Today -100: June 30, 1925: Earthquake

6.something magnitude earthquakes destroy much of Santa Barbara, killing 13.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 29, 1925: Of kids, rubber, and erroneous assumptions

The NYT announces the birth of a son to Charlie Chaplin and Lita Grey, Charles Spencer Chaplin III, the 2nd of his 11 children by 3 wives (the first died shortly after birth). I’m guessing the reason III’s birthday is announced as having just happened instead of the real date, May 5, is to disguise how young Lita was when impregnated, i.e. below the age of legal consent. III acted a little under the screen name Charles Jr. in such classics as Sex Kittens Go to College (1960),

which also featured Harold Lloyd Jr and “The Kid” co-star Jackie Coogan. I have not had the pleasure.

Kinky Headline of the Day -100:

H. L. Mencken, writing in The Baltimore Evening Sun: “Such obscenities as the forthcoming trial of the Tennessee evolutionist, if they serve no other purpose, at least call attention dramatically to the fact that enlightenment, among mankind, is very narrowly dispersed. It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone – that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 28, 1925: Of sterilizations, seasonal indictments, and operas without pachyderms

Wisconsin Gov. John Blaine vetoes a bill allowing the Board of Control to sterilize the mentally ill before their release from state institutions. Not because it would be, you know, wrong, but because it would make families hesitate before institutionalizing family members and because patients’ knowledge of their impending sterilization might interfere with therapy. Also, people & families rich enough to afford private hospitals would escape sterilization.

Sen. Burton Wheeler accuses the RNC’s agent Blair Coan of trying to influence witnesses in the trumped-up case against Wheeler with women and liquor. Wheeler says “I am becoming so accustomed to being indicted by the Department of Justice that my only hope is that in the future they will indict me in the North in the Summertime and in California or Florida in the Winter.”

The massive staging of Aida at Yankee Stadium is less massive than planned, after it was realized that the stage might not be able to support elephants. There are camels, though. The audience consists of 20,000 people, meaning there are 20,000 people who want to see an opera.

The Polish government negotiated with the reps of the Jewish community to remove some laws, such as restrictions on licenses to Jews to trade and quotas for higher education, the army and civil service, and to allow 2 hours of trading on Sunday. In return, Jewish parliamentary deputies will end opposition to the government and tell foreigners that everything’s okay now.

The Italian Senate, acting as the High Court of Justice, exonerates Gen. Emilio De Bono for his role in the assassination of Deputy Giacomo Matteotti a year ago.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 27, 1925: Of coups

Greek coup leader Gen. Theodoros Pangalos forces provisional president Adm. Pavlos Kountouriotis to name him prime minister and war minister.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 26, 1925: Why indeed

After the London Times criticizes Mussolini’s Fascist regime, he writes a letter to the Times, as one does, demanding they “rectify” their silly claim that he has attacked basic constitutional liberties. He asserts that the opposition is a “small, dispossessed group” and the Fascists constitute the majority bigly. The Times asks, if that is so, “why is it necessary to gag the press, forbid free speech, forbid public meetings and arm the executive with arbitrary and irresponsible powers?”

Gen. Theodoros Pangalos overthrows the Greek government. It’s described as a bloodless coup, if only because the Cabinet resigns after Pangalos threatens to bombard the Presidential Palace and the War Office. “The populace seems strangely unmoved by the event, and is evidently becoming accustomed to such coups, which have been increasingly frequent in recent years.”

The vice president of the United States Radium Corporation of Orange, NJ denies that it will close just because its female factory workers are getting radium poisoning making luminous radioactive paints for watches. Those workers are just on their summer vacations, he says.

Chaplin’s The Gold Rush premieres.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 25, 1925: Of secessions and considerations

The Chicago City Council unanimously passes a proposal to ask the corporate counsel how the city can secede from Illinois. It says the Legislature is failing to follow the state constitution by not having reapportioned after the 1920 census, which would have given Cook County 5 more state senators and 15 more representatives.

The Ku Klux Klan asks Coolidge to review its August 8 parade in D.C., even though they know damned well he has no plans to be anywhere near the White House until September. A press statement which the Times doesn’t seem entirely convinced comes from the Klan suggests it deserves “the same consideration” from Coolidge as the (Catholic) Holy Name Society procession last year.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 24, 1925: Of monkey glands, gun control, and ruining hospitals

As I briefly mentioned, China is a bit of a mess at the moment. Anyhoo, British and French marines in Canton fire machine guns at demonstrators.

