Today -100: August 16, 1922: Of candidates, red-baiting, and tickling

Al Smith will run for governor of New York after all. He announces this in a reply to FDR’s letter. He’d still prefer to stay in trucking, for his family, but when his party calls...

Attorney General Harry Daugherty blames the railroad strikes on the IWW – remember them?

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: August 15, 1922: Of religion in schools, newspaper magnates, Zaghlulists, and smiths

Allegedly, there is a new provision of the Russian legal code punishing the teaching of religion to children in educational institutions with one year hard labor.

British newspaper magnate Lord Northcliffe (The Times, Daily Mail, etc) dies. Lloyd George must be happy today -100. In a rather lovely typo, the NYT says he died of “an affection of the throat.”

Poet-Aviator Gabriele d’Annunzio falls out a window at his villa. Falling off a balcony would have been more appropriate, but we take what we can get.

In supposedly independent Egypt, a British court-martial sentences seven “Zaghlulists” (supporters of Saad Zaghloul, who the Brits exiled to the Seychelles, to death for expressing, you know, opinions [in 1919, I think?]), then commute the sentence to 7 years plus a fine. The Egyptian government is currently at odds with King Fuad over a new constitution. Faud wants more power, naturally.

FDR writes to Alfred E. Smith asking him to shit or get off the pot about accepting the Democratic nomination for governor of NY.

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Today -100: August 14, 1922: Of red clergy

The Soviets are trying to put reformists, aka Red clergy or Living Church, in place of the Orthodox Church (the “dead church”). Clergy and monks can marry now.

Slow news day -100.

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Today -100: August 13, 1922: Of dead griffiths and national anthems

Arthur Griffith, president of the Dáil Éireann and Irish foreign minister, dies suddenly from... a heart attack following a tonsillectomy? 

For the celebration of the 3rd anniversary of the Weimar Republic’s Constitution, “Deutschland Über Alles” is played. Pres. Ebert has decided it’s not an imperial song after all and names it the German national anthem (Weimar hasn’t had one), citing the alleged republicanism of the poet August Hoffmann, who wrote the words in the 1840s and attached them to a Haydn tune which was definitely an imperial song, written in 1797 for Holy Roman Emperor Franz II’s birthday.

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Today -100: August 12, 1922: Of dry jokes, expulsions, and presidential chewing baccy

The Keith chain of vaudeville theatres bans jokes about Prohibition. They claim they’re not taking sides, just that there have been sooooo many of the jokes that they’ve become boring and annoying.

France responds to Germany’s refusal to compensate French holders of German securities by ordering the expulsion of 500 German citizens from Alsace-Lorraine. The amount of baggage and cash they’re allowed is limited.

Headline of the Day -100:  

God only knows what Edison gave him in return.

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Today -100: August 11, 1922: Of fokkers, pistols, burnt cork, and stunts

Headline of the Day -100:  

An average speed of 160 kph. That’s one fast Fokker.

Italian Fascist leaders deny rumors that they’re planning to seize Rome. So that’s okay then.

The American Bar Association’s Committee on Law Enforcement recommends banning the manufacture and sale of pistols, which “serve no useful purpose in the community today.”

Britain executes the two IRA men who assassinated Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson.

Irish Free State forces capture Cork. Rebels blow up a few buildings, set more on fire, and retreat.

Actor/stuntman John Stevenson dies leaping from a bus to an elevated train girder and hitting his head on the latter. In a stunt; he wasn’t doing it for fun. He was standing in for Pearl (Perils of Pauline) White for the serial Plunder, wearing a white dress, white stockings, and a blonde wig. Pathé claims that Pearl White always does her own stunts, despite the rather obvious evidence to the contrary.

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Today -100: August 10, 1922: You would not want to be crushed by armed force

Henry Ford says the rail and coal strikes could be solved if the financial kings of Wall Street were muzzled. Jews, he means Jews. He doesn’t say Jews, but we all know what he means. Evidently, and see if you can follow Ford’s logic, unions are also all created by the capitalists, the better to control workers.

The War Dept is getting its khaki knickers in a twist over Communist circulars “undermining the morale” of soldiers. They do this by requesting that they “Do not shoot your brothers, the railway and mine strikers.” You know, morale. “Remember this, the workers are never your enemies. Soon you may be in their ranks, and you would not want to be crushed by armed force. ... It is not treason to refuse to become an assassin of the workers.” I suspect the Army would differ on that.

The Moscow show trial of the Social Revolutionaries ends after two months with 14 SRs sentenced to death, 3 acquitted and the rest sentenced to prison for up to 10 years. Some of the condemned had turned informer, so they’re pardoned. But no one will be executed immediately. Rather, they’ll be held hostage to SR good behaviour, that is ceasing “all underground and conspirative acts of terrorism, espionage and insurrection.” (The SR prisoners will be killed by Stalin in the ’30s, I believe, but who wasn’t?).

