Thursday, August 23, 1923. Trotsky schemes, Turkey votes yes, Bluebeard's 8th Wife, Nancy Hayes Green dies, Fr. Giovanni Minzoni assassinated.

The Grand National Assembly of Turkey ratified the Treaty of Lausanne.  British, French, and Italian troops were withdrawing from Istanbul in accordance with the treaty.

Germany announced that it was introducing heavy taxation in order to address the country's economic woes.

Trotsky persuaded the Politburo, in a secret meeting, to finance the German Communist Party, the KDP, in order to overthrow the Weimar Republic.  A revolution in October was the goal, which planned for a Communist Germany to develop the agricultural Soviet Union, demonstrating how Communism, at the end of the day, always has an industrialized corporatism view of things, posters of smiling buxom peasant girls aside.

Bluebeard's 8th Wife was released.

Nancy Hayes Green, born in 1834, died after being hit by a car as a pedestrian. The car had hit a laundry truck.

Born into slavery in Kentucky, Green was already a widow by the end of the Civil War, having suffered the loss of her children as well.  Relocated to Chicago, she was employed in the household of Charles and Amanda Walker, transplanted Kentuckians.  Upon the Walkers recommendation, she was hired to portray "Aunt Jemima" for the RT Davis Milling Company.   The role was frankly demeaning by modern standards as it portrayed a happy picture of the antebellum south, including the status of slaves.  She continued to play the role for twenty years until replaced by Agnes Moodey, as Green would not travel to the 1900 Paris Expedition.  She used her fame from the role to advocate for the poor and for equal rights.

Portrait of Green, maybe, in character.  This could also be successor model Anna Robinson.

The depiction used for the pancake mix changed over the years as society became awakened to its inherent racism.  There was no real way, in the end, to disassociate it with its racist past, however, and Quaker Oats, the then owner of the brand, discontinued the image in 2020, during which time a variety of such depictions of brands were taken out of use by various companies.

Horrifying 1909 advertisement using the Aunt Jemima theme.

1935 Quaker Oats advertisement using a more familiar theme.

The name of the brand was changed completely to Pearl Milling Company, but interestingly minor use of the name and its branding continues by current owner, PepsiCo, so as to not have it become abandoned and become public domain.  Descendants of Robinson, it might be noted, protested the change in branding on the basis that ignored the history and heritage of the brand and American society, for good or ill.

Fr. Giovanni Minzoni, age 38, a Catholic Priest who opposed the fascist rule of Mussolini, was murdered in Argenta.  It is widely assumed that fascist Italo Balbo ordered his murder.

Balbo briefly resigned from office, but would return and was the Governor General of Libya when World War Two broke out.  He died in 1940 when an airplane he was a passenger in was shot down by friendly fire while trying to land at Tobruk.

Tuesday, July 27, 1943. Storms.

Major Joseph Duckworth, together with Lt. Ralph O'Hair, of the U.S. Army Air Force flew an AT-6 into the eye of a hurricane, becoming the first people to do so on purpose.

Duckworth was an advocate for training on instruments.  He had been an Army Air Corps flyer, originally starting in 1927, and recalled to service during World War Two.

The hurricane bore the name The Surprise Hurricane due to weather censoring during World War Two, which the storm would end due to killing 19 people and causing $17,000,000 in damage.

Croatia became a republic, for a time, after Prince Aimone, the Duke of Astsoria, who had been made king of Croatia by Mussolini, resigned, deciding that desertion was the better part of valor.

The Fascist Grand Council and the Fascist Party were abolished.

Sarah Sundin notes, on her blog:

Today in World War II History—July 27, 1943: Flight nurse Lt. Ruth Gardiner (805th MAETS) is killed in a plane crash in Naknek, Alaska; the first US Army nurse to die in WWII.

She also notes the horrific Hamburg firestorm of the night of July 27, 1943, which resulted from the RAF's Operation Gomorrah bombing raid that evening.

Unloading a P-47 at Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Friday, July 16, 1943. Morire per Mussolini e Hitler, o vivere per l'Italia e per la civiltà.

Italy's Fascist Grand Council, concerned by the arrival of Allied troops on Italian soil, convened for the first time since 1939.  On the same day, Allied aircraft dropped leaflets over the Italian mainland that read "Morire per Mussolini e Hitler, o vivere per l'Italia e per la civiltà" (Die for Mussolini and Hitler, or live for Italy and for civilization).  

Radio broadcast a joint message to the Italian people from Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt.

Italy, as a fascist state, was coming undone.

The British Air Ministry approved the use of "Window", aluminum strips, as a radar countermeasure.

Effect of Window on radar signature.

The Germans ordered the deportation of 13,000 Jews living in Paris to the Drancy detention center, a way stop for them on the way to Auschwitz.

Yitzhak Wittenberg, a Jewish Lithuanian resistance leader, surrendered to the Gestapo in Vilnius in exchange for an agreement that the Vilnius ghetto would not be liquidated.  He did shortly there after in an undetermined fashion.

