pretty adamant about not doing those things.

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Today -100: January 9, 1921: We will go to the limit to keep them out

Newly elected Davenport, Iowa Mayor C.L. Barewald quits the Socialist Party and orders the police to rid the town of Wobblies and radicals: “Load up the riot guns for immediate use and give them a reception with hot lead. We don’t want any Reds here, and we will go to the limit to keep them out.”

There’s an op-ed piece in the NYT about India’s new viceroy, Chief Justice Lord Reading, and the new agitation, “far stronger and more menacing” than previous ones, led by Gandhi, “half saint, half agitator,” who is calling for non-cooperation with local elections and boycott of British goods.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Well, that’s a humorous image...

Well that took a turn, didn’t it?

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Today -100: January 8, 1921: Of evictions

A “committee” of the American Legion, Chamber of Commerce, and assholes in general in Brownsville, Texas meet the train of a Japanese man arriving to take up his farm land, and tell him to fuck off within 48 hours or else. What I want to know is how they always know what train Japanese will be arriving on?

The California State Senate votes 29-0 to ask the federal government to make no treaty with Japan which affects the state’s racist land laws or which allows Japanese to be naturalized. (The Assembly will concur, also unanimously.)

The 7th District Municipal Court of NYC has frequently blocked landlord requests for evictions. Their response: they serve an eviction notice on the 7th District Municipal Court.

Speaking of evictions, Poet-Aviator-Squatter Gabriele d’Annunzio is evidently refusing to leave Fiume, at least until after he writes a history of his Fiumian adventure. 

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Today -100: January 7, 1921: This everlasting standing on one’s guard spoils a man

The feds discover 1,000 forged permits for whisky, millions of gallons of which were transferred from distilleries and warehouses to New York City.

Newark follows Chicago in banning movies that show crimes.

Calvin Coolidge’s two years as governor of Massachusetts end. That’s two terms, because they elected governors every single year. They’re going to two years now. His successor is Channing Harris Cox, as Massachusetts-governor a name as you could ask for. At Cox’s inauguration, some of the music is... German.

Two Japanese families arrive in Harlingen, Texas intending to farm land they’d bought, only to be met at the train station by “a committee of citizens” to tell them that they will not be staying. This is not the first time this has happened this week. The American Legion is lobbying for legislation to ban Asians from the Rio Grande Valley.

Warren G. Harding is promoted to grand poobah, or something, in the Masons. He tells them how sad he is now that he’s president-elect: “There is an aloofness of his friends, and this is one of the sad things. ... I have found already that intrigue and untruth must be guarded against. One must ever be on his guard. This everlasting standing on one’s guard spoils a man.”

Harding’s been getting push-back within his party on some of his preferences for office. And Charles Evans Hughes won’t even respond to offers of Secretary of State.

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Today -100: January 6, 1921: The fat lady will sing

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George reportedly invites Irish President Éamon de Valera to London for talks. However, LG’s insistence that Ireland will not be allowed to secede and that Northern Ireland must be given separate treatment means that de Valera going to London would mean he accepted those preconditions, and that ain’t gonna happen.

According to the Daily Sketch, a police raid turned up Sinn Féin plans, with maps and everything, to blow up the part of the Tower of London with the crown jewels.

The local military general orders the destruction of five houses in Meelin, County Cork, after an ambush of a military patrol.

German music is played in Paris for the first time since the war, Wagner’s Die Walküre at the Paris Opera. There are no protests. It was a lot longer after the 1870 Franco-Prussian War before anyone attempted to play German music in Paris (also Wagner), and it did not go well.

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Today -100: January 5, 1921: Of censorship, effeminate fools, martial law, and stowaways

Chicago Police Chief Charles Fitzmorris orders censors to ban any film showing a crime being committed, even if the criminal winds up behind bars.

The Public Morals Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church announces a campaign to stop the “contemptuous treatment of Protestant ministers by some cartoonists, writers and actors.” In movies and plays, they say, “the Protestant minister is seldom represented except as an effeminate fool.” The effeminate fools would like this to stop.

