Today -100: July 9, 1921: Peace?

Congress declared peace last week, but “nobody in authority in Washington seems to know whether we are actually at peace or not.” The resolution may have been enough by itself, or there may need to be some sort of proclamation, especially if the US is to retain the “rights” it acquired by the term of the armistice. It’s also unclear if laws passed for the duration of the war are still in effect. “Meanwhile the country may be engaged in a state of war with Germany without anybody knowing how to end it.” Treaties with Germany and Austria would definitely do it, but Harding shows no sign of making a move in that direction.

France withdraws its delegation from the Leipzig war crimes court, calling it a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham. This also means French complaining witnesses won’t appear.

Former kaiser Wilhelm refuses to pay taxes in the Netherlands, claiming he didn’t come to the country willingly and is being held as a virtual prisoner, so he doesn’t have to pay taxes.

The Tuskegee Institute reports that there were 36 lynchings in the United States in the first six months of 1921, up from 12 in the same period in 1920. 2 of the lynchees were white, 34 black. Mississippi and Georgia had the most lynchings.

Éamon de Valera finally responds to Lloyd George’s invitation to London, asking “on what basis such a conference as that proposed can reasonably hope to achieve the object desired, huh, huh?” I may have added the huhs. Lloyd George agrees to a suspension of hostilities in Ireland from Monday.

More proof that life in the 1920s was EXACTLY as it was portrayed in silent films:  

Congress moves quickly to enact the dying wish of Rep. Edward Taylor of Colorado to rename the Grand River the Colorado River. A rather uninteresting dying wish, if you ask me, but then Taylor won’t actually die until 1941.

Jack Dempsey says he won’t box Jack Johnson (just out of prison) or any other negro.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: July 8, 1921: Too many du Ponts

The US sends the warship Cleveland to Tampico, Mexico to protect American interests (i.e., property, especially oil) against anticipated labor disturbances but also possibly as a subtle way of registering displeasure over the recent increase in taxes on oil exports.

Albert Einstein, back home from his trip to America, says the “excessive enthusiasm” for him there is because the American people are “colossally bored” because there is intellectual poverty outside of New York, Boston and Chicago. Oh, and also women run the US.

The German war crimes court in Leipzig acquits Lt-Gen. Karl Stenger of ordering the killing of French POWs in 1914 (he actually didn’t issue any such order), while a major was convicted and given a light sentence for carrying out the order, if order there was. The French are pissed.

Sen. Josiah Wolcott (D) of Delaware resigns to become chancellor of Delaware (their name for attorney general). In other words, Gov. William Denney got him to give up his seat so he could appoint a Republican to replace him, T. Coleman du Pont, from the always contentious Delaware family (NYT: “There are too many du Ponts for so small a state.”)

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: July 7, 1921: Of virtual defeats, soluble problems, and Trotsky in chains

The Senate is debating a Bonus Bill for veterans, giving them $1 a day for each day of service, $1.25 for each day overseas. That money would be paid in installments starting in 1922, the 2nd installment coming conveniently right before the Congressional elections. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon denounces the idea, saying it would “virtually defeat the Administration’s program of economy and retrenchment,” hamper re-financing the national debt, create inflation, and somehow, the veterans would lose more from it than they would gain. There’s a lot of bullshit from senators about how the soldiers didn’t fight for money (especially the 25¢ a day 

difference between service in the US and service in the trenches). Mellon refers to “a sacrifice that can never be measured in terms of money.” Well not with that attitude, mister.

Right next to that story on the front page of the NYT is this one:

South African Prime Minister Jan Smuts says that Ireland is totally “soluble,” and he knows this because “If ever this problem of the subjection of one people to another presented a hopeless view it was in South Africa” but “we solved the problem, and today South Africa is one of the happiest countries in the Empire.” Of course, the people who were under subjection in that formulation were the Boers; the majority black population of his country literally don’t enter into his thinking. One of the happiest countries in-fucking-deed.

