Day by Day 1921

A day by day listing of worldwide and local events in the year 1921. (This is the Long Years Between - 1921 document, without the written scenes between main characters.)

**1921**

**January**

1st - Jeremiah Bolan turns himself
in for the killing of Monk Eastman following a firestorm of criticism against
the Bureau of Prohibition for his hiring, especially given a past dug up by
newspapers, including a history of liquor dealing.  Bolan defends the killing as self-defense,
and is convicted of manslaughter, three to ten years in prison.  United States Representative Lester B. Volk
of Brooklyn severely criticizes the Prohibition Bureau over the incident,
stating that it “was only one instance demonstrating the need for improvement
in the personnel of the (Prohibition) enforcement core.”

7th - *The New York Evening Post* publishes a report from New York City’s
Department of Public Welfare stating that the rate of the number aof admissions
to the city’s alcoholism wards has doubled since the beginning of Prohibition.

9th - The trial of Godfrey Lowell
Cabot comes to an end, as his lawyer is able to achieve a not-guilty verdict on
a technicality.  Coakley thunders, in
another open letter, that the trial is only further proof to both the power and
the corruption of his accusers, bent on destroying the Irish in Boston.

13th - British troops manning a checkpoint at O’Connell
Bridge, Dublin, open fire on a crowd of civilians, killing two and seriously
wounding five.

14th - The *New York*
*Times* exposes an illegal liquor ring operating in the office of the Bureau
of Prohibition’s New York state director, Charles O’Connor.  Using liquor permits, O’Connor and three
former employees of the bureau had set up a system to divert legally warehoused
liquor to be sold on the black market.

20th - Under the leadership of Michael Brennan, the IRA in
Clare ambush an RIC lorry in Glenwood, killing six RIC men, including RIC
District Inspector William Clarke, with the escape of two wounded.  The IRA take the weapons and over 1000 rounds
of ammunition.  In reprisal, British
forces burn 21 homes in the vicinity and arrest 22 people.

21st - Charlie Chaplin, a beloved international star since
1916, releases his first feature length film, *The Kid*, the story of a friendship between an orphan and Chaplin’s
famous character, the Tramp, as they struggle to survive through poverty and
city life.  A combination of comedy and
drama (billed as “A picture with a smile - and perhaps, a tear.”), it is the
first comedy to combine such elements.
It is wildly successful, enhancing the already prodigious popularity of
Chaplin, its star, writer, producer and director.

28th - British troops in County Cork are tipped off about an
upcoming IRA ambush by a local Loyalist, Mrs. Lindsay, and are able to capture
five IRA Volunteers and kill two others.
In reprisal, the local IRA execute Lindsay and her chauffeur, James
Clarke.

**February**

1st - Cornelius Murphy of
Millstreet, County Cork, is the first IRA Volunteer to be executed under
martial law.

14th - Supposedly in support of a peasants and workers
rebellion there, Soviet forces invade Georgia.

15th - Under Charlie Hurley, an IRA column from the 3rd Cork
Brigade mounts a disastrous attack on a train transporting British soldiers at
Upton County Cork.  3 IRA Volunteers are
killed and 3 more captured, 6 civilian passengers are killed and 10 wounded in
the crossfire.  6 British soldiers are
wounded, 3 seriously.

17th - In an interview with the *New York World*, Henry Ford defends *The International Jew* articles published by his newspaper, and
their primary source *The Protocols of the*
Elders of Zion*, saying, “The only statement I care to make about the*
Protocols is that they fit in with what’s going on.”  Ford emerges as a respected spokesman for
right-wing extremism and religious prejudice.

- Clergymen in Philadelphia, responding to the new clothing
trends which have dress hems nine or more inches off the ground, introduce what
they refer to as the “moral gown”, a very loose fitting outfit for women, with
sleeves that reach just below the elbows and a hem that comes within seven and
a half inches of the floor.  Parisian
dress makers respond derisively to the outfit, saying, “fellows in America are
always trying to suppress something.
First it is alcohol, then it is tobacco and now it is the liberty to
dress as one pleases.”  They further
characterize the outfit itself as “resembl(ing) a sack.”

