Today -100: May 11, 1921: Up to the present Irishmen have been fighting each other

Joseph Wirth (of the Catholic Zentrum [Center] party) becomes German chancellor in a new “Surrender Cabinet.” He then gets the Reichstag to vote 221-175 to accede to the Allied ultimatum, um, to the capacity of the nation to do so.

Thomas Edison has been complaining that college grads are failing the test he makes prospective executives take, so colleges must suck. Questions include: What country consumed the most tea before the war? In what country other than Australia are kangaroos to be found? (New Guinea) Where is Korea? What causes the tides? From where do we import figs/prunes/dates? Who composed “Home, Sweet Home?” What voltage is used in street cars?

Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood says the problem in Ireland “arises through century-long dissension among Irishmen,” so when the Irish “get together and stay together on a common all-Ireland policy the Irish question will be settled. Up to the present Irishmen have been fighting each other.” The Black and Tans must be feeling very overlooked right now. Supposedly, the British government has offered Dominion status (like Canada or South Africa), with a high degree of autonomy, but only as a final settlement and only to a united Ireland, you know, the thing British policy has been working hard to prevent since Cromwell.

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During the war he gave the Navy some sort of submarine-detection device. Now he’s on trial for murder.

The NYT supports a proposed NY constitutional amendment to require a literacy test for voting. “Is it undemocratic,” the editorial asks, “to exclude from the rule of the people those who won’t take the trouble to learn the language of the laws, the Constitution and the majority of the people?” Um yes, yes it is.

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Today -100: May 10, 1921: Of kisses, sedition, lynchings, and due care

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A Lucerne newspaper claimed that a hotel owner, who is also a colonel in the Swiss Army, kissed Charles’ hand. The colonel denies it and is suing for libel.

New York has two new “anti-sedition” laws, one requiring private schools to be licensed by the state and banning them from teaching the overthrow of the government by unlawful means, and the other requiring a loyalty test of all public school teachers.

NY Gov. Nathan Miller rejects the opinion of 40 police chiefs that prohibition can’t be enforced by uniformed cops and that plainclothes cops would quickly become known to bootleggers, especially in small towns and certainly after the first time they had to testify in open court. Miller threatens to have mayors in those towns charged with.... something. 

A mob in Starke, Florida hangs a black man accused of shooting a deputy sheriff.

In a lawsuit over a dog hit by a car, the dog’s owner insists that the beast (the NYT in two articles fails to ascertain the dog’s name or even gender) “was in the exercise of due care,” but the driver claims the dog... committed suicide.

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Today -100: May 9, 1921: Of plane crashes, mountain bad men, and where the hell is the author?

The largest aeroplane ever built in the US, with room for 26 passengers, crashes on takeoff on its maiden flight, as was the custom. Sounds like it needed a longer runway. Hit a tree and a telegraph pole.

More violence in Italy, with a new (I think) feature: Fascists breaking into prisons to release their arrested colleagues. 

The German organization of steel & iron companies votes to defy the Allied demands, figuring the occupation of the Ruhr is just a matter of time no matter what Germany does.

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A white man, sure, but a “mountain bad man.” He murdered a woman 6 months after he got away with murdering her husband by a mistrial.

John Dillon of the Irish Nationalist Party will advise that the party put forward no candidates for the Southern Irish Parliamentary elections, leaving the field to Sinn Féin.

Sweden abolishes capital punishment.

Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author premieres in Rome.

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Today -100: May 8, 1921: Of fascists, and dogs & moose

A (more or less pro-Fascist) NYT article on the increasingly frequent pre-election clashes in Italy between Fascists and Communists claims that the general population sides with the former during these fights while the cops ignore them or somehow show up too late to protect the Fascists’ victims. It names as one of the Fascists’ goals “to restore the authority of the State,” because nothing says restoring the authority of the state like mobs destroying buildings and fighting in the streets.

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To be clear, these are members of the Loyal Order of Moose (loyal to whom or what?) headed to the international convention in Toledo a month and a half from now. Also coming: 75 members of the Jacksonville, Florida lodge dressed as Simon Legree, the evil slave-owner from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and, in case that was too subtle, the Alabama delegation will come dressed as Klansman. Yeah, “dressed as.”

