Today -100: August 28, 1925: Of coal and secret conferences

Anthracite coal miners will begin a major strike Monday. 

In a speech in Brooklyn, New York Gov. Al Smith accuses NYC Mayor John Hylan of having been “in secret conference with the Klan, with the representative of the Klan” during the 1924 Democratic Convention. I gather by that he means William Gibbs McAdoo.

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Today -100: August 27, 1925: Of souls, radio teas, hooting, dwarfs, and wouldn’t it be cool if there actually were a baseball team called the Cads?

Prof. Charles Henry of the Sorbonne says he has proof that humans have a soul that survives death.

Carrie Chapman Catt’s speech on the 5th anniversary of the 19th Amendment (women’s activism is all about abolishing war now, she says) is broadcast on WEAF radio. In Westchester County, there are maybe 100 “radio teas” where women gather to listen to the speech.

At the World Zionist Congress, a call for a Jewish army in Palestine provokes anti-militarist “violent hooting” and militarist “counter-hooting.”

The Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Exposition next year will feature “the largest collection of dwarfs ever assembled.” The article (for which there seems to be no link) fails to explain why dwarfs are required. Was Philadelphia originally founded by dwarfs? That would explain a lot, probably. 

That’s “dwarfs,” by the way. The plural “dwarves” was coined by J.R. Tolkein to distinguish his characters from Disney’s Snow White dwarfs.

NYT Index Typo of the Day -100:

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Today -100: August 26, 1925: Of devoted mothers, motorless flying machines, tongs, and watermelons

Texas Gov. Miriam “Ma” Ferguson denies New York’s extradition request for Virginia Canaday, who kidnapped her son Roscoe Jr. from her ex-husband last month and fled the state. Ferguson calls Ms. Canaday a “devoted mother.” The ex kidnapped his kid from San Antonio first, back in April, removing him to Forest Hills, Long Island. There’s also a daughter, but no one seems to be mentioning her. I think she’s still with her father.

Inventor Alphonse Dube commits suicide by hanging himself after years of failing to get a motorless flying machine to work. And by “motorless flying machine,” I mean wings. That he flapped. Broke his leg last time he tried it.

A gang war between the On Leong Tong and the Hip Sing Tong erupts in shootings in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, St Louis and Minneapolis, despite the fact that “Hip Sing Tong” is objectively fun to say out loud. Do it now.

A farmer sends Pres. Coolidge a 100-pound watermelon.

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Today -100: August 25, 1925: Of unheard-of impudence and charlestons

At the World Zionist Congress in Vienna, Hungarian delegate Dr. Kahan points out that Hungary is the only country besides Russia where it is illegal to belong to a Zionist organization.

US Secretary of State Frank Kellogg, responding to a complaint by a Zionist organization against the violence in Vienna directed at that Congress, passed on the complaint to the Austrian government (er, maybe). The Hakenkreuzler (Austrian Nazis) newspaper Deutschösterrichische Tageszeitung attacks Kellogg’s “unheard-of impudence”: “As a private person he may serve his beloved Jews as much as he likes, but as Secretary of State it is none of his concern if the native population of Vienna thinks about the Jews differently from him.”

Headline of the Day -100:

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Today -100: August 24, 1925: Of non-engagement

Well, in the absence of any interesting substantive news today -100, let’s go with Royal Rumours™! Prince Henry of Britain, 25, the third son of King George, is reportedly (“again”) engaged to Lady Mary Scott, 21, daughter of the Duke & Duchess of Buccleuch. “If the rumors turn out to be correct, the engagement will be very popular.” They aren’t.

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Today -100: August 23, 1925: Of kluxers and racialists

Pres. Coolidge appoints M.O. Dunning, the paid lobbyist of the Ku Klux Klan, as collector of the port of Savannah, Georgia.

In Vienna, 20,000 “racialists,” many of them veterans in uniform and Hakenkreuzler in “‘Hitler’ shirts,” whatever those might be, hold a protest demonstration against the World Zionist Congress.

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Today -100: August 22, 1925: Metaphor of the Day -100

New York City is undergoing an unusually large mosquito invasion this year, including City Hall, where they’re breeding in the pools around the statue of Civic Virtue.

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Today -100: August 21, 1925: A seat, not a strap

Trying again to defang NYC Mayor Hylan’s main issue, Jimmy Walker says he is not only in favor of the 5¢ car fare, but “I’m for the five-cent fare with a seat, and not for the five-cent fare with a strap.”

Musical... Comedy? ... of the Day -100:

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Today -100: August 20, 1925: A man usually carries a gun for a purpose

NY Gov. Al Smith says people shouldn’t carry guns: “I have walked in the lower sections of New York for years and have never felt the need of a weapon. A man usually carries a gun for a purpose.”

One Walter White suggests, in a letter to the NYT, that NYC reduce traffic fatalities by adopting a system he saw in practice in Mobile, Alabama in which pedestrians as well as vehicles are required to obey traffic lights. Mr. White don’t know New Yorkers very well, do he?

The leopard Zizi who escaped into the Bois de Boulogne and wandered the park for 3 days, gets into the courtyard of a nearby school and is shot dead. Fuck.

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Today -100: August 19, 1925: Of debt, anti-Semites, and segregation

Belgium agrees to pay back its war & reconstruction debt to the US over 62 years.

The Hakenkreuzler rioting against the World Zionist Congress in Vienna has caused $4 million in damage.

Maryland’s Court of Appeals recently, I guess, declared zoning laws enforcing racial segregation illegal. Also illegal: a white mob in “fine old residential sections of Baltimore” attack a black family who are trying to move into a house they just leased, as well as the white man who owns the house, who now says he’ll refund the family’s money and not lease it to black folks.

