Today -100: November 22, 1925: Foreshadowing

The Rhinelander v. Rhinelander case was abruptly adjourned Thursday after Alice’s lawyers blatantly attempted to blackmail young Kip, showing him a letter he wrote to Alice in hornier days but not reading the letter to the court... yet. Evidently it’s explosive enough that his lawyers are now reportedly negotiating for a 6-figure settlement.

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Today -100: November 21, 1925: Of queens mother, prohibition, and burying Snoopy’s arch-nemesis

Queen Mother Alexandra, the Denmark-born widow of Edward VII, dies

at 80.

Coolidge calls for prosecutions of users of alcohol and not just bootleggers.

France has finally given the body of The Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen, back to Germany, which holds a ceremony in which the coffin is accompanied by planes. One of which crashes, killing its 21-year-old pilot. It’s what Reddy would have wanted, probably. 

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Today -100: November 20, 1925: Of new world spirits, candidate kings, and jaundice

At the dinner of the NY State Chamber of Commerce, Pres. Coolidge (also broadcast over the radio) calls for the US to join the World Court. While reassuring his audience that it would involve few actual obligations, he says it would have a tremendous sentimental effect. “It would be public notice that the enormous influences of our country were to be cast upon the side of the enlightening processes of civilization. It would be the beginning of a new world spirit.”

Fascist deputies in the Italian Parliament attack and throw out Communist deputies. 

I must have missed the speech where Mussolini threatened to annex the Austrian Tyrol. So far, this campaign consists of the post office refusing to deliver mail in South Tyrol, which was awarded to Italy after the war, unless it’s addressed in Italian.

Archduke Albrecht II, a lesser Habsburg, who “has not previously shown striking qualities of leadership” but is pushing to become King of Hungary, becomes leader of the more or less fascist (mostly more) Society of Awakening Hungarians.

The NYT refers to the questioning of Kip Rhinelander on the stand as “at times unprintable, and a constant dwelling on unpleasant subjects.” Was it jaundice? He says that Alice’s father, whose blackitudinousness is more obvious than hers, told him that he was an Englishman with jaundice, and he believed him. “Mr. Davis tried to get him to admit that he had seen the elderly negro in his nightshirt but without success.”

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Today -100: November 19, 1925: Of odium, the only live force in Italy, defectives, and the arms of women in Havana

The British House of Commons ratifies the Locarno Treaty in what is being called “the spirit of Locarno,” meaning a European desire for enduring peace. Ramsay MacDonald and David Lloyd George criticize the lack of consultation with the British Dominions. Foreign Minister Austen Chamberlain (whose brother will declare “peace for our time” in 1938) says, “I do not say that these treaties when ratified will make war impossible...” Disappointing. “...but I do say they will render war infinitely more difficult.” How will it render war infinitely – infinitely! – more difficult? Because any country that starts a war will be “clearly putting itself in the wrong before the whole civilised world and bearing the odium of such wrong-doing.”

The Italian Parliament is considering a bill to make Mussolini responsible only to the weak-ass king, not, as now, in theory, to parliament and the king. Other “ultra-fascista” bills would give The Duck a veto over the agenda of Parliament and seize the property and revoke the citizenship of Italians living abroad who say bad things about (“damage the prestige of”) the Fascist regime. The Duck praises the idea of Italians all voluntarily subscribing to pay off the war debt to the US. He sez “Today Fascismo is the only live force in Italy. Everything else can be relegated to museums.” Also, “Throughout the world there is a feeling that the parliamentary system was good in the past, but today it is insufficient for the needs and passions of modern society.”

Dr. Clarence Cook Little, president of the University of Michigan, calls for the sterilization of mental “defectives.” He says there won’t be any abuse of this because “a public opinion intelligent enough to understand its need will be intelligent enough to prevent its abuse.” See, and you were worried about abuse.

The Hungarian Court of Appeals reverses the death sentences (and possibly the convictions as well? unclear) of József Márffy and Karl Marosi, two leaders of the Society of Awakening Hungarians who threw bombs into a Jewish dance hall 2 years ago, killing 9, but it does sentence them to 6 years for trying to bomb the French Legation, the homes of 2 Liberal leaders, a court building, etc. Some light googling failed to reveal whatever happened to these dudes.

Rhinelander v. Rhinelander: Leonard “Kip” Rhinelander is questioned by Alice’s lawyer Lee Davis:

“What is the color of your wife’s body?”

“Dark.”

“How dark?”

“Fairly dark.”

“Is it very pronounced?”

