Today -100: April 9, 1923: You know what else is unbecoming? Fascism.

The US will demand $1,187,736,867 in war damages from Germany on behalf of its citizens. This includes claims from the sinking of the Lusitania.

Columbia University Pres. Nicholas Murray Butler won’t do anything about assistant professor of Latin Dino Bigongiari just because he’s a Fascist, indeed the leader of the local Fascists. Butler says “to attempt to discipline a university teacher for his private or political opinions would be most unbecoming.” Bigongiari will remain at Columbia, retiring in 1950.

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Today -100: April 8, 1923: Of marks, death sentences, impartial juries, and doyles

Headline of the Day -100:  

Really, what is it 1923 Republicans had against blogs?

During their occupation of the Ruhr, the French have so far seized 32 billion marks, which is the equivalent of a bunch of money. But Germany can just keep printing more money, so that’s okay.

Oklahoma’s new governor J.C. Walton (D) says he will commute all death sentences. There are currently 6 condemned men on death row. Well, I say men, but one of them is Elias Ridge who is black and was 13 at the time of the murder. Gov. Walton is an engineer who years ago built the current electric chair.

6 of the coal miners on trial for murder during the “riots” during last year’s strike in Herrin, Illinois were acquitted, so the state’s attorneys drop the remaining cases, bitching that justice can’t be obtained in Williamson County as no impartial jury can be found. The judge disagrees, so we’ll see what happens.

The Society of American Magicians offers Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to reproduce spirit photographs and all the other phenomena he thinks are real.

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Today -100: April 7, 1923: Too much evidence and yet not enough

Alliterative Headline of the Day -100:  

 

Ada Emma Deane has taken pictures of soldier-ghosts attending Armistice Day events (a quick search failed to turn up these pics; sorry). She has also taken pictures of ghosts floating behind the ever-gullible Sir Arthur.

Speaking of gullible, many people in Russia think that Jupiter has escaped its orbit and will hit the earth or, more specifically, Russia, as punishment for it putting archbishops and monsignors on trial.

Headline of the Day -100:  

 

Oh phew, for a second there I thought he said blogs.

Sen. Hiram Johnson visits Italy and meets Mussolini, who he calls “the marvel of modern Italy.” Mussolini is an admirer of Theodore Roosevelt, whose running mate Johnson was.

Federal prohibition agents claim to have seized nearly $10 million in property in 1922. 69,000 arrests were made. 14 dry agents were killed on duty.

Wisconsin Gov. John Blaine signs into law a ban on woke history textbooks which “defame” the Founders or contain propaganda on behalf of foreign governments.

Next year’s Olympics in Paris will give prizes for paintings, sculptures, architecture, etc. I first read the headline “Olympic Winners to Get Art Prizes” as meaning that the winners in, say, pole vaulting, would get to go home with a nice painting.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned the “criminal syndicalism” trial in Michigan of Communist, union organizer, and Communist candidate for president in 1924, 1928 and 1932 William Z. Foster (the Z stands for Zebulon) (on further research, I find that he was born William Edward Foster but adopted the Z so mail carriers in Spokane wouldn’t confuse him with another William E. Foster; he kept the Z but didn’t use the Zebulon). The lengthy trial just ended in a hung jury. The only woman juror, Minerva Olson, explains that the evenly split jury was “just swamped with words, words, words,” in which the entire history of Communism back to 1847 was presented to the jury. “Too much evidence and yet not enough,” she says.

There is a heated debate at Ohio State University over the percentage of woman students who engage in “petting.” All of the quoted students of both sexes agree that it’s at least 50%.

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Today -100: April 6, 1923: The Egyptians had powers we know nothing of

Following Lord Carnarvon’s death, Egyptologists deny that tombs contain “secret poisons” or ancient curses. But what nefarious secrets are being covered up by Big Egyptology? The increasingly embarrassing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, just arrived in the US with a gullible Scientific American writer in tow so he can prove the existence of all things spoooooky, says Carnarvon was probably the victim of a malevolent spirit or elementals or something: “The Egyptians had powers we know nothing of.”

Soviet troops have supposedly killed – the AP uses the word “executed” but I don’t think it’s meant in the juridical sense – 340 Ukrainian peasants protesting the execution of Monsignor Constantine Butchkavitsc. There are also pogroms of Jews in Ukraine, which I assume are related to the execution, since anti-Semitic violence is certainly the preferred reaction in Poland.

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Today -100: April 5, 1923: Of curses, anti-Passover, klandidates, illegal time, and dancing

The Earl of Carnarvon dies of blood poisoning from an insect bite, the first victim of the Curse of Tutankhamen’s Tomb™.

Russian Jewish Communists hold some sort of parody Passover event at Krementshug in the Ukraine, getting into a fight with observant Jews. The Jewish Communists want Jews to go to work on Jewish holidays and give their wages for those days to the Red Army & the labor movement.

Harding was considering hiring a press agent, but abandons the idea because everyone tells him the optics of the government paying for propaganda aren’t great.

In Tuesday’s elections, the KKK fails to defeat 3 Catholic candidates for the East St Louis City Council, and the one candidate it does get elected immediately repudiates them. Klan candidates for Dallas city offices, however, all win, as do those in various cities in Kansas, including Wichita and Kansas City.

The lower house of the Connecticut Legislature passes a bill making it illegal to display any time other than Standard Time on clocks or even watches.