20th - 12 IRA soldiers are killed in Clonmult, County Cork
by British soldiers and Auxiliaries who surrounded and ambushed them in a
house.  The soldiers alleged a false
surrender and killed everyone in the house, as well as wounding four other
Volunteers and capturing a further four, with only one able to escape.  Suspecting an informer is to blame, the IRA
kill six suspected informers in the following week.

24th - Famous Anti-Saloon League campaigner William Anderson
unleashes a tirade against New York City Mayor Hylan and NYPD Commissioner
Richard E. Enright, who both were in attendance at the Police Lieutenants’
Benevolent Association’s annual dinner the night before, where alcohol was
clearly being served and a retired police lieutenant was arrested later in the
night for disorderly conduct and intoxication.
Anderson calls Hylan “a blatherskite monument to the political folly of
the electorate of New York City,” and further lambasts both men for presiding
over a “drunken orgy.”

25th - After heavy fighting, Soviet forces capture Tbilisi,
the Georgian capital and declare the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.  They continue to march forward, aiming to conquer
the rest of the dying state, which they soon do.

28th - The five IRA Volunteers captured using Mrs. Lindsay’s
information are executed by firing squad, along with one other Volunteer.

29th - In retaliation for the previous days executions, the
IRA shoot and kill 6 off-duty British soldiers and wound 5 more in numerous
attacks in Cork.

**March**

4th - President-Elect Warren G.
Harding takes the oath of office and assumes the Presidency.  His first official act is to banish the
sentries Wilson had placed to guard the White House and let the American public
roam the grounds as they please.  The act
seems to symbolize the return of the government to the people.

5th - Harry M. Daugherty, a
political insider, assumes the office of Attorney General of the United States.

6th - The Mayor of Limerick, George Clancy, former mayor
Michael O’Callaghan, and Volunteer Joseph O’Donoghue are shot dead in their
homes during the night by George Nathan, a British intelligence agent, assisted
by an Auxiliary.

10th - A large British force carries out a large scale sweep
at Nadd, Cork, finding and surrounding a house with six members of the IRA
inside.  Two are able to escape, but the
other four surrender, at which point they are immediately shot dead.

11th - After some debate, Dail
Eireann officially declares war on Britain.

19th - The IRA Cork no. 3 Brigade, comprising roughly 100
men, under Tom Barry, engages 1200 British soldiers at Crossbarry, County
Cork.  The IRA are able to avoid capture,
inflicting between ten and thirty killed on the British side, losing 3
Volunteers, with 3 more wounded.

21st - The Kerry IRA attack a train at the Headford junction
near Killarney.  The British report 7
soldiers dead and 12 wounded, the IRA two Volunteers and three civilians dead.

**April**

3rd - Vincent Fouvarge, an IRA
informer, is shot dead near a golf course in London, England.  A note is left saying, “let spies and
traitors beware. -IRA.”

5th - New
York State Governor Nathan Miller signs the Mullan-Gage Enforcement Law, an
incredibly strict state-level equivalent of the Volstead Act which furthers the
powers of law enforcement as related to Prohibition by making it a crime to
carry liquor on one’s person without a permit and shifting to the accused the
burden of proof as to whether the liquor was owned legally.  It also mandates that violators be tried in
the Court of General Sessions, the main criminal court of New York State,
against the opposition of nearly every district attorney in the state, who
claim they will be inundated with liquor cases.
According to the press, the law effectively makes carrying a hip flask
in New York the legal equivalent of carrying an unlicensed handgun (which will
get you about one year worth of jail time).
Miller is careful to state that the NYPD, who had been trying to dodge
the bullet on Prohibition enforcement, will play a major part in enforcing the
Mullan-Gage Law.  William Anderson calls
it “the most amazing state enforcement law in the country,” while the *New York Times* publicly opposes it,
saying it would “require the placing of a policeman in every saloon.”  Prohibitionists around the country work to
pass similar laws in other states.

12th - A
week after the passage of the Mullan-Gage Law, New York City police have pursued
an aggressive anti-liquor campaign, making more than 400 Prohibition-related
arrests and seizing over a million dollars worth of illegal liquor.  Wayne Wheeler, the famous leader of the
Anti-Saloon League, personally extends his congratulations to Commissioner
Enright, adding “The whole country is watching with great interest your
splendid efforts.”  According to Enright,
the Mullan-Gage Law has doubled the workload of the New York City police
department.