Latest completely unconfirmed rumor about Russia that the NYT nevertheless publishes: Lenin has imprisoned Trotsky.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: July 6, 1921: Of dominions

Various discussions have been going on in advance of the conference in London. De Valera and other Sinn Féin leaders met with Southern Irish Unionists, the Ulster ones having refused an invitation. Now South African PM Jan Smuts is in Dublin, presumably to play up the Dominion option to Sinn Féiners because hey it’s working out so well in South Africa.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: July 5, 1921: Wine was served

An anti-Prohibition parade marches up 5th Avenue in New York, yes, on the Fourth of July. 20,000 marchers, the NYT says, which is smaller than was expected; the Anti-Saloon League did its own count, and says 14,922. Mayor Hylan watched the parade while having an ice cream soda. Banners included the slogans “Prohibition took sunshine from our homes and put moonshine in,” “We are citizens, not inmates. Which are you?”, “Russia went dry in 1919; went mad in 1921. How rational do you feel yourself?”, “Only a mother could love a prohibitionist’s face,” “Tyranny in the name of righteousness is the basest of all tyranny,” “Greenwich Village wants drinks,” “The rich have it. Why not the poor?” One marcher carries a reproduction of da Vinci’s The Last Supper with the caption “Wine was served.” 

Later in the day, 5th Ave sees another parade, sponsored by the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic. Hylan observes that one too.

Ivanoe Bonomi forms a government in Italy.

Italian Fascists respond to the killing of one of their members by Communists in Grosseto, Tuscany with a military-type attack on the town, killing 16.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Headline of the Day -100:  

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: July 4, 1921: Here’s Johnny

Headline of the Day -100:  

Happy 4th!

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: July 3, 1921: Peace, ain’t it grand

Between rounds of golf, Harding signs the Congressional joint declaration ending the war with Germany and Austria. He accidentally dripped some ink on it, which is probably one of those metaphor things.

Dempsey wins, which is enough about that.

Wait, no it isn’t. Some people from the International Reform Bureau, whatever that is, attend the match in order to attempt to get the winner arrested for assault and battery. However the cops won’t do it without a warrant, even though the chief of police personally witnessed the assault, and they can’t find a judge to issue one.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: July 2, 1921: I know the people do not want me to go

The Senate passes the resolution declaring the Great War over, 38-19. Some Democrats complain that this means the US will have to give back all the German property it seized during the war.

The lawyers for Sacco and Vanzetti, on trial for murder, insist that all evidence that they have a reputation for being peaceful and law-abiding be stricken from the record. The jury is told to disregard anything they’ve heard along those lines (a couple of cops from Vanzetti’s town and a couple of Sacco’s former employers so testified).

Attorney General Harry Daugherty says he won’t attend the Dempsey-Carpentier fight because he “had too much respect for the opinion of people who disapprove of prize fights and of whom I must be a sort of unofficial representative.” Gov. Wilson Sproul of Pennsylvania also won’t be there, saying he’s never been to a prizefight and wouldn’t know what was going on and “I know the people do not want me to go.” J.P. Morgan says he won’t go because he disapproves, not because of the boxing, but for some other reason he doesn’t care to disclose (he’s commenting because he was accidentally included on a list of attendees).

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: July 1, 1921: Chuckles the Judge

Headline of the Day -100:  

In the morning, Pres. Harding nominates former Pres. William Howard Taft to be chief justice of the Supreme Court, and the Senate confirms him by the afternoon, with 4 no votes (William Borah, Hiram Johnson, Robert La Follette, all Republicans, and George Watson, D of Georgia). Borah says Taft hasn’t practiced law in 30 years and at 63 is just 7 years from the legal age of incompetence. Harding didn’t even inform Taft before sending the nomination to the Senate, but Taft’s been panting for a seat on the Court for...  decades, really and everyone pretty much knew he was getting it.

The British release Sinn Féin Vice President Arthur Griffith and other SF MPs from prison so they can take part in the London conference (although de Valera has yet to accept).

The NYT requests people not call their offices for updates during the Dempsey-Carpentier fight.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Getting new blog posts by email

Google is killing that Feedburner function sometime in July, because reasons. I've added a new get-posts-by-email thing in the column to the right, from something called follow.it. If you want to continue/start getting posts in your inbox, enter your email address there.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 30, 1921: We need to know the whereabouts of these people

Northern Ireland Prime Minister Sir James Craig rejects Éamon de Valera’s request for a meeting (which de V initially sent to a different Unionist politician named Sir James Craig).

The Dáil Éireann authorizes reprisals against British reprisals. A house for a house.

The House of Representatives votes 330-4 for the Borah Amendment in favor of calling naval limitation negotiations with Britain and Japan.

