Today -100: November 1, 1925: Oh, dear, put that gun away

Ku Klux Klan leader D.C. Stephenson’s trial for the kidnapping and assault & battery of Madge Oberholtzer hears her dying statement, after some excisions by Judge Will Sparks. There’s some argument about the meaning of “dear” in the testimony of a railway porter that he heard her say “Oh, dear, put that gun away.” The ominously named Judge Sparks says it might have been used in fear rather than as a term of endearment.

French stage and film comedian Max Linder (born Gabriel-Maximilien Leuvielle in 1893), 41, and his wife Hélène, 26, commit suicide, taking Veronal and morphine before he slits first her wrists, then his own. Er, it may be a murder-suicide rather than a suicide pact. They leave behind an 18-month-old daughter Maud, who dedicated much of her life (she died in 2017 at 93) to discovering, preserving and promoting prints of the films of a father she couldn’t remember. Linder, the first movie star to have his name on a movie poster c.1909, advanced silent comedy in part by basing it on character (“Max”) and developing gags that went beyond slapstick. Some of those were ripped off by Chaplin and many others; his broken-mirror routine in “Seven Years Bad Luck” (1921) is more imaginative than the Marx Brothers’ version in “Duck Soup.” (Also, he looked a lot like John Astin playing Gomez Addams in the ‘60s “Addams Family” tv show. Just sayin’.) His career hadn’t been going brilliantly in recent years. He made a few films in Hollywood, but they weren’t successful. And he had the problem of many film comedians of his generation, that he was good in short films but didn’t scale up well to features.

The Persian National Assembly deposes Ahmad Qajar, who has been shah since he was 11, ending the Qajar dynasty (1789-1925). He’s been in exile in France for a couple of years and has been enjoying casinos and blondes, so he doesn’t seem to much mind being deposed.

Soviet War Minister Mikhail Frunze dies at age 40 after an ulcer operation from chloroform poisoning. There are already rumors that Stalin had him killed, and the use of chloroform and indeed the operation itself were personally ordered by Stalin, who ignored Fruze’s doctors when they said his heart was too weak to survive it. Also, the dosage was super-high. So Stalin might well have purposely had him killed.

Sometime this month, Anita Loos’s book Gentlemen Prefer Blondes will be published.

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Today -100: October 31, 1925: Of frame-ups, aether, and secret bigotry

The ending of the Greco-Bulgar war is considered a triumph and proof of concept of the League of Nations, though Britain’s threat to blockade either country if they failed to comply might have had something to do with it.

The NY Morning Telegraph reported that Fountain Inn in Eustis, Florida, of which Republican NYC mayoral candidate Frank Waterman is a director, is biased against Jewish customers, reproducing a letter from its manager. Waterman calls it a “frame-up” but fires that manager, as one does in response to a frame-up. Then he finds that the recipient of the letter doesn’t seem to exist and he calls the letter a fake, attributing it without evidence to Tammany Hall.

Prof. Dayton Miller of Mt. Wilson Observatory says Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, which is premised on the non-existence of ether, is disproved by Miller’s detection of the mystery substance.

Headline of the Day -100:

I... don’t... even...

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Today -100: October 30, 1925: Of evacuations, elections, and courts-martialses

Greek troops evacuate Bulgaria by the time set by the League of Nations, which appoints a commission of inquiry to figure out who, human or canine, started this nonsense and what compensation they should pay. Both countries have agreed in advance to accept its decision.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Aleksandar Tsankov’s brother Danoso is assassinated on the streets of Sofia. Danny T is a member of parliament but supposedly estranged from his brother and it’s unclear what this has to do with the war or anything.

Conservatives gain seats in Canada’s general elections, but without winning a parliamentary majority. Prime Minister Mackenzie King (Lib) loses his seat in York North and will have to find another one next year, but he’ll continue as prime minister anyway.

At Col. Billy Mitchell’s court-martial for violating army discipline by expressing his opinions on air defenses, the prosecution admits he was given no opportunity, as the rules require, to defend himself during the investigation stage, and there is some doubt there was such a stage. In other words, the prosecution is reluctant to admit that this court-martial was simply ordered by Calvin Coolidge who, the defense points out, said in June at Annapolis that naval peeps have wide latitude to express their opinions. The court decides the president can just change the rules whenever he sees fit.

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Today -100: October 29, 1925: Fascist molecules?

