Today -100: February 18, 1924: Of dry cases, fanatics, and Jewish problems

In the first 4 years of Prohibition, 115,000 criminal cases have been prosecuted at the federal level. 80% resulted in convictions. This is putting a strain on federal courts.

Rebels in the Philippines are fighting (i.e., being massacred), and this must be the 6th time they’ve been referred to in NYT headlines as “fanatics.”

Russia is considering establishing a Jewish autonomous state on the Crimean peninsula. This would solve the “Jewish problem,” a phrase used a couple of times in this short article but never defined.

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Today -100: February 17, 1924: Funny how you never see heterodyne and super-heterodyne in the same place

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The Organization of Teachers of Colored Children of New Jersey complains that black teachers are paid $100 to $200 less per year than white ones in several NJ counties (no, it doesn’t say less than what figure).

Japan claims to have stopped a Russian-backed Communist plot to take over the government last June.

The American Engineering Standards Committee is trying to standardize the colors of traffic signs and signals. In Chicago, for instance, green means stop.

A bill is introduced in the NY Legislature to require licenses for people flying airplanes. Stunt flights over populated areas or too close to the ground would be banned, as would hunting from planes. Planes approaching each other would pass on the right, and lighter-than-air aircraft would have right of way over heavier-than-air ones. Marriages (and other contracts) entered into in aircraft would be legal, subject to the laws of the land underneath.

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Bitten by a radioactive heterodyne?

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Today -100: February 16, 1924: Of shoot-outs, dirigibles, and radio wars

A prohibition agent gets in a shoot-out with bootleggers on Capitol Hill and accidentally shoots US Senator Frank Greene in the forehead.  Oops. The wound will leave Greene partially paralyzed.

Coolidge suspends plans to send a dirigible over the North Pole until Congress gives permission. Some congresscritters have been criticizing the expensive expedition.

Whenever “Deutschland Über Alles” is played on German radio stations, there’s mysterious interference coming from the direction of France.

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Today -100: February 15, 1924: Japanese then would come into possession of all our land

The Paris Excelsior claimed that France was making a deal to give the French West Indies (Guadeloupe, Martinique, etc) to the US in exchange for writing off the French war debt. The US would then pay the amount of the French debt to Britain to buy Jamaica off it. The British Foreign Office denies this.

Rep. John Raker (D-Cal.) rejects Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes’ call for the Japanese to be treated the same as other nationalities in the immigration bill, that is, being limited to 2% (or 3%, it’s still being worked out) of those in the US in 1890, rather than being banned outright. 2% would mean 246 Japanese immigrants per year, but evidently that’s too many. Raker warns it would be a slippery slope towards abrogating the Western states’ racist land laws: “Japanese then would come into possession of all our land.” The Immigration Committee’s minority report notes that Germans would be the most favorably treated using the 1890 census and the US’s allies during the Great War less favorably treated.

German dictator Gen. Hans von Seeckt gives permission to President Ebert to lift martial law at the end of the month.

Sen. Thomas Heflin (D-Alabama) says he is not a Ku Klux Klan member.

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Today -100: February 14, 1924: Of precipitate diplomatic relations

The latest Teapot Dome rumor is that oil tycoon Edward Doheny tried to hire Woodrow Wilson’s law partner but failed because the firm was dissolved.

The US no longer recognizes the Honduran government, which now has 3 people claiming to be president, none of them legitimately under the constitution.

Britain’s new Labour government ends the crusade against the Poplar (East London) local government paying more in unemployment benefits than the Tory national government thought it should.

In Parliament, Stanley Baldwin criticizes the “precipitate” establishment of diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia, a mere 6 years after the October Revolution.

And, hey, the NYT finally spells Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s name correctly.

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Today -100: February 13, 1924: Keep cool

The Senate Teapot Dome committee hears that the Albuquerque Journal was bought in 1922 to shut it up about Teapot Dome.

I believe I’m seeing the first appearance of the 1924 campaign slogan “Keep Cool and Keep Coolidge.” I mean, it’s no Make America Great Again, but...

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Today -100: February 12, 1924: Of exclusive executive functions, martial law, and sausages

The Senate votes 47-34 to ask Coolidge to fire Navy Sec. Edwin Denby. The yes votes includes 10 R’s, the no vote 1 D.

Coolidge responds, telling Congress to jump in a lake: “The dismissal of an officer of the Government... other than by impeachment, is exclusively an executive function. I regard this as a vital principle of our Government.”  He might do something when the special counsel reports but, he says, he won’t sacrifice any innocent man for his own welfare, or retain any unfit man for his own welfare.

The Illinois National Guard are coming to Williamson County with machine guns and everything. Glenn Young, the KKK-paid dry raider, resigns as police chief of Herrin after a day. The coroner’s inquest in the case of Constable Cagle is delayed by Young arresting the jury foreman.

Former Italian PM Vittorio Orlando will run as a Fascist after all.

A German critic complains about the habit of eating sausages at the opera. Almost as bad as Americans with their chewing gum, he says.