“It isn’t any darker than the arms of women I have seen in Havana.”

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Today -100: November 18, 1925: You must admit that there is no longer room for modesty here

Headline of the Day -100:

A French expedition plans to reach the North Pole next year utilizing motorized amphibious sledges, some of them carrying airplanes. Honestly, that explanation is more than a little disappointing after reading “mystery sleds” in the headline.

The British Admiralty decides that the destroyer Vivacious won’t have former Prime Minister Lloyd George’s badge as its insignia but rather... a squirrel.

The Italian Senate discusses giving women the municipal vote, while the Chamber considers abolishing elections in 7,000+ of the 9,000 municipalities. Bit of a roller coaster for the Italian women there.

Rhinelander v. Rhinelander: Leonard “Kip” Rhinelander testifies, or, as the NYT puts it, “A sadly confused young man stuttered his way through the intimate confessions of his courtship”. Alice’s lawyer Lee Davis gets him to admit that he, in the words of Davis, “voluntarily fell in love with” Alice quite soon after meeting her in 1921. This undercuts Kip’s lawyer’s assertions that he was the weak-minded victim of a scheming woman. He admits that it was he who pursued her and it had been his idea to get an apartment with her. Davis: “I didn’t want to bring filth into this case, but you must admit that there is no longer room for modesty here.” The Kippinator also admits that some of the claims in his pre-trial sworn statements, such as that he had frequent conversations about race with Alice in which she lied, were not true and were inserted by his father’s thug/lawyer. It’s possible Kip is trying to sabotage the case his family forced him into.

His testimony is interrupted so they can bring to the stand... famous black-face actor Al Jolson, who just wants to deny ever speaking with Alice, as she had claimed in one of her letters. The newspaper reports have caused him some trouble with his wife.

Back to the main witness. Leonard admits having taken meals with Alice’s relatives, despite having previously said that he doesn’t want to associate with colored people. He does deny having played a game of deuces wild with black men.

Then some of his letters to Alice are read out. He is forced to admit he was trying to get Alice to think about sex.

“What did you mean by ‘If you are real nice to me, once in a while I will let you drive’?”

“If she would let me caress her.”

....

“What is the worse deception, to lead a girl to believe you want to marry her and take that which is most precious to a woman, or for her to say she is white and not colored?”

“The latter.”

Davis asks if he didn’t recognize that a phrase Alice used, “strutting party” (dancing) was “a typically negro expression.” He did not.

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Today -100: November 17, 1925: It is your badge of masculinity

Rhinelander v. Rhinelander: the reading of Alice’s letters to Kip concludes after 4 loooong days. The jury is bored; other people’s love letters are never as interesting as you think they’re going to be. 108 of their letters to each other will be read.

D.C. Stephenson is sentenced to life. Yeah I know I said 20 years, not sure what the discrepancy is. His two co-conspirators who were acquitted are back in court charged with arson for a fire set at Stephenson’s home, to collect the insurance money, two days after Madge Oberholtzer’s funeral.

Bishop Collins Denny advises the North Carolina Methodist Conference to grow mustaches: “That’s all the women have left us. They cut their hair and wear men’s clothes, but they can’t wear a mustache. It is your badge of masculinity.”

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Today -100: November 16, 1925: If submarines are outlawed, only outlaws will have submarines

Sen. William Borah (R-Idaho), Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and other senators, support the movement to ban submarines. He also wants to ban war.

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Today -100: November 15, 1925: Of nyes, dragons, and submarines

North Dakota Gov. Arthur Sorlie (D) appoints Gerald (pronounced with a hard G, I’m informed) Nye, editor of the The Fryburg Pioneer, to the unexpired US Senate term of Edwin Ladd, who died in June. Nye’s a Dem., Ladd was an R. Also, it’s unclear whether the governor actually has the authority to make this appointment, so Republicans in the Senate are threatening not to seat Nye.

D. C. Stephenson, former grand dragon of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan, is convicted of 2nd degree murder for the death of Madge Oberholtzer, who took poison after his sexual assault on her and who he then kept from medical care. He is sentenced to 20 years, which is odd because I know he served more than that (and more still after he broke his parole). Surprisingly, his 2 bodyguards are acquitted.

A British submarine is declared lost after a Swedish ship bumps into it, with 69 members lost (stop sniggering). There’s a growing movement in Britain to ban the things altogether.

The NYT Sunday Book Review reviews the translation of Karel Čapek’s 1922 novel Krakatit about an engineer on the run after inventing an explosive that could end all life. I haven’t read it, but the Times reviewer seems confused as hell by a work of science fiction (to use an anachronistic term).

