Day by Day 1920

1920

March

Since January, 1919, the Irish have been fighting for independence, waging an increasingly bloody guerrilla war. Tensions over home-rule and the conscription of Irish men for service in the Great War had boiled over in 1916 in the Easter Uprising, when a group of men, part of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, led an uprising in and around Dublin. It was put down brutally by the British stationed there, resulting in the deaths of over 400 people, the execution of many of the leaders, and the arrest of many members and supporters of Sinn Fein, the peaceful political organization advocating for Home-Rule. This galvanized the Irish against the British, causing their politicians to declare that they will not sit in Parliament but set up their own Parliament at home, called the Dail Eireann, which immediately declared independence and put out a missive to “all the free nations of the world” that Ireland and England were at war. On the same day, four militant members of the IRA, acting independently, attacked and shot two Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC, a police force comprised of Irishmen, under the jurisdiction of the British government and as such spurned by the revolutionary Irish) officers, igniting a wave of violence which transforms quickly into the Irish War of Independence. The war is led by many men, patriots named Michael Collins, Eamon de Valera, and Arthur Griffith. In response, the British government began an unofficial government policy of reprisal in September 1919, with the attack on Fermoy, County Cork, in which 200 British soldiers looted and burned the main businesses of the town in response to the death of one of their number in an arms raid. Arthur Griffith would estimate that, as a consequence of this unofficial policy, British forces carried out 38,720 raids on private homes, arrested 4,982 suspects, committed 1,604 armed assaults, carried out 102 indiscriminate shootings and burnings in towns and villages, and killed 77 people including women and children, all only within the first 18 months of the conflict. In addition, starting in March, 1920, a paramilitary force known as the “Black and Tans” is deployed to Ireland to bolster the flagging RIC. The Black and Tans are savagely brutal and carry a reputation for drunkenness and total lack of discipline, doing more work to destroy the British government’s moral authority than any other group. Despite these responses, as March 1920 draws to a close, the Irish are increasingly successful.

26th - F. Scott Fitzgerald’s debut novel, This Side of Paradise, hits the shelves. It immediately becomes a bestseller and catapults Fitzgerald to stardom. Additionally, numerous commentators use the novel to link Fitzgerald to the growing “flapper” movement, made up of young women with short, bobbed hair, tight, short dresses, brimless hats, and a predilection for dancing, necking, petting, drinking, smoking, and all sorts of unapproved activities.

April

In early April, IRA soldiers burn 400 abandoned RIC barracks to the ground, as well as almost one hundred income tax offices. These actions lead to the withdrawal of RIC from much of Ireland’s countryside, which is summarily taken over by the IRA, and also leads to the collapse of the British court system in Ireland, due to the fact that they are generally ignored by the Irish, which court system is replaced, under the authority of the Irish Republic, by the Dail Courts. As April progresses, the Irish Republican Police (IRP) is established to police these areas under the authority of the First Dail. The burning of the tax offices allows the IRA and the First Dail to establish their own tax system, called “National Loan” and established by Michael Collins. By the end of the year, the IRP will hold a controlling presence in 21 of Ireland’s 32 counties, in which colonies taxes are collected and courts run by the Dail, making the new Irish government a reality in those places and a force to be wary of elsewhere in Ireland.

3rd - F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald are married at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. They quickly gain a reputation for crazy living, being kicked out of hotels for being too loud and too destructive, spending all night partying, drinking, and generally engaging in crazy behavior. Zelda particularly gains fame as being the inspiration for Scott’s continually growing cast of flapper characters, as short story after short story is reeled out concerning the growing movement.

28th - New York magazine ''The Outlook'' reports Dr. George O’Hanlon’s, chief medical superintendent of New York’s Bellevue Hospital, comments concerning the number of admissions to alcoholism wards at the hospital, which number has dropped precipitously in the recent months. He further states that Bellevue had “practically closed the wards formerly used for the cure and treatment of patients suffering from alcoholism.”

May

1st - May Day, the day declared by United States Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to be a day when the Reds in America will rise up and rebel, passes without incident, dealing a deathblow to Palmer’s Presidential ambitions. Herbert Hoover, his political ally and the head of the Radical Division (by far the most powerful division) of the BI, remains untouched, however. He renames his division the General Intelligence Division and continues to hunt Communists, Anarchists, and other political dissidents across the country.

