Today -100: November 30, 1924: Of bedtime stories, leper churches, ponzis, and Puccini

The mutinying Sudanese soldiers surrender.

Federal prohibition agents in Seattle are prevented by a court order from destroying a radio station broadcasting bedtime stories they claim were coded messages to bootleggers in Canada and Japan.

The only Protestant church for lepers in the US opens in Carville, Louisiana at the leper colony there (James Carville’s ancestors were in the leper biz).

Charles Ponzi is arrested by Immigration, who intend to deport him because when he first entered the US from Canada he failed to mention his conviction there for forgery. The question now is whether Canada would accept his being deported there or whether it’ll have to be Italy. It will actually take another decade for him to be deported. (Mea culpa: there was a mistrial in Massachusetts sometime after he was released from federal prison in August which I missed).

Composer Giacomo Puccini (La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and the uncompleted Turandot) dies at 65 of throat cancer.

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Today -100: November 29, 1924: Of mutinies and mandates, legal whites and princes

A couple companies of the Sudanese army mutiny and attack the military hospital in Khartoum, killing a British doctor and 2 Syrian orderlies. This has something to do with Britain forcing out their Egyptian officers. What that has to do with a hospital is unclear. Sudanese are being killed and the hospital is under siege. Meanwhile, British soldiers have been marching around Cairo, pissing on stuff to mark their territory, probably.

Former PM Ramsay MacDonald suggests asking the League of Nations to give Britain a mandate over the Sudan.

Alice Rhinelander will fight husband Leonard’s annulment suit by denying having any negro blood and asserting that she is legally – yes, “legally” – white since her mother is white. Her lawyer says her father didn’t notice that a clerk had designated him negro on his naturalization application form, which he – according to the lawyer – isn’t.

The princes of the various German states (Prussia, Bavaria, Hanover, etc) supposedly have made a secret agreement to overthrow the Weimar Republic and resume their thrones, burying their past differences.

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Today -100: November 28, 1924: Of blackshirts, duels, and heresy

In Cairo, the British military arrests 3 (4?) Egyptian aides to former PM Zaghul, including his under-secretary of the interior, for conspiracy against British officials, which makes you wonder about the so-called independence of Egypt. After some inter-governmental kerfuffle, they are handed over to the Egyptian authorities, who are supposed to do something to them, put them on trial or shoot them, I dunno.

Gen. Italo Balbo resigns as Commander-in-Chief of the Blackshirts because of that letter leaked of him ordering Bolgna Fascists to beat up Communists. Mussolini accepts, but it won’t particularly impact Balbo’s rise in the Fascist Party. He remains a deputy, and will soon be put in charge of the Italian air force and later governor-general of Libya. He’ll combine those two when his plane, flying into Libya during World War II, is accidentally shot down by his own side.

Incidentally, Balbo was the guy who earlier this month challenged Garibaldi’s son to a duel. And in Hungary, István Horthy, son of the Regent/Dictator, is sentenced to 4 days in jail for a duel. He’ll also die in a plane accident during the war.

Kamenov and Stalin’s denunciation of Trotsky, which they’ve been circulating among Party leaders, is released to the general public. Stalin accuses Trotsky of “heresy” to Bolshevism and of being a Menshevik. Note that Trotsky is still War Minister.

Speaking of heresy, there’s a debate within the Republican Party over whether to welcome back congresscritters who supported La Follette for president.

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Today -100: November 27, 1924: Intense exasperation

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s wife begins divorce proceedings.

Leonard Kip Rhinelander sues for an annulment of his marriage to Alice Jones, claiming she lied that she was white and thus “the consent of said plaintiff to such marriage was obtained by fraud.” Alice says “I will never give up. I love him dearly and he loves me dearly. All the Rhinelander millions cannot take him from me.”

Gen. Italo Balbo, Commander-in-Chief of the Blackshirts, is suing the newspaper La Voce Repubblicana for libel for accusing him of ordering the killing of a priest. They introduce a letter sent by Balbo last year ordering Bolgna Fascists to suggest to Communists that they leave the region and to beat them up “without exaggeration, but systematically” and “in the grand style” until they do so. Balbo admits writing the letter, but says it was in “a moment of intense exasperation.”