The ghetto was liquidated by the Germans in September 1943.

In an event which tends to be misreported, Père Marie-Benoît (Padre Maria Benedetto), a Capuchin Franciscan friar who successfully rescued 4,000 Jews during the war, met with Pope Pius XII in an effort to advance his plan to try to transfer approximately 30,000 French Jews to North Africa, in order to remove them from danger.  The Italian portion of the plan ultimately fell apart when the Germans occupied northern Italy following the collapse of Mussolini's government, but the Spanish portion, which did result in the rescue of 2,600 French Jews on the somewhat ironic pretext that they were Jews of Spanish ancestry, which is the cover that Franco's government operated under. 

He died in 1990 at age 95.

The Battle of Mount Tambu began on New Guinea between the Imperial Japanese Army and American and Australian forces.

The Batman character appeared in film for the first time, this being in a fifteen-minute serial episode before major features.  In the original series, he was called "The Batman", with the first episode being "The Electrical Brain".

Thursday, July 15, 1943. Segregation for loyalty to Japan, US reorganization on Sicily, Changes in command on New Guinea, Italian participation in Holocaust in France.

Tule Lake Segregation Center in California was established by the War Department to house Japanese Americans who were deemed to be loyal to Japan.  The site is administered by the National Park Service today.

Loyalty to Japan was determined in a number of ways, but it included refusing to be inducted into the U.S. Armed forces and having attempted to return to Japan prior to the war.

Gen. Patton formed a provisional corps to advance up the western coast of Sicily, while the U.S. 2nd Corps was to drive northward under Bradley.  Axis forces retreated behind the Simeto River.

Major General Oscar W. Griswold took over field command of US Army forces on New Guinea.

Italian occupation police authority Renzo Chierici agreed to a German demand to return German Jews who had fled into Italian occupied regions of France.

Chierici was a fascist and warned Mussolini when it was clear that the Grand Council was going to vote him out of office, but he remained loyal to the new government, resulting in his arrest by the Germans and subsequent murder.

The fact that Italy occupied Provence and Savoy after November 1942 is often missed.

Sunday, May 6, 1923. Familiar places.

The big news was the terrible mine explosion in Colorado, but I linked this in due to the news about a Boy Scout injured on Garden Creek, above Rotary Park.

Rotary Park is still there, and a very popular spot locally.

The mine explosion killed ten miners.

Apparently it was the start of Baby Week.

First annual rodeo.  I didn't realize that the rodeo got started this late, which means this year may be the 100th Anniversary of the Central Wyoming Fair & Rodeo.

Or not.  Last year, the rodeo advertised itself as having its 75th anniversary, which would place the first one in 1948.

Seems unlikely it was that late, but there's probably a reason they calculate it that way.

Over 300 passengers were taken hostage by bandits on the Tianjin-Pukou Railway's Blue Express train as it passed through Lincheng in Shandong Province.

The first World Congress of Jewish Women opened in Vienna.

The British Fascisti, the UK's first fascist party, was formed by Rotha Lintorn-Orman.

A youthful figure in the formation of the Girl Guides, Lintorn-Orman was from a military family. She served as a member of the Women's Volunteer Reserve, and the Scottish Women's Hospital Corps in World War One.  Her conversion to fascism was motivated by a strong sense of anti-communism combined with an admiration for Mussolini. She'd die in 1935 at age 40, at which time she was heavily dependent on drugs and alcohol, and rumors existed regarding alleged sapphic escapades.  By that time, her party had all but ceased to exist, yielding to more and less radical parties.

The fact that the UK had a fascist party at all demonstrated the drift of the times.  Ireland would soon also have one.  In both instances, they never rally amounted to more than an annoyance.

Monday, April 26, 1943. Intrepid launched.

 

USS Intrepid in 1944.

The USS Intrepid was launched in Newport News.  The aircraft carrier would serve throughout World War Two and two following wars, and be decommissioned in 1974. She is a museum ship today, docked in the Hudson in New York, and served as the FBI operations center following the September 11 attacks on New York.

Riots broke out at Uppsala, Sweden between Swedish Nazis and anti-Nazi demonstrators.

Tuesday, April 24, 1923. Black Shirts.

The Fascist Grand Council voted to approve Benito Mussolini's motion to place all the Fascists into a national militia, categorizing them as volunteers, so they didn't have to be paid.  That gave the Italian army a 500,000 men reserve, albeit not one trained as a fighting military, which was officially called the Voluntary Militia for National Security (IMilizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale) and unofficially the "black shirts" for their attire.

Symbol of the black shirts.  By Arturolorioli - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46385297

The militia contributed over 300,000 men to the Italian forces during World War Two, and its hard-line elements were sent to Spain during the Spanish Civil War.   The movement was the partial inspiration for many other fascists paramilitary organizations of the time, although in much of Europe military wings of political parties were already common.

