Today -100: July 13, 1924: Honorable & reasonable

Egyptian Premier Saad Zaghloul is wounded in an assassination attempt. The would-be-assassin, a student, says Zaghloul had called the British Parliament honorable and reasonable.

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Today -100: July 12, 1924: Mr. Gracious

William Gibbs McAdoo is backed into a corner and finally endorses John W. Davis, at Will Rogers’ Follies of all places. He’s in the audience and Rogers points him out, so he’s forced to stand up and say “now that the convention is over we must all get together and make sure that we elect a Democrat.” Still can’t bring himself to utter Davis’s name. The next day he does meet Davis, but he won’t say what they talked about or whether he’ll support the Davis-Bryan ticket; he says he’ll answer that before he sails for Europe tomorrow – if he has time.

Fritz Haarmann, the Hanover serial killer, says he deserves to be executed. He can’t remember the names of all his victims: “You see, they came so fast that I really did not have a good chance to get well acquainted with them” before chopping them to bits and dumping the bits into the river.

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Today -100: July 11, 1924: Maybe it’s just the friends you meet along the way

John W. Davis says he first met his running mate, Gov. Charles Bryan, at this convention, and hasn’t spoken to him since the nomination.

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Today -100: July 10, 1924: Future trivia quiz answer nominated for president!

On the 103rd ballot, the Democrat National Convention selects former ambassador to Britain John W. Davis as its presidential candidate after William Gibbs McAdoo and Gov. Alfred E. Smith withdraw.

Davis, from West Virginia, is the first presidential candidate from the South since the Civil War. He is Presbyterian. His campaign supposedly cost just $5,000.

Davis is informed of his nomination by his wife, who heard it on the radio while he was out having a smoke.

The withdrawal of Smith & McAdoo should have been an emotional high point, the NYT says, but “McAdoo withdrew so reluctantly and ambiguously and hedged his renunciation with so many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ and ‘ands’ that the emotional value of that turning point was dissipated.”

Smith volunteers to campaign for Davis, and McAdoo... is going to Europe on vacation for two months. He sends a one-sentence telegram to Davis and... that’s it. He refuses to talk to reporters. Smith is just happy that he was able to block McAdoo.

Incidentally, everyone in the Convention seems to love Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Smith’s campaign manager.

The Democratic National Convention chooses as Davis’s running mate Gov. Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska (the brother of William Jennings Bryan, who’s been fighting the Davis candidacy tooth and nail) with little fuss and only one ballot at 2:30 in the morning, after a brief boom for Sen. Thomas Walsh (Montana), who led the Teapot Dome investigation. Walsh declined to accept what he basically called a demotion.

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Today -100: July 9, 1924: 88 to 100

Al Smith & William Gibbs McAdoo meet secretly at the Ritz-Carlton. Smith hectors his rival to withdraw, at least we assume that since neither man will reveal what they said to each other.

During the Convention’s evening session, Al Smith’s campaign manager Franklin Delano Roosevelt announces that Smith will drop out if McAdoo does. Hours later, McAdoo releases his delegates, but that is not quite the same as withdrawing. In the meantime, the McAdooites make an intensive effort to regain the lead, which they do in the 94th ballot, helped by Sen. Samuel Ralston withdrawing from the race, er, again. Many of the remaining 15 candidates are jockeying to become the compromise candidate should Smith & McAdoo both withdraw. Ralston had been a favorite comp-can.

In the 100th ballot, the last of the day, McAdoo, whose support has been bouncing up and down all day, drops to 190 (he started the day at 315 and went as high as 421), putting him at 3rd place behind John W. Davis at 203, with Smith at 351½.

After that ballot, William Jennings Bryan attempts to speak, but is jeered down.

Incidentally, FDR “was escorted to the rostrum”. That story doesn’t mention why he might need assistance. I was pondering how the NYT keeps alluding unnecessarily to his disability like that, in a way which will pass right over the heads of readers who don’t know about it, before I saw another story that does mention his crutches.

The Socialist Party condemns –  by name – the Ku Klux Klan and “every other effort to divide the workers on racial or religious lines, and to effect political purposes by secret or terroristic methods.”

Calvin Coolidge’s father heard of the death of his grandson on the radio (he has a radio but not a phone).