17th - Massachusetts Attorney
General J. Weston Allen files petitions for the removal of Nathaniel A. Tufts
and Joseph C. Pelletier from their offices of District Attorney for Middlesex
and Suffolk Counties, respectively.  He
also files a petition for the disbarment of lawyer Daniel Coakley and former
District Attorney for Middlesex William Corcoran.  Further, Allen announces the upcoming trials
for Tufts and Pelletier for the taking of bribes, fraud, and blackmail to occur
before the five justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the first
time in 60 years for the Supreme Judicial Court to preside over any disbarment
proceedings.  Tufts, a *Mayflower*-descendant and Republican,
like Attorney General Allen, will be tried first, beginning in September.

23rd - Two Black and Tans are killed by two IRA gunmen in
central Belfast.  As they make their
escape, they exchange fire with other RIC men and two civilians are injured in
the crossfire.  Loyalist gunmen kill two
innocent Catholic civilians in reprisal, and further, uniformed RIC men
assassinate the Duffin brothers, well known Republican activists.

30th - New York newspaper the *Irish World* highlights a new trend in behavior in response to
Prohibition, noting that “one of the most surprising results of our new policy
is that many who were entirely indifferent to alcohol have begun to drink it
out of a sort of defiance of that kind of legislation, and because it requires
secrecy and smartness.”   Many other
papers and social commentators are noticing the same thing.

**May**

13-15th - A general election for the
parliament of Southern Ireland is held, with Sinn Fein winning 124 of new
parliament’s 128 seats unopposed.  Its
elected members refuse to take their seats, however, meaning that under the
Government of Ireland Act, Southern Ireland’s parliament would be dissolved and
it ruled as a crown colony.  The English
government is unable to establish control, however, and over the 14th and the
15th of May, the IRA kills 15 policemen, marking the complete failure of the
Coalition Government’s Irish policy.

19th - The
Emergency Quota Act is signed into law by President Harding, restricting the
amount of incoming European immigrants allowed into the U.S. to 3 % of the
number of residents in the U.S. from the same country as the incoming immigrant
in the Census of 1890.  Said to be a
measure to protect American culture, the Act itself cuts legal immigration
rates by more than half and is harshly criticized as being enacted in response
to the millions of Jews fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe.  The fact that the Census used as a benchmark
is arbitrarily 1890, before the influx of Jewish immigrants, lends credence to
this accusation.

24th -
Northern Ireland holds its first general election, with Sir James Craig elected
the 1st Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.

25th - The
Dublin IRA occupies and burns the Custom House, the center of local city
government in Dublin.  The building and
IRA are quickly surrounded by hundreds of British soldiers, resulting in the deaths
of 5 IRA Volunteers and 3 civilians and the capture of about 80 IRA
Volunteers.  This remains the biggest
single loss for the IRA during the course of the war so far.

**June**

2nd - The IRA’s West Mayo Flying
Column ambushes a convoy of RIC and Black and Tans, killing nine and wounding
four.  The remaining 17 surrender and
their arms are seized.  Despite official
allowance and the fact that the Black and Tans are known for particularly
brutal retaliation, the remaining prisoners are allowed to go free, resulting
in much of the surrounding countryside going into hiding.  The IRA themselves avoid retaliation by
hiding for a time in safe houses scattered throughout the countryside.  Despite the setback in Dublin 9 days
previous, the IRA are increasingly successful in their guerrilla warfare
against the British.

6th - The British government calls
off their policy of house burnings as official reprisals against rebel activity
in Ireland, making a reconciliatory gesture in an attempt to establish
diplomacy and to ease the international criticism aimed at them for their
actions in Ireland.

10th - The
Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 is signed into law by President Harding, a
landmark bill that establishes the framework for a modern federal budget,
rather like budgetary boards for businesses.
Specifically, it creates the Bureau of the Budget, a subsidiary of the
Department of the Treasury, to overlook the preparation of the annual federal
budget and to supervise its administration in the various agencies of the
Executive Branch.  Charles G. Dawes,
former Comptroller of the Currency under McKinley and former General, serving
during the Great War, is announced as the head of the new Bureau.  The act is part of the new view of politics
taken by the Harding administration, not only friendly to business but as like
business as possible, a view that Dawes agrees with and enforces.

