Today -100: May 20, 1925: Competing monkey trials

Dayton, Tennessee is very upset about Chattanooga’s plans to indict one of its teachers for teaching evolution, potentially stealing publicity away from Dayton’s trial and maybe even beating it to the punch.

Mussolini finally musters a quorum in the Chamber of Deputies to ban secret societies (i.e., the Freemasons). The vote is unanimous.

French Impressionist painter Armand Guillaumin, 84, proclaims himself rejuvenated by a procedure involving blood transfusions from young girls.

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Charles Amador is also enjoined from calling himself “Charles Aplin,” as well as wearing the distinctive mustache, cane, baggy pants, etc. (Except for the name thing, the injunction will be overturned in July).

If Chaplin now has one copyright-protected face, his opposite must be “The Man of a Thousand Faces,” Lon Chaney, whose film The Unholy Three, directed by Tod Browning, premieres today.

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Today -100: May 19, 1925: I want to see war considered a crime

Sen. William Borah (R-Idaho) says he opposes the League of Nations and World Court because their underlying principle is that force is the mainstay of government. “I want to see war considered a crime.”

Rep. Louis McFadden (R-Penn.), chair of the Banking and Currency Committee and a massive anti-semite, as well as two brokerage firms, are sued for lying on an affidavit, something about a stock issue for a radio company that claimed it did radio shit that it did not do.

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William Cavalier, 14 at the time of his trial for killing his grandmother.

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Today -100: May 18, 1925: Log cabins

Bird Sim Coler, NYC commissioner for public welfare, laying the cornerstone of a hospital, says that with hospital births supplanting home ones, there will soon be no more presidents born in log cabins. In fact, the last president born in an actual log cabin was James Garfield, in 1831, but presidents were all born at home until Jimmy Carter, the first prez born in a hospital.

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Today -100: May 17, 1925: The greatest possible good to our friends, the greatest possible harm to our enemies

The US demands that 9 nations with debts from the Great War start repaying their loans (and this means YOU, France).

Mussolini fails to get Parliament to pass his ban on secret (i.e., Masonic) societies after deputies walk out, preventing a quorum. And this even after the Duck gave this rationale for the ban: “We must do the greatest possible good to our friends, the greatest possible harm to our enemies.”

The municipal women’s suffrage bill Mussolini supported has been narrowed in the Chamber of Deputies: women over 25, but only if they have military medals or ones for civil valor or merit in elementary teaching or... public sanitation; or mothers of war dead or war widows; or guardians of children; or who have elementary education; or pay 40 lire in taxes and are also able to read and write. Women can hold local offices except mayor, assessor, or council head.

Another Mussolini bill: Prince Umberto’s allowance would be increased 50% if he married. He’s 20.

Dayton, Tennessee teacher John Scopes, who the NYT is for some reason calling Professor Scopes – do they think small-town Tennessee high schools are staffed by professors? – says he didn’t even know he was breaking the law when he taught evolution. He says he’s heard that Clarence Darrow and Dudley Field Malone have offered to defend him (without taking pay or expenses) and he’s pleased. He will later insist on them participating over the ACLU’s objections, demonstrating a better understanding of what was going on than they did.

King George V has taken to wearing horn-rimmed glasses, which are an American thing and have been widely mocked in Britain, although presumably that all stops now.

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They’re all like, “’Sup, dude.”

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Funny, I always figured them more as butt guys.

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Today -100: May 16, 1925: All this does not change the poetry of life

Gen. Nelson Appleton Miles, who joined the army during the Civil War, becoming a general at 25, and later killed him some Injuns and some Pullman railroad strikers, and was military governor of Puerto Rico and commanding general of the US Army, dies at 85 in a manner befitting his life: dropping dead at Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus. In 1904 he refused the Prohibition Party nomination for president; it instead went to (ahem) Silas Swallow. He was wounded several times in the Civil War. 36 years after a Confederate sharp-shooter shot him in the belt buckle, they met and the soldier said that all things considered he was glad he hadn’t killed Miles.

