Today -100: September 30, 1923: If the Nazis complain about being cancelled, I may fwow up

Otto Gessler, who German Pres. Ebert put in charge of martial law, suppresses the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter, which is owned by Hitler personally, until further notice, after it quotes Bavarian dictator Gustav von Kahr saying that he would allow the proclamation of a Bavarian monarchy soon (Prince Rupprecht has been very visible in Munich lately, reviewing parades of veterans and the like). Von Kahr refuses to confirm or deny the quote. The federal government first tried to get von Kahr to suppress the paper, but he refused.

An ad for Ben Hecht’s book The Florentine Dagger calls it “A mystery story that does not insult the intelligence.”

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Today -100: September 29, 1923: Of ballots, facists, and little boys at Columbia

The Oklahoma Supreme Court hears arguments about whether a ballot initiative can be tacked onto next Tuesday’s election alongside the less exciting constitutional amendments already on the ballot. This one would give the Legislature permission to call itself into session without being called by the governor, in order to investigate officials  (i.e., impeach Gov. Walton) but not pass legislation.

Bulgaria crushes the Communist uprising, or whatever it was.

The NYT finally, I mean FINALLY, gets caught by the common student spelling error:

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In case you were wondering what the correct clothes for little boys were.

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Today -100: September 28, 1923: Of Oklahoma coups and Hitler coups, reparations, refugees, and ethnic cleansing in North Carolina

67 members of the Oklahoma House of Reps apply for an injunction against the National Guard preventing it meeting.

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Pfew. Bavaria’s Minister President Eugen von Knilling assures German PM Gustav Stresemann that the declaration of martial law & the appointment of Gustav von Kahr as dictator of Bavaria didn’t mean any rejection of the federal state. Von Kahr bans all 14 scheduled Nazi beer hall meetings in Munich.

Brilliant Prediction of the Day -100:  

With von Kahr’s dictatorship, “Any prospect of Hitler playing a leading part in Bavarian politics appears to have vanished”.

Italy gives Corfu back to Greece after the Council of Ambassadors (over Britain’s objections) awards it that 50 million lire from Greece (the exact sum Italy demanded) for no very good reason. I don’t believe the Council has any intention of forcing Italy to pay reparations to Greece for those refugee children it slaughtered.

Romania is pushing Jewish refugees from Russia and the Ukraine over the Dneister into Russia.

A white mob in Spruce Pine, North Carolina rounds up all the black men working on a road construction project and deports them after some black guy attacks an old white woman. 

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Today -100: September 27, 1923: For millions of Germans the idea of individual liberty no longer exists

Germany formally and bitterly proclaims the end of passive resistance: “the Ruhr and Rhineland have endured most grievous oppression. ... For millions of Germans the idea of individual liberty no longer exists.”

Slightly undercutting the “individual liberty” message, Pres. Friedrich Ebert declares martial law and suspends some provisions of the Constitution, including freedom of press and assembly.

Bavaria also declares a state of emergency ahead of a planned “general review” of Nazis on Friday. Former Bavarian PM Gustav von Kahr is appointed “general commissioner of state” with power to declare martial law if needed. In the meantime, Kahr suspends freedom of speech, press, assembly, mail secrecy, habeas corpus, etc etc etc. Hitler, perhaps pissed that someone got to be dictator before him, “orders” Nazi members of non-Nazi paramilitary groups to quit them and join Nazi stormtroop groups.

Oklahoma Gov. J.C. Walton’s troops disperse legislators attempting to hold their special session of the Legislature.

Walton extends super-duper martial law to another county, but won’t say which one.

Charlie Chaplin says in future he will switch from slapstick to whimsical humor.

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Today -100: September 26, 1923: Of national guards, putsches, and flapjacks

Oklahoma Gov. J.C. Walton says 35,000 Oklahoovians have answered his call to join the National Guard to prevent the Legislature from meeting. Which seems like over-kill until you realize the Legislature has 50,000 members, probably.

A putsch is supposedly scheduled for Sunday in the Rhine which will establish an independent state, with, naturally, a dictator.

More news about the Prince of Wales’s eating habits on his visit to Canada: flapjacks, he likes flapjacks.

Charlie Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris starring Edna Purviance premieres in Hollywood. It’s a drama. My review: Go back to comedy, funny man.

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Today -100: September 25, 1923: Of shooting to kill and passive resistance

Oklahoma Gov. J.C. Walton orders the adjutant general in charge of the National Guard to “use all force of arms necessary” to keep the Legislature from meeting Wednesday. “The troops will be ordered to shoot to kill,” he tells reporters. He also orders all Oklahoovian men aged 21 to 45 to grab their firearms and hold themselves ready to follow the governor’s orders. 

