Sunday, May 13, 1923. Mother's Day. Russian's bluster, Elopement frustrated, Pool Halls closed, Shirt Sleeves Slim back, Parachute Jump.

The Russian habit of threatening other nations was in evidence on this Mother's Day of 1923.

And related to the theme of the day, in a way, an elopement was frustrated.  The intended bride was 16, the groom 20.

I wonder if that ended it, or if their union later developed? Seems like the parents, implicitly, were not thrilled.  Note also the judge intended to go ahead with it.

Ritualized bride kidnapping is a surprisingly common human custom, perhaps derived from actual bride kidnapping.  In Christian societies actual bride kidnapping cannot give rise to a valid marriage, but in many non-Christian societies, including pre-Christian European ones, it was fairly common. The entire origin of Rome came about that way.

After the rise of Christianity in various cultures, some retained a ritualized form of which, as in this instance, existed to overcome parental objections.  The bride was complicit in her kidnapping and consent was generally given afterward with a negotiation on the bride's price.  This was common, for example, in Medieval Scandinavia.  Implicit in the negotiation was; 1) as women could freely consent to marriage, there was no stopping it, and 2) the girl was likely "ruined" by that time, or would be so regarded.  Additionally, the use of force by the groom implied that the kidnapping was not so much that, but an armed intervention in favor of the couple's intentions, which was a dicey thing to disregard without violence.

In spite of the constant boosterism, the real nature of Casper was showing through.  Pool Hall fights were breaking out during an era when Casper had a really thriving open red-light district.  "Shirt Sleeves" slim was going to be escorted out of town.  

In boosterism, a parachute jump was planned over a new subdivision.

Mother's Day (Muttertag) was officially recognized for the first time in Germany, although it had been widely celebrated the year prior.  Lacking the nationalist tones that it had in Germany, the day had been recognized in the United States since 1908.  The celebration also spread to Czechoslovakia and Poland for the first time in 1923.

It was of course Mother's Day in the US.

In Philadelphia, the unknown mother of the unknown soldier was honored.

In various states, such as Michigan, the Governor issued a proclamation in honor of the day.

A Proclamation By the Governor

Mothers' Day Proclamation By the Governor

In compliance with our beautiful custom, which in a few years has come to be universally observed throughout the land, the time has come to set apart a day in honor of American motherhood.

The American home is at once the cradle and the bulwark of all that is finest and best in our present day civilization, and the American mother is the heart of that home. If the home spirit is what it should be the major portion of the credit belongs to her.

It is impossible for us to compute the debt we owe our mothers, and it is only fitting that in this way we should pay our tribute of respect and devotion to the mothers of the nation, living and dead.

Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as Governor of the State of Michigan, I do hereby designate and proclaim Sunday, May thirteenth, 1923, as Mothers' Day, and I call upon our people, both old and young, to gather in their several places of worship and take part in services appropriate to the day.

And let absent sons and daughters take this occasion to visit the mother in the old home, or, where such a visit is impossible, let them send a message of cheer and greeting.

In accordance with a resolution of the Congress of the United States, I further request the people of Michigan on the day aforesaid to display the United States flag in their homes and in other suitable places, as a fitting expression of their desire to pay homage to American motherhood.

Given under my hand and the Great Seal of the State this Twenty-seventh day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty-three, and of the Commonwealth the eightyseventh.

Alex J Governor.

By the Governor:

Oddly, the Casper paper for the day didn't mention Mother's Day at all. 

Wednesday, February 21, 1923. Time travel.

Greece made its final use of the Julian calendar, thereby going from today, which was February 15 on the Julian, to March 1 the following day, reflecting the switch to the Gregorian calendar.

President Harding signed the Smoot-Burton Act compromising the British war debt somewhat.

France deported the policemen in Bouchum and Herne away from their cities.

Friday, February 16, 1923. Bessie Smith sings the blues.

Blues great Bessie Smith was in the studio.

Smith was a musical giant in her day, but was buried in an unmarked grave when she died due to injuries from an automobile accident in 1937.  In 1970s ,that was addressed and a new tombstone was erected.

The inner chamber of the Tomb of Tutankhamun was opened by Howard Carter's archeological party.

