Today -100: August 27, 1922: Of banishments, shutdowns, klandidates, men of mystery, and states of incoherence

Russia orders the banishment of 1,500 intellectuals from Russia. This includes university professors, Kerensky’s minister of education, and the lawyers who withdrew from the show trial of Social Revolutionaries. 

Given the coal shortage caused by the strike (and speculators), Ford will shut all his plants on September 16th, putting over 100,000 employees out of work plus many more in Ford’s supply chain. Ford says he has “not the remotest idea” when he’ll reopen.

A bunch of Klan candidates win in the Texas Democratic primaries.

The NYT Sunday Magazine has an article about Sir Basil Zaharoff, “man of mystery” and possibly the richest man in the world. Look him up. This arms dealer and owner of the Monte Carlo Casino achieved this by sabotaging his competitors, starting arms races between opposing countries, such as Greece and Turkey, selling to both sides, and generally being evil and buying anything he wanted, including that “Sir,” which I assume Lloyd George sold him for a hefty sum. The article says he’s never made a public statement about anything. Ian Fleming supposedly based Blofeld on him. You wouldn’t get almost any of that from this article.

Russian Minister of War Trotsky, in a press conference, says Russia would be happy to demobilize completely if the rest of Europe did the same but, sadly, “Never has Europe been in such a state of incoherence.” He says that while people accuse Russia of paying its foreign collaborators, it’s actually French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré who is doing the most to bring about world revolution by his pressure on Germany, which might well force it into revolution. He says Russia’s new policy of banishment is more humane than “crushing” its opponents and that the freedom of party organization will be restored when capitalism is beaten.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: August 26, 1922: But how much does one of those wheelbarrows cost?

Okay, what sort of parents are taking their children to see Michael Collins’s body in Dublin City Hall?

The German mark is re-markably unstable (see what I did there?), its value ranging between 1700 to a US dollar to 2600 to a dollar on the Berlin Bourse yesterday. Communists call protest meetings as the price of bread and other staples doubles (bread went up 40% just today). There’s talk in the government about rationing, but Chancellor Joseph Wirth wonders whether the German people still have the moral strength to bear it.

Paterson, New Jersey schools have reintroduced the teaching of German, and the Klan is not best pleased.

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Today -100: August 25, 1922: Of coal and cyclops-reverend-doctors

Italy warns everyone that it opposes Austria either being absorbed by Germany or joining the Little Entente. Says doing either would be a casus belli. 

The Senate is debating having the president take over the coal mines if the strike isn’t ended in, say, 48 hours.

Michael Collins was killed on the very day he was due to get married. But there’s no truth to the rumor that he was 3 days from retirement and getting too old for this shit.

Former Pres. Woodrow Wilson denies the accusation of KKK Cyclops Rev. Dr. A.C. Parker of Dallas that 85% of his appointees were Catholics.

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Today -100: August 24, 1922: Of curses and medium ententes

The NYT thinks that the deaths this month of Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins have caused people to think that Ireland is under a curse and that its efforts to govern itself are doomed to failure and maybe they should just call the English back in. The editorial doesn’t quote any actual Irish people who think this. And it isn’t saying that itself, mind, it just wants the Free State to come down hard on de Valera (if he can ever be found) and the bands of anti-Treaty republicans.

France is trying to force Austria to join the Little Entente to serve as another buffer state between France and Germany. Italy sees this as a reestablishment of a weaker version of the Austro-Hungarian Empire containing its biggest rivals, Yugoslavia and Austria. So some in Italy are proposing an economic union with Austria, essentially making Austria a protectorate of Italy.

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Today -100: August 23, 1922: Of Collins, old-fashioned heavy beer, and klan fans

Michael Collins goes on an inspection tour of military posts in County Cork.. When his motorcade comes under attack by a large band of IRAers in a well-planned attack, he decides to stop and fight rather than, say, drive away in his nice safe armored car. So he’s dead now. The chief of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State and commander-in-chief of its army was 31.

Johnstown, Pennsylvania is still drinking beer. That “old-fashioned heavy beer” is being openly sold “is the experience of the New York Times correspondent.” I’ll bet. The federal prohibition director for Pennsylvania claims that what’s being sold is actually near-beer, and customers are just fooling themselves that they’re getting drunk, or something.

