December 17, 1920. The Red Summer on a Snowy Winter Day.

A race riot broke out in Independence Kansas resulting in the Kansas National Guard being deployed to the city in severe winter conditions.

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.

December 13, 1920. Sweet and Bittersweet

A great day in the history of confectionaries. Haribo, the German candy company that invented Gummi Bears (Gummy Bears, Gummibär) came into existence.

Not a Gummy Bear.

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?

Some sweet news came for some people, in that Naval Aviators were back in town and a crowd waited to greet them.

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  It was swept out with a lot of wartime measures that were being contemporaneously repealed.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:

Today In Wyoming's History: May 16, 1918. The Sedition Act of 1918 passed into law.

Today In Wyoming's History: May 16: 1918  The Sedition Act of 1918 passed by the U.S. Congress making criticism of the government an imprisonable offense of 20 years or fined $20,000.  Attribution:  Western History Center.

New York Herald's pro Sedition Act cartoon.  Included in the treasonous pack was the IWW and Sein Fein.

It provided, amongst other things:

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....

Not one of the U.S. prouder moments in World War One.  Of note, Theodore Roosevelt had editorialized against it.  It would in fact be abused as during wartime its easy to imagine a traitor behind every negative statement.

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.

December 4, 1920. The Holiday Season.

 

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.

Some people, however were photographed at their occupations on the same Saturday, including. . . 

Lewis Ludlow, a Congressional page, and . . . 

the Vice President's chauffeur.

September 1, 1920. Lebanon, Submarines, and Chicago.

The flag of Greater Lebanon featuring the Lebanese cedar and the French tricolor.

 

On this day in 1920, Greater Lebanon came into existence as a French administrative unit.

Syria had attempted to define Lebanon as an administrative Syrian unit in its short lived state that was brought to an end by France in 1920.  It's origins went back to the 1860s when European powers entered into a series of treaties with the Ottoman Empire in an effort to protect the Christian population of the region which has been subject to religious violence.  The boundaries of the state were larger than those originally regarded as Lebanese and were based upon the map featured here yesterday. The expanded boundaries were created in order to attempt to give the region, which was anticipated as having statehood in the future, a large enough territory to have some sort of economic base.

The League of Nations would approve the creation of the entity in 1923 and it was declared to be the Republic of Lebanon in 1926 while still under French administration.  It's status became a matter of contest during World War Two when the French Vichy administration allowed the Germans to transport arms through Syria to be used against British forces in the Middle East.  Free French General Charles de Gaulle declared it to be independent in 1941, under pressure from the Allies to do so, in a move that would have been legally questionable.  

On November 8, 1943 Lebanon held elections for an independent government and declared the League of Nations mandate over it to be terminated, which brought immediate Free French reaction in the form of arresting the government.  However, on November 22, 1943 they were released under Allied pressure. The French left in December 1946, at which point both Syria and Lebanon had been admitted as founding members of the United Nations.  No formal end of the mandate was ever declared.

Flag of Lebanon.

Lebanon has always had a troubled existence and its independence has not changed that.  Regarded as a bright spot in the Middle East in the immediate post war world, regional violence has made the tiny state highly unstable and its religiously and ethnically diverse population have not always gotten along well since that time, with civil war dominating the 1970s and 1980s.  Created as a state that was specifically to be a home for Maronite Arab Christians, members of the Catholic church whose branch dates back to Christianity's early days, demographic changes in the country, including a high immigration rate to the West (although Lebanese also have the highest return from immigration rate in the world) and an influx of Shia's have made the original political informal balance unstable.  

This is a story that has a tangential impact on me, as one of my late uncle's was half Lebanese and half Irish by descent.  His mother was Lebanese although I've lost track of whether she was born in Lebanon (I think she was) or the United States.  Her parents had brought the entire family over when she was young.  She had met and married her husband in Nebraska, but in latter years the extended family had a significant presence in Casper Wyoming where there was a small Lebanese immigrant community.  

This reminds me that many of the divides that are commonly assumed to exist in the U.S. really don't in the way they're sometimes understood to.  In Catholic communities the mixing of people of highly diverse ethnicity is frankly common.

France, for its part, which has taken an interest in the region dating back to the Middle Ages continues to do so today.

On the same day the USS S-5, an American submarine, sank accidentally when a crewman failed to close a value, and in attempting to rectify the mistake, jammed it open.  No lives were lost.  It was refloated, but sank again on September 3 while under tow.

Sonar image of the S-5 today.

The S-5 was just going into service when the accident occured.  She was an S Class submarine, which was a new type adopted during World War One but which came too late for any of the class to see service during the war.  A fair number of them remained in service when World War Two broke out and saw service, in spite of being dated, in both the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy.  Thirteen of the boats served all the way through the war for the U.S. Navy, with all but one decommissioned in October, 1945. The last remaining one in service was decommissioned a year later.

A killing in Chicago was attributed, by the killer, to widespread firearms carrying in Wyoming.