Germans are super-pissed that Friedrich “Fritz” Haarmann, the serial killer known as the Butcher of Hanover, among other sobriquets, wasn’t caught long ago. And he certainly should have been. So far he’s confessed to butchering 14 boys. There were more.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: July 8, 1924: 78 to 87

Calvin Coolidge Jr. dies. From a blister. Seven doctors were working on him, one of whom was knocked unconscious for a bit after an oxygen tank exploded.

At the Democratic National Convention, there’s finally some movement. Over the day’s 10 ballots, McAdoo’s support drops from 511 to 333½, losing Nevada, Missouri, Iowa and Kansas, while Al Smith, whose support remains steadily in the 360s, surpasses McAdoo for the first time on the 86th ballot and ends the day at 361½. John W. Davis starts the day at 73½ and ends at 66½. I think some of the drop in McAdoo votes can be attributed to resentment of his resistance to any proposal to break the stalemate. Delegates just want to go home.

By the way, James Cox and  Sen. Samuel Ralston, who withdrew 3 days ago, are back in the race.

The Socialist Party throws its weight behind Robert La Follette and won’t run its own candidate.

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Today -100: July 7, 1924: With every drop of blood in my body, I am with you to the end in this thing

Calvin Coolidge Jr., world’s most middle-aged 16-year-old,

is not doing well at all.

An attempted coup by junior army officers in Brazil captures São Paulo.

A proposal to release DNC delegates from their instructions & pledges is supported by all the presidential candidates except McAdoo, who vetoes it and instead suggests abolishing the unit rule (states vote as a bloc), nominating by a simple majority, and dropping the bottom candidate after each ballot. His opponents all reject those ideas.

McAdoo tells supporters at the Hotel Commodore, “With every drop of blood in my body, I am with you to the end in this thing.”

Headline of the Day -100 (and so many other days, really):  

Not meaning a presidential candidate, but someone who could knock heads together, like Boss Murphy of Tammany Hall, except he died a couple of months ago.

Thomas Hardwick, former governor & US senator from Georgia, says the reason he is running for Senate again is that a delegation from the Klan (which orchestrated his defeat for reelection as governor in 1922) intimidated state Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Russell into not running himself. Harkwick calls incumbent Sen. William Harris a messenger-boy for the Klan.

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Today -100: July 6, 1924: 71 to 77

Over the course of the 7 ballots held at the Democratic National Convention yesterday (Saturday), William Gibbs McAdoo drops from 528 to 513 and Al Smith’s support increases from 333 to 367. A proposal by Sen. Tom Taggart of Indiana that a conference of reps from the 16 candidates meet and try to work something out is accepted. Seeing that holding ballot after ballot after ballot isn’t doing anything, many delegates, “hollow-eyed and weary,” are yearning for “strong men” to take control of the selection process.

The Conference for Progressive Political Action endorses Robert La Follette for president but leaves it up to its National Committee to select a running mate.

Calvin Coolidge Jr. is operated on to drain... you know, let’s just skip the details, they’re icky.

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Today -100: July 5, 1924: 62 to 70

The Democratic National Convention holds ballots 62 to 70. William Gibbs McAdoo’s support grows from 469 to 528½, Al Smith barely moves from 338½ to 334½. The delegates are “unhappy, confused and disposed to be morose”.

Al Smith’s people propose that all the presidential candidates be allowed to address the Convention. McAdoo’s people, fearing the spectators’ home-town bias for their governor, oppose this idea, and while the proposal is changed to exclude the audience and have the speeches in executive session, it gets a majority but not the necessary 2/3. A second motion to allow just Smith to speak – as the governor of the state hosting the Convention, certainly not as a candidate, perish the thought – is likewise defeated, even though William Jennings Bryan was allowed to speak earlier for some reason. This so pisses off the Smithafarians that later McAdoo in a letter asks the Convention to let Smith speak, but it is ruled out of order. The Smithistas are thinking about hiring Carnegie Hall so he can make a speech to which delegates could come.

McAdoo sends Bernard Baruch & Thomas Chadbourne to Al Smith to politely request that he quit. He does not.

However, two of the dark horses do withdraw: James Cox, the Dem. nominee in 1920, and  Sen. Samuel Ralston, who seems to have never wanted his name entered in the first place. He cites the attribution by many of a connection between himself and the Klan, which he says doesn’t exist, as a reason to withdraw in order to facilitate a “harmonious solution”.

On the 68th ballot, Will Rogers gets a vote from Arizona.

The Fourth is also Pres. Coolidge’s 52nd birthday, but the Coolidges don’t do birthdays, so no cake. Also, Calvin Coolidge Jr. is unwell. The 16-year-old got a blister on his foot playing tennis without socks and now has blood poisoning.