22nd - King George V of England,
making the first such gesture by the British government in response to the
Irish War of Independence, delivers a speech to the Parliament of Northern
Ireland, calling on “all Irishmen to pause, stretch out the hand of forbearance
and conciliation, to forgive and to forget, and to join in making for the land
they love a new era of peace, contentment, and goodwill.”

24th - The British Coalition
Government’s Cabinet decides to propose talks with the leaders of Sinn Fein.

27th - The Black Sox trial begins in
Chicago with the selection of jurors.

**July**

2nd - Irish-American heavyweight champion of the world Jack
Dempsey defeats challenger Georges Carpentier in a four round knockout while
91,000 people watch, the largest audience ever assembled in boxing
history.  It is also the first fight
broadcast nationally via the radio, reaching thousands more.

-Long deferred due to political haggling over American
membership in the League of Nations (which didn’t happen) President Harding
finally signs a resolution declaring peace with Germany.

4th - Thousands of ethnic New Yorkers march against
Prohibition in a protest parade up Fifth Avenue.  The march includes people of Irish, Italian,
German, and Negro descent, among others, all carrying American flags and
holding signs protesting their treatment under Prohibition.  Luminaries like New York Mayor Hylan,
veterans groups, a contingent from the Grand Army of the Republic and others
march with them.

9th - A truce is reached between Eamon de Valera, political
leader of Southern Ireland, Michael Collins, military leader of Southern
Ireland, and David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the UK, to be effective July
11th.

10th - The IRA stage an ambush in Raglan Street in Belfast,
killing two policemen, sparking a riot in west Belfast, a pitched fight between
Catholics and Protestants in the region.
16 civilians, 11 Catholics and 5 Protestants, lose their lives and 161
houses are destroyed, 150 of which were Catholic owned.  The riots and shootings continue over the
next two days, causing the deaths of four more civilians.

-A fifth child, and third daughter, is born to Rose Kennedy,
daughter of former Boston mayor John Fitzgerald.  She is named Eunice Kennedy.  Mrs. Kennedy’s husband, a banker named Joseph
P. Kennedy, away on business at this time, is reportedly “very happy.”

11th - The truce goes into effect.  Most IRA Volunteers consider it to be a
temporary respite, and continue recruiting and training new Volunteers.  Official violence continues in Northern
Ireland and unofficial violence continues in Southern Ireland.

14th - Negotiations for a treaty between the UK and the
Irish begin.

19th - Former Vice Presidential Candidate Franklin D.
Roosevelt is denounced for his actions as Assistant Secretary to the Navy in
1919, along with then Secretary to the Navy Josephus Daniels, by the Senate
Committee for Naval Affairs.  The
Committee accuses both men of using “enlisted men...as participants in immoral
practices for the purpose of obtaining evidence,” which practices are “of an
unprintable nature.”  The committee also
makes public the findings of a naval court-martial, which reported that
Daniels’ and Roosevelt’s actions in a particular investigation were
“reprehensible.”  Roosevelt rejects the
denunciation, claiming it was delivered by the two Republican members of the
Committee, while the Democratic member issued a minority opinion.  He said further, “This business of using the
navy as a football of politics has got to stop.”

22nd - Assistant State Attorney George Gorman, lead prosecutor
in the Black Sox trial, reveals that the confessions of former White Sox
players Cicotte, Jackson and Williams, have disappeared.  He further casts aspersions on Arnold
Rothstein as the culprit.  The case
against the players and the gamblers begins to crumble.

23rd - Responding to growing public anger over the
Mullan-Gage Law, particularly to Commissioner Enright’s decision to post police
officers in cabarets and nightclubs which had repeatedly violated Prohibition
laws, resulting in hundreds of officers effectively doing nothing for entire
shifts, New York City’s Corporation Counsel announces that the city will not
defend police officers in any court action related to illegal searches stemming
from Mullan-Gage enforcement, stating, “New York is still at the mercy of the
Federal enforcement crew...but it need not also be at the mercy of its own
police.”