The details, at least as known at the time, were that wealthy real estate broker Gerald Stack was visiting Chicago when he pulled a pistol to use it to pistol whip a man, a discharged marine, who had insulted a woman in the bar.  A tussle resulted and Stack claimed that the gun discharged several times, killing the other party.

Questions were raised about why Stack was packing heat, and he attributed that to the custom in Wyoming.

A question can actually be raised to the extent to which Stack's statement was accurate, and it would take somebody with more time to really find out. Certainly, firearms weren't uncommon in Wyoming and in 1920 it would still have been probable that many people in rural areas went about armed, and indeed, that's still the case.  Indeed Wyoming train robber Bill Carlisle attributed part of his reason for moving to Wyoming to the fact that firearms were common and therefore you could always hunt for food if you were out of work, a statement that was apparently untrue as he took up train robbery.

Carrying firearms in town, however, wasn't universal anywhere in the West as so often believed and had actually been illegal in some Wyoming towns in the late 19th Century, although I don't know the status of that in 1920. Certainly one other murder earlier in 1920 which we've also featured here also featured a girl and a bar, showed the parties to have ready access to firearms.  

An interesting aspect of both of these stories is the alcohol aspect of them.  By this time, alcohol had been illegal for awhile, and yet it was clearly showing up.  That fact is often oddly overlooked in the story of American violence, which has dramatically declined in recent years.  When it occurs, it tends to occur between people who know each other and when they don't know each other, it's like automobile accidents. . . booze or drugs show up.  Nobody seems to ever really ponder the latter.

Carrying a handgun in Chicago in 1920 doesn't strike me as a bad idea, given that the town has been notoriously violent since its earliest days and still is. Some would argue that carrying in Chicago today would be a good idea, and should be more widely allowed than it is.

It's also interesting how often the age old mix of men and women and a contest between men over women show up at any time as the roots source of such events.

June 2, 1920. Ships and faraway places.

Workmen posing before the launch of the USS Neches, Boston Navy Yard, June 2, 1920.  The ship was an oiler that would serve for 22 years until sunk by the Japanese submarine I-72 on January 23, 1942.

On the same day a Shia revolt commenced in Iraq.  Known as the Great Iraqi Revolt, the revolution would run its course for months before the British were able to put it down.  The British would deploy aircraft using air delivered poisonous gas during the war and at least 8,000 Iraqi lives were lost during the conflict, as well as 500 British lives.

The United States Congress rejected the proposal that the country engage in a League of Nations mandate over Armenia.

April 25, 1920. Settlements that didn't settle.

Attendees at the San Remo Conference on this date in 1920.  Matsui, Lloyd George, Curzon, Berthelot, Millerand, Scialoja and Nitti.

This was the last day of the San Remo Conference in which the victors of the Great War, absent the United States, met to determine the fate of various territories left in their hands or at least believed to be left in their hands.  On this day, the issued the San Remo Resoution, which stated,

It was agreed –

(a) To accept the terms of the Mandates Article as given below with reference to Palestine, on the understanding that there was inserted in the proces-verbal an undertaking by the Mandatory Power that this would not involve the surrender of the rights hitherto enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities in Palestine; this undertaking not to refer to the question of the religious protectorate of France, which had been settled earlier in the previous afternoon by the undertaking given by the French Government that they recognized this protectorate as being at an end.

(b) that the terms of the Mandates Article should be as follows:

The High Contracting Parties agree that Syria and Mesopotamia shall, in accordance with the fourth paragraph of Article 22, Part I (Covenant of the League of Nations), be provisionally recognized as independent States, subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The boundaries of the said States will be determined, and the selection of the Mandatories made, by the Principal Allied Powers.

The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory, to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 8, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

La Puissance mandataire s’engage a nommer dans le plus bref delai une Commission speciale pour etudier toute question et toute reclamation concernant les differentes communautes religieuses et en etablir le reglement. Il sera tenu compte dans la composition de cette Commission des interets religieux en jeu. Le President de la Commission sera nomme par le Conseil de la Societe des Nations.

The terms of the mandates in respect of the above territories will be formulated by the Principal Allied Powers and submitted to the Council of the League of Nations for approval.

Turkey hereby undertakes, in accordance with the provisions of Article [132 of the Treaty of Sevres] to accept any decisions which may be taken in this connection.

(c) Les mandataires choisis par les principales Puissances allies sont: la France pour la Syrie, et la Grand Bretagne pour la Mesopotamie, et la Palestine.

In reference to the above decision the Supreme Council took note of the following reservation of the Italian Delegation:

La Delegation Italienne en consideration des grands interets economiques que l’Italie en tant que puissance exclusivement mediterraneenne possede en Asie Mineure, reserve son approbation a la presente resolution, jusqu’au reglement des interets italiens en Turquie d’Asia.

As noted, above, the Italian delegation reserved its assent given that the conference hadn't reached a resolution on its interests in Asia Minor.

The results of the conference were momentous and continue to play out today  The British took Palestine as a mandate and the French Syria.  The borders of these mandates were not determined.  The Turkish delegation purported to accept the decisions made at the conference.  The conference also, although not reflected in this resolution, accepted the independence of Armenia and set the monetary amount of annual German reparation payments.

