They seize William Brown, a black man, accused of raping a white woman; he has been tossed in jail though crippled with rheumatism. The mob gets him, hang him, shoot him & then drag his body through town. Some reports say the mutilation of his body also includes extensive burns. 

After committing these acts of murder, the mob goes on a rampage through downtown Omaha, breaking windows and stealing goods from storefronts. Troops are called in on the 30th to put an end to the chaos.

"It's considered one of the most notorious lynchings in the United States; tens of thousands of people were involved." --Laura Partridge, playwright, Minstrel Show

"Like a prairie-fire, the blaze of revolution was sweeping over every American institution of law & order a year ago. It was eating its way into the homes of the American workman, its sharp tongue of revolutionary heat were licking the altars of churches, leaping into the belfry of the school bell, crawling into the sacred corners of American homes, seeking to replace marriage vows with libertine laws . . ."



— A. Mitchell Palmer

"The war bowed to a hundred repressive acts. They have become slaves to the government. They are frightened at the excesses in Russia. They are docile; and they will not recover from being so for many years . . . In the end, of course, there will be a revolution, but it will not come in my time."



— Hiram Johnson, former Governor of California

Shortly after the famous Vitameatavegamin episode aired, Ball appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the next big Red Scare because she had registered as a Communist in 1936. She explained that it was to please her grandfather.

Palmer, in coordination with Justice Department agent J. Edgar Hoover & immigration commissioner Anthony Caminetti, orders the arrest of approximately 10,000 alien radicals. U.S. Bureau of Investigation carries out nationwide Palmer Raids. Federal agents seize labor leaders & literature in the hopes of discouraging labor activity. A number of citizens are turned over to state officials for prosecution under various anti-anarchy statutes.

1920 -- US: January 24. 3,000 arrested in Red Scare raids.



1920 -- US: March. Radio station WGI in Boston initiates first known regularly scheduled radio broadcasts, eight months before the traditionally accepted "first" of regularly scheduled broadcasts claimed by KDKA in Pittsburgh. Before it became defunct in 1925, WGI billed itself as the station "where broadcasting began."  IMAGE: 1999 Stamp: "Radio Entertains America"



1920 -- US: May 5. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian anarchists are arrested for the killing of a paymaster near Brockton, Massachusetts. Although most people are convinced they are innocent and have been arrested as part of a "Red scare", they are sentenced to death in 1927.  May 5. The raids on "communist organization" ends after government ruling that mere membership in the party is not in itself a crime. Most arrested are released; few real anarchist criminals are found. Hysterical propaganda by Palmer and others set the tone for the rest of the twenties, spurring a spate of anti-immigration laws. 

See Heroes & Martyrs: Emma Goldman, Sacco & Vanzetti, & the Revolutionary Struggle, an audio CD by Howard Zinn.


1920 -- US:

Post Office Department rules children may not be sent by parcel post.




1920 -- Russia: Soviet government issues Decree of Abortion; first nation to legalize the practice.



1921 -- US:March 6. Police in Sanbury, PA call halt to rising skirts issuing edict requiring skirts to be at least four inches below the knee.



1921 -- March 17. Lenin introduces capitalist-style economics with his New Economic Policy (NEP), in reaction to the collapse of the Russian economy that occured because of ongoing civil war and an Allied blockade of the country designed to end Bolshevism.



1921 -- On or about this date: The Pig Stand, a Dallas restaurant specializing in pork sandwiches, decides to serve customers in their cars, creating the first drive-in.



1921 -- On or about this date: In Germany, some Roman Catholic priests begin spreading rumors about Jehovah's Witnesses, charging that they are financed by the Jews and are working to overthrow the state. --Religion, p 77.


1921 -- US: No Butchers Allowed? Hair bobbing gains national attention as State Barber's Commission of Connecticut rule that women that bob hair must have a barber's license.

1922 -- US: May 30. Lincoln Memorial dedicated. Black officials at opening ceremony are segregated from whites.


