Whatever It Is, I’m Against It

Today -100: June 9, 1926: Of liberties, bunk, and smoking

2026-06-09T00:00:00.000-07:00

Cook County (Chicago) Sheriff Peter Hoffman begins a one-month contempt-of-court sentence for having, in his role in running the county jail, granted special liberties to gangsters Terry “Machine Gun” Druggan and Frankie Lake. I’m not sure what those liberties were besides being allowed to come and go from the jail, but that seems like kind of a big one. Alliterative Warden Wesley Westbrook, who like Hoffman took large bribes from the Valley Gang, will also go to jail, and yes, it’s the same jail. In fact, Hoffman will still be sheriff while incarcerated, presumably with authority over the jail, but he’ll resign in December.

NY Supreme Court Justice Aaron Levy grants an injunction against the citizens’ play jury order that The Bunk of 1926, a musical revue written by Gene Lockhart (father of June Lockhart and performed as the second Willie Loman in the original run of Death of a Salesman) be closed because it is “incurably objectionable.” The jury has no legal power to close a play, but their ruling resulted in Actors’ Equity banning its actors performing in it. Producer Ramsey Wallace points out that 8 of the 11 jurors “are named in the Social Register and they take it upon themselves to decide arbitrarily what the masses shall see and approve.” The play will close on the 19th, it’s not clear why, or indeed what was so incurably objectionable.

Gen. Erich von Ludendorff’s wife Margarethe recently filed for divorce. He responds, blaming the breakdown of their marriage on her smoking. He thinks women shouldn’t be allowed to smoke.

Today -100: June 8, 1926: Of councils and the integrity of the entire Constitution

2026-06-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

Brazil, pissed at not getting a permanent seat on the League of Nations Council, stops participating in the League and is threatening to pull out altogether. Spain may follow.

A gathering of Dry groups (the Prohibition Party, the Anti-Saloon League, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, etc) pick former 1-term Republican member of the NY State Senate Franklin Cristman to run against US Sen. James Wadsworth (R). Cristman telegraphs back his acceptance, saying there should be one candidate who stands for the integrity of the entire Constitution, meaning of course the 18th Amendment.

Today -100: June 7, 1926: It’s not his fault and he is a poor man

2026-06-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

Meyer London, three-time Socialist member of Congress, is hit by a car and dies at Bellevue at 54. His last concern is that the driver (who had taken him to the hospital) not be punished: “It’s not his fault and he is a poor man.”

In other car accident news, Hugo Eckener, head of the Zeppelin Company, gets in a crash in Berlin (oh the humanity). Heyward Cutting, who introduced the automobile to Mongolia, dies when his tire bursts on Long Island. And King George V and Queen Mary’s “royal car” knocks down a woman bicyclist. “The King afterward sent a messenger to inquire about her condition.” Didn’t drive her home though.

Cannibalism in Siberia?

Today -100: June 6, 1926: Those who like that sort of thing

2026-06-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

David Lloyd George says in a speech at the Manchester Reform Club, “I have no intention to accept my dismissal from the Liberal Party.”

French scientist Charles Henry claims to have worked out the laws of catalysis and says he’ll soon figure out how to run cars on water.

Today -100: June 5, 1926: Easy To Reach, Hard To Leave

2026-06-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

French Prime Minister Aristide Briand tells the International Woman Suffrage Alliance congress he is a “convinced feminist.” Briand is a bachelor, the NYT points out.

Westchester County, NY has a contest for a new slogan. The $100 winner comes up with “Easy To Reach, Hard To Leave.” Some Westchesterhoovians point out that this might bring to mind that one of the delights at their county is Sing Sing.

The US embassy in Buenos Aires was bombed a couple of weeks ago. Now, it’s the turn of the Legation in Montevideo. Both are believed to be means of registering objections to the death sentences on Sacco and Vanzetti, although I haven’t seen strong evidence of that.

