Today -100: September 17, 1923: Of martial law and coups

Oklahoma City is occupied by the National Guard, who set up machine guns around City Hall, the police station and courthouse. Meetings opposing martial law are banned. The grand jury investigating Gov. Walton is ordered not to meet.

Yugoslavia threatens Bulgaria with war. It claims Bulgaria plans to try to seize Macedonia.

Gen. Primo “Take Me to the Rivera” says that before he started his coup, he informed the Spanish ambassadors in London, Paris and Rome, relying on them not to give warning about his forthcoming treason and to destroy the proclamation if the coup failed. And they didn’t give warning. Anyway, Primo has fired all the governors, dissolved the Cortes, locked up “Reds,” you know, dictator shit.

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Today -100: September 16, 1923: Neither Klan nor king

Gov. Jack Walton puts the entire state of Oklahoma under martial law to fight the Klan, plus super-extra martial law in Oklahoma County and Creek County. He threatens to arrest members of the Legislature if they attempt to call a special session to impeach him. The Tulsa police chief and sheriff refuse Walton’s demand that they resign, as does Grand Cyclops Sampson – “If it means my death, so be it.” It seems odd to me that Walton considers the state’s cops and judges to be untrustworthy and Klan-ridden (with good reason), but has no trouble trusting the National Guard. And indeed there seems to be no sign of discontent or disobedience in the Guard.

An Oklahoma City newspaper which the NYT shamefully fails to name (the Daily Oklahoman, probably) says “The creed of the Klan is the creed of the mob. The creed of Walton is the creed of a dictator... The people of Oklahoma are law abiding. They want neither Klan nor king.”

Russia sends a relief ship to Japan with 69 medical personnel and medical supplies, but when it arrives in Yokohama the authorities discover that they will help only laborers (and may have come with a bunch of propaganda lit as well as bandages) and turn them away.

An Old Bailey jury acquits Frenchwoman Marguerite Alibert of fatally shooting her husband, the Egyptian “prince” (actually a couple of ranks below that) Ali Kamel Fahmy, in the Savoy Hotel in July. Her lawyer attacked the prince using the most racist tropes he could find, calling him a vicious brute (“monster of Eastern depravity and decadence” etc) who subjected her to anal intercourse. He also claims she thought the gun was no longer loaded after she fired a warning shot into the ceiling. There have also been suggestions that SOMEONE put their thumb on the scales of justice, given that Marguerite was a high-class prostitute back in the day, and the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VIII) fell in love with her whilst on leave in Paris during the Great War and... wrote her letters. Which she kept... Certainly the prosecution went light on her: her past profession was never mentioned, some witnesses weren’t called, forensic evidence wasn’t entered. An Egyptian court will consider her guilty and refuse to give her her husband’s estate. Obviously Prince Eddie learned from his mistake and never got into trouble over a woman again. Marie died at 80 in Paris in 1971. She did not marry again. There’s a book about all this, Andrew Rose’s The Prince, the Princess and the Perfect Murder (2014),  which I have not read. And there’s a recent BBC Radio 4 program about all this, still available worldwide as of this writing. It’s a bit florid, and doesn’t mention the prince.

German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann is asked how he’ll respond to the various revolution movements: “We will shoot first.”

Gen. Amazon Primo Rivera is sworn in as prime minister of Spain. The deposed justice minister is supposed to administer the oath, but he claims to be indisposed, so he’s dragged to the palace. Which seems an appropriate start for a dictatorship.

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Today -100: September 15, 1923: Salutary severity

Gen. Primo Rivera says King Alfonso XIII accepts his junta (“directorate”) and the imposition of martial law. Earlier in the day, the Cabinet met the king, who had been out of Madrid when the coup began, and told him that military officers participating in the coup should be suspended. Alf refuses, citing insufficient information. Prime Minister Prieto, the Marquis of Alhucemas, resigns on behalf of his cabinet. King Alf sends for Prime Rib (if I am translating correctly) to make him PM. Prime issues a manifesto saying there will be no military dictatorship. “Peace is our motto, but peace founded on dignity abroad and salutary severity at home.” He’s threatening to put Foreign Minister Santiago Alba on trial. Alba has fled the country.

Pres. Coolidge accepts Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty’s ruling that the Navy can’t be used to enforce Prohibition, and he won’t ask for legislation to change that.

Coolidge says he won’t give any speeches – at all – until Congress re-convenes in December.

