Today -100: October 20, 1923: Of the greatest issue in America today, reparations, and parade-stopping

A conference of all 52 state and territorial governors endorses Prohibition. Louisiana Gov. John Parker resigns in protest, saying “The Ku Klux Klan is the greatest issue in America today.”

German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann says Germany will stop paying reparations now that it has been shown from Poincaré’s refusal to negotiate that his real objective is the destruction of the German Reich. The London Times points out that France said it would negotiate only when passive resistance ended but it didn’t negotiate when passive resistance ended.

A plot by Romanian Fascists to assassinate government ministers is uncovered, leading to the resignation of the interior minister and others.

The Youngstown, Ohio chief of police says he will stop a planned KKK parade, shooting to kill if need be.

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Today -100: October 19, 1923: How is “diplomatic relations” even a thing here?

Bavaria and Saxony break diplomatic relations.

Pres. Coolidge joins the First Congregational Church in DC.

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Today -100: October 18, 1923: Of funereal foxtrots

The federal German government is, allegedly, preparing to militarily invade Saxony. Excuse me, “Soviet Saxony.” They would do this to prevent far-right Bavaria (excuse me, “Blue Bavaria”) invading Saxony. Excuse me, “Red Saxony.” Gen. Mueller demands the Saxon government repudiate a speech by Finance Minister Paul Böttcher (Communist) saying it might come down to a fight with counter-revolution. Mueller’s threat rather seems to make his point.

The Oklahoma House reverses itself, voting to investigate whether the Ku Klux Klan controls the Legislature and renders city and county governments impotent.

The Philippines Legislature calls for the recall of Gov. Gen. Leonard Wood.

Police in Udine, France, stop a jazz band playing at a funeral. It wasn’t the jazz they object to, per se, but the dancing (foxtrotting) that broke out.

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Today -100: October 17, 1923: A question of the very existence of the state

Henry Ford has no objection to the formation of Ford-for-president clubs in South Dakota.

In an interview with Italian Fascist newspaper Corriere Italiano, Hitler says the fundamental principle of the National Socialists is anti-Semitism: “the Jewish question in Germany is a question of the very existence of the State.”

Alliterative Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: October 16, 1923: Of worthless marks and worthless masked legislators

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The Oklahoma House of Reps refuses to investigate Gov. Jack Walton’s claim that a majority of its members are kluxers.

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Today -100: October 15, 1923: Of recalls

The Ku Klux Klan is supporting a recall petition for Oregon Gov. Walter Pierce (D), although they supported his election last year.

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Today -100: October 14, 1923: Of dictators and lynchings

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Wish: granted.

That’s the Reichsermächtigungsgesetz, transferring powers to the government regardless of whether they violate the Constitution. 

A lynch mob shoots a black man in Virginia.

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Today -100: October 13, 1923: Of Fords and red saxonies

Henry Ford lets Nebraskaites put his name on the presidential primary ballot for the Neb. Progressive Party, possibly out of pique at losing his bid for the nitrate plant at Muscle Shoals. Does he actually want to run for president? His personal secretary says he doesn’t wish to say.

Saxony, or “Red Saxony” as it will evidently now be known, has a new Socialist-Communist Cabinet (the Communist part is new), which the federal government is not thrilled about. To be fair, they’re not happy about Bavaria’s far-right dictator Von Kahr either. Bavaria will stall and passively resist implementation in the state of federal measures under the emergency act.

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Today -100: October 12, 1923: Of special sessions, black shirts, and executioners

The Oklahoma Legislature meets in special session. It changes its mind and allows Gov. Walton’s message to be read (Walton stays away). The message calls for anti-Klan legislation to end the war between the invisible and all-too-visible governments. The Lege leaps into action and ignores his proposals, moving instead to appoint a committee of investigation and impeachment. Walton declares an end to martial law.

Switzerland bans black-colored shirts. Italian Fascists have been making themselves obnoxious lately.

Ahead of the Reichstag vote on giving dictatorial powers to the government (the Reichsermächtigungsgesetz), Chancellor Gustav Stresemann gets authorization from Pres. Ebert to dissolve the Reichstag if it fails to do his bidding.

Isidore Hespel used to be the official executioner in French Guiana, which used prisoners for the job; he was sent there for 2 murders during a robbery committed in France. Now he is to be executed for killing a fellow prisoner who berated him for all the, you know, executions. He wants to erect his own guillotine. Which he will be allowed to do.

