Today -100: September 30, 1925: Of fightin’ Bobses, dining at Balmoral, and straw hats

Robert La Follette Jr. easily wins the special election to fill his late father’s US Senate seat.

The British Labour Party conference rejects the Communist Party (CPGB)’s request for affiliation by a wide margin. During the angry debate, one “Red” delegate calls party leader Ramsay MacDonald “the man who dines at Balmoral,” i.e., with the king. While Communists have been banned since last year as Labour candidates, there are plenty of Communist delegates at the conference representing unions.

The maharajah of Kapurthala (Punjab) visits Atlantic City. What does the NYT think you should know about that? 

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Today -100: September 29, 1925: Of prohibition, subs, apoplexy, ratcatchers, and (ahem) professions

The Legislative Assembly of India votes approval of the idea of introducing Prohibition. Of course British colonial officials, sots to a man, won’t allow any such thing.

Divers are still trying to get inside the sunken submarine S-51 to rescue crewmen who couldn’t possibly have survived this long.

George Hagedues, a Hungarian MP who is president of the Awakening Hungary group, gives an anti-Semitic speech and then drops dead. He died as he lived: of apoplexy.

Republican candidate for New York City mayor Frank “That Fountain Pen Guy” Waterman claims the Board of Health spends $72 for each rat it catches and $77 for each flea. That is, each flea killed. They don’t catch fleas; they’re not weirdos. Update: ah, the fleas in question were on the rats, which is relevant if you’re trying to prevent bubonic plague. Anyway, he’s claiming these ratcatchers are examples of Tammany patronage featherbedding.

The London Daily News claims Mussolini is trying to put together an alliance with Germany and Russia, without so far receiving a positive response from the latter.

The British censors finally allow George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1893) a public performance in London.

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Today -100: September 28, 1925: Of annoyed Italians and repulsive banquets

9 Italian MPs arrive at New York harbor for the Interparliamentary Conference in D.C. and are greeted by clashes between Fascists and anti-Fascists, with some light shooting. “As the taxicabs sped eastward along Fifty-sixth Street the delegates had an opportunity of seeing how their countrymen in this city behave when they were annoyed about something.”

Headline of the Day -100:

That’s the H.M.S. Repulse, which Prince Edward has been using as his personal yacht, with a specially installed squash court, sauna, bubble bath (I assume that means jacuzzi), etc.

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Today -100: September 27, 1925: Of derogatory statements and pep

Herbert Ladd, a carpenter, is charged with making “derogatory statements” about the Willimantic (Connecticut) Trust Company’s solvency that led to a run on the bank. A carpenter.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: “The church dogmas of today need pep, as the Americans would say, and pep is spirit communication – the actual proof of survival after death.”

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Today -100: September 26, 1925: How are they going to eat?

The steamship City of Rome collides with the submarine S-51 off the coast of Rhode Island. 33 crewmen on the latter drown, 3 survive. The biggest submarine disaster in US history, which includes the Great War.

Coal-mine owners in West Virginia get many injunctions against United Mine Workers officers trying to call on non-union miners to strike. One injunction is against picketing at the mines of the Consolidated Coal Company, where scabs have been hooted – HOOTED! – on the way to and from work. The petitioners especially object to a picket-line song which goes a little... like this:

Shoot them in the head,

Shoot them in the feet,

Shoot them in the dinner bucket,

How are they going to eat?

The US counter-proposal to France’s offer to pay $4 billion in war debts over 62 years: how about $10 billion? Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux says he won’t change his plans to return to France next week.

The investigation into the crash of the Shenandoah is showing that the dirigible was just badly designed and badly constructed, lacking stability and engine power. The Navy knew this and was planning to make alterations, but still had the thing flying about, doing important Navy things like flying over fairs.

John Scopes begins graduate study at the University of Chicago, studying geology.

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Today -100: September 25, 1925: It’s pronounced just like it’s spelled, probably

In Washington for discussions on repayment of the French war debt, Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux offers to pay $25 million per year for 5 years, rising thereafter until $4 billion will have been paid by 1987. The Americans reject the proposal out of hand.

Hungary claims that Russia gave the Hungarian Communists a list of people, including Adm. Horthy, to be assassinated within the next 6 months.

The US will deport a Siamese man (and accused arsonist) named Lleieusszuieuszesszec Willihiminizzissteizzii Hurrizzissteizzii.

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Today -100: September 24, 1925: Of Hungarian Jews & executioners

Since the US is already banning British Communist MP  Shapurji Saklatvala from the Interparliamentary Conference, the Federation of Hungarian Jews in America asks Secretary of State Frank Kellogg to also ban 8 Hungarian delegates for inciting pogroms, suppressing free speech, etc.

