page_title: September 1920
section_title: September 17, 1920 (Friday)
hierarchical_section_title: September 1920 / September 17, 1920 (Friday)
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Portrait officiel du président de la République française Paul Deschanel.
context_page_description: The State of Great Lebanon was created by order of French Army General Henri Gourard, the High Commissioner for the League of Nations mandate for Syria and Lebanon. In making Lebanon a separate entity from Syria, France provided for a future nation for Maronite Christians, and partitioned the "Arab Kingdom of Syria" that had been proclaimed by Faysal al-Awwal to defuse the Arab nationalist movement. The territory of Grand Liban included the former Ottoman Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, as well as the Beirut Vilayet, Tyre, Tripoli, the Beqaa Valley and Baalbek. "However," a historian would note later, "the new Grand Liban now encompassed areas that gave Maronite Lebanon a large Muslim population, providing the basis for the inter-communal conflicts that would repeatedly ravage the country in the future."
  The U.S. government ended its six-month guarantee of U.S. railroad earnings, and the businesses resumed sole responsibility for the management of their earnings.
  Born: Richard Farnsworth, American film actor and stuntman known for The Straight Story and for The Grey Fox; in Los Angeles
context_section_description: At the automobile dealership of Ralph Hay of Canton, Ohio, owners of ten professional football teams voted to create the first pro football league, the American Professional Football Association (APFA).  Legendary athlete Jim Thorpe was named as the president of the APFA, which would change its name to the National Football League in 1922.  In its first season, the league had 14 franchises with teams in Buffalo, Chicago (the Cardinals and the Tigers), Cleveland, and Detroit, and others from Ohio (in Akron, Canton, Columbus and Dayton), Indiana (Hammond and Muncie), Illinois (Decatur and Rock Island) and New York (Rochester).  The Chicago Cardinals and the Decatur Staleys continue to exist as the Arizona Cardinals and the Chicago Bears.
  France's President Paul Deschanel resigned after seven months in office, because of the continued deterioration of his health.  Prime Minister Alexandre Millerand announced that the National Assembly would be called into a three-day special session on September 21 to elect a successor.
  For the first time, the League of Nations was asked to arbitrate a conflict between two nations.  Representatives of Poland and Lithuania submitted their border dispute to the League Council for arbitration.
  China announced that it was ceasing the pretense of recognizing the deposed Russian Imperial government as the representative of the Bolshevik-controlled nation, and asked Prince Nicolas Koudacheff to close the legation.  Koudacheff had been appointed by Czar Nicholas II prior to being deposed in 1917 
  Campaigning in San Francisco, Democratic Party presidential candidate James M. Cox pledged, if elected, to work with California leaders to exclude Asians from settling in the state.  Cox told a crowd, "if California does not desire her lands to come into the possession of Orientals, she may expect, in consonance with the Democratic principle, the genuine cooperation of the national government in the working out of a plan where by she excludes the Oriental settler." 
  The first legal professional boxing bout in New York City since 1917 was held at Madison Square Garden in front of 10,000 spectators who paid to watch four fights   In the first bout under New York's new boxing act, the Walker Law, featherweight Joe Welling won a decision over Johnny Dundee at the end of the limit of 15 rounds ".
caption: President Deschanel
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