Winston Churchill’s mother Jennie, aka Lady Randolph Churchill, dies. The story is on page 12, which is odd since her leg being amputated was front-page news earlier this month.

The Cuban Senate votes against women’s suffrage. 

US Secretary of Labor James Davis wants to track immigrants, “not to regulate him, but to help him, to teach him, and encourage him. We need to know the whereabouts of these people, if it is only to protect them from the insidious poison of Red propaganda.”

A Lake County, Illinois jury takes 20 hours to convict a hotel owner of violating Prohibition law, because that’s how long it took for them to consume the evidence, 3 quarts of whiskey and 1 of port.

No, I’m not going to read the op-ed about how vivisection is “vindicated.”

I thought we’d heard the opinion of every person on earth about the Dempsey-Carpentier match, but... George Bernard Shaw thinks Carpentier will win.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 29, 1921: Ultra-modern, to say the least

Éamon de Valera resonds to Lloyd George’s call to confer in London, saying he will need to consult with... “the political minority” or Ireland, i.e., the Unionists. He also says no lasting peace can be achieved if LG insists on dividing Ireland and rejecting “the principle of national self-determination.” De Valera also writes to Northern Ireland Prime Minister Sir James Craig and other Unionist leaders proposing talks with them.

West Virginia Gov. Ephraim Morgan orders the sheriff of Mingo County to draft 130 men (or accept volunteers) for 60 days to fight the miners. WV has no National Guard.

An address to the National Social Conference describes how a man was once cured of hysterical blindness by the Industrial Commission of New York by letting him remain with the woman he was living with in bigamy after leaving his “unkind” wife. A delegate to the conference says of the address, “It was ultra-modern, to say the least.” The person who gave the address was Frances Perkins.

Sports Headline of the Day -100:  

The NYT won’t shut up about the upcoming Dempsey-Carpentier fight, and evidently neither will professors at the Sorbonne.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 28, 1921: Of beer and low confidence

The House of Representatives votes 250-93 to ban doctors prescribing beer and to restrict prescriptions for liquor to one pint every 10 days.

Giovanni Giolitti resigns as Italian prime minister after receiving only a marginal vote of confidence (234-200) on his foreign policy.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 27, 1921: War in three years

Éamon de Valera has received the invitation from Lloyd George, although it appeared in the newspapers before the letter reached him. I’m just curious what address they mailed it to. De Valera will consult with the Dáil Éireann before deciding whether accept, possibly with conditions, and definitely with some associates, preferably ones the British will have to release from prison to attend. Ulster PM Sir James Craig is also mulling it over, and may insist on his own pre-conditions, like no consideration of an Irish republic.

The Upper Silesia crisis has been declared over, with both German and Polish forces agreeing to withdraw.

At the annual convention of Spiritualists at the Waldorf-Astoria, clairvoyant John Slater calls for an amendment to the Constitution to protect mediums from prosecution (in 1930 Slater will win in court after a clergyman has him charged for making predictions, which was illegal under Michigan law). He complains that rich Spiritualists don’t donate much to the cause, because Spiritualism “takes away the fear of Hell and they are no longer afraid to die rich.”

Trotsky supposedly told the 3rd congress of the Communist International that the US and Britain would be in a naval war by 1924.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 26, 1921: Every imaginable sacrifice

The (presumably all-white) grand jury investigating the Tulsa race war indicts the chief of police, John Gustafson, and some other cops. Not actually for the race war, but for failure to enforce prohibition and firearm laws and to suppress vice, and something about stolen cars. Other than that, the grand jury report blames black people for the race war, I mean it puts ALL of the blame on them, because of course it fucking does. See, it started because blacks showed up armed at the court house to prevent a lynching, but, see, all those white people milling around the court house didn’t intend anything of the kind, they were just there for, I don’t know, cotton candy or something. The grand jury finds the underlying cause to be the spread of “racial equality” doctrine among blacks.

Georgia Gov. Hugh Dorsey, on his last day in office, says there have been 58 lynchings during his 4 years in office and in most cases there was no effort to bring members of the lynch mob to justice. He has suggestions about reforms that could deal with this, including a state-level constabulary and grand jury. Incoming governor Thomas Hardwick’s inaugural message responds to that and to the recent federal investigations of peonage in Georgia, saying the white farmer “has made every imaginable sacrifice to help the negro,” presumably not counting the white farmer who murdered all those black people on his plantation. Hardwick says “the indictment of the whole State and all of its people for mistreating the black race is an unspeakable slander upon our State and her people”.

