Today -100: March 30, 1923: Men nowadays are tired of liberty

French troops seize Ruhr vineyards owned by the Prussian state.

Mussolini writes that “men nowadays are tired of liberty.” Russia and Italy have proven “that it is possible to govern outside, above and against all liberal ideas. Neither communism nor fascism has anything to do with liberty.”

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Today -100: March 29, 1923: Of suicides and dots

The US protests the death sentences on Archbishop Zepliak, et al, through the US ambassador to Germany, since the US has no diplomatic relations with Russia. Russia may exchange the archbish for Communists in prison in Poland. The pope claims that they should be freed because they are his subjects. Somehow I don’t think the Soviet Union recognizes the Vatican as a country.

The Save-a-Life League reports that there were 12,000 suicides in the US in 1922. 79 of them were millionaires, one-third were women. In NYC, an increasing number of suicides are throwing themselves in front of trains or jumping off tall buildings.

The Texas Republican Party says it will get KKK members employed by the federal government in Texas fired. Do they have the power to do that?

Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty’s son Draper is a suspect in the murder of Dot King (which sounds like the lamest Batman villain). That’s bad, right? Actually, it seems not to have come to anything, although his wife does have him committed next month. Looking into that, I found that Harry Daugherty’s 1932 book The Inside Story of the Harding Tragedy was ghost-written by Thomas Dixon, the racist author of the books Birth of a Nation was based on.

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Today -100: March 28, 1923: Of stamps, Marxistic-Jewish-international pigsties, and driving saloons

Russia postpones the executions of Catholic Archbishop Zepliak and Monsignor Butchkavitsch.

French PM Raymond Poincaré says Germany will yield on the Ruhr by the end of May. Meanwhile, French forces raid the Dortmund Post Office and steal some stamps.

The French seize Otto Steinbrinck in Düsseldorf. He was captain of the U-boat that sank the Sussex, a French cross-channel ferry, in 1916, so he’s on the French “war criminal” list. I don’t think anything will come of this, but Steinbrinck will be convicted of war crimes, which seem to consist of involvement in munitions production, after the next world war.

The Munich Post accused Hitler of having only spent a couple of weeks at the front. The Austrian responds, “I have never combated the republican democratic form of State because I regard the present German Reich as neither a democracy nor a republic, but a Marxistic-Jewish-international pigsty.” That’s the worst sort of pigsty, er, probably. The far-right Bavarian government ridicules the federal government’s worries about a possible Nazi putsch last Sunday, saying they merely held “athletic exercises in the open, which they had a right to do without asking special permission”.

The left-wing Saxon government bans the Nazi party.

The Prince of Wales falls off a horse, as is the custom.

Gov. Gifford Pinchot of Pennsylvania signs a bill to “drive saloons out of the state.” He does know that saloons are, like, buildings, right?

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Today -100: March 27, 1923: Well, she always did play the shit out of a death scene

French actor Sarah Bernhardt dies at 78. At the time of her death, she was filming a Sacha Guitry play in her house, playing a paralytic. The film, La Voyante (The Clairvoyant), will be completed, but is considered a lost film, not that that stops people rating it on IMDB.

The Soviet Supreme Court sentences the head of the Catholic Church in Russia, Archbishop Zepliak (also spelled Cieplak) and Vicar General Monsignor Butchkavitsch (aka Budkiewicz) to death and a bunch of priests to prison terms for opposing the Soviet government. A choir boy is acquitted.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Headline of the Day -100:  

Seems there was a burglar alarm, which he did not hear, just as he never heard cops approaching him prior to some of his other arrests.

British Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law will have a little lie-down during the Easter recess. He has a “minor throat affection,” which is presumably a misprint of a) throat infection, b) throat affliction), or c) cancer. Which is the thing he has.

A French court-martial in the Ruhr sentences a German official to 6 months in prison for reading the Deutsche Allegemeine Zeitung newspaper.

A grand jury investigating last year’s trial of Illinois Gov. Len Small hears from retired saloonkeeper William Riley, who admits paying $350 to one of the jurors.

A resolution is introduced in the Oklahoma Legislature to divide the state in two, with the new eastern state called Tulshoma.

You're doin' fine, Tulshoma! Tulshoma, TS!

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Today -100: March 26, 1923: It’s always absinth o’clock somewhere

A huge crowd gathers outside the French Embassy in Berlin to sing “Deutschland Über Alles” at it, accompanied by a 70-piece brass band, as was the custom. Berlin police disperse them.