Flag of the Black Shirts, By RootOfAllLight - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=114802748

Just the other day I ran this item, which these events cause me to recall:

Blog Mirror: Prepare for the Shock Troops

It's interesting how authoritarian movements acquire their own militias, which glorify supposed martial values to the extreme.  Now, for the first time since the Civil War, the US finds itself, effectively, with Black Shirts.

Beverly Hills voted not to be annexed by Los Angeles and remain an independent municipality.

Friday, March 30, 1942. The Laconia comes home, Mussolini ponders Italian emigration.

The SS Laconia completed its circumnavigation of the globe, becoming the ship to complete an around the world pleasure cruise.

It had departed in November 1930 and, before returning to New York, would be at sea for 130 days and call on 22 ports.

She'd be sunk on September 12, 1942, by a U-boat.

Mussolini addressed emigration from Italy in a famous speech, which stated:

The Sig. Director has compromised me, because he has announced my speech. Now almost all Italians know that I do not like speeches, but I accept with joy and resign myself this morning to this exception. He was also moved because he recalled with a warm voice of passion the history of the school—a superb history which all of Milan knows and admires. Also in this area, which could be defined as related to the problem of emigration—without prejudice to the question of whether migration is good or bad—is the "Carlo Tenca" School, and it has done very well, since when discussing the thesis you can argue endlessly regarding a conclusion.

For better or for worse, emigration is a physiological necessity of the Italian people. We are forty million squeezed into our narrow but adorable peninsula, with its too many mountains, and its soil which cannot feed everyone. There are around Italy countries that have a population smaller than ours and a territory double the size of ours. Hence it is obvious that the problem of Italian expansion in the world is a problem of life or death for the Italian race. I say expansion: expansion in every sense: moral, political, economic, demographic. I declare that the Government intends to protect Italian emigration: it cannot be indifferent to those who cross the mountains and travel beyond the Ocean, it cannot be indifferent because they are men, workers, and above all Italians. And wherever there is an Italian there is the tricolour, there is the Fatherland, there is the Government's defense of these Italians.

I feel all the excitement of life that stirs this new powerful generation of the Italian race. You certainly have meditated a few times on what you might call a miracle in the history of mankind; it is not rhetoric, it is said that the Italian people are the immortal people who always find a spring for their hopes, for their passion, for their greatness. Some two thousand years ago Rome was the center of an empire that had no boundaries except in the extreme limits of the desert; the civilization that Rome had given, its great legal tradition, as solid as the monuments, to the world—Rome had built a huge miracle that still moves us even to our most intimate fibers.

Then the empire decayed and crumbled. But it is not true that all the centuries which followed the collapse of the Roman world were centuries of darkness and barbarism. However, after a few centuries the Italian spirit suffered from an eclipse, but during that period of rest it was powerfully reinforced by new achievements, and so here the Italian spirit blossomed again through the creation of the immortal Dante Alighieri.

We were great in 1300 when other people were ill or were not yet born to history. Here followed the superb centuries, the Renaissance; Italy was once again the bearer of civilization to all races, all peoples. Then followed another political eclipse of division and discord, but it was barely a century and the Italian people recover, regaining consciousness of their historical unity. Rome returned, still playing its fanfare of glory for all Italians, it recovered the use of weapons that are necessary when it comes to saving its freedom, its greatness and its future. Then followed small wars, one state, conspiracies, the revolution of a people, martyrs, tortures, jails, exile. And just a century after the last war we made our political unity. However, alongside this political unity and geographical unity, the Italian people lacked the moral consciousness of themselves and their own destinies, even though after a victorious war this formation of conscience was in place. Under our eyes Italy will gradually become indestructible in its unity.

My Government will abolish bell towers so that Italians may see the august image of the Fatherland. This is the work to which my Government intends all its passion and a sense of religious faith. I am confident, gentlemen, of the destinies of Italy! I am optimistic for a simple act of will, because the will is a great force in people's lives and the lives of peoples.

We must will, strongly will! We must want, strongly want! Only with this power of the will we can overcome any obstacle. We must be ready for all sacrifices.

Recollect, then, in a moment of meditation after this rapid advance into the past. We love our willingness to project proudly of our time into the future. This young Italian people—fierce, fearless, restless, but strong. I am most certain that Italy will march towards a future of freedom, prosperity and greatness. Recollect in this vision, we tend all our nerves and all our passion towards this future that awaits us and we cry with a religious fervor.

Viva l'Italia!

It's hard to know what to make of this speech, but the vague references to past empire offer a clue of future fascist actions.

Wednesday, January 31, 1923. Hockey first.

For the first time in history, a National Hockey League match concluded with no penalties having been imposed.  The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Hamilton Tigers, 5 to 4.

Hockey, unlike football, is not boring.

Italy required public school students to start using the extended arm fascist salute, claimed to have been derived from Rome, but with little historical support for the proposition.