George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue premieres at New York’s Aeolian Concert Hall. No doubt with many in the audience chewing gum.

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Today -100: February 11, 1924: All for a purpose

Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty writes to Rep. George Graham saying he wasn’t involved in Teapot Dome (I think that’s true; there are just too few hours in a day for him to have been involved in every corrupt action of the Harding administration). He blames attacks on himself for his action or inaction on Teapot Dome and on war-fraud cases on “innocent but used, and ignorant but ill-disposed persons [which] generally have back of them the hand of those who expect to profit by inspiring lack of confidence, procuring newspaper attacks, insinuations, abuse and falsification – all for a purpose.”  Whatever that means.

Mussolini has been trying to recruit prominent members of non-Fascist parties to run under the Fascist umbrella in the next parliamentary elections in parts of the country like the south where Fascism is weak. They’re negotiating with former prime minister Orlando now, although he and others might join as members of their parties, in effect in coalition with the Fascist Party, rather than as individuals, as The Duck would prefer.

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Today -100: February 10, 1924: Of bribes, shootouts, and court uniforms

The Senate Teapot Dome committee questions Frederick Bonfils, publisher of the Denver Post, about whether the Post’s sudden dropping of its articles on the scandal in 1922 had anything to do with being bribed by Harry Sinclair. He is amazingly unprepared with an explanation for why Sinclair paid him $250,000. The money just appeared in his bank account and he just went with it, seems to be his explanation.

The participation of the KKK in liquor raids in Williamson County, Illinois, led inevitably to a wild shootout between cops and kluxers and an anti-Klan group called the Brothers of the Flaming Circle (the London Times says Knights of the Flaming Circle), with a (Klan-friendly) constable killed. Now 11 men, including Herrin Mayor C.E. Anderson and Sheriff George Galligan, are arrested (the London Times says the mayor and police chief are arrested by the sheriff). Martial law is declared. Glenn Young, the KKK-paid dry raider, claims that he is police chief now. Unclear for now whether anybody else says that.

Incoming British Labour Party Cabinet ministers have to fork out £200, which is the equivalent of some money, for gold-laced uniforms in which to appear at Court. That they’re willing to put up with this nonsense is seen as a reassuring sign that they aren’t a serious threat to the British way of life.

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Today -100: February 9, 1924: Brace up

The Senate expands its investigations of oil deals to include Colombia and Hawaii.

Medical and scientific observers at the Nevada gas-chamber execution insist it was swift and painless, “although the condemned man’s head continued to move up and down for six minutes,” which the doctors insist was probably post-mortem. Gee Jon was crying as they strapped him in, so the captain told him, “Brace up!”

Texas introduces death by electric chair, executing five (checks notes) black men. As is the custom.

There’s been an ongoing hissy fit by the American Legion and others over the German Embassy’s failure to lower their flags to half-staff for Woodrow Wilson, which might have a little something to do with, you know, the war.

The Prince of Wales falls off a horse, as was the custom. Breaks his royal collarbone.

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Today -100: February 8, 1924: Of falling and gas

The Senate Teapot Dome committee decides not to call former Interior Sec. Albert Fall as a witness, since they don’t want to give him immunity that would affect any future prosecution.

William Gibbs McAdoo says attempts to link him with Teapot Dome are “unfair and libelous,” but he’s stopped doing legal work for Doheny anyway.

Tomorrow Nevada will perform the first execution by gas (prussic acid) in the US on Gee Jon, a Chinese man, for a tong gang slaying. 2 cats are executed in the chamber to test it. 4 guards resign.

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Today -100: February 7, 1924: Thrilled and less-thrilled crowds

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Gabriellino D'Annunzio, a director and son of aviator-poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, is being hunted by the authorities, along with the Princess Galles, on a charge of manslaughter after a lion that was supposed to be pretending to eat Christians in D’Annunzio’s Quo Vadis chowed down for realsies on an extra instead. D’Annunzio did not have a valid lion license.

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Today -100: February 6, 1924: Radio Dead

Mexican federal troops capture Vera Cruz from the Huertista rebels.

Woodrow Wilson’s funeral service will be broadcast throughout the country by radio.

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Today -100: February 5, 1924: Of funerals, Labour lords, and married students

Woodrow Wilson’s funeral will not be a state funeral, because he liked to think of himself as a humble man of the people, which he wasn’t, and he asked for a private funeral. Coolidge & Taft (the only living ex-president) get to go (Taft will be too ill to attend). He’ll be buried at the Chapel of Peter & Paul in D.C., still the only president buried in Washington. Former First Lady Edith Wilson will live another 38 years. Coolidge planned to close government offices on the day of the funeral, but there’s an 1893 law banning that for former officials. (A workaround will be found, Coolidge directing that no work is required in government depts after 12:30 pm that day).

Wilson had planned to present the Democratic Convention with the gift of his declaration of the principles the party ought to follow.

Austria recognizes the Soviet Union and Italy will soon. It just took the British Labour win to open the floodgates.