Dr. Maurice Lebon of France wants large-scale breeding of monkeys, because monkeys are fun. No, wait, it’s because monkey glands can be used to “rejuvenate” humans.

A committee on gun sales appointed by NYC Mayor John Hylan endorses proposals before Congress to ban the sale of guns through the mails, to put a high sales tax on guns, and to ban toy pistols.

NYT Index Slip of the Tongue of the Day -100:

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 23, 1925: Ferocious totalitarian will is the worst kind of totalitarian will, which is the worst kind of will

At the Italian Fascist Party’s fourth party congress in Rome, Mussolini says the party’s new slogan is “All power to Fascism,” and the Constitution must be changed because it’s just a hindrance now. He demands the Senate not obstruct him, or else. The NYT fails to note the reference in his speech to “our ferocious totalitarian will,” which is his first use of the recently coined word “totalitario.” The word “totalitarian” will not arrive in the English language until next year. “Totalstaat” will arrive in German in 1927.

The lower house of the Italian Parliament has passed a bunch of laws giving the Duck powers to pass laws without its approval, purge the civil service, suppress newspapers, etc etc. 

In a radio address, Pres. Coolidge calls for yet more tax cuts. The tax burden has been reduced, he says, but “the reduction has not reached the point where taxes have ceased to be a burden.”  Pretty much by definition. “Wastrels, careless administrators of the Government’s substance, are out of place in the Federal service. They will not be tolerated.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 22, 1925: Which is the equivalent of some money

The ACLU announces a $10,000 Tennessee Evolution Case Fund.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 21, 1925: More fun and games in the Prohibition biz

In Huntington, West Virginia, federal and state prohibition agents looking for a still mistake each other for moonshiners and shoot each other up. Two dead, another possibly mortally wounded.

Rum-running cars near Baltimore use a smokescreen to evade capture.

French censors ban the sole British exhibit at the Paris Modern Arts Exhibition, which consisted of members of the public throwing tennis balls at a black man’s head.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 20, 1925: Of Fightin’ Belle La Follette, domes, Dirigo, and jay walking... in Paris? Heaven forfend.

Rep. John Nelson (R-Wisc., one of the two John Nelsons in the 69th Congress) is pushing for a change in Wisconsin state law to allow the governor to appoint Robert La Follette’s widow Isabelle to fill out his Senate term without a special election.

A federal district court judge in Wyoming rules that Sinclair’s Teapot Dome oil leases are valid, which is the opposite of the ruling by the district court in California against the Doheny Elk Hills leases. The judges disagree on whether the secrecy surrounding the deals had any military justification. The Wyoming judge says there is no evidence that Interior Sec. Albert Fall was bribed which, yeah, sure, whatever.

Donald MacMillan is planning an Arctic expedition. Maine Gov. Ralph Brewster throws him a farewell dinner and authorizes him to claim any lands he discovers in the name of... the state of Maine. “It will then remain for the federal government to determine whether it will recognize and protect our rights.”

The Italian Parliament gives Mussolini the power to fire civil servants who dare to hold non-Fascist political opinions, the “Fascistization of the Italian state,” as he likes to call it.

A Paris judge rules that jay walking is legal.

Actress Kathryn du Noule cross-dresses so she can enter that all-male space: a Chicago hanging.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 19, 1925: Of fightin’ bobs, poles, lynchings, and dog concerts

Fightin’ Bob La Follette, Progressive senator from Wisconsin, dies at 70. Whither the Progressive movement now?

The Roald Amundsen Arctic expedition is no longer missing, returning to Spitzbergen (Svalbard) in Norway. It got within 150, maybe 100 miles of the North Pole by plane but was thwarted by headwinds (and Amundsen’s underestimating how much gas he’d need). It returns without the plane, which turned out to be a seaplane but not so much an iceplane. They didn’t spot any land, so there may in fact not be land at the Pole. Bad luck, Canada, which already put in a claim for any land that might exist.

Near Castle Gate, Utah a black man, Robert Marshall, is lynched by a large mob, including Klansmen, after allegedly killing Town Constable James Milton Burns (whose father was also a law dude killed in action, in his case by sheep rustlers). The mob shoots Marshall a few times and hangs him twice. 11 members of the lynch mob will be arrested, including a deputy who basically handed Marshall over, as well as the city marshal, the superintendent of the Utah Fuel Company, and 4 charged with “pulling the rope.” None of the hundreds of witnesses will testify against them, so that will be that. This was the last lynching in the West. Supposedly it caused the fortunes of the Ku Klux Klan to decline in Utah, but 80% of the black people will leave Carbon County by the 1930 census.

