Today -100: February 22, 1926: Of social crimes

Vera, the Countess Cathcart is allowed into the US for 10 days on a  $500 bond. No one seems to know who made this sudden decision or why. (Update: A Labor Dept solicitor will admit tomorrow that it was he, but won’t discuss his reasons, which seem likely to be about preempting a habeas corpus hearing, which you can’t have if the government doesn’t habba your corpus. He says the whole thing may come down to whether “the commission of a social crime,” i.e., adultery, counts as a crime in the US even though it’s not a crime in South Africa, where it was committed.)

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Today -100: February 21, 1926: I didn’t know that one was expected to lie in order to enter the United States

A sniper haunts the streets of Omaha, shooting into lit windows and killing 2 people over the last 3 weeks.

In recent discussions of Prohibition in Congress, Rep. John Hill (R-Maryland) claimed beer is not intoxicating. Schlitz Brewing Company helpfully offers to send each congresscritter a case of beer to test this proposition for themselves.

Vera, Countess Cathcart, explains that she’s in this mess with US immigration because she told the truth about her divorce: “I didn’t know that one was expected to lie in order to enter the United States.”

German novelist and screenwriter Artur Landsberger says German movies are failing in the export market because of all the hand-kissing. Non-Teutonics prefer to see that newfangled lip-kissing.

The NYT runs a State of the Klan survey showing kluxer decline, in influence as well as hood count, in every state.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: February 20, 1926: Of whiskey, minor Georgians, and things not to do under the elms

Coolidge nixes the idea of the federal government buying up all the medicinal whiskey.

Georgia Attorney General George Napier says that the marriages of Georgians (mostly minors) who elope to other states to evade Georgia’s 1924 law requiring 5 days’ notice before a marriage license is issued will not be recognized by Georgia. This will affect hundreds of marriages.

The LAPD arrest the cast – all of it – of a production of Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms on a charge of obscenity. At least the vice squad lets the performance finish before sweeping in, after consulting with members of the PTA, the Board of Education, and some ministers they brought along.

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Today -100: February 19, 1926: If they want to start something they’ll get what’s coming to them

Pres. Coolidge has the flu.

Rep. Charles L. Underhill (R-Mass.) warns the Philippines independence movement (now including both major Filipino political parties) “If they want to start something they’ll get what’s coming to them.” Continuing to make the movement’s case for them, he says Filipinos are “no more fit for self-government than a lot of children.”

Anthony Bimba, a Lithuanian-born Communist and editor of left-wing Lithuanian-language newspapers, will go on trial in Massachusetts for blasphemy under a law passed during the witch trials in Salem (39 miles from Brockton, where Bimba made his speech, in Lithuanian). He denied that there was a God. He’s also charged with sedition.

PM Theodoros Pangalos banishes former PM Alexandros Papanastasiou, former interior minister Georgios Kondylis and other opposition figures to the tiny island of Anafi. The government says the move is to “allay public anxiety.” Also, all private firearms, except those used in sport, naturally, are ordered turned in.

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Today -100: February 18, 1926: Of baby sopranos, cathcarts, pests of pests, and cotton

Marion Talley makes her debut as prima donna at the Metropolitan Opera in Rigoletto. She’s 19 years of age. 19! There’s been so much fuss about this that the Met is mobbed and thousands can’t purchase tickets. The cops arrest several scalpers. The Associated Press reports live by telegraph from the wings, which has not been done before for an opera.

The NYT review praises Ms Talley’s voice but finds that she “has not at present the artistic knowledge to make the most of her gifts.” But you can hear for yourself what she sounded like singing Rigoletto in February 1926:

https://youtu.be/kk_NhUMxaHk

The Treasury Dept is investigating whether it’s feasible for the federal government to purchase the country’s entire supply of medical whisky so it doesn’t keep going astray.

Secretary of Labor James Davis decides that Vera, Countess Cathcart will be thrown out of the country after all. He points out that the 1924 Immigration Act moved the burden of proof from the government to the alien. Next step: To the courts!

The National Woman’s Party points to other examples of the double moral standard in the law: 38 states make prostitution illegal while letting their clients off the hook.

Mexico bans teachers from running for public office.

Manila City Councilman-Elect Antonio Paguia, who last month was sentenced to 2 months in prison for calling Gov. Gen. Leonard Wood “a big tree without a shadow,” is now convicted of sedition, this time for calling Wood a “pest of pests,” “usurper of Philippine autonomy,” and “the worst emissary of the imperialists ever sent here.” The court says this is sedition because an attack on Wood is an attack on the United States government. 

