Today -100: March 8, 1921: Aroused

Headline of the Day -100:  

France will occupy Düsseldorf, Duisburg, and Ruhrort. The Germans “would do well to remember that France has become aroused.” Germany will appeal against the sanctions to the League of Nations. 

The Supreme Court by a 7-2 vote upholds Postmaster General Burleson’s 1917 ban of Victor Berger’s Milwaukee Leader from the US mails, a ban still in effect. Justice John Clarke in his majority opinion says the paper could have been reinstated if it had “mend[ed] its ways”; also something about the US protecting itself against such “insidious foes.” Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes, dissenting, see the actions of Burleson as a threat to free speech, which no kidding.

The rebel sailors in Kronstadt and the Soviet army in Petrograd are exchanging shellfire.

Costa Rica complies with the US demand that it withdraw its troops.

Secretary of State Hughes is pissed that newspapers printed, correctly, that he sent identical notes to Panama and Costa Rica and in future wants them to only report things officially authorized by the State Dept.

There’s been a lot of ferment over the recent “Horror on the Rhine” meeting in Madison Square Garden which I neglected to cover, in which objections were made to France using black colonial soldiers in the occupation of the Rhine. The meeting also featured protests against British violence in Ireland. Anyway, the American Legion calls for NYC Mayor John Hylan to be removed for office by the state Legislature for allowing “pro-German meetings while this country still is in a state of war with the Central Powers.”  Does it actually have the power to do that? Similar meetings planned in other cities including Philadelphia have been banned.

Headline of the Day -100:  

More Dr Seuss than limerick, really. Not only Sinn Féin Mayor George Clancy, but former Limerick mayor Michael O’Callaghan as well are shot dead in their respective homes/beds by Royal Irish Constabulary Auxiliary death squads, probably in retaliation for the ambush of Brig. Gen. Cumming. Clancy’s wife is shot defending him. Clancy dies while members of the household are afraid to venture out in search of medical aid because of the curfew.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: March 7, 1921: Of fomented disorder and exaggerated sex plays

Pres. Harding fails to attend religious services on his first Sunday in office. But no golf either, since he doesn’t believe in playing golf on Sunday.

The NYT sees the exit of Woodrow Wilson from the White House as a signal to tell all the tales it’s been keeping to itself about his health, for example that he was unconscious for a week and that the Cabinet discussed replacing him with Vice President Whatsisname.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and others are arrested in Philadelphia to stop them holding a meeting. The charges are “organizing and originating a radical movement contrary to the laws of the state,” “possessing seditious literature” and “fomenting disorder.”

The National Association of the Moving Picture Industry agrees on a self-censorship plan. It will ban films that are “exaggerated sex plays,” that make virtue odious and vice attractive, offend religious beliefs, weaken the authority of the law, or “instruct the morally feeble in methods of committing crime”.

Germany makes another offer to the Allies, slightly increasing reparations. An offer a couple of days ago to provide German labor to rebuild the war zone in France was instantly rejected.

Brig. Gen. Cumming is killed in an IRA ambush in West Cork.

Panama rejects the border with Costa Rica assigned by arbitrator Chief Justice Edward White of the US, saying that White exceeded his authority and set an arbitrary line, thus showing he hadn’t studied the question sufficiently.

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Today -100: March 6, 1921: Of wars, lightning rods, and horsemen

The Harding administration sends notes to Costa Rica and Panama ordering them to stop their war (which Costa Rica seems to be winning at the moment) at once, at once I say! The US pretext for ordering Latin American countries around is the US’s authority to protect the Panama Canal. The Wilson admin had already sent a cruiser to protect the United Fruit Company’s property, as was the custom.

Burglars steal Notre Dame Cathedral’s lightning rods (for the platinum) and copper from, I assume, its roof.

On his first night as president, Harding and the Duchess attend a theatre performance of Sinbad, starring Al Jolson in (sigh) blackface.

They could have gone to see The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, starring Rudolph Valentino in his break-through role, directed by Rex Ingram. An anti-war World War I movie. Haven’t seen it.

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Today -100: March 5, 1921: Of rumble and bumble

Warren Harding is now the 29th president of the United States. His inaugural address (delivered via loudspeaker, a first I believe) is described by the NYT as confirming “the popular impression of him as a man who makes no pretense of uncommon wisdom or force,” while H. L. Mencken reviews it thusly: “He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm (I was about to write abscess!) of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.” I dunno, H.L., the phrase “we must strive for normalcy to reach stability” is surely as fine an example of presidential oratory as we’ve had. Mencken does admit that the speech is not intended to be read but to be heard and that it might appeal to you “if you are the sort of man who goes to political meetings, which is to say, if you are the sort of man that Dr. Harding is used to talking to, which is to say, if you are a jackass.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

Movie cameras are not allowed to film Wilson’s slow, painful walk to the car, and he gives up on his plans to stay through the ceremony.

