Today -100: January 9, 1922: Gloomy satisfaction is the most British satisfaction

The Morning Post (UK) on the divisions in Ireland over the Anglo-Irish Treaty: “The bewildered British public find a gloomy satisfaction in reflecting that perhaps the Irish will now be contented to shoot one another.”

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Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen arrives in the US, after being stuck in the polar ice for, what, 3 years? And he has “adopted” two Eskimo girls, as was the custom.

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Today -100: January 8, 1922: Go for him!

The Dáil Éireann ratifies the peace treaty by a vote of 64-57. De Valera insists that it doesn’t count because the republic was established by the Irish people and until they disestablish it, it goes on.

The US, Britain, France, Italy and Japan agree to ban the use of poison gas in warfare, and ask everyone else to join them. There are no sanctions for violating the agreement. Most countries think the Washington Conference has now accomplished everything it’s going to accomplish (sorry about that, China).

There’s an article in the Sunday NYT Magazine about how Ernst Lubitsch directs mob scenes, for example telling a group of German extras presumably playing Egyptians in the forthcoming Pharaoh’s Wife, “The price of bread has gone up. Over there is a rich baker’s shop. Go, go for him!”

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Today -100: January 7, 1922: Of resignations, conferences, poison gas, and light bulbs

Éamon de Valera resigns as president, taking his cabinet along with him whether they like it or not. He intends to stand again on the principles of 1916 (i.e., the republic) and, if re-elected by the Dáil, to throw out the treaty and offer Britain one of his own. He has agreed to postpone his resignation becoming effective until the Treaty is voted on by the Dáil, as long as they do it quickly. He says he’s sick of politics and wants to go back to private life (Spoiler Alert: He won’t. I mean, he really really won’t), and complains that Finance Minister Michael Collins sent men to Cork to get the kidnapped London Times reporter released, when the minister of defence should have done that.

In March, there will be a conference of all European countries, including Germany and Russia, to discuss economic matters set conditions for the recognition of Russia, which naturally include “legal enforcement of the rights of private property” and payment of Tsarist debts.

At the Washington disarmament conference, the US proposes banning poison gas.

Congress is investigating whether General Electric is using its near-monopoly over light bulb sales to price-fix and drive competitors out of business.

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Today -100: January 6, 1922: Of kidnappings, commerce destroyers, pigeons, and normal marriages

London Times correspondent A.B. Kay, in Dublin covering the Dáil debate, is kidnapped by the IRA while eating lunch. He’s taken to Cork, where he reported last week that most people were in favor of the Treaty, evidently to find out whether he’d interviewed anyone from the army (I assume that means the Irish Republican Army). Michael Collins sends men to Cork to tell the local IRA to release Kay, which they do.

The US, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy agree not to use submarines as “commerce destroyers,” although they can still sink civilian commercial ships after searching them and putting their crew in a place of safety, but can’t sink them without warning. But the agreement faisl to define merchant ships, like whether an armed ship counts. And there’s no punishment for violations.

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Tell me more, front page of the NYT.

“powerful Bavarian circles controlling the bulk of Bavarian public opinion” are attempting to ensure that when, inevitably they think, Austria is absorbed into Germany, it won’t be as a separate state but will be amalgamated with Bavaria, countering the dominance of Prussia. They say Austrian Tylorians are especially eager to join Bavaria, since the both peoples play zithers, yodel, and wear those knee pants and the hats with the feathers.

Worst Episode of The Andy Griffith Show Ever:

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Today -100: January 5, 1922: By God, you are trying to prove me nutty!

NYC will install traffic lights controlled centrally by a “traffic dictator.” This will allow lights to be synchronized, easing traffic, and let the city fire thousands of traffic cops.

British theatrical censorship, of which Shaw wrote so often and so hilariously, shows signs of easing slightly: August Strindberg’s Advent will be allowed to depict Jesus. As played by a 14-year-old girl, because why not.

The Senate committee investigating Thomas Watson (D-Georgia)’s claims about executions of US soldiers without courts-martial during the war hears from ex-soldiers who say they witnessed these events. One of whom, asked if he has been ill since returning from France, yells “By God, you are trying to prove me nutty! You are a bunch of fanatics.”

There’s been a suggestion that the problem of the phone company charging for calls that were never made could be solved by putting pay phones into every home, but it turns out no one actually wants pay phones in their homes.