German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann abandons passive resistance in the Ruhr following a conference of reps from the Ruhr & Rhineland. He tells them, “In the course of battle it sometimes becomes necessary to surrender or evacuate a fortress because it requires too many men, too much food and too much ammunition.” 8 quadrillion paper marks a week, he tells them is the cost of funding the resistance, which is the equivalent of some money. The reps agree to the capitulation but don’t want to put it into writing, because the French would just fucking love that, wouldn’t they?

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Today -100: September 24, 1923: The peasants are revolting!

Oklahoma Gov. J.C. Walton’s anti-Klan efforts, presumably the military part of them, are bankrupting the state. He is using “deficiency warrants,” whatever those are, which banks are being warned may not be covered.

100,000 peasants march on Sofia to overthrow the Bulgarian government. That’s a lot of peasants.

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Today -100: September 23, 1923: Of aggregations of dragons, zeps, initiations, and horse-snogging

Oklahoma Gov. J.C. Walton threatens to close the state fair and put Oklahoma County under super-duper martial law unless state legislators – “the lawless element” – “that aggregation of dragons” – give up their plan to hold an extraordinary session. “The only thing that surprises me is that they have not convened their Legislature at night in the whipping pasture, where, in full regalia of masks and robes, in the presence of dragons, cyclops, goblins and wizards, they could impeache [sic] me in the sanctity of nature’s temple that has so often resounded with the cries of agony of tortured victims.”

Bulgaria declares martial law to fight Red Revolution. 

The Navy’s ZR-1 zeppelin drops a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

A Klan claim to have held an initiation ceremony in the White House dining room is denied.

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Today -100: September 22, 1923: Of governors and unlawful Klan assemblies

Pres. Coolidge will call the governors together next month to talk Prohibition enforcement, among other things. Sounds like a party.

Oklahoma Gov. J.C. Walton says the meeting of the lower house of the Legislature called by 75 members would be an “unlawful Klan assembly.” He says 68 members of the House are kluxers.

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Today -100: September 21, 1923: Of corn on the cob, the true Prussian faith, ethnic cleansing, and very special sessions

Visiting Canada (a hastily scheduled trip so he would be out of the country while his former mistress was being tried for murdering her husband), the Prince of Wales eats corn on the cob for the first time in his life. His reaction is unrecorded.

Marshal Paul von Hindenburg calls on Bavaria not to secede but to “preserve the true Prussian faith.” Has no one told him that Bavarians are not Prussians?

Mayor Joseph Cauffiel of Johnstown, Pennsylvania  orders all Mexicans and negroes who have lived in the town less than 7 years to leave the town after one drunk black guy kills 3 cops. Gov. Gifford Pinchot vaguely promises Mexico to intervene after it complained (if he also promises black people anything, it is not mentioned). The mayor now denies that it was a formal order, although it sure as shit sounds like one.

69 members of the Oklahoma Legislature (so far) sign a call to convene the House, whether Gov. J.C. Walton (or Speaker of the House Murray Gibbons) likes it or not. So the Lege will probably depose Gibbons before moving on to impeach Walton. Among the 25 charges: he opposes the death penalty, abused his pardon & parole powers, appointed convicts as peace officers, directed certain classes to shoot & kill others, promising them immediate pardons, imposed martial law without cause, is establishing a dictatorship, etc.

Walton says if necessary he will “arm every man in this state who is opposed to the Invisible Empire.”

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Today -100: September 20, 1923: You ain’t seen nothing yet?

Al Jolson is suggested as a Republican candidate for town constable in Scarsdale. Why?

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I wonder what apologetic cannon fire sounds like.

The Irish Dáil re-elects William Cosgrave as president of the Executive Council.

Alabama restores whipping in its prisons.

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Today -100: September 19, 1923: Of strikes, whipples, lynchings, fairs, and temporary dictatorships

Thanks to the International Pressmen’s Union strike, today’s issue is a combined edition of 10 NY morning newspapers, and it’s 8 pages long. This will go on for some time, which certainly makes my job easier. The strike was called by the local union, but its parent union calls the strike illegal.

After the Japanese earthquake, the Japanese Navy ordered US destroyers arriving with medical supplies not to dock. The destroyer, um, USS Whipple ignored the order and docked anyway. It removed foreign refugees made homeless by the quake and subsequently evicted from the Imperial Hotel, which the Japanese military wanted as an hq.

A 20-year-old black man is lynched in Hattiesberg, Mississippi.

Oklahoma Gov. J.C. Walton unbans the state fair.

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Phew.

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Today -100: September 18, 1923: The need for speed

New aeroplane speed record: 259 mph, US Navy Lt. Lawson Sanderon in a Wright plane.

Big fire in Berkeley. A change in the wind prevents the University of California burning down, although half the professors lose their homes.

Gen. Primo Rivero Phoenix asks everyone to give him 90 days (of dictatorship) to fix all of Spain’s problems.

