March 1, 1921. Grace and Calvin Coolidge check out the streets of Washington, D.C.

 It was just a few days prior to his inauguration as Vice President.

February 9, 1921. Electoral vote certified.

 And without any drama either.

January 26, 1921. Sketches of late January.

 

Women gained the right to vote in Sweden.

Defeated Presidential candidate Cox visited the White House to pay his respects to outgoing Democratic President, Woodrow Wilson.

A grain collision at Abermule, Wales, resulted in the deaths of 17 people.

January 24, 1921. Deliveries.

The photo above was delivered for copyright protection on this day in 1921 to the Federal Government.  It had been taken of the recent Rose Bowl game.

And below, delegates from Minnesota delivered their states electoral votes for the 1920 election.
 

Mrs. Thos. D. Schall, Mrs. Eugene Drendome & Vice Pres. delivering the electorial vote of Minn., 1/24/21

A gas plant explosion in Memphis killed eleven people.

January 10, 1921. History lost.

On this day in 1921, the Census of 1890 was badly damaged in a fire at the Commerce Department.  Not only did the fire consume records, but the resulting effort to fight it also did. And, moreover, the records were left in deep water overnight with open windows in a result to dry them back out.

The result of the 1920 election were quietly certified by Congress.

Oil was struck in Arkansas.

January 5, 1921. The times in a mirror.

The Senate Committee on the Election, January 5, 1921

The Senate Committee on the Election met on this day in 1921.  

If they could see the Senate now, I wonder what they'd think?  It wouldn't be kind, I'm sure.

 Workers maintaining White House tennis courts, January 5, 1921.

Workmen were out in D.C. maintaining the tennis courts.  At that time, the utility vehicle remained horse drawn.

Vehicles were very much making their inroads, of course.

Times Square, 1921.

New York City imposed traffic regulations that included one way traffic for a portion of the day around Times Square.  It was revolutionary at the time.

In Washington D. C. the fire chief's vehicle collided with another, resulting in serious injuries to the chief.

Headlines in the paper warned that the Soviet Union was menacing Europe and a new general European war looked almost certain to break out.

November 4, 1920. Byran suggests Wilson should resign. He didn't.

Life magazine considered the plight of the family dog in its November 4, 1920 issue.  Life was a humor magazine at the time.

On not humorous, or maybe humours, William Jennings Bryan apparently was at his gadfly height.

The headline was misleading. Bryan suggested Wilson should resign.

The suggestion was stupid and Wilson didn't take it.

Blog Mirror: 1920 Voting Machine

 

1920 Voting Machine

November 2, 1920. Harding sweeps the race, Racial violence sweeps African American Ocoee out of existence

Cox only did well in the South, which at the time was solidly Democratic.

Harding barely mentioned Cox during the race, choosing instead to campaign against his predecessor, Wilson and to promise a "return to normalcy".  The strategy was a success for Harding in a nation that was tired of the events that occured from 1912 to 1920, which had included constant turmoil and strife.

Warren G. Harding.

Harding hadn't really started out wanting to be President, however.  He was talked into it by party leadership following the race that developed after Theodore Roosevelt's January 1919 death.  Roosevelt, at that point, didn't really have his heart in the race either, but he would have run and, but for his death, would almost certainly have won as a Progressive Republican.  Harding won promising that things would return to normal.

He wouldn't live out his term, dying in office from a heart attack in 1923.  At the time of his death he was a well liked President.   Scandals later associated with Harding were not known during his lifetime, including the story of his two mistresses, one former and one ongoing, which had resulted in the birth of his only child in 1919.

KDKA broadcast election results from Pittsburg, the first time that a radio station had done so.  KDKA, which was owned by Westinghouse, is regarded as the world's first commercial radio station, although that claim can be disputed.

Voting on this day resulted in the Ocoee Massacre, an assault on African American voters. The assault resulted in the deaths of at least 30 black Floridians and the destruction of the black quarters of the town. Survivors were driven from the town.

Voting related death, of a sort, also came to James Daly, an Irish born solder of the Connaught Rangers who had figured in a mutiny in India earlier that year.  For his role in the mutiny he was executed by the British Army.  While nineteen soldiers of the unit received the death sentence for their role an effort that was obviously doomed from the onset, Daly's was the only one carried out.

