I've never seen this really fully explained. In looking at it, I think they were looking for military weapons, but you rarely see it fleshed out. An example of bad historical detailing, as it leads, I suspect, to a misunderstanding of what was occurring, or it would be truly an example of Versailles Treaty overreach, the cited examples of which often are not.
On the same day, the League of Nations assigned mandates to a variety of countries over form German colonies. These included German South West Africa, which is now Namibia, which went to South Africa. Japan took a collection of former German islands. Australia took New Guinea and Nauru. New Zealand took Western Samoa.
And Albania was admitted to the League of Nations.
I realize its unfair, but with the headlines we've had recently, maybe its nice to know that there've been bad ones before.
On the same day the baffled Congress was photographed with guests and young help, or at least the Senate was.
Senator France of Maryland was photographed with a mothers' group from his state.
And the Senate pages were photographed with "Marshall". As I don't know anything about how this institution works, I don't know if the head of the Senate pages is termed a marshall, or if that was the older gentleman's name.
The Wyoming State Tribune published an article about the commercialization of Yellowstone National Park.
The House of Lords passed an amended version of the Government of Ireland Act of 1920 which meant that a home rule bill had passed that body for the first time, if way too late.
A great day in the history of confectionaries. Haribo, the German candy company that invented Gummi Bears (Gummy Bears, Gummibär) came into existence.
It wouldn't come up with Gummi Bears for another couple of years, however.
Coincidentally, the excellent A Hundred Years Ago blog has an item up comparing how much Americans spent on candy a century ago, as opposed to now. You can find that item here:
How Much do Americans Spend on Candy, 1920 and 2020?
News that some would have taken as bittersweet was the repeal of the Sedition Act of 1918. It was swept out with a lot of wartime measures that were being contemporaneously repealed.
Sedition has been discussed here recently and its still a Federal offense. Interestingly, I don't think that most Americans, up until this past week, were familiar with the word in an sense, save for those who are students of history. Many of those folks probably didn't realize that sedition remains a crime. As we pointed out here just the other day, the current crime is defined as follows:
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
Sedition is suddenly in the news as there's been speculation on whether or not various efforts to keep President Trump in office amount to that. Indeed, a Congressman from New Jersey has written Nancy Pelosi a letter urging her not to seat those Republican Congressmen who signed onto supporting the Attorney General of Texas' suit against other states, maintaining that their act was seditious.
The 1918 Act was a much different one than the standard one that is set out above. We covered in an entry when it was passed. That item is here:
SECTION 3. Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully make or convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States, or to promote the success of its enemies, or shall willfully make or convey false reports, or false statements, . . . or incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall willfully obstruct . . . the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, or . . . shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States . . . or shall willfully display the flag of any foreign enemy, or shall willfully . . . urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of production . . . or advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things in this section enumerated and whoever shall by word or act support or favor the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both....
As noted, the 1918 Act was notorious for its broad sweep and the impact of its Section 3. It was controversial at the time. The full Section 3 is set out here:
Sec. 3. Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully make or convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States, or to promote the success of its enemies, or shall willfully make or convey false reports or false statements, or say or do anything except by way of bona fide and not disloyal advice to an investor or investors, with intent to obstruct the sale by the United States of bonds or other securities of the United States or the making of loans by or to the United States, and whoever when the United States is at war, shall willfully cause or attempt to cause, or incite or attempt to incite, insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall willfully obstruct or attempt to obstruct the recruiting or enlistment services of the United States, and whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the Army or Navy of the United States into contempt, scorn, contumely, or disrepute, or shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any language intended to incite, provoke, or encourage resistance to the United States, or to promote the cause of its enemies, or shall willfully display the flag of any foreign enemy, or shall willfully by utterance, writing, printing, publication, or language spoken, urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of production in this country of any thing or things, product or products, necessary or essential to the prosecution of the war in which the United States may be engaged, with intent by such curtailment to cripple or hinder the United States in the prosecution of war, and whoever shall willfully advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things in this section enumerated, and whoever shall by word or act support or favor the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or the imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both: Provided, That any employee or official of the United States Government who commits any disloyal act or utters any unpatriotic or disloyal language, or who, in an abusive and violent manner criticizes the Army or Navy or the flag of the United States shall be at once dismissed from the service. . . .