The NYT says:  “Whatever opinion history may eventually record of Mr. Harding’s abilities and accomplishments, there is no doubt that as he came down the steps amid a burst of hearty cheering by the crowd he looked every inch a President.” Well, give him an inch... and he’ll still suck. He kisses the bible after taking the oath. Is that a thing other presidents have done?

Harding’s cabinet choices are confirmed. All of them. Just like that. The only delay comes when Harding names Albert Fall to be interior secretary before Fall has resigned the Senate. Which he does, at which point the rest of the Senate starts yelling “Get out” and “You are no longer one of us” at him, because they’re all overgrown frat boys.

On his way out the door, Wilson pocket-vetoes the immigration restriction bill, and regular-vetoes the Emergency Tariff Bill and the Army Bill reducing the army to 156,666.

Italian Fascists burn Labor Bureaus in Siena and Empoli. “Those responsible for the Empoli fire said it was set in protest against the violence of the Communists.” Fascists are not big on irony.

Sean MacSwiney, brother of deceased Lord Mayor of Cork Terence, is sentenced to 15 years for waging war against the Crown and having arms and explosives.

The Allies suggested that an international commission look into the dispute between Greece and Turkey over Smyrna and Thrace. Greece says no.

A 20-year-old sailor, the alliterative Harold Hammond, does indeed have a woman in every port. A wife, in fact, 14 of them. He interspersed abandoning wives with going AWOL, first from the army, then the navy.

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Today -100: March 4, 1921: Of Haavaard, Wilson & Colby, negotiating with murderers, tariffs!, and princesss

Harvard University’s finances are not doing well, so it’s forced to raise tuition to $250 a year, $300 for the medical school.

Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby will form a law firm, which is a little puzzling since Wilson hasn’t practiced law in decades and wasn’t very good at it and also, you know, stroke. He’s evidently talking about arguing before the Supreme Court.

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George tells Parliament he’s willing to meet Irish representatives but not murderers. Asked whether Boers with whom the government meets (or met? it’s unclear if Devlin means now or at the end of the Boer War) didn’t do the same things as the Irish, LG says the Boers wore uniforms.

Wilson vetoes a bill to greatly increase tariffs. The House fails to override.

Poland, Hungary, and Romania sign an alliance against Russia.

The Russian military has reportedly crushed the Kronstadt rebellion.

Harding’s stuff starts arriving at the White House, including the all-important presidential golf clubs.

Russian Princess Catherine Radziwell gives a lecture at the Hotel Astor about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, whose forgery by the Czarist secret service she’d personally witnessed. Someone in the audience questions whether she’s a real Disney princess and how she can deny that Jews murdered czars.

Obit of the Day -100: Gen. Auguste Mercier, the French minister of war who helped railroad Dreyfus, at 87.

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Today -100: March 3, 1921: The only asset of Germany today is the working hour of the German workmen

The House and Senate compromise on reducing the size of the Army to 156,666.

Former speaker of the House James Beauchamp “Champ” Clark dies. The NYT has been tracking his health’s ups and downs in detail for days in a way it would never do now. Also Enrico Caruso’s. It says something about the period, but I’m not sure what.

The German government denies having any other counter-proposal to offer on reparations: “The only asset of Germany today... is the working hour of the German workmen, and it is no good our professing to be willing to pay more than the German workmen can produce. ... Remember this: If you kill the willingness of the German workmen to work, the whole of your proposals, whatever they may be, will go into the cellar.” The Allies are threatening dire consequences if a better answer is not forthcoming, such as occupying Hamburg, separating the left bank of the Rhine from Germany, seizing customs, etc. France is moving long-range guns to within shooting distance of Essen.

Ramsay MacDonald fails to get back into Parliament in a by-election in Woolwich, losing to a Captain Gee. Gee got a Victoria Cross during the war; MacDonald opposed the war.

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Today -100: March 2, 1921: Of dead ex-kings, armies, counters-proposal, ex-congresscritters, and thank you Jews

King Nikola I of Montenegro, who was made redundant when Montenegro was absorbed into Yugoslavia when it was created (he did not abdicate and continued to claim to be king of the country that no longer existed), dies in exile in France. He reigned for 50 years as prince before taking the title of king as an anniversary present to himself, and then was king for 8.