Huh, “conspirative” is a real word. Who knew?

The Texas Republican Party convention’s platform accuses the Democrat Party of being dominated by the Ku Klux Klan. Which is an exaggeration but holy shit have you seen what’s in the 2022 Texas Republican platform?

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Today -100: August 9, 1922: Of black Republicans, greater battles, and eclipses

Black Republicans elect a black chairman of the Montgomery County, Alabama Republican Party convention, so the whites walk out and hold their own separate-but-no-doubt-equal convention. Both groups elect delegates to next month’s state convention, which will have to decide who to seat.

Mussolini will order Fascists to stand down so he can declare victory over the general strike. His manifesto calls on Fascists to prepare “for the greater battle which will crown our work.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

Well that’s very ambitious.

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Today -100: August 8, 1922: Of life expectancy, extraordinary measures, tongs, and haircuts

Life expectancy in the US is highest in Kansas, at 60. Well, white Kansans. Most of the Commerce Dept statistics reported here, based on the 1920 census, are just for white folks (New York City residents’ life expectancy, for example, is reported as 51.5 years for white males & 52.7 years for white females). Well down in the article we see that the life expectancy of black males in big cities is 37.9 years, compared to 51.55 for white males. Which is actually an improvement over past years.

Italy’s Interior Ministry orders the army to put down the civil war and prevent all demonstrations. The movement of trucks has been prohibited, since Fascists have been using them to move squadristi around the country. In Genoa, 200 Fascists evade the authorities’ “extraordinary measures” to prevent them attacking the offices of the Socialist periodical Lavoro by the clever ruse of going in through the back door, and then burn the building. Pope Pius thinks everyone just needs to pray more. Mussolini’s Popolo D’Italia says those monks the Fascists killed in Ancona were really Communists in disguise as monks.

Chinese tongs in San Francisco sign a peace treaty. The police immediately raid the conference hall and seize the document, saying they won’t open it unless the violence resumes, at which point every signer will be arrested.

William Jennings Bryan gets a haircut.

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Today -100: August 7, 1922: Beavers against the Klan!

Every publisher and author unsuccessfully prosecuted by the NY Society for the Suppression of Vice (the late Anthony Comstock’s baby) will file suit for false arrest, hoping to smother the Society in litigation. Since a recent appeal court ruling laid it open to such lawsuits, the Society has been pushing a plan for a “jury” of prudes, or whatever, to pre-censor all books, like exists for plays and, after a fashion, movies.

5 Italian provinces, including Milan and Genoa, are put under martial law. Troops with machine guns are guarding the Chamber of Deputies in Rome from possible Fascist attack. Fascists force the dissolution of Milan’s Socialist-run Municipal Council.

Atlanta Police Chief James Beavers, running for mayor, demands the other candidates, especially Councilman Walter Sims, declare their opinions on the Ku Klux Klan. Beavers doesn’t like ‘em. Sims will win the election.

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Today -100: August 6, 1922: Of hibernians, Fascists, einsteins, and crittendens

The Ancient Order of Hibernians declares war on the Ku Klux Klan. 

Violence has slowed down in some parts of Italy, but the Fascists order a general mobilization of their forces. The Facta Cabinet meets this threat by deciding to issue a politely worded appeal to the country. Facta, giving off a strong Biden-talking-about-Republicans vibe, says he trusts the sense of responsibility of the leaders (!), the sense of fraternity among the masses (!) and the goodness of the Italian people (!) to prevent a recurrence.  An anonymous Socialist deputy tells a newspaper that the Fascists are planning to march on Rome. No spoilers, anonymous Socialist deputy!

Death threats drive Albert Einstein out of Germany. Since they come from Organization C, the group that assassinated German Foreign Minister Rathenau, he’s right to take them seriously. One assumes their problem with Dr. Einstein is that he’s Jewish.

Crittenden Clark is nominated by the Missouri Republican Party to be a Justice of the Peace. He would be (and indeed will be) the first elected black judge in Missouri.

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Today -100: August 5, 1922: Evil shepherds are the worst kind

Fascists seize Milan’s Municipal Building. Gabriele d’Annunzio addresses the crowd from its balcony, because the dude loves him a balcony. He calls for unity and brotherhood: “Every workman, every peasant and every sailor led astray by evil shepherds must be convinced of this.” Because nothing says unity and brotherhood like accusing everyone who thinks differently from you of being led astray by evil shepherds.

