Today -100: March 10, 1923: Of drinking, mortars, porterhouse steaks, and shafts

Lady Nancy Astor, MP, introduces the 1st bill every introduced into Parliament by a woman, to ban the sale of liquor in saloons to anyone under 18 for consumption on the premises (so the quaint practice of children being sent to fetch beer for their father can continue). The bill passes its first stage but will die unless the government provides it facilities to continue, which it won’t. During the debate, the Speaker steadfastly ignores Edwin Scrymgeour, the only MP from the Scottish Prohibition Party, who presumably had some thoughts on the subject, and Sir Frederick Banbury (age 72) reminisces about drinking beer during meals at Winchester College and says under-age drinking certainly didn’t ruin his looks. He also wonders how saloon-keepers will even be able to tell the age of women, he sure can’t, it’s something to do with the way they do their hair these days.

A mortar shell from the 1870 Franco-Prussian War detonates in the Hotel Raynaud in Paris, which had been using it to break coal. The handle broke and some idiot applied a hot iron to it to get the pieces out and...

Cigarettes are legal in Utah now.

The Soviet Union will abolish many cemeteries and turn them into vegetable gardens.

Obit of the Day -100:  Anna Remich, inventor of the porterhouse steak.

Headline of the Day That Sounds Dirty But Isn’t -100:  

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Today -100: March 9, 1923: We do not want a mongrel race in America

Lawrence Sperry flies a Sperry Messenger plane quite close to a Haviland at 65 mph to prove the possibility of mid-air refueling. The military thinks dirigibles might be good for that.

New York State Supreme Court Justice John Ford forms his “Clean Books League,” which seeks to make the law, he says, morally “horse high, pig tight and bull strong.” That means... something about fences on farms. Ford will appoint a committee of prominent men to read dubious books and give book reports. Everyone needs a hobby.

Sen. Samuel Shortridge (R-Cal.) says unrestricted immigration by Orientals would cause more trouble than slavery did. “We do not want a mongrel race in America. They do not assimilate and add no strength to our nation.”

Headline of the Day That Sounds Dirty But Isn’t -100:  

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Today -100: March 8, 1923: The armed forces may help some people to make up their minds to give their consent

Bavaria arrests conspirators aiming to place Prince Rupprecht on the traditional throne of the Mad Kings of Bavaria and then have the kingdom of Bavaria secede from Germany to form a nucleus to which more German territory would attach itself bit by bit. Oh, and they were planning on rule by a dictator... not sure who yet. One of the conspirators has already killed himself after being released from custody. Were they planning to do this under cover of a Czech invasion? Maybe! Were they in contact with the Nazi Party? Oh yeah! Were they being financed by French military intelligence (the Deuxième Bureau) in order to weaken Germany? What do you think? Was an orchestra director one of the ringleaders? Yes, maestro.

There’s an Italian custom/ceremony where Cabinet ministers hand their budgets to the finance minister. These days, Prime Minister Mussolini is also finance minister, so that ceremony takes place with lots of military personnel and Fascist militia present. The Duck says this is because consent to his regime is still developing and “it may happen, perhaps, that the armed forces may help some people to make up their minds to give their consent, and in any case if consent fails, the armed forces will remain.”

Vienna Polytechnic will exclude foreign Jewish students.

2 of the eye-witnesses against Sacco and Vanzetti at their 1921 trial retract their previous retractions of their trial testimony. Louis Pelsea says he was unemployed and drunk and signed the retraction for 70¢ and the promise of a “good time.” Lola Andrews says a defense attorney threatened to reveal stuff about her past life.

In 2 years in office, Harding has reduced the number of federal employees by 102,101, mostly in the army & navy.

South Carolina will give pensions to slaves who “loyally” served the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

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Today -100: March 7, 1923: Well satisfied

The Turkish National Assembly rejects the Lausanne Treaty.

Delaware ratifies the 19th Amendment, along with a bill subjecting women to the same taxation as men. Don’t know what it was before.

The archbishop of Messina says Pope Pius is “well satisfied” with Mussolini.