Mussolini succeeds in convincing Parliament to give women the vote. Well, the vote in municipal elections anyway. Ironically, it’s an exercise in macho dominance because most Fascists deputies do not like the idea at all, but fall in line anyway. The Duck says “I have never met a woman who asked me for the vote.” He says in this, the “century of capitalism,” women are obliged to work. “However, all this does not change the poetry of life.” Not the limericks, anyway. Oddly, he says he’s actually “pessimistic” about the value of women’s suffrage: “I know it will not bring a cataclysm, but I do not believe it will bring much good, or, in fact, change matters much.” He also says that in his forthcoming mobilization orders, women will be conscripted during wartime.

Pres. Coolidge rejects the Anti-Saloon League’s suggestion that he use the Navy to enforce Prohibition.

After school board elections in Elmsford, Westchester County, New York, school principal Howard Lee Holden is forced out because of his habit of beating pupils with a rubber hose.

The late Anatole France had a very light brain.

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Today -100: May 15, 1925: Rhenium! Don’t put it on ice creamium!

During the January solar eclipse, a new element was discovered in the sun by x-ray spectroscopy. According to Prof. Frederick Slocum of the Van Vleck Observatory, who had nothing to do with the discovery, scientists are not prepared to bestow a name on the element at this time. This blog can reveal, exclusively, that that element was ultimately named rhenium (it would have been nipponium if its original Japanese discoverer some years ago hadn’t mistaken it for element 43).

NY Mayor John Hylan gets vaccinated against smallpox to set a good example. There are currently 6 cases of smallpox in the city, but it has a stronger hold in other cities.

The Italian Parliament opens. Mussolini’s priorities: women’s suffrage (which is not popular among Fascists in general), a new constitution, and cracking down on Freemasons and the press.

H. Rider Haggard, author of King Solomon’s Mines, She, etc., dies at 68.

A mob pulls black man Jack West from a train and lynches him near Longwood, Florida.

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Today -100: May 14, 1925: One lord a-leeping

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He says the battle is between 11,000 members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science versus 109 million Americans. “For the first time in my life I’m on the side of the majority.”

Leon Trotsky is back in Moscow after an 8-month absence officially attributed to illness but which no one believes was due to illness. He is elected to the Presidium to louder applause than, say, Stalin.

Lord Alfred Milner, the 1st (and last) Viscount Milner, 71, governor of the Cape Colony (1897-1901) and of the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony (1901-1905), secretary of state for War (1918-1919), sec. state for the Colonies (1919-1921), and, like all arch-imperialists, prominent opponent of women’s suffrage, dies of sleeping sickness after a visit to South Africa, or, as the NYT index puts it,

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway is published.

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Today -100: May 13, 1925: Guess who’s going to Tennessee!

At a NYC Board of Aldermen meeting, Aldercritter George Harvey condemns the NYPD’s issuing of special “P.D.” plates to at least 250 people whose identities have been kept secret and who use them to drive however they damned well feel like. Harvey wants a list of plate-holders. Some rich dudes admit to possessing them including the presidents of the American Car and Foundry Company, the Empire Safe Deposit Company, and Brooklyn Edison; also the maître d'hôtel of the Waldorf. Harvey calls for the withdrawal of plates from non-cops.

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Paul von Hindenburg, 77, is sworn in as president of Germany. Is there goose-stepping? You bet your ass there’s goose-stepping.

Three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan will act as lawyer for the World’s Christian Fundamental Association in the Scopes trial. I think he last practiced law in the 1880s.

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Today -100: May 12, 1925: Of monarchist roars, little ententes, and reasonable racist laws

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Monarchist roars are... not the worst kind of roars ever heard in Berlin. Republicans and Communists stay away, maybe less a boycott and more fear of violence and arrest. “One old man who boasted the honor of cheering three Kaisers in Berlin streets dropped dead when the Presidential car sped by.”

Bulgarian courts-martial convict 8 for the Sofia church bombing, sentencing them to death by public execution, but only 3 are actually in custody.

The Little Entente (Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia) conference, meeting in Bucharest, issues what amounts to an ultimatum to Austria: expel Communists from Vienna, reduce government spending, end the demand for union with Germany. Austrian Vice-Chancellor Leopold Waber responds that Austria is burdened with having to pay pensions and such for Czechs living in Austria who should have been expelled (I suspect he’s most irked by the presence of foreign Jews).

The Supreme Court upholds California’s racist land law, saying the ban on American citizens selling land to Japanese does not violate the 14th Amendment (perish the thought) or the 1911 treaty between the US & Japan. The opinion, written by Harding appointee Pierce Butler, says the ban is perfectly reasonable.