2nd - ''The New York Times'' publishes an article entitled “Making a Joke of Prohibition in New York City,” wherein it’s reported that the impression Prohibitionists had of the city, that alcohol consumption was down and falling, is completely wrong. New Yorkers haven’t stopped drinking - they’ve merely started drinking elsewhere. It further details the numerous illegal transactions taking place all over the city, from men selling liquor openly from taxi cabs, to bartenders skilled at passing flasks under tables and hotels serving “coffee” and “tea” without cream or sugar. This article presages a veritable flood of related stories on the numerous ways New Yorkers, and other Americans, are learning to thumb their noses at the Volstead Act.

5th - Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are arrested in Massachusetts for the murder of Frederick Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli and the accompanying robbery. Both Sacco and Vanzetti are associated with radical militants, though neither have a criminal record. Both are Italian immigrants.

22nd - Henry Ford’s weekly newspaper The Dearborn Independent begins its series The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem, an anti-Semitic diatribe concerning the continuing plan of Jews to take over the world, the bulk of its material drawn heavily from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an 18 year old Russian document surfacing all over the world.

June

7th - The United States Supreme Court rules the Eighteenth Amendment, Prohibition, to be Constitutional.

8th -12th, 1920 - Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge secure the nominations for President and Vice President, respectively, at the Republican National Convention. Harding signals the platform of his candidacy by calling for a “return to normalcy.”

22nd - U.S. District Judge Learned Hand of New York City announces to a courtroom packed with Prohibition violators that he will impose fines without jail time on any defendant who pleads guilty to any Prohibition violation committed before June 7th, 1920, promising that defendants who refuse to do so will receive the full penalty of the law if convicted in a jury trial. The court collects more than $20,000 in fines that day alone. Many other courts quickly begin to practice a similar system, hoping to substantially aid the city in fines and to severely reduce the ever growing backlog of Prohibition cases not yet tried.

June 28-July 8 - The Democrats hold their National Convention in San Francisco, California, nominating James M. Cox for President and Franklin D. Roosevelt for Vice President.

June 1920 comes to an end with 7,824 people having paid a visit to School Street, the location of the Securities and Exchange Company, headed by the affable financial wizard Charles Ponzi. Just six months ago, various citizens of Boston began receiving prospectuses mailed out from the company, containing Ponzi’s personal promise that, if lended a certain amount by any man or woman, in forty-five days that man or woman would receive their money back with 50% interest. If they wait ninety days, they’ll get it back doubled. A trickle of business has turned into a deluge as Ponzi has been as good as advertised, and Bostonians continue to get rich. In this last month alone, Ponzi claims to be taking in $500,000 and paying out $200,000 a day. In an interview with the Boston Post, Ponzi reveals the secret to his wealth - a scheme of using the differing exchange rates of postage in different nations to exploit them for money. So far, his scheme is successful, and School Street traffic has been entirely blocked due to the sheer numbers of investors come to visit the Wizard of School Street.

July

In response to the growing power of the Irish Republic, the British send another paramilitary group to Ireland, called the Auxiliaries, and consisting of 2,215 former British officers. The Auxiliaries are even worse than the Black and Tans, stepping up the reprisal policy and increasing the brutality of British enforcement.

26th - The Boston Post headlines an interview conducted with Clarence Barron, respected financier and publisher of the financial daily The Boston News Bureau, concerning the financial calculations of Charles Ponzi, whose wealth has grown to such an extent he has a Japanese chauffeur driving him everywhere he desires to go in a cream-colored Locomobile limousine and has declared wealth pushing past the ten million mark. Barron states that it is theoretically possible to make money using Ponzi’s exchange scheme, but that in doing so one could only turn over a few thousand dollars, at most, over a good deal of time and consuming a vast amount of resources. To be able to amass the amount of money Ponzi is moving daily is, according to Barron, ridiculous. Barron goes on to point out that Ponzi himself has invested his money into banks paying only around 5 percent, a far cry from his own claims of 50% or more. Ponzi, states Barron, is only another goldbrick salesman. Reacting to the article, there is a run on Ponzi’s company, investors demanding their money back. Ponzi reacts by giving the money back to whoever wants it, and the run quickly morphs into a stampede of new investors. In an interview with the Boston Post, Ponzi admits his exchange scheme is a blind, meant to keep Wall Street speculators from discovering his secret. He states categorically that he has money enough to pay off his investors at any time. Despite the skeptical reporting of the Post, Ponzi’s fame grows even further, and he is swamped with investors.