1922 -- About this time, date unknown: Eleanor Roosevelt joins the Women's Trade Union League, a group founded almost 20 years earlier to help women workers organize for better working conditions. There she meets Rose Schneiderman & Maude Schwartz. Schneiderman, a Polish immigrant, was responsible for bringing emotions "to a snapping point" (New York Times) over the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911. 

"If you believe that a nation is really better off which achieves for a comparative few, those who are capable of attaining it, high culture, ease & opportunity, & that these few from their enlightenment should give what they consider best to those less favored, then you naturally belong to the Republican party. But if you believe that people must struggle slowly to the light for themselves, then it seems to me that you are logically a Democrat."

— Eleanor Roosevelt, "Why I Am a Democrat", Junior League Bulletin

1922 -- US: Jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, part of the great exodus of blacks from the southern to the northern U.S., leaves New Orleans to play jazz in Chicago with mentor King Oliver.



1922 -- US: Not So Hip?: Government cracks down on hip flasks.



1922 -- US: Seductive aromas banned from beauty contests.


1922 -- USSR: Strip-Tease Party? Lenin has a stroke that leaves him partially paralyzed. After recovering somewhat, Lenin plans a Party congress scheduled for April 1923 in which he plans to denounce Stalin publically & strip him of all power.



1923 -- US: George W. Linn climbs into a rickety Ford outside his father's print shop in Columbus, OH to make the 50-mile trek north to the late president Harding's hometown of Marion. By his side is a box of envelopes that he has printed on "In Memorium" (sp) of Harding and affixed a 2c stamp of the president. The resulting postmarked envelopes become the first First Day Covers. (Linn will go on to establish his own line of printed cachets which will be very popular in the 30's & 40's.)  "Because they are made by collectors, for collectors, FDCs may never have the random rarity of the earliest & greatest gems in the hobby. But, for precisely that reason, U.S. FDCs offer an eloquent & unrivaled insight into the images & icons, the people, places & events, that we value & celebrate." --Fred Baumann, Stamp Collector Magazine, August 2000 1923 -- US: Alice's Wonderland distribution deal signed; the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio is born.  Four-year-old Virginia Davis stars in Alice cartoons by Walt Disney which combined live action with animation. He will go on on to make dozens of Alice cartoons, with various children as the star. "Walt said it all started with a mouse, but that wasn't quite true. It started with a girl named Alice."  — Roy E. Disney, vice chairman of the Walt Disney Co, 1998  "It's about time, isn't it?" — Virginia Davis, 79, 1998  1924 -- Mahatma Gandhi is released from prison early due to ill health. 1924 -- February 12. George Gershwin, as composer/pianist, premieres his Rhapsody in Blue backed by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, at New York City's Aeolian Hall. 1924 -- May 19. The Marx Brothers take New York by storm. In one of show bizzes' great strokes of luck, the opening night of a major dramatic play is cancelled, leading all the top New York critics instead to the premiere of a vaudeville revue called I'll Say She Is, starring the unknown Marx Brothers comedy team. The brothers' incredible banter and slapstick astounds the critics, ensuring the Marxes' fame. 1925 -- April 2. The California Ramblers record "Charleston." 1925 -- April 10. F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby is published. The dispassionate examination of blandness and emptiness in the lives of tycoons and flappers was acclaimed by critics, but was not a popular success in its day.  1925 -- US: Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra records "Kater Street Rag." California Ramblers record "Sweet Georgia Brown." 1925 -- US: Fletcher Henderson records "Sugar Foot Stomp". 1925 -- US: Charlie Chaplin's film The Gold Rush premiers. 