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Today -100: May 11, 1925: Astir

Berlin is “all astir” over Hindenburg’s forthcoming inauguration. The Communists are certainly all astir, which is why the police have banned them from demonstrating against the former field marshal. They’ve also banned bands, so no oompahing (or possibly oom-pahing; the internet is divided on the correct spelling) for Mr. von H. Also no monarchist marches.

Interesting (but ridiculous) rumors about George Bernard Shaw: 1) He’s writing a play called “The Trial of Jesus,” 2) He’s converted to Catholicism.

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Today -100: May 10, 1925: Of imperial colors

Evidently the oath Hindenburg will have to swear is not only to the Weimar Republic’s constitution but also to its flag, so republicans are arguing that monarchist plans to display banners for his inauguration in the imperial colors (black, white, red) are inappropriate. Berlin police ban carrying arms in the celebratory events.

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Today -100: May 9, 1925: Multi-fasching

The Coast Guard claims that rum-runners are sabotaging its vessels, which keep mysteriously blowing up. They’re setting the stage for a shoot-to-kill policy.

Accumulating more and more government posts, Mussolini names himself Minister of the Navy. He is also currently in charge of foreign affairs, the army, and the air force.

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Today -100: May 8, 1925: Of anti-Reds, refugees, and duties

Bulgaria is trying to start a Balkan anti-Red union. Looks like Bulgaria is taking advantage of the attack on the Sofia church to try to assert leadership in the region, like after the First Balkan War when it thought it was going to lead a Balkan Empire and even started designing royal crests, only to have all the other countries turn on it in the Second Balkan War.

Austria refuses to expel political refugees from Vienna, as has been requested by neighboring countries complaining about Communist plots.

The British Parliament restores the duties, originally imposed by the last Liberal government and then dropped by the last Labour government, on motor cars, musical instruments, films and timepieces. Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill says too much fuss is made about duties and he only reimposed them because Philip Snowden’s cancelling of them was a partisan act and he (Churchill) wants to underline that. Churchill is accused in return of being forced to do this to prove his new loyalty to the Tories.

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Today -100: May 7, 1925: In which we learn what job has no place in a republican form of government. Is it a king? It’s probably a king.

The German Social Democrats call for the election of Paul von Hindenburg as president to be annulled because of election irregularities. Schools in Prussia will close for Field Marshal H’s inauguration.

Michigan Gov. Alex Groesbeck vetoes a bill allowing him to appoint a state poet laureate, calling it a “monarchical custom” which “has no place in a republican form of government.” 

By arrangement, Dayton, Tennessee teacher John Scopes is arrested for teaching evolution.

An anti-evolution bill is being considered in Florida, whose ban on evolution-teaching would include universities that receive state funds, which I believe the Tennessee law does not.

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Today -100: May 6, 1925: Altruistic twaddle is the... you know, I don’t know

NYC Mayor John Hylan announces his bid for re-election for a third term. He is currently resisting the state government and indeed state law in attempting to dig a Staten Island tunnel that can accommodate freight cars; the state insists it be used only for passenger train service. Although ground was broken in 1923, that dispute will have halted work by the end of the year. The incomplete tunnel is still down there. Other Hylan issues are also mostly public transportation things, which he expresses in slogan form as the five-cent fare, the traction trust, the billion-dollar prize, and the subsidized press. The “billion-dollar conspiracy” consists of “the traction ring” scheming to replace the current Board of Estimate so it can increase fares, take over the transit system and profit from giving out bus routes.

Bulgaria outlaws Communists, who are being hunted and killed, and killing government forces in return.

Washington Gov. Roland H. Hartley (R) refuses to name a delegate to a national conference on child welfare, saying children are “being made to pay the penalty for an overabundance of altruistic twaddle.” We should “stop a lot of this uplift gush. ... Can we wonder that our children go wrong? Petted, pampered, educated at the expense of the State, robbed of self-reliance and independence, we send them forth as weaklings to take up the rugged path of life for themselves.” Probably best not to google “uplift gush.” I mean I don’t know that for sure, taking my own advice, but you do you.

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Today -100: May 5, 1925: Or burnings at the stake

France bans any Joan of Arc Day parades in Paris on Sunday because they might lead to violent clashes.

