Today -100: May 13, 1924: Philatelists of the world unite!

Rep. John Langley (R-Kentucky) is found guilty of conspiracy to sell whisky, 1,400 cases of it, in 1921. His role in the scheme was to get  the KY prohibition commissioner to authorize the release of that whisky. Langley will be sentenced to 2 years.

Russia complains to Poland about persecution there of the Orthodox Russian church.

Soviet Russia is launching the “Philintern,” an international stamp-collectors association. Possibly because they’re pissed at how many fake Russian stamps are circulating.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 12, 1924: Of slow-ass radio waves, left cartels, and German days

Capt. T.J.J. See, US Navy astronomer and professor of Mathematics and Being Wrong, has “proven” that radio waves are slower than the speed of light (165,000 miles per second v. 188,000).

France’s governing alliance, the Bloc National, loses the parliamentary elections (and 77 seats) to the Cartel des Gauches, an alliance of the Radicals (who aren’t radical), the Socialists (who aren’t socialist) and a few smaller left-wing groups, but not including the Communists, who get nearly 10% of the votes but fewer than 5% of the seats. PM Raymond Poincaré is definitely out, and probably President Alexandre Millerand as well. Future PM André Tardieu is defeated, but André Marty (Communist), who was sentenced by a court-martial to 20 years for his role in the Black Sea Mutiny, is elected from Paris. The unexpected victory of the left or center-left, whatever you want to call it, is partly a reaction to Poincaré’s Ruhr policy and partly to the decline of the franc and the introduction of new taxes.

German nationalists hold a “German Day” in Halle, with 70,000 goose-stepping vets (some of them in top hats, frock coats and white ties, to the NYT’s amusement) reviewed by acquitted insurrectionist Gen. Erich Ludendorff. Police deny permission to Communists to hold a rival “Worker Day” and violently repress their attempt to hold one anyway, killing 11.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 11, 1924: Humanity toward Humanity

A cross is burned on the grounds of a Catholic church in Armonk, New York, presumably a Ku Klux Klan warning against building a new chapel.

The Italian Fascists are divided over tactics between those who want Fascism, now that it’s won, to disarm and “become absorbed by the nation,” and those who want it to remain a revolutionary minority and impose its policies by force, if necessary, and to kill Socialists and Communists. These Fascist tendencies are called the Legalists and the Savages.

Eugene O’Neill, “popularly regarded as America’s poet laureate of gloom,” denies that his new play “All God's Chillun Got Wings,” which stars Paul Robeson and Mary Blair as an interracial couple, advocates intermarriage: “I am never the advocate of anything in any play – except humanity toward Humanity.” He says the characters represent no one but themselves.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 10, 1924: Burned

The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) wants a referendum on the Dawes Plan, which they support but which the parties on the far left and far right that did so well in the Reichstag elections do not.

William Burns, head of both the Burns International Detective Agency and the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation, resigns the latter post 2 days after admitting that he sent agents to dig up dirt on Democratic senators.

Burns will be replaced, on a (ahem) temporary basis, by 29-year-old J. Edgar Hoover.

The House of Representatives votes 191-171 to reject Coolidge’s request to postpone Japanese exclusion 8 months. And now I understand why he wanted that: so he’d have time to negotiate with Japan on ending the Gentlemen’s Agreement rather than do it unilaterally.

Louisiana hangs 6 Italian men for a single murder committed during a bank robbery. One stabs himself several times with a pocket knife – “where Lamantia had concealed the knife no official could learn.” They hang him anyway, sitting in a chair.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 9, 1924: Organized rascality is the worst kind of rascality

Worries of a Communist threat in Germany, mostly by encouraging strikes in the Ruhr and elsewhere. The KPD opposes the Dawes Plan on reparations as “enslavement” of Germany. The government worries that France will continue to demand coal reparations at the same levels during the strike and then seize the mines for non-compliance, which does sound very much like something France would do.

Tammany fails to elect a new Boss, and appoints a committee of 7 – including 3 women – to recommend one.

Sir James Craig, prime minister of Northern Ireland, says rather than draw the border with the Irish Free State so that Catholic areas in Counties Tyrone and Fermanagh would go to the Free State, the Catholics in those areas should be “swapped” with Protestants in the South.

Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge has a plan for an entirely new World Court. Possibly he doesn’t know that there already is a World Court, established by, you know, the World, with 45 member nations.

Canadian Sen. J.D. Taylor charges that there is “organized rascality” in the National Railway and Steamship Depts.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 8, 1924: Of delays, skullduggery, and klandidates

Acceding to Coolidge’s request, Congress will delay the ban on Japanese immigrants 8 months, until March 1925 (Spoiler Alert: no, it won’t). I’m not sure how this is supposed to mollify Japan. He waited to request this delay until after the California primary.