Today -100: June 4, 1926: I thought every one would realize that it was only fiction

2026-06-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Senate Judiciary subcommittee that held all those hearings on prohibition recommends shelving every single bill introduced to modify the Volstead Act or to modify or repeal the 18th Amendment, and it says there’s no legal authority for holding a national referendum on Prohibition.

In 1924 The Diary of a Young Lady of Fashion in the Year 1764-5, by Cleone Knox, Edited by Her Kinsman and Descendant, Alexander Blacker Kerr, was published, an account by a young lady of her travels Europe and her scandalous love life in the 18th Century. Widely praised for offering insight into the period, it turns out the book was a hoax, perpetrated by Magdalen King-Hall, the then 19-year-old daughter of Adm. Sir George Fowler King-Hall. “I thought every one would realize that it was only fiction,” she says. No one did. She went on to write many other novels.

The Esperanto Congress in Madrid offers a cash prize for the best translation of Don Quixote into Esperanto.

Today -100: June 3, 1926: Of maimed veterans and casinos

2026-06-03T00:00:00.000-07:00

Congress recently passed the sensitively named Maimed Veterans Act, which leads the Pension Bureau to check its records and turn up a 79-year-old Civil War vet who’s been paid under the rates for slightly disabled veterans instead of completely blind ones (he caught some eye disease on sentry duty in 1864). He’ll get the additional benefits going forward and the ones he should have gotten since 1904.

Former kaiser Wilhelm objects to his palace on Corfu, which was confiscated by Greece during the Great War but which he says he still owns, being turned into a casino. It will actually not become a casino except in a James Bond film.

Today -100: June 2, 1926: Of intellectual freedoms and animal dogmas

2026-06-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

Former Prime Minister David Lloyd George is more or less expelled from the Liberal Party by H.H. Asquith (aka the Earl of Oxford and Asquith) for having written a letter during the General Strike™ that was a little more sympathetic to the strikers than the Liberal leaders, who backed the Baldwin government’s hard-line position. Asquith is claiming that LG’s failure to attend a meeting of the Shadow Cabinet amounted to a resignation.

Ignacy Mościcki is elected president of Poland following Józef Piłsudski’s refusal of the post yesterday. He’ll be a sock-puppet president for the military until 1939.

The Tennessee Supreme Court hears the appeal of the Scopes Monkey Trial conviction. Clarence Darrow calls for the “intellectual freedom of man,” while K.T. McConnico, for the state, calls on the Court to resist “sinister and unclean” efforts to teach “this animal dogma.”

Today -100: June 1, 1926: Antifa New York City 1926

2026-06-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Polish National Assembly elects coup leader Gen. Józef Piłsudski president, but he declines, for now. The idea seems to be that he wants the office to be granted dictatorial powers before he graciously consents to take it.

A Memorial Day parade in NYC is immediately followed by a parade, in black shirts, no less, of the Fascio Benito Mussolini (that’s an organization), which has a permit and everything. The Fascists are booed and jeered by onlookers, some of them are of Italian extraction. Police attack the anti-fascists.

Today -100: May 31, 1926: Of coups, rich people, maledict courses, bands & bobs

2026-05-31T00:00:00.000-07:00

The coup in Portugal succeeds in ousting the government, which resigns. There is supposedly no bloodshed. The coupsters say they want to form a democratic government (Spoiler Alert: they won’t) and save the country from politicians.

In front-page rich people with rich-people names dying while doing rich-people things news, NY banker Royall Victor drops dead while yacht-racing and NY insurance dude Elbridge Gerry Snow III is in a coma (from which he won’t recover) after a polo accident.

Sen. William Borah (R-Idaho), who hopes to ride a Prohibitionist wave into the White House in ‘28, addressing the Presbyterian General Assembly in Baltimore, attacks the states like New York which have no state law for Prohibition enforcement. “Whether sold in the open saloon or the brothel, its natural haunt, or secretly purveyed in defiance of law, the wicked stuff works its demoralization and ruin to individuals, communities and states. ... From the time it issues from the coiled and copper-colored worm in the distillery until it empties in the hell of crime, dishonor and death, misery and poverty and remorse mark its maledict course.” And people ignoring the dry law, whoa: “To disregard our Constitution, to evade it, to nullify it, while still refusing to change it, is to plant the seeds of destruction in the heart of the nation, is to confess before the world that we have neither the moral courage nor the intellectual sturdiness for self-government.”