Sec. 4. When the United States is at war, the Postmaster General may, upon evidence satisfactory to him that any person or concern is using the mails in violation of any of the provisions of this Act, instruct the postmaster at any post office at which mail is received addressed to such person or concern to return to the postmaster at the office at which they were originally mailed all letters or other matter so addressed, with the words 'Mail to this address undeliverable under Espionage Act' plainly written or stamped upon the outside thereof, and all such letters or other matter so returned to such postmasters shall be by them returned to the senders thereof under such regulations as the Postmaster General may prescribe.
While was controversial, it was used and a there were an appreciable number of prosecutions under it.
On the same day the League of Nations established by Treaty the Permanent Court of International Justice. It wasn't that permanent in that it lasted only until 1946.
And the famous La Scala Orchestra arrived for a tour in the US from Italy.
Unionist, Police Auxiliaries and Black & Tans set a section of the Irish city of Cork aflame in retaliation for the IRA ambush at Dillon's Cross. The Auxiliaries and Black & Tans further interfered with fire department attempts to come to the scene and address the fire.
The Bishop of Cork, Daniel Cohalan, condemned the arson at a Mass held on this day and also condemned the earlier ambush, issuing an edict that those participating in attacks of that sort should be denied Communion. It was not the first time he had issued such an edict.
In his sermon, he stated:
Murder is murder and arson is arson whether committed by agents of the government or members of the Volunteer organisation, and it is the duty of a bishop to denounce murder and arson from whatever source they come. In face of the destruction of the city, it was the duty of everyone to condemn, and try to put a stop to, outrage, murder, kidnapping and ambushes, with which, unfortunately, they had become too familiar.
He also noted:
Some republicans say that districts have been delivered from British sway when the policemen were murdered and barracks burned. It is a narrow view. Who will now mention that a district has been delivered from British rule by the murder of RIC and the burning of the barracks? No – the killing of the RIC was murder, and the burning of the barracks the destruction of Irish property. Reprisals began there after the murder of Lord Mayor Mac Curtain, and now it looked like a devil’s competition between some members of the IRA and agents of the Crown in feats of murder and arson.
The Bishop was noted for his condemnation of violence on both sides. However, at this point things were spiraling out of control and the action by forces of the British government, while completely unauthorized, notched the violence up a notch in a way that could not help but cause the Irish to be further regarded as an occupied people.
On the same day a fire broke out at Walter Reed Hospital.
And Herbert Hoover was photographed on the streets of New York City.
As were a group of women at a health conference.
At this point in time visiting delegations from the French and British militaries were still quite common in the wake of the Great War, and the French were still giving decorations to American military figures.
Woodrow Wilson delivered his final State of the Union address. Like the prior years, it was read to Congress rather than personally delivered by Wilson due to Wilson's ill health. Wilson had started the tradition of personally delivering his address.
It read:
GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:
When I addressed myself to performing the duty laid upon the President by the Constitution to present to you an annual report on the state of the Union, I found my thought dominated by an immortal sentence of Abraham Lincoln's-"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we understand it" -a sentence immortal because it embodies in a form of utter simplicity and purity the essential faith of the nation, the faith in which it was conceived, and the faith in which it has grown to glory and power. With that faith and the birth of a nation founded upon it came the hope into the world that a new order would prevail throughout the affairs of mankind, an order in which reason and right would take precedence over covetousness and force; and I believe that I express the wish and purpose of every thoughtful American when I say that this sentence marks for us in the plainest manner the part we should play alike in the arrangement of our domestic affairs and in our exercise of influence upon the affairs of the world.
By this faith, and by this faith alone, can the world be lifted out of its present confusion and despair. It was this faith which prevailed over the wicked force of Germany. You will remember that the beginning of the end of the war came when the German people found themselves face to face with the conscience of the world and realized that right was everywhere arrayed against the wrong that their government was attempting to perpetrate. I think, therefore, that it is true to say that this was the faith which won the war. Certainly this is the faith with which our gallant men went into the field and out upon the seas to make sure of victory.
