Today -100: January 17, 1926: Of road warriors, Anastasias, and traffic lights

For 25 years, John D. Rockefeller has been trying to close a road that goes through his estate in the towns of North Tarrytown and Mount Pleasant in Westchester County, New York. The former now rejects his request, presumably in order to convenience passing headless horsemen (the town is the location of that Washington Irving story and has since changed its name to Sleepy Hollow). At first I thought the milkman fighting Rockefeller needed the road for his milk rounds, but actually his father owned a hotel and some years ago Rockefeller got the road leading to it closed. Revenge against a Rockefeller is the best kind of revenge.

The General Federation of Women’s Clubs asks Coolidge to support an amendment to the Constitution to establish uniform marriage and divorce laws, including preventing “the unfit” from marrying.

The Grand Duchess Olga travels to Germany to inspect a woman who claims to be the lost (i.e., dead) Grand Duchess Anastasia. Olga says the woman (who is in a sanatarium and may have been put up to this) looks nothing like Anastasia and furthermore speaks only German, a language Anastasia did not speak, and with a Bavarian accent no less.

Constantinople gets traffic signals, which are such a novelty that crowds gather to watch them change color, blocking traffic and rather defeating the point.

Bessie Lee Gambrill is named the first woman associate professor at Yale in a field other than nursing. Her field is elementary education. She’ll teach 30 years at Yale and die at 105 in 1988.

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Today -100: January 16, 1926: Coley Blease asks the tough questions

Senate opponents of the US joining the World Court are filibustering the bill, although they’ve kind of run out of arguments. Coleman Blease, standing in for an ill William Borah, resorts to reading out George Washington’s farewell address, interspersed with “extemporaneous comments on evolution and drinking by diplomats in Washington”, with likker (as we’re informed he calls it) causing “these foreigners” to “get drunk and... debauch our women.” Why, he asks, should a “cotton mill boy” be arrested for having a flask when “some little half-nigger from a foreign country” has diplomatic immunity?

Groups of monarchists are roaming the streets of Berlin, defacing police posters which describe Black Reichswehr members wanted for murder.

Turkey adopts a new Civil Code, consisting of the whole of the Swiss Civil Code, which is still being translated. It will abolish polygamy, make divorce more difficult, and eliminate the special protections of Jewish, Greek and Armenian minorities, since Switzerland Swiss minorities are treated equally.

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Today -100: January 15, 1926: Of antis, retirements, and radios

The Women’s National Republican Club elects as its president Alice Chittenden, who used to be president of the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage.

NY Gov. Al Smith says he’ll retire from politics when his current term ends in December (he won’t). He says he wants to go into some sort of business where he can employ his three sons. Some people think he really does want to make some money, having previously made the unusual decision to not be corrupt in his political career; others think he’s clearing his schedule to campaign for president in 1928.

Headline of the Day -100:

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Today -100: January 14, 1926: Of dirigibles, KKK Inc., and lynchings

An article on the disagreements within the Dept of the Navy has this delightful alliterative sub-hed:

The NY Ku Klux Klan is attempting to go around the Walker Anti-Klan Act, which was upheld by the NY Court of Appeals yesterday, by incorporating, thus relieving itself of the requirement to name its members.

A Coahoma County, Mississippi jury acquits G.O. Cain (!) of murder for his part in the lynching of Lindsey Coleman, who had been acquitted of killing a plantation storekeeper.

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Today -100: January 13, 1926: Of nyes, counterfeits, train robbers, and warm hearts

The Senate votes 41-39 to seat Gerald Nye, who was appointed more than 6 months ago by North Dakota Gov. Arthur Sorlie, who may or may not have had the legal authority to do so (badly written law). Nye is a La Follette Republican, which explains his support from Senate Dems.

Another day, another counterfeiting plot, although this one cleverly rested  not on actually forging Portuguese banknotes but on the simpler task of forging an order to the British company that prints Portugal’s currency. Or possibly not technically forged: signatures on the order may have come from actual government officials who are part of the plot, the aim of which was to acquire so much power in Portugal (they used the money to found banks and buy existing ones) that they could sell its colonies to Germany.

The NY Court of Appeals upholds the law requiring the Ku Klux Klan to file a list of its members, the text of its secret oaths, and its constitution with the state.

The Mexican Army is ruthlessly exterminating the bandits who attacked the Guadalajara-Mexico City train yesterday, including summary executions of bandits captured alive (and their alleged accomplices who were nowhere near the train). After they’ve confessed, of course.

Yesterday Helen Keller met Pres. Coolidge, today she meets First Lady Grace Coolidge, who used to teach deaf-mutes. Regarding Keller’s comment that Cal is not a cold man like everyone says, Grace says he thought only she knew he had a warm heart.

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Today -100: January 12, 1926: A dear president

Helen Keller, whose habit is to visit every president (from Grover Cleveland to LBJ), meets Calvin Coolidge, putting her finger on his lips to hear him (does that actually work?), and I CANNOT find a picture of it. She says, “They say you are cold, but you are not. You are a dear president.”

