Day by Day 1923

A day by day listing of worldwide and local events in the year 1923. (This is the Long Years Between - 1923 document, without the written scenes between main characters.)

1923

January

2nd - Margaret Sanger opens her second birth control clinic in New York City, called the Clinical Research Bureau. It is staffed, as per New York law, by doctors, and generally caters to married women, though the primary function is for research. Unlike the opening of her first clinic in 1916, which got her arrested and put on trial, the opening of this clinic is greeted by no arrests or real controversy. “Birth Control” begins to enter the American vernacular and gain widespread acceptance, particularly among young people.

4th - Tom Barry leads 65 IRA fighters in a night attack on Millstreet, Cork. Using 12 machine guns, they make significant gains over several hours, taking three National Army posts, 39 prisoners, and capturing one Lewis machine gun and 35 rifles. However, they are unable to take the main National Army post in town hall and are forced to withdraw.

9th - The Boston Globe reports rumors of a KKK plot to kidnap Mayor Curley’s children, prompting an outpouring of invective from the Mayor himself, referring to the Klan as a “monstrous spawn of ignorance, bigotry, greed, and deception.”

11th - IRA soldiers burn the railway station in Sligo town, destroying it and badly damaging seven engines and forty carriages. The Great Southern and Western Railway Company releases a report detailing damages suffered from Anti-Treaty attacks over the last six months - 375 lines damaged, 42 engines derailed, 51 over-bridges and 207 under-bridges destroyed, 83 signal cabins and 13 other buildings destroyed.

12th - Two strikers are arrested in Harrison, Arkansas, for bridge burning, part of the still ongoing railroad strike in Northern Arkansas and Missouri, which has resulted in over a dozen instances of sabotage, mostly bridge burnings, since the beginning of the year. That night, William Wenrick, editor of the ''Marshall Mountain Wave, publishes an editorial calling for the lynching of the strikers.

15th - Responding to William Wenrick’s editorial, approximately 1,000 armed men, many of them prominent local citizens, gather in Harrison to look for explosives and interrogate strikers. At some point in the night, they gather at the home of striking worker Ed C. Gregor, who fires his shotgun to disperse the group, injuring no one. The mob, however, returns fire, wounding one of their own and blaming the injury on Gregor, who is jailed.

16th - Social unrest in Harrison, Arkansas, reaches a boiling point and erupts into an all out riot, almost a revolution. The violence is sparked early in the morning as Ed Gregor is kidnapped from jail by a group of men in black masks, taken to a railroad bridge just outside the town, and hanged from it. As the day progresses, other strikers are dragged from their houses and whipped in the streets. George O’Neil, a former member of the Harrison Protective League, is flogged for suspected pro-union sympathies. The mob in Harrison creates its own committee, a group of 12 prominent citizens who pass judgment on the actions of local political leaders and ultimately force the mayor, marshal, and many councilmen to resign from their respective offices, despite having no legal authority in the matter. All through the Ozarks, striking workers are rounded up and beaten, then driven from the state. In Harrison alone, approximately 200 striking workers and their families are rounded up, beaten, and then forced across the border into Missouri, all to break the strike and guarantee the operations of the railroads. The strike is broken and the local unions demolished.

18th - IRA leader Liam Deasy is captured by National Army troops. He signs an order calling for men under his command to surrender, and is not executed.

19th - With the Mullan-Gage Law breaking the back of the NYPD, Police Commissioner Enright requests a $100,000 budget increase and an additional 1,000 hired officers to meet the burden of enforcing the law from New York City’s Board of Estimate. His request is flatly denied, with some members suggesting he reassign the 750 officers he has stationed in cabarets for his additional manpower.

20th - The Irish Free State executes 11 of its Republican prisoners, two in Limerick, four in Tralee, and five in Athlone.

- F. Eugene Farnsworth, King Kleagle of the Maine KKK and general representative of the group throughout New England, responds to Curley’s statements concerning the Klan, and Boston papers are quickly filled with reports of the verbal sparring between the two.

The Irish Free State executes 34 Republican prisoners over the course of January, bringing the total so far up to 53.

February

5th - 50 IRA raid the town of Ballyconnell in County Cavan in reprisal for a shooting there of a Republican the month previously. They shoot and kill two Free State supporters in the street and wound another, rob the Post office and blow up a car dealership.

