Today -100: September 30, 1926: Of prohibition, forgotten crimes, and climbing popes

The New Hampshire Democratic Convention, unlike the NY and Massachusetts ones, supports Prohibition, blaming the Republicans for laxness for enforcement.

The NYT complains about the slowness of justice in the Teapot Dome case: “If the guilty men are ever convicted and punished, it will be only after the great majority of the people have forgotten with what crime they were charged.”

Headline of the Day -100:

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Today -100: September 29, 1926: I am going to put on my fighting clothes

The New York Democratic Convention picks NY Supreme Court Justice Robert F. Wagner as its candidate for US Senate. He says “I have been a judge and I am going to put on my fighting clothes.”

The New York Republican Convention picks Congresscritter Ogden Mills for governor and James W. Wadsworth Jr. for re-election to the US Senate, the latter over strong objections from the Drys. Pro-Wadsworth speeches say he should be nominated because Coolidge wants him in the Senate.

The Massachusetts Democratic Convention votes unanimously for repeal of the prohibition laws. However, like their senatorial candidate David Walsh, they are “not in favor of the return of the saloon, with its saturnalia of evils.” A saturnalia of evils is the worst kind of saturnalia.

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Today -100: September 28, 1926: The gunman in place of the barman

At the preliminary hearing of Aimee Semple McPherson et al, a witness who saw Sister Aimee in Carmel during the time she claims she was being held hostage in Mexico, is interrogated thus: “What is your religion, if any?” “Do you believe all the trash you read in the newspapers?” “I see I am talking to one of those boys who spots the women on the street when he drives by.”

Wayne Wheeler, the alliterative general-counsel for the Anti-Saloon League, complains about the New York Republican Party’s plan to abide by the results of the referendum on prohibition. See, the drys intend to boycott the vote, so I guess it shouldn’t count.

Former Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt addresses the New York Democratic Convention as its temporary chair, speaking more about national Republicans than New York ones. He says that by claiming credit for economic prosperity, the Coolidge Admin is guilty of the common-law offence of seeking to obtain by false pretenses something actually belonging to others (economic laws + the efficiency and good sense of businessmen and workers). He attacks Republican tariffs. He says the way prohibition has been enforced has “given us the bootlegger in place of the saloonkeeper and the gunman in place of the barman.”

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Today -100: September 27, 1926: Of guilt, throngs, crown princes, bunny hats, and umpires

French PM Raymond Poincaré calls on German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann to acknowledge, indeed to embrace, German’s guilt for starting the Great War.

Allen Dulles, the future CIA director, resigns from the Foreign Service because any further promotions (he was just named counselor to the legation at Peking) would entail expenses beyond his salary ($8,000 a year for the Peking gig) and he just can’t afford to supplement his little diplomacy hobby out of his own pocket.

Headline of the Day -100:

THRONG. With an R.

German newspapers claim that former crown prince Wilhelm, grandson of former kaiser Wilhelm, has enlisted in the German army as a private. He did not. They wouldn’t let him, of course, but he is also barred because he was made a lieutenant of the First Prussian Footguards during the war at the age of 10.

Headline of the Day -100:

The overseas soldier hat is made of Australian rabbit fur. The army is looking for a substitute.

Especially in New York, you often hear “Kill the ump,” but instances of umpicide are surprisingly rare. Anyway, at a game on Long Island between the Centuries and the Cubs, the brother of the Centuries’ catcher objects to a call of “out” and slugs the umpire, fatally.

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Today -100: September 26, 1926: Of shorter weeks and radio wars

Henry Ford establishes a 5-day work week as permanent policy, after it was trialed in some plants in July. But only those workers who “deserve” it will get the same pay as they did for 6 days.

Russia is engaging in a “radio war,” supposedly the first, with Romania, broadcasting propaganda into that country. Romanian military stations are trying to block it by broadcasting buzzing. You need a license to own a radio set in Romania, and none are allowed near the border. The first Romanian radio station opened this month, playing phonograph records.