A military censor is placed in the Tulsa Tribune offices to prevent publication of anything negative about Gov. Walton or martial law (he’ll be removed again after a day).

Walton threatens to put Muskogee under martial law unless W. R. Sampson resigns as Grand Cyclops of the Klan, which seems a very odd thing for a governor to ask. Oklahoma City is next for martial law, Walton says.

W.C. Fields, breaking away from Ziegfield, is performing in the musical comedy Poppy as Prof. Eustace McGargle, with Madge Kennedy, who has top billing. He filmed it in 1936 and all I can remember of it is Fields’s enunciation of “Eustace McGargle.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: September 14, 1923: Of coups, crimes against the nation, and passive resistance

Italy agrees, under British pressure, to end its occupation of Corfu by the end of the month.

There’s a military coup underway in Spain, starting in Barcelona, led by Gen. Miguel Primo Rivera. King Alfonso XIII’s position on all this is unclear at present. Gen. Prime Riverfront Property (if I am translating correctly) says he is not imitating Mussolini but Gen. Juan Prim, who deposed Queen Isabella II in 1868 and was assassinated 2 years later. Odd role model.

Amidst continuing violence in Dresden & other parts of Germany, including “potato raids” by the hungry, it’s reported that Field Marshal Ludendorff was persuaded by the moderating force that is Adolf Hitler not to start a putsch against Berlin. Although elsewhere Hitler says anyone who pays taxes to the Weimar Republic “commits a crime against the nation.”

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Today -100: September 13, 1923: Nobody can doubt Italy’s faith

Mussolini says he’ll only end the occupation of Corfu when Greece has fulfilled the conditions to the letter: “That is quite the correct procedure. Nobody can doubt Italy’s faith.”

The Spanish Army threatens the government with a coup unless it orders a major offensive in Spanish Morocco. They’re also not too thrilled with recent activity by Catalan separatists.

Oklahoma Gov. J.C. Walton demands the resignations of the jury commission in Tulsa County and the firing of the sheriff and police chief before he ends martial law. In Tulsa, he tells a group of businessmen, “We have reached the point where the issue is the survival of invisible government or the permanency of our own visible government. I am going to clean that situation up if I have to stand out alone and let them shoot at me.” 

Greece demands that Albania arrest the assassins of Gen. Tellini et al, who were definitely Albanian. Albania says the assassins were actually Greeks, and if you can’t manage to capture them, we’ll happily cross into Greece to do it for you.

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Today -100: September 12, 1923: Of maneuvering, freeing the slaves, the revolutionary unemployed, zeppelins, and walking Lenins

Mussolini sends troops to the Yugoslav border, ostensibly for maneuvers, really to put pressure on the Yugs over Fiume (Poet-Aviator Gabriele d’Annunzio, who did so much in the past to stir up the Fiume issue, is busy these days writing an opera).

Italy says the native staff of its legation in Ethiopia should henceforth consider their slaves as servants. Doesn’t say whether the servants are free to go.

Dresden police shoot up a crowd of “revolutionary unemployed,” killing 5.

The Navy’s new ZR-1 zeppelin flies over New York City, like no one remembers that two years ago the ZR-2 exploded over Hull and only failed to kill lots more people than it did because the pilot flew it into the Humber River.

Russia denies that War Minister Leon Trotsky has been assassinated.

And says Lenin has recovered enough from his stroke that he can walk.

Syndicalists try to assassinate Portuguese Prime Minister António Maria da Silva.

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Today -100: September 11, 1923: The Klan is for law and order first, last and all the time

Germany has allegedly ordered the end of passive resistance in the Ruhr. It is not clear what form this order is supposed to have taken.

There’s a rumor that Prince George, the Duke of Kent, is engaged to Grace Vanderbilt, daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt III. By my count, that’s the third false report of a British prince getting engaged on the front page of the NYT this year.

The Navy, or some in the Navy, are pretending that the destruction of those 7 destroyers was caused by a seismic wave coming from the Japanese earthquake and not from ships wandering around blind in the fog.

The Klan wins the Portland, Maine election for city-manager government and I don’t quite see why they care. Possibly because city council members will now be elected at-large, so Catholic neighborhoods are swamped electorally? School board elections are also changed to at-large, and current board has a Jew and two Catholics, which the Klan are not thrilled by.