Lloyd George says if Germany disarms in accordance with the Versailles Treaty, it would be entitled to ask the Allies to force Poland to disarm too.

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Today -100: May 7, 1921: Of governors, councils, assassinations, and voter suppression

Harding picks as governor for Puerto Rico (governors weren’t elected until 1948) E. Montgomery Reily, a businessman from Kansas City, which is obviously just like Puerto Rico so he should feel right at home. Reily was an early supporter of the Harding presidential campaign.

The US will rejoin the Allied Supreme Council, without feeling bound in any way by its decisions.

Franceso Nitti, former prime minister of Italy (1919-20), says Fascists tried to assassinate him but shot at the car ahead of his.

William Friese-Greene, the “reputed inventor of movies,” who indeed invented some of the first movie cameras but put more money into his inventions than he ever got out, dies.

c.70 Allied casualties since the Polish invasion of Upper Silesia.

The House of Representatives rejects efforts to investigate negro disfranchisement in the South, 285-46.

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Today -100: May 6, 1921: The cost of springing forward

Adalbert Korfanty is identified as the new Polish “dictator” of Upper Silesia. Poland is pretending to be totally surprised by the uprising of Poles in Silesia – an uprising which is clearly highly organized, planned well in advance, and supported by Polish soldiers and military planes – and claims not even to be in contact with Korfanty. The new German chancellor, Constantin Fehrenbach, says Germany is ready to send in the Reichswehr if the Allies don’t stop the Polish invasion.

Bertrand Russell gets divorced, which is actually true, unlike that very premature obit two weeks ago.

Former Florida Governor (until January 1921) Sidney J. Catts is indicted by the grand jury for taking bribes in exchange for pardons. $700 for a pardon for the murderer of a deputy sheriff, allegedly.

Not sure if the NYT has simply failed to mention the proposed Sheppard–Towner maternity and infant care Bill or if I’ve just missed it, but an article today quotes a couple of doctors testifying against the bill, one saying it is demanded only by “a few women who have money to burn and time to waste,” plus socialized medicine and government control of blah blah blah.

The Connecticut House of Representatives votes to impose a $25 fine on any business with a clock displaying Daylight Saving Time, as well as officials who countenance Daylight Saving.

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Today -100: May 5, 1921: Of resignations, naval holidays, forced hands, draft dodgers, and annoying notes

The German government resigns rather than receive the Allied ultimatum, but agrees to Pres. Ebert’s request to stay on temporarily. No one else wants to do it.

Former Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt says the US should join Britain and Japan and halt battleship-building for 5 years, and the US should scrap half its navy, preferably the obsolete half.

Polish troops march into Upper Silesia, clashing with Allied troops (although French troops don’t seem to be resisting very strenuously). Poland is afraid it won’t be given the parts of Upper Silesia that voted to join Germany rather than Poland.

The Senate Navy Committee rejects Sen. William Borah’s proposal for a disarmament conference between the US, Britain and Japan after Harding warns Congress against attempting to “force his hand.” However Harding’s insistence that the issue of disarmament is solely the province of the Executive branch is unlikely to persuade congresscritters.

The War Dept makes public its list of “draft dodgers” in New York City. The US attorney admits that the lists are not good and has to ask for the dismissal of indictments against 106 men who were not, in fact, draft dodgers. For example, some had voluntarily joined up some time after registering for the draft, others moved and were registered at more than one draft board, etc.

The losing streak for enforcement of NY State’s new prohibition law continues, with the first 5 trials in Brooklyn all resulting in acquittals.

In Jersey City a policewoman, a fireman for some reason, and a whole mob of Jerseycityhoovians capture a black man, who is sent to the pen for 90 days for... writing an annoying note to a woman.

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Today -100: May 4, 1921: Of primaries, amusing terror, draft dodgers, and dangerous music

New York abolishes primary elections for state offices and for the US Senate, reverting to nomination of candidates by party conventions. Primaries will continue for the House of Representatives, the state Legislature, and city and county offices.

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Some weird shit winds up on the “Amusements” page.

