Today -100: August 26, 1924: Poor young Jews

The deadline for Germany to ratify the Dawes Plan is Saturday. Chancellor Wilhelm Marx tells the Reichstag he will ratify it no matter what they do.

Day 3 of Clarence Darrows’s concluding speech pleading for mercy for “these two poor young Jews”.

Charles Dawes says he and Coolidge didn’t actually talk about the Klan.

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Today -100: August 25, 1924: Of zeppelins, the Klan in politics, and Mars

The ZR-3, an airship built for the US Navy by the Zeppelin company in Germany will soon fly to the US. Any stowaways will be thrown over the side, with a parachute. Over the Atlantic?

“Ma” Ferguson increases her lead. She says it’s the death knell of the Klan in Texas. And when governor, she’ll fire kluxers holding government jobs.

The Ku Klux Klan’s prominence as an issue in this election cycle continues to grow, given further impetus by the victory of Ma & other anti-Klan candidates in the Texas Dem. primaries. Coolidge has called Dawes in to meet in person in Vermont, and the speculation is that it’s to talk about the Klan. Ohio Democrats are divided over how to deal with the Klan issue in their state convention. Georgia’s former governor/US senator Thomas Hardwick, who is running to reclaim the Senate seat from William Harris, accuses him of being a kluxer, specifically a member of the super-secret adjunct called the Imperial Klan. Professional Klan lecturer Rev. Oscar Haywood says the Klan is actually politically neutral; he says he won’t say anything against Davis, who is a “splendid man” but “I am not going to vote for him.”

With the Earth and Mars at their closest (physically, I mean, not emotionally), astronomers and others have been turning their telescopes and radios to the red planet. They haven’t found signs of life – yet – but have confirmed that Mars has water and an atmosphere.

H. L. Mencken, in his Baltimore Evening Standard column, says Davis is a bystander in the presidential campaign: “The actual combatants are the Hon. Mr. La Follette and the Hon. Mr. Coolidge. Each of these great statesmen stands for something that is simple and obvious—something that anyone may understand. Dr. Coolidge is for the Haves and Dr. La Follette is for the Have Nots. But whom is Dr. Davis for? I’m sure I don’t know, and neither does anyone else. ... La Follette is belaboring Coolidge, and the friends of Coolidge are belaboring La Follette, but no one seems to think it worthwhile to belabor Davis. He is simply concealed in the crowd, like a bootlegger at a wedding.” Read the whole column.

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Today -100: August 24, 1924: Of domestic controversy or discord, women in the Reichstag, and let’s invade Denmark!

Miriam “Ma” Ferguson is well ahead, so far, as votes are counted in the Texas Democratic primary election for governor. She answers  the question of whether she’ll be the “dummy” for her husband, while rejecting the advice of those who want her to announce she won’t be listening to him at all. She says she will be “guided” by him on subjects he knows better, like fiscal affairs, taxes, prisons, etc., while using her own judgment on education, social affairs, women, children, etc. “By adopting this course I believe I will be able to render service to the people of Texas without creating any domestic controversy or discord.”

Gen. Charles Dawes, Republican vice-presidential nominee, gives a speech in Augusta, Maine in support of Republican candidate for governor Ralph Brewster. In it, Dawes denounces the Klan, which... is behind Brewster’s candidacy.

The German Reichstag has 29 women deputies out of the 472.

The Danish government plans to eliminate the army.

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Today -100: August 23, 1924: When the public thinks as one man it only thinks of killing someone

Clarence Darrow at the Leopold n’ Loeb trial: “For God’s sake, if the State in which I live is not kinder, more humane and considerate and intelligent than the mad act of these mad boys, then I am sorry to have lived so long.” “When the public thinks as one man it only thinks of killing someone.”

At a campaign rally in Seagirt, New Jersey, John W. Davis condemns the Ku Klux Klan by name and invites Coolidge to join him, thus removing the Klan issue from the presidential campaign. Which Coolidge declines to do. The Seagirt crowd is jubilant at the Klan diss, some shouting “Hang ‘em!” and “Throw them in the river!,” which seems to rather miss the point.

Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans says the Klan is neutral between Davis and Coolidge, but will fight against Bob La Follette.

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Today -100: August 22, 1924: No Ma for me

VP candidate Charles Dawes refuses to pose for newsreel cameras: “Hell, they’re not going to make a damned movie man out of me!”

Headline of the Day -100:  

The White House releases a letter Coolidge wrote to the president of the National Negro Business League in which he congratulates the “economic emancipation being splendidly wrought out by the colored people for themselves; so I believe their full political rights will be won through the inevitable logic of their position and rightfulness of their claims.” Which is a good way of saying he doesn’t actually intend to help in any way, they’re on their own.