The Conference of Ambassadors of the Allied Powers, which did not include the US, as the US had gone into international hiding on the basis that ignoring the world makes you safe from it, approved the transfer of Memel to Lithuania.  We dealt with this previously and the nature of this oddly disputed small Baltic territory.

Italy ratified the Washington Naval Treaty and the Treaty of Santa Margherita, the latter of which settled a territorial dispute with Yugoslavia,

Saturday, January 27, 1923. Nazis meet for the first time, San Marino temporarily ceases to exist, Rifian POWs released.

Samuel L. Rothafel, Director of Capitol Theatre, New York, using Western Electric microphone, January 27, 1923

 

The German National Socialist Party, the NASDP, commonly called the Nazi Party, held its first party congress.  It was held in Munich, where the party was centered at the time, and drew 6,000 members.

The tiny Republic of San Marino was forced by local fascists into union with Italy.  The micro state has since regained independence.

The Republic of the Rif released the remaining 326 prisoners of war it held to Spain, in exchange for 4,000,000 pesetas. 261 POWS had died in Rifian captivity.

The Country Gentleman had an age-old theme.

Of interest, that style of winter hat is still very popular with outdoorsmen and agriculturalist.  I have two of them.

The Saturday Evening Post had an extraordinarily boring cover.

Thursday, January 11, 1923. The French and Belgians Occupy the Ruhr

In one of the most condemned moves of 20th Century history, French and Belgium troops (the Belgians are often forgotten as having a role in this) started their occupation of the Ruhr by crossing into Essen into 0445.

French troops in Dortmund.

100,000 French soldiers were in the Ruhr by the end of the week.

Forgotten in this is that the French were a far more stable political entity at the time than the Germans, and the Germans had breached the Versailles Treaty.  If the French had shown similar backbone in 1936, they would have stopped Hitler cold, caused him to lose the chancellorship, and he'd have been luck to have not ended up in the ground that year.

The Germans get a lot of sympathy here they really don't deserve.

Hitler did use the occasion to attack, in a speech, the German republican government.

Secy. of Labor Davis delivering the opening address at first meeting of the Nat'l Industrial Women's Conference, Jan. 11, 1923, at the Nat'l Museum.

Greek King Constantine 1 died in Italy in exile at age 54.  He reigned, and abdicated, twice, losing his second regnum due to the war with Turkey.

Very oddly, his successor, two intervening kings in between, Constantine II died yesterday at age 82 in Athens.  He was Greek's last king.

Tuesday, January 9, 1923. Belgium and France take a hard line.

The Allied Reparation Commission found Germany in willful default on its coal delivery requires pursuant to the Versailles Treaty, thus setting the stage for the French occupation.  On the same day, France and Belgium's commissioners voted to occupy the Ruhr. The United Kingdom opposed the measure.  The U.S. had already bowed out.

The Ruhr is an industrial region of Germany and was traditionally a coal mining region, drawing quite a few ethnic Poles at one time due to their experience in coal mining.  Locally, quite a few of those from the region refer to it as "Pott", which is a derivate of "Pütt", a derivative of "pit", or mine.  By 1925, the Ruhrgebiet had around 3,800,000 inhabitants including Eastern Europe immigrants, but also including immigrants from France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.  Today the region is part of North Rhine-Westphalia, a British creation during the post World War Two British occupation, which merged the Rhineland with Westphalia.  Oddly, it's been preserved since that time, although at least some distantly descended Westphalians might wonder why.

A U.S. Federal board charged with studying vocational education found that 1,700,000 children dropped out of school prior to the 8th grade, and thereby impairing their occupational opportunities.

The Gorakhpus Sessions Court in Indian returned verdicts on a February 5, 1922, burning of a police station that resulted in 22 police deaths. Forty-seven people were acquitted, 107 were found guilty of various charges, with nineteen being sentenced to death and fourteen to life imprisonment.

Sunday, December 31, 1922. New Year's Eve.

It was New Year's Eve, 1922.

That meant a lot of parties.  Parties occurring during Prohibition.  A fair number of them were dry, but a fair number were not.

French Prime Minister Raymond Poincare rejected German Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno's proposal for a non-aggression pact with Germany, which would have replaced French troops in the Rhineland with an international disinterested force.