This is the mission upon which Democracy came into the world. Democracy is an assertion of the right of the individual to live and to be treated justly as against any attempt on the part of any combination of individuals to make laws which will overburden him or which will destroy his equality among his fellows in the matter of right or privilege; and I think we all realize that the day has come when Democracy is being put upon its final test. The Old World is just now suffering from a wanton rejection of the principle of democracy and a substitution of the principle of autocracy as asserted in the name, but without the authority and sanction, of the multitude. This is the time of all others when Democracy should prove its purity and its spiritual power to prevail. It is surely the manifest destiny of the United States to lead in the attempt to make this spirit prevail.
There are two ways in which the United States can assist to accomplish this great object. First, by offering the example within her own borders of the will and power of Democracy to make and enforce laws which are unquestionably just and which are equal in their administration-laws which secure its full right to Labor and yet at the same time safeguard the integrity of property, and particularly of that property which is devoted to the development of industry and the increase of the necessary wealth of the world. Second, by standing for right and justice as toward individual nations. The law of Democracy is for the protection of the weak, and the influence of every democracy in the world should be for the protection of the weak nation, the nation which is struggling toward its right and toward its proper recognition and privilege in the family of nations.
The United States cannot refuse this role of champion without putting the stigma of rejection upon the great and devoted men who brought its government into existence and established it in the face of almost universal opposition and intrigue, even in the face of wanton force, as, for example, against the Orders in Council of Great Britain and the arbitrary Napoleonic decrees which involved us in what we know as the War of 1812.
I urge you to consider that the display of an immediate disposition on the part of the Congress to remedy any injustices or evils that may have shown themselves in our own national life will afford the most effectual offset to the forces of chaos and tyranny which are playing so disastrous a part in the fortunes of the free peoples of more than one part of the world. The United States is of necessity the sample democracy of the world, and the triumph of Democracy depends upon its success.
Recovery from the disturbing and sometimes disastrous effects of the late war has been exceedingly slow on the other side of the water, and has given promise, I venture-to say, of early completion only in our own fortunate country; but even with us the recovery halts and is impeded at times, and there are immediately serviceable acts of legislation which it seems to me we ought to attempt, to assist that recovery and prove the indestructible recuperative force of a great government of the people. One of these is to prove that a great democracy can keep house as successfully and in as business-like a fashion as any other government. It seems to me that the first step toward providing this is to supply ourselves with a systematic method of handling our estimates and expenditures and bringing them to the point where they will not be an unnecessary strain upon our income or necessitate unreasonable taxation; in other words, a workable budget system. And I respectfully suggest that two elements are essential to such a system-namely, not only that the proposal of appropriations should be in the hands of a single body, such as a single appropriations committee in each house of the Congress, but also that this body should be brought into such cooperation with the Departments of the Government and with the Treasury of the United States as would enable it to act upon a complete conspectus of the needs of the Government and the resources from which it must draw its income.
I reluctantly vetoed the budget bill passed by the last session of the Congress because of a constitutional objection. The House of Representatives subsequently modified the bill in order to meet this objection. In the revised form, I believe that the bill, coupled with action already taken by the Congress to revise its rules and procedure, furnishes the foundation for an effective national budget system. I earnestly hope, therefore, that one of the first steps to be taken by the present session of the Congress will be to pass the budget bill.
The nation's finances have shown marked improvement during the last year. The total ordinary receipts of $6,694,000,000 for the fiscal year 1920 exceeded those for 1919 by $1,542,000,000, while the total net ordinary expenditures decreased from $18,514,000,000 to $6,403,000,000. The gross public debt, which reached its highest point on August 31, 1919, when it was $26,596,000,000, had dropped on November 30, 1920, to $24,175,000,000.