William Burns, head of the Bureau of Investigation, admits to the Senate DOJ committee that former attorney general Harry Daugherty ordered him to send agents to Montana to investigate Sen. Burton Wheeler and assigned other agents to follow witness Gaston Means.

Klan-supported candidate for Indiana governor Ed Jackson wins the Republican primary.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 7, 1924: It must be rather jolly to be a king

Pres. Coolidge opposes an amendment to the Senate tax bill making tax returns public. However, he’s not specifically threatening to veto the bill; in fact, as a policy he never says in advance whether he’ll veto a bill because it would look like he was trying to dictate to Congress.

Sir James Craig, prime minister of Northern Ireland, says he won’t appoint a representative on the boundary commission. Why such a rush to establish the border between NI and Free State?, he asks. If settlements, treaties and such are to serve reconciliation, they must be signed in their hearts, not on paper, he says. Also, it’s not a political subject, but a matter for the Empire, he says. He really doesn’t want a border agreement, does he?

There is controversy over Charles Sims’s portrait of King George V, possibly because they make him look like a can-can dancer (“paint me like one of your French girls.”) The Daily Express says he looks like a short-sighted man who has mislaid his glasses. The London Times, however, thinks he looks like “it must be rather jolly to be a king.” George is in fact not jollified by the painting and will return it to Sims. The Royal Academy will cut out and burn the head part, then later the rest. The picture below is a surviving version of the original.

England has the first performance of German opera since the war, Wagner’s Das Rheingold, conducted by Bruno Walter. It’s well-received.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 6, 1924: Of elections, flu cures, and georges

German elections (counting is still going on): While the outcome is presented as a victory for implementation of the Dawes Plan and a consequent de-escalation of hostilities with France, and the coalition government is likely to continue in office, its constituent centrist parties all lose votes. Parties on the right and left which reject the Weimar Republic increase their share of the vote, the Deutschnationale Volkspartei (DNVP) getting 19.5%, the Völkisch Freedom Party (DVFP), standing in for the banned Nazis, 6.5%. The Communists (KPD) gain significantly with 12.6%, quadrupling their seats, while the Socialists (SPD) drop to 20%. The NYT says the extreme right didn’t do nearly as well as expected; the NYT will consistently underestimate the threat from the extreme right for the next decade.

The Army tests chlorine gas as a cure for influenza in horses and mules. And it works!

Sens. George Pepper, George Moses, George Norris, George McLean, and Walter George join the Society for the Prevention of Calling Pullman Car Porters “George.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 5, 1924: Of music masters, smoke screens, and imperial shoes

Edward Elgar is named Master of the King’s Music.

The Army’s Chemical Warfare Service gets a large bomber to lay down a smoke screen over lower Manhattan. This would be useful in a war to hide the city from an enemy fleet. But not from planes, which rather easily penetrate the smoke because it’s, you know, smoke.

In the first legislative elections in Southern Rhodesia last week, the government of Sir Charles Coghlan (Rhodesia Party) wins 25 or 26 of 30 seats. Only whites are allowed to vote (which is presumably such a given that the NYT story fails to mention it).

Condescending Headline of the Day -100:  

This is the royal tour led by Abyssinia’s Prince Regent Ras Tafari, the future Emperor Haile Selassie.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 4, 1924: I am for economy

Pres. Coolidge issues his first veto, of a measure to increase pensions to veterans of the Civil War and Mexican-American War and some of their dependents, War of 1812 widows, etc. “I am for economy,” he says. This isn’t the main Bonus Bill, but is a pretty clear indicator of his plans for that one.

NYC Mayor John Hylan opposes Tammany Hall’s plan to make Surrogate (judge) James Foley its leader. This may be another step in Hylan’s ongoing fight with Gov. Al Smith, who favors Foley.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 3, 1924: Of conditions of violence, avoiding offense, mah-jongg, bigamy, and huge airships

Coolidge bans the shipment of weapons and ammo to Cuba at the request of its government, which is currently fighting a rebellion in Santa Clara province (the US will still sell munitions to the Cuban government). The State Dept statement says Cuba brought “the condition of violence existing in Cuba formally to the attention of the American government.” As long as it was formal.

Headline of the Day -100:  

The Senate officially changes the name of “mah jong” to “mah-jongg,” in the course of fixing a 10% tax on mah-jongg sets.

It looks like British holders of $120 million in Confederate bonds may not be able to redeem them.

Paul Adolphe Tholome is convicted of bigamy in Paris, but his lawyer’s plea that he was patriotically helping France, which needs babies, and the fact that it was his first offence, persuades the jury to release him.