Greece declines the Allies’ offer to mediate an end to their war with Turkish nationalists.

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George asks Éamon de Valera to come to London, with a plus one, for a conference with the British government and Northern Irish Prime Minister Sir James Craig “to explore to the utmost the possibility of a settlement.” Under the threat of martial law being declared and a major increase in military occupation on... wait for it.... July the 12th.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 25, 1921: Live and never die

De Valera really was arrested and released, as confirmed by Sinn Féin. 

D.D. Murphy, leader of the black cult Live and Never Die, is shot dead by the Atlantic City police after a shoot-out.

A train containing some of King George’s escort for the opening of the Ulster Parliament earlier this week, the Tenth Hussars, is derailed by an IRA mine, killing 3 soldiers and a guard. 2 IRA are shot dead as are a bunch of injured horses.

In the Italian parliament, new deputy Benito Mussolini talks about annexing the Italian-speaking parts of Switzerland.

Assholes of the Day -100:  Whoever keep breaking into Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan’s house in Forest Hills and stealing stuff.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 24, 1921: Of jackasses, final phases, and professional labor leaders

Rear Adm. William Sims gave a speech a couple of weeks ago in London, which everyone has been going on (and on and on) about ever since, in which he called American supporters of Sinn Féin jackasses, among other things (although he claims he’s been misquoted). He arrived back in the US yesterday, recalled so he can explain himself. There’s a heavy police presence at the port of New York to prevent him being mobbed.

Supposedly, the police finally capture Éamon de Valera, more or less accidentally in County Dublin, and then... let him go.

Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood tells a group of Crown forces (presumably cops + soldiers) that the final phase of the struggle in Ireland is beginning. He says the Crown forces have no quarrel with the Irish people but wish to rescue them from the criminal minority which holds life cheaply and is opposed to civilization.

Future vice president Charles G. Dawes arrives in Washington to take up the post of director of the Budget Bureau, which Harding created. He complains loudly and bitterly that Congress hasn’t given him enough funding to properly fulfill what he sees as his task, which is to examine every penny of government expenditure and make cuts so that taxes on his fellow businessmen can be reduced. Disdaining having to “take his chances” on whatever civil servants are assigned to him, he wants to invite businessmen to come to Washington to advise him (without compensation) for four months.

T.H. Watkins, president of the Pennsylvania Coal and Coke Company, says he won’t be dealing with the United Mine Workers union anymore, because employers now understand their responsibility, so there’s no need anymore for “the professional labor leader.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 23, 1921: Stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation

Headline of the Day -100:  

And if there are two things the Irish are famously good at, it’s forgiving and forgetting.

The king thinks the model for “self-government” paving the way for healing division is... South Africa.

French Royalists have been getting into street fights. Members of the Camelots du Roi, for example, beat up a Latin Quarter café singer who sang a song which “somewhat reflected upon the private character” of Joan of Arc.

The American Federation of Labor convention passes a resolution of sympathy for the Irish, but Samuel Gompers prevents a motion for a boycott of English goods being attached.

Crime in Paris has increased so much, supposedly, that cops are now ordered to carry guns during the day.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 22, 1921: Of banning Asians, banning Communists, and burning castles

The American Federation of Labor’s convention officially supports the exclusion of all Orientals from the United States. There is a fight in the convention over a proposal to boycott Britain over its policy in Ireland.

The Prussian minister of interior bans Communists from office in Prussia, down to the village level.

The Earl of Bandon, who is a former deputy lieutenant of County Cork and, of course, a Unionist, is kidnapped by the IRA, who also burn down his Castle Bernard.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 21, 1921: Of sewers, smoking, lynchings, and vamps

In preparation for the visit of the king and queen to Belfast, police are inspecting the sewers for bombs, as was the custom.

Rep. Paul Johnson (D-Miss.) introduces a bill to criminalize smoking by women in the District of Columbia.

A mob near Jackson, Mississippi, lynches a young black convict who, while a trustie (sorry, spell-check: that’s how it was spelled in 1921), is alleged to have attacked a white woman.

Theda Bara is to marry director Charles Brabin.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.