October 23, 1920. Seasonal themes, Accidental death via old and new means of transportation, Main Street, Convertibles.

The usual Saturday magazines were out on this day in 1920. The covers featured seasonal themes.

Subscribers to The Country Gentleman were treated to two elderly gentlemen listening to a candidate.

The Saturday Evening Post had a more lighthearted scene on its cover.

Readers of the Casper Daily Tribune were not presented anything lighthearted.

Indeed, they read about accidental transportation deaths of the old and new type.  Dr. William Norwood, DDS, was dying from a fall from a horse that occurred near the Standard refinery, a symbol of the Oil Age.  On the same page the victims of an automobile accident, one a fatality, were also featured.

Sinclair Lewis' most famous work, Main Street, was released on this day.

The book was an unflattering portrayal of a small town in Minnesota based on Lewis' home town.  It was nominated and selected for the 1921 Pulitzer Prize but the choice was vetoed by a committee member  One town in Minnesota banned it.  It went on to win the 1930 Pulitzer Prize.

October 23, 1920, Gasoline Alley.

October 22, 1920. The formation of the Arab Legion (أل جيش أل عربي).

 Cap device of the Arab Legion

On this day in 1920 the British in Transjordan formed the Al Jeish al Arabi (أل جيش أل عربي), the Arab Army.  In English it was much more commonly called the Arab Legion, although the unit was never officially called that.

Glubb in 1940, the year after his appointment as the commander of the Arab Legion.

The unit combined the policing and military functions for the Transjordan.  It featured, at first, British officers and Arab enlisted men and was commanded from 1939 until March 1, 1956, by British career soldier and World War One veteran John Bagot Glubb, popularly known as Glubb Pasha.  Up until 1956 the unit continued to have a significant contingent of British officers, although by that time it had Jordanian officers as well.

Arab Legion 25 Pounder in action during the 1948 Arab Israeli War.

This created the bizarre situation in the later years of the organization under that name as Jordanian forces fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War under British command at its senior levels, even though the UK was not a combatant in the war and British officers were not supposed to play an active role in the war in disputed territory, something that proved impossible to adhere to in reality.  On March 1, 1956, cognizant of the problems this was creating, as well as the odd image it fostered, the Jordanians dismissed its British officers and renamed the unit into another variant of the term "Arab Army".  Today it is termed the Jordanian Armed Forces.

The British influence formed the unit into one of the best armies in the Arab world, a distinction it retains to this day.

Seattle street, October 22, 1920.

On the same day, candidate Warren G. Harding was posing for a sculptor.

October 20, 1920. Trips and Monarchs

 

Nicholas Longworth and his wife Alice, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt with President Warren G. Harding. Also in the photographs is Frank B. Willis, a candidate for senator for Ohio.  October 20, 1920.

On this day in 1920 Yugoslavia's government voted to become a monarchy with the Serbian  Karađorđević dynastic family as its monarchs.  A king would not be installed for a year.

British Columbia rejected national prohibition of alcohol, an option available to Canadian provinces.  It was the first to do so, but it wouldn't be the last.

Joseph Sadi-Lecointe sets a World Aviation Speed Record flying a Nieuport-Delâge 29V 302.53 kilometers per hour.  He's go on to become an aviation official in the French government, resigning that post after the defeat of France in 1940 as he would not serve the Vichy government.  He was active in the resistance and arrested by the Gestapo in 1944.  He was released after being held for two months, but died as a result of injuries received from torture while a prisoner.

On the same day the Army's Black Wolf Squadron returned to Mitchell Field in New York after having flown all the way to Ft. Davis at Nome Alaska and back.

October 9, 1920 Contests.

October 9, 1920, cover of the Saturday Evening Post  I actually thought this was a Leyendecker rather than a Rockwell when I first saw it as it strongly resembles the former's work.

In the1920 World Series Game 4, the Brooklyn Robins went down to defeat, scoring 1 as opposed to the Cleveland Indians' 5 runs.

David Lloyd George declared in a speech that the British would not allow for Irish home rule and expressed British resolve to prevail in the Irish troubles.