8th - The Irish Free State suspends executions until the 18th, offering amnesty to any Anti-Treaty fighters who surrender before then.

10th - IRA officer Tom Barry, talking with former IRA comrades on the Free State side, proposes to the IRA leadership that the Republicans call a truce. Commanding General of the IRA Liam Lynch emphatically disagrees and the Irish Civil War continues.

18th - Approximately 1000 Free State troops encircle the Glen of Aherlow, moving into the area from all sides in pursuit of Republican leader Dinny Lacey. Lacey and one of his men are killed in the attack and most of his column captured, crippling the IRA cause in the Tipperary/Waterford area.

March

2nd - Following allegations that Charles R. Forbes, recently resigned Director of the Veteran’s Bureau, currently living in Europe, had, during his tenure, embezzled millions of taxpayer dollars, a Congressional investigation is convened. One of the first witnesses called is E. H. Mortimer, whose wife is currently traveling with Forbes in Europe. Mortimer states directly that he himself had given Forbes a $5,000 bribe to secure $17 million in veteran’s hospital contracts, at the Drake Hotel in Chicago. Further evidence bears out his story and uncovers astounding levels of graft in the Forbes’ office.

3rd - Time magazine, the first weekly news magazine in the United States, publishes its inaugural issue. It features on its cover Joseph G. Cannon, retired Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

4th - Still under investigation by Senator Walsh’s subcommittee, Albert B. Fall resigns from his position as Secretary of the Interior.

6th - 5 Irish Free State soldiers are killed, and another seriously injured, while attempting to clear a mine near Knocknagoshel, Kerry. In response, National Army commander Paddy Daly issues a memorandum that from now on Republican prisoners are to be used to clear mined roads.

7th - Free State troops take 9 Republican prisoners from the Ballymullen barracks near Tralee, Kerry, supposedly to clear mines from the roads. The prisoners are then tied together around a landmine, which the National Army troops purposefully detonate, killing eight and blowing one man away from the blast, who survives. A riot breaks out in Tralee when the Free State troops bring back 9 coffins.

-Adjutant General of the Anti-Treaty IRA Con Moloney is captured by National Army troops at the Glen of Aherlow, County Tipperary.

8th - The atrocity committed in Kerry the day previous is repeated by Free State troops in Dublin, resulting in the deaths of four more IRA soldiers.

12th - The pattern of landmine atrocities continues in Kerry, where 5 IRA prisoners are shot in the legs to prevent escape and then blown up by a landmine.

24th - The Anti-Treaty IRA meets in County Tipperary to discuss the future of the Irish Civil War. President of the Republican “Government” Eamon de Valera is allowed to attend, after some debate, but has no voting rights. A heated argument ensues, with General Tom Barry proposing to end the war, and Commanding General Liam Lynch arguing vociferously that it must continue. Barry’s proposal is defeated in a vote of 6 to 5.

25th - Ned Bofin, the Republican leader in Leitrim, along with many of his men, are captured by Free State troops in the Arigna Mountains.

27th - Gerald Chapman, dubbed “The Gentleman Bandit” by the press due to his sophistication and education, stages a prison break, escaping the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary with fellow inmate Frank Grey. Chapman, along with accomplice George “Dutch” Anderson, a Danish immigrant and self-described bachelor of the arts and translator of literary masterpieces, had been arrested in July of 1922 for the theft of $2.4 million in bonds from a U.S. Mail truck in October 1921 and the succeeding theft, in December of the same year, of $40,000 from American Express employees at Niagara Falls. Chapman and Grey, both living for the time being in the hospital ward, escaped the penitentiary by slipping from the prison hospital with a sheet through a sawed open window, then while a friend cut the electricity, they climbed a 35 foot rope ladder over the wall and slipped into the woods on the other side.

28th - Chapman and Grey are captured, having made it all the way to Athens, where a freight train conductor reported seeing them. As police and a local posse close in, Chapman attempts to shoot his way out and meets three bullets for his efforts, two in his arms and one in his kidney. He will live and is sent to an Athens hospital to recuperate.