Germany says the Treaty of Versailles’s ban on foreign troops at the Rhine means it has to revoke permission for a Swedish military band to perform at Düsseldorf.

The big story in Kentucky this week is that a woman, Martha Bates, was sentenced to 40 days for slapping a Rev. Arlie Brown who criticized women who bob their hair. Gov. W.J. Fields defends her actions and orders her released. Bates says she told Brown that it’s not hair that makes the woman.

Today -100: May 30, 1926: If you do not heed what I say, you will learn to feel my switch

2026-05-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

Marshal Józef Piłsudski tells a meeting of top Polish politicians, demanding he be given dictatorial powers, “If you do not heed what I say, you will learn to feel my switch.” He does say that they’re free to pick another candidate for president. Well, free-ish: “You can elect whom you want, but I will decide if your choice is right. If not, the street will be heard from.” As president, he would want the Diet to grant him extraordinary powers, and then suspend itself for a year.

Texas’s former governor James Ferguson calls his wife’s competitor for governor, Attorney Gen. Dan Moody, “a blowed-up sucker and a gone fawnskin.” I think he’s just making up insults now. This was at a campaign event in Sulphur Springs, at which the actual candidate, “Ma” Ferguson, read off a short speech, which was followed by her husband’s lengthy “harangue.”

Today -100: May 29, 1926: Of coups, tests of eugenics, and bombs

2026-05-29T00:00:00.000-07:00

A military revolt begins in Portugal.

9,000 Slovak fascists meet and swear to fight for Slovak autonomy and the Catholic church. They want only the Slovak language to be used in elementary schools.

The International Woman Suffrage Alliance refuses to allow the National Woman’s Party to join.

The city of Berlin will open a bureau to give couples advice on whether they’re healthy enough to get married and breed. “This is the first real test of the eugenics theory to be tried out in Germany.” But not the last.

Asa Bartlett, head of the Blue Lake Township, Michigan Ku Klux Klan and town constable, is arrested for sending a package bomb to the home of town Supervisor August Krubaech. The bomb killed Krubaech, his 19-year-old daughter, and her fiancé. Bartlett will serve 36 years in prison before his sentence is commuted. He will die in 1982 at 85 years old.

Today -100: May 28, 1926: Of bodies of representatives of different points of view, coal, pickles, and poles

2026-05-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

Two competing American groups, the League of Women Voters and the National Woman’s Party, show up at the big International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) meeting in Paris. The League really really really doesn’t like the more radical NWP and says that the latter “is not a body of representatives of different points of view who meet to develop a common political theory,” which seems an odd argument to make about a group whose, you know, different points of view you’re trying to exclude altogether. Also, Britain, Holland, Romania & France are each already represented by multiple groups. A decision will be made tomorrow.

French suffragists hope this conference will spur the women’s suffrage cause in France. It won’t.

With the coal miners strike still going, Britain imposes rationing. Householders will need a permit to buy coal and then only 100 weight, which is the equivalent of who knows what, per fortnight. Lack of coal is limiting or shutting down factories and railways. Street lights are ordered shut off.

Headline of the Day -100:

3 cans of pickles fell on her in a New Jersey market. And for some reason her husband got $1,000.

Boy, everyone’s looking for Poles today

Today -100: May 27, 1926: Of princes in prisons and rifs

2026-05-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hungarian Prince Louis Windisch-Graetz is convicted in the counterfeiting-for-coups case. He and Police Chief Imre Nádosy are sentenced to 4 years and a fine of 10,000 gold crowns, which is the equivalent of some money. Both will be amnestied in 1928. Other participants receive shorter sentences.