The Ku Klux Klan holds a Fourth of July “Tri-State Klorero” with 20,000 attendees in Long Branch, New Jersey, mostly to demonstrate against Al Smith – a speaker says there will only ever be Protestant presidents & vice presidents. For a nickel, you can throw 3 baseballs at an effigy of Smith, if that’s your kink.

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Today -100: July 4, 1924: 43 to 61

No significant movement in Democratic Convention presidential ballots 43 through 61: McAdoo drops 20 votes, to 469. Smith gains 16, ending at 335. Various states changed their preferred candidate over the course of the day. No end in sight, delegates losing will to live and have run through their expense money and are getting eyestrain from the Garden’s arc lights. Sen. Samuel Ralston (Ind.) cracks 100 for the first time, displacing John W. Davis as #3, before sinking again in the night-time ballots to 37, like riding the world’s most boring rollercoaster.

The McAdoo camp insists the deadlock is the fault of the favorite sons, i.e. everyone who isn’t Smith or McAdoo, and they should all just pull out pronto. Others are suggesting it should be McAdoo who withdraws.

Mussolini’s Blackshirts will swear a new oath to the king, replacing their old oath to The Duck personally. And if... an oath... doesn’t remove the threat of dictatorial rule backed by a personal militia, I don’t know what would.

Giacomo Puccini is finishing up his opera Turandot, which he says will premiere not in Milan, where audiences hissed Madame Butterfly, but at the Met in New York next year. Actually, he’ll die before completing it.

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Today -100: July 3, 1924: 31 to 42

The British Cabinet decides against building a Channel tunnel.

The Conference for Progressive Political Action will open on the 4th in Cleveland and will create a 3rd party called the Progressive Party (which was the official name of Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party), which will nominate Fightin’ Bob La Follette for president. Now we hear officially that he will (gasp) accept. The Progressives don’t have a consensus on Fightin’ Bob’s running mate, but Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis seems favored.

The Georgia Lege rejects the proposed constitutional amendment to regulate child labor by 170-3. “State’s rights,” you know. Viola Napier, one of the two women in the House, votes for it. The state senate will reject it unanimously tomorrow.

The Democratic Convention holds presidential ballots 31 through 42. Al Smith’s support remains quite steady, holding between 310 and 323 votes all day, ending at 318. McAdoo recovers, reaching 503. John W. Davis sinks back into double figures.

William Jennings Bryan, a member of the Florida delegation, gives a speech in which he names eight people he thinks would be acceptable presidents – including his brother. In other words, he thinks McAdoo no longer has a chance.

A recount is ordered in the close Maine Republican primary. State Sen. Ralph Brewster claims he really won. Brewster is the Klan candidate and ran on a platform of defunding sectarian schools. Spoiler Alert: he will be the next governor (and congresscritter and US senator after that).

Portugese Prime Minister Álvaro de Castro fights a duel (with swords) with Flight Captain Teófilo José Ribeiro. He wins.

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Today -100: July 2, 1924: 16 to 30

In presidential ballots 16 to 30 at the DNC, former ambassador to Britain John W. Davis picks up some votes as the difficulties faced by McAdoo & Al Smith in reaching 2/3 become increasingly clear. McAdoo loses support, including Missouri, starting the day at 478 votes and ending at 415½. Smith gains achingly slowly, from 305½ to 323½. Davis has 126½ at the 30th ballot. William Jennings Bryan is telling anyone who’ll listen that the party can’t nominate a Wall Street lawyer like Davis, who has worked for J.P. Morgan (could be worse lawyering; in his last case in 1954 Davis defended segregation in the South Carolina part of Brown v. Board of Education).

28 people are sentenced to 2 years for participating in the Lilly, Pennsylvania fight between Klansmen and townies last April.

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Today -100: July 1, 1924: Sitting pretty on top of the world

Coolidge wants to cut the budget by another $83 billion. “I am for economy. After that I am for more economy.”

The DC Federal Grand Jury indicts former interior secretary Albert Fall and oil tycoons Harry Sinclair, Edward Doheny & Edward Doheny Jr. for bribery (or receiving a bribe, in Fall’s case) and conspiracy to defraud the US in the Teapot Dome/Elk Hills oil leases.