The general gesture was in vogue at the time, having been popularized in the United States as the Bellamy Salute.  It's co-opting by fascism, forever associated it with fascist movements.

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt Jr., occupying the position that his father had leading up to the Spanish American War, and his cousin had during World War One,  addressed the midyear graduating class of the Peter Force School, a school he had attended during his father's occupancy of the office. The class planted a Lombardy Poplar in memory of Quentin Roosevelt, aviator, who had died in action in World War One.

The school had been founded in 1879 and was named for a former Washington, D.C. mayor.  Many children of important personages attended the school, including the late Quentin Roosevelt and Charles Taft, the son of President Taft.

The school would not have a much longer run.  It was abandoned in 1939 and demolished in 1962 in order to make way for the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies.

Vice Pres. Coolidge and House Speaker Gillett exercising in House gym. Jan. 31, 1923

Sunday January 21, 1923. Calling for strikes.

The Weimar government endorsed a general strike in the Ruhr.

A royal decree in Italy allowed coins to bear the fasces on the obverse side from the one bearing the image of the king.

Friday, January 12, 1923. Fallout from intervention.

British newspapers criticized the French and Belgian occupation of the Ruhr, which had started the day prior. The U.S. declined to act on a German protest of the matter, noting that it had done all it could do, and that doing more would entail "more trouble" than the US was prepared to take on.

Italy's Grand Council of Fascism was formed.

Monday, January 11, 2023. A generally violent day.

Life Magazine was out with a black and white cover of children in uniform, and a story on "Kid's Uniforms".  Both were Navy style.  No doubt, with the war being so overarching in everyone's life, this resulted in this style for children.

The United States and the United Kingdom signed treaties with the Republic of China renouncing extraterritorial privileges.  Both nations had exercised them since the 19th Century, along with other powers, with the same being a major insult to Chinese sovereignty.  Indeed, this sort of extraterritorial claim had been the primary cause of the Boxer Rebellion.

The British intercepted a telegram from SS Major Herman Hofle to Adolf Eichman noting the murder of 1,274,166 Polish Jews in 1942. The telegram was held with secret status by the British until 2000.

On the same day SS Major General Heinrich Müller began the deportation of 45,000 Polish Jews to munitions factories including 30,000 from Bialystok, Poland, 10,000 Theresienstadt, 3,000 from the Netherlands and 2,000 from Berlin.

Germany and Romania entered into a secret treaty providing for German bases in Romania in exchange for gold and Swiss francs.

President Roosevelt sent a budget message to Congress seeking $16,000,000,000 in new taxes or "compulsory loans" to meet the $100,000,000,000 needed for the war effort and $9,000,000,000 for other purposes.

Radical Italian American Socialist and labor leader Carlo Tresca, an opponent of Communism, Fascism, and the Mafia, was gunned down in a drive by shooting in Manhattan. While theories abound, nobody was ever arrested by the murder and nobody really knows who committed it, although the Mafia seems like the strongest candidate.

Friday, December 18, 1942. Ciano dispatched to Hitler.

Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law and a prominent figure in the Italian government, was dispatched to the Wolf's Lair with a message from Mussolini urging Hitler to make a separate peace with the Soviet Union.

Ciano only rose to power via his marriage to Edda Mussolini, but starting in 1939 he began to pull away from the dictator over the war, which he opposed.  He was sidelined by being appointed Ambassador to the Holy See in 1943.  He voted with the Fascist Grand Council to remove Mussolini in July 1943, but was removed from his office by the government, after which he fled to Germany.  The Germans in turn handed him over to Mussolini's rebel fascist Italian Social Republic, which would have him executed.

Ciano's diaries are an important source of inside information regarding the Italian fascist government as well as the Axis alliance. 

The British prevailed at El Agheila.

Monday, December 18, 1922. The Denver Mint Robbery

 

A deadly robbery of the Denver mint resulted in $200,000 being stolen, and one guard and one thief losing their lives.

$80,000 of the $200,000 was recovered in early 1923 in Minnesota, along with money traced to a prior bank robbery.  No arrests were ever made, although authorities believed they had largely solved the mystery of who committed the robbery about a decade later, by which time most of those who were involved with it, assuming the authorities were correct, were dead or in prison.

Three days of fascists attacks on union members in Turin, Italy, commenced.

The de Bothezat helicopter, nicknamed "the flying octopus", made its first flight

Friday, November 25, 1922. Trotting Turkey

Country Gentleman came out with a Thanksgiving themed cover by illustrator Frederick Lowenheim.

In France, for St. Catherine's saint's day, the Catherinettes were out on the streets:

From John Blackwell's Twitter feed on the topic.

We noted this custom in 2020:

The day is also St. Catherine's Day,, the feast day for that saint, which at the time was still celebrated in France as a day for unmarried women who had obtained twenty-five years of age.  Such women were known as Catherinettes. Women in general were committed since the Middle Ages to the protection of St. Catherine and on this day large crowds of unmarried 25 year old women wearing hats to mark their 25th year would gather for a celebration of sorts, where well wishers would wish them a speedy end to their single status. The custom remained strong at least until the 1930s but has since died out.