There has also been a marked decrease in holdings of government war securities by the banking institutions of the country, as well as in the amount of bills held by the Federal Reserve Banks secured by government war obligations. This fortunate result has relieved the banks and left them freer to finance the needs of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce. It has been due in large part to the reduction of the public debt, especially of the floating debt, but more particularly to the improved distribution of government securities among permanent investors. The cessation of the Government's borrowings, except through short-term certificates of indebtedness, has been a matter of great consequence to the people of the country at large, as well as to the holders of Liberty Bonds and Victory Notes, and has had an important bearing on the matter of effective credit control.
The year has been characterized by the progressive withdrawal of the Treasury from the domestic credit market and from a position of dominant influence in that market. The future course will necessarily depend upon the extent to which economies are practiced and upon the burdens placed upon the Treasury, as well as upon industrial developments and the maintenance of tax receipts at a sufficiently high level. The fundamental fact which at present dominates the Government's financial situation is that seven and a half billions of its war indebtedness mature within the next two and a half years. Of this amount, two and a half billions are floating debt and five billions, Victory Notes and War. Savings Certificates. The fiscal program of the Government must be determined with reference to these maturities. Sound policy demands that Government expenditures be reduced to the lowest amount which will permit the various services to operate efficiently and that Government receipts from taxes and salvage be maintained sufficiently high to provide for current requirements, including interest and sinking fund charges on the public debt, and at the same time retire the floating debt and part of the Victory Loan before maturity.
With rigid economy, vigorous salvage operations, and adequate revenues from taxation, a surplus of current receipts over current expenditures can be realized and should be applied to the floating debt. All branches of the Government should cooperate to see that this program is realized. I cannot overemphasize the necessity of economy in Government appropriations and expenditures and the avoidance by the Congress of practices which take money from the Treasury by indefinite or revolving fund appropriations. The estimates for the present year show that over a billion dollars of expenditures were authorized by the last Congress in addition to the amounts shown in the usual compiled statements of appropriations. This strikingly illustrates the importance of making direct and specific appropriations. The relation between the current receipts and current expenditures of the Government during the present fiscal year, as well as during the last half of the last fiscal year, has been disturbed by the extraordinary burdens thrown upon the Treasury by the Transportation Act, in connection with the return of the railroads to private control. Over $600,000,000 has already been paid to the railroads under this act-$350,000,000 during the present fiscal year; and it is estimated that further payments aggregating possibly $650,000,000 must still be made to the railroads during the current year. It is obvious that these large payments have already seriously limited the Government's progress in retiring the floating debt.
Closely connected with this, it seems to me, is the necessity for an immediate consideration of the revision of our tax laws. Simplification of the income and profits taxes has become an immediate necessity. These taxes performed an indispensable service during the war. The need for their simplification, however, is very great, in order to save the taxpayer inconvenience and expense and in order to make his liability more certain and definite. Other and more detailed recommendations with regard to taxes will no doubt be laid before you by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
It is my privilege to draw to the attention of Congress for very sympathetic consideration the problem of providing adequate facilities for the care and treatment of former members of the military and naval forces who are sick and disabled as the result of their participation in the war. These heroic men can never be paid in money for the service they patriotically rendered the nation. Their reward will lie rather in realization of the fact that they vindicated the rights of their country and aided in safeguarding civilization. The nation's gratitude must be effectively revealed to them by the most ample provision for their medical care and treatment as well as for their vocational training and placement. The time has come when a more complete program can be formulated and more satisfactorily administered for their treatment and training, and I earnestly urge that the Congress give the matter its early consideration. The Secretary of the Treasury and the Board for Vocational Education will outline in their annual reports proposals covering medical care and rehabilitation which I am sure will engage your earnest study and commend your most generous support.
Permit me to emphasize once more the need for action upon certain matters upon which I dwelt at some length in my message to the second session of the Sixty-sixth Congress. The necessity, for example, of encouraging the manufacture of dyestuffs and related chemicals; the importance of doing everything possible to promote agricultural production along economic lines, to improve agricultural marketing, and to make rural life more attractive and healthful; the need for a law regulating cold storage in such a way as to limit the time during which goods may be kept in storage, prescribing the method of disposing of them if kept beyond the permitted period, and requiring goods released from storage in all cases to bear the date of their receipt. It would also be most serviceable if it were provided that all goods released from cold storage for interstate shipment should have plainly marked upon each package the selling or market price at which they went into storage, in order that the purchaser might be able to learn what profits stood between him and the producer or the wholesale dealer. Indeed, It would be very serviceable to the public if all goods destined for interstate commerce were made to carry upon every packing case whose form made it possible a plain statement of the price at which they left the hands of the producer. I respectfully call your attention also to the recommendations of the message referred to with regard to a federal license for all corporations engaged in interstate commerce.