The Supreme Court refuses to stay the two-year sentence of Rep. John Langley (R-Kentucky) for violating Prohibition laws. Langley resigns from Congress, where he’s (ahem) served since 1907.

70 German reactionaries sign a manifesto calling for the overthrow of the Weimar Republic, including 6 former generals, the odd prince, university profs, Reichstag members, etc.

Bandits attack the Guadalajara-Mexico City train, killing something like 50 passengers and crew, though American and German passengers are unharmed. They insist, not that anyone asks, that they are revolutionists, not bandits. After burning the coaches, they escape on the locomotive.

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Today -100: January 11, 1926: Dispersion of energy

Mussolini says democracy only works in the US because its resources permit luxury & waste, whereas Italy is poor and can’t afford the “dispersion of energy... inherent in a democratic regime.”

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Today -100: January 10, 1926: Of rights, common criminal cases without any political or patriotic features, and the best films of 1925

The US protests Mexico’s new oil and land laws, some bits of which apply retroactively, as violating American “rights.” The threat is that recognition of the Mexican government will be withdrawn.

The Hungarian authorities are pretending that the counterfeiting plot was just a “common criminal case without any political or patriotic features” rather than the means to finance a monarchist coup. But they have stationed cops on every corner, just in case another counterfeiter walks by, presumably.

The NYT gives its list of the top 10 movies shown in NYC in 1925:

The Big Parade

The Last Laugh

The Unholy Three

The Gold Rush

The Merry Widow

The Dark Angel

Don Q., Son of Zorro

Ben-Hur

Stella Dallas

A Kiss for Cinderella

None of which are lost films, so, you know, findable on YouTube, Tubi, etc.

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Today -100: January 9, 1926: A big tree without a shadow

The Manila Municipal Court sentences City Councilman Antonio Paguia to 2 months for insulting Gov. Gen. Leonard Wood by calling him “a big tree without a shadow” and an oppressor and an autocrat and a despoiler of Philippine liberty.  Which is funny cuz it’s true.

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Today -100: January 8, 1926: Away from Judaism, with its Jehovah

Former kaiser Wilhelm writes an article for a book, The Opposition of the Germanic Movement to Judaism and Christianity, urging Germans to “break away from the belief that Jehovah, the God of the Jews, is our God.” Evidently the real forerunner of Christianity is not Judaism but the Aryan religion of Zarathustra. “Our slogan must be ‘Away from Judaism, with its Jehovah,’” he sloganizes. 

A federal judge in Chicago gives a reduced sentence to a saloon owner and a bartender after their lawyer says that their liquor was “of high quality and wholesome content” (i.e., not adulterated). The judge agrees this is a mitigating factor.

Headline of the Day -100:

Vice President Charles Dawes forgets his wife’s birthday.

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Today -100: January 7, 1926: Of worlds court, state of the state messages, marching on Budapest, and B & A

The move to join the World Court progresses as the Senate, by a vote of 54-16, rejects James Reed (D-Missouri)’s resolution calling for investigation of pro-World Court propaganda and propaganda from international bankers to influence Congress in favor of war debt settlements with European countries.

New York Gov. Al Smith presents his program to the Legislature, including: extending the gubernatorial term to 4 years; biennial legislative sessions with state senators serving 4-year terms & assemblycritters 2; an executive (i.e., unified) budget rather than each department’s budget being voted on separately; consolidation of counties, including within New York City; abolishing the Motion Picture Censorship Commission (he calls film censorship a useless activity opposed to freedom & liberty); abolishing the state census; max. 48 hours work for women and minors.

Gyula Gömbös, head of the Hungarian National Independence Party (which the NYT calls Fascisti), is said to be gathering forces to march on Budapest in 2 or 3 days.

George Burns & Gracie Allen marry. Have you seen the short films they made together c.1930? You should.

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Today -100: January 6, 1926: Of killer cops, cells, crowns prince, and sensational trashy periodical literature

Samuel Kranin, a Brooklyn glazier, goes to the police station to report that a patrolman beat him up in his store after he refused his demand for $2. After he picks the cop, John J. Brennan, out of a lineup, Brennan shoots him dead. The police surgeon says Brennan is drunk.

Hungarian authorities make many arrests in a conspiracy of fascist types, anti-Semites & royalists, including the chief of state police and Prince Ludwig Windish-Graetz, to counterfeit French francs to use to create a dictatorship and make Prince Albrecht king, displacing “Regent” Miklós Horthy. The Princess Windish-Graetz is assured by the head jailer that her husband is occupying “the best cell in the building.” Most of the police work in uncovering this plot was done by the French.

Romanian Crown Prince Carol drops the “crown prince” business and is now calling himself Scarlat Mondstireanu, which is just a fun name. The royal family will pay his past debts but not support him financially in the future.

Columbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler gives his annual speech to the students, denouncing “sensational trashy periodical literature,” which cultivated types of people should ignore because life is just too short. He doesn’t seem to specify what literary elements make for such garbage lit, but we do know that in 1941 he will personally block Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls from winning the Pulitzer,  calling it “offensive and lascivious.”

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