Today -100: January 9, 1925: The constitutional mask of normalization has fallen

The California Legislature ratifies the Amendment to the US Constitution allowing Congress to regulate child labor, the second state to ratify after Arizona.

The “Aventine” opposition deputies decide to continue boycotting the Italian Parliament. They issue a manifesto accusing Mussolini of being, you know, Mussolini, of suppressing personal liberty, crushing the free press, trampling on the law, tolerating violence by his followers, and the murder of Giacomo Matteotti. “The constitutional mask of normalization has fallen.” They will boycott the election if the government dissolves the Chamber without resigning first.

The former German and Bavarian royal families reconcile, with Wilhelm giving permission for Bavarian ex-prince Rupprecht to run as a monarchist, but for “Reich Governor,” which is not a thing, rather than president.

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Today -100: January 8, 1925: Of parks, “elections,” binghams, and ciggies

Robert Moses, president of the Long Island State Park Commission, complains about rich people obstructing his plans for a park on the South Shore in order to protect their exclusive golf club. As Moses was negotiating to purchase the old Taylor estate from its heirs, the richie-rich golfers swooped in and made a better offer; Moses appropriated the property, as was his custom, and now it’s being fought out in court.

Mussolini is planning another general election, but only after the Matteotti murder trial, which will of course totally absolve The Duck of any responsibility. Some of the opposition papers are coming out again, but leaving out any actual news.

Hiram Bingham III is sworn in as governor of Connecticut, and despite planning to resign after less than 24 hours to take up his seat in the US Senate, has the nerve to have a parade, and an inaugural ball, and an inaugural address, which is a long one, opposing turning the Ag College into a university, calling for reduced taxes, acquiring land for a seaside sanatorium, banning highway billboards, etc. He has a lot of opinions.

Incoming North Dakota Gov. Arthur Sorlie calls for the repeal of the anti-cigarette law.

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Today -100: January 7, 1925: Of postal pay, plane sizess, and political prisoners

The Senate sustains by one vote Coolidge’s veto of a bill raising the pay of postal workers.

Germany tells Allied ambassadors that their decision not to end the occupation of Cologne on schedule violates the Treaty of Versailles. It also says that unless they remove the restrictions on German commercial planes, whose size and power is limited in order to prevent them potentially being turned into military planes, then Germany will put the same restrictions on French planes overflying Germany, and shoot down any that violate those restrictions.

Repression continues in Italy: the government says it has closed 95 clubs, 25 subversive organizations, and 150 cafés, and arrested 111 revolutionaries. 

Germany also has political (Communist) prisoners. Albert Einstein comes out for amnesty.

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Today -100: January 6, 1925: Of explosions of Fascist joy, justices, and resumed administrations

Mussolini purges the last non-Fascist members from his Cabinet, the Liberals Gino Sarrocchi (Minister of Works) and Alessandro Casati (Education). The Liberal Party is now split, with some MPs following former PM Antonio Salandra into opposition, some saying they’ll continue voting with the Fascist government. 

The obnoxious NYT Italian correspondent says Saturday’s “explosion of Fascist joy” – surely the worst kind of joy – has died down.

80-year-old Supreme Court Justice Joseph McKenna retires after 27 years on the bench. When McKinley appointed him, he had no legal experience, much less judicial, so in the 5 weeks between his nomination and his confirmation he took a crash course at Columbia Law School. Coolidge nominates Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone to replace him. Stone went to Columbia for realsies.

Wyoming Gov. Nellie Taylor Ross tells the state Senate that hers is not a new administration but the resumption of her late husband’s.

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Today -100: January 5, 1925: Of women governors, fucking Fascists, and flesh color

Mrs. Nellie Taylor Ross takes office. The first woman governor in the US. In Wyoming, the first state to give women the vote 35 years before, and the first territory 20 years before that.

Mussolini orders prefects to break up opposition political associations and to close meeting places. Fascists hold parades in many cities joyfully celebrating The Duck’s return to thuggery. Fascist crowds gather outside opposition newspapers to express their displeasure (what’s wrong with a letter-to-the-editor? on some nice stationery?), but police are preventing violence, for now. Officials are confiscating opposition papers regardless of content – including the Milan Giustizia, which appears blank except for ads. 

Palm Beach’s Casino Beach, which presumably already bans the display of women’s legs, adds a ban on white or “flesh”-colored stockings. Also, one-piece bathing suits. The beach censor, which is a real position that someone occupies, is armed with a color chart to determine just what constitutes flesh color.

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Today -100: January 4, 1925: Chivalrous?

Republicans in the New York Legislature are considering abolishing the Motion Picture Censorship Commission, not from any sudden opposition to censorship, but because a Republican member’s term just expired and when Gov. Al Smith replaces them it would have a Democratic majority.

