Today -100: April 30, 1922: Of partition and plunder, tea pots dome, and police radios

The final meeting of all the sides in (southern) Ireland fails to come to any peace agreement. De Valera rejects a proposal by Griffith and Collins for a referendum on the Anglo-Irish Treaty, I guess because it would only take place in southern Ireland, thus “ratifying” the “partition and plunder act of 1920.”

The Senate orders its Committee on Public Lands to investigate the Tea Pot Dome and Elk Hills oil leases. It will also investigate Interior Secretary Albert Fall’s (false) claim that the leases were necessary because oil companies owning fields next to the government oil fields have been siphoning oil from them.

Paris police cars are getting radios. Do they have the wee woo wee woo sirens yet?

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Today -100: April 29, 1922: Of sluiceways of corruption, spirit flappers, and corsets

Sen. Robert La Follette (R-Wisc.) calls the Interior Dept the “sluiceway for 90% of the corruption in this country.” (I’m not entirely sure that’s a 9). Sen. Miles Poindexter (R-Wash.) says the Naval Affairs Committee will probably investigate the lease of the naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome. La Follette says naval officers who protested the leases were transferred.

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Warlord v. warlord.

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The Chicago Corset Club, which, sadly, probably isn’t as kinky as it sounds, says only 5% of women wear corsets. How it came by this data is not disclosed.

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Today -100: April 28, 1922: I won’t be intimidated by any gunmen here

The Secret Service suggests Pres. Harding not take an excursion steamer to an event celebrating Ulysses S. Grant’s 100th birthday in the small Ohio town where Grant was born, because the steamer is kind of crowded. He doesn’t, and the observation deck collapses. Instead he sails on the War Dept. tugboat Cayuga, on which a 9-year-old stowaway is found on the way back. Hardy not only stops the boy being removed, but takes him to dinner at Charles Taft’s house.

Oh, and happy Ulysses S. Grant Day, I guess, to those who celebrate.

British newspapers have been offering free insurance to their subscribers. Anyway, Winston Churchill puts in a claim to three of these papers after falling off a polo pony while drunk (I’m just assuming the last part, but c’mon it’s Churchill).

At the Dáil Éireann, Irish Free State Pres. Arthur Griffith says Éamon de Valera used to be willing to compromise on the issue of the Republic. De Valera says that’s a lie. Griffith replies, “I won’t be intimidated by any gunmen here.”

Near East Relief made a film last year to promote famine relief, Alice in Hungerland. Its star Esther Razon, plucked out of a Constantinople orphanage to play the lead, has since been adopted by Florence Spencer Duryea. But Rabbi Stephen Wise is complaining that little Esther (now called Alice) is not being raised as a Jew and wants to take her and give her to a Jewish family. Won’t happen.

Henry Ford’s auto is stolen. The policeman he phoned to report it asks what kind of car it is.

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In other news, there’s a “Lady Belper.” And a Baron Belper. That’s the 3rd Baron Belper, born Algernon Henry Strutt. How these people escaped into the real world from the pages of a P.G. Wodehouse story, I do not know.

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Today -100: April 27, 1922: By the throat

Frederick Van Rensselaer Dey, who began the Nick Carter, Detective stories in 1890 and wrote, according to MacLean’s, 40 million words in over 1,000 Nick Carter stories, now penniless, shoots himself in the Hotel Broztell. “Things have gone to smash with me, and I’m just tired out, and want to try the long sleep,” he says in a letter. He was 61.

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Lenin has a second operation to remove a remaining bullet fragment.

King Gustav of Sweden is injured when his automobile is hit by the car of a Geneva banker, which is probably a metaphor of some kind.

Speaking of metaphors, NYC District Attorney Joab Banton says “We’ve got the crime wave by the throat.”

Fritz Lang’s film Dr Mabuse the Gambler part 1 premieres in Germany.

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Today -100: April 26, 1922: Of bullets, klans, and dinosaurs

Surgeons remove the bullet from Lenin’s side that’s been there since an assassination attempt 3 years ago.

A large group of Klansmen attack the home of the Elduayen family in Inglewood, California, for unknown reasons. A night marshal shoots at the band, killing a deputy constable participating in the event in his other capacity as a Kluxer.

A hunting party in Argentina fails to find that plesiosaur, which totally exists.

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Today -100: April 25, 1922: Harding disapproves

On the 6th anniversary of the Easter Rising, Dublin has a one-day strike to protest the developing civil war. Everything shuts down, including telephones, trains, and newspapers.

Last week cops trying to arrest moonshiners in Clay County, Kentucky were attacked. So Circuit Court Judge Hiram Johnson orders the arrest of everyone over 12 in the Mill Creek neighborhood.