The Klan’s inevitable riposte to Miriam Ferguson’s “Me for Ma” slogan is “No Ma for Me.”

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Today -100: August 21, 1924: Savages v. fiends

Sen. Nathanial Dial and his South Carolina Democratic Party primary opponent Insurance Commissioner John McMahan are both arrested at a campaign meeting at which the former swings a chair at the head of the latter, as was the custom, after MacMahan called him a “dirty liar.”

Charles Dawes made a particularly combative acceptance speech for his nomination for Republican candidate for vice president a couple of days ago, accusing Democrats of being hypocrites and demagogues and of denigrating the rule of law (i.e., Prohibition). There’s a lot of talk about the speech, which I skipped at the time but the thought of reading it now just makes me tired.

Assistant State’s Attorney Joseph Savage (!) sums up the case against Leopold + Loeb, calling them “fiends” and “dastardly cowards” (that’s the worst kind of cowards) who deserve hanging.

Two, possibly 3 are dead in violence in Weehawken, NJ among the chicken pullers. Whatever the hell those might be.

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Today -100: August 20, 1924: Of racial censorship and sap buckets

NY Mayor John Hylan bans the participation of a mixed group of black & white children in Eugene O’Neill’s All God’s Chillun Got Wings.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Not a metaphor. Or a sex toy.

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Today -100: August 19, 1924: The big cucumber that will give us all the bellyache

The NAACP protests the exclusion by the National Woman’s Party of black speakers from the Inez Milholland memorial. “If capitulation to race prejudice is to be the price of election of women to office we sincerely hope that every one of your candidates will be defeated in the coming election.”

Former Texas Gov. Oscar Colquitt supports “Ma” Ferguson, arguing that it is a question of constitutional government or secret Klan government: “If the Klan gets into power it will be the big cucumber that will give us all the bellyache.” She’s even supported by the Republican candidate, Thomas Lee, who, as a Republican in Texas, has no chance in hell.

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Today -100: August 18, 1924: It was no place for colored people to speak

The National Woman’s Party holds a memorial for its old standard-bearer Inez Milholland (d. 1916) in Lewis, New York in conjunction with the NWP convention for organizing to elect women to Congress. Inez’s father John brought 3 black guests: Dr. Emmett Scott, the secretary/treasurer of Howard University; Lucy Slowe, a Howard professor; and Mrs. Addie Waites Hunton of the NAACP. He complains that they were very much not invited to speak. Alice Paul, VP of the NWP, says “This was arranged as a demonstration of women, and it was no place for colored people to speak. We had invited them to carry a wreath to the grave and their feelings were not hurt.” When alive, Inez (a NAACP member) intervened more than once to prevent the exclusion of black women from suffrage parades.

Marcus Garvey has bought a steamship to take negroes Back to Africa™, and charges his followers 50¢ to... look at it.

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Today -100: August 17, 1924: Me for Ma

Miriam Ferguson, described by the NYT as “a typical Texas woman,” is running for governor in the Democratic primary as the anti-Klan candidate, although I seem to remember her husband, impeached former governor James Ferguson, as pretty racist himself. Slogan: Me for Ma. Which sounds like baby talk. Her opponent, Judge Felix Robertson, is trying not to mention his Klan links and is even claiming to support Catholics, while focusing on Prohibition. In its desperation, the Klan, which used to oppose the “Jew, Jug and Jesuit,” has dropped the first and third J-word.

The Dawes Plan agreement is signed. France and Belgium will remove their troops from the Ruhr within a year.

Giacomo Matteotti’s body is found, more than 2 months after he disappeared. In a culvert, a few miles outside Rome.

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Today -100: August 16, 1924: Boom

The house of Magistrate Henry Tennyson of Slovan, Pennsylvania is dynamited in a huge explosion that takes out pretty much every window in town. The house is destroyed but the Tennyson family survives, somehow. The judge hears a lot of prohibition cases.

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Today -100: August 15, 1924: A government of common sense

Coolidge gives a boring acceptance speech. “The people,” he says, “want a government of common sense.” Has he MET the people?

The prosecution’s two alienists admit that they only spoke briefly to Leopold n’ Loeb, with lots of people around, before concluding they were sane.

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Today -100: August 14, 1924: Of married names and brain sand

The federal government rules that married women employees of the government aren’t allowed to use their maiden names.

At the Leopold n’ Loeb trial, State’s Attorney Robert Crowe puts a couple of alienists on the stand to assert that the boys are perfectly normal (“except so far as commission of a deliberate, cold-blooded murder indicates disordered mentality,” which seems like a big exception) and their endocrine systems are fine. In fact, you can’t rely on x-rays of the pineal gland, which contains “brain sand,” which is evidently a real thing.