Mussolini says he will “clear up the political situation” within 48 hours so that “the air will again be breathable in Italy.” Well that isn’t ominous-sounding. He says only force can decide between Fascism and the opposition, of whom he says, “We have swallowed their insults and allowed them to call us brigands and assassins. Now before the Chamber, before the whole nation and before God, I alone assume full personal, political, moral and historical responsibility for everything that has occurred in Italy. If Fascism is an association of malefactors [Fact Check: It is] then let it be known that I am head of this association of malefactors.” He denies having created the Italian equivalent of the Cheka [Fact Cheka: He has]: “If I had founded such an organization I would have seen to it that its violence was always intelligent, timely and chivalrous, while the violences attributed to the Cheka which I am accused of founding always have been unintelligent, untimely and stupid.” He says “Please spare me the insult of believing me so stupid as to have ordered” the assassination of Matteotti. The moment has come, he says, to “pass to the counter-offensive.” It’s unclear what this means or what he will do in the next 48 hours. He’s already cracking down on opposition newspapers, which he blames for anti-Fascist violence, and it’s assumed he’ll make some move against the “Aventine” MPs boycotting Parliament, maybe declare a state of siege? Il Popolo d’Italia, Mussolini’s newspaper, says “Oppositions are a thing of the past.”

German Chancellor Wilhelm Marx has failed, again, to form a new cabinet containing the center and right-wing parties, will now try to form a non-partisan cabinet which would just kind of hope for the best in getting majority Reichstag support for its various policies.

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Today -100: January 3, 1925: We must correct our blunder here

France asks the US for a ten-year moratorium on paying its war debt and then 80 years to pay it off.

French oncologist Jean Alban Bergonié dies. He experimented with radiation as a treatment for cancer, irradiating rat testicles (that wasn’t science, that was just for fun, probably) and gave himself cancer. All sorts of cancer. One hand had to be amputated, then the arm, then 3 fingers on the other hand. He dies of lung cancer.

Mikhail Kalinin, chair of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union, signs a decree telling the USSR’s constituent republics to re-do elections at the local level that “gave undesirable results.” “We must correct our blunder here.”

Those 15 Republican state senators who fled Rhode Island in June will end their exile as the General Assembly term expires. They were successful in their goal of preventing the Legislature accomplishing anything, including paying state employees.

The Italian government seizes a bunch of newspapers that printed that a Fascist army was marching on Rome, like that could ever happen. There are violent incidents in various cities, about which the NYT is somewhat vague, not that I’d believe its correspondent after they referred to anti-Fascists as “subversives.”

Bartolomeo Vanzetti of Sacco & Vanzetti fame is sent to an insane asylum.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: January 2, 1925: Of rhinos

The Duke of York (grandfather of King Charles) shoots a charging rhinoceros.

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Today -100: January 1, 1925: Party like it’s 1624

Italian police seize issues of at least 11 newspapers and raid the houses of opposition leaders. The government is claiming it’s searching for secret arms caches and for money sent from France to overthrow the Fascist regime.

Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone says the Justice Dept concluded 80,000 cases in 1924, 46,000 of which were Prohibition cases.

The Tuskegee Institute says there were only 16 lynchings in the US in 1924. 5 in Florida, 2 in Georgia, 1 each in Illinois, Kentucy, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. All 16 lynchees were black.

The capital of Norway, Christiania, is renamed Oslo, which was the name used until 1624.

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Today -100: December 31, 1924: Of total bankruptcies and debt

German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann says “If the Entente persists in the policy indicated by the refusal to evacuate the Cologne zone on Jan. 10 it will mean the total bankruptcy of the Dawes plan.” He asserts that Germany is now fully disarmed: “All statements to the contrary are fairy tales.” They have some weird-ass fairy tales in Germany.

Congresscritters think France means to repudiate its war debt to the US. The Senate is thinking of advising banks not to make any more loans to France until it makes arrangements to pay up.

Turkey will confiscate the property of Greeks, whether citizens of Greece or of Turkey itself, in retaliation for alleged mistreatment of Muslims in Thrace and something or other about Muslim property in Greece.

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Today -100: December 30, 1924: When jury duty is jury pleasure

A San Juan, Puerto Rico prohibition case ends in a mistrial after the quart bottle of evidence mysteriously disappears. And by mysteriously disappears, I mean the jury... evaluated... whether it met the 0.5% alcohol threshold, until it was all gone.

Mussolini is again implicated in Fascist violence, including the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, by the leak of a memo from one of his top lieutenants, Cesare Rossi.

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Today -100: December 29, 1924: Of eclairs

Prime Minister Édouard Herriot brings espionage law charges against the newspaper Eclair for publishing a report from Gen. Marie Nollet from a few months ago complaining about Germany’s secret rearming. A day earlier Eclair (why am I getting hungry?) printed the minutes of a June meeting between Herriot & Ramsay MacDonald in which the former did not look good. All of the French press is pissed at Herriot for acting against a newspaper.

We know there are just 2 living survivors from the audience in Ford’s Theatre on the night Lincoln was assassinated, but what about the cast? Actor Jennie Ross, who had a small role, dies at 91 in her home from a gas leak or something. Born Jennie Anderson, she later married Civil War general W.E.W. Ross.