We should also note that the plight of unmarried French women, and British ones as well (and probably German ones) had grown worse since 1914.  Due to the combat losses of young men in the Great War, their marriage prospects in an era when being an unmarried woman was somewhat grim, had greatly declined.  The youngest of these women had been 21 when the war ended, meaning that they were of marriageable age when most young men were fighting in the war.  As the war killed men in that demographic, it meant that some would never marry.  The war also meant that the surviving men had disproportionate options.

I'm sure there's a study of this somewhere, but it can't help be noted that it must have had long-lasting social impacts, and it probably also explains the significant number of "war brides" brought home from France by US servicemen after the war and occupation, as well as the same population brining home some German brides, and Russian brides.

The Italian Chamber of Deputies granted Mussolini full power over economic matters for a year.

On the Rebel Streets of Cork. . . 

Monday, November 13, 1922. Disgusting acts and opinions.

The day featured a double header for fascism and racism.

Not good.

Mussolini asked King Victor Emmanuel III for extraordinary authority to enact fiscal and civil service reforms without full parliamentary authority.  The King granted the same through December 31, 1923, which goes to show the stupidity of having a king with actual power.

The United States Supreme Court ruled in Ozawa v. United States that "white persons" were people of European descent, thereby approving California giving the shaft to people of Japanese ancestry.

The full opinion is here:

Ozawa v. United States, 260 U.S. 178 (1922)

Ozawa v. United States

No. 1

Argued October 3, 4, 1922

Decided November 13, 1922

260 U.S. 178

CERTIFICATE FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

Syllabus

1. Section 2169 of the Revised Statutes, which is part of Title XXX dealing with naturalization, and which declares: "The provisions of this Title shall apply to aliens, being free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent," is consistent with the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, and was not impliedly repealed by it. P. 260 U. S. 192.

2. Revised Statutes, § 2169, supra, stands as a limitation upon the Naturalization Act, and not merely upon those other provisions of Title XXX which remain unrepealed. P. 260 U. S. 192.

3. The intent of legislation is to be ascertained primarily by giving words their natural significance; but if this leads to an unreasonable result plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole, the court must look to the reason of the enactment, inquiring into its antecedents, and give it effect in accordance with its design and purpose, sacrificing, if necessary, the literal meaning, in order that the purpose may not fail. P. 260 U. S. 194.

4. The term " white person," as used in Rev.Stats. § 2169 and in all the earlier naturalization laws, beginning in 1790, applies to such persons as were known in this country as "white," in the racial sense, when it was first adopted, and is confined to persons of the Caucasian Race. P. 260 U. S. 195.

5. The effect of the conclusion that "white person" means a Caucasian is merely to establish a zone on one side of which are those clearly eligible, and on the other those clearly ineligible, to citizenship; individual cases within this zone must be determined as they arise. P. 260 U. S. 198.

6. A Japanese, born in Japan, being clearly not a Caucasian, cannot be made a citizen of the United States under Rev.Stats. § 2169 and the Naturalization Act. P. 260 U. S. 198.

Questions certified by the court below, arising upon an appeal to it from a judgment of the District Court of Hawaii which dismissed a petition for naturalization.

Page 260 U. S. 189

MR. JUSTICE SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court.

The appellant is a person of the Japanese race born in Japan. He applied, on October 16, 1914, to the United States District Court for the Territory of Hawaii to be admitted as a citizen of the United States. His petition was opposed by the United States District Attorney for the District of Hawaii. Including the period of his residence in Hawaii, appellant had continuously resided in the United States for 20 years. He was a graduate of the Berkeley, California, high school, had been nearly three years a student in the University of California, had educated his children in American schools, his family had attended American churches, and he had maintained the use of the English language in his home. That he was well qualified by character and education for citizenship is conceded.

The District Court of Hawaii, however, held that, having been born in Japan and being of the Japanese race,

he was not eligible to naturalization under § 2169 of the Revised Statutes, and denied the petition. Thereupon the appellant brought the cause to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and that court has certified the following questions upon which it desires to be instructed:

"1. Is the act of June 29, 1906 (34 Stats. at Large, pt. 1, p. 596), providing 'for a uniform rule for the naturalization of aliens' complete in itself, or is it limited by § 2169 of the Revised Statutes of the United States?"

"2. Is one who is of the Japanese race and born in Japan eligible to citizenship under the naturalization laws?"

"3. If said Act of June 29, 1906, is limited by § 2169 and naturalization is limited to aliens being free white persons and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent, is one of the Japanese race, born in Japan, under any circumstances eligible to naturalization?"

These questions, for purposes of discussion, may be briefly restated:

1. Is the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, limited by the provisions of § 2169 of the Revised Statutes of the United States?