Paul Painlevé forms a new cabinet, becoming finance minister in place of Caillaux as well as prime minister.

Greece says its troops are out of Bulgaria, Bulgaria says they’re not. Greece accuses Bulgarian troops of attacking the evacuating Greeks.

Still no mention of the “stray dog” thing.

Anti-Fascists protest a Fascist celebration of the 3rd anniversary of the March on Rome at the Hotel Pennsylvania on 7th Ave. in NYC (you know its phone number).

Mussolini celebrates on horseback, because of course he does. He tells an audience in Milan, “Every one of you must consider himself a soldier, a molecule, feeling and pulsating with the entire organism.”

It’s a tiny story in today’s paper, but the feds are hunting James Durkin, a suspected Chicago car thief who shot and killed Bureau of Investigation (proto-FBI) agent Edwin Shanahan, who was following him. This is the first BOI agent killed in the line of duty. It will take the feds 3 months to catch Durkin. He will then be tried by an Illinois court because killing a federal officer was not yet a federal crime. He’ll be released in 1954 and die in 1981.

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Today -100: October 28, 1925: What sort of monster turns down a free apple pie?

Since the French Cabinet can’t force Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux to resign when he rejects a capital levy, the whole Cabinet resigns in order to form a new government without him, even though there is no way a capital levy would pass the Senate. Caillaux had also become stalemated with Washington on a plan to repay France’s war debt.

The League of Nations plans to create some sort of Balkans security pact.

A Paris court overrules the Duke of Bisaccia’s veto on his son marrying an actress, the father’s permission normally being needed for under-25s. The court says actresses are perfectly respectable now so there’s no cause for objection.

Brig. Gen. Lincoln Andrews, the assistant Treasury secretary in charge of Prohibition enforcement, complains that Congress made his job impossible by allowing sacramental wine to be sold for profit.

Coolidge turns down an offer from Vermont University’s Girls’ Club of an apple pie for the White House Thanksgiving dinner, possibly because it would be seen as an endorsement of the proposal for an Apple Week, which would be a precedent forcing him to endorse all sorts of fruit-based weeks.

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Today -100: October 27, 1925: The League commands it!

The League of Nations orders Greece and Bulgaria 24 hours to order the removal of their troops from each other’s territory and 60 hours to complete it.

Still no mention of the “stray dog” thing.

Right-wing military coup in Nicaragua by Gen. (and former president) Emiliano Chamorro, whose Conservative Party lost last October’s elections.

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Today -100: October 26, 1925: Violence should be timely and chivalrous

Greece and Bulgaria both agree to do whatever the League of Nations tells them to do.

Still no mention of the “stray dog” thing in the NYT.

The right-wing Nationalist (DNVP) ministers of finance, the interior, and commerce quit the German government because they’re not happy with the Locarno Pact. The Nationalists’ constituents especially object to the renunciation of war to re-re-possibly another re-conquer Alsace-Lorraine.

The Berlin Montag Morgen sues former crown prince Wilhelm, who issued an open letter saying... something, the NYT won’t spill the tea... about their report that he’s been lavishing presents on one of his secretaries. Her father says that Willy had him locked up in an asylum for a year after he objected to the attentions Wills was paying his daughter.

In an article looking back over Fascism’s many achievements, Mussolini writes “I have always maintained that violence should be timely and chivalrous. But when the revolutionary party holds the reins of government, then violence should be exclusively in behalf of the State. Private, individual and sporadic violence is harmful to Fascism.” He says “We must impose absolute discipline” on trade unions so that the majority of the people don’t think they can, you know, lead. “Discipline must not be purely formal, but substantial and absolute, almost religious. The workers must be taught that their duties are more important than their rights.”

The Marx Brothers play “The Cocoanuts” (dialogue by George S. Kaufman, music by Irving Berlin) opens in Boston. It will be refined over subsequent runs; by the time the film version is made in 1929, for example, Chico will no longer be called “Willie the Wop.” Margaret Dumont came aboard for the Broadway run. I shall refrain from making any Groucho-esque (Grouchovian?) jokes about Kay Francis coming aboard.

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Today -100: October 25, 1925: Of sheep, radios, incredible ignorance, and elections with eggs

Pres. Coolidge tells the international convention of the YMCA that parents in this country suck and should exercise more control over their brats, or words to that effect.