- In response to the pleas of New York judges and
prosecutors concerning the enormous backlog of as yet untried Mullan-Gage cases
(almost 10,000 by now, mostly held up because the law required these to be
felony jury trials), Governor Miller calls a special session of the State
Supreme Court to address that backlog.
Called the “rum court” by the press, this session treats Mullan-Gage
violations as misdemeanors with felony penalties, allowing the cases to be
tried without juries.  The special
session disposes of hundreds of Prohibition cases with a 70 percent conviction
rate over seven weeks, but still leaves 300 cases untried as it ends, with the
backlog growing back daily.

30th - New York City Police Detective Charles Tighe goes
berserk after four men ignore his announcement of a raid in a Ninth Avenue
Saloon, smashing up the saloon and beating customers with his nightstick.  When a crowd gathers to see what the commotion
is about, he attacks them, beating people at random, even women and children,
according to eyewitnesses.   He appears
to be intoxicated.  After being subdued
by other local police, he is charged with assaulting 40 people and sentenced to
two years in Sing Sing.  This is one
instance in a pattern of police abuse connected with Prohibition across the
country.

**August**

2nd - After deliberating just three
hours, the jury for the Black Sox trial returns a verdict of not guilty for all
those accused.

3rd -
Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Commissioner of Baseball, announces that he is
banning the eight now-acquitted Black Sox players from the game for life,
despite the acquittals.

16th - 18th - Writing for *The Times*, Philip Graves exposes *The Protocols of the Elders of Zion* as a
forgery, a plagiarism of Maurice Joly’s 1864 political satire *Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and*
Montesquieu.

22nd - William J. Burns, celebrated and controversial
detective, head of the William J. Burns International Detective Agency, is
confirmed as Director of the BI.

25th - Franklin D. Roosevelt is stricken by a disease,
possibly polio, and hospitalized.  It
seems likely he will make a full recovery.

27th - Mabel Walker Willebrandt becomes the first woman to
serve as Assistant Attorney General of the United States.  She is the highest ranking woman in the
federal government and oversees the division of the Justice Department
specifically dealing with federal taxation, federal prisons and the enforcement
of Prohibition.

28th - The newest Fatty Arbuckle film, *Crazy to Marry*, is released.  It’s an immediate success, continuing the
incredible career of its star, now a multi-millionaire.

30-31st - 18 people are killed during street battles in
Belfast, 9 Protestants and 9 Catholics.

**September**

4th
- *The New York Times* reprints the
articles from *The Times* exposing *The Protocols of the Elders of Zion* as a
forgery. Henry Ford’s *The Dearborn*
Independent *continues to publish its* International
Jew *articles.*

8th - The
first Miss America Beauty Pageant is held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, with
the winning contestants of other beauty pageants across the country competing
there to become “Miss America.” Though promoters are careful to stress the
wholesome, traditional look of the woman on display, they nonetheless parade
before 100,000 spectators in their bathing suits.  Margaret Gorman of Washington, D.C., wins the
contest, of particular note being the one-piece bathing suit she wore in
contrast to other girls, dressed in bathing suits closer in resemblance to
summer dresses and not as form fitting as the one-piece. The one-piece bathing
suit skyrockets to popularity among Americans.

- Aspiring actress Virginia Rappe
dies of a ruptured bladder in Hollywood. Her friend, “Bambina” Maude Delmont,
reports to the police that they had both been at a party three days earlier,
during which comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle raped her. Police surmise his
weight during the act caused her bladder to rupture, leading to her death, and
charge him with the rape and murder of Virginia Rappe.

24th -
Violence continues in Belfast, with a grenade being thrown at a loyalist mob as
they advanced towards a nationalist part of the city; 2 are killed and over 20
injured.

31st - The
newspapers have picked up the story of the death of Virginia Rappe,
particularly William Randolph Hearst’s *San*
Francisco Examiner*, covering the story in lurid, graphic detail, reporting*
that Arbuckle crushed Rappe with his weight and raped her with a foreign
object, commonly reported to be a long block of ice. The newspapers, and most
of their reading public, assume Arbuckle’s guilt. Hearst is said to boast the
scandal is selling more newspapers than the sinking of the Lusitania.