John Hulbert, the executioner at Sing Sing and elsewhere, plans to retire next June when he becomes eligible for a pension. Since executions are by electric chair, his replacement will have to be an electrician like him (that’s his day job at Auburn Prison). He gets $150 per execution (his predecessor quit after the state refused to continue paying his standard $250 rate). At his retirement, Hulbert will have executed 140 men (and no women). He will commit suicide, by gunshot, in 1929.

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Today -100: September 23, 1925: Of girders and agitators

The crash of the airship Shenandoah is blamed on “poor girders,” which sounds like a euphemism.

Britain plans to deport foreign “Communist agitators,” starting with 50 French and Russians.

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Today -100: September 22, 1925: A regular working day

Special Prohibition agent Thomas Easton, at the trial of a man he arrested in Middletown, New York because the man’s WIFE sold him whisky, is asked by the judge how many drinks he had in the course of his duties that day. After he admits to 24, the judge dismisses the case.

The Stoke-on-Trent Labour Party adopts Lady Cynthia Mosley, wife of future Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley and daughter of the late Lord Curzon, viceroy of India (who had strong views on interference by women in political life) (he was against it), as its candidate for Parliament. They may come to regret their choice.

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Today -100: September 21, 1925: I expect an uninteresting and meaningless campaign

Parisians are pissed off at a new tax on horsemeat.

Fiorello LaGuardia declines to launch a 3rd-party campaign for NYC mayor. He says the primaries so confused the issues that he would have no practical road to victory. “I expect an uninteresting and meaningless campaign,” he says. He predicts that Walker will be a crap mayor.

Coolidge has been taking walks around DC accompanied by a few Secret Service agents, unrecognized by the public. Including Nathan Smith of Baltimore, driving a car that almost hits him a block from the White House. He’ll be fined $35, though he claims he was a good 20 feet from Coolidge and was going 8 mph.

In New Albany, Mississippi, a mob burns a black man at the stake after seizing him from the sheriffs and forcing a confession out of him for attacking a farmer’s daughter.

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Today -100: September 20, 1925: AFTER SEPTEMBER 15TH!

Calvin Coolidge has been spotted wearing a straw hat after September 15th.

Sir Francis Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, dies at 77 in Cambridge. 4 of Charles’s 10 children are still alive. Francis was a botanist who thought plants had “unconscious memory.”

Harold Lloyd’s “The Freshman” or, as I think of it, the prequel to “The Sin of Harold Diddlebock,” premieres.

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Today -100: September 19, 1925: Of timely justice and angry law students

Italian prosecutors are said to be nearly done, after only 16 months, with the preliminary work for the prosecution of the assassins of Deputy Giacomo Matteotti, and might even be ready to put them on trial in 1926.

The (wooden) buildings of the upper and lower houses of the Japanese Parliament (Imperial Diet) are burned down. The suspects are “angry law students” pissed off at the hard questions on the bar exam they were taking in the House of Reps.

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Today -100: September 18, 1925: Of hat profiteers, future planes, and salutes

The prefect of Constantinople orders limits to profits on hats after “hat profiteers” take advantage of Pres. Atatürk’s ban on fezzes and his order for the compulsory wearing of “the headdress of civilization” by civil servants, spurring a rush to purchase chapeaux.

Henry Ford predicts a century of prosperity, so that’s nice. He says the airplane of the future is a combination of dirigible, heavier-than-air plane and helicopter. Sort of a turducken of aircraft, I’m assuming.

Some especially Fascist companies in Italy are banning handshaking in favor of the “Roman salute.”

Italy claims to have uncovered a plot for a national rising. 100 Communists are arrested in Florence.

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Today -100: September 17, 1925: Of private lives, inflammatory and revolutionary speeches, and nauseating music

NYC Mayor John Hylan says he’ll return to private life, almost as if the voters gave him any choice in the matter. There’s some talk about the Hearst papers, which backed Hylan, pushing a 3rd-party run by Fiorello LaGuardia, who is not disavowing it at this time.

Robert La Follette Jr., 30, easily wins the Wisconsin Republican Party primary for his late father’s US Senate seat, rattling establishment Republicans. The party apparatus will not support him in the general.

There’s been some fuss over British Labour/Communist MP Shapurji Saklatvala’s plans to come to the US as part of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Washington D.C., with some MPs refusing to come if he does. Now, Secretary of State Frank Kellogg revokes his visa, citing his “inflammatory and revolutionary speeches.” Saklatvala was the first Indian member of the British Parliament.

Musical Headline of the Day -100:

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Today -100: September 16, 1925: Walker walks it

NYC Mayor John Hylan is defeated in the Democratic primary by Tammany- and Gov. Smith-backed Jimmy Walker by a margin large enough to forestall any idea he had of running as an independent in the general. He does especially badly in Manhattan. The fountain pen guy wins the Republican primary, not that that matters in the slightest.

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Today -100: September 15, 1925: The decent people will predominate

Wolves are “ravaging” Russia, killing cattle and the odd human.

