Today -100: December 15, 1923: They’re expected to nominate Calvin Coolidge sober?

In the French Chamber of Deputies, Socialist MP and future PM Léon Blum says the government’s Ruhr policy obtained neither reparations nor security, and indeed imperiled both.

Prohibition officials are already planning to prevent the attempts of bootleggers to bring into Cleveland next June the huge quantities of booze required to lubricate the Republican Convention.

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Today -100: December 14, 1923: Wait, is he saying that Winston Churchill was... drunk? Unpossible!

Hiram Johnson is furious at the RNC decision to over-represent the South at the National Convention, which he sees as a Coolidge move to pump up the number of tame delegates. Yup, but another reason is that blacks in the North are threatening to bolt the party.

Rep. Frank Clark (D-Florida) protests the rule against congresscritters having sofas in their offices.

The French women’s suffrage bill is running into trouble, as was the custom. The current version does have women voting at 21 instead of 25, but includes a provision for fathers to have an extra vote for each of their children (including illegitimate ones). The Chamber rejects the government’s request for a postponement until it can come up with a position on women’s suffrage. The government is also considering a bill to make voting compulsory.

Lord Alfred Douglas is sentenced to 6 months in prison for criminally libeling Winston Churchill, who he accused of having taken bribes to lie about the Battle of Jutland. After an amusing trial in which Bosie’s lawyer hectored Winnie on the stand, the jury is out 7 minutes, even after hearing from a witness who saw Churchill in “an unfortunate condition” outside Boodle’s Club in 1913. Churchill denies having ever been a member of the club.

Polish Jews have been paying smugglers to get them into Germany.

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Today -100: December 13, 1923: Of yucatans, counsels of dormancy, duels, and equal pay

The Mexican rebels claim to have taken Yucatan. 

The Republican National Committee restores the over-representation of the South at its Convention.

Democratic presidential candidate William Gibbs McAdoo calls Coolidge’s State of the Union address a “counsel of dormancy.” He says the US can, contrary to Cal’s claim, afford tax cuts and the Bonus at the same time.

Dueling is experiencing a minor resurgence in France, the latest being between aviator Raoul Moupin and writer Albert Nitar. Moulin is hit in the shoulder.

A referendum in Boston turns down equal pay for women teachers.

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Today -100: December 12, 1923: Of alliterative princes

The French Chamber of Deputies again takes up women’s suffrage, and as usual some idiot proposes instead to give male heads of families an extra vote for each child they have (including illegitimate ones). A measure to give the vote to women over 25 is accepted in principle.

Prussia, annoyed that people still refer to former kaiser Wilhelm as “kaiser,” strips him of the title. He is now Prince of Prussia, the same title his son has.  (Update: Next month Prussia will defend this, saying also that the Hohenzollerns never had the right to the name Hohenzollern. The name hasn’t appeared on their birth & death certificates, etc.)

Jewish students are beaten up by Christian students at Budapest University. Authorities are threatening to close the U.

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Today -100: December 11, 1923: Of bonuses, ended dictatorships, and Bohemians

Coolidge calls for a $300 million in budget cuts per year. He says he opposes the soldier Bonus because it would make tax-cutting “impossible for years to come.” He finds no “sound reason” for the Bonus. Able-bodies vets can just get jobs.

Rebels are headed, by train, for Mexico City.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Rather than ask for a renewal of his dictatorial powers from a Chamber which has tamely given him every damn thing he asked for, he wants elections for a new Chamber to give him dictatorial powers without the accusation that it is unrepresentative.

The Republicans are adjusting the apportionment of delegates to the 1924 Convention. California feels short-changed (presumably to screw over Hiram Johnson?), as do black people from the South, which is seeing its delegates cut in half because, well, no one votes (or is allowed to vote) Republican in the South. Traditionally, many of the Southern delegates have been black, providing tame backing for the party leadership, which paid them well for it. Now the party is thinking it’s been 60 years since the Civil War and they might someday be competitive in the South, so they’ve been ditching their black supporters there. One fun way to do that is to hold the conventions that pick delegates in segregated hotels.

People at the Greenwich Village Historical Society complain about the influx to the neighborhood of long-haired male and bob-haired female Bohemians.

