Today -100: September 7, 1922: Imprescriptible rights are the imprescriptiblest rights

The Vatican is livid about the Earl of Balfour’s proposal for safeguarding the holy places in Palestine, because Catholics will only be a minority on the sub-commissions. It threatens that Catholic countries will “safeguard the ancient and imprescriptible rights of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land.”

As the final loss of Greece in its war with Turkey draws near, Britain, France, Italy, and the US are sending warships to Smyrna to protect their nationals. The NYT, in an editorial entitled “The White Man’s Burden,” says that Britain, France & Italy have “the responsibility of defending civilized European peoples against a hopelessly unprogressive Asiatic foe.” (To be fair, the hopelessly unprogressive Asiatics are celebrating their victory with a massacre of Armenians and various other Christians, including some American citizens.)

In another op-ed page appeal to civilization, the NYT accuses the railroad employees of “Uncivilized Strike Methods.” Which consist of, um, striking. Did you know that if RR workers don’t work, the RRs don’t run? Fact Check: True.

Rumors that Éamon de Valera and Erskine Childers have been captured. Fact Check: Not so True. Also, “two reliable men” tell the Chicago Tribune that Arthur Griffith’s body has been exhumed and... he was poisoned. Fact Check: Oh, what do you think?

Vice President Coolidge is booed at the Minnesota State Fair, loudly enough that he is forced to stop his speech. Nothing against the veep, I think, they just want the racing to start.

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Today -100: September 6, 1922: And in the box there was...

A. Philip Randolph, editor of the negro magazine The Messenger, receives a box containing a white human hand and a letter signed “K.K.K.” I think they’re annoyed that Randolph writes about lynchings.

The Texas Democratic State Convention rejects resolutions condemning the KKK.

Greece issues reports of victories in its war with Turkey, but actually its soldiers are running away just as fast as their little legs can carry them.

The Anti-Saloon League cheers the retirement of Supreme Court Justice John Hessin Clarke, who gave a speech in February saying prohibition hurt respect for the law.

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Today -100: September 5, 1922: Of justices, phosphates, and squaws

Supreme Court Justice John Hessin Clarke, a Wilson appointee, resigns, effective in a couple of weeks on his 65th birthday. He plans to campaign for the US to join the League of Nations and to enjoy not having to see Justice McReynolds every day.  Harding will nominate his friend and campaign adviser, former senator George Sutherland of Utah, to replace him. Sutherland is not a Mormon, by the way; all senators from Utah since him have been Mormons. He will move the Court to the right.

Greece, losing its war against Turkey, claims the Soviets are backing Turkey. The article says General Trikoupis, the commander-in-chief, has been “replaced.” It neglects to elucidate that he has been captured by the Turks.

The Third Assembly of the League of Nations opens, and will get stuck into the work of determining whether Britain, Australia and New Zealand are violating the terms of their joint L of N mandate over Nauru by establishing a monopoly of bird shit.

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Also 10 buckets of war paint and several bales of feathers.

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Today -100: September 4, 1922: Of derision while drunk, tanks, and restoring order

Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty’s injunction against railroad strikers is put to use to nab dangerous miscreants: one Hugh Noonan is arrested in Chicago, “alleged to have derided railroad employees bound for work”. He will be released because he was drunk.

The Turks are defeating the Greeks in, um, whatever their war is called. And they’re using tanks, which sounds like a first for Turkey. There’s a turducken joke in there somewhere, probably, and if you can come up with it, post it in comments.

Communists demonstrate on Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm and get into scuffles. Since the cops don’t carry night-sticks but only guns, rifles, and... hand grenades... hand grenades, really? they “could do nothing else to restore order but fire into the crowd.” 

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Today -100: September 3, 1922: Of public welfare, lynchings, and talk radio

The coal strike is settled, on the old pay scale for a year, without the wage cuts the owners wanted. This isn’t being presented as a win for the miners but as everyone complying with Harding’s letter calling for everyone to agree “in the name of the public welfare.”

A black man is lynched near Winder, Georgia.

William Jennings Bryan says radio will be a great boon to the Democrats, since it will give equal time to the parties, compared with newspapers, which are Republican. Also he wants to divide colleges into Christian, atheist, or agnostic, depending on whether they want to teach evolution, and students could choose a college which doesn’t threaten their existing beliefs. Win win.

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Today -100: September 2, 1922: There comes a time in the history of all nations when the people must be advised whether they have a government or not

Without any advanced warning or hint, Attorney General Harry Daugherty gets an injunction against railroad strikers, forbidding them interfering in any way with the operation of RR’s. Daugherty says “there comes a time in the history of all nations when the people must be advised whether they have a government or not.” He talks about the sacred Open Shop, a lot. He compares the “right to work” with the right not to be compelled to work. So unions are just as bad as slavery, or something. The American Federation of Labor will consider responding with a general strike.

The US refuses to adhere to a League of Nations plan to restrict private arms sales, effectively killing it.