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Today -100: November 26, 1924: Of puzzling crawfish

Charlie Chaplin, 35, marries his second wife, Lita Grey, 16, in Mexico. And yes, she’s pregnant. And yes, they’re doing it in Mexico to avoid possible statutory rape charges. And while there is indeed quite an age difference, his 4th wife, Oona O’Neil, hasn’t even been born yet.

Coolidge invites Charles Dawes to sit in on Cabinet meetings when he becomes vice president in March, as Coolidge did when he was veep, but Dawes declines. We don’t know why.

The Slovak, German, Hungarian and Ruthenian deputies in the Czech Parliament walk out in protest at infringements on their language, school, and property rights. The Slovaks claim there is no such thing as a Czechoslovakian nation.

The first Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, which they’re calling the Big Christmas Parade, will be tomorrow. Unless it rains, in which case it’ll be Friday. Animals & costumes & clowns but no giant balloons. What’s the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade without Snoopy?

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Today -100: November 25, 1924: Customs

Egypt gives Lord Allenby the £500,000 blood money in the form of a check, but since some of his other demands were rejected he sends Royal Marines to seize the customs house at Alexandria, as was the, uh, custom. So it’s not about money, it’s about coercing the Egyptian government. Prime Minister Saad Zaghlul then resigns and Senate president Ahmad Ziwar Pasha is given the job. He forms a cabinet almost entirely composed of newbies. And one of them’s a Jew, surprisingly. And one’s a Copt. The Egyptian Parliament votes to appeal to the League of Nations against the British, which will probably go nowhere since Egypt isn’t a member of the League of Nations.

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Today -100: November 24, 1924: Stupid and idiotic violences are, of course, the worst kind of violences

The Egyptian government responds to the British ultimatum, agreeing to apologize for the assassination of Sir Lee Stack but not accept responsibility for it, given that they didn’t actually do it or order it or condone it. They agree to pay the £500,000 but reject all the other demands (irrigation, pulling out of the Sudan, etc). Lord Allenby demands the money by the next day.

Mussolini says Fascism is aware it must stop its “stupid and idiotic violences.”

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Today -100: November 23, 1924: Of ample apologies, confidence, and hard-faced thugs

Lord Allenby, the British High Commissioner of Egypt, presents Saad Zaghlul, the Egyptian prime minister, with a note containing numerous demands in response to the assassination of Sir Lee Stack, the British governor-General of Sudan: a £500,000 fine, an “ample” apology, punishment of those responsible (the assassins have been arrested, presumably after this note was written), a ban on political demonstrations, the withdrawal of Egyptian troops from the Sudan within 24 hours, something about increased irrigation for cotton in the Gezira province of Sudan, and a bunch of other stuff. The Brits are exploiting the situation for all it’s worth and then some. The note says the murder “holds up Egypt as at present governed to the contempt of civilized peoples.” It calls the government “directly responsible” for the assassination, for which it is certainly not directly responsible, because of its “campaign of hostility to British rights and British subjects... founded upon a heedless ingratitude for benefits conferred by Great Britain”.

Arkansas Gov.-Elect Tom Terral says the Democratic Party won’t win national elections if it keeps talking about the Klan. Or, to put it another way, Terral is a member of the Klan.

The Soviet admin is circulating to various army, union etc committees a censure of Leon Trotsky for undermining Leninism.

The Italian Chamber of Deputies (which the opposition parties are boycotting) votes 337-17 for a motion of confidence in Mussolini’s domestic policy (they voted for his foreign policy last week).

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Today -100: November 22, 1924: You now have this great man

Britain’s new Conservative government cancels the two treaties the Labour government negotiated with Russia and will not submit them to Parliament. It’s not clear whether the UK still recognizes the Soviet government. Foreign Sec Austen Chamberlain also tells Russia he’s sure the Zinoviev Letter was totally real. Oh sure it uses terms that the real Zinoviev would never use, but the British government has “information” that “leaves no doubt” that it’s totally real and they “are therefore not prepared to discuss the matter.” The Soviets are warned to knock it off with all the propaganda.