Italy names an Italian general as governor (pardon, “Civil Governor of Fiume for the Economic Organization of the City”) of Fiume, which is supposed to be a free state, not part of Italy. Italy claims this does not amount to annexation. Italy is still negotiating with Yugoslavia over the status of Fiume, which the Yugs may give up in exchange for other territory.

The Ku Klux Klan holds an initiation ceremony in the Georgia State House.

By the way, these stories come from a ghost edition of the NYT that was not distributed due to a strike. A few copies of the Sept. 18th issue were printed, “for the record,” a couple of weeks later.

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Today -100: September 17, 1923: Of martial law and coups

Oklahoma City is occupied by the National Guard, who set up machine guns around City Hall, the police station and courthouse. Meetings opposing martial law are banned. The grand jury investigating Gov. Walton is ordered not to meet.

Yugoslavia threatens Bulgaria with war. It claims Bulgaria plans to try to seize Macedonia.

Gen. Primo “Take Me to the Rivera” says that before he started his coup, he informed the Spanish ambassadors in London, Paris and Rome, relying on them not to give warning about his forthcoming treason and to destroy the proclamation if the coup failed. And they didn’t give warning. Anyway, Primo has fired all the governors, dissolved the Cortes, locked up “Reds,” you know, dictator shit.

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Today -100: September 16, 1923: Neither Klan nor king

Gov. Jack Walton puts the entire state of Oklahoma under martial law to fight the Klan, plus super-extra martial law in Oklahoma County and Creek County. He threatens to arrest members of the Legislature if they attempt to call a special session to impeach him. The Tulsa police chief and sheriff refuse Walton’s demand that they resign, as does Grand Cyclops Sampson – “If it means my death, so be it.” It seems odd to me that Walton considers the state’s cops and judges to be untrustworthy and Klan-ridden (with good reason), but has no trouble trusting the National Guard. And indeed there seems to be no sign of discontent or disobedience in the Guard.

An Oklahoma City newspaper which the NYT shamefully fails to name (the Daily Oklahoman, probably) says “The creed of the Klan is the creed of the mob. The creed of Walton is the creed of a dictator... The people of Oklahoma are law abiding. They want neither Klan nor king.”

Russia sends a relief ship to Japan with 69 medical personnel and medical supplies, but when it arrives in Yokohama the authorities discover that they will help only laborers (and may have come with a bunch of propaganda lit as well as bandages) and turn them away.

An Old Bailey jury acquits Frenchwoman Marguerite Alibert of fatally shooting her husband, the Egyptian “prince” (actually a couple of ranks below that) Ali Kamel Fahmy, in the Savoy Hotel in July. Her lawyer attacked the prince using the most racist tropes he could find, calling him a vicious brute (“monster of Eastern depravity and decadence” etc) who subjected her to anal intercourse. He also claims she thought the gun was no longer loaded after she fired a warning shot into the ceiling. There have also been suggestions that SOMEONE put their thumb on the scales of justice, given that Marguerite was a high-class prostitute back in the day, and the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VIII) fell in love with her whilst on leave in Paris during the Great War and... wrote her letters. Which she kept... Certainly the prosecution went light on her: her past profession was never mentioned, some witnesses weren’t called, forensic evidence wasn’t entered. An Egyptian court will consider her guilty and refuse to give her her husband’s estate. Obviously Prince Eddie learned from his mistake and never got into trouble over a woman again. Marie died at 80 in Paris in 1971. She did not marry again. There’s a book about all this, Andrew Rose’s The Prince, the Princess and the Perfect Murder (2014),  which I have not read. And there’s a recent BBC Radio 4 program about all this, still available worldwide as of this writing. It’s a bit florid, and doesn’t mention the prince.

German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann is asked how he’ll respond to the various revolution movements: “We will shoot first.”

Gen. Amazon Primo Rivera is sworn in as prime minister of Spain. The deposed justice minister is supposed to administer the oath, but he claims to be indisposed, so he’s dragged to the palace. Which seems an appropriate start for a dictatorship.

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Today -100: September 15, 1923: Salutary severity

Gen. Primo Rivera says King Alfonso XIII accepts his junta (“directorate”) and the imposition of martial law. Earlier in the day, the Cabinet met the king, who had been out of Madrid when the coup began, and told him that military officers participating in the coup should be suspended. Alf refuses, citing insufficient information. Prime Minister Prieto, the Marquis of Alhucemas, resigns on behalf of his cabinet. King Alf sends for Prime Rib (if I am translating correctly) to make him PM. Prime issues a manifesto saying there will be no military dictatorship. “Peace is our motto, but peace founded on dignity abroad and salutary severity at home.” He’s threatening to put Foreign Minister Santiago Alba on trial. Alba has fled the country.