Frankly, were I Poincare, I would have rejected it also.  What international force, following the Great War, would have even qualified as disinterested?

We mentioned Cuno here the other day, he was an economist.  Of some interest, he was born in 1876 and would die in 1933.  Poincare was born in 1860, and would outlive him, dying in 1934.

The Nine Power Treaty went into effect.  We've run the text of the treaty, signed by the U.S. France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and China previously.

United States Supreme Court Justice Mahlon Pitney retired following his having suffered a stroke.

Justice Pitney.

Pitney was conservative, but also a libertarian, and has received praise in the modern era for being consistently libertarian.  He hailed from New Jersey, where his family had been located since colonial times, and only served for ten years before his stroke idled him.  He died in 1924 at age 66.

The Casper Daily Tribune had a cartoon on the cover regarding the Hays of the Hays Production Code, which we just discussed.

Friday, December 28, 1922. Reds and Reichsmarks.

The Council of People's Commissars re-elected most of the members of the ruling "All-Russian Executive Committee" (hmmmm. . . . "All Russian") but did put in four new members. Three of them were:

Joseph Stalin.  We know about him.  He was appointed Minister of Nationalities.

Lev Kamenev.  He was appointed Third Vice President, which says something about the absurd nature of Soviet government in that they had up to at least three VP's.  One's enough.

His fate?  Shot in the 1930s, of course.

Grigory Sokolnikov.  He was appointed Minister of Finance.

His fate?  Assassinated in prison in 1939.

Well, they served a monstrosity that used murder.  Can we be surprised that they were murdered?

It might be worth noting that some of these figures, maybe all of them, were "rehabilitated", which didn't do them any good, but then they were pretty complicit with bringing anonymous death upon millions.

James Joyce's novel Ulysses was banned in the UK.  I've never read it, but then its a book whose memory is mostly preserved by English professors with few actually reading it, much like a lot of what Hemingway wrote is.  If tempted to read it, pick up Flannery O'Connor instead.

Germany's floating debt passed 1,000,000,000,000 ℛℳ.

Tuesday, December 26, 1922. Minnie

The Allied Reparations Committee's delegates voted 3 to 1 to declare Germany to have voluntarily defaulted in its Great War reparations, this stemming from a delayed timber delivery to France.

Only the United Kingdom dissented.

Mussolini ordered that Italian coinage be redesigned to bear the fasces.

Fasces.

And this:  1922: Minnie, the the RMS Cedric Ship Cat Who Saved Her Christmas Kittens

Wednesday, November 22, 1922. Unintended Consequences.

 Tampa Bay Times, November 22, 1922.

A mine explosion in Dolomite, Alabama killed 90 people.

Wilhelm Cuno.

Businessman Wilhelm Cuno was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Friedrich Ebert.  It was an appointment, not an elective, commission.

An independent politician, Cuno would serve in the role for less than a year and then retire from politics.  He'd become an economic advisor to Hitler in 1932, which he didn't do long either, given his death in 1933.

November 9, 1922. Hedging bets

The French Chamber of Deputies approved Raymond Poincare's policy of France abstaining on paying its war debts unit it had received reparations due from Germany.

Former White Russian General Viktor Pokrovsky, age 33, died while resisting arreste by Belgian authorities. They were conducting a murder investigation.

Tuesday, August 15, 1922. Germany defaults.

Germany defaulted on its reparations payments.

Released this day with an absurd plot involving vying for the hand of a wealthy Mexican señorita, a virtuous lass back home threatened by the KKK, and a major issue to be determined by a jumping bean contest.

The Casper Daily Tribune ran a cartoon attacking Governor Carey on the front page.

Frankly, even now, I’m shocked.

As can be seen, Casper was expanding in 1922 and the stresses that involved were apparently getting to people.  

Saturday, June 23, 1922. Portents.

The Saturday Evening Post hit the stands with an enduringly popular Leyendecker illustration.

Judge, which had recently combined with Leslie's, made fun of the cost of a dinner date.

Walther Rathenau, German Foreign Minster, was assassinated by right wing German nationalist.  Germany's march towards Nazism was commencing.