Headline of the Day -100:  

 Says it’d be like all steampunk and stuff.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 2, 1924: The Butler will do it

Coolidge appoints William M. Butler chair of the RNC. Butler is a lawyer who ran Cal’s primary campaign. (I was slightly startled to see the headline on this, thinking the Butler referred to was Nicholas Murray Butler, Columbia U. president and sort of Taft’s running mate in 1913) who can be found elsewhere on the front page because of a kerfuffle over his coming out against prohibition.)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt says Al Smith won’t enter any primaries in states which have a favorite son candidate. Smith is basically ignoring all primaries in those states which have primaries (I’m feeling too lazy to look up how many that is). FDR also denies that the late Boss Murphy had any secret deals in non-NY states for delegates. Murphy tooootally had secret deals for delegates. Orville Poland, lawyer for the Anti-Saloon League, says FDR is a “false front,” his selection an attempt to give “a garb of respectability” to the anti-prohibition Smith.

Kurt Jahnke, who organized sabotage in the US during the Great War, is running for the Reichstag, as a Nationalist of course. He’s attacking Count Johann von Berstorff, who was the German ambassador to the US before the US entered the war and is currently seeking re-election, as a traitor for providing Jahnke insufficient support back then for fomenting strikes in US ports.

France is also having elections. Only 2 parties, of many, mention women’s suffrage in their platforms, and one wants it introduced only piecemeal. The Christian Socialists want universal women’s suffrage; they have 1 deputy in the outgoing National Assembly.

Former Indiana Gov. Warren T. McCray begins his prison sentence. He says, “I am facing the decree of fate with courage and fortitude and sublime confidence in my individual integrity of purpose.” One of his fellow prisoners aboard the train to the federal pen in Atlanta decides not to face the decree of fate with courage and fortitude and sublime confidence in his individual integrity of purpose, and escapes out a bathroom window.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: May 1, 1924: Of ex-governors, Christian democracy, Mays Day, and prisoner exchanges

Former Indiana Governor Warren T. McCray, who resigned yesterday, is sentenced
to 10 years in prison & a $10,000 fine for mail fraud.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt agrees to head Al Smith’s presidential campaign. With that done, Smith says he can now take himself “out of the picture” and focus on governoring.

Smith’s competitor for the D. nomination William Gibbs McAdoo calls for a return to the “Christian democracy” of his father-in-law Woodrow Wilson, saying that materialism and the influence of money are eroding the tone and quality of American citizenship.

The German government bans May Day demonstrations, but the Communist Party says scheiß drauf.

Leon Trotsky says Japan is on the eve of a revolution, although one like the 1905 Russian Revolution rather than the 1917 ones. He denies Russia plans to invade Poland.

Russia exchanges 107 Poles in its prisons for 36 Communists in Polish prisons, 19 of whom are Jewish. 3, however, preferred prison in Poland to life in Russia. Most of the Poles held by Russia, including 6 priests, were in prison for spreading anti-Soviet propaganda; some were held without charge. The article fails to disclose what the Communists in Poland were charged with.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 30, 1924: Of ex-governors and hamons

Indiana Governor Warren T. McCray resigns.

The Senate Teapot Dome Committee calls Georgia Hamon Rohrer, the widow of Oklahoma oil tycoon Jake Hamon, to ask about his scheming in 1920 to elect Warren G. Harding and gain access to the Navy’s oil reserves. She sits in the witness chair for 15 minutes with a calla lily in her hand while senators discuss just which of them called her and why, none willing to ask her questions, and then they dismiss her. I hope she didn’t come all the way from Oklahoma for this.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 29, 1924: Of bombs and mail fraud

A Hungarian immigrant who claims to be named Landro Kiss – a likely story – is arrested with a bomb and a pistol near the late Boss Murphy’s home, possibly planning to kill whatever big shots showed up (as well as himself).

Indiana Governor Warren McCray is found guilty of mail fraud. The judge denies bail, saying he’s never seen so many felonies committed by one person. He should get out more.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 28, 1924: Of faith-healers, dead bosses, the deadly enemy of Germany workers, and flaming hearses

William Jennings Bryan’s wife Mary is seeing a faith-healer for some undisclosed illness. Interesting, I guess, but why is it front-page news?

The death of Tammany Hall’s “Boss” Murphy has heartened the right wing of the Democratic Party (Southerners, klansmen, anti-papists, etc) that they may defeat NY Gov. Al Smith for the presidential nomination. More delegates to the national convention are expected to arrive without instructions, which may make it more difficult for any candidate to get the 2/3rd vote necessary for nomination (Spoiler Alert: hoo boy will it).

In Berlin, Communists attack an election meeting of the Völkisch Freedom Party that they thought Reichstag candidate Erich Ludendorff would attend. But as clashes injure 33 people, one of them stabbed, Ludendorff decides not to go. The Communists were summoned by their newspaper The Red Flag to stop “the deadly enemy of German workers [speaking in] Berlin, the workers’ city.”

