Today -100: August 17, 1921: I do not intend to permit race war in this city

Russia ends prohibition, at least for booze up to 14% alcohol.

Peter, King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (formerly King of, Er, Just the Serbs), dies at 77. He had an interesting life, much of it in exile, enlisting under fake names, first in the French Foreign Legion to fight the Germans in 1870, then for Serbia. He was installed as King of Just the Serbs in 1903 after a coup in which the king and queen were murdered and then tossed out a window.

See how I said tossed out a window? It is a sign of maturity in a writer NOT to use the word defenestration on every possible occasion.

Éamon de Valera addresses the Dáil Éireann (after they took their oath of allegiance to the Irish Republic, “an oath which in former days would have been termed high treason”), saying that the demand is still for complete independence, just like in the US Declaration of Independence. “When Irishmen come to negotiate with Great Britain they find at every step they are confronted not with principle but with force. ... We will negotiate to save bloodshed if we can, but we can only negotiate on right and on principle.” Much of the Dáil’s proceedings were in Gaelic.

The formation of a KKK branch in Trenton, New Jersey is “contemplated,” so Director of Public Safety George Labarre threatens that if they pull any shit, they’ll be imprisoned or “if necessary, shot down.” “I do not intend to permit race war in this city”.

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Today -100: August 16, 1921: Cheers

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Today -100: August 15, 1921: Facts permit but one answer

Éamon de Valera rejects Lloyd George’s offer of Dominion status for Ireland, calling instead for “amicable but absolute separation.” He rejects partition of Ireland (“the right of the British Government to mutilate our country”) and offers to submit the question of Northern Ireland (“the present dissenting minority”) to outside arbitration. He concludes his letter, “The road to peace and understanding lies open.”

Lloyd George responds that independence for Ireland is unacceptable because of the “geographical propinquity of Ireland to the British Isles” and “historical facts” which “permit but one answer,” and he rejects arbitration re Northern Ireland. 

Which leaves the question of who leaked these and other letters to the press. Presumably the British government, but the Irish are not happy.

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Today -100: August 14, 1921: Peace, ain’t it grand

The Hungarian National Assembly accepts Harding’s declaration of peace. Still needs a proper treaty.

Japan revokes the rule against cheering and applauding members of the royal family, in time for the return of Crown Prince Hirohito from his world tour.

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There’s a “dance censor” in Philadelphia with “full police authority.” Is she called Marguerite Walz? Of course she is. The dancing teachers’ groups want to ban people teaching dancing without being licensed and controlled.

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Today -100: August 13, 1921: Of gum and cigars

The University of Pennsylvania Board of Trustees have to decide whether to release Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood from his job as university provost so he can be governor-general of the Philippines.

“Lenin has thrown communism overboard,” the NYT informs us. The New Economic Policy (NEP) limits state ownership to the most important industries. Also, trams, trains and mail will no longer be free.

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That’s $1,834 actually on her person. I suspect there’s more to this story, and we’ll never know what it is.

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Today -100: August 12, 1921: Of whisky and famines

Magistrate Gundy of the Windsor court rules that Ontario’s temperance act does not ban the exportation of booze to foreign countries. Already orders from the US are, as it were, pouring in. Canadian customs officers are simply letting ships and speedboats take their cargo across the border.

Maxim Litvinov says Russia must be in charge of famine relief, so control won’t be ceded to outside groups like Herbert Hoover’s American Relief Administration (Hoover is trying to do famine relief without having to acknowledge the existence of the Soviet government). Russia wants to limit the number of Americans in the country and retain the right to expel any of them. Litvinov says the famine has “strengthened the bonds between the government and the people.” So that’s nice. Poland, on the other hand, is offering Hoover the use of its railroads to get food to Russia.

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Today -100: August 11, 1921: Of peace, corrupt conspirators, strict neutrality, and polio

Members of Congress are getting pissed that, 40 days after Harding signed the Congressional resolution ending the war, he hasn’t issued a proclamation. Also, he’s holding secret negotiations with Germany.

Illinois Gov. Len Small has some words about his arrest for embezzlement: “Contrary to the accepted principles of our Government and at the behest of corrupt conspirators, the authority of the people has been prostituted to the purposes of a lawless ring... comprised of the most vicious elements in Sangamon County,” which county he calls “gang-ridden,” aided by the Chicago Tribune & Chicago Daily News, the state attorney gen. and Sen. Medill McCormick.

The Allied Supreme Council scraps the Treaty of Sèvres (on its one-year anniversary) and declares “strict neutrality” in the war between Greece and the Turkish nationalists. And by strict neutrality, they mean they’ll sell arms to either side. Or both sides, it’s a party!

Lady Violet Bonham-Carter, daughter of Herbert Asquith, politely declines the invitation of the Westminster Liberals to stand for Parliament, which would have been amusing, recalling how vehemently Asquith fought against women’s suffrage. Lady V will eventually stand for election twice after World War II, losing both times.