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Today -100: October 11, 1923: Of masks, presidents, and vigilance

Oklahoma Gov. Jack Walton’s offer to resign if the Legislature passes his anti-Klan bill isn’t being rejected by legislators, it’s being ignored. And they won’t let him speak to tomorrow’s special session.

Oklahoma KKK Grand Dragon N. Clay Jewett claims to support the unmasking legislation.

Tsao Kun (aka Cao Kun) is sworn in as president of China, a position he bought fair and square (the post is elected by the eminently bribable Parliament). Sun Yat-Sen declares war.

A “vigilance committee” orders black people out of Stowe Township, Pennsylvania. The cops didn’t interfere as the vigilantes went vigilantly issuing threats from house to house, because there was no violence.

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Today -100: October 10, 1923: Of death sentences

Oklahoma Gov. Jack Walton makes a rather odd offer: if the Legislature passes his anti-Klan bill, which would ban masking and make secret societies’ membership lists public, he will resign, immediately. What makes it odd is that he’s been claiming for months that cops and judges throughout the state are klansmen or at least klan-adjacent and are failing to enforce laws against Klan crimes such as floggings. So adding new laws for them not to enforce would accomplish what, exactly?

Convicted murderer Felix Gueydan is guillotined in Aix-en-Provence. It would have happened 18 months ago but they, er, forgot about him. They might have continued to forget about him but he sent a letter asking what was up.

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Today -100: October 9, 1923: Of borers, boycotts, and emergency powers

Headline of the Day -100:  

The coalition that won the Philippines elections says the Legislature will refuse to pass anything recommended by Governor Leonard Wood.

The German Reichstag will consider a bill to give the government emergency powers to do almost anything by decree, including departing from constitution rights, but not, in a concession to the Socialists, to alter the 8-hour day.

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Today -100: October 8, 1923: Of special sessions, warding off attacks of robbers, sick mayors, and German confusion

Oklahoma legislators are saying that sure, they’ll consider Walton’s anti-Klan legislation in the special session but only after they impeach him.

Bavarian Dictator Gustav von Kahr says “Germany must regain sufficient strength to ward off the attacks of robbers,” meaning France. In his war against Socialists he’s swarming Munich with police acting in cooperation with Hitler’s storm troops.

NYC Mayor John Hylan has been sick since August. He may be allowed to leave his bed in a week but probably won’t be mayoring until January. Seems a long time for a major city not to have a working mayor.

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Today -100: October 7, 1923: 20% off beer!

Gustav Stresemann has put together a new coalition, composed of the same 4 parties as the last one, and a cabinet with only the finance minister changed. No one’s happy about it. Communist deputies in the Reichstag call Stresemann “Stinne’s representative, office boy and stage scenery.” That’s industrialist Hugo Stinnes, head of the Deutsche Volkspartei (People’s Party, DVP), which is only part of the coalition because it has given up (for now) on the scheme for a dictatorship under Erich Ludendorff. Stinnes is also heavily funding the Nazis, so he personally hasn’t given up on the idea of Ludendorff dictatorship. Stresemann says martial law was necessitated solely by the Communists.

Bavarian dictator Gustav von Kahr orders the price of beer reduced by 20%. He may get around to doing the same for milk, but, you know, priorities.

Oklahoma Gov. Jack Walton has sort of reversed himself on the subject of special sessions of the Legislature, calling one for the 11th (6 days before the one called yesterday by legislators themselves to impeach him), which would have as its purpose “the enactment of a law to protect the people from masked and lawless marauders and secret organizations”. Its sole purpose. Not anything else. Definitely not impeaching him.

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Today -100: October 6, 1923: The time is not ripe yet

An Oklahoma state representative invokes the newly voted (but not certified) constitutional amendment to call a special session of the Lege for the 17th. There’s some precedent in OK for acting on initiatives before they’re certified, as in 1907 when the governor moved the capital from Guthrie to OK City on the very day of the vote on an initiative to do so.

Bavarian PM Eugen von Knilling says the only answer to the unsettled political situation in Berlin is either new elections or for the Reichstag to be dissolved and replaced by a dictator. Asked about putting Crown Prince Rupprecht on the Bavarian throne, he says “the time is not ripe yet.” He says Bavarians aren’t the separatists, the real separatists are those in Berlin who try to make Bavaria accept their Red government; Bavarians don’t like all those Marxists and Communists (Marxist is replacing Bolshevik as a term of abuse in Germany).