There’s a demonstration in Vienna against a new regulation against bringing dogs on street cars and railways. The dog owners are threatening to hold a “dog concert” outside the house of the street car company’s director.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 18, 1925: Of chemical warfare

The Geneva Protocol for the Control of International Commerce is signed by 18 countries, including the US. A protocol on chemical warfare is signed by 29 countries, banning the use of poison gases but only against other signers of the protocol and not internally. It will go into effect in 1928.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 17, 1925: Of insecurity compacts

I haven’t mentioned that France is having a major colonial war in the Riff region of Morocco. Now I’ve mentioned it. Also, major upheavals in China.

Italy is refusing to adhere to a French-British security compact unless there’s a little sumthin’ sumthin’ in it for Italy. At the very least, it wants Britain to help protect the Brenner Pass on the Austro-Italian border. One element in the proposed Geneva Protocol which is especially pissing off Germany is the new French claim to a right to oppose by military means any union between Germany & Austria. Germany would also be required to negotiate arbitration deals with Poland and Czechoslovakia, which would allow France to send troops through Germany if those countries create trouble. The NYT’s source “close to Foreign Minister Stresemann” calls it an insecurity compact.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 16, 1925: A leopard-skin what now?

Secretary of State Frank Kellogg has been scolding Mexico over its supposed mistreatment of American property and citizens and property. Also property. President Plutarco Elías Calles called him out over the condescending nature of his statement, excuse me, “insult,” so Kellogg is preparing an insulting riposte.

Prince Edward, still in Swaziland, gets gifts, including a leopard-skin kilt. He suggests to Paramount Chief Sobhuza, who has been promoting education, that he focus a little less on book learning and a little more on learning from European farmers.

Lord Cromer, the English theatrical censor (the Lord Chamberlain), bans the performance of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, but only in English. It’s not clear why, and indeed it has been staged in London before, in English. So it has now been performed at the New Oxford Theatre in London in Italian. It’s not clear how many in the audience actually know Italian.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 15, 1925: I think he’s out-ranked

The Prince of Wales visits Swaziland (Eswatini) and meets the official rainmaker, who is the Supreme Chief’s mother. Can Edward even make rain? The people of Basutoland seemed to think so.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 14, 1925: Of Gennas and Hwerchnedneprowsker Progressives

In Chicago, tit-for-tat violence between the Genna Gang and the North Side Gang takes out Michele “Mike the Devil” Genna, leader of the Genna Gang. A shoot-out between the two gangs is followed by one with the cops, two of whom are killed, Genna receiving a fatal bullet in the leg. Time is running out on the Genna brothers as a force in gangland, and I think you can guess who the beneficiary of that will be (hint: he has a scar on his face).

A Brooklyn judge refuses to approve the incorporation of the Hwerchnedneprowsker Progressive Society, because “the name is un-American” and the organizers don’t even seem to be from Hwerchnedneprowsker. Which, as far as I can tell, isn’t an actual place, so the Hwerchnedneprowsker Progressive Society remains a mystery.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 13, 1925: Scopes in the big citiy

John Scopes, in New York City to meet with his attorneys, has been flooded with offers to write for syndicates and appear in films, $170,000 of offers in total. He has refused them all. When he goes to the Follies, not accepting a free ticket although shocked that it cost $7.50 – scalper’s rates, I think – he refuses to let his friend inform Will Rogers that he’s in the audience.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 12, 1925: Murder in the sky!

Another aviation novelty: A diamond merchant flying from Vienna to Budapest transporting diamonds is murdered by his secretary and the pilot. Chloroformed and thrown overboard. The secretary then kills the pilot and escapes to Bulgaria, never to be found. Anyway, this is the first murder on an aeroplane.

D.C.’s last 3 fire horses, all with more than a decade of service, will retire. When Washingtonians heard they might be transferred to the Street Cleaning Dept, they raised $100 to retire them to the farm of the Home for Feeble and Infirm. Rude.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: June 11, 1925: Take me out to the oooooop’ra, Take me out with the crooooowd

Coming later in the month: a production of Verdi’s Aida in Yankee Stadium, with horses and camels and elephants and hundreds of performers and starring Marie Rappold. Prices will range from $1 all the way up to $1.50.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.