The Democratic National Convention holds its first 15 ballots for president. McAdoo is ahead with 479 votes, but well shy of a majority, much less the 2/3 (732 votes) he needs. Al Smith, far behind with 305½, says he’s “sitting pretty on top of the world.” Kansas switches to McAdoo, New Jersey to Al Smith.

The NYT points out that William Jennings Bryan, while objecting to the introduction of a religious question into politics in his speech favoring not mentioning the Klan by name, has himself been trying to get state legislatures to ban the teaching of evolution.

The New York law requiring motorists and motorcyclists to have a driving license, following an examination, by October 1st, goes into effect. There will also be a minimum speed limit of 12 mph in cities other than NY, Rochester and Buffalo. Standards are set for headlamps, trucks have to have rear-view mirrors. It is illegal not to stop on a signal from someone driving a horse.

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Today -100: June 30, 1924: Of crooks and bootlegging scoundrels

William Gibbs McAdoo, speaking to supporters (not in the Convention), pledges to go after “the crooks and bootlegging scoundrels who are debauching the morals of American youth by encouraging them to defy the laws.”

Edward, Prince of Wales, turned 30 last week and the newspapers are again bitching that he isn’t married yet. There are rumors that he’s promised the royal family that he will think about it.

Calvin Coolidge Jr., 16, plays tennis without wearing socks, but it doesn’t make the newspaper. Yet.

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Today -100: June 29, 1924: Three words

The Democratic Convention spends the entire day talking about the Klan, finally deciding not to name it in the anti-Klan plank by a vote of 542-541. Now it just calls for “religious liberty” without specifying any particular threat to religious liberty. William Jennings Bryan, on behalf of the McAdooites, calls for the generic plank, saying it would avoid dissension among Christians, and anyway “The Klan will soon die.” “We can exterminate Ku Kluxism better by respecting their honesty and teaching them that they are wrong.” “[T]he Ku Klux Klan does not deserve the advertisement that you give them.” Of course the “advertisement” will consist more of this stupid debate over whether to include what WJB keeps referring to as “three words” or, even, “these three magic and mystic words” than the platform itself. He suggests a separate resolution condemning the Klan by name, which wouldn’t be included in the platform.

Sen. Robert Owen (Oklahoma), speaking for the non-specific version, says he isn’t afraid of any klansman living or dead (especially the dead ones), but won’t convict a million kluxers without trial. He says many joined the Klan to defend the Constitution & the law.

A plank for immediate entry into the League of Nations fails 742½ to 353½, in favor of one calling for a referendum which the government could ignore.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt “slowly wended his way, leaning heavily on crutches, down the main aisle”.

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Today -100: June 28, 1924: Of nominees, plnks, exiles, and secessions

16 men have been put into nomination for president at the Democratic National Convention, which doesn’t mean that more favorite sons, dark horses, dark sons, and favorite horses won’t be put forward later.

Member of the DNC from South Carolina Lena Springs, or Mrs Leroy Springs as the NYT calls her, will be placed in nomination for vice president. Springs, who was not told this would happen, says “There isn’t a chance in the world of my being nominated,” but she appreciates it.

The Resolutions Committee adopts McAdoo’s position on the League of Nations, expressing broad approval of the body but saying the US would only join after a referendum. There are 3 competing anti-Klan resolutions and the issue is overshadowing and indeed postponing lesser matters like choosing a presidential candidate.

McAdoo’s nomination is seconded by J.F.T. O’Connor, a lawyer who used to be in the North Dakota Legislature. More importantly, he is a Catholic who uses his speech to denounce the Ku Klux Klan by name, which McAdoo won’t do, and does so before he gets around to mentioning McAdoo. It would be interesting to know exactly when O’Connor was chosen.

In other Convention news:

France will allow 210,000 Germans it exiled from the Ruhr to return. It will also release from prison people convicted of passive resistance.

Italy’s opposition parties, except the Communists, meet on Aventine Hill to demand the abolition of militias and the repression of political violence, and... they fail to call for Mussolini’s resignation. They say they will not return to Parliament “as long as the present conditions prevail.” This will be called the Aventine Secession.

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Today -100: June 27, 1924: Of happy warriors, mechanical screechers, and wet planks

There’s a race at the D. convention between finalizing the platform and starting the balloting for president. The McAdoonians want to push forward with the latter before a decision on whether the anti-Klan plank will actually mention the Klan. The adjournment at 5:30 pm was therefore a victory for the anti-McAdoo forces. In some desperation, McAdoo releases his supporters to vote their conscience on the Klan.