In brief, the immediate legislative need of the time is the removal of all obstacles to the realization of the best ambitions of our people in their several classes of employment and the strengthening of all instrumentalities by. which difficulties are to be met and removed and justice dealt out, whether by law or by some form of mediation and conciliation. I do not feel it to be my privilege at present to, suggest the detailed and particular methods by which these objects may be attained, but I have faith that the inquiries of your several committees will discover the way and the method.
In response to what I believe to be the impulse of sympathy and opinion throughout the United States, I earnestly suggest that the Congress authorize the Treasury of the United States to make to the struggling government of Armenia such a loan as was made to several of the Allied governments during the war, and I would also suggest that it would be desirable to provide in the legislation itself that the expenditure of the money thus loaned should be under the supervision of a commission, or at least a commissioner, from the United States in order that revolutionary tendencies within Armenia itself might not be afforded by the loan a further tempting opportunity.
Allow me to call your attention to the fact that the people of the Philippine Islands have succeeded in maintaining a stable government since the last action of the Congress in their behalf, and have thus fulfilled the condition set by the Congress as precedent to a consideration of granting independence to the Islands. I respectfully submit that this condition precedent having been fulfilled, it is now our liberty and our duty to keep our promise to the people of those islands by granting them the independence which they so honorably covet.
I have not so much laid before you a series of recommendations, gentlemen, as sought to utter a confession of faith, of the faith in which I was bred and which it is my solemn purpose to stand by until my last fighting day. I believe this to be the faith of America, the faith of the future, and of all the victories which await national action in the days to come, whether in America or elsewhere.
The same day featured a Senate Ladies Tea which was attended by Mrs. Harding.
The weekly and monthly magazines hit the stands this Saturday, December 4, 1920 with Christmas themes.
Well, most of them anyway.
On the same day, Federal agents and moonshiners fought the first gun battle in Prohibition. And Argentina became the first nation to withdraw from the League of Nations, upset in regard to its early distinctions between belligerents and non belligerents in the Great War.
The predecessor to the NFL played its first game in New York City, at the Polo Grounds.
The Polo Grounds are called that, of course, as they played polo there. In another riding sport, fox hunting, a hunt gathered on this day in Washington D. C.
the Vice President's chauffeur.
He can also, therefore, be regarded as the start of the long rule of the PRI which would dominate Mexico's politics for decades.
His term in office was marked by massive education reform and mild land reform. He normalized Mexico's relationship with the United States which gained him American recognition but also sparked a failed rebellion. He was somewhat anti clerical, inheriting that position from the existing Carranza era constitution, but not as much as his successor would be.
The USS California was in dry dock in San Francisco. Commissioned in 1915, she was one of the ships sunk, and then raised, at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. She'd serve as an active warship until 1947.
Pope Benedict XV issued his encyclical On Children of Central Europe - Annus Iam Plenus, which stated:
Encyclical of Pope Benedict XV, promulgated on December 1, 1920
Venerable Brethren, Health and Apostolic Benediction.