The NYT notes that Prince Louis had a lot of fun in “the dives of New York City.”

Abd el-Krim surrenders to the French ending 5 years of war over the Rif in Morocco, first with Spain, then France. He will be exiled to Réunion for 21 years before escaping.

Today -100: May 26, 1926: I wished to register a moral protest

2026-05-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

Symon Petliura, who led the breakaway Ukrainian People’s Republic created in 1917 and fought both the Russian Bolshevik regime and the Whites from 1919 before leaving for exile in Poland and then Paris, is shot in the Latin Quarter by Russian-French Yiddish poet Sholem Schwarzbard, dying later in the day. Schwarzbard explains that he acted in revenge for pogroms by Petliura’s forces which killed thousands of Jews, including some of his family. He will be acquitted next year and live in the US and South Africa, where he’ll die in 1938.

Marshal Józef Piłsudski meets American reporters. Asked why he did the coup, he says “I wished to register a moral protest.” You know, with machine guns.

Today -100: May 25, 1926: We might as well divide the State into Federal precincts at once

2026-05-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Supreme Court rules unanimously in the case Corrigan v Buckley, permitting permit racial covenants in D.C. real estate deeds banning the future sale of properties to black people, keeping neighborhoods all-white and making such covenants legally enforceable. In this case, the agreement was made in 1921 among 30 families on a block of S Street NW, but the owners of number 1727 sold their house

to a black family in 1922, pissing off the neighbors. The Court says private covenants are not prohibited by the 5th, 13th or 14th Amendments and, since they are private, the Court has no jurisdiction. In 1948 Corrigan will be reversed in Shelley v. Kraemer, which determined (also unanimously) that racially restrictive covenants are prohibited under the 14th Amendment and not enforceable, indeed that enforcement by the state would negate the pretense that racial covenants are purely private.

Governors reply to a NYT question about Coolidge’s executive order allowing the federal government to offer state & local cops dual employment as Prohibition agents. 5 oppose it outright, 4 support it, 7 say there are legal/constitutional issues with their state cooperating, 15 say they’re still thinkin’ about it. Gov. Harry Moore of NJ (D) says “We might as well divide the State into Federal precincts at once”.

Attorney General John Sargent says that the exec. order doesn’t violate the Constitution, federal laws, or state laws. Evidently Coolidge asked for Sargent’s opinion on the legality of the E.O. only after issuing it.

Today -100: May 24, 1926: Of mysteries, chivalrous coups, and servant shortages

2026-05-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

Divers search off the coast of Santa Monica for the body of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, 35, who disappeared last week.

Marshal Piłsudski says the “civil war” in Poland, which is what he calls his coup, was “quite chivalrous”; soldiers often stopped shooting at each other to let children and little old ladies cross the road. But some officers aren’t very forgiving and there will probably be a few duels.

Former suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst (not “Miss Pankhurst,” NYT), continuing her move rightwards, says that if a secret ballot had been taken of miners’ wives, there would never have been a strike.

Oh non! France has a servant shortage. And the Poor Law Dept won’t even let rich Parisians take young orphan girls, saying it would no longer be able to exercise supervision over their welfare. But what about the welfare of rich Parisians? WHAT ABOUT THE WELFARE OF RICH PARISIANS??!!

Today -100: May 23, 1926: Hazard by name...

2026-05-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

Dry Tsar Lincoln Andrews says he’ll try out naming state officials as federal Prohibition agents in California, in accordance with that Coolidge executive order, as a test run. Only in California and only in rural counties and only deputy sheriffs. Sounds like the Coolidge Admin. is backing down.

Texas Gov. Miriam “Ma” Ferguson suggests that if she wins the Democratic gubernatorial primary in July by 25,000 votes, her opponent, Dan Moody, immediately resign as attorney general, but if he wins by a single vote, she’ll resign as governor. (Update: he accepts).

Kentucky National Guard troops armed with machine guns guard the county jail in Hazard to prevent the lynching of a 17-year-old black youth who killed a constable.

