Today -100: December 10, 1924: To arms

The US accepts the League of Nations’s invitation to join in its conference on controlling the arms trade in May.

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Today -100: December 9, 1924: Of explosions and corsets

The building of the Coffeyville Kansas Ku Klux Klan newspaper The Daily Dawn is blowed up real good. It miiiiiiight be a gas leak. The explosion happened “early today,” but was it at dawn?

Headline of the Day -100:  

 Bruce Bruce-Porter, which is exactly the sort of name you’d expect in a doctor with strong opinions about rubber corsets.

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Today -100: December 8, 1924: Of German elections and negligible cranks

In the German Reichstag elections, the center parties do all right and the two extremes quite badly. Don’t get used to it. The moderate bourgeois DDP, DVP, Zentrum and BVP gain a few seats, but the Social Democrats (SPD) increase their vote from 20.5% to 26%. The Communist (KPD) vote drops from 12.9% to 9% and the coalition of Nazi & anti-Semitic Völkisch parties drop from 6.5 to 3%. The results could also be read as a strong victory for the Dawes Plan.

Izvestia asks George Bernard Shaw for his opinions on Russia. They may have asked the wrong dude. In his response, which he also sent to the Daily Herald, almost as if he thinks Izvestia might not print it, he suggests abolishing the Communist International since “the proposition that the world should take its orders from a handful of Russian novices who seem to have gained their knowledge of modern socialism by sitting over a drawing room stove and reading of the pamphlets of liberal revolutionists of 1848-70 makes even Lord Curzon and Mr. Winston Churchill seem extreme modernists in comparison.” Ouch. Until Socialism is treated as a living force “there will be nothing but misunderstandings in which the dozen most negligible cranks in Russia will correspond solemnly with the dozen most negligible cranks in England, both of them convinced that they are the proletariat and the revolution and the future and the International and God knows what else.”

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Today -100: December 7, 1924: We will not let them meddle in our political life

The French police arrest 300 Communists, 70 of them foreigners who will be deported. Sounds like a lot of those are refugees from fascist Spain and fascist Italy; none are Russian. Prime Minister Édouard Herriot tells the Chamber of Deputies that the government “will defend the democratic republic against both the Clerical peril and the Communist peril which are threatening it in opposite directions but with the same methods of agitation.” He says of the foreign Communists: “They are indulging in political demonstrations, and we will not tolerate it, we will not let them meddle in our political life.”

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: December 6, 1924: My past actions speak for themselves

The Italian Senate votes confidence in Mussolini 206-54, with 35 abstaining, a weaker showing than a few months ago. He refuses to make any pledges: “My past actions speak for themselves and clearly indicate the line I propose to follow.” He claims to have suppressed all illegalities, reined in his party’s excesses, restored Parliament, and he says he doesn’t need to do anything about the militia (Blackshirts) because there’s like eight of them.

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Today -100: December 5, 1924: Of plots

Lord Allenby, High Commissioner of Egypt, warns the British Cabinet that Egyptian nationalists have a plot to assassinate them. They’re getting armed cops for protection.

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Today -100: December 4, 1924: Of states of unions, non-Mongolians, and greed

It’s State of the Union time (still not called that, not for another decade). Coolidge doesn’t deliver it in person this time. He says “every American should be satisfied with the present state of the Union.” He wants Congress to pass the tax cut they failed to pass in June. Why, he says, if taxes on the wealthy were “scientifically revised downward,” they might actually yield more revenue while stimulating investment. He has nothing much other than that, just joining the World Court and a lot of vague aspirations not attached to any proposed legislation.

Russia reduces the size of its military to 562,000.

After a minister refused to perform her marriage because it is illegal in Montana for Chinese people to marry white people, Evelyn Kendall Moy says, or her foster parents the Moys say, she’s actually white, born to Canadians.

René Clair’s short film “Entr’acte” premieres, as does Erich von Stroheim’s extremely not-short film “Greed”.

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Today -100: December 3, 1924: Of immigration, tax returns, and Communist coups

Brazil will follow the US in banning Japanese immigration (in a few days it will change this to banning all immigration, just to show they weren’t being racist).