A whole year has now passed since We (when the war was but a thing of yesterday) called upon all to turn their hearts in pity towards the children of Central Europe, who were so severely afflicted by hunger and want that they were wasting away with disease and were face to face with death. And, indeed, a wonderous joy it is to Us that Our appeal has not fallen vainly to the ground - an appeal which was actuated by that charity which enfolds in its kindly embrace all men, without distinction of race or nation, whosoever bear within them the image of God. The happy issue of our supplication, Venerable Brethren, is especially well known to you who assisted Us zealously in so salutary an enterprise. For in truth, a generous supply of money has been collected from the peoples of every land. There has been, as it were, a noble competition in liberality, with the result that the common father of so many, innocent children has been able to look to their necessities and dissipate their sorrows. Nor do we cease to proclaim the kindly providence of God, Whom it has pleased to use Us as a channel whereby the manifold blessings of Christian charity might flow to His abandoned little ones. In this matter We cannot desist from offering a public tribute of praise to the society entitled the "Save the Children Fund," which has exerted all possible care and diligence in the collection of money, clothing, and food. But, indeed, the general scarcity and the high cost of living, which the war has brought in its train, are of such a complex and varied character that the assistance We have rendered has perhaps neither succeeded in reaching those parts of Europe where necessity pressed hard, nor, where help was given, has it always been adequate to the actual need. To this must be added the fact that in the course of the year following the Encyclical Letter which We addressed to you, Venerable Brethren, on this very topic, there has been no appreciable improvement in the lot of most of those areas where it is evident that the people, and especially the young, find life growing yet harder and harder owing to the shortage of the necessaries of life. Nay, in some parts, war has flamed out anew and calamities of every kind, to the serious loss of those very elements that it is necessary to reestablish; in other parts where the civil State has been overthrown and where most frightful and disgraceful massacres have been perpetrated, it has come about that numberless families have been reduced to penury; that wives have been bereft of their husbands, and children of their parents; there are many districts, too, where it is so difficult to make provision for the food supply that as a consequence the population is afflicted by almost the same hardships which pressed upon it in the hideous days of the war.
2. Wherefore once again, inspired by the consciousness of that universal fatherhood which it is Our office to sustain, and with the words of the Divine Master on our lips - "I have compassion on the multitude . . . for they have nothing to eat" - now, when the anniversary day of the birth of Christ draws nigh a second time We call loudly upon Christian peoples to give us the means whereby we may offer some relief to the sick and suffering children, of whatsoever nationality they may be. Yes, We call on all who have hearts of kindness and pity to make a generous offering, but in particular we turn to the young children who dwell in the more prosperous cities of the world, to those who can with comparative ease stretch out a helping hand to their poor little brothers in Christ. Is not the birthday of Christ Jesus, in an especial manner the feast of the young? See then how the desolate children of those scattered districts strain suppliant hands to those other happier children, and seem to point to the cradle where the Divine Infant cries in helplessness! Yet is not that Infant the common brother of them all, He Who "being rich became poor," Who from that manger, as from the throne of heavenly wisdom, silently teaches us not only the value of brotherly love but also how men from their tenderest years onward must detach themselves from the longing for the goods of this world and share them with the poor, who in their very poverty are so much nearer to Christ? Surely the children of the richer parts of Europe will have it in their power to nourish and clothe those little ones of their own age who languish in want, and especially should this be so at the approaching season of the Nativity of Our Lord, which parents are wont to render still happier for their children by little gifts and presents. And shall we think that these last are endowed with such a spirit as to be unwilling to contribute even a part of their own little savings, whereby they might strengthen the weakness of children who are in want? Oh, what a deep consolation, what joys they will secure for themselves, if happily they become the means whereby those little brothers of theirs, who are deprived of all help and all pleasure, should spend the approaching Christmas time just a little more comfortably, just a little more happily. For even as the Infant Jesus on the night of His birth blessed with a most sweet smile the shepherds who came to Him with gifts to lighten the burden of His poverty, and even as He brightened their souls with the supreme gift of faith, so He will reward with his blessing and heavenly graces those children who, fired with love for him, shall soften the misery and the sorrow of their little brothers. Nay, there is nothing else more acceptable to the Infant Jesus that thou could do or offer at this season. And so we earnestly exhort all Christian parents, to whom, the Heavenly father had committed the grave charge of training up their offspring to the practice of charity and the other virtues, to use this happy opportunity of exciting and cultivating in the minds of their children sentiments of humanity and holy compassion. And in this matter it pleases Us to set before you an example worthy of all imitation; for we remember that last year many children of the Roman nobility made their offerings to Us personally, offerings which, at the suggestion of their parents, they had collected amongst themselves not without some sacrifice of their individual pleasures.