2. If so limited, is the appellant eligible to naturalization under that section?

Firt. Section 2169 is found in title XXX of the Revised Statutes, under the heading "Naturalization," and reads as follows:

"The provisions of this Title shall apply to aliens, being free white persons and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent."

The Act of June 29, 1906, entitled

"An act to establish a Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, and to provide for a uniform rule for the naturalization of aliens throughout the United States," consists of thirty-one sections, and deals primarily with the subject of procedure. There is nothing in the circumstances leading up to or accompanying the passage of the act which suggests that any modification of § 2169, or of its application, was contemplated.

The report of the House Committee on Naturalization and Immigration recommending its passage contains this statement:

"It is the opinion of your committee that the frauds and crimes which have been committed in regard to naturalization have resulted more from a lack of any uniform system of procedure in such matters than from any radical defect in the fundamental principles of existing law governing in such matters. The two changes which the committee has recommended in the principles controlling in naturalization matters and which are embodied in the bill submitted herewith are as follows: first, the requirement that, before an alien can be naturalized, he must be able to read, either in his own language or in the English language, and to speak or understand the English language, and second, that the alien must intend to reside permanently in the United States before he shall be entitled to naturalization."

This seems to make it quite clear that no change of the fundamental character here involved was in mind.

Section 26 of the Act expressly repeals §§ 2165, 2167, 2168, 2173 of Title XXX, the subject matter thereof being covered by new provisions. The sections of Title XXX remaining without repeal are: Section 2166, relating to honorably discharged soldiers; § 2169, now under consideration; § 2170, requiring five years' residence prior to admission; § 2171, forbidding the admission of alien enemies; § 2172, relating to the status of children of naturalized persons, and § 2174, making special provision in respect of the naturalization of seamen.

There is nothing in § 2169 which is repugnant to anything in the Act of 1906. Both may stand and be given effect. It is clear, therefore, that there is no repeal by implication.

But it is insisted by appellant that § 2169, by its terms, is made applicable only to the provisions of Title XXX, and that it will not admit of being construed as a restriction upon the Act of 1906. Since § 2169, it is in effect argued, declares that "the provisions of this Title shall apply to aliens being free white persons, . . . " it should be confined to the classes provided for in the unrepealed sections of that title, leaving the Act of 1906 to govern in respect of all other aliens, without any restriction except such as may be imposed by that act itself.

It is contended that, thus construed, the Act of 1906 confers the privilege of naturalization without limitation as to race, since the general introductory words of § 4 are: "That an alien may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States in the following manner, and not otherwise."

But obviously this clause does not relate to the subject of eligibility, but to the "manner," that is, the procedure, to be followed. Exactly the same words are used to introduce the similar provisions contained in § 2165 of the Revised Statutes. In 1790, the first naturalization act provided that "[a]ny alien being a free white person . . . may be admitted to become a citizen. . . ." C. 3, 1 Stat. 103. This was subsequently enlarged to include aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent. These provisions were restated in the Revised Statutes, so that § 2165 included only the procedural portion, while the substantive parts were carried into a separate section, (2169) and the words "[a]n alien" substituted for the words "[a]ny alien."

In all of the naturalization acts from 1790 to 1906, the privilege of naturalization was confined to white persons (with the addition in 1870 of those of African nativity and descent), although the exact wording of the various statutes was not always the same. If Congress in 1906 desired to alter a rule so well and so long established, it may be assumed that its purpose would have been definitely disclosed and its legislation to that end put in unmistakable terms.

The argument that, because § 2169 is in terms made applicable only to the title in which it is found, it should now be confined to the unrepealed §§ of that title, is not convincing. The persons entitled to naturalization under these unrepealed sections include only honorably discharged soldiers and seamen who have served three years on board an American vessel, both of whom were entitled from the beginning to admission on more generous terms than were accorded to other aliens. It is not conceivable that Congress would deliberately have allowed the racial limitation to continue as to soldiers and seamen to whom the statute had accorded an especially favored status, and have removed it as to all other aliens. Such a construction cannot be adopted unless it be unavoidable.

The division of the Revised Statutes into titles and chapters is chiefly a matter of convenience, and reference to a given title or chapter is simply a ready method of identifying the particular provisions which are meant. The provisions of Title XXX affected by the limitation of § 2169 originally embraced the whole subject of naturalization of aliens. The generality of the words in § 2165, "[a]n alien may be admitted, . . . " was restricted by § 2169 in common with the other provisions of the title. The words "this title" were used for the purpose of identifying that provision (and others), but it was the provision which was restricted. That provision having been amended and carried into the Act of 1906, § 2169 being left intact and unrepealed, it will require some thing more persuasive than a narrowly literal reading of the identifying words "this title" to justify the conclusion that Congress intended the restriction to be no longer applicable to the provision.