The demonstration following Al Smith’s nomination lasts 73 minutes, which is longer than McAdoo’s was. Tammany workers might have had something to do with that. It was quite loud, human sounds being augmented by ambulance / fire engine-type sirens and “mechanical screechers,” whatever those might be.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt gives the nominating speech for Gov. Alfred E. Smith, calling him the “happy warrior of the political battlefield.”

Pornhub title or Headline of the Day -100?

 

A mass murderer is executed by electric chair in the Philippines, another example of the United States bringing modernity to its imperial possessions.

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Today -100: June 26, 1924: And if you can’t fake sincerity and spontaneity...

The Coolidge Admin files suit against 50 oil companies, including the Standard spin-offs, for conspiracy to violate anti-trust laws and raise gasoline prices. Something about patents.

Headlines of the Day -100:  

Forney Johnston’s nomination speech for Alabama Sen. Oscar Underwood, which precedes McAdoo’s nomination, includes a denunciation of the Klan that sets off a 15-minute anti-Klan demonstration that surprises people by the geographic spread of anti-kluxer sentiment. However, one-third of the delegates remained conspicuously seated, including McAdoo-supporting delegations such as Georgia and California.

That reference to “sincerity and spontaneity”: McAdoo’s demonstration aimed instead for length (one hour) and wound up looking artificial, so Smith’s people are going for quality over quantity.

The NYT calls for “a clean sweep of prejudices.” Sure, the Democrats attack racial & religious intolerance, it says, but what about corporate lawyers (meaning McAdoo), huh? huh? huh?

In other convention news, Pres. Coolidge is listening to it on the radio, as are crowds outside New York radio stores, and William Jennings Bryan has lost his watch.

The alliterative Heinrich Held of the German National People's Party is the new chancellor of Bavaria. The NYT is surprised that monarchy- and aristocrat-loving Bavaria chose an “ex-fiddler,” who as a child played fairs with his musician father.

Headline of the Day -100:  

 

Following the kidnapping and presumed murder of Matteotti by Fascists no doubt acting entirely on their own initiative, Mussolini says he’ll “lead Fascismo back to strict legality... purify our party of all its undesirables... follow a policy of national conciliation.” But the opposition must not, um, oppose the regime or “seek to force us to give up our principles”. Opposition deputies are not there to hear the Duck’s speech, having, perhaps temporarily, perhaps not, withdrawn from Parliament. He repeats that he will not dissolve the Fascist militias.

A couple of professors in the Lehigh University chemistry department have invented an unbreakable cigar.

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Today -100: June 25, 1924: What America now needs is not a Sphinx

It is hot in Madison Square Garden as the Democratic National Convention opens. Sen. Pat Harrison of Mississippi’s keynote speech makes note of Republican corruption: “Show this Administration an oil well, and it will show you a foreign policy.” He says they’re more interested in oil fields in Mosul than protecting Christians in Turkey. “What America now needs is not a Sphinx, but a Paul Revere to awaken it.”

After Harrison finishes his speech, predicting Democratic victory, the band strikes up “It’s a Long, Long Trail.” They don’t know the half of it.

In other convention news,

President Bartolomé Martínez of Nicaragua asks the US what its reaction would be if he violates the constitution by being re-elected. The US says in that case it wouldn’t recognize him. Here’s the thing: Martínez wouldn’t be “re-elected,” since he succeeded a president who died last October to serve the remainder of his term ending in Jan. ‘25.

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Today -100: June 24, 1924: Of underwoods, shock & unrest, and runaway Republicans

Sen. Oscar Underwood (Alabama) says if the Democratic Convention doesn’t reject the Ku Klux Klan by name, he will drop out as a candidate for president.

In other news, Oscar Underwood has been running for president. Who knew?

The betting odds on Wall Street are now 3 to 1 against McAdoo and 2 to 1 against Smith.

Mussolini announces that he will remain as prime minister despite the crisis over the murder of Matteotti, thus saving Italy from the “shock and unrest” of a change of government.

All the Rhode Island State Senate Republicans but one have indeed fled the state to avoid voting on D. proposals (the one stayed beyond so he could object if there isn’t a quorum). They have been discovered at the Hotel Bartlett in Rutland, Massachusetts. They say they won’t return until their safety is guaranteed, citing “gunmen and thugs” they claim were spotted recently in the audience at Senate meetings. They’ve hired guards to prevent their being seized and returned to RI.

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