1925 -- England: The London Evening News publishes a story entitled "Winnie-the-Pooh", which will eventually become the first chapter of the book Winnie-the-Pooh. Illustrations for this story are created by J.H. Dowd. 1926 -- England: The London Evening News publishes a story entitled "Winnie-the-Pooh", which will eventually become the first chapter of the book Winnie-the-Pooh. Illustrations for this story are created by J.H. Dowd. 1926 -- Germany admitted to the League of Nations. "Hitler was Catholic and so were many of his inner circle; Berlin is a Protestant city. Hitler was an Austrian commoner; Berlin was the stomping ground of Prussian aristocracy. Goebbels came here in 1926 to rally Nazi support and described Berlin as a "monster city of stone and asphalt." Berlin consistently voted against the Nazis (Vassiltchikov notes educated Berliners huddled in bomb shelters complaining about the "women of Germany who voted Hitler into power"). Although the regionalism of Germany is difficult for Americans to fully appreciate, try to imagine NY's Ed Koch somehow getting elected Governor of Texas. Texans turn up their noses at first but are elated when Koch rolls over Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico and Kansas. However, as their relatives serving in the Texas Army are cut down by tenacious Minnesotans and their houses are leveled by bombers from California, the honeymoon comes to an end."  — Philip Greenspun 1926 -- England: "Eeyore has a birthday" is published in the August edition of the Royal Magazine. Winnie-the-Pooh, the best-selling of Milne's books, in published in London (Published in New York on October 21). 1926 -- US: O'Banion gang, upset over leaders murder, spray Al Capone's headquarters in Chicago with gunfire. Capone barely escapes. 1926 -- When the Ku Klux Klan burns a fiery cross in Father Charles E. Coughlin's churchyard as the community's welcome, Coughlin decides to use the new medium of radio to explain his faith to the new parish. He begins to broadcast over station WJR in Detroit. He calls his program "The Golden Hour of the Little Flower." 1927 -- US: Henry Ford's Old Fashioned Dance Orchestra records "Hungarian Varsovienne", reflecting the immigrant population of Ford's plants.  "A man checks 'is brains & 'is freedom at the door when he goes to work at Ford's."  — anonymous worker, as related to Edmund Wilson  1927 -- US: Louis Armstrong records "Chicago Breakdown". 1927 -- US: Duke Ellington records "Chicago Stomp Down" and "Black and Tan Fantasy." 1927 -- US: December 3. Blind Willie Johnson records "Dark Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground)", a haunting impression of the "lining out" of a hymn & church 'moaners' in prayer. In the coming Depression years, Johnson enjoys a brief vogue on records. 1927 -- Russia: Uncle Joe Stalin's faction wins All-Union Congress in USSR, Leon Trotsky expelled. Stalin's complete control of U.S.S.R. nearly assured. Communist party congress bans all opposition to Stalin's policies. With Trotsky & others purged from the party, the Show Trials will begin soon. http://www.corpse.org/issue_5/critical_urgencies/elias.htm 1928 -- Mickey Mouse premieres in Plane Crazy, a silent cartoon parody of the Lindberg craze. Walt Disney went to New York in February to ask his distributer to raise the price per animated film from $2,250 to $2,500. The distributer insists instead that he take a cut to $1,800 or lose the character and his studio. The owner, Charles L. Minz had covertly signed up Disney's entire staff of animators. Everyone except Ub Iwerks had agreed to leave. Disney relinquishes control of the character "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" which Mintz is only able to squeeze out one more year of films from. On the train ride back to New York, Disney begins sketching a cartoon mouse character he tentatively calls "Mortimer." 1928 -- Germany: Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) by composer Kurt Weill & playwright Bertolt Brecht premieres in Berlin. The play masterfully captures the decadence & spirit of the days of the Weimar Republic.   This launched their careers, the work of both in great demand until the Nazis suppressed them. By coincidence, Brecht & Weill landed in Paris after escaping the Nazi menace. Both were broke & in desperate for work. They were not looking for work together, however. Their collaboration had ended, bitterly, three years previously. By 1933, Weill found Brecht's personality, aesthetics & Communist politics intolerable. He was stuck with Brecht for one more project, though, & Seven Deadly Sins was the result of this unhappyarrangement. http://www.szyk.com/art/archives.html http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/weimar/kunst/dreigroschen/ http://www.jsonline.com/letsgo/daily/0125threepenny.stm  1928 -- Russia: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Joseph Stalin's first five-year plan is announced, calling for development of heavy industry, seizure of farms, & collectivization of all workers. 