Lots of street fighting and other violence in Genoa, Milan, and all over Italy really. Can’t tell how many dead - a few dozen? This isn’t a Fascist uprising or anything, it’s just everyday life in Italy now. The NYT’s coverage of Italy is at best beset by both-sidesism, at worst outright pro-Fascist: “Police and Fascisti are keeping the disorderly elements well in hand.” Beating up parliamentary deputies, burning anarchist clubs and chambers of labor, you know, keeping the disorderly elements well in hand.

In Texas, the Anti-Saloon League and the KKK join together to support US senatorial candidate Earle Mayfield against impeached former governor James Ferguson in the second Democratic primaries (although the Drys don’t all seem entirely happy about who they’re in bed with). Mayfield refuses to say answer questions about whether he’s a Klan member and will continue to refuse.

US Marines are sent into Teapot Dome naval oil reserve to oust a Mutual Oil Company drilling crew. The White House says the operation was done “sweetly and without conflict.”

Blood and Sand, the bullfight movie starring Rudolph Valentino and Lila Lee, premieres.

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Today -100: August 4, 1922: Ask not for whom the Bell doesn’t toll

Germany, whose currency is still in free fall, has been resisting French demands for repayment of old debts to French citizens, so France, as was the custom, is threatening not only to occupy the Rhineland, but to remove it from Germany altogether and set up a separate country, under Allied financial control. 

Alexander Graham Bell’s funeral will be marked by a one-minute silence. That is, all telephone service in the US and Canada will be suspended.

Headline of the Day -100:  

The Irish Civil War reaches the inevitable kinky phase.

Oh dear, I wrote that before seeing the sub-hed:

Evidently, “landing forces in Dingle Bay” is the Irish euphemism for, um, striking irregulars in the rear.

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Today -100: August 3, 1922: Ask not for whom the Bell tolls

Indiana Gov. Warren McCray declares martial law over the coal miners’ strike and calls for “volunteer miners.” Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover approves plans for the federal government to take over the distribution of coal.

Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell, 75, dies. Among other things, he played with big box-kites, taught Helen Keller, and was prevented by Pres. Garfield’s idiot doctors from possibly saving his life.

And the phone thing.

Rep. Lemuel Padgett of Tennessee dies, which I only mention to point out that you don’t see the name Lemuel nearly as often these days.

The Italian Fascists are threatening to move 14,000 squadristi into Rome with “solid arguments” against the general strike which the Communists called in protest of previous Fascist violence. Someone shoots at the mayor’s car. Companies whose workers are among the strikers are politely requested by the Fascists to fire them and replace them with... Fascists. 

Mayor Jack Walton of Oklahoma City takes the Democratic nomination for governor on an anti-KKK platform.

Since the start of Prohibition, 22 federal dry agents have been killed.

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Today -100: August 2, 1922: Just the factas

Harding offered a plan to solve the railroad strike, but the railway execs reject it out of hand. They’ve been especially interested in using the strike to take away seniority from strikers. They’re also not thrilled by Harding’s demand that they follow any and all decisions of the Railroad Labor Board without question (or lawsuit).

Britain sends a note to Yugoslavia, France, Italy, Romania, Portugal, and Greece saying that Britain would like to cancel Allied countries’ debts to Britain but can’t because the US is demanding payment of British debts to it, but Britain will reduce the amount it’s demanding in proportion to US debt forgiveness. The Balfour Note says it would prefer a general cancellation of debts, including German reparations.

Luigi Facta does the impossible and forms another Italian government. It’s a mix of the same centrist parties as the last Cabinet. No Socialists or Fascists.

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Today -100: August 1, 1922: Or our revolvers will proclaim their doom

In the prosecution of publisher Thomas Seltzer by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice for publishing D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love and two other books, the defense calls Carl Van Doren, Columbia U professor and literary editor of The Nation (and uncle of the Quiz Show guy); Gilbert Seldes, editor of The Dial; the editor of the New York Medical Journal, and others to testify to the non-obscene nature of the books. Prosecutor James Wilson complains that these witnesses are “no authorities on morality or immorality” and says obscenity can only be determined by a cross-section of people unable to weasel out of jury duty.

Recently deposed Italian PM Luigi Facta is now trying to form a new government after everyone else has had a go. The Socialists have called off their threatened general strike because they are afraid of Fascist violence, with good fucking reason. Mussolini says: “Either the Socialists must cease attempting to break the peace of Italy” – the WHAT now? – “or our revolvers will proclaim their doom.” Il Popolo d’Italia, the Fascist newspapers, issues an ultimatum to both the strikers and the state itself, the Fascists threatening to stop the strike itself if it doesn’t stop, or the state stop it, within 48 hours. After that, “Fascism will claim full freedom of action and will replace the State, which will once again have shown its powerlessness.”