It is the duty of this Court to give effect to the intent of Congress. Primarily this intent is ascertained by giving the words their natural significance, but if this leads to an unreasonable result plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole, we must examine the matter further. We may then look to the reason of the enactment and inquire into its antecedent history and give it effect in accordance with its design and purpose, sacrificing, if necessary, the literal meaning in order that the purpose may not fail. See Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U. S. 457; Heydenfeldt v. Daney Gold Mining Co., 93 U. S. 634, 93 U. S. 638. We are asked to conclude that Congress, without the consideration or recommendation of any committee, without a suggestion as to the effect or a word of debate as to the desirability of so fundamental a change, nevertheless, by failing to alter the identifying words of § 2169, which section we may assume was continued for some serious purpose, has radically modified a statute always theretofore maintained and considered as of great importance. It is inconceivable that a rule in force from the beginning of the government, a part of our history as well as our law, welded into the structure of our national polity by a century of legislative and administrative acts and judicial decisions, would have been deprived of its force in such dubious and casual fashion. We are therefore constrained to hold that the Act of 1906 is limited by the provisions of § 2169 of the Revised Statutes.

Second. This brings us to inquire whether, under § 2169, the appellant is eligible to naturalization. The language of the naturalization laws from 1790 to 1870 had been uniformly such as to deny the privilege of naturalization to an alien unless he came within the description "free white person." By § 7 of the Act of July 14, 1870, c. 254, 16 Stat. 254, 256, the naturalization laws were "extended to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent." Section 2169 of the Revised Statutes, as already pointed out, restricts the privilege to the same classes of persons, viz., "to aliens [being free white persons, and to aliens] of African nativity and to persons of African descent." It is true that, in the first edition of the Revised Statutes of 1873, the words in brackets, "being free white persons, and to aliens" were omitted, but this was clearly an error of the compilers, and was corrected by the subsequent legislation of 1875, c. 80, 18 Stat. 316, 318. Is appellant therefore a "free white person," within the meaning of that phrase as found in the statute?

On behalf of the appellant, it is urged that we should give to this phrase the meaning which it had in the minds of its original framers in 1790, and that it was employed by them for the sole purpose of excluding the black or African race and the Indians then inhabiting this country. It may be true that those two races were alone thought of as being excluded, but to say that they were the only ones within the intent of the statute would be to ignore the affirmative form of the legislation. The provision is not that Negroes and Indians shall be excluded, but it is, in effect, that only free white persons shall be included. The intention was to confer the privilege of citizenship upon that class of persons whom the fathers knew as white, and to deny it to all who could not be so classified. It is not enough to say that the framers did not have in mind the brown or yellow races of Asia. It is necessary to go farther and be able to say that, had these particular races been suggested, the language of the act would have been so varied as to include them within its privileges. As said by Chief Justice Marshall in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, 17 U. S. 644, in deciding a question of constitutional construction:

"It is not enough to say that this particular case was not in the mind of the convention when the article was framed, nor of the American people when it was adopted. It is necessary to go farther, and to say that, had this particular case been suggested, the language would have been so varied as to exclude it, or it would have been made a special exception. The case, being within the words of the rule, must be within its operation likewise unless there be something in the literal construction so obviously absurd, or mischievous, or repugnant to the general spirit of the instrument as to justify those who expound the Constitution in making it an exception."

If it be assumed that the opinion of the framers was that the only persons who would fall outside the designation "white" were Negroes and Indians, this would go no farther than to demonstrate their lack of sufficient information to enable them to foresee precisely who would be excluded by that term in the subsequent administration of the statute. It is not important in construing their words to consider the extent of their ethnological knowledge or whether they thought that, under the statute, the only persons who would be denied naturalization would be Negroes and Indians. It is sufficient to ascertain whom they intended to include, and, having ascertained that, it follows as a necessary corollary that all others are to be excluded.

The question then is: who are comprehended within the phrase "free white persons"? Undoubtedly the word "free" was originally used in recognition of the fact that slavery then existed and that some white persons occupied that status. The word, however, has long since ceased to have any practical significance, and may now be disregarded.

We have been furnished with elaborate briefs in which the meaning of the words "white person" is discussed with ability and at length, both from the standpoint of judicial decision and from that of the science of ethnology. It does not seem to us necessary, however, to follow counsel in their extensive researches in these fields. It is sufficient to note the fact that these decisions are, in substance, to the effect that the words import a racial, and not an individual, test, and with this conclusion, fortified as it is by reason and authority, we entirely agree. Manifestly the test afforded by the mere color of the skin of each individual is impracticable, as that differs greatly among persons of the same race, even among Anglo-Saxons, ranging by imperceptible gradations from the fair blond to the swarthy brunette, the latter being darker than many of the lighter hued persons of the brown or yellow races. Hence, to adopt the color test alone would result in a confused overlapping of races and a gradual merging of one into the other, without any practical line of separation. Beginning with the decision of Circuit Judge Sawyer in In Re Ah Yup, 5 Sawy. 155 (1878), the federal and state courts, in an almost unbroken line, have held that the words "white person" were meant to indicate only a person of what is popularly known as the Caucasian race. Among these decisions, see, for example: In re Camille, 6 F. 256; In re Saito, 62 F. 126; In re Nian, 6 Utah 259; In re Kumagai, 163 F. 922; In re Yamashita, 30 Wash. 234, 237; In re Ellis, 179 F. 1002; In re Mozumdar, 207 F. 115, 117; In re Singh, 257 F. 209, 211, 212, and In re Charr, 273 F. 207. With the conclusion reached in these several decisions we see no reason to differ. Moreover, that conclusion has become so well established by judicial and executive concurrence and legislative acquiescence that we should not at this late day feel at liberty to disturb it in the absence of reasons far more cogent than any that have been suggested. United States v. Midwest Oil Co., 236 U. S. 459, 236 U. S. 472.