Some of the former German princes are forming an organization to demand the return of the property they lost when they abdicated in 1918. Günther Victor, the ex-prince of Schwarzburg, says the agreements made along with abdication are “null and void, as contrary to good morals,” suffer from irregularities, and were made “under compulsion and misapprehension.”

Nebraska bans non-citizens buying property (existing non-citizens are grandfathered in).

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Today -100: April 24, 1922: Wherein is revealed what is directly responsible for much of the turmoil in the world today

Another day at the Genoa Conference, another snippy note to Germany from the Allies (plus the Little Entente countries and Portugal), this one claiming they have the power to nullify any clause of the Russo-German treaty they don’t like. Germany decides not to respond.

Bishop Quertin of Manchester, New Hampshire says modern women’s fashions are “directly responsible for much of the turmoil in the world today.”

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Today -100: April 23, 1922: When in Rome

Russian Foreign Minister Georgy Tchitcherin does indeed meet the Italian king, and is even filmed shaking his hand. “In Rome, do as Rome does,” he says.  Telling the Italian people that they’re wrong to like having a king would be meddling, he says (Update: It will come out that toasts to the king were omitted because of fear that the Russians wouldn’t drink – it’s like they’ve never met a Russian before).

Tchitcherin also shakes the hand of French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou, who upon discovering that the moment was captured on film demands “in explosive French” that the film be destroyed. The cameramen refused.

The Freeman’s Journal (Dublin) reappears three weeks after its press was wrecked by the IRA, announcing, “To our readers and raiders, good morning!”

Lloyd George says “I am tired of crises at the Genoa conference.” 

France, which is not tired of crises at the Genoa Conference, demands that Germany and Russia reveal the secret clauses of their treaty, which France is pretty sure totally exist.

500 members and officials of the United Mine Workers of America go on trial for treason.

With the Kelsey Perfected Friction-Drive!

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Today -100: April 22, 1922: Of debts, ghosts, champions, teapots dome, and cannibals

Russia says it will recognize its pre-Communist debts if its government is recognized first. France, to which most of those debts are owed, says it will recognize the Soviet government if it recognizes those debts first.

But will the Russian delegates attend a luncheon for all the delegates given by King Victor Emmanuel? The Italian Communists are asking them not to.

In Carnegie Hall, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle shows pictures of ghosts, including one of his son’s ghost.

The IRA, presumably, smash up the Sligo Champion newspaper to prevent it reporting on Pres. Arthur Griffith’s pro-Treaty meeting.

Sen. Bob La Follette introduces a resolution calling for the facts on the oil leases in Teapot Dome and Elk Hills.

French conservative newspaper L'Echo National claims that Col. William Haskell, head of the American Relief Administration, doing famine relief work in Russia, has been eaten by starving Russians.

Um, he hasn’t been.

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Today -100: April 21, 1922: Going to succeed because it must succeed

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And in Dublin IRA gunmen shoot up buildings occupied by government forces. Which brand of IRA gunmen they are is unclear, as the ones occupying the Four Courts disavow them.

Lloyd George crows that he has “saved” the Genoa Conference by his threat to Germany that it either renounce its treaty with Russia or withdraw from Conference discussions about Russia. It has chosen the latter. “This conference is going to succeed because it must succeed,” he says. He again accuses Germany of being “disloyal,” which gets more hilarious each time I read it.

British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill falls off a horse.

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Today -100: April 20, 1922: Of navies, ethnic cleansings, and windles

The House of Representatives supports Harding’s demand for a 86,000-man Navy and a pay raise for the Navy. The bill also limits the money spent on the teaching of swordsmanship at Annapolis.

Mussolini says there’s something crooked about the Rapallo Treaty and the Russians are up to no good and something something Adriatic and Fascist squads should be ready for action.

Berlin authorities are considering responding to the assassination of those two Young Turk genociders by expelling all Armenians from the city. Germans are not big on irony.

The Nebraska Supreme Court upholds a wartime law banning the teaching of German to pre-high school students in any schools, including private and parochial schools

Sir Bertram Windle of the University of Toronto will speak at the New York Province of Newman Clubs at the Waldorf-Astoria on the subject “No, Your Name Is Fucking Hilarious.”

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Today -100: April 19, 1922: Of trickery, assassinations, teapot domes, and No Fatties

At the Genoa Conference, the Allies send Germany a note complaining that it violated their “offer of good-will and fellowship” by signing the Treaty of Rapallo with Russia. They punish Germany by excluding it from negotiations with Russia. Which accomplishes exactly zero, since the whole point is that Germany and Russia have completed their negotiations. Signed a treaty and everything. German Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau rejects British claims that Germany acted sneakily, saying they informed Lloyd George’s people (LG wouldn’t meet with him) that if the Allies insisted on leaving Germany out of talks about Russia it would sign a separate treaty. LG denies this and calls the move “trickery.”