The French government decides to compromise on the daylight saving thing, turning clocks ahead 30 minutes permanently, without a seasonal change. This isn’t quite Strasbourg time, which is 31 minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, nor the old pre-war Paris time, which was 10 minutes ahead of GMT. How trains didn’t crash into each other all the time is beyond me.

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Today -100: March 25, 1923: Of revolt alarms, Mussolini frowns, and killer comedies

Headline of the Day -100:  

Prussian police are warned to be on their guard for a possible invasion of Prussia by Hitler’s Bavarian forces. The tone of the article, perhaps reflecting sentiment in Prussia, is that Prussian Interior Minister Carl Severing is just being hysterical.

The French military authorities knew in advance of the putsch plot, the Chicago Tribune says, and had “taken every precaution”. I’m guessing they didn’t bother informing the German government, so not every precaution.

Headline of the Day -100:  

An article by George Raffalovich in the NYT Sunday Magazine section describes Frowny Mussolini’s Italy as undergoing “a new Renaissance.” Yes, it’s another
NYT tongue-bath for the Duck.

Elsewhere in the dictator-heavy Magazine is an article about how Stalin is beginning to look like a possible successor to Lenin.

An old man “laughs to death” in a London movie theatre watching some American comedy and... the story doesn’t even tell us what this dangerous film is?

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Today -100: March 24, 1923: Will that dangerous man ever be arrested?

Prussia bans the (deep breath...) Deutschvölkische Freiheitspartei (Freedom Party), saying they were planning for a putsch on the 31st and the assassinations of various officials. And as during the Kapp Putsch, “the sinister figure of [Gen. Erich] Ludendorff was again in the background, traveling from one headquarters of the conspiracy to another, encouraging the revolt by letter and in speeches, but always in language that allowed several interpretations.” As Prussian Interior Minister Carl Severing reports all this to the Prussian Diet, someone is heard asking, “Will that dangerous man ever be arrested?” No spoilers.

Anti-Semitic students in Budapest and elsewhere in Hungary have been attacking newspapers considered pro-Jewish. So the government bars Jewish students from high schools & universities.

In the French National Assembly, Communist deputies accuse PM Raymond Poincaré of forming his Ruhr policy out of fear that the royalists will expose... something... about his private life. Hilarity ensues. Poincaré denies that there are “abominable dossiers” against him and his family. Abominable dossiers are, of course, the worst kind of dossiers.

During a House of Commons debate on an animal cruelty bill, Pat Collins (Lib-Walsall) says many of those speaking know nothing about the subject, while he owns 20 or 30 lions (his company runs fairgrounds).

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Today -100: March 23, 1923: Surpassing relativity

Albert Einstein has a new theory that he says is even better than relativity, but he won’t say what it is yet. It came to him at sea (he’s been in Japan).

The German police raid the (deep breath...) Deutschvölkische Freiheitspartei (translated here as Germany Liberty Party), which is allied with the Nazi Party. Twenty people are arrested for intriguing against the Weimar Republic, plotting to murder anti-monarchists like Communist Reichstag member Clara Zetkin and to stir up violent resistance to the occupation of the Ruhr. A couple of Deutschvölkische Freiheitspartei deputies expecting to be arrested, Reinhold Wulle and Wilhelm Henning, hole up in the Reichstag, where they can’t be arrested.

I’ve been meaning to mention the recent proliferation of stories about dance records/marathons, but I can’t pass up the news that a new record, 25 hours, is set in Britain by... wait for it... Victor Hindmarch.

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Today -100: March 22, 1923: Of copyrights, non-recognition, and non-putsches (this time)

The Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of America threatens to sue radio stations if they keep performing copyrighted songs.

Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes says the US won’t recognize Russia until it abandons its policies, like confiscating private property, and stops trying to export revolution or, as he puts it, “the disasters that have overwhelmed the Russian people.” Also, we want the loans we made to the Kerensky government repaid. (Other articles on Russia in today -100’s paper include “Soviet’s Oil Policy Failed”; Social Revolutionary Party leaders, including the exiled Kerensky, offering to exchange themselves for the 22 party members condemned to death or long prison terms; and ballerina Anastasia Abramova complaining that the Revolution interrupted her ballet training.)