The Spanish government will resign following the major military losses to what the NYT insists on calling The Moors in Spanish Morocco.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt comes down with a chill, soon temporarily losing the ability to walk. After one doctor decides it’s a cold, the family hires a famous diagnostician who says it’s a blood clot, prescribes massages, and charges $600. It’ll be a couple of weeks before they find a doctor who correctly diagnoses polio (for which massages are a bad idea).

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Today -100: August 10, 1921: Of city finances, governors in handcuffs (there weren’t actual handcuffs), and dead generals

Before an investigating committee, New York City Mayor John Hylan defends his handling of the city’s finances, which include exceeding the legal debt limit by $120 million. He is peppered with a lot of questions which he claims not to understand, and blames the Legislature for creating a lot of the city’s expenses.

Illinois Gov. Len Small is finally arrested, 3 weeks after being indicted for embezzlement and fraud he did when he was state treasurer. After spending most of those three weeks on the road, he returned to Springfield and announced he would resist arrest. So Sheriff Master surrounded the State House and waited for the governor to come out and play. Which he finally does; the sheriff then takes him to the Court House where he signs a $50,000 bond.

An entirely different account today of the death of Gen. José Allesio Robles. Rather than a duel in Mexico City, Gen. Jacinto Treviño shot him five times in his car. Treviño is citing military honor, since Robles publicly slagged him off several times and challenged him to a duel and called him a coward for not agreeing to the duel; General T. preferred doing a drive-by. 

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Today -100: August 9, 1921: Of duels and early prison releases

Mexican generals Jacinto Treviño (the former minister of commerce and labor) and José Allesio Robles run into each other in a café in Mexico City. The former kills the latter in what might be described as an impromptu duel or, you know, murder. Treviño will not go to jail. 

Lloyd George gives in to Sinn Féin demands that Dáil Éireann member John McKeown be released from prison, murder conviction or no murder conviction (he shot a chief inspector during a gun battle, which SF considers to be just what happens in a war, not a matter for criminal law). Evidently McKeown is particularly popular because there’s a ballad about him (which doesn’t seem to be on YouTube). De Valera threatened to end negotiations if McKeown was not released.

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Today -100: August 8, 1921: Of klans and non-lynchings

The Ku Klux Klan denies allegations against it: “The knights of the Ku Klux Klan do not encourage or foster lawlessness, racial prejudice or religious intolerance and it [sic] is not designed to act in the capacity of a law enforcement or moral correction agency”. So that settles that.

Police arrive in the nick of time to stop a Detroit mob from lynching a black man, Sam Griggs. There was a fight over a seat at a baseball game, and a crowd chased Griggs’ cousin to his house. He shot into the crowd (he says he was fired on first), hitting two white 12-year-olds.

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Today -100: August 7, 1921: Of death cars

Latest super-unlikely rumor from Russia: Lenin is going on tour, visiting England later in the month, then maybe Scotland and Italy.

The British release all imprisoned members of the Dáil Éireann except for John J. McKeown, who was convicted of murder.

One thing the new law limiting immigration has (foreseeably) done, by instituting monthly quotas, is to set off a race at the start of each month between steamships coming from Europe, which don’t want to be forced to take excess immigrants back.

The Curse of the Hohenzollern Automobile: During the war, one of the princes ran over and killed a child. So he sold the car to a baron, who ran over and killed a man, so he sold it to a chauffeur, who you guessed it, so he sold it to a Cologne business man, who died in a crash. So there’s one car for sale, slightly blood-stained, no takers so far. The article doesn’t say what the model of the car is.

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Today -100: August 6, 1921: Blimp on a rampage!

A police magistrate in Vienna sentences Archduchess Elisabeth Marie to 10 days for refusing to surrender her four children to her estranged husband Prince Otto. She told a cop who tried to take the kids that she’d feed him to her dogs. Archduchesses gonna archduchess.

Not sure how its members were chosen, but the Famine Relief Committee formed in Moscow has only 11 Communists of 63 members. Naturally, ever-optimistic Russian exiles think the committee will somehow overthrow the Soviet government and take over.

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The deputy sheriff of Great Barrington, Massachusetts thinks he’s spotted fugitive Illinois Gov. Len Small in his town, acting suspiciously, over the last three weeks and asks if there’s a reward for his capture. Illinios replies that there isn’t any reward and Small hasn’t left Illinois, you ninny.

The Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors rules that aliens don’t have free speech, or at least not the right to advocate changing the form of government or indeed laws.

Spanish troops are doing very badly against a rebellion in Spanish Morocco.

The minor leagues ban the Black Sox players too.