Panama’s Assembly meets to consider, among other things, authorizing Pres. Belisario Porras to raise an army, which really should  have been sorted out before he declared war on Costa Rica.

Germany makes a counter-proposal on reparations, a fixed sum of 50 billion in gold marks, which is the equivalent of some... wait, the NYT says that’s $7.5b... in exchange for Germany retaining Upper Silesia and restoration of the exports it needs to earn the money for reparations. This is instantly rejected by the Allies.

For reasons that are unclear to me, Congress ousts the Alaska Territory’s non-voting representative, George Grigsby (D), in favor of James Wickersham (R) for the remainder of the 66th Congress. Which is 3 days. For which he’ll be paid $7,000 per day. I assume that’s the sum for the entire period since the 1918 election.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: March 1, 1921: What sort of holidays do Irish schoolboys go on, anyway?

Panama captures the entire Costa Rican force that invaded Coto province. Panamanian Pres. Belisario Porras says something about Coto being valueless land and a war over it would be absurd, which is odd since he did declare war. Some Panamanians want him to resign; they attack the presidential palace, which is now being protected by US soldiers. The US sends notes to both governments asking them to please knock it off.

More rumors from Russia: the Communists overthrown in Petrograd, Trotsky is in hiding...

British soldiers are attacked in Cork, at least 5 killed.

Also in Cork, 6 men sentenced by courts-martial are executed. 5 were charged with an ambush on Crown forces, one for simple possession of a gun and ammunition. Canon O’Sullivan says the men went to their deaths “like school boys on a holiday.”

A Porter, Indiana train wreck results in at most 37 dead. The coroner corrects his earlier announcement that it was more than 40, which he made before he put all the body parts back together.

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Today -100: February 28, 1921: Of monstrous invasions, and pogroms

I haven’t been following the endless fights in New York over cable car rates, but in the latest Mayor John Hylan accuses Gov. Nathan Miller of aiding the “sack” of the city in a “monstrous invasion” of the city’s constitutional rights and its “heritage” of a five-cent fare.

In what is supposedly the first pogrom ever in Berlin, a bunch of high school and university students attack Jews in the Jewish part of town and the Ku’damm. Police pull some of the victims into trucks to protect them but otherwise don’t intervene to stop the beatings. This all follows right-wing (monarchist rather than fascist) victories in the Prussian state elections.

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Today -100: February 27, 1921: Of wars, Roosevelts, racist land laws, and despairing Armenians

Panamanian Pres. Belisario Porras issues a decree declaring war on Costa Rica, suspending constitutional rights, and calling on all males 18 to 40 to register for military service. The only problem: Panama doesn’t have any weapons. Or an army.

Incoming Navy Secretary Edwin Denby will name Teddy Roosevelt Jr. assistant secretary of the navy, a post held until a few months ago by Franklin Roosevelt and which was held by Teddy Sr under McKinley.

The US marines who attacked the newspaper office in Nicaragua are court-martialed and sentenced to 2 years. I didn’t expect that.

Arizona enacts a racist Anti-Alien Land bill modeled after California’s law.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: February 26, 1921: Of short-termers, corking fights, and blacks in New York

Rep. Patrick McLane (D-Penn.), who was elected to Congress in 1918 but defeated in 1920 by Republican Charles Connell, is unseated by a 161 to 121 vote because of electoral fraud and corruption in the 1918 election, and replaced by his 1918 R. opponent John Farr, who can serve out the remaining... 7 days of the term. He’ll be replaced by Connell in the new Congress next week.

300-400 Sinn Féiners attack police in County Cork and a five-hour fight ensues.

The census shows a 67% increase in the negro population of NYC in the 1910s, compared to 16.9% for the white population. Harlem had barely any black people in 1910.

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Today -100: February 25, 1921: Of states of war, departments of the first importance, invasions, and suicides

The King’s Bench in Dublin rules that a state of war exists in Ireland and therefore civilian courts have no oversight powers over the military. The case is of a man sentenced to death by a court-martial for having a gun, which is not a capital offense under regular law.

Herbert Hoover finally accepts the post of commerce secretary, meaning Harding accepted all of Hoover’s terms for taking the post, which Hoover made public just to show who’s boss. These include “upbuilding the department” and “making a real Department of Commerce,” “a department of the first importance,” with a bigger budget and wider powers. Harding also has to allow him to continue to run his European relief efforts. So a department of the first importance with a part-time head.

