Today -100: May 20, 1921: Panned

Obit of the Day -100:  

Michael Llewelyn Davies, actually one of four brothers J.M. Barrie adopted after their parents’ deaths, drowns in the Thames along with his possible boyfriend and fellow Oxford student Rupert Buxton, possibly in a suicide pact. He was 20, and the cousin of Daphne du Maurier (who is 14 years old).

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Today -100: May 19, 1921: Of dead justice, guvs on the run, and matters of European concern

Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Douglass White is dead. White was appointed as associate justice in 1894 by Cleveland and chief justice in 1910 by Taft. His father was a member of Congress and governor of Louisiana. He was a Confederate soldier, and prisoner of war (although the facts are oddly murky and contradictory), during the Civil War. If you’re wondering, two other ex-Confederate vets served on the Supreme Court.  White was the second Catholic justice, after Roger Taney.

Former Florida Governor Sidney Catts is indicted in federal district court for peonage of two black prisoners who he had delivered to his plantation. This isn’t his first indictment this month, the first being for selling pardons, but he hasn’t been found to be arrested yet; in other words, he’s currently a fugitive from justice, which I believe is the custom for former governors of Florida. He’s a minister, because of course he is.

The Polish government asks the US for help on the Upper Silesia question. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes responds that it’s just “a matter of European concern, in which, in accord with the traditional policy of the United States, this Government should not become involved.”

Rumor of the Day -100:  Trotsky has cancer!

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Today -100: May 18, 1921: Of dying justice, national coalitions, and what does Einstein know anyway?

Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Douglass White’s doctor says he’ll probably be dead by morning.

The French Communist Party conference decides that the party’s MPs can keep their salaries instead of handing them over to the party and being given a worker’s pay.

The “National Coalition Party” of Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti wins a small majority in the Italian general elections (221 seats in the Chamber of Deputies), so he should continue in office. The Socialists and Communists lose some seats, to 125 and 15 respectively), Fascists have 28, one of them Mussolini. There are also 4 German and 5 Slav deputies representing territories acquired from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 40+ people are killed in election violence (later figure: 63). An editorial says “the verdict of the election is strongly against the subversive elements,” by which the NYT means the left wing, not the Fascists.

Albert Einstein, visiting Boston, is asked some of the questions on Thomas Edison’s test. Einstein does NOT know the speed of sound off the top of his head.

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Today -100: May 17, 1921: Reading Gandhi

An Irishman is executed in Cork for possession of a revolver and 12 rounds of ammunition.

The Earl of Reading, the Viceroy of India, met with Gandhi.

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Today -100: May 16, 1921: Of false mustaches, draft dodgers, fair mothers, and sun spots

Men from, presumably, the IRA, well-disguised with trench coats and false mustaches, attack houses in London and Liverpool of people connected to the Royal Irish Constabulary. A bit of arson, a bit of shooting, none of it very fatal, but it’s happening on the mainland.

Adalbert Korfanty, head of the Polish insurrection in Upper Silesia, complains that the British look on Poles as “less than negroes.”

The War Department plans to continue issuing lists of draft evaders, despite embarrassing reports every single day about people falsely included on those lists.

The Romanian police raid the Romanian Communist Congress and arrest 72 delegates, including 3 MPs, after it votes to join the Third Internationale. The cops claim the party is subsidized by Russian jewels.

Georgians are organizing to impeach Gov. Hugh Dorsey (whose term expires next month) for his pamphlet on the treatment of black people in the state. The “Guardians of Liberty” accuse him of “blackening... the character of the fairest mother ever had – Georgia.” One person attacking Dorsey is President of the state Senate Sam Olive, who says the only way to end lynching is for assault to cease.

High sun spot activity is blamed for railroad tie-ups (electrical interference with the signaling system).

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Today -100: May 15, 1921: To hell with hooch

An anti-Prohibition parade in Brooklyn is cheered by Mayor Hylan and his family as it passes his house. Placard: “To Hell With Hooch: We Want Beer.” 

Victor Daly, business manager of The Messenger, the Harlem Renaissance magazine, and his wife and mother-in-law are awarded $100 each for being refused service (after refusing to sit in the rear room) at the Pig and Whistle Restaurant in the West Village.

Oh, look, the same thing happens to Grace’s Garret in Washington Square after it refuses to serve negroes, one of them from the NAACP. I begin to suspect a campaign. The owner of the Garret insists it’s not really a public restaurant and she often refuses to serve people who seem “not to be congenial to the little group that comes to the Garret.”

A new California law bans capital punishment for people under 18 (although it’s up to them to prove their age).

Sen. Thaddeus Caraway (D-Ark) introduces a bill to ban negroes enlisting in the army or navy.

Headline of the Sunny Day -100:  

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Today -100: May 14, 1921: Of respected commas, spikes, and measurements

In Parliament, Lloyd George calls for fair play in Upper Silesia, saying Poles don’t have a historical claim on the region and didn’t win their own freedom during the War, rather it was won for them by the Allies even while many Poles serving in the German military shot at them, so “Poland above all lands ought to respect every comma in the Treaty of Versailles.” He says the Poles in Silesia only thought about fighting for their “freedom” once the Germans were disarmed. He suggests that the Polish government, rather than denying any responsibility for the actions of Adalbert Korfanty, should follow Italy’s example in (eventually) dealing with Poet-Aviator d’Annunzio.

Nominations are made for the Southern Irish Parliament. Only Sinn Féin nominates any candidates for the 124 of the 128 constituencies (the other 4 are 4 pro-Union types selected for Trinity College Dublin), with no opponents. Since the SFers will refuse to take the oath to the king (half are in prison anyway, many of the rest on the lam), the Southern Parliament is effectively dead. Among those nominated: Éamon de Valera, Michael Collins, Mary MacSwiney, sister of Terence, the Cork lord mayor who died in prison from a hunger strike, and his brother Sean, “who recently escaped from Spike Island internment camp,” because OF COURSE there’s a Spike Island internment camp.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: May 13, 1921: Now I want to see an IMDB user review by Shakespeare of City Lights

Bernard Shaw supports the plan of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford to show movies during the off-season. He says Shakespeare would have loved Charlie Chaplin.

Canada warns US aviators to stop flying over the border without a permit. Under the International Air Convention, countries are supposed to license pilots and certify planes’ airworthiness, but the United States doesn’t do any of that.

With a general election pending in Italy, Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti says Italy is on her feet again. He admits Italy badly needs to get rid of its surplus population and is not happy that the US is cutting back on immigration (Italians are currently the largest number of immigrants to the US).

Claquers (people paid to attend theatrical performances and clap wildly) in Buenos Aires want to join a union of (real) theatre employees.

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Today -100: May 12, 1921: Of truces, cancers, famines, and daylights

The Polish forces in Upper Silesia commit to a truce, which they immediately break.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Or die trying!

The British claim the IRA are destroying seeds to promote their claim in the US of a famine in Ireland.

The Connecticut Senate refuses to pass the bill the lower house passed penalizing people and cities who adopt Daylight Saving Time.

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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.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Headline of the Day -100:  

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.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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.

The Most Alaska Headline of the Day -100:  

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.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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

Headline of the Day -100:  

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.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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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