31st - Following Mayor Curley’s announcement that he will make Boston’s North End “a paradise”, and his proposal of public negotiations with Boston Elevated, a local mass transit company, concerning the loss of trolley service to the North End in the last year, the Italian News states, “Since assuming office again, Curley has done more for the North End and for the race in general than any other Chief executive of Boston.”

Over the course of March, 20 IRA prisoners are officially executed by the Free State government, bringing the total to 73 so far.

April

1st - General Prout leads National Army soldiers in a sweep of the Knockmealdown Mountains over the course of April after extracting information from Republican prisoners in Dublin that the IRA Executive is in the area. The prominent IRA officers captured are Dan Breen, Todd Andrews, Sean Gaynor, and Frank Barrett, as well as numerous less notable Anti-Treaty fighters.

4th - Inexplicably, and almost certainly through bribery, Gerald “the Gentleman Bandit” Chapman escapes his heavily guarded hospital room in Athens, Georgia, despite the recent wounds he’s suffered. Dubious stories and theories abound as to how the wounded robber achieved it, speculations ranging from the seriously wounded, feverish man climbing another sheet-rope out of the second-story hospital window without anyone noticing, to Chapman having fooled the police by hiding in the hospital’s basement until the coast was clear. However he achieved it, Chapman is now free and at large.

6th - In the wake of a sudden proliferation of Ford-for-President clubs, ''Collier’s ''magazine conducts a poll in which it is found that Henry Ford leads all potential candidates, including incumbent President Harding. Though Ford’s party affiliation is ambiguous, and no indication of any desire to run has been shown,  he is still wildly famous for the role. Some commentators suggest this is an indication of the highly pro-business attitude in current American life. Others note it could relate not a little to the anti-Semitic articles recently and continuously published in his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent.

10th - Liam Lynch is caught attempting to escape the sweep of the Knockmealdown Mountains and killed while fleeing, attempting to save important documents. Lynch had been the primary source of resistance among the IRA against making a truce with the Free State, and his death does much to cripple and demoralize the IRA as a military force.

11th - An Irish National Army report states, “Events of the past few days point to the beginning of the end as far as the irregular campaign is concerned.”

14th - Mayor Curley begins public negotiations with Boston Elevated, working to replace the lost trolley routes with bus lines.

18th - In Kerry, Free State soldiers surround the Anti-Treaty column under the command of Timothy Lyons, which column takes refuge in caves on the coast. Free State soldiers try to storm the caves, losing 2 men. They settle in for a siege.

20th - Frank Aiken is elected IRA Chief of Staff and succeeds Liam Lynch as head of the Anti-Treaty forces.

21st - The National Army troops laying siege to Lyons and his column in Kerry lower landmines over the cave mouths and detonate them, immediately killing 3 Republicans and resulting in the drowning of Timothy Lyons. The remaining IRA surrender, and Republican activity in Kerry is effectively at an end.

22nd - Free State soldiers ambush Frank Aiken, Paidrag Quinn, and Sean Quinn at Castlebellingham, Dundalk. A firefight breaks out, resulting in the capture of the Paidrag Quinn and the death of Sean Quinn. Frank Aiken is able to escape.

30th - Frank Aiken, now leader of the IRA, calls for a peacefire.

By the end of April, the total number of Irishmen officially executed, outside of combat, by the Irish Free State reaches 94. The Free State has, over the course of the war, interned approximately 12,000 Republicans.

May

7th - Free State soldiers finish a major sweep operation through the last rural Republican holdouts in County Cork, which has been hit quite hard by the war. IRA presence in the area is effectively neutralized.

14th - The Republican “Government” and the IRA Executive meet to discuss the future of the war. The ardent voice of Liam Lynch silenced, they jointly instruct Aiken to put an end to the insurrection.

24th - Frank Aiken officially orders the Anti-Treaty IRA to dump their arms and return home. Supporting the order, Eamon de Valera issues a statement to the defeated IRA, “Soldiers of the Republic. Legion of the Rearguard: The Republic can no longer be defended successfully by your arms. Further sacrifice of life would now be in vain and the continuance of the struggle in arms unwise in the national interest and prejudicial to the future of our cause. Military victory must be allowed to rest for the moment with those who have destroyed the Republic.”  The Irish Civil War is effectively over. Though no official count can be made of the many Irishmen buried in unmarked graves throughout Erin’s Isle, the number reaches upwards of 1,000, perhaps even to 4,000, far higher than the number of men killed, in total, in the Irish War of Independence.