In Berlin, two Armenians assassinate Djemal Azmy Bey (also spelled Cemal Azmi), the former governor of the Ottoman Empire’s Trebizond Province, where he organized the Armenian Genocide, and his aide Baha Eddin Chakir. The Berlin police round up the usual (Armenian) suspects, but the assassins are not caught, and won’t be.

The Department of the Interior explains the oil leasing arrangements in Teapot Dome, Wyoming and Elk Hills, California.

Will Hays bans Fatty Arbuckle films, acquittal or no acquittal. So instead of stopping “immoral” movies, he sees his remit as extending to people. #CancelCulture1922

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Today -100: April 18, 1922: Naturally furious

Michael Collins fights off an assassination attempt by a dozen men in Parnell Square, Dublin, personally capturing one. What a guy.

During the first week of the Genoa Conference, it became clear to the Germans that they wouldn’t be getting any concessions, so they signed a treaty with Russia (the Treaty of Rapallo, well, a Treaty of Rapallo, since there was another one of those in 1920) which they’ve supposedly been negotiating for months, reestablishing diplomatic relations, canceling all indemnity claims from the war as well as pre-war debts and compensation for nationalization of Germany properties in Russia. Which is the deal Russia wants from the conference, and isn’t getting. Lloyd George sends Germany a letter expressing “pained surprise,” while the French are “naturally furious.” Naturally.

The Belgian Socialist Party votes against women’s suffrage for provincial elections, out of fear that the Catholic Party would gain women’s votes. Women will get the vote at the provincial and national level in 1948.

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Today -100: April 17, 1922: Now we can have a fight in peace among ourselves

What counts as good news for the Irish Free State administration: Pres. Arthur Griffith makes a speech in Sligo without even being kidnapped. Griffith went to Sligo in defiance of an IRA ban on his speech. He came with a bunch of soldiers, who got into desultory bloodless gunfights with the IRA. Before he went, he made out his will.

Michael Collins warns that Ireland is “rapidly developing a state of civil war.”

In Dublin, the IRA continues to occupy the law courts and other buildings, and the government has likewise fortified the buildings it holds, but neither side seems to be preparing for offensive action. The NYT passes along a joke: “The Black and Tans have gone and now we can have a fight in peace among ourselves.”

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Today -100: April 16, 1922: Take it!

The House of Lords is debating Nancy Astor’s bill to repeal the Saxon law under which wives who commit crimes in the presence of their husbands are deemed to be acting under their control. Some peers think the law should be updated to reflect the modern status of women, but former Lord High Chancellor Lord Buckmaster insists that women today, especially among the lower classes, do act under their husbands’ direction. The Saxons, he says, “knew as much about men and women as we do today.” Lady Frances Balfour, in The Times, points out other laws affecting married women, who evidently need permission from their husbands to have an operation.

Éamon de Valera issues an Easter message to the youth of Ireland: “Ireland is yours for the taking! Take it!” People are taking this to mean he’s planning a coup during Easter.

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Today -100: April 15, 1922: Of debts, the our Courts, and short skirts

At the Genoa Conference, Russia is refusing to take dictation from the other countries, which had assumed that Russia’s need for foreign loans put them in control. Russia keeps bringing up the issue of the compensation for damage during the war which they could have demanded from the Central Powers and for damage caused by Allies-backed Whites during the Civil War, as a counter-balance, or something, for the war debts it owes.

IRAers seize Dublin’s law courts and a nearby hotel. Commandant Gen. Rory O’Connor says this isn’t a coup, they just needed the room.

A high school board election in Kansas is fought on the issue of skirt lengths, with Perry Stevens, defending the 3-inches-below-the-knee rule, defeating Seth Fenton, who thinks the rule is a blow at national liberties.

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Today -100: April 14, 1922: Always a dagger in her pocket and holding a poignard between her lips

The Massachusetts Supreme Court says women are indeed eligible for elective and appointive offices, contrary to what Attorney Gen. J. Weston Allen said.

Puerto Rico’s Gov. E. Mont Reily and president of the Puerto Rican Senate Antonio Rafael Barceló sent Secretary of War John Weeks a joint telegram saying they’d worked out their differences. Barceló now denies this. The confusion is being blamed on the fact that Reily speaks no Spanish and Barceló no English. 

The grand jury that recommended Gov. Reily be indicted has been dismissed, even though it still had matters before it. Just so subtle.

NYC Mayor John Hylan says the whole “crime wave” thing is being ginned up by people afraid he might run for governor, you know, gamblers and “smug, surface respectables” opposed to public ownership of utilities, people like that. Incumbent Gov. Nathan Miller recently vetoed a bill to increase the mayor’s pay.