27th - District Attorney Joseph C. Pelletier announces that Ponzi has agreed to suspend accepting any further investment funds until his books have been audited. Pelletier is careful to point out there is no charge against Ponzi, but that his operations were so vast at this point that it was in the public’s interest to audit the books. He expressly does not mention fraud. Ponzi continues paying out any who want their notes redeemed, and his fame grows still more, especially now that he is perceived as being victimized by the bankers and the elite.

August

2nd - William McMasters, former publicity agent for Ponzi, publishes a tell-all article in the Boston Post, stating that Ponzi is “as crooked as a winding staircase,” and is also “hopelessly insolvent” with debts between $2 million and $4.5 million. The article causes another run on Ponzi’s Securities and Exchange Company, but Ponzi still keeps the peace, giving money to those who demand it and stating categorically that any man selling or trading in his notes is giving up certain profits. Supporters of Ponzi’s go among the crowd, passing out handbills defending the wizard and denouncing the “unscrupulous bankers” who are attacking him. Ponzi remains afloat, and is able to calm the tide. He subsequently brings a $5 million libel suit against the Post, and is revered as the poor man’s friend who beat the bankers at their own game.

9th - The Restoration of Order in Ireland Act is passed in the English Parliament, replacing trials by juries with courts martial trials throughout all of British-controlled Ireland.

11th - The Boston Post headlines a new revelation concerning the life of Charles Ponzi. They claim that Charles Ponzi, alias Charles Bianchi, was arrested in 1908 in Montreal, Quebec for forgery. The crime he was arrested and sentenced to twenty months in prison for bears an uncomfortable resemblance to his current financial activities. To seal the record, the Post flanks their story with a current picture of Ponzi, with a mustache painted on, and the mugshot of Charles Bianchi, a mustached man. The pictures look almost identical.

13th - Charles Ponzi is arrested by a United States marshal at his mansion in Lexington, which mansion is immediately impounded and searched for hidden vaults and secret compartments said to contain Ponzi’s stashed away wealth. Nothing is found. Ponzi’s office on School Street is shut down, and a state auditor estimates there are liabilities of over seven million dollars and assets of less than four million dollars remaining. An absurdly tangled legal situation erupts as Ponzi faces criminal and civil trials, as Bostonians sue Ponzi, as Ponzi countersues, and as bankruptcy hearings blossom across Massachusetts and banks begin to fail.

18th - The 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution is enacted, granting universal women’s suffrage.

September

7th - In the wake of increasingly ugly rumors that the 1919 Baseball World Series, between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnatti Reds, was fixed, and a flurry of anonymous tips that the recent August 31st game between the Chicago Clubs and the Philadelphia Phillies was similarly fixed, a Cook County Grand Jury is convened to investigate the latter.

14th - Sacco and Vanzetti are indicted for murder, a capital crime in Massachusetts, in an increasingly controversial trial, igniting a growing storm of criticism, mostly international. Many feel Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted not by the evidence, but by their anarchist affiliations and Italian background, even though the jurors and Judge Thayer (a man known for anti-radical feeling) both disavowed allowing any consideration for anarchism into their decisions.

16th - A little before noon, a terrorist attack occurs on Wall Street, the detonation of a bomb in the middle of the street that shatters the glass of the buildings flanking it, killing 30 people outright and injuring hundreds more. 8 more people will die of wounds inflicted in the blast. None of the financial power brokers are seriously injured or killed - only the little people who worked for them. Two or three blocks away, a letter is found reading:

Remember

We will not tolerate

any longer

Free the PolitiCal

prisoners or it will be

sure death to all oF you

American    Anarchists

Fighters

There is some speculation, given the stipulation concerning the political prisoners, that this was in some way associated with the ongoing trials of Sacco and Vanzetti.

24th - The Cook County Grand Jury turns its attention to the 1919 World Series when New York Giants pitcher Rube Benton testifies about the fix and fingers several White Sox players.