30th - Jess Smith, U.S. Attorney Daugherty’s roommate and right hand man, especially in terms of corruption (Smith was considered the “get things done guy” around Washington, for a small fee, of course), is found dead, ostensibly a suicide, in his and Daugherty’s shared hotel room.

- The Irish Free State continues executing Anti-Treaty prisoners despite severely diminished Republican activity in the country and the call for a ceasefire, starting with the execution of two Republicans in Tuam, County Galway.

June

1st - New York Governor Al Smith signs the bill repealing the Mullan-Gage Law, careful to remind New Yorkers that he is not legalizing liquor or negating the 18th Amendment, but merely shifting the burden of enforcement from the state back to federal authorities, where it belonged in the first place. Humorist Will Rogers quips, “We will see now whether he lands in the White House or the ash heap.”

2nd - President Harding speaks out against Governor Smith’s decision to repeal Mullan-Gage, referring to it as a political “blunder,” joining his voice to that of the Anti-Saloon League and other Prohibitionist groups. Al Smith is quickly recognized as one of the most visible wet leaders in the nation.

14th - In an interview with the Boston Herald, Mayor Curley responds to the recent accusation of Boston’s Finance Commission, a body largely staffed by upper class Yankee reformers, that he had installed the floor at his mansion in Jamaica Plain at the city’s expense. Curley counterattacks, charging the commission as “the servile catspaw of the dominant party on Beacon Hill, which in turn was bossed and directed by the GGA whose authority was vested in a little camarilla of financial politicians.”  He further uses his most common phrase in reference to the GGA, again referring to them as a “robust organization of Pharisees.”

16th - Literary Digest, writing on Al Smith’s repeal of the Mullan-Gage Law and new status as a wet luminary, posits him as “the logical candidate for the wets in the 1924 Democratic convention.”

22nd - The Northern Ireland government enacts the Education Act, establishing non-denominational schools. The act is opposed by Presbyterians and boycotted by Catholics.

July

2nd - Without a formal declaration of peace, and still afraid that fighting could break out again at any time, the Irish Free State enacts the Public Safety Act, basically allowing the state to suspend habeas corpus and exercise discretion as far as human rights are concerned. The Free State still holds approximately 13,000 prisoners from the war.

8th - The Miami Herald officially prints the largest single newspaper in the world, a full 504 pages, made up almost entirely of real estate advertisements. Real estate men and anybody in the state with property to sell, even property consisting only of seawater, make more and more, the buying and selling occurring so rapidly that one property can end up being sold 10 times in a single day. The state of Florida is also developing a serious problem of middle-class Americans driving down to Florida, looking to make their fortunes on real estate deals, sleeping in their cars, contracting diseases and sometimes even being eaten by alligators. Despite this crippling influx of population and the subsequent dangers, more and more people stream into the state.

11th - Responding to criticism that Prohibition was targeting poor ethnic urban laborers unproportionally, the Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals of the Methodist Church states, “If it is true that foreign-born laborers are rebellious against the country because of Prohibition, it may be said that the country is not being run for their benefit. If they do not like the way things are being done let them go back to Europe.”  This statement follows comments made several days prior by William Anderson, the famous Dry Crusader, attributing the urban resistance towards Prohibition to “unwashed and wild-eyed foreigners who have no comprehension of the spirit of America.”

23rd - The novelty song ''Yes! We Have No Bananas'', sung by Billy Jones, is released, and becomes an instant hit, topping the charts for five weeks straight, as well as spawning numerous covers and knock offs. The song becomes so popular that Billy Jones himself mocks its popularity in another song released later in the year, ''I’ve Got the Yes! We Have No Bananas Blues''.

August

2nd - While visiting San Francisco, President Warren G. Harding dies of a heart attack at 57. His body is carried to Washington by a four day train journey, during which thousands of mourners line up alongside the tracks and stations to pay their respects. In the cities, the throngs are so dense that the engineer is forced to reduce his speed, causing the train to fall hours behind schedule. The New York Times reports, “It is believed to be the most remarkable demonstration in American history of affection, respect, and reverence for the dead.”