The Oklahoma Klan gives in to Gov. Walton and orders members not to parade or hold meetings in masks. “The Klan is for law and order first, last and all the time,” says Grand Dragon N. Clay Jewett. Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans says they’re complying with “this despotic edict” not because of fear of the National Guard but blah blah blah.

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Today -100: September 10, 1923: Of destroyer pileups and city managers

Seven US Navy destroyers are destroyed near Santa Barbara, with 23 sailors drowned. Some idiot ordered full steam ahead during a heavy fog and they full steam aheaded into the rocks, each one ramming into the one before it.

The Ku Klux Klan enters the Portland, Maine election to fight for... the city-manager form of municipal government. 

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Today -100: September 9, 1923: Of efficient cows

The Conference of Ambassadors sets the terms for Greece kissing Italy’s ass over the assassination of Enrico Tellini & co., which are pretty much the same terms Italy set forth for kissing its ass, including the 50 million lire reparations, leaving out only the demand for the death penalty for the assassins of the Italian border commission team (who won’t be caught anyway). Whether that’s because the ambassadors genuinely think Mussolini’s demands are just or because they believe he’ll just ignore the Conference if they don’t give him what he wants, I dunno.

Anyway, this frees up Mussolini to bully Yugoslavia over Fiume.

The Irish Free State joins the League of Nations. Abyssinia next?

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: September 8, 1923: Dropping the iron that has grown too hot for him

Japan is rounding up Koreans, putting c.15,000 from Tokyo in internment camps. It’s claiming that Koreans are looting and burning earthquake-downed buildings and that there is a conspiracy, just now uncovered, for Koreans to assassinate Prince Regent Hirohito and other royals on his wedding day and kill lots of Japanese etc.

Commerce Sec Herbert Hoover says Japan will recover rapidly. Hoover is always so optimistic about economic recovery.

The Oklahoma KKK’s Grand Dragon N. Clay Jewett says Gov. J.C. Walton is using his anti-Klan fight to make himself a national figure (i.e. to set himself up for the VP nomination in 1924) but now he “would like to drop the iron that has grown too hot for him”. Walton responds by threatening to extend martial law to the entire state. He’s giving state police commissions to people threatened by mobs so they can defend themselves with lethal force. Jewett says Walton’s real problem with the Klan is that they rejected his membership application.

1,500 Hackensack, New Jersey parents, evidently spurred on by the Klan, petition against a young (21) black teacher, Nellie Morrow, being allowed to teach white students. The district has no choice but to employ her since she passed her exams. So they’re going to create a class of “backward negro pupils” for her to teach. The district superintendent will be forced out for hiring her, but she will continue to teach in the district for 42 years, despite years of harassment by the Klan, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Knights of Columbus. There’s now a Nellie K. Parker (her married name) School in Hackensack. Her father had fought for her and her brothers to attend local rather than Jim Crow schools (his father, a slave, learned Latin and Greek alongside his master’s son). One of those brothers, E. Frederic Morrow, will be the first black person to hold an executive position in the White House, administrative officer for special projects under Eisenhower. He will then become a vp at the Bank of America and write a book about how fucking racist Hackensack was. Another brother, John, will be appointed, also by Eisenhower, as the first US ambassador to Guinea after it became independent and the US rep to UNESCO. Nellie died at age 95.

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Today -100: September 7, 1923: As high-handed as it pleases

At the League of Nations, Albania says the Italians could not have been killed by Albanians because the bodies were not robbed.

The NYT thinks that Mussolini’s slightly less bellicose rhetoric against Greece is due to having finally read the League of Nations Covenant and realized that Italy could be put under a trade interdiction. “Fascismo may be as high-handed as it pleases within the boundaries of Italy...” High-handed? that’s the phrase you’re going with? “But it cannot project its arbitrary measures into international relations.”

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Today -100: September 6, 1923: Of post offices and klaniversities

Calvin Coolidge gives his first speech as president, addressing a bunch of post office workers at the White House. He tells them they are the direct representatives of the federal government in their communities and not to fuck it up.

The Klan won’t buy Valparaiso University after all. Evidently no one noticed until now that the U’s charter bans it being run by any benevolent, charitable, mercenary (?) or fraternal body.

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Today -100: September 5, 1923: Of fires, peaceful occupations, and libeling Hitler

The fires in Tokyo have been put out or burned out, after c.350,000 homes are destroyed. The police are attacking Koreans and arming civilians to do the same; rumors say that Koreans and Chinese are trying to overthrow the government or something. Which is ridiculous, but the Japanese will kill a few thousand Koreans and Chinese just to be sure.