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Today -100: November 14, 1925: Governor Smith may be a big man in New York but he does not cut any ice here

The Rhinelander v. Rhinelander court hears more of Alice Rhinelander’s letters to her future husband, in which she tried to make him jealous by mentioning other men, including Al Jolson, who she said was a guest at the house where she was a maid. Did they really spend an entire day just reading out letters? 

Al Kelly, a sailor, has a side gig as a “human fly.” He climbs the 24-story Candler Building on W. 42nd Street, NYC after accepting a $500 bet that he could perch on its flagpole for four hours. But after an hour a cop who used to be a structural steel worker starts climbing after him, and Kelly gives up. The cop drags him to court, where he’s released after telling his story.

Examination of King Tutankhamun’s mummy shows that he was 15 (and let’s not even get into his mummy penis).

Colorado Gov. Clarence Morley refuses to extradite Philip Klein, who is wanted by New York on firearm charges and jumping bail. One of the NYC cops who trekked to Colorado says Morley told them that “Governor Smith may be a big man in New York but he does not cut any ice here” and “If Klein is a menace to New York, he is a menace here as well, so we will keep him.” Which makes no sense at all since he faces no charges in Colorado. Morley denies that conversation took place, says the papers were improperly filled out. Det. Sullivan thinks Morley is following Ku Klux Klan wishes. 

The producers of Eugene O’Neill’s “Desire Under the Elms” will skip Boston, refusing Mayor James Curley’s demand for extensive edits.

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Today -100: November 13, 1925: Of debts, bee strikes, filth, and duels

Italy agrees to pay off its war debt to the US. $2,407,000,000 over 62 years. These are better terms than the US is offering anyone else, reflecting the poor state of the Italian economy.

Headline of the Day -100:

These are bees which France insisted on getting from Germany as part of war reparations, no longer producing honey. They sure assimilated fast, didn’t they?

Alice Rhinelander’s lawyer Lee Davis objects to Kip’s lawyer reading out “this filth,” meaning his client’s letters, 26 of which are read to the jury today. He threatens “If this girl is dragged in the slime, I’ll drag him as well (by reading his letters to Alice).”

Sadly, they aren’t filth, even by 1920s standards, so I won’t bother with quotes.

The German Reichstag’s Judiciary Committee adopts a bill to cashier army officers who participate in duels. War Minister Otto Geßler, who personally disapproves of duels, nevertheless objects to officers being fired for something university students get away with all the time and for which other government officials are not fired. Naturally, the right-wing nationalist parties vote against punishing duelists. During a previous Reichstag debate on dueling, one deputy... well, you can guess.

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Today -100: November 12, 1925: Of rhinelanders, blue shirts, and shells

Rhinelander v. Rhinelander continues. Alice’s (semi-literate) letters to Leonard are read to the court to prove that she was the pursuer. He takes the stand and admits to having been a virgin before he spent a week with her at the Hotel Marie Antoinette (well before they married).

Armistice Day is celebrated at the Arc de Triumph by 6,000 members of the new Faisceau des Combattants et des Producteurs, the first French Fascist group (what took them so long?). Blue shirts. Sadly, no nation’s fascist group ever adorned themselves with red shirts. Leader Jacques Arthuys, in his speech, distinguishes French from Italian Fascism, the former being “adapted to our thoughtful and measured temperament”. Perhaps because no one really wants thoughtful and measured fascists, the group will collapse within a couple of years; Arthuys will die in a German concentration camp.

Also on Armistice Day, three girls are killed by a shell they find in a field in Ciry-Salsogne, France.

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Today -100: November 11, 1925: Of negro blood, anti-Semitism, and radios

Headline of the Day -100:

Alice Rhinelander’s lawyer points out that after “Kip’s” father placed him at a school for “backward youths” for a year (he stuttered), he never visited him, but when the proud Huguenot name Rhinelander became associated with negroes, he jumped in with both feet to extract his son from the woman he met while at that school (well, he sent his lawyers to do that, anyway; in fact, neither he or any other member of the family will attend the trial). Ouch. Well, I’m sure this trial couldn’t get more invasive and embarrassing.

Headline of the Day -100:

So the Rhinelander case makes every single inter-racial marriage newsworthy now?

Dr. Herman Vogelstein, chief rabbi of the Breslau Synagogue, says anti-Semitism is on the decline in Germany. Phew. He blames its rise after the war on Germans looking for a scapegoat and on Jews for being too focused on Palestine. Vogelstein’s optimism will probably be dynamited, along with his synagogue, on Kristallnacht and he’ll escape to the US.

Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover says he’ll stop issuing new radio station licenses, as recommended by the National Radio Conference, until new legislation is passed.

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Today -100: November 10, 1925: Of colored blood luminaphones, and clowns

Rhinelander v. Rhinelander, Leonard “Kip” Rhinelander’s annulment suit against his wife Alice (the only grounds for divorce in New York at the time was adultery), on the ground that she deceived him about having negro blood, begins. His lawyer says “The consent of the plaintiff to the marriage was obtained by fraud.” He says the jury will have to decide if Alice Rhinelander is “colored and of colored blood.” And a lot of shit about how she roped in poor weak-willed Kip.

By the way, an earlier post mentioned that Alice was put in the Social Register by virtue of her marriage, the only black person therein. The person who then successfully pushed for her to be removed was Emily Post herself.

There are a couple of books on the trial. Heidi Ardizzone and Earl Lewis, Love on Trial: An American Scandal in Black and White, which looks to be more popular history, and Elizabeth M. Smith-Pryor, Property Rites: The Rhinelander Trial, Passing, and the Protection of Whiteness, is more academic and uses the trial as a lens on race in the US in the 1920s.

H. Grindell Matthews, who you’ll remember as inventor of the Death Ray™, has now invented the less-dramatic Luminaphone™, which sends lights through perforated plates to produce sounds. Not very interesting sounds, but sounds nonetheless.

Grock the Clown says he is leaving Britain forever because they insist on collecting income tax from him, the fuckers. At one point Grock was the highest-paid performer in Europe. See if this explains why.

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Today -100: November 9, 1925: Vast plots are the worst kind

The Italian police claim that the assassination plot against Mussolini was a “vast plot” to overthrow the Fascist regime and the monarchy, involving an ever-increasing number of suspects in every city. Or at least that’s their story and they’re sticking with it. Although they are releasing a lot of the people they arrested.

The Vanderbilts are going to demolish their mansion on 5th Avenue, 

so they’re opening it up to the public for the first time, with the entry charge going to a children’s charity. This is what sits on the site now:

There was another building there between the ‘20s and the ‘50s, but I ran out of patience trying to find a pic of it.

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Today -100: November 8, 1925: Everything and everybody

The Italian Fascist regime continues to arrest people allegedly involved in the assassination plot against Mussolini. Police are blaming a Masonic offshoot which as far as I know had nothing to do with it.

Headline of the Day -100:

Canners say whale meat will soon be available in cans.

The Prince of Wales falls off his horse again.

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Today -100: November 7, 1925: Of unfortunately failed assassinations, klans, and the bootleg class

The Italian government claims the assassination attempt on Mussolini was actually part of a deep conspiracy to overthrow not only the Fascist regime but the monarchy as well, funded from abroad. Bullshit, of course.

After William Jackson copped to being one-fourth black when applying for a marriage license to marry a white woman, Helen Burns, the KKK burns a cross on his lawn in Montclair, New Jersey. Looks like the marriage now won’t happen.

Andrew J. Volstead of Volstead Act fame tells an Anti-Saloon League convention that Prohibition authorities should prosecute and imprison regular users of alcohol “so that the country might know some of the so-called ‘good people’ are simply in the bootleg class.” Some aliens found boozing it up should be deported, he says.

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Today -100: November 6, 1925: The next generation will be both homely and dumb

Tito Zanibóni, a former Socialist (but Fash-curious) deputy is arrested for attempting to assassinate Mussolini. He’d rented a hotel room in Rome overlooking the balcony from which The Duck was scheduled to give a speech, but police arrest him after a tip-off. Mussolini orders the dissolution of the Unitarian Socialist Party to which Zanibóni belonged and the closure of its newspaper, and is going after Masonic lodges, ostensibly to protect them from reprisal by furious Fascists.

It probably doesn’t mean anything, but Mr. M’s speech was to celebrate Armistice Day, which in Italy meant the surrender Austria near the end of the Great War, and Zanibóni’s sniper rifle was the Austrian Steyr-Mannlicher M1895.

Zanibóni’s trial in 1927 (why the delay?) will result in a 25-year sentence, which will be commuted by the king in 1943. He’ll by appointed High Commissioner for the National Purification of Fascism in 1944, but will soon resign because the government failed to give him powers to, you know, nationally purify Fascism.