27th - Gambler Billy Maharg admits in the Philadelphia North American to his involvement in fixing the 1919 World Series, implicating a series of other professional gamblers, most famously, the astoundingly wealthy New Yorker Arnold Rothstein.

28th - Eddie Cicotte, one of the White Sox paid to throw the game, implicated by Billy Maharg the previous day, tearfully admits involvement to the Cook County Grand Jury. A total of eight White Sox players are indicted, all eight of which are immediately suspended from play indefinitely.

29th - Baseball superstar “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and fellow player Lefty Williams confess to the Grand Jury, implicating more professional gamblers. A “relative” of Arnold Rothstein speaks to the New York Tribune, exonerating Rothstein from involvement and naming the gamblers Billy Maharg, Bill Burns, and especially Abe Attell, a former featherweight champion of the world and a former bodyguard of Rothstein’s, as the primary culprits. Attell, hearing about the accusations, responds by publicly stating that Rothstein is just “trying to pass the buck to me”, further implicating Rothstein in the fix.

October

1st - At the insistence of his attorney, William “The Great Mouthpiece” Fallon, the best and most spectacular defense attorney in New York, Arnold Rothstein voluntarily appears before the Cook County Grand Jury, placing the blame squarely on Abe Attell, claiming variously to have lost money on the game or to have not bet at all. Simultaneously, he releases a statement claiming to be giving up gambling (still an illegal activity, despite it’s many open practitioners) for good, due to the “victimiz(ation)” he has endured recently. The New York Times responds with derision.

6th - Abe Attell and “Sport” Sullivan, a Boston-based gambler heavily implicated in what is coming to be called the Black Sox Scandal, flee the country, going to Canada and Mexico, respectively. Both had previously made statements possibly implicating Rothstein and supposedly met with him just prior to fleeing the country.

17th - Michael Fitzgerald, an IRA soldier held at Cork Jail, dies after 67 days of a major hunger strike undergone by IRA prisoners throughout the UK.

22nd - The Cook County Grand Jury hands down its indictments, naming eight White Sox players and five professional gamblers, including Abe Attell, “Sport” Sullivan, and Bill Burns.

23rd - ''Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott'' by Sinclair Lewis, a previously unknown author, is published. It quickly hits the bestseller lists, largely due to its bleakly negative portrayal of American small town life, running directly counter to the common desire to live in “wholesome” small towns and the nostalgia that represents for many Americans. Lewis and his book become mainstays of American popular discourse for the coming year.

25th - The Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, dies after 74 days of hunger strike in London’s Brixton Prison, as another IRA prisoner, Joe Murphy, also on hunger strike, dies in Cork Jail. The deaths of these men, especially MacSwiney, a respected playwright, author, and politician, finally brings worldwide attention and sympathy to the Irish struggle for independence.

27th - Arnold Rothstein is found innocent of any involvement in the 1919 World Series fix by the Cook County Grand Jury.

November

1st - Returning to New York, Abe Attell is arrested. He walks after a witness brought from New York to identify Attell as being part of the fix rescinds his earlier identification, claiming the police arrested the wrong man. A political furor follows, but Attell walks nonetheless.

2nd - Warren G. Harding defeats Cox for the Presidency by the largest margin in American history.

– The first ever radio broadcasting station is opened in Pittsburgh to carry the Harding-Cox election returns. It mostly passes without remark, though the ensuing months bring about much innovation in radio technology.

-The jazz song “Whispering” hits the charts and stays there, recorded and released by Paul Whiteman and his band. Whiteman amasses incredible fame, quickly becoming known as the “King of Jazz.”

10th - Boston newspapers are suddenly filled with an “open letter”, written by local high-powered attorney Daniel H. Coakley, entitled “Hunnewell Myth Exploded.”  He goes on to detail the “unjust” accusations of bribery and blackmail, especially concerning the case of one Hollis Hunnewell of the wealthy Wellesley family, being thrown at him by Godfrey Lowell Cabot, Treasurer of the Watch and Ward Society, a Brahmin organization filled with “ex-convicts, dope fiends and ‘pimps’...who are on the payroll of the archfanatic.” Also accused, and here defended, is French-Irish District Attorney for Suffolk County Joseph C. Pelletier, a highly regarded politician, as the paper reminds its readers, distinguished member of the Knights of Columbus (a Catholic charitable, communal, and political institution), and honored receiver of the Belgian Cross of Commander of Leopold II, the highest Belgian civilian order. Coakley swears to the innocence of both him and Pelletier and calls upon the good people of Boston to “strike down this pernicious, hateful attack.” He is also careful to point out that his accuser, Godfrey Lowell Cabot, has been indicted for larceny and is to face trial in December. According to Coakley, “This is the ideal time to let the wrath of the good people of Boston be known and exact justice on this bigot!”  Previous to this open letter, none of the people of Boston were aware of these accusations. Now the city is filled with the talk of them.