The Mexican military capture, court-martial & execute rebel Gen. Juan Alanso (sic?) and 42 lesser officers within one day.

Metaphor of the Day -100:  

15,000 kluxers come out to celebrate Owen Poorbaugh, one of their ilk who died in jail where he was being held for carrying concealed weapons, riot & murder for the Lilly, Pennsylvania contretemps earlier this month. The hearse thing is sadly not a cross-burning gone wrong.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 27, 1924: Of child labor and bosses

The House of Representatives votes 297 to 69 for a Constitutional amendment to empower Congress to regulate or ban child labor (under 18; an amendment to reduce this to 16 fails, as do attempts to exempt farm labor).

Without “Boss” Charles Murphy of Tammany Hall running his presidential candidacy behind the scenes, NY Gov. Al Smith might be forced to get off his ass and campaign, which he didn’t plan on doing before the Democratic National Convention. It doesn’t help that only Murphy knew how many “connections” he’d made, such as deals with delegates. So I guess everybody gets to re-negotiate their bribes.

Today -100: April 26, 1924: Of dead bosses, coffee, borders, and French postcards,

Charles Murphy of Tammany Hall dies of “acute indigestion” at 65. There won’t be a parade. No, really, there won’t be a parade is something the NYT has to inform us. NY Gov. Alfred E. Smith calls Boss Murphy “a noble, clean, wholesome, right-living man”. The death will require Smith to find someone else to run his presidential campaign. Murphy has no obvious successor at Tammany, so there will be a temporary triumvirate.

Asked for comment, Coolidge says he never met the man.

Chicago has a new Teapot Dome-themed coffee shop. Coffee is delivered via pipe lines. Also opened in 1924, and still around, is the Teapot Dome Diner in Paw Paw, Michigan, a town so nice they named it, well, you know.

Emma Goldman, who promised Germany not to do political stuff while living in Berlin, does political stuff, attempting to make a speech calling for the release of political prisoners in Russia. German Communists break up the meeting before she can finish her speech.

A conference on setting the boundary between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State breaks up without agreement, as was the custom. This isn’t about a few niggling miles here and there, but who gets Counties Tyrone and Fermanagh (or parts of them?). The treaty which allowed NI to opt not to join the Free State required, in such an event, plebiscites in those counties. NI politicians don’t want to allow that, because they’d lose.

New Jersey Gov. George Silzer tells Education Commissioner John Enright to tell local school boards to stop asking prospective teachers their religion.

Headline of the Day -100:  

 Not looking for pictures of boobies, but a go-slow strike.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 25, 1924: Of baby’s cries around the world, fake sergeants-at-armses, and blackface comedians

Sen. Nathaniel Dial (D-SC), opposing an appropriation for the relief of starving German children, denies that there is any constitutional authority for heeding “a baby’s cry around the world.” Royal Copeland (D-NY) responds, “For my part, when a baby cries, I don’t stop to think what language it is crying in.” Dial ripostes that Dr. Copeland can’t tell him anything about babies, he has ten of them.

Incidentally, there were 3 congresscritters in 1924 with the first name “Royal.”

Documents of Gaston Means, con man extraordinaire and former Bureau of Investigation agent, supposedly showing Harry Daugherty’s various crimes, have mysteriously disappeared, taken by two men posing as Senate sergeants-at-arms who showed up at his house with a fake order from Sen. Brookhart. At least that’s Means’s story, and he’s sticking with it. You could be forgiven for thinking it’s bullshit.

In a case I believe called Some Fucking Racist v. Some Fucking Racist, D.W. Griffith sues Al Jolson, “the blackface comedian,” for $571,696.72 for walking off a film in 1922. There was no contract, just a gentleman’s agreement.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: April 24, 1924: Of treasonable causes, bonuses, bangs, and radios

Disgraced former attorney general Harry Daugherty says the reason he refused to hand over documents to the Senate was because Sens. Burton Wheeler and Smith Brookhart visited Russia last summer. “I gladly gave up a post of honor rather than contribute to a treasonable cause.” He portrays the investigations into corruption at the DOJ as a Soviet plot to undermine confidence in government, calling it an “unlawful inquisition,” which is the worst kind of inquisition.

The Senate passes a bonus for veterans by a vote 67-17 after an amendment giving them the option to receive it in cash instead of 20-year insurance policies is defeated 47-38. Will Coolidge veto it? In an election year? An amendment to extend the time limit for service eligible for the bonus to include post-war occupation troops in Germany is rejected; Sen. Reed Smoot says they “lived like kings.”

Denmark has its first woman cabinet minister, which only the Soviet Union, the Ukraine and Ireland have had one of so far. Nina Bang of the Social Democrats will be minister of education.

US District Judge Hickenlooper in Cincinnati rules that radio musical broadcasts don’t count as public performances, so stations don’t have to pay copyright holders.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.