Ernest Vilgrain, the under-secretary of state for supply in the French Food Ministry 1917-20, is arrested for supposedly deliberately injuring himself in August 1914 to get out of the army. His story is that he was shot in the hand by a man in French uniform he recognized as the mayor of a village. Who had an alibi. And at some point all Vilgrain’s military records vanished. The doctor who examined him a couple of times to see if he was fit to return to duty says he complained both times of “doubtful symptoms” of appendicitis, but refused to have an operation. So he’s being charged with desertion in the face of the enemy and voluntary self-mutilation, which theoretically carry the death penalty. He will be acquitted.

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Today -100: January 4, 1922: Of body rubbers, the worst divorce, and causing tumults and public disorders

Rep. Thomas Blanton (D-Texas) introduces bills to tear out the Congressional Roman baths and fire the “body rubbers.” Also the House barber. And its restaurant.

The Nevada attorney general is still trying to overturn Mary Pickford’s March 1920 divorce, which he calls “the worst of its kind”.

The Italian government is considering charging Deputy Benito Mussolini with having, in 1919, “formed and armed a band for the purpose of committing crimes against persons, terrifying the public and causing tumults and public disorders.” It will have to get permission from the Chamber of Deputies to charge him. For balance, I guess, it will also try to prosecute a Communist deputy, Garosi, for writing negative things about the army.

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Today -100: January 3, 1922: Of non-republics, shaking hands, and things that are here to stay

The India Office denies that anyone has declared a republic.

The Hardings revive the custom of the White House New Year’s Reception, shaking hands with 6,500 visitors, which is how Covid started, probably. Wilson stopped the practice because ambassadors show up at these things and during the war that would have been just awkward: do you greet the French ambassador first or the German? Plus he didn’t like shaking hands with so many people.

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According to President Friedrich Ebert, and he should know.

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Today -100: January 2, 1922: Of new yearses, prescriptions, and registers

New York has a very New York New Years, with shootings, stabbings, assaults, robberies, false fire alarms, etc., but “A peculiar thing about the disorder was that many of its makers appeared not to have been drinking.” There are many drinkers, but they’re just having fun.

Chicago doctors issued 2,189,000 prescriptions for liquor in 1921.

Secretary of Labor James Davis wants the Bureau of Naturalization to register all aliens. Aliens should be assured that the purpose is not espionage, but to let the government follow the progress of Americanization, which isn’t creepy at all.

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Today -100: January 1, 1922: Happy 1922!

Sen. Boise Penrose, the Boss of Pennsylvania Republicans, who had a hell of a name, dies at 61.

Oskari Tokoi, the former prime minister of Finland who fled that country after the Whites won the civil war, is arrested in Massachusetts as an alien anarchist.

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Prof. Charles St John of the Mt. Wilson Observatory says there’s no life on Venus. But that’s just what an undercover spy from Venus would say, isn’t it?

The Tuskegee Institute reports there were 64 lynchings in the US in 1921. 59 of the victims were black.

Lenin is re-elected head of the Russian government by the All-Russian Soviet Congress. Unanimously.

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Today -100: December 31, 1921: But the Brits are too smart to fall into that trap, right?

The Indian National Congress fails to declare independence as some expected. It wants the blame for starting warfare to fall on the British.

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Today -100: December 30, 1921: To be fair, are we sure Gandhi couldn’t do those things?

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France’s refusal to go along with limits on submarines (indeed, France plans to triple its sub tonnage) was thoroughly predictable, but Britain in particular was sure it could be browbeaten into accepting limits for some reason. There’s some hope remaining that France will join an agreement not to use submarines against civilian commercial ships. France would also have blocked any attempt to limit land forces, so no one tried. So the only thing the Washington Conference has accomplished is to limit the number of capital ships, which is disappointing but not nothing. Anyway, everyone hates France now, as is the custom.

The embezzlement charges against Illinois Gov. Len Small are dropped, along with the charge of operating a confidence game, but the charge of conspiracy to defraud the state of $2m remains. The embezzlement charge is gone only because the foreman of the grand jury signed the indictment in the wrong place; the con game charge is quashed because a typist left out a word. Pretty sure some money changed hands to ensure those mistakes. Other charges were dropped because prosecutors failed to prove an element of the crime.