21st - “The Squad,” an assassination unit created by Michael Collins to seek out and kill British spies, agents, and key police personnel, strikes against the Cairo gang and other spies in Dublin, at 9 am, using a Gaelic football match, between Tipperary and Dublin, as cover. The Cairo gang were a group of British intelligence agents sent to Ireland to work against the IRA, and, especially, to assassinate the Republican leadership, which they had been attempting to do by assassinating peaceful members of Sinn Fein to flush out the leaders. The Squad strikes first, however, killing all twelve members in a complicated sweep through Dublin. That same afternoon, in an act of reprisal, police, Auxiliaries, and soldiers raid the Gaelic football match and shoot into the crowd, resulting in the deaths of 14 civilians and the wounding of 65. Later that night, again as part of an act of reprisal, two IRA prisoners, Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy, and a civilian friend who had been arrested with them, Conor Clune, are shot in Dublin Castle. November 21st, 1920, would come to be known as Bloody Sunday.

25th - Sinn Féin leaders Arthur Griffith and Eoin MacNeill are arrested by British troops in Dublin.

28th - Under the leadership of Tom Barry, the West Cork unit of the IRA ambushes a patrol of Auxiliaries at Kilmichael in County Cork, killing 17 men. This action, as well as the events of Bloody Sunday, mark a significant escalation of the war.

30th - Charles Ponzi, once beloved, now reviled all over Massachusetts, is indicted in Boston’s federal court for the federal crime of “using the mails to defraud.”  The Attorney General of Massachusetts, J. Weston Allen, states publicly his intent to charge Ponzi for larceny once the federal government is done with him. Ponzi has hired Daniel Coakley as his defense attorney, himself recently in the papers due to his open letter against Godfrey Lowell Cabot concerning the Hunnewell scandal. In the recent collapse of his scheme, Ponzi’s investors were ruined, receiving less than 30 cents to every dollar invested. Ponzi himself pleads guilty to the federal charge and is sentenced to five years in the Plymouth County Jail.

December

6th - The trial of Godfrey Lowell Cabot, accused of larceny, is set to begin. However, the judge rules that Coakley’s recent open letter had made it impossible for the defendant to receive a fair trial in a jury case, as the news had spread so far over Boston, and orders the case taken from the jury.

10th - Under the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act, Counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary are placed under martial law.

11th - In another act of reprisal for an IRA ambush earlier that day, which resulted in the death of one Auxiliary and the wounding of eleven others, the Black and Tans kill two IRA Volunteers in their homes, then burn out the center of Cork City, proceeding to shoot at the firefighters who come to put out the fire.

14th - Passenger services are suspended on the Cavan and Leitrim Railways in Ireland, due to the refusal of drivers and enginemen to carry the Black and Tans on trains at Mohill and Ballinamore, leading to the arrest and internment of railway employees.

26th - After spending the night drinking and carousing at the Bluebird Cafe on Union Square in New York City, and then getting into a heated argument with a drinking companion, notorious ex-gangster Monk Eastman is shot and killed in the early hours of the morning. Jeremiah Bolan, the companion Eastman was arguing with and rumored to be associated with the Bureau of Prohibition (said to be an agent, he is actually an administrative employee), shoots him five times before fleeing the scene. Eastman, once “the king of the strong-arm men”, abandoned criminality after serving a ten year sentence in Sing Sing for robbery, and joined the Army, fighting in the Great War, where he received commendations for bravery.

29th - The British government officially sanctions reprisal actions against the IRA and those who aid it. The policy is immediately employed with the burning of seven houses in Midleton, County Cork, in reprisal for an IRA ambush earlier in the day.

30th - Martial law is extended to Counties Clare, Kilkelly, Waterford and Wexford.