Mussolini has been in some political trouble because of the attacks by Blackshirts on war veterans on Armistice Day, but today a Fascist deputy who was blinded and lost both hands, Carlo Delcroix, president of the Associazione nazionale mutilati e invalidi di guerra, gives a long, fiery speech in support of The Muss: “Every great movement has found and brought to power a great man. You now have this great man. Let it not be said that Italy had at last found a great leader and that envy struck him down.” He addresses former PM Giovanni Giolitti, saying his anti-Fascist speech had “seemed indistinct and far away to me. Perhaps they were drowned by the roar of the river of blood which separates your generation from mine.” After he finishes, the session is suspended in honor of him. Delcroix will break with Mussolini only in 1943, in opposition to the alliance with Germany, but after the war his prosthetic arms will be confiscated as proceeds of the Fascist regime. He’ll return to Parliament, as a monarchist, in 1953.

Warren G. Harding’s widow Florence, aka The Duchess, dies at 64. She’s been living with her doctor.

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Today -100: November 21, 1924: The play is over. I hope I have not bored you.

The test case on income tax publicity begins. A grand jury indicts the Baltimore Daily Post, part of the Scripps chain, which supported La Follette for president. The NYT story rather cheekily repeats the names and tax amounts from the story for which the Post is being prosecuted.

Baron Hans von Ringhausen, a German pilot shot down during the Great War, arrives at Omaha, Nebraska to marry Bertha Wendell, sister of Charles Cummings, the American pilot who shot him down. She was a Red Cross nurse who nursed him back to health. If this (front-page) story sounds made-up to you, it probably is. At any rate Cummings, who appeared in Omaha a few months ago, will shortly vanish, along with the money of everyone who invested in his furniture polish company or sold polish for it. Presumably the sister and the “baron” will also depart.

The Inyo County water insurgents release the LA Aqueduct water.

Gandhi telegrams the opium conference, calling for the suppression of opium traffic.

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But then he would say that, wouldn’t he?

George Bernard Shaw gives the first of a series of broadcasts of his work on the BBC, reading his play “O’Flaherty, V.C.,” doing all the voices and even a bit of singing. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a recording of this?

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Today -100: November 20, 1924: Of sirdars, opium, tong heads, and immediate, absolute and complete independence

Sir Lee Stack, the British Governor-General of Sudan and Sirdar (that’s like commander-in-chief) of the Egyptian Army, is wounded, and will die tomorrow, after bombs and bullets are directed at his automobile in Cairo by 7 students, who escape, for the time being.

At the world opium conference in Geneva, the US proposes limiting the production of opium and coca to the amount required for medical and scientific purposes, and banning heroin altogether. There are details, which are obviously unworkable.

The British Columbia Legislature votes for whipping drug traffickers.

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For just a second I had a very different image in my mind of what “tong heads” might be. Possibly bad guys in “The Tick.”

The Philippine Legislature, in its alter ego as the Philippine Commission of Independence, adopts a resolution for “immediate, absolute and complete independence.”

Mary Kolus’s divorce suit is rejected in a Trenton court because her husband being jailed for life for murder doesn’t meet the legal definition of desertion. The court also rejected her charge of infidelity as not proven, despite his conviction being for murdering the husband of his lover.

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Today -100: November 19, 1924: Of aqueducts and amnesties

Inyo County Sheriff Charles Collins calls himself powerless to remove the farmers occupying the L.A. Aqueduct because they’d just blow it up if he tried.

The French Senate grants amnesty to former PM Joseph Caillaux who that body convicted in 1920 (long after his arrest in 1918) on a bullshit high treason charge (“plotting against the external security of the State by maneuvers, machinations and intelligence with the enemy”). They also amnesty former interior minister Louis-Jean Malvy. Prime Minister Édouard Herriot commends the Senate for “forget[ting] and forgiv[ing] those differences of opinion which were considered dangerous during the war.”