The Indian National Congress gives Gandhi sole executive authority. He says “If non-violence is given up India will never attain her liberty.” That’s about it for quotes from Gandhi in the NYT, but they do give plenty of space to the Westminster Gazette account of ignorant Indian villagers who believe Gandhi is magic and can stop bullets, heal illnesses, re-grow severed limbs, and cause cotton to grow on trees.

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Today -100: December 29, 1921: Prison and Presidents can’t scare me

A huge crowd welcomes Eugene Debs back to Terre Haute. Placards include “Everybody smiles now” and “Prison and Presidents can’t scare me.” He’s even greeted by the (Republican) mayor, who kisses him on the cheek.

His house is still around, by the way (4 bedrooms, 1 bath), but not currently for sale. Update after some more googling, during which I discover that residents of Terra Haute are called Terra Hautians, which seems a little fancy for Indiana: Oh, wait, it’s a museum now.

Russian Rumor of the Day -100:  Cannibalism. Lots of cannibalism. And infanticide. Lots of infanticide.

The Indian National Congress re-affirms the non-violent policy championed by Gandhi. Opponents had tried to get the call for “legitimate and peaceful means” changed to “possible and proper means.”

Four San Francisco-based federal prohibition agents have recently gotten sick from bad brandy, which they totally had to drink to check evidence.

A man in Ontario breaks 21 windows in order to get a nice warm jail cell for the winter. The magistrate sentences him to a nice warm jail cell for the next 40 winters.

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Today -100: December 28, 1921: Of air attacks, Chicago-style murders (deep-dish, I guess), and storm orphans

The British authorities in Egypt threaten that if nationalist crowds form in Suez, they will be attacked from the air, first with smoke bombs, then shells and machine guns.

The Irish Horse Breeders’ Association adopts a resolution in favor of ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, so that should pretty much settle that.

The Chicago murder rate is up to almost one per day. And on Christmas the city set a record for the most hospitalizations due to alcohol poisoning. Deaths from alcohol are also way up.

Mexican Pres. Obregón denies spreading anti-US propaganda in Central America.

Premiering today: Orphans of the Storm. Gishes! All the Gishes! Will Lillian be guillotined during the French Revolution? Will Dorothy regain her eyesight?

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Today -100: December 27, 1921: I trust that the notoriety he has received may not be commercialized

Eugene Debs arrives in DC. After he talks with Attorney General Harry Daugherty (“I volunteered no advice to him and he asked none,” says Daugherty; “I trust that the notoriety he has received may not be commercialized”), he hops over to the White House and speaks with Pres. Harding for half an hour, about what we do not know. Debs says he’ll work for “the freedom of political prisoners and the cause of all prisoners,” although for how long depends “entirely on how long I will be out.”

There’s a lynching in Key West with some backstory we’re not getting: coffee shop owner Manuel Head is beaten by a group of masked men (Klan?); some time afterwards he shoots and kills a “prominent resident.” He holds off a mob until the authorities arrest him, only for deputies to lose him to another mob (lots of mobs in this story), who tie him to a telephone pole and shoot him to death.

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Today -100: December 26, 1921: A shallow, howling, whining minority has had its way

France will stop branding its conscripted Vietnamese soldiers, a practice supposedly resulting from the soldiers taking “advantage of their baffling similarity in appearance” to go AWOL.

A condition of Eugene Debs’s release is that he has to “confer” with Attorney General Daugherty, for some reason, so he’s taking the train to Washington (update: the warden gave him a railroad ticket to DC; he had been intending to go to his home. He exchanged the Pullman ticket for a day coach and donated the difference to Russian relief). He has no comment for the reporters waiting for him at the prison gates except that the 2,300 political prisoners still in prison should also be released.

The NYT seems a tad upset about Debs’ release. After all, “He sought to murder the State.” “A shallow, howling, whining minority has had its way.”

Knight Dunlap, professor of experimental psych at Johns Hopkins, “invents” the chronoscope, which can measure intelligence and tell if people are guilty of crimes.

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Today -100: December 25, 1921: Only mildly merry

There are nationalist uprisings in Egypt against British rule, the Egyptian government has resigned, revolutionary leader (and future prime minister) Zaghlûl Pasha has been forcibly deported, and the British are preparing to slaughter whoever they need to slaughter to restore “peace.” As was the custom.

Colombia ratifies the treaty with the US giving them $25m in compensation for the US stealing Panama.