Speaking of parental influence, Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt Jr. have completed their expedition to Central Asia after achieving their goal of shooting some rare Marco Polo sheep.

Greece and Bulgaria accept the off-ramp from war offered them by the League of Nations. Bulgaria claims it only lost 3 dead soldiers and 7 MIA or KIA. The Greeks admit to 4 dead.

Still no mention of the “stray dog” thing in the NYT.

Venezuela bans radio sets because workers have been listening to the radio in the afternoons instead of going back to work after lunch. Venezuela already banned afternoon programs but there are pirate stations on ships and in parts of the country the government doesn’t control. We are not informed what sort of programs have proven so enthralling.

Most of the Sorbonne students going for their BA fail their written test so, being Sorbonne students, they respond by rioting, demanding new, less difficult tests. The police have to be called. The dean says the test wasn’t that hard, it’s the “incredible ignorance” of the students that’s the problem. One described Chateaubriand as the author of Emile and The Social Contract rather than the correct answer, a grilled tenderloin steak.

Students at Glasgow University elect Foreign Secretary Austen Chamberlain as Lord Rector, beating out G.K. Chesterton. To vote, students have to pass through a barrage of 20,000 eggs “of ancient vintage and uncertain pedigree,” as well as soot, “overripe herrings,” etc.

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Today -100: October 24, 1925: The League enters!

French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, as president of the League of Nations Council, politely suggests to Greece and Bulgaria that they are obligated as League members “not to take recourse to war”. Greek soldiers have penetrated 10 km into Bulgaria and are bombarding Petritch (Greece will deny this). Bulgarian troops have orders not to fight back, and aren’t, unless you believe the Greeks.

Still no mention of the “stray dog” thing in the NYT.

Slavery will be ended in Nepal any... day... now, according to the Maharajah (who may have a name as well as a title, but the NYT does not appear to know it and I don’t feel like looking it up), who’s been buying manumissions.

Germany bans children acting in movies.

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Today -100: October 23, 1925: Of invasions, discredited propaganda, and hooligans in diplomacy

War of the Stray Dog News: Greece invades Bulgaria, occupying posts and shelling villages (well, at least one village). Greece, claiming Bulgaria attacked a Greek border post, demands an indemnity of 6,000,000 drachmas, which is the equivalent of some money. The Treaty of Neuilly (1919) allows Bulgaria only a tiny army, which is consequently ordered to withdraw and offer no resistance. Bulgaria  calls on the League of Nations to tell Greece to knock it off.

No mention of the “stray dog” thing in the NYT yet.

Gen. John Charteris’s admission that he made up the thing about Germans rendering their dead soldiers is “received in official circles with great surprise.” Performative naïveté. The Evening Standard worries that it will “discredit all the official British propaganda, present past and future.”

Mussolini is cheesed off that Belgian Foreign Minister Emile Vandervelde snubbed him at Locarno. The Duck’s newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia says while the Russian Bolsheviks maintain “absolutely correct diplomatic demeanor,” Social Democrats are “hooligan[s] in diplomacy.”

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Today -100: October 22, 1925: Follyology?

Greece demands Bulgaria pay an indemnity of 2 million French francs gold, which is the equivalent of some money, for what they describe as an unprovoked attack on Greek soldiers posted on the border. The Bulgarian commander explains that it was all a misunderstanding and the government calls for a League of Nations investigation. Depending on who you listen to, the attack was by Bulgarian irregulars or bandits, or it was Bulgarian soldiers crossing the border, or... A Greek soldier chased his dog over the border into Bulgaria, where border sentries shot him dead (the soldier, not the dog, whose ultimate fate and indeed name seem to be a mystery). The NYT doesn’t mention the latter story, which will give this affair the name The War of the Stray Dog, which is right up there with the War of Jenkins’ Ear or the Great Emu War of 1932.

German republicans want to prosecute Hermine, wife of former kaiser Wilhelm, for referring to herself as kaiserin and queen when registering at a hotel in Baden,  titles she never had since she married Willy after he abdicated as kaiser of Germany and king of Prussia.

Thomas Lister, aka Lord Ribblesdale, dies. Since he leaves no male heirs, his barony and amusing title die with him. Here’s a painting of him by John Singer Sargent, looking very Lord Ribblesdaley.