Vilnius fell to Polish "mutineers" and Austria transferred South Tyrol to Italy, which retains it to this day, although it is an autonomous self governing Italian region. 

Fire Prevention Week was inaugurated in the United States and Canada.

Potomac Park including Hains Point, as well as the Naval Air Station Anacostia (upper left) and the Army Air Service's Bolling Field. October 9, 1920.

October 2, 1920. Columbia's eyes, Canadian governing farmers, Runs in hose, Killer monkeys.

Leslie's wanted the nation to be reminded that the allegorical eyes of the nation were on voters in its issue out this day in 1920.

Meanwhile, the Country Gentleman was reporting on "Farmer Rule For Canada", which was an article predicting that results based on recent elections in Canada.

The Saturday Evening Post featured a less rural cover.

The last triple header to be played in major league baseball took place on this date when Pirates and the Reds played three games.  The Reds one.  Triple headers are now banned in the major leagues except under unusual circumstances that are sufficiently rare, they haven't occurred.

 

King Alexander was bitten by a monkey when he tried to intervene and save a dog that had been attacked by another monkey. The bite would result in an infection leading to his death, which brought King Constantine back to the throne.  

King Alexander had been a controversial king.  A playboy early on, he'd been smitten by a commoner whom he married over his family's objections.  While the marriage was ultimately recognized, she was only accorded formal royal status after his death in order that their daughter be recognized as a royal.

Greece, under a government formed under King Constantine, would go into a war with Turkey that had disastrous results.  Winston Churchill later remarked to the effect that the monkey's bit may well have resulted in the death of 250,000 people.

Curb brokers in Wall Street, New York City, October 2, 1920.

September 11, 1920. Making the cover.

Women featured prominently on the cover of the Saturday, September 11, 1920 journals. 

But not in the same rolls.

August 29, 1920. Visitors

 

James M. Cox (1870-1957) at the Police Field Day Games which were held on August 29, 1920 at Gravesend Race Track at Gravesend, Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City.

August 17, 1920. Warsaw saved

At least for the time being, anyhow.  It would of course be taken by the Germans in 1939, and then by the Soviets at the end of World War Two, who would create a Communist government that would endure until Poland's self liberation heralded the beginning of the end of Communism.

It was also a primary election Tuesday, just as tomorrow will be, in Wyoming.

August 7, 1920. What shall she do with it?

Leslie's:  "What shall she do with it?", James Montgomery Flagg

July 26, 1920. Leaders and their qualities

On this day in 1920 Pancho Villa entered the town of Sabina and sent word to President de la Heurta that he wished to lay down his arms and receive amnesty.

North of the border, by quite some measure, also on this day in 1920, famed writer H. L. Mencken penned an editorial that contained words that have been frequently quoted over the last decade:

The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

The Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920.

Mencken in 1928.

Mencken was writing about the 1920 campaign of Cox v. Harding, dissing them both.  In recent years this quote has been made regarding various candidates going back to George Bush II.  It's been frequently quoted in very recent years and I've seen it stated both about Barack Obama and Donald Trump.  It's been most frequently misquoted in regard to Trump, with repeaters adding "narcissist" in the last line in addition to "moron".

In an attempt to be fair to everyone, and to credit the original writer, the full quote is almost never taken in full context, and what Mencken really was complaining about was two candidates who seemed to stand for nothing, so that the public could imagine that the candidates stood for them.  That criticism isn't invalid on large scale politics such as Mencken referenced, but those who use the quote currently are actually upset about what various candidates openly stand for, which isn't what Mencken was concerned about at all.  Having said that, Mencken was obviously despairing of democracy in a fashion that people rarely openly do, taking an elitist view that, ultimately, the public couldn't be trusted to elect a proper candidate.

Indeed, while Mencken is celebrated today for his pithy quotes, he was an unrestrained elitist in his own time and an admirer of Nietzsche.  His disdain of democracy was genuine as he didn't believe in it, something no major writer today would dare admit.  He was essentially expressing the same fear that Thomas Jefferson had about all democracies ultimately descending into mob rule, but without Jefferson's agrarian philosophy that placed faith in independent men.

And sculptor Nellie Walker, wearing a campaign hat, was in Washington D.C.