Pres. Coolidge accepts Attorney Gen. Harry Daugherty’s ruling that the Navy can’t be used to enforce Prohibition, and he won’t ask for legislation to change that.

Coolidge says he won’t give any speeches – at all – until Congress re-convenes in December.

A military censor is placed in the Tulsa Tribune offices to prevent publication of anything negative about Gov. Walton or martial law (he’ll be removed again after a day).

Walton threatens to put Muskogee under martial law unless W. R. Sampson resigns as Grand Cyclops of the Klan, which seems a very odd thing for a governor to ask. Oklahoma City is next for martial law, Walton says.

W.C. Fields, breaking away from Ziegfield, is performing in the musical comedy Poppy as Prof. Eustace McGargle, with Madge Kennedy, who has top billing. He filmed it in 1936 and all I can remember of it is Fields’s enunciation of “Eustace McGargle.”

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Today -100: September 14, 1923: Of coups, crimes against the nation, and passive resistance

Italy agrees, under British pressure, to end its occupation of Corfu by the end of the month.

There’s a military coup underway in Spain, starting in Barcelona, led by Gen. Miguel Primo Rivera. King Alfonso XIII’s position on all this is unclear at present. Gen. Prime Riverfront Property (if I am translating correctly) says he is not imitating Mussolini but Gen. Juan Prim, who deposed Queen Isabella II in 1868 and was assassinated 2 years later. Odd role model.

Amidst continuing violence in Dresden & other parts of Germany, including “potato raids” by the hungry, it’s reported that Field Marshal Ludendorff was persuaded by the moderating force that is Adolf Hitler not to start a putsch against Berlin. Although elsewhere Hitler says anyone who pays taxes to the Weimar Republic “commits a crime against the nation.”

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Today -100: September 13, 1923: Nobody can doubt Italy’s faith

Mussolini says he’ll only end the occupation of Corfu when Greece has fulfilled the conditions to the letter: “That is quite the correct procedure. Nobody can doubt Italy’s faith.”

The Spanish Army threatens the government with a coup unless it orders a major offensive in Spanish Morocco. They’re also not too thrilled with recent activity by Catalan separatists.

Oklahoma Gov. J.C. Walton demands the resignations of the jury commission in Tulsa County and the firing of the sheriff and police chief before he ends martial law. In Tulsa, he tells a group of businessmen, “We have reached the point where the issue is the survival of invisible government or the permanency of our own visible government. I am going to clean that situation up if I have to stand out alone and let them shoot at me.” 

Greece demands that Albania arrest the assassins of Gen. Tellini et al, who were definitely Albanian. Albania says the assassins were actually Greeks, and if you can’t manage to capture them, we’ll happily cross into Greece to do it for you.

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Today -100: September 12, 1923: Of maneuvering, freeing the slaves, the revolutionary unemployed, zeppelins, and walking Lenins

Mussolini sends troops to the Yugoslav border, ostensibly for maneuvers, really to put pressure on the Yugs over Fiume (Poet-Aviator Gabriele d’Annunzio, who did so much in the past to stir up the Fiume issue, is busy these days writing an opera).

Italy says the native staff of its legation in Ethiopia should henceforth consider their slaves as servants. Doesn’t say whether the servants are free to go.

Dresden police shoot up a crowd of “revolutionary unemployed,” killing 5.

The Navy’s new ZR-1 zeppelin flies over New York City, like no one remembers that two years ago the ZR-2 exploded over Hull and only failed to kill lots more people than it did because the pilot flew it into the Humber River.

Russia denies that War Minister Leon Trotsky has been assassinated.

And says Lenin has recovered enough from his stroke that he can walk.

Syndicalists try to assassinate Portuguese Prime Minister António Maria da Silva.

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Today -100: September 11, 1923: The Klan is for law and order first, last and all the time

Germany has allegedly ordered the end of passive resistance in the Ruhr. It is not clear what form this order is supposed to have taken.

There’s a rumor that Prince George, the Duke of Kent, is engaged to Grace Vanderbilt, daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt III. By my count, that’s the third false report of a British prince getting engaged on the front page of the NYT this year.

The Navy, or some in the Navy, are pretending that the destruction of those 7 destroyers was caused by a seismic wave coming from the Japanese earthquake and not from ships wandering around blind in the fog.

The Klan wins the Portland, Maine election for city-manager government and I don’t quite see why they care. Possibly because city council members will now be elected at-large, so Catholic neighborhoods are swamped electorally? School board elections are also changed to at-large, and current board has a Jew and two Catholics, which the Klan are not thrilled by.

The Oklahoma Klan gives in to Gov. Walton and orders members not to parade or hold meetings in masks. “The Klan is for law and order first, last and all the time,” says Grand Dragon N. Clay Jewett. Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans says they’re complying with “this despotic edict” not because of fear of the National Guard but blah blah blah.

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