Four Italian Fascists are acquitted by Fascist judges of the murder of Socialist parliamentary candidate Antonio Piccinini in February of last year (despite being quite dead, Piccinini was elected 2 months later). They’ll be tried again in 1950; 3 will be acquitted again and one found guilty, the justice of which is slightly lessened by his having been dead for 6 years.

Headline of the Day -100:

Victor Emmanuel, the fucking king of Italy, starts a fucking campaign against motherfucking swearing.

A newspaper distributing agent and two newsdealers are indicted in Jersey City for selling supposedly indecent magazines. They’re given suspending sentences after signing an agreement not to sell magazines, including “Hot Dog,” “Whizz-Bang,” “Artists and Models,” “Art and Beauty,” “Art Lovers,” “Flapper Experiences,” and “Follyology.”

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Today -100: October 21, 1925: Of solemn pledges, a return to Shakespeare’s time, and his and her impeachments

Hungary starts censoring crossword puzzles after one in a royalist newspaper has the solution “Long Live Otto” (the 12-year-old Habsburg pretender to the throne).

Headline of the Day -100:

Their restraint in not snickering shows great self-control.

The Japanese government is worried that the disorder in China may lead to another Russo-Japanese war, since it’s endangering the territorial gains Japan made in China in the first war.

That Catholic Church in Linz, Austria decrees that plays produced by Catholic societies must be male-only.

There is talk in Texas of impeaching Gov. Miriam “Ma” Ferguson because her husband, former impeached governor James Ferguson, has been doing more and more of her job, especially handing out highway contracts.

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Today -100: October 20, 1925: Wherein is revealed whose head Alfred E. Smith would bite off and what no man in possession of his proper senses would ever do

Treasury Sec. Andrew Mellon proposes lowering the maximum income tax, reducing taxes at every income level, eliminating federal inheritance tax, and passing a constitutional amendment eliminating tax-free securities. He wants to kill federal taxes on trucks but not on passenger cars.

New York Gov. Al Smith says he’s definitely, final answer, not running for re-election. “I’ll bite the head off the first leader who tries to tell me I’ve got to run for governor.” As for president in 1928, well, he’s willing to be drafted – “No man in possession of his proper senses would ever turn down the nomination for president” – but he certainly won’t be campaigning for it or indeed even announcing his candidacy.

British Brig. Gen. John Charteris, a Tory MP who was Army Chief of Intelligence during the Great War, admits, at a National Arts Club dinner of all places, that he’s the one who started the story that Germany was boiling down the bodies of its soldiers for glycerine. He planted it in a Shanghai newspaper to influence the Chinese, then the story spread to British newspapers.

The US Supreme Court overturns Arizona’s minimum wage for women.

Although Italy has in theory held Somaliland as a (cough) protectorate since 1889, it didn’t dare try to occupy the north, possibly put off by the ass-kicking Ethiopia gave it in the ‘90s, but now Mussolini sends in troops.

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Today -100: October 19, 1925: Of locarnoes, panamas, and income tax

The Soviet Union, at least as expressed in Izvestiya and Pravda, considers Locarno to have been a victory primarily for Britain, which now has Germany in its grasp, loosening the links Russia tried to forge with Germany as fellow European outcasts with the Treaty of Rapallo. Russia is feeling left out and lonely.

Passengers on a ship arriving from Panama inform the NYT of a revolt – in fact, a rent strike – in Panama a week ago that you’d think the paper would have heard about before now, especially considering US troops are helping suppress it, a fact that won’t appear in the paper for another 6 days as the occupation winds up.

Treasury Sec. Andrew Mellon tells the House Ways & Means Committee that he opposes exempting incomes under $5,000 from income tax because then it would be only fair, he says, to exempt the first $5,000 of incomes over $5,000, and that would double the revenue loss. He wants to reduce federal taxes in ways I can’t help notice would especially benefit the rich, and to eliminate federal inheritance tax altogether. He says taxing lower-income people would give them “a stake in the country.” He also wants to eliminate the publicity clause making the amount of income tax people pay being public.

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Today -100: October 18, 1925: Allied powers by any other name would smell as sweet

French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand says the phrase “allied powers” must no longer be used, thanks to Locarno reuniting Europe in peace and friendship forever.

NY Gov. Al Smith says he won’t run for re-election, which I assume means he wants his time free to run for president, although the NYT has no clue about that and is befuddled by Smith’s decision. The article also says the D’s are expected to run Franklin Roosevelt for US Senate. Which they won’t.