4th - Upon returning to Washington from visiting his family in Vermont, Calvin Coolidge is administered the oath of office and assumes the Presidency.

- The ''South Boston Gazette'' declares, “The many things done for South Boston by James M. Curley as Mayor, if enumerated, would require six columns.”  Mayor Curley continues to receive praise and devotion from the people of ethnic Boston.

10th - Warren G. Harding is interred in the receiving vault of the Marion Cemetery in Marion, Ohio. Echoing the sentiments of many speakers and people throughout the country, Bishop Manning of New York says of the deceased President, “May God ever give to our country leaders as faithful, as wise, as noble in spirit, as the one whom we now mourn.”

15th - Eamon de Valera is arrested by Free State police in Ennis, County Clare, Ireland, as he attempts to make an election speech. He is imprisoned at Arbour Hill Prison in Dublin.

27th - The first Irish General Election after the Civil War takes place. Cumann na nGaedheal (the Pro-Treaty party) wins 63 seats, Sinn Fein (the Anti-Treaty party) wins 44, with 46 seats held by diverse other parties. Some of the Anti-Treaty members elected are still imprisoned, including Eamon de Valera. Most Republicans abstain from taking the Oath of Allegiance to the English throne, and are thus unable to take their seats in the Dail.

- The first State Convention of the Maine Ku Klux Klan, headed by F. Eugene Farnsworth, is held in the forest outside Waterville. Burning crosses litter the surrounding landscape, and a reputed 10-15,000 are in attendance. Clearly a numerical power, the burgeoning KKK revival in the United States and in New England has yet to prove itself politically.

- Enrico Tellini, an Italian general, and three of his assistants, is murdered in Greece while attempting to negotiate a controversial territorial dispute between Greece and Albania. The Kingdom of Greece claims they were killed by Albanian bandits while other sources say they were assassinated by Greek nationalists.

28th - Nathan “Kid Dropper” Kaplan, long recognized as the leader of a New York City gang feuding over labor profits with another led by Jacob “Little Augie” Orgen, appears at the Essex Market Court to answer charges related to the shooting of one Jacob Shapiro, a member of Orgen’s gang. Kid Dropper is surprised to discover that Shapiro has dropped his charges, resulting in a dismissal. However, as Dropper is escorted by police to a waiting taxi cab to answer to another charge, surrounded by two police captains, fifteen detectives, ten uniformed policemen, and scores of curious civilians, Louis Cohen, a young East Sider known to be a hanger on in the Orgen gang, approaches from across the street. Kid Dropper’s wife kisses him before detectives usher him into the waiting taxi, while Cohen, pistol in hand and high on cocaine, tiptoes behind the car, aiming his pistol into the back window where Dropper sits, flanked by detective Jesse Joseph and Captain Cornelius Willemse. His first shot hits Dropper in the back of the head, the second hits the cab driver behind the ear, and the third pierces Willemse’s hat. Dropper’s wife attacks Cohen as he continues to fire, another shot cutting into the Kid’s back and a last bullet going wild. Detectives wrestle Cohen into custody and rush Dropper to the hospital, but Nathan Kaplan is dead. Undisputably, Little Augie Orgen is now the king of the East Side labor sluggers.

29th - Italy, under the direction of Benito Mussolini, sends an ultimatum to Greece over the assassination of Tellini, demanding 50 million lire in reparations and immediate execution of the killers, whom Greece was unable to identify.

31st - Due to Greece being unable to identify the killers of Tellini, Italy bombards the Greek island of Corfu, killing at least 15 civilians and occupying the island, which held a key strategic position at the entrance of the Adriatic Sea. Greece appeals to the League of Nations, who initially condemn the Italian action. However, they order Greece to apologize and pay the reparations, which Greece does.

September

8th - Mayor Curley’s negotiations with Boston Elevated are successful, leading to the immediate establishment of bus routes for the working men and women of the North End. Curley has made himself a powerful presence in the ward, winning the allegiance of many of its people.

10th - The Irish Free State is admitted to membership in the League of Nations.