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The Wall Street Journal reports the leasing by Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall of the Teapot Dome oil reserves to Sinclair Oil. I don’t have access to the whole WSJ story, so I’m not sure if it makes it clear that this deal was done in secret. (Update: ok, I thought the Journal broke this story, but there’s also an article on p.34 of today -100’s NYT).

Australian aviator Sir Ross Macpherson Smith and his mechanic are killed in the crash of a Vickers amphibious plane which was intended to travel around the world, or at least more than a few feet. In 1919 he and his brother flew from England to Australia.

French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou, leading the French delegation to the Genoa Conference, complains that France is misunderstood in the US & Britain: “they conceive of France as concealing always a dagger in her pocket and holding a poignard between her lips.” Kinky. He defends France’s refusal to allow reparations or disarmament (even of poignards) to be discussed at the conference.

Pittsburgh police are issued riot guns because of the crime wave, and told “shoot to kill.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has thoughts about what the afterlife is like. This is so embarrassing.

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Today -100: April 13, 1922: Out of the fire

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle is acquitted in his third trial. The jury deliberated for about a minute and also came back with a statement that the trial was “a great injustice” against Fatty, against whom, they say, there was no evidence whatsoever. It’s unclear who actually wrote the statement for them, as they weren’t out long enough to have written it themselves. The Famous Players-Lasky Corporation announces it will release a new Arbuckle picture and... see how it goes from there.

Puerto Rico District Attorney R. Diaz Collazo refuses Gov. E. Mont Reily’s order to leave his post, saying his dismissal is illegal. So Reily has him thrown out of his office by the cops. So subtle.

Russians’ right to own personal automobiles is restored.

Roberta Birmingham files papers to run for justice of the peace in St. Joseph, Missouri. She promises not to marry during her term of office. Miss Birmingham, a clerk in the justice’s office, “is called one of the prettiest women in the Court House.”

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Today -100: April 12, 1922: Of firings, conferences, and bonuses

Puerto Rican Gov. E. Mont Reily fires the district attorney, R. Diaz Collazo, who the grand jury just directed to indict him. Subtle.

The archbishop of Dublin and the lord mayor of Dublin call a peace conference, with Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera. 

Russian Foreign Minister Georgy Tchitcherin objects to the presence at the Genoa Conference of Japan, which is occupying part of Siberia, and Romania, which is occupying Bessarabia. France and Belgium object to Germany and Russia being on the principle committee. 

NY passes a $1 million bonus bill, giving a max of $250, in monthly instalments, to wounded veterans unemployed more than 14 days.

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Today -100: April 11, 1922: Europe needs quiet

Germany rejects the Reparations Commission’s demand for Allied control of German finances and massive new taxes.

The US Supreme Court rules that citizens of Puerto Rico do not have a 6th Amendment right to trial by jury for misdemeanors. Chief Justice William Howard Taft says, “Puerto Rico belongs to the United States, but is not part of the United States. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory and even though Puerto Ricans have American citizenship, they do not have the same rights as the common American citizen.” Since the case was one of criminal libel, this effectively means that Puerto Rico doesn’t have 1st Amendment protections either. The Biden Administration continues to rely on this and the other Insular Cases in claiming that US possessions are not strictly part of the United States and their residents have only those rights specifically given them. A 2020 Circuit Court case, for example, ruled that goods arriving in the US Virgin Islands could be searched without a warrant.

A Puerto Rican grand jury calls for indictments against Gov. E. Mont Reily, his secretary, and an auditor, for misappropriation of funds.

At the Genoa Conference, everyone is talking about Russian Foreign Minister Georgy Tchitcherin’s silk top hat. There were long debates back home over whether he should wear this bourgeois affectation, but he was ordered – ordered! – to buy one (in Berlin along the way to Genoa) and wear it. Then he mislaid it at the border with Austria and had his train stopped while a courier was sent to retrieve it. There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere.

Lloyd George makes a speech at the conference that doesn’t even mention the hat. “There is no real peace in Europe,” he says. “Fighting has ceased, but snarling goes on, and as there are many dogs in every country who imagine that the louder they bark and the longer they bark the deeper impression they make of their ferocity, Europe is deafened with this canine clamor. It is undignified, it is distracting, it destroys confidence. It wrecks the nerves of a nerve-racked continent, and we shall make a real contribution to the restoration of Europe if at this conference we can stop that snarling. Europe needs quiet. We can get peace if we act together, but not if we act in a spirit of greedy vigilance over selfish interests.” French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou, who may have recognized himself in that last bit, says: “The French delegation will never pronounce one word of hate. It desires no one’s humiliation. ... It is inspired by good faith and good will.” FACT CHECK: No it isn’t.

NYC Police Commissioner Richard Enright calls up the police reserves “as emergency attack on the alleged crime wave which he says does not exist.” The 75 motorcycle cops normally used to halt speeders will patrol the streets at night. Enright asks the public to lend cars and horses to the cops.

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