Secretary of War John Weeks says he’ll bring to trial every single man who signed up for the draft during the Great War but failed to turn up, who he deems deserters subject to courts-martial.

It seems that despite what Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge said during the Senate debate on the Knox Resolution revoking the declaration of war, Harding has NOT definitely decided against re-submitting the Versailles Treaty to the Senate in a modified form and in favor instead of negotiating a separate peace with Germany and Austria.

The bill restricting immigration passes the Senate 78-1. Hiram Johnson’s amendment to allow in victims of religious or political persecution loses 60-15.

France announces it will only use white troops to occupy the Ruhr.

U.S. Steel reduces the wages of 150,000 of its employees by 20%.

The mayor of Noeux les Mines in Northern France bans music in public buildings because he thinks music is dangerous to public morals. Protesters will treat him to nightly serenades, so maybe it was his plan all along was to get free music?

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Today -100: May 3, 1921: Of war machines, primaries, immigration, and silver

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For the occupation of the Ruhr, 130,000 men are being called up.

The conviction of Senator (and former navy secretary) Truman Handy Newberry (R-Michigan) for election irregularities in his primary battle with Henry Ford, is reversed by the Supreme Court, which rules that Congress can’t regulate primaries, which are “in no sense election for an office.” Senators are talking about writing a constitutional amendment to give Congress that power. Newberry crows that his associates have been “vindicated,” which is plainly not what happened, and the Senate is still investigating the general election, which it does have the power to regulate.

The US federal government is making a major push to round up WW I draft dodgers.

The immigration restriction bill is held up by an amendment by Sen. Hiram Johnson (R-CA) to exempt victims of religious or political persecution. An amendment to stop all immigration for 2 years loses 47-19.

“Justice” in Ireland is nothing if not swift. Patrick Casey is executed by firing squad not 24 hours after he participated in an attack on Crown forces in Mitchellstown, County Cork, shooting at an officer.

Russia will resume coining silver coins to assuage peasants, who were refusing to accept the paper money being churned out with nothing to buy with it. Peasants are funny that way.

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Today -100: May 2, 1921: I do know that no negroes have been murdered here at my instructions

May Day passes quietly, without a single riot or revolution. The NYT seems almost disappointed.

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I assume this is some sort of Last Tango in Paris thing.

France wants to occupy the Ruhr immediately, but is forced to accept a British & Italian compromise of issuing an ultimatum to Germany first, after it was pointed out to the French that it would take a few days to organize an invasion anyway.

Another Georgia plantation, another bunch of dead black people. Planter U.G.B. Hogan admits that 3 black men were killed on his farm in 3 separate incidents, but none of them was his fault, so that’s okay then. “I don’t know what peonage is, but I do know that no negroes have been murdered here at my instructions.”

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Today -100: May 1, 1921: Of negroes in Georgia, Knox resolutions, and bigamy

Georgia Gov. Hugh Dorsey puts out a pamphlet detailing 135 cases of abuse of negroes in the state, including lynchings and peonage. He wants a state constabulary set up, to be sent when necessary to prevent lynchings; a fine on any county that has a lynching; and the ability to appoint a commission of judges to investigate lynchings, with a view to removing officials who fail to stop them. Dorsey writes: “In some counties the negro is being driven out as though he were a wild beast. In others he is being held as a slave. In others no negroes remain.” Dorsey’s term expires next month.

The Senate passes the Knox Resolution revoking the 1917 declaration of war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. The vote is 49 to 23, 3 Democrats joining the Republicans, the rest denouncing the resolution as a betrayal of the allies. Andrieus A. Jones (D-NM) says the resolution is “an abject apology for having entered the war.” Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge announces that the Versailles Treaty, even if revised to meet US isolationist objections, won’t be resubmitted to the Senate by Harding, who will negotiate a peace treaty with Germany. It’s unclear if he’s actually speaking for Harding, whose public position is a bit nebulous, as was his custom.

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An Italian immigrant in Akron, whose wife that he thought died during the war showed up. Feds say he should just live with both of them and they agree. I suspect there’s a little more to the story.