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Today -100: November 18, 1924: Of quora, women’s suffrage, and monuments

With the opposition boycotting the Italian parliament, that institution has become so boring that it’s having difficulty maintaining a quorum.

Mussolini supposedly favors women’s suffrage, and there is some move to implement it at least for municipal elections.

Anti-Semites destroy a Potsdam monument to the French Jewish actress “Rachel,” born Elisabeth Félix, which was erected by Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV after she performed before him and Czar Nicholas I.

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Today -100: November 17, 1924: We are a nation of the samurai, and to us honor is more than all

 

The US Chamber of Commerce submits its marching orders wish list to Coolidge, including subsidy of the merchant marine, a “scientific” immigration commission, tax stuff, and above all, the ending of the public release of personal income tax return info.

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Hey, you know what I hear is good for calming anger? Opium.

The Japanese are pissed that the British delegate implied that Japanese officials issue opium import certificates corruptly and that some countries have refused to honor those certificates. “We are a nation of the Samurai, and to us honor is more than all.” The conference is not going well.

Vice president-elect Charles Dawes has a hernia operation.

60 or 100 “raiders” from Owens Valley seize the Los Angeles aqueduct, which diverts water to the city to the detriment of Owens Valley agriculture. They open the gates to restore the water to the Owens River. The Inyo County sheriff asks the state to send troops but Gov. Friend Richardson thinks the whole thing will “blow over” in a few days. This is the start of the California Water Wars.

The oldest man in the world is Zora Agrah, is 150 and has been employed as a porter in Constantinople for over 100 years. His 5th wife (he was married to the 1st 3 simultaneously) is 65 “and too old for me,” so he’s looking for a new one.

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Today -100: November 16, 1924: It’s the Chicago way

Chicago Police Chief Morgan Collins will form a “strong-arm squad” 12 cops to battle organized crime (more breaking heads than making arrests, sounds like) and reorganize the detective bureau. “Those detectives who are too lady-like to do business with the gunmen are to be removed,” he says.

Another response to Chicago mob violence: the Sears, Roebuck catalog will no longer sell firearms by mail order.

Organ grinders with monkeys are disappearing from New York streets thanks to the closing of bars and the fact that monkeys are illegal. And you have to have a license to operate a portable organ, not that that ever stops anyone.

The 21 Republican state legislators from Rhode Island are ending their Massachusetts exile and in return Democratic state senators will end their filibuster of the budget. The D’s were trying to alter the ridiculously archaic state constitution, which still has a property qualification for voting and senatorial districts weighted towards rural areas, giving R’s a clear majority of seats despite only garnering 24% of the vote. This stalemate meant there’s been no budget and hence no salaries for officials or money for jails since January, so private citizens and banks stepped up to fund some of that, advancing state employees first 90% of their salaries, then 75%.

Newlyweds Leonard and Alice Rhinelander flee the glare of publicity. Reporters have discovered that Alice’s father was listed as “colored” when he naturalized in the ‘90s, as was her sister Emily on her marriage certificate.

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Today -100: November 15, 1924: Of flowers and duels

Dion O’Banion’s funeral in Chicago is attended by over 10,000 people and features 26 truck loads of flowers, which is what happens when you’re both a mob boss and a florist.

Gen. Italo Balbo, commander of the Fascist National Militia (Italy, of course), “owing to the impossibility of a duel” with Gen. Peppino Garibaldi, who accused the Blackshirts of attacking unarmed veterans, submits the case of his challenge to the Permanent Court of Honor in Florence, whatever that might be. Duels are weird. Another duel, evidently not impossible, takes place between a Fascist deputy and a Liberal one. Whether guns or swords is not mentioned, but the Lib wounds the Fascist 6 times. Good.

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Today -100: November 14, 1924: Numerous convolutions

Belgian Foreign Minister Paul Hymans suggests a new Entente between France, Britain and, of course, Belgium.