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Today -100: August 18, 1925: Mass cannot govern mass

Anti-Semites attack the Freiheit Platz in Vienna where the 14th World Zionist Congress has convened. The police are holding them back.

Mussolini tells the Daily Press, “mass cannot govern mass; quantity cannot govern quantity.” Also, “there can be no such thing as liberty, which exists but in the imagination of philosophers who seek their unpractical philosophy from the skies... Is there such a thing as liberty? Civilization is the inverse of personal liberty.”  Also, too, “Julius Caesar is my ideal”.

Headline of the Day -100:

A couple of days ago a leopard escaped the Paris zoological gardens into the Bois de Boulogne, “rendering its beautiful nooks and paths unsuitable to lovers for moonlight strolls.” Cops pursue her on horses, bicycles and elephants, as was the custom. The leopard’s name is Zizi, because of course it is.

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Today -100: August 17, 1925: Of subs and Joisey Fashis

John Scopes, who resigned from Dayton’s High School after the Monkey Trial, will be replaced by someone who rejoices in the name Raleigh Valentine Reece, who does not believe in evolution. His brother is a member of Congress.

A meeting in Newark of Italians opposed to Fascism is invaded by the Fascisti League. A fight ensued involving stilettos and razors, with six stabbings, as was the custom. The Fascists claim to have gone to the meeting unarmed.

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Today -100: August 16, 1925: Of divorced Communists

To increase the number of women Communist agitators in Norway, male Norwegian Communists are marrying in Moscow (it is unclear if their new wives are Russian or Norwegian), and then divorcing them in Oslo, because divorcees in Norway don’t lose their citizenship and can’t be deported. The husbands then return to Moscow, rinse and repeat.

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Today -100: August 15, 1925: Of public praying and traffic lanes

Headline of the Day -100:

Striking (or locked-out) coal miners in Henryetta, Oklahoma, who had been ordered by the sheriff to stop praying near scabs, presumably intending to intimidate them. The ACLU is looking into it.

A letter to the Times suggests reducing traffic accidents by marking out lanes in the larger roads.

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Today -100: August 14, 1925: Of private citizens and divorces

New York Democratic Gov. Al Smith will fight to defeat New York City Democratic Mayor John Hylan by speechifying in favor of fellow Tammanyist Jimmy Walker, although he will do so as a private citizen rather than as governor, whatever that means.

Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk divorces his wife of 2½ years, Latife Hanoum. No legal procedure, just a decree, which he issues as a president rather than as a private citizen. The Western-educated (Paris & London) Latife is just too feminist for him. Or he was too much of a dick for her; neither of them ever spoke publicly about the divorce.

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Today -100: August 13, 1925: Of highly civilized nations and petting parties

German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann says that when Germany enters the League of Nations, it will insist on getting back some of its former colonies now ruled as League “mandates” by Britain, France, etc. He refers to the “right of Germany to have colonies,” asserting that “as long as the League distributed colonies on the principle that the highly civilized nations had the right to control the less progressive peoples, Germany demanded the right to be counted among the civilized nations.”

The University of California, Berkeley informs incoming women freshmen against frivolities such as wearing too much rouge and lipstick, returning from dances after 1 a.m., smoking, drinking, petting parties, etc.

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Today -100: August 12, 1925: Of the occult, klux fights, and dewws alCWA

Austria bans societies engaged in the study of the occult (spiritualism, if I’m reading this correctly).

16 KKKers are charged with assault with dangerous weapons in Framingham, Massachusetts after a clash with anti-kluxers at a Klan meeting.

Former slave Eliza Hicks dies at 100. She leaves (deep breath) 7 living children out of 14, 80 grandchildren, 134 great-grandchildren, and 8 great-great-grandchildren.

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Today -100: August 11, 1925: Of tickets

The three tickets for New York City offices – mayor, controller, president of the Board of Alderman – are chosen, with the Democratic ticket headed by John Hylan, a Tammany Democratic ticket headed by Jimmy Walker, and a Republican one headed by... well, it hardly matters, does it? He’s some dude in the fountain pen business.

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Today -100: August 10, 1925: The day of oratory is past

William Butler Yates says “The day of oratory is past, not only in Ireland but everywhere in the modern world.” He says that in the absence of decent speech-making, it will be the job of the Abbey Theatre (Dublin) to teach clarity of expression.

William Green, president of the AFL, warns black union members not to attend the American Negro Labor Congress organized by the (Communist) Workers’ Party: “It will not be held to benefit the race but to instill into the lives of that race the most pernicious doctrine – race hatred.”

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Today -100: August 9, 1925: Of marching kluxers and huge gorillas, but I repeat myself

35-40,000 Klansman from all over... well, from the North-East, mostly, march through Washington D.C. (the parade had a permit, it’s not a March on Rome thing) from the Capitol to the Washington Monument. They do not wear masks, in compliance with a D.C. ordinance. Many do hold their arms out in evident imitation of the Italian Fascist “Roman salute.” It rains at the end, so no giant-cross burning.

Some British Pathé footage of the parade.

By the way, after William Jennings Bryan’s death, some Klan chapters celebrated him, under the impression he was a member.

British Air Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare will fly over the North Sea in one of the secret flying boats being developed.

The NYT likes the Tod Browning / Lon Chaney film “The Unholy Three”: “Think of having such a combination as a midget, a strong man and a ventriloquist! ... There is also a huge gorilla that figures in this picture, and even the way in which this animal is employed makes a wonderful cog in the story.” Rewatching it recently I was surprised how good Mae Busch was; I mostly remember her from her multiple roles as the one-note wife of Oliver Hardy, was. The “midget” who disguised himself as an infant was Harry Earles, 22 or 23, who was also in the sound remake, “Freaks,” and “the Wizard of Oz,” but mostly worked in circuses with his 3 diminutive siblings.

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