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Today -100: September 1, 1922: Of bonuses, consulates, and ghosts

The Bonus Bill passes the Senate, with 27 R’s and 20 D’s voting in favor. Harding is expected to veto it.

The State Dept denies that Gen. Enoch Crowder was directed to issue that ultimatum to Cuba and he probably wouldn’t have done it all on his own, er, would he?

Britain orders the US consulate in Newcastle closed because its consul and vice consul were refusing visas to Brits traveling to the US unless they used American steamship lines. Which I assume means they were bribed to do so, but the officials are simply transferred to other countries.

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The alleged g&g supposedly being at 1587 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn, the site of a former roadhouse, in a building now being torn down, whose owner’s spirit appeared to a woman and mentioned having buried gold in it.

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Today -100: August 31, 1922: Of meat courses, popemobiles, lynchings, and suck it, PS 127!

Bad crops and the fall of the mark have Germany worried about its food supply. They may ban the manufacture of strong beer, and restaurants will be told to offer only one meat course. ONLY ONE MEAT COURSE! It’s like they don’t even know Germans. Cologne bans the sale of necessary daily goods to foreigners crossing the border to take advantage of the collapse of the mark; Czech traders are buying goods in Dresden and attempting to smuggle them over the border. Marks are in short supply since the government can’t print them fast enough.

The House of Representatives rejects proposals giving the president power to seize mines and railroads, after being told Harding doesn’t want it.

Pope Pius is now the first pope to have a car. Italy gives him a diplomatic plate, after some discussion, number CD 55-325.

A Shreveport, Louisiana mob lynches Thomas Rivers, a black man.

Gen. Enoch Crowder, Harding’s “special representative” in Cuba (in lieu of an ambassador), tells Cuba that if it doesn’t pass 5 reforms he laid out for them (judicial reform, something about the civil service, and floating a loan), and within 10 days, he will leave the country. He doesn’t threaten to send in the Marines, but I think they get the gist.

Supposedly all of Southern Russia, starting with Odessa, is in revolt against Bolshevik rule.

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Today -100: August 30, 1922: Of bluffs, gliders, hirams, and finks

Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover says Henry Ford’s announced plans to shut down all his plants over coal shortages/high costs are a bluff and that only $1.50 would be added to the cost of a car. There are also rumors that Ford’s plan is that his laid off workers would get jobs as scabs with the railroads to help break the strike.

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Gliders! Giant gliders! They’re planning to map out wind currents so these giant motorless airships can just fly and fly for thousands of miles.

Contrary to the NYT’s predictions, Hiram Johnson is winning the Republican primary to keep his US Senate seat. Upton Sinclair is unopposed for the Socialist nomination for Senate. But more interestingly, in California, there are 927,000 registered Republicans, at least a plurality in every county, 305,000 Democrats, 22,511 Socialists, and 21,250 Prohibitionists (plus 173,000 decline to states).

Italy’s idea for an economic & customs union with Austria has crashed and burned.

Henry Fink, who wrote the songs “I’ve Wasted My Love on You” and “The Curse of an Aching Heart, or You Made Me What I Am Today,” is getting divorced.

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Today -100: August 29, 1922: An orgy of theology, morals and ancient history

It would have been nice if the NYT had offered better coverage of the Texas Democratic primary campaign. I mean, they sure make it sound entertaining in this op-ed piece: “The last weeks of the campaign provided an orgy of theology, morals and ancient history such as must have edified the whole voting population.” Former governor James Ferguson brandished affidavits of people who swore they’d seen prohibitionist Earle Mayfield having a drink. Ferguson, impeached as governor in 1917 in part for trying to blackmail the University of Texas, attacked higher ed as a scheme for making a living without having to work. Mayfield sent alleged moral leaders like the formidably named Rev. Hubert Knickerbocker around the state making speeches like “The Kaiser, the Devil and Jim Ferguson.”

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Today -100: August 28, 1922: Meeting good faith with good faith and good-will with good-will

Éamon de Valera has supposedly been injured.

British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill telegraphs William Cosgrave, the acting head of the Irish government, that the Anglo-Irish Treaty still stands, despite 2 of its 5 Irish signers having died this month, 1 having retired, and another having deserted to the nationalist side. He says Britain “will meet good faith with good faith and good-will with good-will,” which kinda sounds like a threat.

Copper mines in the West are complaining about a shortage of miners due to the new immigration laws. Also they pay less than the oil fields but sure, it’s probably the immigration thing.

All of the Klan-supported candidates in the Texas Democratic primary win except impeached former governor James Ferguson, who’s just as racist as anyone else, god knows, but also supports light wines and beer.

Radio station WEAF of NYC broadcasts the first radio commercial, a 15-minute infomercial for an apartment complex in Jackson Heights. “You owe it to yourself and you owe it to your family to leave the hemmed-in, sombre-hued, artificial apartment life of the congested city section and enjoy what nature intended you enjoy.”

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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.

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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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