**October**

1st - District Attorney Nathaniel
Tufts is refereeing at a football game in New Jersey, a part time occupation of
his, when he is handed the news of the decision of his trial.  He is convicted of “wilful misconduct,” and removed
from his position as District Attorney of Middlesex County.  He receives the news stoically.  The trial of District Attorney Joseph C.
Pelletier is set to begin on the 20th of December, 1921.

2nd - Joseph Pelletier shocks Boston
with the announcement that he will run for mayor in the upcoming December
election. In a speech announcing his intentions, Pelletier blames his recent
troubles on the actions of “bigots” in the Yankee dominated Watch and Ward
Society, Boston Bar Association, and Good Government Association. He declares
this upcoming mayoral contest to be a battle between the “blue bloods and the
new bloods”, a decision of “whether the classes or the masses will rule.” Also
running is John R. Murphy, former head of the Finance Commission that
investigated Curley’s first term for financial improprieties and fire
commissioner under incumbent Mayor Peters, as well as two other candidates,
Charles H. Baxter, a Back Bay Republican expected to go nowhere, and Charles
O’Connor, school committeeman, businessman and recent newspaper owner, who is
also expected to garner little attention. Finally, former mayor James Michael
Curley is running for his second term. It is speculated that the popularity of
Curley and Pelletier among the same population, Irish-American voters, could be
their undoing and result in a win for Murphy, the GGA endorsed candidate.

9th - The delegation from Dail Eireann arrives in London,
negotiations begin in earnest.

- Prohibition agents in New York
almost start a riot when they attempt to force their way into Game 4 of the
World Series, between the Yankees and the Giants, by claiming they are on
“official business.” When denied entry by ticket takers, they refuse to leave
until the police forcibly remove them from the line while angry fans look on.
Federal Prohibition Commissioner Roy Haynes issues new orders barring agents
from using their badges to gain admission to places of amusement.

14th - Numerous Boston newspapers
publish “A Letter to the Women of Boston from Mary E. Curley,” advocating for
the election of James Michael Curley, based on his record, particularly in
relation to the immigrant and ethnic poor of the city and in support of women’s
causes, and also because of his “warmheartedness,” his genuine love and respect
for the people of Boston. Curley himself calls for Irish-American women to
register and vote so as to counteract the registration drive among women
conducted by the GGA against Curley.

15th - A Bronx grand jury, totally
discouraged by the complete disregard for constitutional rights and proper
search procedures shown by police enforcing the Mullan-Gage Law, subpoenas
Commissioner Enright to personally explain the tactics of his officers.
Unsatisfied by his explanation, the grand jury publicly recommends that the
Mullan-Gage law be repealed.

21st - *The Sheik*, an adaptation of the best-selling Edith Maude Hull novel
of the same name, premieres. The film is a romance between a British girl and
the Arab Sheik who captures her. Controversial for a toned down rape scene
(which was decidedly not toned down in the book, and which controversy was at
least half as much due to what some critics felt was a disservice to the
“moral” of the book by obscuring the rape, a key part of the British girl’s
necessary submission to male authority) and the following romance between the
rapist, the Sheik, and the rape victim, the British girl, the film is an
instant and abiding success, securing star Rudolph Valentino’s status as a film
star and sex symbol for decades to come. Partially out of faithfulness to the
book and partially out of satisfying film censors, who would never allow a
miscegenous relationship to be portrayed on screen, the film climaxes with the
revelation of the Arab’s British and Spanish parentage.

26th - Frances Scott Fitzgerald,
child of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, is born.

**November**

11th - The Unknown Soldier, an unidentified American soldier
brought back from France, is interred in a three level marble tomb as a
monument to all the soldiers who have fought and died for America. A solemn
ceremony is held in their honor, and the speeches given are broadcast to crowds
assembled throughout the United States.
A radio craze begins sweeping the nation.

11th - 18th - Margaret Sanger, renowned and reviled birth
control activist, holds the First American Birth Control Conference in New York
City.  As the last day draws to a close,
police raid the meeting, though Sanger is soon released.  The American Birth Control League is founded.