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Today -100: December 10, 1923: Hey, it worked for James T. Kirk

William Jason Fields, incoming Democratic governor of Kentucky, will not attend his own inaugural ball because there’ll be dancing and he doesn’t believe in dancing (he’s a Methodist, you see) and will ban it from the executive mansion.

The Huertista rebels capture Jalapa, the capital of Vera Cruz state.

Three “adventurers” will soon start a two-year voyage on a 36-foot yawl. They’ll be looking for a tribe of Indian Amazon-type warrior women (oh, and they’re supposed to be white) they expect to find at the sources for the Amazon River, having believed a tall tale by a sea captain. “The main purpose of our venture is to find a new type of feminine beauty.”

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Today -100: December 9, 1923: We’re going to Cleveland!

The Reichstag passes an emergency powers act allowing Chancellor Wilhelm Marx’s Cabinet to do whatever it wants without further Reichstag authorization for an indefinite period. The vote is 313-18, with 39 left-wing members of the Social Democratic Party ignoring the party whip and staying away.

Pres. Coolidge decides that the 1924 Republican Convention will be held in Cleveland (they’ve been using Chicago exclusively since 1904 but support for Hiram Johnson is strong there so...). The Republican Party is thinking about sending out 2,000 trained speakers to explain Treasury Sec. Andrew Mellon’s plan for reducing taxes mostly on the rich (dropping surtaxes from 50% to 25%). “Duh, we’re Republicans” would seem to cover it.

The Nash County, North Carolina commissioners protest Gov. Cameron Morrison’s sending troops to Nashville to prevent the lynching of a black man on trial for assaulting a white woman. Morrison, not exactly innocent of participating in racist violence in the past, says he’ll use “every particle of power given me by the Constitution of this State to prevent lynchings”.

The Ku Klux Klan contributes $25 to a small negro church, the Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, in Greenport, Long Island, which is building a new church.

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Today -100: December 8, 1923: Just OK

The Oklahoma Legislature passes the weak anti-Klan measure, banning mask-wearing in public but not requiring the publication of membership lists.

Berthold Brecht’s first play, Baal, premieres in Leipzig.

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Today -100: December 7, 1923: Down with imposition!

Calvin Coolidge gives his State of the Union (still not called that) Speech. “For us peace reigns everywhere.” How nice for us. He is against joining the League of Nations but for the World Court, with qualifications. He is for tax cuts (boy is he for tax cuts). He is against the bonus for veterans. He wants to build up the Coast Guard – with power boats! fun! – to fight booze smuggling. He won’t recognize Soviet Russia, but has nothing against US citizens doing business with it. He favors an anti-lynching law, though not at great length.

British elections: Stanley Baldwin’s Tories lose 80 seats in Parliament, bringing them to 258. Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour Party gains 49 seats, bringing them to 191, and David Lloyd George’s Liberals gain 43 seats, bringing them to 158. No one has close to a majority.

Frederick Pethick Lawrence, whose career in electoral politics was stalled by his pre-war involvement in the militant women’s suffrage movement and perhaps by his pacifism during the war, and will later be the last Secretary of State for India before it receives independence, enters Parliament at 51 after defeating Winston Churchill. During World War II Pethick Lawrence will be briefly Leader of the Opposition (the small part of the Labour Party that didn’t join the National Government), facing Churchill during prime minister’s questions.

Labour Party Secretary Arthur Henderson loses his seat (although two of his sons win seats), as does Sir Reginald “Blinker” Hall, who ran Naval Intelligence and the code-breaking Room 40 during the Great War.

Lady Astor retains her seat.

Secretary of Labour Sir Clement Anderson Montague-Barlow, which is not a very secretary-of-labour name, loses his Salford seat to, hm, Labour Party member Joseph Toole, which is a very labor-type name.

The Liberals’ position is weakened, despite its increase in MPs, by the loss of many of Lloyd George’s closest associates.

The number of women MPs increases from 3 to 8, including future first female Cabinet member Margaret Bondfield (Lab).