The French seize 60 million marks, which is the equivalent of some money, from the Duesseldorf city treasury & the post office in retaliation for German sabotage. They’ve also arrested 28 tax & customs officials in the city.

French newspapers are calling for Rhineland to be removed from Germany and made a separate, demilitarized state.

5 members of the Blücherbund, the political wing of the Freikorps Oberland, were arrested a week ago after asking a French army captain to provide them grenades so they could blow up a Frankfort synagogue as a signal of the start of a putsch. The captain consulted his superiors, who seem to have taken rather a long time pondering the request, deciding no only after a similar conspiracy by Munich Blücherbunders was thwarted. At no point did the French bother to alert the German authorities.

De Lacs, North Dakota, which last year elected an all-woman village government, votes them all out.

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Today -100: March 21, 1923: They may start next on pinochle

Philip Snowden, Labour MP, moves a bill in Parliament for the abolition of private property. I will leave you in suspense as to whether it passes.

The NY Senate votes to repeal movie censorship, but the Republican Assembly will certainly kill the bill.

There’s a bill before the NY Assembly to create a State Commission to eliminate indecent dances. One assemblycritter worries that “if they start regulating dances they may start next on pinochle.”

Prince Henry of Britain falls off a horse, as is the custom.

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Today -100: March 20, 1923: Of hopeless fights, censorship, and hostages

The Social Revolutionary (SR) Party of Russia gives up its fight against Bolshevism, a fight which a special party congress describes as hopeless. The congress doesn’t offer any suggestions as to what party members should do in the future.

Germany says that of the 1,450 newspapers in the Rhineland & the Ruhr, over 400 have been suppressed or suspended by the occupation forces, and 63 newspapers from Germany proper have been banned from entry. Fines and prison sentences have been imposed on 82 editors & 31 publishers, while 18 editors & 9 publishers have been deported.

A French guard is killed in Essen. The French seize the chief of police, 3 bank directors and some others as hostages, as was the custom.

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Today -100: March 19, 1923: Of two more years, peasants first, excellencies, and Al the Alligator

Pres. Harding, responding to West Palm Beachers shouting “Hurrah for Harding in 1924,” says, “I want you to know that I have two more years ahead of me. Moreover, I have two hard years ahead.” No doubt he will be relieved to find out that he does not.

New Soviet Communist Party motto: “The Peasants First.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

 

A detective gifts Gov. Al Smith with a baby alligator as a pet for his sons. Smith suggests it be named “Al,” as “Alligator” is too long.

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Today -100: March 18, 1923: Yup, it’s there, can’t deny that it’s there

In New York, 4,000 cops guard the St Patrick’s Day parade, but no republican protesters show up.

And in Dublin, cops stand guard as Siki and McTigue box for the light-heavyweight title in defiance of de Valera’s ban (McTigue wins), disturbed only by one exploding mine blowing out windows in the neighborhood.

Attorney Gen. Harry Dougherty says Warren Harding will definitely run for re-election, “unless his health should fail him.” “The president will be re-nominated and re-elected because the country will demand it,” Dougherty says in a conversation with journalists he initiated while recovering his health in Florida so, you know, not just an aside. He says there’s only Republican who will stand against Harding, presumably referring to La Follette.

A French “philanthropic” society imports 400 “dusky-skinned Colonial” girls from Martinique and Guadeloupe to be servants in France.

Nicola Sacco ends his hunger strike after being force-fed.

German newspapers suggest that the Bavarian government is secretly backing the Nazis. Certainly Herr Hitler, who is not even a German, is doing a lot of things unmolested by the authorities that other people are getting arrested for.

Headline of the Day -100:  

In a NYT interview, George Mallory, who has twice failed to climb Mt. Everest, is asked why he even wants to. He responds “Because it’s there,” and a cliché is born.

William Jennings Bryan explains in an article in the NYT Magazine that Southern states restrict negro voting because of the principle of “the right of self-preservation, which includes the right to preserve civilization and progress made in the science of government.” He explains that white supremacy is the best supremacy because the “more advanced race” exercises control not only for its own benefit but for that of the “backward race” as well. See, because the law is race-neutral, the laws that white men make for other white men also apply to black men. And no Northern state would permit “black supremacy” either; they certainly don’t elect any black people to Congress. Aaaaand then he says “Slavery among the whites was an improvement over independence in Africa” and I had enough.

John Ford, the president of the Clean Books League who is somehow still on the NY State Supreme Court, says he’ll be going after the elected judges who don’t ban books: “Such men are raping our homes by raping the law, and they should be punished for it!”