The federal court in Kansas City rules that newspapers may print tax return figures.

One day after the attempted Communist uprising in Estonia, 20 or 30 (depending on whether the sloppy NYT’s headline or its article is accurate) (tomorrow’s paper says 7) are tried by court-martial and executed.

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Today -100: December 2, 1924: Of coups, chambers, and good accounts

Estonia quickly crushes an attempted Communist coup, which was ordered by the Soviet Union. The coup is partly a response to last month’s trial of 149 Communists, which, however, removed many of the people who might have done a better job organizing a coup (one, Jaan Tomp, was executed).

Frenchwomen are made eligible to their first public body: the Chambers of Commerce.

“Lady, Be Good!,” a musical comedy by George & Ira Gershwin, their first Broadway show, is playing at the Liberty. The NYT review praises Adele Astaire’s performance, adding that her brother “Fred Astaire, too, gives a good account of himself”.

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Today -100: December 1, 1924: First the dance hall, then the gambling hell, then the vice resort...

The Egyptian government accepts the rest of Britain’s demands, including preserving the powers of British financial and judicial “advisers.”

German Minister of the Interior Karl Jarres bans wireless broadcasts of election speeches, leaving the radio “reserved for higher things in life and unsullied by political strife.”

Chicago Mayor William E. Dever complains about newspaper criticism of his focus on suppressing gambling, booze running, and other vice, going full after-school special: “In them the criminal gets his schooling. First the dance hall, then the gambling hell, then the vice resort, and by that time there is a desire for money, and the only way to get it is to take a gun and go out and hold up a respectable citizen.” He also complains about the positive coverage of the late florist-mobster Dion O'Banion.

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Today -100: November 30, 1924: Of bedtime stories, leper churches, ponzis, and Puccini

The mutinying Sudanese soldiers surrender.

Federal prohibition agents in Seattle are prevented by a court order from destroying a radio station broadcasting bedtime stories they claim were coded messages to bootleggers in Canada and Japan.

The only Protestant church for lepers in the US opens in Carville, Louisiana at the leper colony there (James Carville’s ancestors were in the leper biz).

Charles Ponzi is arrested by Immigration, who intend to deport him because when he first entered the US from Canada he failed to mention his conviction there for forgery. The question now is whether Canada would accept his being deported there or whether it’ll have to be Italy. It will actually take another decade for him to be deported. (Mea culpa: there was a mistrial in Massachusetts sometime after he was released from federal prison in August which I missed).

Composer Giacomo Puccini (La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and the uncompleted Turandot) dies at 65 of throat cancer.

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Today -100: November 29, 1924: Of mutinies and mandates, legal whites and princes

A couple companies of the Sudanese army mutiny and attack the military hospital in Khartoum, killing a British doctor and 2 Syrian orderlies. This has something to do with Britain forcing out their Egyptian officers. What that has to do with a hospital is unclear. Sudanese are being killed and the hospital is under siege. Meanwhile, British soldiers have been marching around Cairo, pissing on stuff to mark their territory, probably.

Former PM Ramsay MacDonald suggests asking the League of Nations to give Britain a mandate over the Sudan.

Alice Rhinelander will fight husband Leonard’s annulment suit by denying having any negro blood and asserting that she is legally – yes, “legally” – white since her mother is white. Her lawyer says her father didn’t notice that a clerk had designated him negro on his naturalization application form, which he – according to the lawyer – isn’t.

The princes of the various German states (Prussia, Bavaria, Hanover, etc) supposedly have made a secret agreement to overthrow the Weimar Republic and resume their thrones, burying their past differences.

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Today -100: November 28, 1924: Of blackshirts, duels, and heresy

In Cairo, the British military arrests 3 (4?) Egyptian aides to former PM Zaghul, including his under-secretary of the interior, for conspiracy against British officials, which makes you wonder about the so-called independence of Egypt. After some inter-governmental kerfuffle, they are handed over to the Egyptian authorities, who are supposed to do something to them, put them on trial or shoot them, I dunno.