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Today -100: April 30, 1921: Shakespeare won’t mind

The British military in Tipperary, Ireland warn that anyone with hands in their pockets is liable to being arrested or shot. And in Cork the military announces that in response to the burning of houses of two loyalist farmers, the houses of 3 “prominent active Sinn Feiners have been burned as official reprisals.” Remember when they were denying that there was any such a thing as official reprisals?

The Michigan State Senate rejects the bill banning newspapers attacking, misrepresenting or criticizing religious cults, intended to target Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic Dearborn Independent. One senator seemed to think it would ban reprinting the bits of the Bible about the crucifixion.

May Day is coming up, and the Chicago PD are preparing by arresting communists, anarchists and the like, and seizing pamphlets.

A 19-year-old black man accused of attempted assault on a 14-year-old white girl is seized by a mob from the police station in Bowling Green, Missouri and hanged.

The Fascist takeover of Fiume a few days ago was accomplished by incoming Fascists from Trieste who previously supported Poet-Aviator Gabriele d’Annunzio. They threatened the death penalty for anyone defying the “Exceptional Government of the Italian City of Fiume.” Since then, however, the man they named dictator, former mayor Ricardo Gigante, has fled the city.

The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon will show movies when not in use for Shakespeare festivals, and Shakespearistas are LIVID, although playwright J.B. Fagan (the NYT calls him F.B.) says “why not, after all, make the devil serve? ... I am sure Shakespeare won’t mind.”

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Today -100: April 29, 1921: We are going to do the German people a favor

French Prime Minister Aristide Briand tells reporters that the German offer is just one more sign of German bad faith. He says that in occupying the Ruhr, “We are going to do the German people a favor in helping them to get rid of those men who paraded themselves at Potsdam the other day, those men who learned nothing from the war, to whom defeat gave no lessons.” He’s referring to the kaiserin’s funeral, after which an American couple were beaten up by a crowd that thought they were French. Briand says Germany “has neither good faith nor good will and she plans revenge in her heart.” Note that he’s referring to “Germany” as a whole here.

Lloyd George calls the German offer “thoroughly unsatisfactory.”

A jury in Deming, New Mexico rather quickly decides to acquit 16 Mexicans for the 1916 raid by Pancho Villa’s troops on Columbus, New Mexico.

The British execute 4 more Irish nationalists in Cork after a military trial.

Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood tells Parliament that the IRA are murderers who are targeting Protestants.

So far two cases have been tried under NY’s new dry law, and both ended in acquittals. Just getting a jury has proved troublesome: in the case of a bartender, 57 prospective jurors said they were against enforcing the law. The grand jury has been dismissing cases of people arrested for possession of a hip flask.

The Daily Chronicle (London) reviews the language of Harding’s address to Congress, sneering at phrases like “illy prepared for war’s aftermath,” “ready... to approximate disarmament,” “fritters energies,” and his coinage (which is not actually his coinage) of “hospitalization.” They’re still shuddering at “normalcy.”

Madrid police put up posters threatening punishment for men who accost women in the streets.

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Today -100: April 28, 1921: Of reparations, whipping posts, and queens of Sheba

The Reparation Commission fixes a figure of 132 billion gold marks, which is the equivalent of some money, for Germany to pay. This doesn’t include other obligations, such as paying Belgium the total of loans it took out during the war.

NY Supreme Court Justice Lewis Fawcett, at the trial of a stick-up man, says shorter sentences should be replaced by the whipping post.

Italian troops restore order in Fiume.

Fascists burn the “palatial” Chamber of Labor in Turin, with people still inside, though they are saved by firemen. In response, a general strike breaks out.

A Fox Studio ad on the amusements page talks about the controversy over the alleged threat of imported German films which some film companies have ginned up:

You see, “No picture in any country – Germany, France, England, America, Italy, Zanzibar or Hindustan – has ever been produced which we believe is the equal of ‘The Queen of Sheba.’” Which coincidentally was just released by Fox. This lost film starred Betty Blythe (after Theda Bara dropped out). Topless in some scenes, but only in the European release.

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Today -100: April 27, 1921: Or reparations and coups

France, you’ll be surprised to hear, rejects Germany’s reparations offer as insufficient. The US had rejected Germany’s request to act as arbiter, saying it would pass on the German proposal if it were good enough; it has decided that it isn’t.