On the same day Hitler began serving his prison sentence.

The American Professional Football Association voted to change its name to the National Football League.

The English Ladies Football Association hold its only championship.

Japan announced it would withdraw its occupation forces from Siberia, save for Sakhalin Island, by the end of October.

Easter Sunday, 1922

 April 16 was Easter Sunday in 1922.

On that date, Michael Collins survived an assassination attempt when his attackers failed to recognize him in Rutland Square in Dublin, and shot at some cars instead.  Collins was carrying a revolver and fired at his would be attackers.

Germany and Soviet Russia entered the Treaty of Rapallo which renounced all territorial and financial claims the two countries had against each other and restored diplomatic relations.

Japan's famous Imperial Hotel sustained damage in a fire.

Poster Saturday. The traveling record player

 

Wednesday August 3, 1921. Murder, Rising Radicals, Crop Dusting.

Russian poet Nikolay Gumilyov, who refused to accommodate himself to Communism, was arrested by the Cheka.  He'd shortly be tried and executed on charges of being part of a non-existent anti-communist plot.  He shared his fate with sixty others.

Gumilyov spent much of his life outside of Russia, but joined the army when World War One arrived, serving as a cavalry officer. Following the Russian Revolution, he made no secret of his contempt for Communism and openly continued to make the sign of the cross in public.

On this day in 1921, Mussolini entered into a short-lived pact with several other Italian radical parties, those parties all being from the left.

While the Pact of Pacification would not last, its one of the examples of the early history of fascism which creates confusion as to where it stands on the political scale.  The parties to the agreement were all left-wing parties, and of course Mussolini had at one time been a Socialist.  Fascism itself adopted a sort of corporatist economic policy when it came into power.

Elsewhere in budding fascist movements, the Nazi Party formed the Sturmabteilung, the SA, which would form its fighting wing.  The militant SA was instrumental in the party's rise to power in the late 1920s and early 1930s, but would be suppressed after the Nazis came to power as those who had accommodated themselves to Nazi rule were put off by it, and it further was an open rival to the German army, which it sought to replace.  This would ultimately lead to the violent 1934 purge of  the organization in which its leadership was violently put down.  Contrary to widespread belief, however, it continued to exist, effectively marginalized, until the collapse of Nazi Germany.  Following the war, it was declared to be a criminal organization.

The Aerodrome: First "Crop Dusting". August 3, 1921.:

First "Crop Dusting". August 3, 1921.

On this day in 1921, crop dusting, spraying pesticides by air, was performed for the first time in an experiment involving the U.S. Army and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

First crop dusting being conducted.

The first flight featured Army Air Corps pilot John A. Macready and aircraft engineer Etienne Dormoy who performed the test with a Curtiss JN4 over a field outside of Troy, Ohio.  Lead arsenate was sprayed to attack caterpillars.

Dormay left, Macready right.

Macready would complete an Army career prior to World War Two, leaving the service in 1926, but was recalled to serve in the Second World War.  He retired from the Army Air Force in 1948.  He was a legendary pilot at the time and had many firsts while in the service, including being the first Air Corps pilot to parachute from a stricken aircraft at night.

Friday July 29, 1921. A dark and momentous day.

On this day in 1921 an obscure Austrian born veteran of World War One, who had been employed by the Reichsheer to inform on an obscure upstart German political party, was voted its head in an election with a foreordained result.  In doing so, Adolph Hitler replaced Anton Drexler as the leader of the German Workers Party, with only one person voting no.

The election in the then tiny party came about due to an interparty feud in which Hitler, who had become the party's primary spokesman, had resigned on July 11.  Given that Hitler had become the most notable public figure of the party, even early on, a deal was reached in which he would become its leader, with the title führer, and Drexler was cease to be more than a figure in the party.  That deal resulted in Hitler's accession to dictatorship status on this day in 1921.

The evolution of events was remarkable. Drexler had been a primary figure in the party from its onset and was the partial originator of its original anti-Semitic platform.  Hitler was an early member, but not one of the earliest members.  Effectively, Hilter had co-opted the leadership of what would soon be renamed the National Socialist German Workers Party, the Nazi party.