To wear a turban in Turkey now requires a permit, which will only be issued to Muslim clerics.

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Today -100: October 17, 1925: When two ride one horse one rides behind

French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand says the Locarno Conference lays the foundations for the United States of Europe. Hurrah!

In Locarno, Mussolini holds a press conference, but most of the British and French, and some of the German, reporters boycott it to protest censorship in Italy.

Responding to the US Episcopal Church’s decision to drop “obey” from women’s marriage vows, William Inge, the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, says “When two ride one horse one rides behind.”

The Texas Textbook Board orders the deletion of any reference to evolution in textbooks.

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Today -100: October 16, 1925: Never fight again

Mussolini unexpectedly turns up at the Locarno Conference. Wants to be at the signing ceremony, I guess. He’s being asked by the Swiss authorities not to go out in public, since the region of Switzerland in which Locarno is located has many refugees expelled from Fascist Italy.

First sentence of the article on Locarno: “Today France and Germany promised never to fight again.” Phew. The demilitarized Rhine zone will exist in perpetuity, guaranteed by Britain and Italy. There’ll be arbitration treaties between Germany and France, Germany and Belgium, Germany and Czechoslovakia, and Germany and Poland (the latter two guaranteed by France). Most importantly, perhaps, Germany is now on equal footing with other nation-states.

Sen. Samuel Ralston (D) of Indiana drops dead. Gov. Ed Jackson (R) will name a Republican/Klansman, Arthur Robinson, to replace him.

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Today -100: October 15, 1925: Of leagues, entokillers, and pagans

At the Locarno Conference, Germany agrees to apply for League of Nations membership without reservations about military commitments, but with a wink and a nod from the allies (rather than a written guarantee) that they’ll take into account Germany’s lack of a military to commit.

Obit of the Day -100: Harold Maxwell-Lefroy, entomologist and insect-slaughterer extraordinaire. He was playing with lewisite in his lab, probably (they might have been able to keep him from dying when they found him unconscious if they’d known what gas he was using but he was the secretive type). Lewisite was invented during the war as a chemical weapon by a dude named Lewis. It’s assumed Maxwell-L. was trying to use it to kill flies. Don’t fuck with flies. In fact, his young son died in India of typhoid or another of those tropical fly-borne diseases, so he wasn’t fond of flies. This is not even the first time this year he became unconscious in his lab mucking about with insecticides. M-L is credited with saving Westminster Hall from being eaten by beetles and with killing some of the lice infesting soldiers in the trenches during the war (the origin of the word “lousy,” if I haven’t mentioned that before).

Scotland Yard raids Communist Party headquarters. There’s been a lot of talk lately about seditious literature.

NY Secretary of State Florence Knapp added religious questions to the state census for Indians (and only Indians), enabling her to reveal that half of them are good Christians while half are “pagans.” 

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Today -100: October 14, 1925: I should no longer hold an office I cannot adequately fill

John Weeks finally resigns as secretary of war on health grounds (he had a stroke 6 months ago and hasn’t been able to do his job since then; he will die in a few months). His resignation letter says “I should no longer hold an office I cannot adequately fill,” a sentiment unheard of a hundred years later. Weeks used to be mayor of Newton, Massachusetts, while Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of war was named Newton Baker, which is perhaps the least interesting coincidence ever. Weeks will be replaced by assistant sec’y of war Dwight F. Davis, who trained for this job by playing a lot of tennis (he’s the founder of the Davis Cup).

Mussolini fires the prefect and chief of police of Florence over the recent anti-Masonic riots that resulted in 4 deaths. He also fired a bunch of other government officials and expelled rioters from the Fascist Party.

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Today -100: October 13, 1925: Of planes, poor Jews, and general stirs

A single-seater women’s airplane goes on sale (for ₤300) in Britain. For thin women only.

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, the, I don’t know, chief Jew in the US, says the anti-Semitic protests at the World Zionist Congress in Vienna, with the goose-stepping and rioting and so on, were less disturbing than the disputes among the delegates. He says of the half-hearted Zionism of the English Jews, who sent few delegates, “they are poor Jews and worse Englishmen.”

c.30 Fascists take part in the New Haven Columbus Day parade in uniform (black shirts, skull & bones, etc). “Their appearance created a general stir”. Anti-Fascists counter-demonstrate and 3 are arrested, one of whom is carrying a blackjack.

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