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Today -100: August 13, 1924: Of bad motives and fat Germans

Coolidge declines to respond to John W. Davis’s acceptance speech, with its accusations of Republican corruption.

Henry Ford rather belatedly withdraws from the Michigan Republican primary for US senator. He says he doesn’t know the motive of the people who put his name forward, “but believe it cannot be a good one”.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: August 12, 1924: Deeper and more widespread corruption than any that this generation of Americans has been called upon to witness

At the Leopold n’ Loeb trial, “More than five minutes was taken up in trying to ascertain the difference between a blush on Loeb’s cheek and a similar glow on that of Leopold.” “[State’s Attorney Robert Crowe] tried to force admission that cunning directed them and not emotion”.

Calvin Coolidge publicly responds to some dude who wrote asking him to step in to prevent the Republican Party running a black dentist, Charles Roberts, for Congress in New York’s 21st district. Cal says it’s a local matter but does give a pretty strong defense of equal rights. (Roberts will run as Republican candidate, and lose badly).

And in a letter to the Jewish Forum, Coolidges praises American Jews for assimilating so nicely.

John W. Davis is officially informed of his nomination for president (he’d probably already heard about it). He accepts. He accuses the Republican Party of “having exhibited deeper and more widespread corruption than any that this generation of Americans has been called upon to witness... I charge it with gross favoritism to the privileged, and with utter disregard of the unprivileged. I charge it with indifference to world peace, and with timidity in the conduct of our foreign affairs.”

Andrew Anderson, the Democratic nominee for governor of South Dakota, is gored to death by a bull, as is the custom in South Dakota, probably.

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Today -100: August 11, 1924: Of constitution days and fiorellos

It’s Constitution Day in Berlin, celebrating the 5th anniversary of the Weimar Constitution, and... no one shows up. Well, 5,000, but most of the major parties boycott it and many people fly monarchist flags in protest. Germany, it is said, is a republic without republicans. I’m sure that won’t be a problem.

Rep. Fiorello La Guardia of New York, currently serving his first term in Congress, leaves the Republican Party, whose platform he dislikes, in favor of La Follette’s Progressives. He will be re-elected under his new banner, and then return to the Republican fold next in ‘26.

Non-silent Cal: Calvin Coolidge is filmed with sound (4 minutes).

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Today -100: August 10, 1924: Of glands

Dr. Harold S. Hulbert testifies at the Leopold n’ Loeb trial that Nathan Leopold Jr has irregularities in his pineal, pituitary, adrenal and thyroid glands. Shows x-rays and everything.

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Today -100: August 9, 1924: It cannot long survive

Robert La Follette says he is opposed to the Ku Klux Klan, but sounds annoyed that the issue is distracting from the big issue, which is the power of the private monopoly system over the US’s economic life. He says the Klan “cannot long survive” because of the “sound judgment and good sense of our people”.

The Connecticut state fire warden bans the burning of crosses without permission of a fire warden.

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Today -100: August 8, 1924: Of non-kluxers and moral violence

John W. Davis denies rumors that he was once a member of the Klan.

Mussolini makes his first speech since the disappearance of of Giacomo Matteotti two months ago, vowing to remain in office, “to which am bound not by caprice or by desire for power, but by a religious sense of duty.” Does he give the speech from a balcony? Of course he gives it from a balcony. He complains that “The Opposition is daily guilty of moral violence against Fascism by painting it as something which it absolutely is not.” Obviously moral violence is much worse than murdering an opposition leader and dumping his body in the woods.

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Today -100: August 7, 1924: Of treaties, fascist extremism, and ponzis

The Anglo-Soviet talks succeed after all. A commercial treaty and a general treaty will be signed.

At the Leopold n’ Loeb trial, one of the defense’s psychiatrist witnesses spills the beans on one of the great mysteries: it was Loeb who actually murdered Bobby Franks.

Bullshit Headline of the Day -100:   

Although the sub-hed is better:

The vague resolutions adopted by the National Council of Fascismo include “further development of the Fascist revolution” and “bringing about a loyal acceptance by the whole country of Fascismo and its revolutionary advent to power.” But Musso has retreated from an earlier draft calling for rewriting the Constitution and maybe further neutering Parliament, which would have pissed off Liberals, which is something he still cares about a little, especially in the context of the wobbliness of Fascist legitimacy after the murder of Giacomo Matteotti.

Charles Ponzi is released from federal prison after serving 3½ years (with time off for good behaviour), and is immediately arrested on Massachusetts state charges.

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