Martial law in Ireland is extended to four more counties: Clare, Waterford, Wexford, and Kilkenny.

Sinn Féin issues a list of Irish people assassinated by the British in 1920. 175 young men, 6 women, 12 children, 10 men over 60. Of these, 9 were killed during armed conflicts, 36 while prisoners, 69 in their homes, and 98 by indiscriminate firing (such as today, after a bomb explodes under some police on Parnell Bridge in Cork, and the cops randomly machine-gun nearby houses).

Cork Lord Mayor Donal O’Callaghan and Peter MacSwiney, brother of the late lord mayor, arrive in the US to testify to the unofficial Villard Committee investigating Irish stuff. They arrived as stowaways, as was the custom. Actually MacSwiney didn’t have to, but the British wouldn’t have allowed the lord mayor to come and MacSwiney chose to keep O’Callaghan company. The lord mayor will be tied up in red tape for a while since he arrived without a passport.

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Today -100: January 4, 1921: Of boycotts, capitols, gas bombs, and delicious marines

The Supreme Court rules 6-3 that unions are not immune under the Clayton Act from prosecution for secondary boycotts.

Pres. Wilson’s veto of a Congressional joint resolution ordering him to revive the War Finance Corporation to subsidize foreign exports is overridden, easily.

Reports of the violence of the Great Fiumo-Italian War of 1920-1 were over-stated, as the final death count seems to be about 18 on each side.

West Virginia’s capitol burns down.

The Chicago Police Department will be getting gas bombs.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: January 3, 1921: Of whole foreign policies, balloons, harmonium taxes, poet-aviator-theatre-producers, reprisals, and moose & dynamite

“France starts the New Year with the resolution to make Germany pay and make Germany disarm. The whole foreign policy of her Government will be shaped by those considerations.”

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, German chancellor 1909-17, dies.

In a story I haven’t bothered covering, a US Navy balloon went missing after leaving Long Island, with three on board, on December 13th. There’s been a lot of fuss since then. Surprisingly, it turns up, in Canada with the balloonists (I refuse to call them aeronauts) safe and sound in Moose Factory, Ontario (I believe these days Moose Factory just assembles the finished moose from parts manufactured in China. Globalization, eh?).

Parisians are now being taxed if they own a piano (or a harmonium or an organ; I guess harpsichords are tax-free) or keep a servant.

Italy refuses to let d’Annunzio leave Fiume at the head of his legionaries. He is expected to travel to Rome, give all his wartime medals to the king, then go to Paris to write his memoirs and become a theatrical producer (when has he ever been anything else?). This may all be bullshit.

An attack on a police patrol at Midleton, County Cork leads, as was the custom, to reprisals. The local brigade major issues a proclamation that houses near the ambush will be destroyed, “as the inhabitants were bound to have known of the ambush and attack and that they neglected to give any information either to the military or police authorities.” They’re given an hour before their houses were burned, and allowed to take valuables but not furniture. In the future, the proclamation says, anyone who doesn’t “do their utmost” to prevent attacks “will be liable to be confiscated or destroyed.” So this is an official policy of reprisal, the thing they used to say was just the actions of a few troops/Black and Tans/police.

Headline of the Day -100:  

“The mule was unhurt.”

The man not so much.

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Today -100: January 2, 1921: That damned elusive Pimpernel

Éamon de Valera is definitely back in Ireland, probably. Maybe.

Householders in Ireland are ordered to post on their doors a list of all residents, which isn’t ominous at all.

Michigan State Pen is going to “cure” criminals through brain surgery. That should go well.

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Today -100: January 1, 1921: 1921, bitches!

Fiume accepts the terms Italy imposes on it, including giving back all the munitions stolen from the Italian military and the departure of any “legionaries” not native to Fiume.

Harding will break tradition and use an automobile in his inaugural parade instead of a carriage. Jackson rode a horse, because of course he did.

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