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Today -100: March 6, 1923: Get a shovel

Arthur Balfour’s government is not doing well in by-elections, including those required of MPs appointed to office. Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen was appointed Minister of Health but loses his by-election to J. Chuter Ede (Lab), who will be Attlee’s home secretary in the 1945-51 government. This comes a few days after George Stanley, under-secretary of the Home Office, lost his own by-election. Both therefore have to resign. Griffith-Boscawen, who says he was beaten by “rank treachery” (that’s the worst kind of treachery), presumably because an Independent Conservative candidate divided the right-wing vote, will be replaced as health minister by Neville Chamberlain.

France has suppressed many newspapers in the Ruhr and Rhine, and severely censored the rest. So Germany tries to reach the Ruhr through radio. French radio broadcast from the Eiffel Tower drowns it out. The French leave music alone, starting up their jamming when news or “Deutschland über alles” comes on.

The city of New York calls for bids to supply 100 gallons of rye whiskey for use in Bellevue and other hospitals for pneumonia and influenza patients and old people with bad hearts.

And the Hawaii territorial Legislature calls on Congress to allow light wines and beer, saying Prohibition has caused secret drunkenness and “hypocrisy, cant and dissimulation have become rampant.”

Human fly Harry Young falls off the outside of the 10th floor of the Martinique Hotel in NYC. It was a publicity stunt for Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last! Before the ascent, the Martinique’s house dick, after helping Young inspect the building, asked if he’d like a room and a bath after the stunt. “If I do it, have the bath ready. If I don’t, get a shovel.” He was to get $100 for the stunt. He was 32 and had been married 2 months.

8 of the 12 Grand Jury members hearing about the Mer Rouge Ku Klux Klan murders are, you guessed it, kluxers themselves. This will go well.

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Today -100: March 5, 1923: Of Americanism and Do Nothing Congresses

A Portland, Oregon Ku Klux Klan dinner honoring Grand Dragon Fred Gifford is attended by Oregon Gov. Walter Pierce and Portland Mayor George Baker. They give speeches on the subject of “Americanism.”

The 67th Congress comes to an end, and the NYT article about that says it’s been called the “do nothing Congress.” I wonder if I’ve been failing to notice that phrase, more usually associated with Truman in ‘48.

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Today -100: March 4, 1923: Irretrievable failure is the worst kind of failure

The Senate votes down Harding’s proposal to join the World Court, 49-24. Exactly one Republican (Peter Norbeck of SD), supports it.

France troops occupy 5 more German towns, or at least their railway junctions and ports, in reprisal (their word) for the blocking & sabotage of Ruhr canals and railroads.

Sen. Joseph Robinson (D-Arkansas) says the outgoing 67th Congress has accomplished nothing except the Fordney-McCumber tariff act. Harding’s two most important legislative wishes, the World Court thing and the ship subsidy bill, failed miserably. “Thus failure, irretrievable failure, marks the record of the Administration throughout the last two years.” He attacks Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes for speaking to reporters but refusing to appear before the Sen. Foreign Relations Committee.

While Republicans were obstructing Harding’s wish list, Southern D’s filibuster everything else because they wanted the government to buy fertilizer for farmers to fight the dread boll-weevil.

The Dept of Labor rejects 300 appeals from Jews from Romania and Poland because those countries’ quota has been filled. They will be returned to the loving embrace of the anti-Semites that run Romania and Poland.

Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall, who leaves the job and his political career behind at the end of the month, has a long article I couldn’t get to the end of about how difficult public office is. Wait’ll he finds out what prison is like!

The “Party of Freedom” is formed in Utah to fight the anti-smoking law.

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Today -100: March 3, 1923: Of fines, swallows, customs, and negris

France fines the Ruhr town of Kettwig 1 million marks, which is the equivalent of some money, after a telephone wire is cut, under the policy of fining communities if they can’t find the person(s) responsible. They plan to collect this fine house-to-house.

Name of the Day -100:  The former police chief of Topeka, held in contempt for refusing to testify in a lawsuit involving the Klan: Guy Swallow.

The Irish Free State wants a customs barrier with Northern Ireland, which is not best pleased with the idea.