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Because isn’t it always.

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Today -100: December 24, 1921: Of mock Santas, debses, and fermented wines

Pres. Harding commutes the sentences of 24 political prisoners, including Eugene Debs. He also pardons 5 soldiers who killed a former British officer in Germany. The pardon statement cites Debs’ age (66) and poor health and says he wasn’t as “rabid” in his expressions as some others, but probably got a harsh sentence because of his prominence. Some of the 24 are Wobblies who “have either expressed full penitence or are booked for deportation”. Many political prisoners remain in prison.

And Labor Secretary J.J. Davis orders the release of 1,100 immigrants being held for deportation at Ellis Island. However they’re only being released for 90 days, with no idea what happens to them after that. Half of them are Hungarian. Most or all were detained not for anything they’d done wrong but because their national quotas had been filled (the US is still blaming unscrupulous steamship companies).

Rumor of the Day -100:  Ex-kaiser Wilhelm, whose wife died in April, is going to marry the widow of an officer killed in the war. He won’t. I gather his courtiers are parading many possible brides in front of him.

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Prohibition authorities are considering banning fermented wines from Christian and Jewish religious ceremonies, which they claim don’t require them, and substituting fruit juice or maybe a Snapple. This is mostly aimed at Jews, as there has been a bit of abuse of the regs allowing Jewish families 10 gallons of wine a year.

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Today -100: December 23, 1921: We do not care to assist in obtaining cheap notoriety for anybody

At the Washington Conference, Britain makes its case for banning submarines, saying 1) they’re ineffective as defensive weapons, 2) their chief value is against unarmed merchant ships, which is like totally inhumane. No one else agrees that subs have no legitimate uses, especially France.

The Theatre Owners’ Chamber of Commerce decides that none of the 600 movie theaters it controls will show “The Lonely Trail,” a movie actor Fred Beauvais wrote and stars in, because Beauvais was co-respondent in a divorce suit. Says the Chamber’s secretary, S.A. Morrass, “We do not care to assist in obtaining cheap notoriety for anybody.” Cheap notoriety is the worst kind.

Rep. James Aswell (D-Louisiana), last seen here 3 days ago defending lynching, demands that negroes be banned from the Congressional restaurant, after 4 are seen eating in the presence of their betters. The restaurant agrees to the ban.

The Dáil Éireann debates some more about the treaty before adjourning until 1922. What strikes me is that the debate is entirely about whether Ireland is getting powers demanded by the oath to the republic that so many took and what powers the king can exercise and so forth, and barely a word, at least in the NYT accounts, about Ulster and the division of Ireland.

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Today -100: December 22, 1921: Of candles, armies, raids, and dimes

The Hardings planned to put lighted candles in the White House’s windows for Xmas, but the general agent of the Underwriters’ Laboratories telegrammed that that would be fraught with danger, so they gave up the idea.

The new Lord Chamberlain, the Duke of Atholl, is the only person in Britain allowed to keep his own private army. This is still true in 2021, although the last couple of dukes have actually been South African. Queen Victoria gave the dukedom this right for some reason.

The Dry Police raid a hotel where a dinner is being given to Massachusetts Gov. Channing Cox to informally announce his candidacy for governor (not re-election, NYT, he’s governor now because Calvin Coolidge left the office), even though the federal prohibition director for New England, who is at the dinner, had authorized the liquor to be transported for the “personal use” of someone who claimed to live in a room in the hotel, a room which guests of the dinner kept slipping up to for some reason. The raid seems to be part of a power struggle within the prohibition office.

A local reporter briefly interviews John D. Rockefeller at a railway station in Savannah, Georgia. At the end, Rockefeller asks him if he’s married, because he wants to give him something to remember him by, then gifts him with six shiny new dimes, one for the reporter, one for his wife, and one each for his parents and parents-in-law.

Hatred, coming in 1922!

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Today -100: December 21, 1921: Speaking of insular

Pres. Harding evidently doesn’t know what his negotiators are up to, saying that the Four Power treaty (US, Britain, France, Japan) guaranteeing everyone’s ownership of colonies (“insular possessions and insular dominions”) in the Pacific does not also apply to the islands of Japan proper. He subsequently learns that his negotiators did agree to that interpretation, and says he’s okay with it.

Or maybe there wasn’t a revolution in Portugal.

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