In truth, the Germans are being rather vague about what they’re promising to pay, while demanding the end of all economic sanctions, the release of German-owned property abroad, the retention of Upper Silesia, etc.

Communists seize power in Fiume, as was the custom, after evidently losing an election to Autonomists. As they occupy City Hall, fascists and followers of the Poet-Aviator occupy other buildings. The ballots are destroyed.

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Today -100: April 26, 1921: Together at last

Dr. Daniel Russell Hodgdon, President of Valparaiso University in Indiana, resigns, calling the university a “hotbed of Bolshevism, communism and other cults.”

France and Britain are now demanding that Germany deposit 90% of the Reichsbank’s gold reserves in the Bank of France by the end of the month to guarantee that Germany will pay the reparations demanded of it.

Germany offers to pay 200 billion gold marks in reparations ($48b) rather than the 226b the Allies are demanding, spread over 30 to 42 years at a rate fluctuating with the German economy. It repeats its offer to help reconstruction in the war-devastated areas of France and Belgium, and you can imagine how thrilled France and Belgium are at the prospect of German workers coming in to do that.

In the semi-official plebiscite in the Austrian Tyrol, the vote is 98% to join Germany, although some of that suspiciously large majority are actually Germans brought in for the vote, including a trainload of 700 from Bavaria. In the South Tyrol, annexed by Italy at the end of the war, Fascists attacked costumed Tyrolese at the fair in Bozen/Bolzano on Saturday.

Rep. Volstead introduces a bill to ban doctors writing prescriptions for beer.

Albert Einstein goes to the White House. Pres. Harding admits he doesn’t understand relativity.

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Today -100: April 25, 1921: Of clocks and ghosts

The Connecticut Legislature’s law rejecting Daylight Saving (which went into effect yesterday, er, some places) is being flouted by Hartford and other cities, and the Legislature is threatening to declare the capital city in rebellion and suspend its charter. New Hampshire is not setting its clocks ahead either. It ordered the Boston and Maine Railroad not to use Daylight Saving in its time-table within the borders of the state, but the B&M is ignoring them. Yesterday some churches across the country used Standard Time and some didn’t.

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(Update: lord, they actually followed up a week later):

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Today -100: April 24, 1921: Distracted boyfriend meme, 1921 version

The Dáil Éireann warns that anyone in Ireland using English courts will be regarded as waging war on the Irish community. It will also ban the importation of certain English goods next month. And it bans any election speeches in any language but Irish.

Nicaragua leaves the League of Nations. Not worth the expense, they say.

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Today -100: April 23, 1921: Getting them at last

The House passes the Immigration Bill restricting immigration for the next 14 months to 3% of the number of nationals of each nation in the 1910 census. Supporters of Irish independence propose an amendment exempting political refugees, but it fails.

An IRA innovation: a death squad shoots a former soldier, then call a priest to give him last rites, then shoots him some more. They leave a note: “Getting them at last. Beware.”

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Today -100: April 22, 1921: The nincompoops are out

Harding refuses a German request that he mediate the reparations issue.

Germany refuses to transfer Reichsbank gold reserves to branches in Allied-occupied cities.

Col. George Harvey closes down his Harvey’s Weekly as he takes up his new post as ambassador to Britain. In the last issue, he declares victory: “So: the war is won; the League is dead; autocracy is no more; the nincompoops are out.” Obviously a natural diplomat.

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Russian War Minister Leon Trotsky supposedly tells military school students that he’s considering a war of revenge against Poland.

Leaders of the Dadaist art movement are on trial in Berlin for insulting the army. In an exhibit last year there was a stuffed effigy in an army officer suit with a pig mask. The label said it could best be appreciated if one spent 15 minutes on a parade ground in full kit.

The lower house of the Michigan Legislature passes a general libel bill aimed at Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic Dearborn Independent. A “general libel” is one which impeaches the honesty, integrity, virtue, reputation or patriotism of any religion or sect. There’s already a similar Detroit city ordinance, under which a seller of the paper has been arrested.

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