Gen. Italo Balbo resigns as Commander-in-Chief of the Blackshirts because of that letter leaked of him ordering Bolgna Fascists to beat up Communists. Mussolini accepts, but it won’t particularly impact Balbo’s rise in the Fascist Party. He remains a deputy, and will soon be put in charge of the Italian air force and later governor-general of Libya. He’ll combine those two when his plane, flying into Libya during World War II, is accidentally shot down by his own side.

Incidentally, Balbo was the guy who earlier this month challenged Garibaldi’s son to a duel. And in Hungary, István Horthy, son of the Regent/Dictator, is sentenced to 4 days in jail for a duel. He’ll also die in a plane accident during the war.

Kamenov and Stalin’s denunciation of Trotsky, which they’ve been circulating among Party leaders, is released to the general public. Stalin accuses Trotsky of “heresy” to Bolshevism and of being a Menshevik. Note that Trotsky is still War Minister.

Speaking of heresy, there’s a debate within the Republican Party over whether to welcome back congresscritters who supported La Follette for president.

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Today -100: November 27, 1924: Intense exasperation

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s wife begins divorce proceedings.

Leonard Kip Rhinelander sues for an annulment of his marriage to Alice Jones, claiming she lied that she was white and thus “the consent of said plaintiff to such marriage was obtained by fraud.” Alice says “I will never give up. I love him dearly and he loves me dearly. All the Rhinelander millions cannot take him from me.”

Gen. Italo Balbo, Commander-in-Chief of the Blackshirts, is suing the newspaper La Voce Repubblicana for libel for accusing him of ordering the killing of a priest. They introduce a letter sent by Balbo last year ordering Bolgna Fascists to suggest to Communists that they leave the region and to beat them up “without exaggeration, but systematically” and “in the grand style” until they do so. Balbo admits writing the letter, but says it was in “a moment of intense exasperation.”

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Today -100: November 26, 1924: Of puzzling crawfish

Charlie Chaplin, 35, marries his second wife, Lita Grey, 16, in Mexico. And yes, she’s pregnant. And yes, they’re doing it in Mexico to avoid possible statutory rape charges. And while there is indeed quite an age difference, his 4th wife, Oona O’Neil, hasn’t even been born yet.

Coolidge invites Charles Dawes to sit in on Cabinet meetings when he becomes vice president in March, as Coolidge did when he was veep, but Dawes declines. We don’t know why.

The Slovak, German, Hungarian and Ruthenian deputies in the Czech Parliament walk out in protest at infringements on their language, school, and property rights. The Slovaks claim there is no such thing as a Czechoslovakian nation.

The first Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, which they’re calling the Big Christmas Parade, will be tomorrow. Unless it rains, in which case it’ll be Friday. Animals & costumes & clowns but no giant balloons. What’s the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade without Snoopy?

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: November 25, 1924: Customs

Egypt gives Lord Allenby the £500,000 blood money in the form of a check, but since some of his other demands were rejected he sends Royal Marines to seize the customs house at Alexandria, as was the, uh, custom. So it’s not about money, it’s about coercing the Egyptian government. Prime Minister Saad Zaghlul then resigns and Senate president Ahmad Ziwar Pasha is given the job. He forms a cabinet almost entirely composed of newbies. And one of them’s a Jew, surprisingly. And one’s a Copt. The Egyptian Parliament votes to appeal to the League of Nations against the British, which will probably go nowhere since Egypt isn’t a member of the League of Nations.

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Today -100: November 24, 1924: Stupid and idiotic violences are, of course, the worst kind of violences

The Egyptian government responds to the British ultimatum, agreeing to apologize for the assassination of Sir Lee Stack but not accept responsibility for it, given that they didn’t actually do it or order it or condone it. They agree to pay the £500,000 but reject all the other demands (irrigation, pulling out of the Sudan, etc). Lord Allenby demands the money by the next day.

Mussolini says Fascism is aware it must stop its “stupid and idiotic violences.”