A revolution starts in Mexico, as was the custom. The cause is the attempt of Pres. Álvaro Obregón to impose Gen. Plutarco Calles as his replacement next year (Obregón is not allowed to run for re-election). It’s led by Finance Minister Adolfo de la Huerta. Motto: Down with imposition! It is expected that Obregón will declare himself dictator.

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Today -100: December 6, 1923: Of speakers and peace

Rep. Frederick Huntington Gillett  (R-Massachusetts) is re-elected Speaker of the House on the 9th ballot after a brief Progressive rebellion. This is the last time a speaker was not elected on the first ballot until Kevin McCarthy.

No Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded this year.

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Today -100: December 5, 1923: Of dictatorships

German Chancellor Wilhelm Marx calls for unity, saying Germany is “actually at the end of our economic and financial strength.” And by unity, he very much means the continuation of near-martial law and dictatorial powers. Socialists – well, some of them – are likely to agree to the continuance of these powers in the hands of the non-Marxist Marx, with the compromise of a toothless advisory committee, because they really don’t want to face a new election. 

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Today -100: December 4, 1923: Of remissions, fighting for number 2, and relics of early Victorianism

Pres. Coolidge remits the 60-day sentence of NYC Controller Charles L. Craig (D) for contempt of court for criticizing the actions of a judge in a traction case in 1921. The NYT front page has been filled with stories about this for months, which I have not read. The White House is pointing out that this is a “remission,” not a pardon, and thus not a vindication for Craig, who they were afraid was enjoying the prospect of martyrdom too much.

Winston Churchill (L-Until-It’s-No-Longer-Convenient) pleads with the voters to make the Liberal Until It’s No Longer Convenient Party the chief opposition party rather than Labour, to fight the Tories’ abandonment of free trade.

PM Stanley Baldwin says the Conservatives, not the Liberals, are the party of progress. “They don’t know it, but they are a relic of early Victorianism and are picking their way in patterns and crinoline overmildewed,” whatever that means.

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Today -100: December 3, 1923: Of pogroms and suicides

Pogroms in the Ukraine allegedly killed 200 Jews in the last month. The Red Army cavalry seems to be largely responsible.

Headline of the Day -100:  

French royalist (Action française) leader Léon Daudet is having his son Philippe’s body exhumed in order to prove that the 14-year-old was murdered by anarchists instead of committing suicide, or maybe that anarchists drove him to suicide. Daudet will pursue this for years, winding up sentenced to prison in 1927, escaping prison (from a 5 month sentence!) and going into exile until he’s pardoned in 1929.

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Today -100: December 2, 1923: Of vicious mules and Barrymores

The Oklahoma Supreme Court reverses the damages award of a lower court to a man bitten by an army mule he was trying to rescue from a train wreck. The Court says “the vicious tendencies of mules are open and notorious,” so the guy assumed the risks when he approached the mule.

Which Barrymore would you go to see on Broadway, John in Hamlet or Lionel in Laugh, Clown, Laugh?

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Today -100: December 1, 1923: Of excellent understandings and indicted guvs

The Italian Chamber of Deputies discusses the possibility of a commercial treaty with the Soviet Union, which would entail official recognition. Mussolini says “The understanding between Italy and Russia in excellent.”

Indiana Gov. Warren McCray is indicted 8 times, with 192 counts, including embezzlement, forgery, issuing fake checks and promissory notes, etc.  When a reporter read him the charges, he laughed and asked “Wasn’t arson included?” He definitely did some of that shit trying to prop up his farm, but mostly he failed to do the Klan’s bidding or take its bribes.

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Today -100: November 30, 1923: Of Marxes, Klux wreaths, and Fascism’s charm

Wilhelm Marx of the Zentrum Party, the Catholic party, will form a minority government of the same 3 parties in Stresemann’s cabinet, indeed with most of the same people in the same roles. Stresemann will be foreign minister. None of those 3 parties is the Social Democratic Party, on whose tolerance in the Reichstag Marx will nonetheless depend. Marx is the 4th person in a row Pres. Ebert asked to try to form a government, the other option being a new election, which would be... troublesome given the French occupation of part of the country and the rise of Nazis and other far-right groups.

Assistant Navy Secretary Teddy Roosevelt Jr. rejects an offer of support from the Ku Klux Klan for his run for governor of NY. “Americanism never goes masked,” he says.