3. We have said that this work of charity and kindness would be most pleasing to the Infant Jesus. And, indeed, why does the name Bethlehem mean one and the same thing as "House of Bread," unless it be that there Christ was to be born into the light of day, Christ, Who, solicitous for our weakness, gave Himself as food to nourish our souls, and Who in the words "Give us this day our daily bread" taught us to beg ardently every day of the Father for nourishment of soul and body? Oh how Our heart would expand if We were certain that throughout the Christmas festivities there would be no home destitute of consolation and joy, that there would be no child whose sorrow should wring the dear heart of its mother, and that there would be no mother who should look upon her little ones with weeping eyes."
4. And so, Venerable Brethren, We entrust Our project to you, even as We did a year ago, that you may bring it into effect, especially those of you who dwell in districts which enjoy a happier fortune and a more tranquil state of affairs.
5. And inasmuch as those words of Christ Our Lord should take deep possession of your souls, "He that shall receive one such little child in My name, receiveth Me," We beg that you leave no measure untried whereby the liberality and generosity of the faithful over whom you are set may correspond to the urgency of the present need. Accordingly it is Our wish that you forthwith announce throughout the whole of your several dioceses that a collection of alms is to be made on the twenty-eighth day of this month, the feast of the Holy Innocents, or if you prefer, on the Sunday immediately preceding, for the support of the children made needy by the way and that you particularly recommend this collection to the children in your diocese; further, that with all diligence in your power you see that the money thus collected is sent either to Us or to the "Save the Children Fund," which We have before mentioned.
6. For Ourselves, in order that, after exhorting the faithful by Our words, We may stir their generosity by Our example, We have set apart one hundred thousand Italian lire for this most sacred work of charity. Meanwhile, Venerable Brethren, to you and to all your Clergy and people, we lovingly impart the apostolic benediction, a pledge of heavenly reward and a token of Our own paternal good will.
Given at Rome at St. Peter's on the first day of the month of December in the year nineteen hundred and twenty, the seventh of Our Pontificate.
The British insertion of the Black & Tans, however, had caused the war against the IRA to take a new more violent swing, and the IRA struck back. That caused British fears that the IRA would strike in the United Kingdom itself.
The struggle was heating up.
In a location of other resolutions in this time period, Adolfo de la Huerta was in his last day as the President of Mexico. Obregon had won the Presidential election in Mexico as the transfer of power, in this instance, would occur, and would be peaceful.
On the same day, the Red Army invaded Armenia.
On this day in 1920, a flying column of the Irish Republican Army ambushed trucks carrying officers of the Auxiliary police in Kilmichael, County Cork.
The 36 IRA volunteers assaulted the trucks carrying 18 Auxiliaries, killing 17 of them and wounding one. Three IRA volunteers were killed.
While well executed from a military prospective, the real significance of the action was psychological in that it showed the IRA as capable of undertaking a military action and pulling it off, which hadn't always been the case. It also demonstrated to the British that the war was escalating.
On this day in 1920 Karetnik and fellow RIAU officers went, with some reluctance, to a meeting with Red Army commander Mikhail Frunze who had ordered them place under a command of his army. On the way they were arrested and executed. Frunze was a successful Red Army commander who died in surgery in 1925.
The entire event also helps demonstrate the absolute mess that Russia had become in its late imperial stage. Anarchy was a theory that was never going to succeed because of its nature. Revolutionary socialist other than the Communist were never going to prevail in a struggle as they were insufficiently organized and single minded. The Whites couldn't succeed as they had no really strong central unity in fact or in theory. That doomed Russia to years of an alien whacky political theory that didn't match its nature or culture and which set Russia back so far in development that it is nowhere near overcoming it today.
The central feature of this rise of extremism had been a pre World War One governmental and economic system that was frozen in the distant past. With no outlet of any kind for a developing society, absurd economic and political theories festered underground. It's no accident that many of these theories were the same as ones that were then also circulating in Germany and Austria, which likewise had old order monarchical systems going into World War One.