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Today -100: November 23, 1924: Of ample apologies, confidence, and hard-faced thugs

Lord Allenby, the British High Commissioner of Egypt, presents Saad Zaghlul, the Egyptian prime minister, with a note containing numerous demands in response to the assassination of Sir Lee Stack, the British governor-General of Sudan: a £500,000 fine, an “ample” apology, punishment of those responsible (the assassins have been arrested, presumably after this note was written), a ban on political demonstrations, the withdrawal of Egyptian troops from the Sudan within 24 hours, something about increased irrigation for cotton in the Gezira province of Sudan, and a bunch of other stuff. The Brits are exploiting the situation for all it’s worth and then some. The note says the murder “holds up Egypt as at present governed to the contempt of civilized peoples.” It calls the government “directly responsible” for the assassination, for which it is certainly not directly responsible, because of its “campaign of hostility to British rights and British subjects... founded upon a heedless ingratitude for benefits conferred by Great Britain”.

Arkansas Gov.-Elect Tom Terral says the Democratic Party won’t win national elections if it keeps talking about the Klan. Or, to put it another way, Terral is a member of the Klan.

The Soviet admin is circulating to various army, union etc committees a censure of Leon Trotsky for undermining Leninism.

The Italian Chamber of Deputies (which the opposition parties are boycotting) votes 337-17 for a motion of confidence in Mussolini’s domestic policy (they voted for his foreign policy last week).

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: November 22, 1924: You now have this great man

Britain’s new Conservative government cancels the two treaties the Labour government negotiated with Russia and will not submit them to Parliament. It’s not clear whether the UK still recognizes the Soviet government. Foreign Sec Austen Chamberlain also tells Russia he’s sure the Zinoviev Letter was totally real. Oh sure it uses terms that the real Zinoviev would never use, but the British government has “information” that “leaves no doubt” that it’s totally real and they “are therefore not prepared to discuss the matter.” The Soviets are warned to knock it off with all the propaganda.

Mussolini has been in some political trouble because of the attacks by Blackshirts on war veterans on Armistice Day, but today a Fascist deputy who was blinded and lost both hands, Carlo Delcroix, president of the Associazione nazionale mutilati e invalidi di guerra, gives a long, fiery speech in support of The Muss: “Every great movement has found and brought to power a great man. You now have this great man. Let it not be said that Italy had at last found a great leader and that envy struck him down.” He addresses former PM Giovanni Giolitti, saying his anti-Fascist speech had “seemed indistinct and far away to me. Perhaps they were drowned by the roar of the river of blood which separates your generation from mine.” After he finishes, the session is suspended in honor of him. Delcroix will break with Mussolini only in 1943, in opposition to the alliance with Germany, but after the war his prosthetic arms will be confiscated as proceeds of the Fascist regime. He’ll return to Parliament, as a monarchist, in 1953.

Warren G. Harding’s widow Florence, aka The Duchess, dies at 64. She’s been living with her doctor.

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Today -100: November 21, 1924: The play is over. I hope I have not bored you.

The test case on income tax publicity begins. A grand jury indicts the Baltimore Daily Post, part of the Scripps chain, which supported La Follette for president. The NYT story rather cheekily repeats the names and tax amounts from the story for which the Post is being prosecuted.

Baron Hans von Ringhausen, a German pilot shot down during the Great War, arrives at Omaha, Nebraska to marry Bertha Wendell, sister of Charles Cummings, the American pilot who shot him down. She was a Red Cross nurse who nursed him back to health. If this (front-page) story sounds made-up to you, it probably is. At any rate Cummings, who appeared in Omaha a few months ago, will shortly vanish, along with the money of everyone who invested in his furniture polish company or sold polish for it. Presumably the sister and the “baron” will also depart.

The Inyo County water insurgents release the LA Aqueduct water.

Gandhi telegrams the opium conference, calling for the suppression of opium traffic.

Headline of the Day -100:  

But then he would say that, wouldn’t he?

George Bernard Shaw gives the first of a series of broadcasts of his work on the BBC, reading his play “O’Flaherty, V.C.,” doing all the voices and even a bit of singing. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a recording of this?

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