11th - The Ku Klux Klan announces itself as a power to reckoned with in Maine, almost single handedly pushing through a referendum in Portland, Maine, abolishing the mayor-and-alderman form of government to be replaced by a city manager and councilors elected at large, a referendum designed specifically to decrease the power of minorities in the city. F. Eugene Farnsworth, King Kleagle of the Maine Klan, travels throughout New England on a speaking tour, drawing anywhere from 1000-5000 person crowds, many of whom are already members or soon join the secret society. Farnsworth declares that the Klan will elect the next governor of Maine.

- Mayor Curley steps up his rhetoric against the GGA and Boston’s Finance Commission, referring to both as “pious humbugs, humorless hypocrites, fellows with Ku Klux Klan principles and yellow dog courage, patriots who obey orders and believe that servility is service and that the terms of democracy and depravity, Irish and iniquity are synonymous” and stating that their only hope of success, again with a comparison to the Klan, is to “foment dissension, create quarrels, and divide the people of Boston.”  The GGA is forced to respond publicly, stating is has “no sympathy” with the Klan or any organizations “based upon racial and religious bigotry which attempt to substitute private vengeance and terrorism for the operation of public opinion.”

15th - In Foxboro, Massachusetts, a small town in southeastern Massachusetts, only a few score miles from Boston, a flaming cross is found on top of Robinson Hill, the highest point in the town. Detectives investigating the incident find no suspects. The Ku Klux Klan has been running a mass publicity campaign in the area in anticipation of a recruitment drive to be held in Worcester, Massachusetts, featuring a visit from F. Eugene Farnsworth, King Kleagle of Maine and growing Klan celebrity.

19th - Irish Free State Deputy Hogan estimates the cost for the State of the Irish Civil War at approximately 50 million pounds. The Free State currently has a budget deficit of over 4 million pounds.

23rd - Mechanic’s Hall in Worcester overflows with a crowd of 25,000, come to a recruitment drive conducted by the KKK, with Farnsworth speaking. Farnsworth and others inflame the crowd with anti-Catholic rhetoric, warning of the takeover of the schools, the police department, and city government by Catholics. Farnsworth declares, “When Worcester folks see 20,000 to 30,000 Klansmen in uniform parading the streets of Worcester, and this time isn’t far off, then we will definitely be ready for action.”

27th - Italian forces leave the Greek island of Corfu, having clearly displayed their power during the conflict and received what they desired, ending the Corfu Incident.

October

12th - Despite the refusal of the mayor of Portland, Maine, to allow the Klan to stage a public parade on Columbus Day, the KKK stages a daylight march through the city streets, fully hooded. They are joined by marchers and parades throughout Maine and New England, a massive public demonstration of the sheer numerical power of the Klan, all hooded and anonymous as they march through city streets.

13th - Still imprisoned 5 months after the IRA dumped their arms and ceased fighting, 424 Republicans held at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin launch a mass hunger strike in protest. 8,000 Republican prisoners throughout the country join the strike.

15th - While any significant breakthrough eludes the investigation of possible bribes exchanged between former Secretary Fall and oil tycoons first reported over a year ago in the Wall Street Journal, Walsh’s subcommittee has turned up enough evidence for the Senate Committee on Public Lands and Surveys to begin hearings on the California and Teapot Dome oil leases, the lands owned by the Navy leased by Fall to oilmen Harry F. Sinclair of Mammoth Oil Corporation and Edward L. Doheny of Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company to drill for oil.

23rd - The Committee on Public Lands and Surveys calls former Secretary Fall to testify. He continues to deny the allegations. When pressed concerning a mysterious extra $100,000 in his bank account, Fall claims the money was loaned to him by friends.

24th - Sigmund Freud’s seminal work The Ego and the Id reaches America. It’s an analytical study of the human psyche outlining Freud’s theories concerning the workings of parts of the psyche he refers to as the id, ego and super-ego. Psychoanalysis becomes more and more popular among upper class Americans, with terms like “inferiority complex” and “Oedipus complex” entering mainstream lingo.

27th - The USS Shenandoah, the first of four planned massive airships to be constructed by the US Navy, embarks on its maiden voyage, flying from the Shenandoah valley past Washington and Baltimore to the naval base in which it was initially constructed. Americans the country over are awed by its flight capabilities, particularly coupled with its massive size. The modern age is truly upon us.