Senator Robert Stanfield (R-Oregon) insists that his arrest in a Baker, Oregon café for being drunk and disorderly is a stitch-up and he hadn’t had a drop to drink, not a drop. He claims the cop who arrested him and beat him up (Stanfield threw the first punch) has been fired.

With the NYC Democratic primary imminent, Mayor John Hylan’s friends say he’ll run as an independent if he loses by fewer than 30,000 votes.

Hylan says the election odds being quoted for the primary are “fakes” paid for by the traction interests (Brooklyn Betting Commissioner Fred Schumm is disgusted that such a bitter campaign has produced so little betting, with no one, except some late Wall Street money, willing to put money on Hylan no matter what the odds).

Hylan says he’ll win anyway: “The decent people will predominate”. He says that if nothing else, his campaign has “unmasked [Gov.] Al Smith. He is no longer of the common people. He is serving the interests and eating $63 worth of ham and eggs a day at the Biltmore which you are paying for.” He points out that while Smith praised Hylan for his “clean life,” he hasn’t said anything similar about the candidate he actually supports, Jimmy Walker. Hylan refers to Walker’s “record” along these lines, but doesn’t say what he’s referencing, presumably because New Yorkers know. But what do they know about J.J.? The speakeasies? The brothels? The, gambling, I think?

Walker addresses a meeting in Harlem, bringing with him black boxer Harry Wills. He says he told the Boxing Commission, which was set up by a law he introduced in 1920, that if they discriminated against Wills (this is presumably about the heavyweight title bout with Jack Dempsey that never happened after Dempsey weaseled out, saying he’d never box any negro again) he would work to repeal the law, which would make prize fighting illegal in New York again. I suspect Walker undercut whatever good that did him with the black audience by saying “I come from a race and a religion [Irish and Catholic] which have as many haters as you have”. (Hylan’s also a Catholic).

Anna Jarvis, who created the holiday of Mother’s Day, is acquitted of disorderly conduct for showing up at a War Mothers convention to protest their use of the carnation as an emblem. Jarvis would later become so disgusted by the commercialism of her holiday that she started a movement to rescind it, whereupon, if I have this correctly, the florist and greeting card interests paid to have her put away in a sanatorium for the rest of her life.

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Today -100: September 14, 1925: Of unsound minds and Charlestons

Rear Admiral William Moffett, chief of the Naval Bureau of Aeronautics, suggests that outspoken critic of military aviation policy Col. Billy Mitchell is “of unsound mind and is suffering from delusions of grandeur.” They are definitely going to court-martial his ass.

The Jersey City police issue an order banning the Charleston from the city’s dance halls, because, see, the vibrations of a large number of Charleston dancers might shake the halls to bits.

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Today -100: September 13, 1925: Of assassinations, gunboats, and censors

Romanian police thwart an assassination attempt against King Ferdinand and Queen Marie in Kishinev, Bessarabia, presumably in retaliation against a mass trial of Bessarabians for a revolt against land seizures.

The US sends a gunboat and a light cruiser to Nicaragua, as was the custom, because there might be political upheaval.

The Lord Chamberlain (um, in Britain), on something of a censorship streak lately, refuses to license that musical version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin unless they alter the “semi-nude” costumes in the slave sale scene, which are definitely the most offensive thing about a musical version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  (Update: the costume was in fact copied from an 1862 print. After changes are made to it, the play is issued its license.)

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Today -100: September 12, 1925: Of fraud and insanity and parks

At the International Spiritualist Congress in Paris, at which Arthur Conan Doyle gives a talk, one Mercy Cadwallader from Chicago, whom I assume just based on that name is a medium in a caftan, complains that the persecution of “some of our best mediums, principally in Boston” by Harry Houdini has prevented them holding seances. The Congress adopts a resolution that mediums “should be protected from charges of fraud and insanity.”

Plans for a state park on Long Island encompassing Jones Beech and Fire Island, Robert Moses’ dream, begin, very much against the wishes of the rich locals. It will involve a lot of expensive highway-building to make the beaches accessible.

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Today -100: September 11, 1925: Of ill-smelling cages, bunkum, and cowboy earls

Headline of the Day -100:

Isn’t that the city motto?

The NYC Municipal Assembly passes that 5¢-fare bill intended to undercut Mayor Hylan’s use of the issue in his re-election bid. He says he’ll sign it, even while attacking it as a piece of “bunkum,” and really, how did the word bunkum just drop out of our vocabulary? “Bunk” just doesn’t cut it for me.

Wyoming “cowboy” Oliver Henry Wallop (he owns a ranch and breeds polo ponies, but sure, “cowboy” is grabbier) inherits the title of Earl of Portsmouth. Born in Britain but a US citizen since 1904, he previously served in the Wyoming Legislature. He’d prefer not to have to renounce his US citizenship to take up his seat in the House of Lords, but he’ll be forced to. His grandson was US Sen. Malcolm Wallop.

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