1928 -- US: Duke Ellington records "The Mooche." 1928 -- Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Herbie Hoover speaks of "American system of rugged individualism". "We in American today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poorhouse is vanishing from among us. We have yet reached the goal, but, given a chance to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, we shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation." — Herbert Hoover, campaign speech 1928 -- US: Steamboat Willie premieres at the Colony Theatre in New York City. First release starring Mickey and Minnie Mouse; also the first fully synchronized sound picture with sound track by Carl Stalling. 1929 -- US: Emily Dickenson poems found that had been hidden for forty years. 1929 -- Einstein reduces physics to one law (for the time being). 1929 -- US: Striking textile workers in Gastonia, North Carolina, repel a vigilante attack on their union hall.  During today's battle, police chief O.F. Aderholt is accidentally killed by one of his own officers. But who gets blamed? Six strike leaders, including Fred Beal, get convictions of "conspiracy to murder" & prison sentences of five to 20 years. The workers belong to the Communist-organized National Textile Workers Industrial Union, which has led walkouts at cotton mills in South Carolina, North Carolina & Tennessee. Police have responded with an array of violence, including a shooting that killed six strikers fleeing from tear gas in Marion, North Carolina. Unlike militant strikes across the north, the cotton-mill strikes never win popular support. Mill owners & the media strike a chord by pointing to ties between the southern union organizing & African American resistance. Labor union organizers appear in Gastonia, Carolina. The textile mill workers there eagerly flock to the union, but when the mil owners refuse to recognize the union, a strike breaks out. Prominant on the union picket lines is Ella May Wiggins, a 29-year-old mother of nine children who had been working the night shift at one of the mills. When some of her children come down with whooping cough, Ella May asks the mill foreman to put her on the day shift so she can care for her sick babies. The foreman refuses and Ella May is forced to quit her job.  With no money for medicine, four of her children die. From this point on, she becomes a militant in the strike movement. Her songs, with the older melancholy of mountain ballads, help cheer on fellow picketers. She will be killed by a deputy sheriff & vigilante thugs on September 14 when they run her off the road. 1929 -- US: Ella May Wiggins & other workers are riding in the back of an old pick-up truck to a union meeting, when local vigilantes, thugs, & a sheriff's deputy force the truck off the road & begin shooting at it. Ella May is killed. Labor union organizers appear in Gastonia, Carolina. The textile mill workers there eagerly flock to the union, but when the mil owners refuse to recognize the union, a strike breaks out in June of this year. Prominant on the union picket lines is Ella May Wiggins, a 29-year-old mother of nine children who had been working the night shift at one of the mills. When some of her children come down with whooping cough, Ella May asks the mill foreman to put her on the day shift so she can care for her sick babies. The foreman refuses & Ella May is forced to quit her job.  With no money for medicine, four of her children die. From this point on, she becomes a militant in the strike movement. Her songs, with the older melancholy of mountain ballads, help cheer on fellow picketers. 1929 -- US: Newspapers & businessmen spend Friday & the entire weekend trying to assure the public that the finanacial industry is still secure.  "S-T-E-A-D-Y Everybody! Calm thinking is in order. Heed the words of America's greatest bankers!" -- ad in the Wall Street Journal.. 1929 -- US: While the stock market is beginning to crash & the depression about to set in, The Casa Loma Orchestra, conducted by Glen Gray, records "Happy Days Are Here Again." 1929 -- US: October 31. A little boy explodes some firecrackers on La Salle Street in Chicago and rumors quickly spread that gangsters who have lost heavily on the stock market are shooting up the street. Squad cars of police arrive to find a very bewildered little boy. "Despite the fact that there is a cherished legend in American folklore that pedestrians on Wall Street had to scurry out of the way of falling financiers, no such wave of suicides took place. Those (and there were countless) whose life savings had been wiped out were far too stunned and depressed to think of anything so violent as suicide." --Robert Goldston, The Great Depression "This old town should have burned down in 1929  That's when we stood in line  Waiting for our soup  Swallowing our pride."  --Janis Ian and Jon Vezner 1929 -- US: Businesses still operating after the Great Crash in October continue to assure people that the future looks rosy. Remember, you heard it here first. "Never before has American business been as firmly entrenched for prosperity as it is today." --Charles Schwab, Bethlehem Steel "This old town should have burned down in 1929  That's when we stood in line  Waiting for our soup  Swallowing our pride." — Janis Ian & Jon Vezner 1930 -- US: 1,100 men standing in a breadline in New York seize two truckloads of bread and rolls as they are being delivered to a nearby hotel. "All evidences indicate that the worst effects of the crash upon unemployment will have been passed during the next sixty days." --Herbert Hoover 1930 -- US: Robert Hicks, "Barbecue Bob", records "We Sure Got Hard Times Now". Spring. Four million Americans are out of work. Breadlines continue to form in New York, Chicago and other American cities. 1930 -- US: Herbert Hoover again emphasizes his belief in the health of the American economy. Spring. Four million Americans are out of work. Breadlines continue to form in New York, Chicago and other American cities. "I am convinced we have now passed the worst." --Herbert Hoover "There has been more 'optimism' talked and less practiced than at any time during our history." --Will Rogers 1930 -- US: Mississippi Sheiks record "Bootlegger Blues." 1930 -- US: Betty Boop lives! A cartoon character named Betty Boop debuts in Max Fleischer's animated cartoon "Dizzy Dishes."  Created by Grim Natwick, Betty Boop is originally a female dog with a secondary role. Over time, her popularity grows & she becomes the main star & is given a human form.  1930 -- US: Autumn. Northwest apple growers have an idea to help the growing economic depression. Since they have a large crop of apples & no one to buy them, they organize their distribution among the jobless for resale on street corners. The result is the creation of a very common sight on city streets — shivering, ragged apple sellers standing over pitiful wooden crates beseeching passersby to buy an apple for any amount of money. These people are classified by the Census Bureau as "employed."  "Many persons left their jobs for the more profitable one of selling apples." — Herbert Hoover 1930 -- US: Duke Ellington records "Mood Indigo". 1930 -- US: Duke Ellington records "Rockin' in Rhythm." 1930 -- US: During this month 6,000 people a day are selling apples on the streets of New York alone. Remember this?: Shivering, ragged apple sellers standing over pitiful wooden crates beseeching passersby to buy an apple for any amount of money. These people are classified by the Census Bureau as "employed."  "Many persons left their jobs for the more profitable one of selling apples."  ---Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Herb Hoover 1931 -- US: It's Depressing?: Ted Lewis & his band records "Headin' For Better Times".  The plight of homeless & hungry Americans so moves the Cameroons in Africa that a collection of $3.77 is raised & mailed to New York City with instructions that it be used for "the relief of the starving." In July, in Henryetta, Oklahoma, 300 jobless men threaten to beat up & kill local storekeepers unless they are given food.  The storekeepers choose their lives.  1931 -- Mukden Incident -- Japan occupies the whole of China's northeast or Manchuria.  Ishii & Japanese military seize the opportunity to move the center for bacteriological research at the Army's Medical College established in 1930 to northern Manchuria for expansion with a view to making the Soviet Union the hypothetic enemy.  A special advantage for this move is that the Kuantung Army can kill Chinese at will & provide an unlimited supply of human experiment materials. With Chinese lives at no cost, Japan is poised to lead the world in biological warfare.  1931 -- US: Unemployment in American reaches 13.5 million -- almost 1/3 of the American work force. In Los Angeles alone, shelters give asylum to over 200,000 persons. Many choose instead to hit the road -- another 200,000 become freight car migrants on the Missouri Pacific Line. Severe drought hits the midwestern and southern plains. As the crops die, the 'black blizzards" begin. Dust from the over-plowed and over-grazed land begins to blow.  "This old town should have burned down in 1931  When the rain refused to come  Air filled up our bellies  And dust filled up our lungs,  We thought our time had come." --Janis Ian & Jon Vezner "Nobody is actually starving. The hobos, for example, are better fed than they have ever been. One hobo in New York got ten meals in one day." --Herbert Hoover  http://www.vanessascollection.com/main/2000/dust_bowl.htm 1932 -- US: The year begins with a deep sense of foreboding & fear as the American economy begins grinding to a standstill. The unemployed number 14 million, national income has declined by 50%, breadlines now include former shopkeepers, businessmen, middle-class housewives. Charity is overwhelmed -- only 1/4 of America's unemployed are receiving any help at all.   "Slow starvation & progressive disintegration of family life." — description of life in Philadelphia "What the country needs is good, big laugh." — Herbert Hoover  Hoover inagurates an advertising campaign carried out by his Organization on Unemployment Relief to promote private and local charity & hopefully ease the growing economic depression. When its head, Walter S. Gifford, President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is questioned by a Senate investigating committee, he has to admit he does not even know how many people are unemployed or what resources were available or needed. He is apparently unaware that in New York City, the richest in the country, can now afford to give only $2.39 per week for relief to an entire family.  As public money for relief runs out, many rich Americans oppose increased taxes to help out or, more commonly, evade those taxes they are supposed to pay.  J. P. Morgan pays no taxes at all this year. Samuel Insull, the great Chicago financier, suddenly resigns his 85 directorships & 65 chairmanships of corporations & takes a trip to Europe. The number of dust storms is increasing. Fourteen are reported this year; next year there will be 38.  In Detroit it becomes a common occurrence for unemployed men to smash shop windows at night and loot stores. Two families who resist eviction by shooting & killing a landlord are later acquitted of murder by sympathetic judges.  http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/fieldday/kids/wind/dust_bowl.htm 1932 -- Jazzster Louis Armstrong & his orchestra records "All of Me". 1932 -- US: Duke Ellington & his orchestra records "Creole Love Call." 1932 -- US: Three thousand jobless men march on the shut-down Ford plants at River Rouge in Dearborn. Although they start out peacefully, they are met at the gates by Dearborn police who order them back and open tear-gas bombs. Members of the crowd begin to throw rocks and pieces of ice. In response the Ford Company fire department now unleashes tons of high-pressure icy cold water on the marchers from fire hoses. The police open fire from pistols, rifles and machine guns. Four are killed. 1932 -- With six million unemployed, chaos in Berlin, starvation and ruin, the threat of Marxism, and a very uncertain future, the German people turn to Hitler by the millions. In the presidential election, Hitler receives over eleven million votes (11,339,446) or 30% of the total. Hindenburg receives 18,651,497 votes or 49%. Since Hidenburg does not get the majority, a run-off election is held. In the campaign that follows, Hitler crisscrosses Germany in an airplane, descending from the clouds into the arms of growing numbers of fanatics, at ever larger rallies. He gives them a positive message, promising something for everyone, then ascends back into the clouds. "In the Third Reich every German girl will find a husband!" - Hitler once promises. 1932 -- US: Spring. Hunger marches take place throughout the country; the Bonus marchers are expelled from Washington. Herbert Hoover sends a secret message to Congress advising it not to cut the pay of Army or Navy personnel because they may be neeed to put down revolution. 