The determination that the words "white person" are synonymous with the words "a person of the Caucasian race" simplifies the problem, although it does not entirely dispose of it. Controversies have arisen and will no doubt arise again in respect of the proper classification of individuals in border line cases. The effect of the conclusion that the words "white person" means a Caucasian is not to establish a sharp line of demarcation between those who are entitled and those who are not entitled to naturalization, but rather a zone of more or less debatable ground outside of which, upon the one hand, are those clearly eligible, and outside of which, upon the other hand, are those clearly ineligible for citizenship. Individual cases falling within this zone must be determined as they arise from time to time by what this Court has called, in another connection (Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97, 96 U. S. 104), "the gradual process of judicial inclusion and exclusion."

The appellant in the case now under consideration, however, is clearly of a race which is not Caucasian, and therefore belongs entirely outside the zone on the negative side. A large number of the federal and state courts have so decided, and we find no reported case definitely to the contrary. These decisions are sustained by numerous scientific authorities which we do not deem it necessary to review. We think these decisions are right, and so hold.

The briefs filed on behalf of appellant refer in complimentary terms to the culture and enlightenment of the Japanese people, and with this estimate we have no reason to disagree; but these are matters which cannot enter into our consideration of the questions here at issue. We have no function in the matter other than to ascertain the will of Congress and declare it. Of course, there is not implied -- either in the legislation or in our interpretation of it -- any suggestion of individual unworthiness or racial inferiority. These considerations are in no manner involved.

The questions submitted are therefore answered as follows:

Question No. 1. The Act of June 29, 1906, is not complete in itself, but is limited by § 2169 of the Revised Statutes of the United States.

Question No. 2. No.

Question No. 3. No.

It will be so certified.

Tuesday, October 31, 1922. Mussolini takes office.

Mussolini officially took office as the Prime Minister of Italy on this day in 1922.

Parades commemorating the event by current fascists took place in Italy yesterday.  As earlier noted here, the current Prime Minister is a member of a political party with fascist roots, although she maintains that she is not a fascist herself.

The Trial of Six commenced in Greece, in which the trial of the defeated heads of the late war effort against Turkey would be held, leading to their execution.  It was effectively a political trial for the crime of losing the war.

It was, of course, Halloween.

Monday, October 30, 1922. Casting.

Mussolini was sworn in as Prime Minster of Italy following what was essentially a coup.

Saturday, October 28, 1922. King Victor Emmanuel summons Mussolini.

The Saturday Evening Post went with a jester theme for its Halloween 1922 ediition, the Country Gentleman went with a jest.

King Victor Emmanuel III, Italy's king, refused a request from Prime Minister Luigi Facta to declare martial law to address the Fascist March on Rome.  The Italian army advised the king that it was fearful troops would disobey any order to fire on the Fascists, and therefore the request should be denied.

With this, the Italian government effectively surrendered to Fascism.  The King invited Mussolini to come to Rome to discuss the political situation with him.

KYW broadcast the first national radio transmission of a football game. The game was between Princeton and the University of Chicago.

Antrim Castle in Northern Ireland caught fire during a grand ball and was destroyed.  Suspicion existed that the castle fire may have been the work of the Irish Republican Army, but no charges were ever brought against anyone and no insurance claim was ever paid out.

Friday, October 27, 1922. Horse events, funerals, savings certificates. And the March on Rome begins.

Today In Wyoming's History: October 27: 1922  The Schwartz Brothers Haberdashers store opened in Cheyenne.   Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

A military horse show took place in Washington, D.C. on this day in 1922.

Billy Mitchell was one of the competitors.

 Elsewhere, a military funeral was also conducted.

Andrew Mellon was issuing new Treasury saving certificates.

Southern Rhodesia, which later became Rhodesia, and which is now Zimbabwe, held a referendum on joining South Africa.  Voters rejected the proposal.

Italian Fascists took possession of cities around Italy as the March on Rome began.  The mach was a mass demonstration that was also a slow rolling coup in progress intended, ultimately, to put so much pressure on the Italian government that it would fall, and the Fascists take control of the government.  It would succeed in that aim.