Costa Rica invades Panama, occupying Coto province, which arbitrators (US Chief Justice Edward White) had assigned to it.

Martin Drath, an unemployed machinist attempting to commit suicide by gas in his 4th Avenue apartment, gets into a fight with a cop trying to rescue him, thinking the cop was a burglar. So... he doesn’t want to live, but he doesn’t want his stuff stolen either?

The mutinying Kronstadt sailors are “said to be” shelling Petrograd.

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Today -100: February 24, 1921: There is a scent of violets here

Herbert Hoover is still playing coy about whether he’ll take the commerce secretary job, which we know Harding offered him. “The matter requires consideration and I cannot discuss it,” he says. He reportedly told Harding that the post doesn’t have a wide enough field to interest him. Harding reportedly responded that Hoover would have a free hand and could make the post a wider one (which is what Hoover will do with it, involving himself in all sorts of policies normally not in the remit of the commerce secretary).

A performance of Arthur Schnitzler’s play Reigen (La Ronde) in Berlin is disrupted by a bunch of idiots, starting with a stink bomb thrown right after the line “There is a scent of violets here.” Police and military arrest c.40 demonstrators, who shouted “Down with the Jews” and “I’m a Prussian” and sang Deutschland über Alles, which the article points out “proved conclusively it was their so-called nationalistic sentiments and not their morals which had been shocked.”

An ambush in which two constables in Ballybunion, County Kerry, are killed is followed by the retaliation burnings of 20+ buildings, as was the custom.

The Atlanta Penitentiary has been holding Eugene Debs incommunicado as punishment for giving an interview criticizing Wilson for not pardoning him.

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Today -100: February 23, 1921: Why should a great empire wish to sell any part of itself?

Harding’s “tentative” cabinet picks: Charles Evans Hughes for secretary of state, Harry Daugherty attorney general, former senator John Weeks secretary of war, former congresscritter (and third gunner’s mate during the Spanish-American War) Edwin Denby secretary of the navy, Sen. Albert Fall secretary of interior, banker Andrew Mellon treasury secretary, businessman/philanthropist Herbert Hoover secretary of commerce. Harding will leave under-secretary appointments to the secretaries. Not all of these men have accepted yet – Hoover’s being especially coy – but they will.

German War Minister Otto Gessler says Polish troops are massing on the border as part of a threat by the Entente that if Germany doesn’t agree to its terms on reparations and disarmament, Poland will be allowed to invade Silesia.

Brig. Gen. Frank Crozier, commander of the Royal Irish Constabulary’s Auxiliary Division (the Black and Tans), resigns to protest the reinstatement of 21 auxiliaries he’d fired for looting. There’s some confusion about this: Ireland Secretary Sir Hamar Greenwood tells Parliament that Crozier has it wrong and they were actually sent back to Ireland to be court-martialed. We’ll see.

There’s a coup in Persia.

There’s been talk, from ex-senator Arthur Beveridge and current Sen. James Reed that Britain and France should give the US some of their Caribbean colonies to pay off their war debts. The Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) asks “Why should a great empire wish to sell any part of itself?” Why indeed.

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Today -100: February 22, 1921: Everyone’s a critic

The publisher and editor of The Little Review (motto: Making No Compromise with the Public Taste), Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap respectively, are each fined

$50 by a NY court for publishing an “improper novel,” James Joyce’s Ulysses, which the magazine serialized 1918-21. The judge calls it “unintelligible.” 

The Syracuse city council bans all forms of jazz dancing.

Harding names his campaign manager Harry Daugherty to be attorney general. The NYT notes that Daugherty is known as a politician rather than a lawyer and is not qualified for the post: “If a best mind is needed anywhere, it is in the Department of Justice. Instead, Mr. Harding has been content to choose merely a best friend.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

The Allied conference in London hears from Greek delegates about the Treaty of Sèvres. The Powers are thinking about revising it – it almost accidentally became more punitive towards Turkey than was intended – to give Turkey back some of the territory given to Greece, but Greece would really like to hold on to Smyrna and claims to be prepared to totally kick Atatürk’s butt.

The next vice president and the speaker of the House won’t get that salary increase after all. So they’ll get $12,000 per year instead of $15k. The speaker rejected the raise because other congresscritters weren’t getting one, so that sunk it for Coolidge as well.

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Today -100: February 21, 1921: You should never be too busy to read books, and particularly history

In County Cork, near Midleton, British soldiers attack “armed civilians” in a house, killing 13.