Kluxers show up at the dedication of a monument to local Great War dead in Cedarhurst, Long Island and get into a fight with American Legionnaires determined to prevent them laying a wreath with the letters K.K.K.

Talking with the chief rabbi of Rome, PM Mussolini denies that the Fascist government has even considered an anti-Semitic policy. He regrets that foreign anti-Semitic parties seek to exploit “the charm which Fascism exercises throughout the world.”

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Today -100: November 29, 1923: Of pies, Rhenish republics, whippings, and hunger-strikers

Coolidge wasn’t willing to accept a free Thanksgiving turkey, but he’s evidently okay accepting a free 2½-foot pumpkin pie.

For the record, so am I.

Josef Matthes dissolves the separatist Rhineland Republic of which he was the head. It had broken into competing factions and a coup was in the works, led by someone Matthes claims is a Prussian spy. Also, he says, the provisional government was led partly by incompetent people and partly by dishonest ones.

The Putnam Lumber Company pays $20,000 to the family of Martin Tabert, who was whipped to death in a convict labor camp in Florida with which the company contracted for slave labor.

The Bishop of Cork, Daniel Cohalan, refuses Christian burial for Denny Barry, an IRAer who died during a hunger strike at the Newbridge internment camp. The bishop claims he based his decision on the Church position on suicide, but adds that the Republicans are “a wicked and insidious attack on the Church.” Over the years the Catholic Church’s position on hunger-striking has tended to depend on national politics. During the hunger strikes of Bobby Sands et al in 1980-1, the British Catholic Church said hunger striking was suicide, the Irish Church that it wasn’t.

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Today -100: November 28, 1923: Not valid in Jewish hands

Calvin Coolidge rejects all offers of a free Thanksgiving turkey, will buy his own.

A “civil christening” is held in the Russian Free Opera House in Moscow, which is like a Christian christening except, you know, Communist. Isadora Duncan and her troupe dance to Schubert’s Ave Maria. The baby’s mother says she was inspired by reading the biography of Rosa Luxembourg.

Pomerania (or the town of Stolt? unclear) issues a local currency, backed by rye (although not made of rye bread. Dammit, I want some dark rye with cream cheese now). Printed on the bills: “Not valid in Jewish hands.”

The Italian Cabinet decides that PM Mussolini’s emergency dictatorial powers should be extended. How long? However long he wants.

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Today -100: November 27, 1923: Don’t laugh at religion

Nominations are closed for next month’s British Parliamentary elections. 50 of the 615 seats are unopposed. Of the remaining candidates, 500 are Tories, 443 Liberals, 420 Labour and 20 other. Neither Conservatives nor Labourites are willing to stand aside for Liberals, so there’ll be a large number of three-cornered contests. There are 34 women running (8 will win, but the other 26 are all running against incumbents). T.P. O’Connor is the Father of the House of Commons, the longest-serving MP, having sat since 1885; he is the last remaining Irish Nationalist MP, although representing Liverpool.

The campaign we’ve been hearing the most about is Lady Astor’s in Plymouth, where she’s been facing a systematic heckling campaign. Making some sort of case against socialism based on religion, she responds to jeering, “Don’t laugh at religion” and calls it blasphemy. She responds to one heckler (his remarks are not given), “Don’t be cheeky, or I will knock that pipe out of your mouth.” Must be one of those zingers she’s known for.

King Alfonso of Spain, visiting Italy, is invested a corporal in the Fascista militia.

Adolf Hitler starts a (snicker) hunger strike in jail.

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Today -100: November 26, 1923: Hello America

Radio broadcasts from Britain are heard in the US for the first time. US stations stop broadcasting at 10pm Eastern to facilitate the test, although some jackasses in Chicago and San Antonio couldn’t manage to stay off the air the whole 30 minutes. 8 British stations from London to Cardiff to Glasgow participated in the experiment.

Former German treasury minister Heinrich F. Albert will attempt to form a caretaker government. This would be a cabinet of non-partisan technocrat types, without the backing of a majority in the Reichstag. Albert was in the US before it entered the Great War trying to keep the US out but also overseeing spying and sabotage.

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