Greece arrests a bunch of opponents of PM Theodoros Pangalos, including former PM Alexandros Papanastasiou and former interior minister Georgios Kondylis.

The Senate votes to compensate Wynona Dixon, 75, for cotton seized by Union forces from her family plantation in Louisiana during the Civil War. $7,666.67. It now goes to the House.

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Today -100: February 17, 1926: Semi-legal points are the most semi kind of legal points, or something

Labor Secretary James Davis postpones his Florida vacation so he can review Vera, Countess Cathcart’s appeal of her deportation order and consider the “semi-legal” question of whether adultery counts as “moral turpitude” for the purposes of the 1917 Immigration Act.

Two Hungarian officers, members of a thuggy right-wing group, try to assassinate former justice minister and current Member of Parliament Vilmos Vázsonyi, who has been pushing an investigation into the plot to counterfeit French francs to fund a royalist coup.

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Today -100: February 16, 1926: Craven cowards are the worst kind of cowards

The roof of the White House is in serious need of repair, but Coolidge refuses to spend the $500,000 it would cost to prevent it falling in during, say, a snowstorm. But has he even considered building a big beautiful ballroom? HAS HE?

An arrest warrant is issued for the Earl of Craven for deportation on the grounds of “moral turpitude” for illicit fucking. Did Immigration wait until after he’d left for Canada? Possibly.

Meanwhile, the Labor Dept, which controls Immigration, holds a hearing for 

Vera, Countess Cathcart’s appeal of her own deportation order. Delegations from the National Woman’s Party and the ACLU are denied entry.

Alliterative Headline of the Day -100:

What was your first clue?

T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) will publish Seven Pillars of Wisdom (under the title Revolt in the Desert) in a limited edition at a cost of $150. He had to rewrite the whole thing after leaving the first draft on a train.

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Today -100: February 15, 1926: Of deportations and beer for workers

Immigration Commissioner Henry Curran responds to the complaints about the double standard in the order to deport Vera, Countess Cathcart by ordering the arrest of the Earl of Craven (!) too, although he does so by press release, which suggest he’s trying to get Craven to flee into Canada.

Headline of the Day -100:

The Association Opposed to Prohibition surveys Illinois manufacturers. Of 1,850 replies, 1,427 favor loosening of Prohibition.

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Today -100: February 14, 1926: Catchcart & Craven

Vera, Countess Cathcart, while waiting on her appeal of the deportation order against her, points out that the man she did all the adultery with, the Earl of Craven (!), was allowed to enter the US (earlier; they’re not together anymore and he’s back with his wife). So now the authorities are looking for him... 

The National Woman’s Party and Rep. Fiorello LaGuardia protest this double moral standard, although it sounds like they’d be content if men were treated equally badly for their private moral actions as women are.

When Germany joins the League of Nations, it will probably get a seat on the Council and might well align itself with Britain against France. So France wants to balance it out by adding Poland, as well as Spain and Brazil. Britain disagrees.

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Today -100: February 13, 1926: Of coal and straw hats

The anthracite coal strike is indeed over, after half a year. Miners will return to work this week on the exact terms they had before, without the wage reductions and compulsory arbitration the mineowners tried to force on them. Coolidge, as was the custom, was no help at all.

Pres. Coolidge orders tariffs on imported straw hats (mostly from Italy) worth more than $9.50 increased from 60% to 88%. 1) $9.50? For a straw hat? Why, that’s the equivalent of some money! SOME MONEY. 2) Taxing the most 1920s of all hats? I dunno.

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Today -100: February 12, 1926: Crimes involving moral turpitude are the funnest kind of crimes

Vera, the Countess Cathcart is ordered deported by the special board of inquiry at Ellis Island. Immigration Commissioner Henry Curran says she “admitted the commission of the crime involving moral turpitude, adultery.” Crime?

Mexico will nationalize all church property, including property belonging to individual priests, and deport all priests who aren’t native Mexicans.

The 164-day anthracite coal strike seems to be coming to an end.

Showbiz Headline of the Day -100:

A likely story.

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Today -100: February 11, 1926: Maybe just shut up about the plight of Sudeten Germans, Duck?

Mussolini warns Germany (and Austria) against appealing to the League of Nations against his treatment of ethnic Germans in South Tyrol, which was annexed as part of the post-war settlement. He says Italy won’t allow the League to discuss the issue, which he considers an internal one. He says that while there are millions of Germans outside Germany, Germany only complains about the treatment of those in Italy; he points out the Czech language was just made compulsory for conducting government business in Czechoslovakia.

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