Giacinto Menotti Serrati, the editor of the Socialist Avanti! who took over in 1914 after Mussolini was thrown out of the job, is arrested for plotting against the safety of the state by attending the Communist Internationale. (He and others of his staff will be released tomorrow).

The Norwegian government resigns after the Storthing rejects a commercial treaty with Portugal, possibly because it would allow Portuguese wine into dry Norway, though only for medicinal purposes.

The sheriff of Putnam County, Florida, fights off a lynch mob.

Charlie Chaplin and Pola Negri are engaged again. Sure, whatever.

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Today -100: March 2, 1923: That story will one day be told

Former British prime minister David Lloyd George thanks the intelligence service for “g[iving] us the information which ultimately brought America into the war. That story will one day be told.” One assumes he’s referring to the Zimmermann telegram.

Pola Negri breaks off her alleged engagement to Charlie Chaplin. He needs a rich wife, she says. Chaplin has claimed poverty.

The Ku Klux Klan’s former acting head E.Y. Clarke is indicted by a federal grand jury for paying the train-fare for a woman to come from Houston to New Orleans for some hanky panky. Yes that was illegal in 1923. Mann Act.

The Senate Immigration Committee is worried that Japanese workers will take over Hawaii.

Germany plans to confiscate any goods sent into Germany proper from the Ruhr if they pay the French the 10% tariff they’re demanding.

German inflation is now so out of hand that cash registers are useless because their numbers don’t go up that high.

The Wisconsin Senate votes to allow anyone to look at anyone else’s income tax returns.

A NYT editorial begins, “President Harding’s quiet acquiescence in the burking of his World Court proposal by the Republican Senate...” I’m delighted to see a word I’d thought had died out before 1923 still going strong, 95 years after the murderous careers of Burke & Hare were halted. In the 1980s (‘70s?) we used “disappeared” to mean the same thing, adopted from the practice of death squads in El Salvador and elsewhere of “disappearing” dissidents, but that usage died out despite its usefulness.

Secretary of Labor James Davis wants to “enroll” aliens living in the US, to “Americanize the alien before he alienizes America”, to make him a citizen or deport him if he is not worthy of citizenship. He wants them to have the “grave respect” that the Welsh have for the sanctity of the home.

The North Carolina State Senate rejects a bill to make secret societies (i.e., the Klan) register the names of of their members and a bill to ban masks, but does pass one against wearing a mask to commit a felony.

The lower house of the South Carolina Legislature votes to ban pool and billiards.

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Today -100: March 1, 1923: Of coal, mummies, and flushes

France will lift the ban on exports of coal from the Ruhr to Germany – if they are paid a 40% tax.

King Tutankhamun’s tomb has been covered with sand for the season, but the debate over whether to keep his mummy in place or put it in a museum rages on. The Associated Undertakers of Greater New York weighs in on the leave-mummies-alone side.

Headline of the Day -100, Without Comment:  

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Today -100: February 28, 1923: Of quotas, voodoo fire extinguishers, and women’s suffrage in Japan

Syracuse University’s student council considers asking the U. to limit the number of Jewish students. Chancellor Charles Wesley Flint tells them to fuck right off. The council was particularly incensed that Jewish students showed insufficient interest in sports. 10% of Syracuse students are Jewish. (The senior council will deny having ever suggested any such thing, it was just a discussion, in a secret session, and anyone it shouldn’t have been leaked, how’d you even hear about it? So that’s okay then.)

Headline of the Day -100:  

A general punch-up in the Japanese Diet postpones a vote on women’s suffrage.

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Today -100: February 27, 1923: Of obscenity and statues

The NYT says that NY State Supreme Court Justice John Ford’s crusade for the censorship of books “looks merely ridiculous, but it isn’t.” This crusade is strongly backed by the clergy, and the proposal is that any naughty passage in a publication makes the whole thing obscene, legally speaking.

Atatürk says statues are okay now. When Mohammed banned them, he says, there was idolatry around, which is no longer a problem. He says modern nations need art.

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Today -100: February 26, 1923: Of ruhrs

Headline of the Day -100:  

France occupies more of the Ruhr, and yes they’re using non-white troops, although supposedly it was an accident that 200 Martiniquais were sent. Gen. Degoutte had them removed when he found out about it.