Today -100: May 22, 1926: On the other hand, if they use a trumpet while writing on a slate, that would be pretty impressive

2026-05-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

Coolidge issues an executive order allowing state, county, and municipal officers to get dual authority as federal officers (for “a nominal rate of compensation,” maybe $1 a year) with the power to cross state and county lines to enforce Prohibition laws, including in the states – New York, Maryland and Nevada – which have no prohibition enforcement laws. New York has a law which strips the salaries of state officers taking a federal appointment. This executive order reverses one issued by Grant in 1873 forbidding executive branch employees holding state offices. Much outrage is expressed, including from dry members of both parties on the Senate Judiciary Committee, on constitutional grounds (Grant’s EO was more about keeping the graft down to a dull roar). Sen. William Bruce (D-Maryland) points out that just last week Coolidge was championing states’ rights and saying that “No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy, tyranny, inflexibility, reaction and decline.” Sen. Edwin Broussard (D-Louisiana) says compulsory enforcement in communities opposed to Prohibition is just like the Northern attitude during Reconstruction: “The president is merely invoking the policy of the North against the South with reference to slavery.” Maybe not as compelling an argument as he thinks it is.

Józef Piłsudski now says he’ll graciously permit the National Assembly to elect him president of Poland, although he claims “I don’t care to be elected president unless it is proved beyond a doubt that the great mass of the Polish people are behind me,” because nothing says I’m indifferent to power like leading a fucking coup. Also, the president is not elected by the Polish people but by the National Assembly, and some members of that body would be arrested if they showed up in Warsaw.

I’ve realized that I’m so pissed off at this coup because I’ve always resented that World War II started when Germany invaded a country with an authoritarian, anti-Semitic regime, Poland, rather than an actual democracy like, say, Czechoslovakia.

There’s a civil case running alongside the criminal trial of the Hungarians who forged French francs to fund a far-right/fascist coup. In the civil case, the Bank of France is demanding only one (1) franc... plus all the forging equipment. Fascist leader Franz Ulain, who is the lawyer for Prince Louis Windisch-Graetz, points out that Napoleon counterfeited pounds and rubles. In the criminal case, the coupsters’ lawyers are hailing them as the greatest national heroes since Kossuth; I’m rather reminded of Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch trial.

Al Jolson resigns from the Westchester Biltmore Country Club after it objected to him bringing a Jew to play golf with him.

At the House of Representatives hearings about possibly banning mediums in the District of Columbia, Anna Fletcher, wife of Sen. Duncan Upshaw Fletcher (D-Florida) testifies that she’s been an “investigator” for 25 years, has never met a dishonest medium, and received a message from her dead father written on a slate in his handwriting. Harry Houdini calls her “sincere” but denies such a thing is possible: “Every medium who uses a trumpet or writes on slates is a fraud.”

Today -100: May 21, 1926: Restful quiets are the best kind of quiets

2026-05-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

The British coal strike continues, as both sides reject Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin’s proposals to end it.

In a speech to the New York City Bar Association, state Supreme Court Justice William Harmon Black calls for the death penalty for perjury in murder cases, like they did in ancient Rome. He also says jurors must be taught that they’re cowards if they acquit murderers because they are squeamish about the methods of the death penalty.

Thomas Edison says Americans don’t even want talking movies. “Americans require a restful quiet in the moving picture theatre.” Hearing the actors speak would just destroy the illusion. (Unlike seeing the actors in black and white?) Annoyingly for this blog, he refuses to answer a question about what the world will be like in 100 years.

The Jewish population of Poland supports Marshal Piłsudski’s coup, thinking they’ll be better off. Good luck with that.

Today -100: May 20, 1926: Of vetoes and kings

2026-05-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

NY Gov. Al Smith vetoes a Republican bill to redistrict State Assembly & Senate seats, giving R’s seats in Democratic Manhattan. He also vetoes a raise for public teachers, I think but am not wholly sure because it would come at the expense of other priorities, and approves a referendum calling for the loosening of Prohibition. He says this is needed because Prohibition’s popularity in the state has never been quantified. The Legislature approved the 18th Amendment in 1919 after refusing to put it to the voters and the issue has since found its way into low-level elections of officials who have nothing to do with Prohibition.