12th - Delegates from the United States, Japan, England,
China, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal meet in Washington
for the Washington Conference for the Limitation of Armaments, called the “Arms
Parley” by the press. Convened to discuss the prodigious amount of ship
building going on in the U.S., Britain, and Japan, the Conference hopes to head
off any future conflicts over the Pacific Ocean, in which all the represented
nations have some stake. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, chairman of
the conference, opens with a detailed program of what he hopes to achieve, that
being a ten-year naval holiday among all represented nations, during which no
ships would be built; the abandonment of all capital-shipbuilding plans; the
scrapping, by the U.S., Britain, and Japan, of almost two million tons of ships
built or building; and the limitation of replacement kept to a 5-5-3, ratio, of
the U.S., Britain, and Japan, respectively. His daring speech and proposal is
met with thunderous applause.

14th - The trial of Roscoe Arbuckle, charged with
manslaughter, begins. It quickly takes on circus proportions, with Arbuckle
fans booing prosecution witnesses and cheering defense witnesses, particularly
Arbuckle himself. His estranged wife, Minta Durfee, appears regularly in the
courtroom to support Arbuckle. District Attorney Brady parades a slew of
witnesses, a local nurse saying it was very likely Arbuckle raped Rappe and
bruised her body while doing so, a criminologist claiming to have found
Arbuckle’s fingerprints smeared with Rappe’s blood where the party took place.
However, the local nurse, Betty Campbell, reveals in cross-examination that
Brady threatened to charge her with perjury if she didn’t testify against
Arbuckle. The defense also produces a hotel maid, who testified that she had
both cleaned the hotel room before the investigation even began and had not
found any blood in it. Numerous doctors attested that the ruptured bladder
could have been caused by any number of things, even cancer. Arbuckle presents
a good image when taking the witness stand, answering clearly and directly.

21st - 25th - 30 people are killed during violence in
Belfast.

30th - With Boston’s mayoral race coming closer to the
election and Curley, Pelletier, and Murphy still going strong, the city is in a
political furor. Predictions are that Curley and Pelletier will tear each other
apart, allowing for Murphy, backed by the GGA and therefore assured of the
votes of the Brahmins and Republicans, to assume the mayoralty. In the midst of
this a local paper makes a stunning surprise announcement - a press agent
boasting that Curley is so confident of his victory and his rightness for the
people of Boston that he’s willing “to leave it to anyone in Boston who knows
anything about the fight” to pick the best candidate to go against Murphy. A
phone call to Mrs. Curley confirms the candidate’s willingness to put the fate
of the city to an arbitrator, to decide between Curley and Pelletier, the
latter hotly engaged in a legal contest over allegations of fraud, bribery, and
extortion.

- James Craig blames Sinn Fein for the recent violence in
Belfast and calls for increased enrollment and police enforcement. The
Divisional Commissioner of the RIC in Northern Ireland orders his men to regard
the truce as non-existent.

**December**

1st - Pelletier has already named
his representative, a Daniel Gallagher, to meet with Curley’s man and decide
who should decide between them. Curley’s press agents announce that Curley has
chosen Teddy Glynn, a stalwart of his for the last couple decades, as his
representative. Glynn immediately makes himself scarce, though his flaming red
hair renders his attempt almost comical in nature.

- *The Scientific*
Monthly *publishes “Studies in Infant Psychology,” a study conducted and*
written by Dr. John B. Watson and Rosalie Raynor Watson. It details the
soon-to-be infamous “little Albert study,” wherein a baby is conditioned to
react in fear towards random stimuli (a rat, a rabbit) by clanging on a pipe
whenever he touches it. It’s considered a fairly significant, if controversial,
advance in the scientific study of behaviorism.

2nd - Teddy Glynn is found out and meets with Daniel
Gallagher, representing Curley and Pelletier, respectively. Negotiations
conclude with the announcement of an arbitrator, who will hear arguments from
Glynn and Gallagher in support of their candidates at the Parker House after
accepting signed withdrawal statements from both candidates, and then decide.
The man chosen for this is William Monaghan, elected leader of Ward 2 and long
time Democratic powerhouse in the city.

3rd - The *New York Times* declares that corrupt, brutal, and undisciplined
Prohibition agents have turned Prohibition itself into a farce. William Ross,
the United States attorney for Brooklyn, complains of the agents he has
encountered that “many of the (bureau’s) men were absolutely crooked, and a
still larger number absolutely inefficient.”