There’s been a kerfuffle in the art world the last few months about the legitimacy of works of art in various museums such as the Louvre. Now a Prof. John C. Van Dyke of Rutgers says there are only 35 real Rembrandts extant, including none of the “Rembrandts” in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Today -100: October 5, 1923: Of pinchots, woods, and closed cars

Pennsylvania Gov. Gifford Pinchot (R), just finished negotiating a deal to end the coal strike and currently burnishing his Prohibitionist credentials by going to war with Philadelphia saloons, which are ignoring his order to close, may be running for president. Treasury Sec. Andrew Mellon has already been around trying to get him not to, as have other leaders of the Pennsylvania Republican Party.

Elections in the Philippines reject candidates seen as supporting Gov-Gen. Leonard Wood, but not by as large a percentage as was expected.

People increasingly prefer closed cars.

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Today -100: October 4, 1923: Stresemann does the hokey pokey

Oklahoma Gov. Jack Walton gets a temporary restraining order against the election being certified.

German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann resigns! President Friedrich Ebert asks... Gustav Stresemann... to form a new cabinet, which just seems lazy. The Social Democrats had voted to withdraw from the coalition, which was trying to abolish the 8-hour day.

German Socialists claim 100,000 monarchists participated in the attack on Küstrin’s fortresses.

The Daily Mail (London)’s Munich correspondent visits Hitler’s hq and “received a rather poor impression of the Bavarian Nationalist leader and his following.” Hitler is unsurprisingly opposed to the ending of passive resistance and says every factory and furnace in the Ruhr should have been destroyed.

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Today -100: October 3, 1923: The fight on Invisible Empire has just started in Oklahoma

With a quarter of ballots counted, the Oklahoma constitutional amendment allowing the Legislature to call itself into session is passing 4 to 1. Gov. Jack Walton issues a statement: “The fight on Invisible Empire has just started in Oklahoma. I am still Governor of the State.” Fact Check: correct. For now. In a couple of counties state police seize voting materials or prevent polling places opening, including Johnson County where voters instead vote by affidavit, mailing their ballots to the state election board.

Walton (and everyone) seem to miss the constitutional provision requiring a special election to have a 2/3 vote of the Legislature, which means this provision will be thrown out by the state Supreme Court, but not until 1930.

Russia gets a new triumvirate of Dzerzhinsky, Trotsky and Stalin (oh my!).

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Today -100: October 2, 1923: Elections a-comin’

Oklahoma Gov. Jack Walton offers a compromise, keeping his ban on elections Tuesday but holding them in 2 months. Counties are going ahead with preparations for the election anyway, ignoring Walton and his tame State Election Board and his attempt to dismiss county election boards defying him. A state district court enjoins Walton from interfering with elections officials and with the elections. The only direct interference by the governor’s forces today is an attempt by special police to prevent the distribution of ballot boxes in Tulsa; they are thrown out of the court house by 200 special deputies.

800 German royalists of the “Black Reichswehr” paramilitary group attack the Küstrin Fortress in eastern Germany in some sort of half-assed attempt at a putsch begun out of anger at the end of passive resistance in the Ruhr (and maybe to let Black Reichswehr chief Bruno Buchrucker escape an arrest warrant out for him). The Küstrin Putsch is a pathetic affair which does not last long. The government somehow blames Communists as well as monarchists.

Frederick Stock, director of the Chicago Symphony, returns from visiting Europe, predicting another European war because new European music is hysterical, new dances display weird frenzy, women’s clothing is brightly colored and sexalicious, which all shows that Europeans are fidgety, restless and frenzied. You heard it here first.

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Today -100: October 1, 1923: There may be bloodshed, but there will be no election

French PM Raymond Poincaré does not care for the tone of Germany’s proclamation ending passive resistance, he does not care for it AT ALL: “The surly proclamation of an inevitable truce is nothing; it is the execution which is everything.”

Oklahoma Gov. Jack Walton orders the indefinite postponement of tomorrow’s election, which he does not have the authority to do. He says there wasn’t 5-day’s notice of the inclusion on the ballot of the constitutional amendment allowing the Legislature to call itself into session, but that’s not actually a requirement and the OK Supreme Court said last Friday that the election is legal. To prevent the vote – “There may be bloodshed, but there will be no election” – Walton orders the mobilization of the National Guard plus 75,000 volunteers plus 22,000 secret service, which seems like a lot of secret service for a state with a little over 2 million people. Walton says he has been very patient but “one more crack and I am going to put this state under martial law that will be martial law. I will make them go to bed at 6 o’clock”.

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