Biologist and influential racist eugenicist and Albert Wiggam says American women are losing their beauty, which will be followed by their intelligence (the two evidently go together) because stupid, unattractive women are out-breeding them. “If it keeps up, the next generation will be both homely and dumb.” 

25-year-old Soprano Mary Lewis joins the Metropolitan Opera, unusually coming from a career in vaudeville, including the Ziegfeld Follies, and silent movies.

Campbell McCarthy, who we are irrelevantly informed is a negro, gets a last-minute reprieve (a postponement) of his hanging in Illinois, but insists on being allowed to eat the last meal anyway (chicken; it doesn’t sound like prisoners have a choice of last meal).

Lucy Dales becomes the first woman mayor of Dunstable in England, elected almost unanimously by the council, on which she has sat since 1908. I say almost unanimously because her father voted against her. “She already has had as much responsibility as a woman should carry.” Dunstable has only just gotten electricity, explaining the light bulb theme you can sort of see – if you squint – at this wooden sculpture of Dales unveiled this very year.

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Today -100: November 5, 1925: Of fruitcakes, aces of spies, and big parades

The Ku Klux Klan did not do well in elections Tuesday, failing to defeat the Catholic John Purcell (D) for Virginia treasurer and failing to elect mayors in Detroit (where it did elect 4 to the city council), Buffalo or Louisville. The latter’s klannishness was discovered quite late and he was forced to pull out of the race. The Klan candidate for mayor of Indianapolis did win.

The revolution in Southern China is seriously imperiling British Christmas, dependent as it is on imports of ginger for puddings and fruitcakes. Oh noes!

Headline of the Day -100:

“Although”? Surely not being alive is a highly desirable quality in a politician.

Sidney Reilly, the Russian-born so-called “Ace of Spies,” is executed in secret by the Soviet Union’s secret police. The veteran of many plots, most of which fell apart, he was paid by god knows how many countries’ secret services, most notably the British. He is tricked by a OBPU front organization into sneaking back into Russia despite having been sentenced to death in absentia in 1918.

King Vidor’s “The Big Parade” parades into movie theatres.

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Today -100: November 4, 1925: I’m Walkering here

Tammany’s candidate J.J. (“Jimmy”) Walker, 44, is elected mayor of New York, part of a Democratic sweep. The NYT looks to Walker for “a sharp break with the most offensive methods” of Hylan. “It will be a grateful surcease if the City Hall leaves off asserting every day that wicked conspirators are in a ‘plot’ to ‘rob’ the city.” Walker will indeed not assert that, since he’ll be taking large bribes from those conspirators plotting to rob the city.

“Old-timers” complain about how quiet the election is in NYC, with no fights or nuthin’.

One notable Republican loss: former governor Charles Whitman is defeated for district attorney of New York County by incumbent Joab Banton.

Ruth Baker Pratt (R) is elected as the first woman member of the NYC Board of Aldermen, from the “Silk Stocking District.” In 1928 she’ll be the first woman elected to Congress from NY State.

New Jersey elects A. Harry Moore (D) of Jersey City as governor. He ran on a platform of dismantling state enforcement of Prohibition. Hey, NJ has 3-year terms for governors. (Update: changed to 4 years in 1947. And before then they couldn’t succeed themselves, so Moore was governor for three non-consecutive terms).

Greece claims the forensic evidence shows that Bulgarian troops killed that Greek soldier in Greece and dragged his body into Bulgaria.

German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, in a speech in Dresden, says that at Locarno, British Foreign Minister Austen Chamberlain told him that “England’s entire naval and land forces would be at Germany’s disposal if France crossed the German frontier.” While this does express the multi-lateral nature of Locarno’s security guarantees, the phrasing is a little startling for Brits.

The Prince of Wales falls off his horse, as was the custom, while fox-hunting.

The NYPD will soon patrol the business districts to run down hold-up men using 9 new cars carrying detectives “known as skillful marksmen and equipped with rifles, sawed-off shotguns, tear gas bombs and pistols of unusually large calibre,” as well as machine guns capable of firing 100 rounds in 7 seconds. The drivers will be “expert in driving.” They’re hoping to develop radios to put in the cars; until then, the patrols will have to check in every 30 minutes to see if there have been any robberies. So stupid in so many ways.

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Today -100: November 3, 1925: Of skyscrapers, kluxers, and pleasure gardens

The German Ministry of Health bans skyscrapers (buildings taller than 5 stories) in Berlin, because they are unhealthy, obstructing light and air.

The Ku Klux Klan is making a push to elect a municipal government in Detroit.

“The Pleasure Garden,” the first film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is released. It’s... nothing special.

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