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Today -100: March 17, 1923: Of hissing, menaces to the state, and super-governments

The Fascist government in Rome fascistically bans hissing in theatres.

A Nazi meeting in Munich adopts a resolution that all Jews in Germany be interned and shot if the occupation of the Rhineland isn’t ended.

The political Supreme Court at Leipzig declares National Socialist organizations illegal, finding that “the tendencies of this party are a menace to the State” and orders them dissolved in Prussia, Baden, Thuringia, Hamburg and Saxony, but fails to mention Bavaria, where most of the Nazis are currently operating.

Rev. W.J. Mahoney, the Ku Klux Klan’s “Imperial Klokard” (lecturer) addresses the Oklahoma Legislature, saying we must break the country’s “super-government.”

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Today -100: March 16, 1923: Of grand dragon juries, bright college years, criminal syndicalism, almshouses, and $3 jobs

The Special Grand Jury investigating the Mer Rouge, Louisiana killings of Watt Daniel and Thomas Richards finds there just isn’t enough evidence to charge their murderers. Like the killers, most of the grand jury are KKKers. The grand jury report refers to the kidnapping of the 5 men last August, failing to mention the torture and murders of two of them. Exalted Cyclops Skipwith describes himself as “highly elated” at the result.

And a New Jersey grand jury says there is no graft in Atlantic City. Grand juries are absolutely crushing it today -100.

France is insisting it won’t make the first move to end the impasse with Germany, and would prefer Germany make a direct offer rather than go through intermediaries. But any proposition put forward by Germany would begin with No resumption of reparations until the Ruhr is no longer under occupation.

Headline of the Day -100: 

 

There are worries that Republicans (the Irish kind) will interfere with the New York City parade.

A $1,000 prize has been offered anonymously for a new Yale song to replace “Bright College Years,” which is traditionally sung to the tune of Die Wacht am Rhein and has therefore fallen into disuse since the Great War. $1,000!

Theatres in Dublin close for the day in obedience to de Valera’s order, but only for one day, they say. Free State troops go around ordering them to open. The Abbey Theatre is the only one to hold a performance, with troops present, whether as guards or to coerce the performers into playing is unclear.

8 IWW members are convicted in Los Angeles of criminal syndicalism.

9 die in a fire at the Allegany County, NY almshouse. In other news, there’s still an institution called an almshouse.

A burglar who broke into the National Biscuit Company in Waterbury, CT leaves a note complaining “This is the hardest job I ever did for $3.”

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Today -100: March 15, 1923: Of boxing, harem conventions, general strikes, and married sheiks

Éamon de Valera, still on the run, issues a decree banning the Siki-McTigue boxing match and all other sports, amusements, horse racing, hunting, etc. in national mourning for the killed and executed Republicans.

Trotsky is also dying, according to the former US ambassador to China, who should know because...?  (Update: Amb. Crane will deny having said this.)

Headline of the Day -100:  

That’s the wife of Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, “dressed as a man.” She probably has a name but the NYT doesn’t know it (Latife, it’s Latife; also, she’s 24, not 19).

France and Belgium will soon have 100,000 troops occupying the Ruhr. More are being sent because they plan to seize the coal mines if German coal companies don’t pay the 40% taxes the occupiers say they are owed, which if I’m getting this right they’ve already paid to the German government, so this would be 80% tax total. The French are also putting hostages – burgomasters and the like – on the trains they’re operating, to prevent sabotage.

There was a general strike in Spain yesterday in response to the assassination in Barcelona of syndicalist labor leader Salvador Seguí, one of several recent political murders. The right-wing are talking about establishing a Fascismo regime.

Rudolph Valentino gets married. Sorry, ladies.

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Today -100: March 14, 1923: Of strokes, highly coloured jazz material, French terror, Irish executions, Babe blackmail, boll weevils and boars

NY Supreme Court Justice Ellis Staley rules that the Anti-Saloon League is a political committee which spends money supporting & opposing candidates in elections and must therefore report its expenditures. It’s unclear if it also has to release the names of its donors, which it has been ferociously hostile to doing.