1932 -- US: May. Some WWI veterans in Portland, Oregon decide that since they are living on the brink of starvation, now was as good a time as any to ask Congress to pay them the bonuses that they were promised for helping "make the world safe for democracy" earlier than the afore-promised year of 1945. They begin a trek across the country, walking, riding freight cars and surviving on the good will of others along the way. 1932 -- US: June. RFC President Charles G. Dawes resigns to re-enter private business. A few weeks after his taking over Central Republic Bank in Chicago, the RFC suddenly loans the Central Republic Bank $90 million. "Wonder upon wonder and the end is not yet! Day by day and month by month dreams are coming true -- the impossible is being achieved -- the rare luxuries of yesterday are being turned into everyday necessities of homes! Thumb through the advertising pages of any modern magazine -- here you will find the market where miracles are made-to-order for your ease, for your amusement, for your well-being! Without so much as rising from your chair you may obtain more Joy from Life than all the wealth of the world could have brought the generation ago! It's good to be alive in a world where the unexpected awaits behind every unturned page -- 1932 has established a new high in human comfort and pleasure . . . . It's a made-to-order world for you and me!" --homemaker's magazine, June  1932 -- US: June. 1,000 WWI veterans arrive in Washington, DC.  In the days and weeks that follow, new contingents arrive until about 15,000 veterans and some families have joined them. They establish a rough camp on the marshy land across the Anacostia River.  1932 -- US: The House of Representatives passes the bill giving WWI veterans their bonuses early.  The Senate is less reluctant to do much for these "lobbyists" dressed in tattered Army uniforms & having no favors to pass out. They view passage of the bill to be giving in to a mob.  Thousands of veterans gather outside the Capitol building.  "Comrades, I have bad news . . . .  Comrades, let us show them that we are patriotic Americans.  I call on you to sing 'America'."  — Pelham D. Glassford, superintendent of Washington's Metroplitan Police Force, retired Army officer  1932 -- US: Summer. Farmers in Iowa blockade roads, arm themselves with pitchforks & shotguns & refuse to allow farm produce to go to market. "I am trying to provide security for human beings which they are not getting. If we don't give it under the existing system, the people will change the system. Make no mistake about that."  --Hamilton Fish, Jr., Congressman, New York "If this country ever needed a Mussolini, it needs one now."  --David A. Reed, Senator, Pennsylvania    July. Many of veterans begin to drift away, back onto dusty roads. But many stay on -- particularly because they have no other place to go. Anacostia Flats celebrates the birth of its first baby, Bernard Myers. Congress forces the RFC (Reconstruction Finance Corporation, established by Herbert Hoover) to disclose its operations. It is revealed that money meant to be loaned to banks to help them get back on their feet is being given only to banks that give RFC members chairmanships. By the end of the year, the RFC has allocated only $30 million of its $300 million for relief. As Congress prepares to recess. The veterans see their chances slipping away for the assistance they came to request. 1932 -- Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Herbie Hoover forcibly evicts bonus marchers from their encampment. Two killed when U.S. Army attacks encampment of 20,000 World War I veterans gathered in Washington D.C. to demand their bonus benefit payments. Yer Daveness.....  Fighting broke out between the Bonus Army & police & on July 28 federal troops attacked led by Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur & his subordinates Majors George S. Patton, Jr. & Dwight D. Eisenhower. MacArthur opted to use force over the protests of Patton & Eisenhower. Using tear gas, cavalry with sabers drawn, & tanks the Bonus Army was driven out of their encampments in the abandoned buildings along Pennsylvania Avenue & the tanks then leveled the Bonus Army's "Camp Marks" on the Anacostia River. The casualty toll was four dead (including two infants) & 66 injured. The smoke lingered over Washington for two days. Armed police from Maryland & Virginia had blocked all roads out of the District of Columbia until Pennsylvania offered asylum to the marchers in Johnstown.  — Bleedster Scott L US: July 28. A minor riot occurs when policmen, under District Commission orders, clear some veterans out of unused old buildings on Pennyslvania Avenue.   Jittery police kill two veterans, but a riot is averted by Glassford's hurried arrival & calming words. Viewing the encampment at Anacostia Flats as a revolutionary threat to the American government, the administration decides that a state of insurrection exists.  