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Today -100: September 25, 1926: ...and prosperity

The Republicans have a slogan for 1926: “Coolidge and prosperity.”

Ross Gilmore Marvin, part of  Robert Peary’s Arctic expeditions, was reported drowned in 1909. Now, Kudlooktoo, an Inuit attached to that expedition, who recently converted to Christianity, admits having shot him when Marvin tried to fire another Inuit and send him off without any supplies.

Black people, who know slavery when they see it, resist being conscripted to clean up after the hurricane in Florida, getting in a gunfight with marines in Miami.

And 3 black men are rumored, probably maybe falsely, to have been lynched for looting dead bodies near Miami, shot and then burned.

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Today -100: September 24, 1926: Of boxers, hurricanes, and petitions

Gene Tunney beats Jack Dempsey to become heavyweight champeen, but Dempsey makes a lot more money out of the fight.

Florida police and militia and specially deputized American Legionnaires round up anyone who can’t prove they have a job and force them to help in hurricane cleanup. No mention of paying them anything.

Anti-typhoid serum and “medicinal” whiskey are being widely distributed.

It will be impossible to determine how many people died in the hurricane because many were buried without any record being kept, especially in Miami and Miami Beach. People who ask the cops for information are directed to the newspaper offices.

Charles Ponzi, in jail in Texas awaiting extradition to Massachusetts, offers Houston Mayor Oscar Holcombe the deeds to his Florida properties to sell for hurricane relief. Holcombe says no, calling it “an attempt to gain publicity at the expense” of hurricane victims.

The Mexican Congress rejects the Episcopate’s petition to drop the anti-Church bits of the Constitution and related legislation. Also, the Petitions Committee noticed that many of the signatures came from non-Mexican-citizens. Since Coolidge declared all this none of our business, the Church’s hope that outside nations would overawe the Mexican government is fading.

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Today -100: September 23, 1926: Of poor devils, occupations, and radio fads

Gen. Lincoln Andrews, the head of federal prohibition enforcement, says prohibition agents will be fired if they drink and future hires will be required to take a pledge of total abstinence. One exception: agents who have to testify in court that they tasted the evidence and, yup, it’s whisky alright. Andrews calls those agents “poor devils” because “the product now available is of the most atrocious quality.”

Relief workers helping survivors of the Miami hurricane ask for medicinal whisky and are informed fuck you.

France (finally) begins to withdraw its troops from the Rhineland. 7,000 of them anyway.

Thomas Edison says radios should not be used for music because of distortion. Once the “radio fad” passes, he says, people will return to the phonograph. Radio dealers are finding them unprofitable.

Speaking of the radio fad, the BBC says it will only employ men as radio announcers, because of the heavy physical strain involved.

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Today -100: September 22, 1926: Of mikados

A London revival of “The Mikado” elicits complaints by using actual Japanese garb or modern Japanese garb, whatever “Oriental Oxford bags” might be. Loose pants, I guess.

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Today -100: September 21, 1926: Of reservations, degeneracy, and machine guns

The US has been negotiating to join the World Court, provided it be given equal status despite requiring certain “reservations,” such as not allowing League of Nations advisory opinions in any case involving the US.

Former prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia, the second son of former kaiser Wilhelm, is divorcing ex-princess Sophie Charlotte for the crime of... auditioning to be in movies, which is just plain embarrassing to the good name of Hohenzollern. She will bring counter-charges of degeneracy. Next month the court will declare him the guilty party, or the more guilty party.

Gunmen with machine guns do a drive-by at Al Capone’s Hawthorne Inn in Cicero, Illinois. This article is wrong that Capone was next door during the attack. He was in fact hiding under a table. Over 1,000 rounds are fired from seven cars into the Hawthorne & the neighboring Anton Hotel, which is also Capone-owned (Capowned?), but no one is killed. A family in a car experiences some injuries; Capone comes out and promises to pay their medical and presumably car-repair expenses, which will amount to $10,000.