The new dance record is 33 hours and 15 minutes. A French university student.

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Today -100: April 4, 1923: Of dry turks, devers, roosevelts, and greatly affected popes

Constantinople is now dry, with violations punishable by beatings.

William Dever (D) is elected mayor of Chicago, replacing Big Bill Thompson (R). D’s also now hold 38 of 50 seats on the City Council.

Progressive Republicans from the West are pushing for Harding to drop Coolidge as his running mate in ‘24 and replace him with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Teddy Roosevelt Jr. They think there are too many New Englanders in the Harding administration. TR JR has been saying he doesn’t want the job.

Russia executes Monsignor Constantine Butchkavitsch, by firing squad or shot by a single executioner, depending on which story you believe. They keep it secret for several days. Pope Pius is said to be “greatly affected.” The Russian response to Britain’s protest is so gosh darn rude (it mentions British executions in India and Ireland) that Britain refuses to take it.

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Today -100: April 3, 1923: They will never put the Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan in City Hall

In military breakthrough news, Russia says it has discovered a means of harnessing the latent energy of the atmosphere to hurl objects of any size almost unlimited distances. And the US Army says it has developed a gas mask impervious to all poison gases, including carbon monoxide and... wait, they’ve been using cocoanut shells to make gas masks up until now?

(Update: I’m informed the Russia story may have been a joke  – does Russian even have April Fools Day? – that was taken seriously.)

Mobs rampage through the Jewish district of Jassy, Romania.

A grand jury investigating last year’s trial of Illinois Gov. Len Small indicts three men for conspiracy, including two fixers and one of the jurors, who after the trial was appointed deputy state game warden. Authorities are still looking for two witnesses, including a Chicago detective and labor leader “Umbrella Mike” Boyle.

The Chicago mayoral election takes place today. The last days have been marked by anonymous cards, believed to originate with the KKK, attacking William Dever (D)’s Catholicism with a fake reprint from a Catholic newspaper telling Catholics that they are Catholics first, citizens second. D’s in turn pointed out Arthur Lueder (R)’s German ancestry.

A federal judge in Kentucky rules that federal prohibition cops can stop and search cars without warrants. Another federal judge recently ruled that they can’t.

NY Gov. Al Smith vetoes a bill allowing cities of the second class, which I take to mean every city except NYC, to limit automobile speed to a minimum of 20 mph, up from the present 15 mph. Smith won’t allow this until driver’s licenses are introduced, with a driver’s test. This already exists, but only in NYC, and is opposed by upstate Republicans.

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Today -100: April 2, 1923: Monstrous bloodbaths are the worst kind of bloodbath

The French arrest four Krupp directors for complicity with the resistance to the French attempted carjacking at their plant in Essen yesterday. The death toll in that is 9 & will rise to at least 11. Pres. Ebert expresses horror at “the monstrous bloodbath which French militarism has introduced among peaceful and defenseless workmen.”

Rumor of the Day -100: Revolution in Romania! Palace stormed! King and Queen flee!

Bulgaria sentences Vasil Radoslavov, the prime minister at the start of the Great War, and 5 other Cabinet ministers to prison for life. Radoslavov is in exile, don’t know about the rest.

Marina Vega, a 15-year-old divorcee who came to LA from Mexico City to pursue Charlie Chaplin, sneaks into his house and (supposedly) takes poison. The hospital releases her, and she now says Chaplin’s not so great, or he wouldn’t want to marry Pola Negri.

The dancing record is now 27 hours.

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Today -100: April 1, 1923: Of krupp killing, wet garys, klandiana, and safety

What are the French stealing today? Soldiers arrive at the Krupp works in Essen to seize its automobiles, get into a fight with Krupp workers and start shooting, with machine guns according to some reports.

The mayor of Gary, Indiana, Roswell O. Johnson, as well as a judge, prosecutor, sheriff, etc, 55 people across the political and legal sectors of the city, are convicted of conspiracy to violate the prohibition law.

Chairman of the Indiana Republican State Committee Lawrence Lyons, who resigned from the Ku Klux Klan six weeks after joining when he suddenly realized it was bad and un-American and shit, says he only joined because “I was led to believe I would be able to gain some particular advantage for the Republican organization”. So that’s okay then. (the Indiana Klan will be the largest in the country by 1924, maybe already, and it will be largely Republican, unlike in most other states).

Premiering today:

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Today -100: March 31, 1923: Hypnotism is responsible for sooooo many marriages

More anti-Semitic rioting in Bucharest. Students attack the Jewish Theatre. The government, naturally, closes the theatre.

France threatens to expel all railroad workers in the Ruhr & Rhineland who don’t return to work. The striking men are being paid by the German government, but they’ve been demanding higher pay to do nothing because of inflation. The French are upping the pressure because they think Germany can’t afford to fund the resistance much longer, given the complete failure of a loan attempt, probably because the Reparations Commission said that Germany could issue bonds but not repay them without permission.

Russia commutes the death sentence imposed on Archbishop Zepliak to 10 years in solitary, but says Vicar General Monsignor Butchkavitsch will be executed (Spoiler Alert: And he will be).

After a case of whiskey is discovered in an Oklahoma Legislature committee room, the speaker places armed guards in the building. The House then votes to remove them.

Lenin is again said to be dying, as was the custom, and will supposedly be replaced by a military dictatorship led by Trotsky.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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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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