Rep. John Philip Hill (R-Maryland) is acquitted of making cider and wine from fruit grown on his “farm,” which he did to challenge the Volstead Act’s distinction between what “farmers” and regular urbanites are allowed to do. The Baltimore jury decides it was not intoxicating, which it certainly was – 12% alcohol. It is not clear if the jury came to this conclusion following a taste test.

The Catholic Church refuses Chicago “slain florist and gang leader” Dion O’Banion a church service but will allow him and his $10,000 silver coffin to be buried in consecrated ground. Science was performed on Mr. O’Banion by the coroner’s physician: “The fissures [in his brain] were not deep, which would indicate O’Banion was not deeply intellectual, but there were numerous convolutions, which showed his mind was shrewd.”

Socialite Leonard Kip Rhinelander marries Alice Beatrice Jones, the daughter of a cab driver. They are 22 and 23, respectively, and white. There will be more about this.

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Today -100: November 13, 1924: Sure, horse thief suppression, why notToday -100: November 13, 1924: Sure, horse thief suppression, why not

Remember the violence in Niles, Ohio a week or two ago between the KKK & anti-kluxers? It seems the former thought they were acting as state police. A Klan organizer got hold of a charter dating from before the Civil War for a group to suppress horse thieves and signed them all up.

The Italian Parliament opens. A Communist deputy informs it that while the Communists aren’t part of the opposition group, they will also be boycotting the Parliament, which he says “has been elected by Matteotti’s murderers.” Former Prime Minister (5 times!) Giovanni Giolitti has announced that he won’t be attending either.

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Today -100: November 12, 1924: Parliament is a bluff with which you hope to cheat public opinion

Sen. Theodore Douglas Robinson is appointed assistant secretary of the Navy, a post which has previously been held by 3 Roosevelts, so of course Robinson is TR’s nephew. In making the appointment, Coolidge is acceding to a death-bed request from Henry Cabot Lodge.

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On the eve of the re-convening of the Italian Parliament after a 4-month hiatus, and with opposition deputies still boycotting in protest at the Matteotti assassination, Mussolini tells a plenary meeting of Fascist and Fascist-supporting deputies, “The reopening of Parliament is a proof of my constitutional intentions.” The opposition deputies, meeting on their own, respond, “Parliament is a bluff with which you hope to cheat public opinion.” M. says the Fascist militia are fully constitutional because they’ve sworn loyalty to the king; the opposition seems to think that’s insufficient. M. says “Not words, but hard facts, prove that the government is marching rapidly and continuously on the road of absolute normality.” I’m not sure “absolute normality” really entails all that marching. The opposition deputies affirm their refusal to return to Parliament and demand new elections, not run by the Fascist regime.

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Today -100: November 11, 1924: If I should let them go, the Opposition would go like that

Sheriff Conn of Skagit County, Washington seizes 225 alleged IWW strikers and pushes them over the county line, as was the custom.

Dion O'Banion, 32-year-old head of Chicago’s North Side Gang, “King of the Beer Runners,” is gunned down in his florist shop by 3 gunsels (I don’t think I’ve ever written that word before), as was the custom. The Chicago gang wars have begun.

College Hill, Ohio Mayor A.L. Pugh and dry agent Greenlee Hahn are on trial for an overly aggressive liquor raid on a home in which a woman was hit and guns pointed. The trial is invaded by a mob singing “How Dry I Am” and threatening to lynch them and burn the town hall. I might not have written up this story but it’s an opportunity to note that “How Dry I Am” was written by Irving Berlin.

Mussolini gives one of those interviews to an American newspaper, the Chicago Tribune in this case, that are I guess intended to be reassuring but never are. He says it’s him who is “holding the Fascisti in check. If I should let them go, as they are pleading, the Opposition would go like that.” Also, he may dissolve Parliament in order to push his policies through.

Hickson W. Field (b.1849) is fighting an attempt by his 2 nieces to have him declared incompetent. I might not have written up this story but he’s evidently one of the last 2 people who were in Ford’s Theatre when Lincoln was shot. (Update: Nope, there are 3, which will drop to 2 next month when Alvin Sherman Wheaton dies).

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