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Today -100: September 20, 1926: Zeal!

The corpses of the bandits who kidnapped & killed Jacob Rosenthal are still hanging from trees or, as the NYT puts it,  

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Today -100: September 19, 1926: Miami is in ruins

A hurricane hits Miami and Palm Beach, killing several hundred people and doing $100 million of damage to Miami. Tropical Radio station reports “Miami is in ruins”.

Cuba is negotiating with Italy to take some of the latter’s excess population.

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Today -100: September 18, 1926: Of bandits & citizenship

A day or two after bandits kill Jacob Rosenthal, Mexico executes 7 of them, all Indios, with more to come. Their bodies will be left hanging from trees, as was the custom. 3 more are killed when their compadres attempt to rescue them.

France has been arresting naturalized US citizens who were born French for evading military service to their former country. Also, American citizens born in France to American parents.

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Today -100: September 17, 1926: We oppose the return of the saloon

The Connecticut Democratic State Convention calls for repeal of the 18th Amendment, calling it “an indefensible curtailment of personal liberty.” But it says as long as the indefensible curtailment of personal liberty remains the law of the land it should be enforced, and “We oppose the return of the saloon.” 

The L.A. County orders the arrest of Aimee Semple McPherson, her mother, and three others involved in her disappearance last May. The charge: conspiracy to defeat justice, including paying a woman to pretend it was she rather than Sister Aimee who inhabited the love shack in Carmel.

Mexican bandits who kidnapped Jacob Rosenthal of Long Island kill him when the Mexican authorities refuse to allow his family to pay the 20,000 peso (c.$10,000) ransom and send soldiers in not-very-good disguise to the drop-off point.

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Today -100: September 16, 1926: I’ve just been strutting myself

Coolidge bans arms exports to Nicaragua. This is aimed at the rebels rather than the government. 

Sen. Rice Means loses the Colorado Republican primary for re-election, another sign of the declining influence of the Ku Klux Klan. 

The 3rd Ku Klux Klan convocation authorizes Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans to stay in hotel bridal suites during his travels. And they’re giving him a yacht. He will adopt a standard of living commensurate with the “dignity of the Klan.” “Boys,” the Imperial Dentist announces, “I’ve just been strutting myself. I’m going to leave it to you whether I shall continue to do so.”

In Canadian federal elections, the Liberal Party comes slightly short of a majority. Mackenzie King will probably be able to stitch something together allowing him to continue as prime minister.

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Today -100: September 15, 1926: Everyone is at work and Mussolini works harder than anybody else

The Locarno treaties come into effect, triggered by Germany’s entry into the League of Nations. 

After all those constant denials that nobody really believed, Al Smith will run for re-election as governor of New York after hall because his health has improved – he’s had a mole removed from his back.

4,353,605 Spaniards vote in favor of the plebiscite for continued dictatorship (and 0 against, that not being an option on the ballot). That’s 13% of the electorate, which the regime considers a rousing success.

US ambassador to Italy Henry Fletcher congratulates Mussolini on surviving the latest assassination attempt, and effusively praises The Duck and the progress Italy has made under Fascism: “Everyone is at work and Mussolini works harder than anybody else.” Mussolini is giving the Italian people a new spirit and a new patriotism.

KKK Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans says that if any European nation invades Mexico (no, no one is really suggesting that will happen), “there are enough Klansmen in America to repel them.”

Headline of the Day -100:

Same.

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Today -100: September 14, 1926: Of parades, strikes, more strikes, and milk wars

The Ku Klux Klan parade in D.C. is much smaller than last year’s, 15,000 to 20,000 this time around.

The British coal strike is still going on. Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill can’t get mine owners to negotiate.

Oh that’s cute: the Spanish plebiscite is taking place on the third anniversary of Primo de Rivera’s coup.

Supposedly thinking they were enforcing a temporary injunction against the NYC garment workers’ strike, police arrest 480 strikers. But the injunction only applied to 3 union officials, not the strikers as a whole.