November

7th - Speaking before a Methodist congregation in Kingston, New York, Dry Crusader William Anderson says he’s “not losing sleep grieving over the increase in membership” in the Ku Klux Klan because Catholics had made that increase inevitable after “these anti-Protestant political forces directly kicked the Protestant churches in the face on the Prohibition issue.”  He further states that the resurgence of the Klan is a natural and welcome response to “the aggression of these wet anti-Protestant forces.”

8th - 9th - Adolf Hitler, a 35-year-old Great War veteran on the German side, leads the National Socialist (Nazi) Political Party in a failed coup attempt modelled after  Mussolini’s March to Rome in 1922, subsequently referred to as the Beer Hall Putsch. The Nazi Party is outlawed in Germany, and Hitler is arrested.

12th - Flaming Youth, starring Colleen Moore in an iconic flapper role, is released. Though not the first flapper film, Flaming Youth captures the nation’s attention and imagination and catapults both its star and the flapper image to fame and idolization across America. It also scandalizes the “moral guardians” of society in its attractive and risque treatment of sexuality and rebellion, particularly a skinny dipping scene filmed in silhouette.

14th - Anglo-Irish poet W. B. Yeats is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, “for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.”  Yeats himself remarks, “I consider that this honour has come to me less as an individual than as a representative of Irish literature, it is part of Europe’s welcome to the Free State.”

20th - Republican prisoner Denny Barry dies while on hunger strike in Newbridge camp.

22nd - IRA prisoner Andrew Sullivan also dies on hunger strike in Mountjoy Prison.

23rd - The Republican prisoners call off their hunger strike. The Free State releases most of the female prisoners, and the strike solidifies the Republican movement among the prisoners.

24th - The South Boston Gazette reports on the efforts of local Democratic Party leaders to organize a registration drive of “hundreds of prominent South Boston citizens”. It reports that “the meeting was a sad pathetic failure” wherein only 40 people bothered to show up. In fact, the only person pleased by the turnout was the municipal building janitor, who told the paper that Democratic Party meetings once added greatly to his labor but now barely inconvenienced him. The failure of these and other party-based political drives demonstrates the increasing irrelevance of party in local Boston politics, as opposed to dynamic candidates like James Michael Curley.

December

6th - President Coolidge gives the first speech of his Presidency, addressing Congress as it reconvenes. His speech echoes many of the themes of Harding’s Presidency, which Coolidge determines to carry on, refusing to fire Harding’s many scandal-scarred appointees. It is the first Presidential speech to be broadcast over the radio, which have now become commonplace features of many American homes.

10th - After a long search, the GGA is able to convince two Irishmen, Theodore Kelly and Dr. Thomas Giblin, as well as Jewish civic leader Abraham Pinanski, to sign on to their executive committee, the governing committee of the organization. GGA head George Nutter hopes these new members will have “a dramatic effect” in restoring the credibility of the organization, and is careful to further counter accusations of KKK conspiracy and sentiment, pointing out that the GGA now has “each of the three leading religious groups in Boston as well as several different races” on its executive committee.

11th - Speaking at a citizenship conference at Manhattan’s Marble Collegiate Church, Federal Prohibition Commissioner Roy Haynes criticizes middle-class “respectable drinkers” who believe themselves “above and superior to law.”  He says further, “Of them much is expected, for they represent the very best in American traditions, and the nation naturally looks upon them as representative of the finest in American life.”  The trend of middle-class drinking in “respectable” establishments continues.

25th - The Irish Free State releases 3,481 Republican prisoners as part of a “Christmas amnesty.” Some thousands, including three nominal members of the Dail, remain imprisoned.

26th - As something of a Christmas surprise and following a very good year for him publicly, James Michael Curley announces his candidacy for the governorship, the race to be decided nearly 11 months hence.

30th - George “Dutch” Anderson, partner of the now-infamous “Gentleman Bandit” Gerald Chapman, escapes eight months after the latter, tunnelling his way out of the same Atlanta penitentiary. The final tunnel measures 50 feet in length and runs 8 feet under the main wall. Along with Anderson, Ludwig “Dutch Louis” Schmidt, another compatriot of the Chapman gang, and two other convicts crawl through the tunnel to freedom.