The British release Gandhi from prison, less than 2 years into his 6-year sentence for sedition, on health grounds.

Three members of the Labour government are elevated to the House of Lords, the first Labourites to be so.... honored? This is down to a law that there has to be at least one Cabinet member and one under-secretary in the Lords. They are Sydney Olivier, Secretary of State for India, Brig. Gen. C.B. Thomson, Secretary of State for Air, and Sydney Arnold, colonial under-sec.

Less than a month after returning to Greece to save it from civil war, Eleftherios Venizelos resigns as prime minister, along with his Cabinet, because he’s too sick to continue.

Outgoing Honduran president López Gutiérrez has decided not to go out (his term expired last week but Congress deadlocked in choosing a successor) and to name himself dictator, as is the custom. Gen. Tuburcio Carias rebels and names himself president, as is the custom. The US has informed Gutiérrez that it won’t accept his continuing in office.

Syracuse University expels a sophomore, Herbert Porter, for breaking the rule against students marrying.

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Today -100: February 4, 1924: He kept us out of war until he didn’t

Thomas Woodrow Wilson is dead. The 28th president of the United States was 67.

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Today -100: February 3, 1924: Of dying presidents and new prime ministers, non-testimony, duels, and cabbies v. goats

Woodrow Wilson is still dying.

Alexei Rykov is named Prime Minister of Russia and of the Soviet Union, replacing Lenin.

Russia arrests an American (?) who took film footage of Lenin’s funeral, which foreigners were banned from doing.

Former Interior Secretary Albert Fall takes the Fifth before the Senate Teapot Dome committee. He also claims there were various irregularities in the setting up of the committee that make it null and void.

The Navy’s chief engineer, Rear Admiral Robison, defends the Navy’s contract with Doheny to construct fuel tanks at Pearl Harbor, saying Japan might try to invade the Pacific Coast, possibly acting in concert with Britain (less of a worry now that the British-Japanese naval alliance has expired).

Hungarian Prime Minister István Bethlen will fight a duel with Dep. Stephan Rakovsky over statements the latter made in the National Assembly. We’re not informed what those statements are.

In other dueling news, in Italy Prince Mario Colonna and the editor of the Tribuna fight quite a bloody one over an article attacking an organization of economic theorists headed by the prince.

Paris cab-drivers are complaining about the herds of goats that roam the city in summer, supplying milk to children.

Ernst Lubitsch’s film The Marriage Circle premieres. Lots of amusing little touches. Adolphe Menjou shaves.

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Today -100: February 2, 1924: I am ready

Woodrow Wilson is dying.

He says, “I am ready. I am a broken piece of machinery.”

Britain recognizes the Soviet Union, without conditions.

Since the US plans to send a dirigible to the Arctic to claim any previously undiscovered land for the US, Canada will send a steamer to claim it for Canada.

William Gibbs McAdoo would really prefer not to be dragged into the whole Teapot Dome thing – his law firm was employed by Edward Doheny in his dealings with Mexico but not with anything Teapot-adjacent.

The NYT says of the Teapot Dome hearings, “The Republicans seem to be possessed with a panic fear, the Democrats intoxicated with partisan zeal.” Everyone should just slow down, the editorial suggests.

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Today -100: February 1, 1924: Cancel culture

The Senate passes, 90-0, the resolution calling on Coolidge to cancel the Teapot Dome & Elk Hills oil leases.

A fight breaks out in the Japanese Diet over an attempt to derail a train carrying 3 opposition leaders. The prime minister threatens to call new elections.

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Today -100: January 31, 1924: Indisposed

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Speaking of indisposed, the Senate Teapot Dome committee appoints 3 doctors to see if former Interior Sec. Albert Fall really is too sick to testify (his own doctors testified today, behind closed doors).

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Today -100: January 30, 1924: No colonies, no remedies

Eleftherios Venizelos has another heart attack while debating opposition leader Alexandros Papanastasiou in the Greek National Assembly about unbanning royalist newspapers.

Navy Sec Edwin Denby says he won’t resign, even if the Robinson resolution calling for him to do so passes. He defends the legality of the Teapot Dome leases.

Responding to resolutions in the Senate calling for his removal from office, Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty says “I am not worried about the situation in Washington.” He says he doesn’t feel a need to respond to the attacks against him, and that’s why he’s in Florida instead of Washington. Sure it is.

Pres. Coolidge regrets that Americans are so pessimistic.

A German professor has supposedly found a cure for African sleeping sickness. The German Colonial Society wants to leverage that to demand the return of its pre-war colonies. “No colonies, no remedies,” says the head of the Bremen branch, Edouard Achelis.

Is this the most cynical approach to sleeping sickness? Well, the real cure these days is Eflornithine. The pharmaceutical company that owns the patent stopped manufacturing it in the mid-1990s because the disease affected poor sub-Saharan Africans and was therefore not very profitable. Fortunately, after a few years they resumed production when they discovered that Eflornithine also treats unwanted facial hair in rich white women, and that’s a population Big Pharma knows how to market to.

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