There was no reason to believe that the Nazis would go anywhere in 1921. They were only one of a plethora of radical German parties with mushy ideas.  Even the virulent anti-Semitism wasn't unique to the Nazi Party, but common in extreme right wing German parties of the time.  The only really unique thing about the party was Hitler himself, who would prove to be a charismatic leader.

The title "Socialist" wasn't unique to them by any means either, but the change in name, which would come about soon, and due to Hitler, has led to decades of debate on how socialist the Nazi Party was. Early on, it was fairly socialist, but this changed during the party's early years to where it adopted autarky as an economic platform.  The fact that capitalist were generally not shy about the Nazi Party demonstrates that by the early 1930s it was not regarded as a socialist party by German industrialist and business figures.

Drexler dropped out of the party after the Beer Hall Putsch, which he had no role in, and only rejoined it in 1933 after it had come into power.  He died at age 57 in 1942 due to alcoholism.  He was not unique in being a very early member of the party who was sidelined after Hitler took over.  Nobody in the movement was admirable, but if Drexler had resisted Hitler's taking over the party, and if its members had supported him, the Nazis in the form they were soon to become would never have come into being, and Hitler would have faded from history.

The Council On Foreign Relations, a think tank, was formed on this day in 1921.  The organization ponders the international relations and policy of the United States.

May 2, 1921. Uprising in Upper Silesia

Polish insurgents in 1921.

On this day in 1921, the Third Silesian Uprising commenced in which Poles in Upper Silesia who sought to separate from Germany.  The uprising followed a plebiscite which yielded indefinite results and followed Polish fears that the British would support German claims to the region, which was proved to be correct.  The French supported the Poles.

During the fighting, the French somewhat supported the Polish insurgents and the British somewhat supported German forces in the region, but outside forces were barred from entry.  Ultimately the Poles prevailed.

On the same day the US announced that it would not mediate reparations disputes involving Germany and the Allies.  The French mobilized 50,000 men for anticipated Ruhr occupation.

Also on that day President Harding was visited by the American Waldensian Aid Society.

American Waldensian Aid Society, 5/2/21

While I'd never heard of it, it still exists, and is based in the Waldensian Church, a protestant church that claims a connection with the Waldensian heresy of the Middle Ages.  In 1975 it merged with the Methodist Church.

Harding appears to have had a busy day of meetings.

He met with members of International Association of Printing House Craftsmen, depicted above.

And also with the Alabama Congressional delegation.

And with Social Service School Workers.

Somebody he didn't meet with, but who was photographed that day, was Prince Zerdecheno, who claimed the title of Emir of Kurdistan, and his wife, May 2, 1921.

Elsewhere the famous hairpin turn on the Mohawk Trail and the Niagara Falls Fire Department were photographed.

April 15, 1921. Transportation and Loans

 

Horse transportation in Alaska, April 15, 1921.

On this day in 1921 the French Cabinet of Ministers voted to occupy the Ruhr in Germany if Germany did not make its 1B Mark reparations' payment by May 10.

President Harding met President Charles D. B. of Liberia, following that nations repayment of a $5,000,000 load from the United States.

March 20, 1921. The Upper Silesian Plebiscite

"Vote for Poland and you will be free", a pro Polish campaign poster.  Interestingly, while the vote would go on largely ethnic lines, this poster was in Polish and German.

A plebiscite was held in Upper Silesia to determine its national fate. The result apportioned the territory between Poland, Germany and Czechoslovakia. 

This would, of course, help set the game board for World War Two, as did the Treaty of Riga from the day prior.  Germany wasn't content with the results, and in actuality Poland really wasn't either.  When Germany dismembered Czechoslovakia in the following decade, Poland took a piece, although I think of lower Silesia and other border areas, before it soon faced Germany's territorial expansion itself.  Czechoslovakia took them back in October 1939 and then the border returned to its 1920 line following World War Two.

Also following World War Two almost all of Upper Silesia was placed in Poland.  Interestingly, unlike Lower Silesia, not all of its ethnic German population was expelled as some of it was bilingual and as the Germans in Upper Silesia were Catholic, and somewhat intermixed with the Polish population, some were allowed to remain.  The region currently has a small autonomy movement.