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Today -100: May 4, 1925: Klux around and find out

King Alexander of Yugoslavia orders his brother Prince George interned as insane. George is given to wild behaviour and in 1909 George was forced to renounce any claim to the throne after he kicked a servant to death. He’ll remain incarcerated until freed by the Germans during World War II. After the war, He’ll be the only member of the royal family not banished by Tito (or assassinated earlier, like King Alex) and will die in 1972 at the age of 85.

El Salvador’s Congress passes a motion banning entry by non-whites.

Another attack on a Klan rally. Protesters throw stones at the kluxxers as they leave a field outside Berlin, Massachusetts. And in Baldwin, Massachusetts, Arthur Baker is hit by a stone while leading a Klan parade. I strongly condemn this action because, and only because, they might have hit the horse he was riding. He & 2 others are arrested for holding a parade without a permit.

Britain’s Prince Edward wins over Boer nationalists in Cape Town by speaking to them in Afrikaans, having painstakingly memorized and haltingly recited, “Meneere, ek is baie bly julle vanaant te ontmoet, en ek bedank julle nogmals vir julle warme welkom!” (“Gentlemen, I am very pleased to meet you tonight, and I thank you again for your warm welcome!”). Eddie didn’t like the “Dutch” at all, as letters to his mother show, but hid it well.

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Today -100: May 3, 1925: When you’re tired of Morocco, you’re tired of life

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President Primo de Rivera thinks subjugating Spanish Morocco, which Spain has been signally failing to do, is a waste of time because it will never pay off economically.

The ACLU places an ad in the Knoxville Journal calling for any Tennessee teacher to volunteer to be a test case of the new anti-evolution law.

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Today -100: May 2, 1925: Of non-riots, tunnels, subversive opinion and unscrupulous propaganda, and circuses

Yesterday was May Day and, sadly, there were no proper riots anywhere.

Coolidge wants business to be “undisturbed” by the government during the congressional recess (until December), with no announcements or agitation. He’ll be leading his fellow politicians by example by taking a six-week vacation during which he will say and do nothing.

Bulgaria claims to have thwarted another attempt to assassinate Tsar Boris by tunneling under the royal palace and blowing it up, as you do.

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill gives a speech complaining about “subversive opinion and unscrupulous propaganda” coming from outside the country (from you-know-where). He accuses the Labour Party, which he calls the Socialist Party, of “having needlessly and wantonly corrupted...” – that’s the worst kind of corrupting – “...large masses of the British nation” with doctrines that would “starve a large proportion of the population of this crowded island.”

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Al Smith and the freaks. But I repeat myself. No explanation is given for his failure to bring any girls. Aren’t they entitled to gape at the freaks as well?

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Today -100: May 1, 1925: Of murderous vaccines, dole habits, bibles, and murder rates

14 people have died of a highly lethal strain of smallpox in D.C. since the start of the year. Government employees are being asked to get the vaccine. Pres. and Mrs. Coolidge are believed to have done so. So there are picketers outside government buildings with signs saying that hundreds have been “murdered by vaccines.”

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill continues to defend his budget in Parliament, making himself no friends on the Labour side by suggesting unions should discourage “the dole habit.”

Ohio Gov. Vic Donahey (D) vetoes the alliterative Buchanan Bible Bill, which is backed by the alliterative Ku Klux Klan and would have required mandatory daily Bible-reading (of at least 10 verses) in public schools and for 4th-graders to memorize the 10 Commandments. Donahey’s veto message mentions religious freedom and the US & Ohio constitutions, but points out that local school boards can just ignore that shit and mandate Bible-reading.

Field Marshal Hindenburg will take his presidential oath in civilian dress after all.

NYC Police Commissioner Richard Enright, responding to remarks by Harold Aron, chair of the Republican Publicity Committee, denies that the murder rate in the city has increased substantially since Mayor Hylan appointed him in 1918 and denounces people (Republicans) who claim the NYPD is inefficient, saying they’re greater foes to society than the criminals. He says there haven’t been 1,900 murders, there were only 1,747 (he doesn’t count accidental or justifiable homicides or infanticide). He blames the recent increase on the Tong War and bootlegger contretemps. He criticizes juries who acquit criminals because “their confessions under certain circumstances cannot be used against them”.

Don Okle resigns as an undercover federal Prohibition agent in San Francisco because his job entailed taking 50 drinks a day on average “to obtain evidence.”

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