Secretary of War, Patrick J. Hurley calls upon Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur to use troops to clear out the veterans. MacArthur & his aide, Dwight D. Eisenhower set about to business. Late in the afternoon, the veterans at Anacostia Flats see four troops of calvary with drawn sabers, six tanks, & a long column of infantry with fixed bayonets, gas masks & tear-gas bombs on their belts, bearing down on them. The troops pause for exactly one hour to permit escape. Evening. The troops move into Anacostia Flats, setting fire to broken-down shacks & shanties as they move. Women & children scramble frantically from the path of soldiers, coughing & crying from the tear gas. Seven-year-old Eugene King tries to snatch his pet rabbit from his tent, but is bayoneted in the leg by a soldier & cursed at. Joe Angelo, a veteran from Camden, New Jersey, watches as cavalry officer George S. Patton leads his men in destroying his shack. (Angelo knows Patton well -- he had saved the man's life on the Western Front years earlier.)  "I have released in my day more than one community  which had been held in the grip of a foreign enemy." — Douglas MacArthur  As the flames destroy the shantytown, people stream into Maryland. Behind them they leave the wounded & little Bernard Myers who dies in a Washington hospital from tear-gas inhalation.  During this month: As Hoover begins traveling the country for his re-election campaign, he is met with unexpected hatred. In St. Paul when he tells the audience,  "Thank God we still have a government  that knows how to deal with the mob,"  angry murmurs begin to roll up from the crowd in front of him. The Secret Service men guarding Hoover become alarmed. The President loses his place in the speech he is giving, nearly collapses, & retreats from the auditorium badly shaken.  1932 -- November. As famine continues to ravage the Soviet people, Nadezhda, Stalin's wife, accuses her husband of murder.  Helpless & heartbroken over events, she commits suicide. Stalin views her death as a personal betrayal & refuses to attend her funeral & never visits her grave. (By the end of the famine, 14.5 million people have died -- more than the total deaths for all countries in World War I.)  "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." --Joseph Stalin  1932 -- "Armistice Day. November the 11th is Armistice Day. It was then the cruel war was over. We keep this day in honor of our soldiers. They went over sea to fight for our country. We must remember what they did for us. We must be good & brave girls & boys.  We must learn all we can & grow up to be brave & good women & men.  Then we too can guard our country well." — School primer, written by Mack Dickey  http://home.no.net/nihil/press/ 1932 -- During this year: Roosevelt tells Rexford Tugwell that Huey Long and Douglas MacArthur are the two most dangerous men in the country. Mohandas Gandhi vows to "fast unto death" for electoral reform. Gary, Indiana. Over one-half of the black population unemployed and on relief. At the age of 65, Laura Ingalls Wilder sees her first book published, "Little House in the Big Woods", by Harper & Row. The Mills Brothers record "Diga Diga Do." The Communist party in America has doubled its membership from 6,000 in 1929 to 12,000 in 1932. The Southern Pacific Railroad reports that it has ejected nearly 700,000 vagrants from its trains (boxcars) this year alone.   1934 -- "Little Nemo" cartoonist Winsor Mckay dies.  The artists of the fledgling animation industry give a testimonial dinner honoring Winsor McCay. During his speech, McCay reprimands the animators for their lack of artistic integrity. "Animation should be an art, that is how I conceived it . . . but as I see what you fellows have done with it is making it into a trade . . . not an art, but a trade . . . bad luck." — Winsor McCay "By 1927-28, audiences would groan when a cartoon came on. Animation had worn out its welcome. The novelty was gone. If sound hadn't come in, the cartoon would have vanished."  — Shamus Culhane  anti-CopyRite 2000-3000, more or less Subscribe to daily email updates (include the words 'subscribe bleed' in subject field), or send questions, suggestions, additions, corrections to: BleedMeister David Brown Visit the complete Daily Bleed Archives The Daily Bleed is freely produced by Recollection Used Books anarchist, labor, radical books See also: Anarchist Encyclopedia http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/gallery/galleryindex.htm Stan Iverson Memorial Library http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/ Anarchist Time Line / Chronology http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/indexTimeline.htm