James Ferguson, the impeached former governor of Texas running for the US Senate, is jeered at a campaign speech in Houston when he starts attacking the KKK. The same occurs at a Sacramento speech by Los Angeles DA Thomas Woolwine, running for governor of California as a Democrat against possible Klan member Friend Richardson. Woolwine is Catholic.

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Today -100: August 22, 1922: Man, that would buy a lot of rifles

The Irish Free State gets a NY Supreme Court justice to stop Éamon de Valera withdrawing any of the $2.3m raised in the US. They don’t really intend to accomplish that – the Dáil might have legal standing to ask for the funds, the government does not. The move is more about dissuading Americans from contributing to the IRA.

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Today -100: August 21, 1922: I won’t tell you

As assassination attempt is made on Michael Collins, as was the custom. Or at least on his car, with rifles and a bomb, but he is not in the car at the time. The IRAers are fought off by the soldiers in the car, or the assassins just realized that Collins wasn’t there.

The Chicago Ku Klux Klan initiates 4,650 new idiots at night in a field outside the city, with a large cross illuminated by hundreds of automobile headlights (no mention of whether they set it on fire).

Henry Ford, asked by Collier’s whether he’d accept a presidential nomination: “I won’t tell you.”

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Today -100: August 20, 1922: Of beer & free food, tariffs!, women marshals, and banishments

Johnstown, Pennsylvania responds eagerly to Mayor Joseph Cauffiel’s permission for beer to be served. Saloons make a big deal of serving it alongside free food. Evidently the trick is to put out a ham, but no knife. It is assumed the feds will crack down heavily come Monday, which is evidently the point. Cauffiel is actually a long-time prohibitionist, who recently called for 100 volunteers to wipe out booze and got 2, and who complains that his crusade against alcohol has not been supported by the courts, the state or the feds. So this whole thing is a ruse to get the feds to crack down on his town, I guess. But what about the buggy, wormy water?

The Senate passes the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Bill on a mostly party-line vote. It will raise tariffs on a broad range of agricultural and industrial products, and give the president the power to raise tariffs on his own. Some of the senators who voted in favor say they will vote against the final bill if certain things aren’t fixed in conference; for example, Irvine Lenroot (R-Wisc.) says he’ll vote no if the cutlery tariff is not reduced.

Mrs Bertha Ward, the first (probably) woman marshal in the US, in Des Lacs, North Dakota, quits because men just laughed at her and she was never able to arrest anyone.

Russia resumes the Czarist practice of banishing its enemies.

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Today -100: August 19, 1922: The country is at the mercy of the United Mine Workers

Pres. Harding addresses Congress about the coal and railroad strikes. He doesn’t like them. “The country is at the mercy of the United Mine Workers,” he decries. “Wherefore I am resolved to use all the power of the government to maintain transportation and sustain the right of men to work.” He plans to introduce legislation to make decisions of the Railway Labor Board binding. He also wants a government body to buy, sell & distribute coal, which pretty much no one thinks is a good idea. And he has a bill allowing the federal government to move in to punish offenses against aliens protected by treaties with the US (such as the 2 Mexican strikebreaker-miners supposedly killed in Herrin, Illinois).

But here’s the big news out of Harding’s congressional address:

Federal Prohibition agents are going to go after hip flasks in New York restaurants, night clubs, etc, punishing the latter for customers bringing in their own alcohol, but only if they pour it into a glass, since the dry cops aren’t allowed to search people. They do plan to peek under tables.

Johnstown, Pennsylvania Mayor Joseph Cauffiel says that the water in his town is so terrible (worms, bugs coming out of the faucets, etc) that saloons will be permitted to sell beer and drug stores can sell ale, as long as it’s cold.

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Today -100: August 18, 1922: Of cheap professors and pashas

Northwestern University will no longer hire unmarried professors because it pays so little – $35-40 a week, which is the equivalent of some (but not a lot) money – that they can’t afford to maintain a family in expensive Evanston.

Enver Pasha, one of Turkey’s leaders during the Great War and one of the architects of the Armenian Genocide, is killed by the Red Army in Tajikistan.

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Today -100: August 17, 1922: Of hearsts and bullets

Al Smith’s announcement that he’s running for NY governor does not immediately result in William Randolph Hearst pulling out of the race. Some Hearst backers want him to switch to the US Senate race instead.

Headline of the Day -100:  

A month later! The three other bullets he shot into his skull were removed then! This story is not remotely plausible, but what could it be covering for?

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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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