Adm. Aurelio Bellini, appointed by Italy as “governor” of Corfu, issues a proclamation referring to the “peaceful occupation” (ignore the dead orphans) and to Italy as “direct heiress of the great Latin civilizations.” Mussolini threatens that if Greece doesn’t “pay up” by next week, “the price will be higher.”

Hitler wins a libel suit against the Socialist newspaper Vorwärtz for saying he’s being financed by American anti-Semites (Henry Ford) and Bolsheviks.

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Today -100: September 4, 1923: Inured to great disasters

Mussolini threatens to withdraw from the League of Nations if it expresses an opinion on the occupation of Corfu. He may not know about the requirement to give two years’ notice before leaving the League.

Japan is estimating 250,000 dead in the Japanese earthquake. It’s bad, but not that bad.

But fortunately...

When the quake hit, Japan only had an interim prime minister, Kato Tomosaburo having died a week before. Adm. Yamamoto Gonnohyoe, who was PM once before in 1913-14, is appointed to head an emergency government. Martial law is declared in the remains of Yokohama and elsewhere. There are food riots, and the police fight back starving people with swords, as was the custom.

Different stories in today -100’s paper say that the Imperial Palace is 1) opened to refugees by Prince Regent Hirohito, and 2) on fire.

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Today -100: September 3, 1923: We need a revolution, bloodshed and a dictatorship

Headline of the Day -100:  

The enormity of the Japanese earthquake is becoming clearer.

Italy says it won’t be attending League of Nations meetings concerning its dispute with Greece, so it won’t consider itself bound by any decisions made there. Don’t think that’s how it works. Italy adds a new demand, for Greece to pay the costs of the Italian occupation of Corfu.

The Nuremberg, um, rally features Field Marshal Erich Ludendorff, who presents a silver goblet to 17-year-old not-prince Ferdinand of Bavaria and calls him “your highness,” creating some confusion about whether Ferdy is being named as the Bavarian or the German king.  Hitler calls for another revolution, “not that Socialist, bourgeoisie and Jewish revolution of 1918 but a nationalist revolution today to restore Germany’s might and greatness. We can save Germany from internal and foreign foes only through blood and sword. We need a revolution, bloodshed and a dictatorship.” The supposed 150,000 crowd includes monarchists (again, Bavarian and/or German ones), Hitler’s fascists in their finery, veterans of the Franco-Prussian War and World War I, etc.

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Today -100: September 2, 1923: Don’t Paxos and Antipaxos cancel each other out?

A huge earthquake hits Japan. Tokyo and Yokohama are on fire and nearly half of Tokyo will go up in flames. The death toll is well over 100,000 (for contrast, the SF quake of 1906 killed 3,000).

Italy occupies two Greek islands near Corfu, Paxos and Antipaxos. An Italian submarine shoots at a Greek steamer. There’s evidently an Italian blockade of Corfu, which I guess they just announced by... shooting at a steamer without warning.

Ireland is finally finishing up tallying  last week’s vote. The government forces (Cumann na nGaedheal) win 63 of 153 seats, Éamon de Valera’s Republicans just 44. PM Cosgrave will rule in alliance with the Farmers’ Party (15 seat), not that it’s necessary as the Republicans will stay out of the Dáil since they won’t take the oath of loyalty to King George. The Republicans include Countess Constance Markievicz and Mary MacSwiney, 2 of the 5 women elected.

Bavarian Nazis – supposedly 400,000 of them – are gathering in, where else, Nuremberg, marching up and down, tearing down republican flags and replacing them with the Kaiser’s, attacking Socialist hq, etc. “Anything may happen.”

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Today -100: September 1, 1923: Of coal, recognition, offended Italians, and martial law

A coal strike starts despite Pennsylvania Gov. Gifford Pinchot’s efforts at mediation.

The US finally recognizes Mexico’s Obregón government. 

Headline of the Day -100:  

Mussolini says “This unjustified attitude imposes on Italy the necessity of recalling Greece to a position of recognizing her responsibility”. So Italy is occupying Corfu. The Duck says this is not an act of war but is intended to “only safeguard her prestige” and obtain the reparations he demanded of Greece (and how’s that working in the Ruhr?) and has nothing to do with Italy wanting to put a naval base on Corfu, which it’s been trying to get from Greece for some time. The prestigious occupation begins with a bombardment, although Corfu has no defences. At least 15 civilians are killed, including several refugees, Greeks who were ethnically cleansed from Turkey, some of them orphans. Greece appeals to the League of Nations, but Italy says it’s none of the League’s business. Of course it is. Shit like this is precisely what the League is for.