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Today -100: December 28, 1924: Of morally disarming, contracts, and horses

Britain, France, Japan, Italy and Belgium agree not to end the occupation of Cologne because Germany has been a very naughty boy and tried to secretly manufacture rifles and machine guns. The London Sunday Times and the Observer accuse Germany of failing to “morally disarm.”

Texas Governor-Elect Miriam Ferguson petitions the district court to remove the legal disability on her as a married woman to make contracts so she can sign contracts as governor without facing legal challenges.

From July, it will be illegal to drive a horse in downtown Los Angeles. Jaywalking will also be banned and pedestrians must raise an arm to indicate their intention to cross the road.

Austrian Socialists and the right-wing Catholic Christian Social Party both urge their followers to join the army, in a struggle for dominance of the army. The Socialists want to determine whether the army will resist monarchist or Communist putsches or put down strikes.

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Today -100: December 27, 1924: Look what Santa brought

Albania: The forces of Ahmet Zogu occupy Tirana on Christmas Day. Bishop-Prime Minister Fan Noli and his Cabinet flee into the night, carrying only the clothes on their back, probably, and all the government’s gold. Zogu enters the capital on horseback, as was the custom.

Fighting his annulment suit against his bride Alice, rich douche Leonard Kip Rhinelander opposes paying her alimony and lawyers’ fees pending the trial. The judge seems sympathetic to giving her some of that, not as much as she asked, after Rhinelander’s lawyer answers in the affirmative to the question “Are you going to attempt to prove the defendant has negro blood in her veins?” Such a genealogy search, tracing the roots of her West Indian grandfather (who her father evidently never knew) would be expensive, the judge observes. Tomorrow he’ll award her $300 a month and $3,000 for her lawyers.

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Today -100: December 26, 1924: A heart-warming Christmas story

A Spanish woman promised the Virgin of Carmel that if her soldier son came home safely from Morocco she’d take her own life. He does and she does.

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Today -100: December 25, 1924: We shall pursue our attacks on Almighty God in due time and in an appropriate manner

Grigori Zinoviev, chair of the Comintern, says maybe Communists have gone too far in fighting religion, so “We shall pursue our attacks on Almighty God in due time and in an appropriate manner.”

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Today -100: December 24, 1924: Of dirigibles, technical treason, and balls

Plans to have the large Navy dirigible Los Angeles fly over New York City and play Christmas carols have been called off. The Navy decided to give airship-operators the usual Xmas leave instead. (And no, there’s no explanation how the carols could have been played so as to be heard at ground level).

Erwin Rorthardt, the editor of the German monarchist Mitteldeutsche Presse, is convicted in a Magdeburg court of libel for claiming that Pres. Friedrich Ebert was guilty of treason for being part of the 1918 munitions strike (he evidently tried to bring it to an end) and is sentenced to 3 months, but the judge also says that Ebert is technically guilty of treason no matter his intention. Ebert had wanted to sue another editor earlier, but that case would have been tried in a court in hostile Bavaria so he didn’t.

Coolidge gives in and will allow inaugural balls, but he won’t go to any of them because he might have to dance and he can’t dance and won’t dance and you can’t make him.

Coolidge plans to keep the Cabinet he inherited from Harding, who was such a great judge of character, except for AgSec Gore, who wants to retire.

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Today -100: December 23, 1924: Spin doctors

Despite only having a caretaker government, Germany (Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann) asks the League of Nations about joining. It wants German participation in League military sanctions to be optional, since Germany is currently “completely disarmed.”

German Nationalists really want to be part of the next government, and are suggesting that the far-right-wing Reichswehr commander Gen. Hans von Seeckt use his... influence... to make sure of it.

Gandhi says he’ll only continue as president of the Indian National Congress if each member spins 2,000 yards of yarn a month.

F.W. Murnau’s film The Last Laugh (Der letzte Mann), with Emil Jannings, premieres.

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Today -100: December 22, 1924: Of foreign invaders, balls, and endless diets of jazz

Albanian Bishop-Prime Minister Fan Noli accuses Yugoslavia of being behind the coup against him and indeed being “the foreign invader.”

To answer the question I asked, Hiram Bingham III, who will be governor of Connecticut for exactly one day before stepping down to become a US senator, will indeed hold an inaugural ball.

Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover addresses the financial viability of radios. He understands that there needs to be some form of revenue to pay for programming: “The radio industry can't live on an endless diet of jazz.” He’s against licensing on the BBC model, so proposes a 2% or so tax on radio equipment (unclear if that means finished radios or radio parts – the first, commercial, BBC went bankrupt because it was financed by a tax on radios but hobbyists liked to build their own radio sets).

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Today -100: December 21, 1924: Tamed

Headline of the Day -100:  

Nailed it.

With increasing opposition in Parliament, and resignations of former supporters, Mussolini, in a surprise move, announces new elections for March or April. But first, he’s gonna change the electoral laws. Again.

Secretary of War John Weeks approves the use of federal lands in the construction of a bridge between San Francisco and Marin County. The Golden Gate Bridge will open in 1937.

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