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Today -100: February 25, 1923: Of world courts, unsubsidized ships, and smoking

Pres. Harding asks the Senate to allow the US to join the World Court. The real question is why he left it so late, with only a few days left in the 67th Congress and senators (especially R’s) are suspicious of the Court and need to be won over.

Congress has killed the ship subsidy bill that Harding really really wanted.

Protest meeting in Salt Lake City against the anti-public-smoking law, which has recently been enforced against the sort of people who don’t think laws apply to them.

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Today -100: February 24, 1923: Of sati and Ruhr outrages

A woman in India commits suttee/sati at her husband’s funeral. She was 25-ish. Didn’t she know the British outlawed this kind of thing? Anyway, 6 villagers (all male) were arrested and tried. 3 were acquitted, 3 sentenced to 4 years.

The German embassy in the US claims the French are using non-white troops in the Ruhr and billeting them in private homes. France denies this.

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Today -100: February 23, 1923: Of mayfields and women’s suffrage

 

Germany forbids Germans in the Ruhr paying taxes to French/Belgian occupiers, It says if they do they’ll still owe those taxes to Germany.

The losing candidate in the Texas election for US Senate files a contest to prevent Senator-Elect Earle Mayfield from taking his seat on the grounds of excessive campaign spending and intimidation and voter fraud by the Klan.

The Philippines’ Senate votes unanimously in favor of women’s suffrage, if approved by a referendum... of women (I don’t think any country ever had such a referendum).

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Today -100: February 22, 1923: Of opera, klux weevils, helicopters, and spanking

Lithuania shells the Polish border.

Here’s a first: a pro-opera demonstration, after the French occupiers ban “William Tell” in Bochum in the Ruhr.

Speaking of opera, I’ve been noticing a bunch of Wagner operas being performed in NY. I guess the anti-German-music thing is over.

Louisiana Gov. John Parker says the Ku Klux Klan is worse than the boll-weevil.

New helicopter record: the US Air Service’s De Bothezaat helicopter stays in the air for 2 minutes and 45 seconds, reaching 15 feet in the air, which I believe is also a record. The helicopter is slowly approaching its most important moment: the opening credits of MASH.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: February 21, 1923: Of prohibition, the rules of war, and divorce Italian style

The NY Legislature votes 78-64 to ask Congress to modify the Volstead Act to allow light wines and beer.

Pres. Harding thinks it will take 20 years for complete prohibition to take hold.

The rules of war are being rewritten by a Jurists’ Commission at the Hague. They will now ban the bombing of open towns from airplanes to terrorize civilians. Pfew.

The usual in the Ruhr: expulsions of officials, arrests for not saluting or for refusing to stamp French orders or publishing derogatory articles; strikes in response, etc.

Fiume, over which so much fuss was made for no very good reason, has finally found a function as the Reno of Italy. A recent court decision requires Italy, which grants no divorces itself, to accept divorces given to Italians by another country, which includes Fiume.

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Today -100: February 20, 1923: Of invasions, mediation, and white people

Poland denies having invaded Lithuania.

Parliament discusses the Ruhr. It rejects former prime minister Lloyd George’s proposal for the government to ask the US to mediate.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Therefore, the Supreme Court says, they are excluded from US citizenship. The Court says the words “white person” in the law must be understood as they are in common usage, not through “scientific” study of the race of any individual.

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Today -100: February 19, 1923: Of invasions and occupations

Poland invades Lithuania, killing Lithuanian troops.

In Essen, French soldiers go from shop to shop demanding to buy one of whatever goods the place sells and arresting any shopowner who refuses to serve them. After the first few, they have at least temporarily broken the boycott.

The authorities in Gelsenkirchen refused to pay the 100 million mark fine imposed by the French, so soldiers are sent to city hall and the railroad station to steal any cash they can. They collect 105 million marks and don’t plan to return the extra 5 million.

The German minister of education snuck into the Ruhr in defiance of the French ban; in future, France says, any community visited by a minister will be heavily fined.

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