Pravda announces that Lenin has had another stroke in a special edition of  Pravda on a day no other newspaper is appearing, the others taking the day off to celebrate the 6th anniversary of the end of Czardom. According to the announcement, Lenin resumed work in October but by December was so fatigued that his doctors forbade him to work, even to read newspapers; “They only allowed him to consider such general questions as reorganization of the State apparatus and peasant workers inspection or educational reforms.” But now he’s had a stroke (I blame the peasant workers inspections). The surprisingly frank bulletin even gives his temperature and pulse rate.

In other front-page-for-some-reason news, the Prince of Wales has been seen wearing fairly exotic clothes, including a sweater “of highly colored jazz material,” whatever that might be, and King Gustaf of Sweden loses at tennis.

France’s Gen. Laignelot threatens that if any more French soldiers (he doesn’t say anything about French railway workers) are killed, the burgomaster of Buer and other town officials being held as hostages will be shot in retaliation. The townsfolk are put under a 7:00 curfew with lights out at 10, and will be shot if they put their hands in their pockets. Germany sends France a protest against the “French terror in Buer.” Remember, the German government is claiming that French soldiers were responsible for the incident.

The Irish Free State executes another 7 Republicans. That makes 63 executions total. The British government has also been deporting Irish Republicans from Britain to Ireland for the first time, starting with a sweep of 110 men.

A Miss Delores Dixon, 19, sues Babe Ruth, who she says is the father of her child, for $50,000, which is the equivalent of some money. “It’s blackmail!” he replies, correctly.

The Prince of Wales falls off a horse, as was the custom.

Headline of the Day -100:  

 Air-to-air combat, no doubt.

Headline of the Day -100: 

 Coals to Newcastle, really.

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Today -100: March 13, 1923: Of crowd control and fevers

When French soldiers attempt to arrest a couple of Germans they think responsible for the killing of the French soldier & railroadguy at Buer (the German government is now claiming it was actually done by French soldiers), a crowd forms and is fired upon. 7 dead. There are similar lethal events in Dortmund & Recklinghausen.

Doctors and, through relentless press coverage, the public, have been baffled by a Michigan girl who ran a temperature of 114 for weeks while seeming otherwise perfectly healthy. Of course it was a hoax. Hot water bottle.

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Today -100: March 12, 1923: Pitiless avenging is the worst kind of... oh, you know

For the first time, resistance to the French occupation of the Ruhr is expressed in the time-honored form of assassination, with a French lieutenant and a French stationmaster shot outside Buer. This is the first time any of the occupiers have been killed. PM Poincaré promises the murders will be “pitilessly avenged,” and France responds by taking hostages, including Buer’s burgomaster and police chief, and is threatening to fine the town 100 million marks, which is the equivalent of some money.

The French keep saying that Germany is just bound to offer to make a deal just... any... day... now.

No, NYT, the name of Hitler’s party is not the Nationalist Royalists. Anyway, something called the German Liberty Party is now allied to it. Never heard of it.

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Today -100: March 11, 1923: Of absurd ordinances, sleeping, and Harding in the mud where he belongs

The Post (UK) (possibly they mean the Morning Post?) says Lady Astor’s bill against under-age drinking in saloons would be a dead letter “like that absurd ordinance prohibiting boys under 16 from smoking cigarettes.”

With cases of sleeping sickness popping up in New York, causing several deaths, the health commissioner issues a warning against coughing, sneezing and spitting, which he reminds the public are against the law unless the mouth and nose are covered. He does admit that the mode of transmission of sleeping sickness is not understood (Hint: not through coughing, sneezing or spitting).

Mostly I’m relaying that story because one of the principles of this blog is to repeat as often as possible that sleeping sickness can be treated effectively and cheaply with Eflornithine, but Aventis stopped making the drug in the ‘90s because there’s just not enough profit in curing sick Africans of lethal diseases. Fortunately, the drug also turned out to be effective in treating unwanted facial hair in women, which is profitable, so they started producing it again.

Headline/Metaphor of the Day -100:  

Hey, I missed something: Henry Riggs Rathbone was elected to Congress last year, R. from Illinois. Not hugely interesting in himself, he was the son of Maj. Henry Rathbone, who was in the booth in Ford’s Theatre with Abraham that night with his fiancé/step-sister Clara and was stabbed by John Wilkes Booth. He eventually recovered and married Clara, but guilt from failing to save Lincoln gradually drove him insane. In 1883, now consul in Hanover, he attacked his children and Clara, murdering her. He spent the rest of his life in a German insane asylum, dying in 1911. Anyway, his kid’s a congresscritter now.

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