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Today -100: August 5, 1921: Of exiles and Dáils

Switzerland orders former Austro-Hungarian emperor Charles to leave the country by the end of the month. He will either go to Spain, whose king has offered him the use of a castle, or attempt another coup back home. Bit of a coin toss really.

The Dáil Éireann is called for August 16, which means the British have to release 25 members.

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Today -100: August 4, 1921: Really quite a few usual suspects

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Judge Learned Hand in Federal District Court in the Southern District of New York decides a case brought by a couple of women who inherited from their German father during the war, who lost their American citizenship when they married Germans. They contend that property seized under the Alien Enemies Act should now be returned to them because Congress declared the war over and they are no longer alien enemies. Hand rules against them without directly addressing the war question. There’s nothing worse than an incomplete Hand job.

Sorry.

Comiskey and other leaders of baseball say they won’t allow the Black Sox players to return, despite their acquittals.

Two black men were in jail after allegedly killing a shopkeeper in Tobacco, Virginia. A mob breaks in and lynches one of them but for some reason leaves the other one alone.

Yugoslavia has now arrested more than 14,000 people for an attempted assassination in June of Prince Alexander.

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Today -100: August 3, 1921: Of tenors, black sox, trinkles, smugglers, and big-ass watermelons

Enrico Caruso dies.

The White Sox players who threw the 1919 World Series are all acquitted by a Chicago jury, perhaps because of the mysterious disappearance of the confessions of three of them.

Elbert Lee Trinkle wins the Democratic primary for governor of Virginia, which means he’ll be the next governor. Did I mention his name is “Elbert Lee Trinkle”? Governor Trinkle.

The feds seize a British-registered schooner they claim was smuggling rum, but they do so in international waters, 4 miles outside Atlantic City, where it’s perfectly legal to sell alcohol. They claim they can do that because they have evidence of a conspiracy. No one will be very convinced by this argument.

Someone’s sending Pres. Harding a 76-pound watermelon.

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Today -100: August 2, 1921: Oh Boy

Izvestia, the official newspaper of the Russian government, says 6 million starving peasants are marching on Moscow, whether looking for revolution or food or both is not clear. The NYT correspondent says “At a conservative estimate 20,000,000 people seem doomed to death,” maybe as many as 40 million. And “hordes of frenzied peasants attack trains.”

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The reporter can read the placards but is presumably afraid to actually talk with one of the participants because they’re scary (the parade is by Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association).

The Hardings get another dog. An English bulldog named “Oh Boy.” He is a super-pedigree, son of a $4,000 dog.

In other news, in 1921 there were dogs worth $4,000, which is the equivalent of some money, but a lot of it.

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Today -100: August 1, 1921: Of pacifications, swords, pogroms, and missing stairs

The Italian government arranges for a “pact of pacification” – literally a treaty – between the Socialists and the Fascists. Mussolini will sign it, but his ability to rein in the various fascist “action squads” is questionable.

Police in Kobe, Japan have been attacking strikers with swords.

There are reports, or rumors, of pogroms in the Ukraine.

Anna Cohen bought a building in Brooklyn and gave notice of eviction to the tenants. They sued and won, so she removed the stairs into the building.

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Today -100: July 31, 1921: Of prisoners and flags

Russia agrees to Hoover’s demand that it release American prisoners as a precondition for food aid.

Newly appointed Governor of Puerto Rico Emmet Montgomery Reily is inaugurated. He says the only flag for which there is room in Puerto Rico is the US flag, although possession or display of the Puerto Rican flag will only be made literally illegal in 1948.

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Today -100: July 30, 1921: Of wholesale disregard of law, cops gone amuck, hitchy koo, and bathing Germans

The head of the American Legion warns/threatens Pres. Harding against pardoning Eugene Debs, which would “license a wholesale disregard of law.”

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Raymond Hitchcock the comedian, but wouldn’t it be funny if it were Alfred Hitchcock? Also, the play Hitchy Koo, not actual, you know, hitchy koo.

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A Catholic newspaper disagrees with the Socialist Vorwärts, which says “Honest freemen will laugh at sham modesty and bathe naked or not, as they please.” Because nothing says “freeman” like a naked German.

I don’t get it. The perfect refreshment after a hard day chasing chickens?

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Today -100: July 29, 1921: A noble example of common sense

The French government accuses Britain of an “unfriendly attitude” about Upper Silesia. France wants enough troops in place before the Supreme Council decides on the border between Poland and Germany, to suppress any (by which they mean German, they always mean German) resistance. Britain thinks if anyone will be kicking up a fuss, it’ll be the Poles. France has asked Germany for permission to send a division through Germany, but Germany pointed out that under the Treaty of Versailles such a demand can only be made by all 3 Allies. The NYT says that British officials think French politicians are “obsessed by considerations which are not concerned with the practical realities of the age, but look to the future period, however remote, when powerful Germany will seek revenge.”

In other news, Adolf Hitler is elected chairman of the Nazi Party.

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