4th - The
trial of Roscoe Arbuckle concludes. After 44 straight hours of deliberation,
the jury returns deadlocked with a 10-2 not guilty verdict, and a mistrial is
declared. Arbuckle must go to trial again. Members of the jury reveal that one
holdout was a woman named Helen Hubbard who had stated in private that she
would vote guilty “until hell freezes over,” refusing to discuss it or even
look over any of the court documents.

6th - Negotiations for the
Anglo-Irish Treaty are finished. The provisions are that British troops will
withdraw from most of Ireland, and that the Irish Free State would be a
self-governing dominion within the British Commonwealth of Nations, with the
British Monarch as the head of that dominion. Members of the Irish Free State’s
Parliament are required to take an Oath of Allegiance to the Irish Free State,
with a secondary part to “be faithful to His Majesty King George V, his heirs
and successors by law, in virtue of the common citizenship.” Northern Ireland
is given the option of withdrawing from the Irish Free State, with a Boundary
Commission created in the event of withdrawal to decide where the boundary
between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland will be. Britain will retain
control of a number of ports for its own security and the Treaty will hold
superior status in Irish law, meaning it supersedes any future Irish National
Constitutions in the event of a conflict.

- Northern Ireland immediately opts
out of the Irish Free State.

13th - James Michael Curley defeats
John Murphy in the race for Mayor of Boston. Beginning in March, he will serve
his second term in the office.

14th - The Dail opens debate on the
Anglo-Irish Treaty. The debates are caustic, with the current Irish government
split nearly in half on whether to approve it or not. In particular, Eamon de
Valera stands against it, and Michael Collins stands for it.

18th - *The New York Times* reports a story containing the words of one New
York Prohibition agent, stating, “Give me the money and I’ll dry up the place
in a jiffy...But it will take money and plenty of it.” He further stated that
enforcing Prohibition in New York was possible, but that “it will take a great
deal more money than the Government will ever consent to spend to make it dry.”
The Bureau of Prohibition continues to be totally underfunded nation-wide.

- Reflecting on the recent
re-election of James Michael Curley for Mayor, the *New York Times* states, “Presumably the GGA connotes in too many
Boston minds the Back Bay, evening dress, Rolls Royces and ‘the interests,’”
equating Curley’s victory to his skillful technique of aligning his enemies
with groups like the GGA, and aligning the GGA with anti-Catholic, anti-ethnic,
anti-immigrant and anti-Irish sentiment.

20th - The trial of District
Attorney Joseph C. Pelletier begins. Former District Attorney William Corcoran,
under indictment for the same crimes as Pelletier, Coakley and Tufts, turns
state’s evidence, testifying against the other three and confessing to three
counts of accepting bribes and obstruction of justice. Summing up the trial,
Attorney General Allen excoriates Pelletier, stating that, “The sword of
justice was placed in his hands and he has made of it a highwayman’s club. He
has used the scales of justice to weigh the price of corrupt favors.” Attorney
for the Defense Senator James A. Reed of Missouri delivers a four hour
summation, in which he suggests that the entire motive for the trial is
anti-Catholic prejudice and a Watch and Ward vendetta, citing Pelletier’s
exemplary service in the Knights of Columbus and the naming by Pope Benedict XV
of Pelletier as a knight of the Order of Saint Gregory, a high honor. He
finishes by comparing Pelletier to “a gallant steed” and the Watch and Ward
society to “a lizard (who) fastened his crooked teeth into his flank and there
hung on until, at last, the glorious steed, whose feet had spurned desert sands,
whose nostrils had drunk in the breath of morning, was dragged down to death.”

25th - William J. Burns announces that he’s cracked the Wall
Street bombing, blaming the attack on Lenin and Communist spies in New York, of
the latter each were paid $30,000 for the job. However, his “source” is quickly
exposed as a swindler who worked as a professional stool pigeon for the Burns
Detective Agency in New York, and the evidence is revealed to be a complete
invention. The case remains unsolved.

- Coco Chanel, the famous Parisian clothes designer mainly
responsible for the “look” of the flapper, and the subsequent revolution in
women’s fashion and social acceptability, releases Chanel No. 5, a perfume line
meant to complement her clothing designs, the Chanel Suit. This release is a
further step towards uninhibited, willful sexual expression as part of the new
independence of the modern woman.