After another attempted abduction by masked men in Tulsa County, Oklahoma Gov. J.C. Walton makes martial law there even more martial lawy: no habeas corpus, courts need the military’s permission to operate, all weapons and ammunition to be turned in, etc.

A Klan initiation outside New Castle, Delaware is attacked by a large crowd who shoot the fuckers up, wounding 5.

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Today -100: August 31, 1923: Of humiliating conditions, masks, sleepwalkers, and really French hats

Greece replies to Italy’s ultimatum. It agrees to the apology for the assassination of Enrico Tellini & co. and the memorial service, but refuses to let the Italian military attaché take part in the investigation, to commit to the death penalty for the unknown perpetrators, or to pay an indemnity, calling those conditions “humiliating.” Which is rather the point. A lot of people are comparing them to the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia in 1914.

In Naples and Milan, Fascisti attack the Greek consulates. Demonstrations throughout Italy chant “Down with Greece.”

The Klan tries to hold a meeting in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, but it’s broken up by 6,000 Perth Amboyhoovians, who are in turn attacked by police and firemen. Some kluxers wind up holed up in the Town Hall overnight, afraid to leave. When they do try to leave, the crowd overturns their car and beats the snot out of them. A cop prevents one kluxer being dropped down a manhole.

Michigan bans masks. You know, like the Klan wear.

The farming & livestock business of Warren McCray, governor of the ku kluxiest state, Indiana, is going bankrupt (not literally bankrupt; farmers in Indiana can’t be forced into bankruptcy). He blames the general state of the agricultural sector but also mutters something about blackmail. He says it’s a private matter and the public shouldn’t be especially interested in it. In the coming months he will try to restore his fortune through fraud and blackmail, as is the custom. He will take out loans from the State Ag Board and coerce banks into giving him other loans by threatening to withdraw state funds from them; he’ll offer forged promissory notes as collateral. He’ll will wind up in prison in 1924 after the Klan, with which he has been at odds, digs all this up. 

Headline of the Day -100:  

Still more proof that silent movies were documentaries. 

At Gimbel’s.

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Today -100: August 30, 1923: I want to be guillotined

Italy is blaming the assassination of Enrico Tellini et al yesterday, on the border between Greece and Albania, on Greeks, without any actual proof.  No one will ever be caught or identified. Greece says they were Albanian bandits, although valuables were left behind. No points for guessing who Albania blames. Italy issues an ultimatum to Greece, demanding: an indemnity of 50 million lire, which is the equivalent of some money, a 21-gun salute to the Italian fleet, the execution of the people responsible (trial optional, presumably), an abject apology, and funeral ceremonies at the Catholic church in Athens attended by every member of the Greek Cabinet. And they want a response within 24 hours. Italian Navy ships are on the way...

The German government denies persistent rumors that it’s about to surrender to France on reparations and passive resistance.  The rumors say Chancellor Stresemann will resign so the Social Democrats take the blame for surrendering.

Hitler (the NYT is back to spelling it Hittler) (and his followers Hittlerites) is supposedly planning to declare Bavaria independent of Germany on September 2nd, Sedan Day, the anniversary of the victory over France in 1870. Trouble is expected all over Germany on that day.

Convicted French murderer Pierre Levée is furious that his death sentence was commuted. “I want to be guillotined,” he says.

Princess Anastasia is dead! I didn’t bother reading the story so I can’t say what country she used to princess for.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Lon Chaney as Hunchy, premieres at Carnegie Hall.

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Today -100: August 29, 1923: The real cause of Warren Gamaliel Harding’s untimely demise

Former Gov. William Sproul of Pennsylvania says Prohibition hastened Harding’s death, because he felt obligated to obey the law (hah!) and was unable to take his usual whiskey, which would have sustained him during his arduous Alaska trip.

Gen. Enrico Tellini, the Italian president of the International Commission for Delimitation of the Greco-Albanian frontier, is killed along with 4 of his staff while inspecting that border, in an ambush on their automobile 3 miles on the Greek side.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Be vewwy vewwy quiet.

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