Today -100: May 27, 1921: Of riots, war crimes, and battlers

Ada Dozier wins a lawsuit against the city of Chicago for the death of her husband in the summer 1919 race riots. She’s awarded $2,300.

One provision of the Versailles Treaty required Germany to hold war crimes trials. The first, of a sergeant who beat up British POWs, results in a 10-month sentence.

Racist Headline of the Day -100:  

“Many critics have openly declared that Wills is the best big negro in the ring today.”

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Today -100: May 26, 1921: Of customs, polygamous cohabitation, and winey tennis players

The IRA burn the Dublin Custom House, as was the custom. The building has been used by the Local Government Board (rather than customs) and other government bodies for some time, and lots of important records are gone. Also the dome fell in. Reading the account, it sounds like they may just have intended to burn records but the fire got out of hand, forcing IRAers to flee the building, where they were taken prisoner.

House Speaker Frederick Gillett introduces a proposal for an Amendment to the Constitution banning polygamy and “polygamous cohabitation.” It’s aimed at.... Connecticut, evidently.

The Senate unanimously adopts an amendment to the Navy budget asking Harding to to hold a naval disarmament conference with Britain and Japan.

The German government is cracking down on Freikorps groups recruiting men to fight in Silesia.

French tennis players refuse to come to the US for the Davis Cup unless they receive assurances that they will be able to have wine.

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Today -100: May 25, 1921: Thoughtless aspersion is the worst kind

The Senate rejects the House proposal to reduce the size of the Navy to 100,000.

Navy Secretary Edwin Denby names a new military governor for Santo Domingo (the Dominican Republic), Rear Admiral Samuel Robison.

The elections are held in Northern Ireland.  “In some districts revolver firing was indulged in, but not with serious results.” A lot of children voted, including a 2½-year-old who voted for one Thomas Moles, probably because he thought the name was funny.

French Prime Minister Aristide Briand tells the Chamber of Deputies that Germany is fulfilling its promises. On Silesia, he says that it’s never really been German in spite of being part of Germany for 200 years.

The Presbyterian General Assembly calls for prohibition to be imposed on the Philippines, and for federal movie censorship and marriage & divorce laws in the US.

The Women’s City and Country Club adopts a resolution, offered by Eleanor Roosevelt no less, condemning remarks (“thoughtless aspersion”) by Vice President Coolidge, I guess in an article in The New Republic which I can’t find in which he complains that women’s colleges are full of radicals and attacks Vassar drama professor Winifred Smith in particular. The NYT renders her name Finifred Smith; Wikipedia had no results under that name so it showed results for “fingered smith” instead, which was not what I had in mind at all.

There are reports/wishful thinking that the former kaiser Wilhelm has committed suicide. He hasn’t. 

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Today -100: May 24, 1921: Tears of a clown

France tells Germany that sending troops into Upper Silesia, as Germany is doing, would be regarded as an act of war. PM Briand does not say what he regards Poland’s sending troops into Upper Silesia as being. In making this threat, France is acting independently of Britain and Italy.

Headline of the Day -100:  

37 are killed in riots in Alexandria in British-occupied Egypt. It seems to have been started by Greeks. The Times of London claims it was the work of paid agents, because of course it does. The NYT isn’t sure if the riots are anti-foreign or an internal squabble among nationalists, who “could not be expected long to maintain their solidarity. Only in their hatred of English rule and their desire to get Egypt into their own hands, to do with it they know not what, are they at one.”

The NYT supports the new restrictive immigration law, saying “The great menace of the new immigration of recent years is that, by introducing large numbers of varied races whose languages and traditions are alien, the nation may lose unity and solidarity. Already the processes of Americanization have been severely checked, standards of living have been lowered and highly inflammable material has been afforded for radical agitators.” And this bit is not at all telling: “Scandinavians, though foreign to us in language, are racially and politically close kindred.”

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Today -100: May 23, 1921: Of recognitions, and aristocracies of thought action

The US still hasn’t recognized the Obregón government in Mexico and is demanding as a condition of recognition that Obregón sign an agreement to safeguard American interests, change the Constitution to reverse the nationalization of subsoil rights, etc., with demands down to shit like exempting US ministers from laws that apply to Mexican priests. Obregón for some reason thinks this would be a humiliation for a sovereign nation.

German troops defeat Poles in Silesia.

Mussolini says the newly elected Fascist members of the Chamber of Deputies, of which he is one, won’t attend the opening because the king will be there. He predicts, “Our comportment in the Chamber will be correct, as the Fascisti represent the aristocracy of thought action. ... We shall set a good example of discipline and order, of dignity and good-will” unless of course the Socialists shout at them, in which case “we shall immediately bring into Chamber our system of fighting and we will spare no one.” But he thinks they can work with the Socialists on the 8-hour day if the Socialists aren’t assholes about it.

And that was the second time the NYT ever mentioned Mussolini.

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Today -100: May 22, 1921: A collar leads to a collar

Poet-Aviator Gabriele d’Annunzio’s former followers in Fiume have evidently formed hit squads and are assassinating Autonomists who won last month’s election.

Fugitive former Florida Gov. Sidney Catts is arrested on those peonage and bribery charges when an eagle-eyed clothing store clerk in Albany, Georgia notices the initials SJC in a customer’s discarded collar and calls the police. While being escorted by those police, Catts reaches in his pocket for a lead-filled billy (a truncheon-type thing). He says it’s a valued gift from a friend and he certainly wasn’t thinking of slugging a cop and going on the lam.

A London bootmaker’s shop is using an x-ray machine you stick your feet into to determine how well a shoe fits. The store claims the device uses too little radiation to make your foot actually fall off. This (unnamed in the article) store may be the first to have done this stupid thing, but the practice continued for decades.

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Today -100: May 21, 1921: Of mingos, radium, and beer

French Prime Minister Aristide Briand has been making excuses to refuse Lloyd George’s request for a meeting to discuss various German issues (occupation of the Ruhr, Upper Silesia), because he’s afraid that LG will insist that Allied decisions be made by majority rule (Britain + Italy outvoting France) instead of unanimously.

Mingo County, West Virginia (in which Matewan is located) is declared to be in a state of insurrection in an attempt to put down the violent coal strike which has been going on forever. The proclamation of martial law bans the carrying of arms by anyone other than the authorities (presumably that won’t be enforced against the coal companies’ thugs, just guessing). However the coalfield extends into Kentucky, where there is no such ban...

Northern Ireland prepares for elections (on the 24th) with a massive show of military force.

In the White House, Warren G. Harding ceremonially presents Dr. Marie Curie with a vial of radium as was, I assume, the custom.

Pure-food expert Dr. Harvey Wiley testifies to the House Judiciary Committee that beer is not a medicine.

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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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