While the US was not there, it continued to exhibit an influence, as the conference also accepted Wilson's proposal on Fiume, even if the Italians really didn't.

As the Cheyenne paper made plain, scandals that are more commonly associated with later eras in fact occurred in earlier ones. And Texas said no to Carranza.

In just a few short months the French would sustain a military defeat against insurgent Syrians and the British would accordingly rush to draw the borders of Transjordan, which is Jordan today, out of concern that the rebellion would spill into territory it was administering. That would set the borders for Palestine.  An insurgency already underway in Turkey would cause the decisions of any Turkish delegation to be questionable, but it did not act in any fashion to attempt to assert any claim to Mesopotamia (Iraq), or its former colonies to the south.  It would not accept, however, the independence of Armenia, which the conference had separately recognized, or the Greek role in Anatolia, which had been assured by the conference.  And Carranza's bid to control who became his successor was turning disastrous for him.

World War One's results were playing out in a different fashion at the Battle of Koziatyn, Ukraine in which a Polish cavalry division penetrated deep behind the Soviet lines.  Over two days it would envelop Soviet forces and destroy two Red Army divisions.

Elsewhere movies with rural settings were being released, both dramatic and comedic.

April 8, 1920 More Strife

On this day in 1920, the British were confronting riots in Jerusalem.

British troops at the Jaffa Gate, April 8, 1920.

Things had been building up for awhile as competing interests struggled concerning the future of the city and who would be allowed to live there and who control things there, while the British struggled to keep a lid on it all.  The British ended up declaring martial law to calm the violence.

One place the British had determined not to struggle was in the Ruhr. They informed the French that they would not be entering into Germany. Only Belgium agreed to assist the French.  Germany appealed to the League of Nations but, as it was not yet a member, its appeal was rejected.  The German government in turn voted to withdraw from the region in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles, which it shortly accomplished, but its entry had already accomplished it goal of suppressing the Communist rebellion there.

In Central America, Tragic Week commenced which saw the country in revolutionary turmoil as rebels seized the capitol and the government in turn shelled it.  Ultimately, rebel forces would overturn the government, which was militarist in nature.

February 16, 1920. Reviews and Troubles.

General Pershing reviewing troops at Jackson Barracks, February 16, 1920.

On this day in 1920, Columbia joined the League of Nations, Armenia made a statement to the League in Paris that it was ready to enter into negotiations to secure its borders, and the US and the European powers went into a spat about Yugoslavia in which the US threatened to back out of Europe entirely.

Cardinal Patrick O'Donnell

In Ireland, where there was no peace but low grade guerrilla war, there were now 41,000 British troops serving in the country, up from 25,000 prior to the war.  Bishop Charles McHugh of Derry accused the British of "military despotism", Bishop Thomas O'Doherty of Clonfert referred to British rule as a "regime of militarism" and Bishop, later Cardinal, Patrick O'Donnell stated that an "atmosphere of war and blood coupled with resentment, and the indignities of military rule, was in some danger of endangering wrong notions in regard to human life."

The statements by the Bishops was significant in that the struggle between the Irish and the English had a strong confessional based to it.  The Bishops weighing in lent support to the common Irish people's distress that that the British were treating them as occupied people and and unfairly.

February 13, 1920. Leagues Founded. Leagues Joined. Leagues Not Joined.

On this day in 1920, the National Negro Leagues were founded and professional black baseball was launched.  Black baseball teams already existed at the time, but the NNL was the first association of them to last for more than a year, and hence some stability was brought to the African American leagues in an era in which segregation kept players out of major league baseball otherwise.  The effort was lead by Rube Foster, owner and coach of the Chicago American Giants.

Rube Foster

Foster would serve as president of the league but suffered from a near fatal asphyxiation from a gas lead in 1925 from which he never recovered.  He became increasingly erratic thereafter and died in 1930, after which the league, suffering from the effects of the Great Depression, disbanded.  A  new one would be formed several years later.

On the same day Switzerland was admitted as a neutral member of the League of Nations.  And in the US Robert Lansing, Wilson's Secretary of State, was effectively terminated by Woodrow Wilson.

Robert Lansing

Lansing had fallen increasingly out of favor with President Wilson since the end of World War One.  Lansing did not regard the League of Nations as being vital to U.S. interests, in contrast to President Wilson.  And he called the cabinet together several times for consultations during Wilson's absence, and further urged the Vice President to assume the duties of the President during his illness, which Wilson regarded as disloyal.

Saturday, January 25, 1919. The League of Nations Formed.

Lots of distressing news about, but perhaps time to relax on a cold Saturday with a copy of the latest weekly journals.

Those journals, I suppose, gave the readers a hot and cold option.

The assembly of nations meeting in Paris elected, on this day, for the option of establishing a League of Nations, an idea that had been much discussed in the concluding months of the Great War and which President Wilson supported.

Of course, as it would turn out, the U.S. Senate didn't support the League, and the U.S. never joined it.