The military backers of Marshal Piłsudski’s coup want to make him King of Poland.

Today -100: May 19, 1926: Of crooks, criminals and dupes

2026-05-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

The House District of Columbia Committee is holding hearings on ... mediums, specifically whether to ban them in the District of Columbia. The result of which is the White House denying – officially denying, mind you – that any seances have been held at the White House since Coolidge became president. These hearings are becoming a combat between mediums, mostly women, and Harry Houdini, who calls them “crooks and criminals.” He also calls Arthur Conan Doyle a “dupe” of the spiritualists.

Today -100: May 18, 1926: Cramp by name, cramp by nature

2026-05-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill says the General Strike™ didn’t cost the government more than ₤750,000, so there’ll be no need to raise taxes.

The industrial secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen says the strike cost the union ₤1m and the railway companies ₤5.5m, which I’m mostly reporting in order to inform you that the industrial secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen is named Charlie Cramp.

A group is formed in Czechoslovakia to combat fascism. Former Cabinet minister Becyhne demands that Acting Chief of the Army General Staff Radola Gajda either deny being a card-carrying Fascist or resign. (Gadja will shortly be forced out and in a few months will found and head the National Fascist Community).

Headline of the Day -100:

Sigh.

Today -100: May 17, 1926: Southern Baptists sound like fun

2026-05-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

Bishop George Caruana denies having deceived Mexico when he entered the country. He says he told the immigration inspector that he was a teacher, “without, however, any intention of hiding any other titles that I have.” You know, Apostolic Delegate, that sort of other title.

Wilhelm Marx of the Zentrum party will be the next German chancellor, his second time in the job. He’ll retain Hans Luther’s Cabinet except for the justice minister and, er, Hans Luther. His Cabinet will only have minority support in the Reichstag and can be overturned by either the Socialists or the Nationalists or a strong breeze.

The Southern Baptist convention condemns beauty contests, card-playing, dancing, late-night joy-riding and “general mixed bathing.”

Today -100: May 16, 1926: Dance, Hopis, Dance!

2026-05-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Norge has reappeared. It has discovered no new land in the Arctic.

The Underwood Typewriter Company introduces the first typewriter with Chinese characters.

Polish president Stanisław Wojciechowski and the Cabinet resign, submitting to Piłsudski’s coup. Piłsudski won’t be prime minister, contenting himself with Minister of War and running things from behind the scenes, fooling no one.

Russia doesn’t seem to mind the near-fascist coup in its neighbor but France is rather concerned.

At a sesquicentennial event in Williamsburg, Coolidge says the states are the sheet anchors of the US and should stop giving up their powers to the federal government, which should contract.

The British Labour Party repudiates the General Strike™: “For the purpose of checking unconstitutional governments, and acting as a defensive weapon in the industrial battle of labour, the general strike has its place, but the emancipation of the people from capitalism and the re-establishment of Socialism must be achieved primarily by an educational and political organization.” Re-establishment?

Mexico has rejected the Vatican’s request to resume diplomatic relations, but the Vatican tries to sneak an envoy (official title: Apostolic Delegate), Rev. George Caruana (a US citizen, born in Malta, Bishop of Puerto Rico and the Antilles) into the country. Mexico is now deporting him.

Some Hopi Indians from Arizona do some of their religious dances on Capitol Plaza in D.C. before a crowd that includes senators, Supreme Court justices & VP Dawes. They have war bonnets, bear skins and dance with six Arizona black snakes. Their purpose is to demonstrate that Hopi rituals are not cruel or demonic or something, as claimed by people who want Congress to ban them. Sen. Ralph Cameron (R-Arizona) says the dance is not as bad as the Charleston. The NYT says it’s a bit like the hula.