In other New York labor news, there is a “Bronx milk war.”

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Today -100: September 13, 1926: Much more to be desired is that the experiment be worked out in peace and cool judgment

Mussolini says if the bomb had actually gone into his car instead of bouncing off it, he would simply have picked it up and thrown it back at the assassin. Sounds exactly like something Trump would say.

A NYT editorial on the assassination attempt says “While the special perils of a Dictator cannot be ignored, no thoughtful person desires to see that form of tyranny tempered by assassination. Much more to be desired is that the experiment be worked out in peace and cool judgment.” Jesus fucking Christ.

Name of the Day -100:

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Today -100: September 12, 1926: I truly love to live in danger

An anarchist, Gino Lucetti, throws a bomb at Benito Mussolini’s car. It bounces off, injuring some bystanders when it explodes. Lucetti tries to escape, throws another bomb, which fails to go off, at the cops trying to arrest him. They have to protect him from an angry mob. Lucetti has been living in Marseilles, where he fled last year after getting in a shoot-out with a Fascist. He snuck back into Italy on a rowboat. He will be sentenced to 30 years, will escape or be released in 1943, and soon die in a German bombing raid.

Speaking from his office window (the Chigi Palace having an egregious lack of balconies), Mussolini tells a crowd, “Excessive and culpable tolerance of plotters beyond our frontiers cannot any longer be endured.” He’s talking about France, which hosts not only refugees from Fascist Italy but anti-Fascist newspapers. He says, “As I have abolished strikes, I intend absolutely to stop periodical attempts against my life. I say this not on account of myself, because I truly love to live in danger, but on account of the Italian people, who work and produce and have a right not to be disturbed by such recurrent happenings.” He suggests he will bring back hanging. (Update: another article has The Duck saying, “From this balcony...” but I’ve looked at a bunch of pictures of the Palace and I maintain there aren’t any, if you’re wondering what I’ve been doing with my time today).

A bomb blows up a car in the “Little Italy” neighborhood of Harlem, killing at least one person in the car and severely wounding two more. This may be related to a Fascist street meeting held on the same corner a bit earlier, although the fire department claims the car’s gas tank probably exploded. No one believes them. The bomb may have belonged to the car’s occupants. (Update from tomorrow -100’s paper: one more dies and the two dead are both in Fascist organizations, so yeah they definitely planned to throw the bomb, which the police and fire dept still refuse to acknowledge was the cause of the explosion, at the ANTI-Fascist meeting in retaliation for the assassination attempt on Mussolini).

Spain quits the League of Nations (well, gives the required two-year notice).

Spaniards are voting on the thing that isn’t a proper plebiscite because there’s no option to vote against dictatorship (also, the government will know that the people who do not vote oppose it). King Alfonso is believed to oppose Primo de Rivera’s regime, going so far (hah!) as to appoint Gen. Dámaso Berenguer (the future “soft dictator”) to the royal household; Primo de Rivera said that rather than shake Berenguer’s hand he’d prefer to run him through with a sword, which is also my usual Yelp review.

Staten Island concludes the celebration of its sesquicentennial, which is pretty fancy language for an outer borough.

Frisian regions of the Netherlands are insisting on the use of the Frisian language in schools.

In other news, there is a “Frisian” language.

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Today -100: September 11, 1926: Of pirate radio, militaries, women’s suffrage, and nudists. German nudists, like you hadn’t already guessed that.

Mexican Pres. Plutarco Elías Calles is attacked on a pirate radio station, whose transmitter the police have been unable to locate. Is this the first time such a thing has happened?

The French government reduces military spending, retiring 3,900 officers (leaving 128,000), raising the age of conscription from 20 to 21, and firing 7,000 military horses and... we’re all thinking it.

Spain’s plebiscite will entail the first use by women of their new right to vote. So women can now vote for dictatorship. Yay?

Prussia’s interior minister approves “cultural nudists” frolicking in public in woods and by lakes, provided view of them is screened off by shrubs or whatever.

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