Sinclair Lewis says Henry Ford is so stupid about Jews because he hasn’t read history. “That is a good object lesson for you business men in the audience. You should never be too busy to read books, and particularly history.” “Also history blogs,” he added, probably. 

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Today -100: February 20, 1921: Free hands are the best kind of hands

Charles Evans Hughes, former NY governor + former Supreme Court justice + failed 1916 candidate for president, accepts Harding’s offer to be secretary of state. Harding says that only Hughes will speak for the State Department, or, as the NYT phrases it, he will have a “free hand.”

Many Mexicans believe that US oil companies are funding rebellion in Tampico and Tuxpan, possibly to provoke a US invasion, occupation and possible annexation of the oil-fields areas.

The US State Dept conducted an actual investigation into German claims that black French colonial troops on the Rhine were raping their women. Gen. Henry Allen’s report says French colonial troops are, as a general rule, “quite orderly and well-behaved.” And some of the German women... less so.

The US Senate votes 62-2 to restrict immigration to 3% of the number of people from each country who were in the US in 1910, if I’m understanding this correctly. How it deals with European countries that didn’t exist in 1910 or are much smaller or larger than before the war is unclear. Canada, Mexico and South America are exempt, and Asiatics are still barred. The decision to reduce the number from the proposed 5% was probably helped by the recent spread of typhus in Italy and Yugoslavia. Also, Bolshevism!

Thomas Pope, the postmaster in Greenville, South Carolina, challenges President-elect Harding to a game of golf to determine if he gets to keep his job. Harding replies that he’s too crap a golfer to make it the basis for appointments, although history suggests he might have done better if he had.

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Today -100: February 19, 1921: Of dastardly crimes, the nature and temperament of women, and horsey lèse-majesté

The National Woman’s Party, Alice Paul’s radical women’s suffrage organization, is dissolved, and in its place a new body is formed, called... the National Woman’s Party. Its goal: to fight for the removal of the legal disabilities of women. Soon, this will take the form of 80+ years of advocacy for the Equal Rights Amendment. Proposals to work instead for world disarmament fail. 

The grand jury investigating the Wall Street bombing of last September comes to a conclusion: It was “a dastardly crime.”

British troops close off 20 blocks of Dublin with barbed wire and conduct house-to-house searches for IRAers. It will take 3 days, during which time no mail or newspapers will be allowed in. 

The French Senate refuses to remove from the section of Civil Code on marriage “The husband owes protection to his wife. The wife owes obedience to her husband.” The Commission appointed to consider the proposal said it would be contrary to good order, dangerous to family life, and “contrary to nature and the temperament of women.”

France is trying to get Poland and Czechoslovakia to form an alliance to work against not only possible German resurgence but the spread of Bolshevism. France would also like to get Romania to join. Slight problem: the Poles and Czechs do not get along. At all.

Britain’s Prince Henry is kicked in the head by a horse. But he’s a royal so you can’t tell the difference. He later became governor-general of Australia. Henry, not the horse.

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Today -100: February 18, 1921: You poor fish

Headline of the Day -100:  

A performance in Vienna of Arthur Schnitzler’s 20-year-old play Reigen (La Ronde) is disrupted by 500 hooligans, mostly students, who beat up theater-goers and turn on the fire hose.

Petrograd residents are reportedly being forced to go to Communist plays, or pay a fine.

The German Foreign Office denies France’s insistence that it has pulled non-white soldiers from the Rhineland.

Mrs. Bridget Rupple of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania is tried as a common scold. She likes to greet her neighbors, “You poor fish.”

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Today -100: February 17, 1921: These things are done because it is your will that they should be done

A lynch mob in Athens, Georgia burns a black man at the stake.

Arkansas Gov. Thomas McRae vetoes a repeal of the law against cigarettes.

There’s a proposal before the Idaho Legislature to split the state in two. It’s not clear what seething resentment exists between the Northern and Southern Idahoovians. Probably something about the baked potato setting on microwave ovens.

North Dakota can’t find any banks or investment companies to sell its state bonds. I think this is bankers trying to blackmail the ruling party, the Non-Partisan League, into abandoning its policies.

Éamon de Valera writes a letter to all British MPs accusing British troops of waging war on the Irish people “contrary to all the rules of civilised warfare.” He enumerates the war crimes, telling the MPs, “These things are done because it is your will that they should be done. If you willed otherwise they would cease. It is you, not your troops, who are primarily responsible.”

The IRA are destroying bridges and roads in County Cork to slow down military trucks so they can be more easily ambushed.

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