Greece does indeed proclaim a protectorate in Smyrna. It will be called Occidental Asia Minor. Greece claims the announcement was received with much enthusiasm by everyone in the region, regardless of race or religion, but especially Muslims. Greece actually thinks everything’s going swimmingly, and is lobbying the Allies to be allowed to occupy Constantinople. But if you’re looking for a map showing “Occidental Asia Minor,” it’s going to have to be printed before the end of the month.

The Irish Free State captures Tipperary.

Connecticut Gov. Everett Lake says there is no “serious or semi-serious” evidence of KKK activity in his state, beyond “a comic opera midnight initiation”.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Ouch.

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Today -100: July 31, 1922: Of excommunications, Asia minors, and klandidates

Cardinal Michael Logue, the octogenarian primate of Ireland, threatens to put the town of Dundalk under excommunication for being all violent and shit.

Trotsky says Lenin’s health has improved and he’s at work again.

Vittorio Orlando gives up trying to form a government for Italy after the Socialists threaten a general strike if he includes the Nationalists, Conservatives or Fascists. Mussolini says a center-left government wouldn’t represent the will of the majority of Italians; he wants a new election.

Greece, having been told by the Allies that it won’t be allowed to occupy Constantinople, now says that areas it occupies in Asia Minor, Smyrna and environs won’t be given back to Turkey but will be turned into an autonomous state, or protectorate or something. Which is very much against the Allies’ idea of what peace should look like.

With the Oklahoma primaries coming soon, the Klan distributes model Democratic tickets to every Protestant church in Oklahoma City. The NYT only tells us their candidate for governor, but he will lose lose lose.

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Today -100: July 30, 1922: Of cockeys, unconvincing parades, and women candidates

The Italian Socialists may form the next Cabinet, everyone else having failed.

In Macon, Georgia, Deputy Sheriff Walter Byrd is shot by a black man named “Cockey” Glover, and all hell breaks loose, with lots of black people being shot at. Glover is still at large (but will be lynched).

Sarcastic Headline of the Day -100:  

Izetta Brown, former actress and widow of Democratic congresscritter William Gray Brown Jr, is running for the US Senate in West Virginia, the first such woman candidate in the South.

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Today -100: July 29, 1922: Of betrayed war ministers, hungry hungry intellectuals, lynchings in hope, assassination plans, and helicoplanes

The movie “How Kitchener Was Betrayed,” which portrays the sinking of War Secretary Earl Kitchener in 1916 as being the result of the nefarious actions of a German spy, female of course, rather than by his ship simply hitting a mine, is held up by US customs officials and will ultimately be banned at Britain’s request.

Headline of the Day -100:  

The Fascists occupying Ravenna have taken over the federated labor unions’ building, burned a co-op and several Socialist and Republican clubs. But one Fascist gets shot in his car, and suddenly the Fasc are claiming to be the victims.

A quarrel between a black street-paver and his white boss in Hope, Arkansas, birthplace of Bill Clinton, leads to the former being lynched. The fight was over a drinking cup – possibly a whites-only drinking cup? unclear.

The French government claims that German monarchists (“Organization C,” presumably) are planning an assassination attempt on French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré. Unclear if this is based on information passed to them by the German government. 

Anna Tynan’s claim for compensation for blood poisoning in her Brooklyn job as a hat-maker is rejected because her employer refuses to tell the Workmen’s Compensation Commission what chemicals it uses. Hat-making is notoriously dangerous.

A “helicoplane” which can supposedly rise vertically and hover is tested in Britain. It travels 5 yards and rises one (1) foot into the air (which is as high as its controls can be operated from the outside, because who would dare ride inside the thing).

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Today -100: July 28, 1922: Of crashes, jazz, pleasing and serving white people, and prison escapes

Two US army reserve aviators are arraigned for violating NYC’s minimum 2,000-feet limit for flying machines. They were actually flying their military plane at 0 feet at the time they crashed in Far Rockaway, but they were pretty low even before that. If they question the ability of cops to determine if they were flying at 2,000 feet, evidence will be introduced that people could see their faces.

Headline of the Day -100:  

James Vardaman, the former governor and US senator from Mississippi, says Woodrow Wilson only opposes his run for senator because the last time he was senator, “I performed my duties... with the intention of pleasing and serving the white people of Mississippi and not to please or flatter the occupants of the White House.”

The IRA blow a hole in the wall of Dundalk Gaol in County Louth, and 105 prisoners, I think just IRAers, escape. Half are recaptured by evening.

Italian Fascists are pouring into Ravenna to fight Socialists & Communists. Several dead. The Fascists give Socialist, Communist & Republican leaders (all of them, or just in Ravenna?) 24 hours to leave the country.

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