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[Female voice: "Keep up to date with the past on the Hundred Years Ago Show, with Mark Steyn"]
Mark Steyn
Happy Birthday, Brazil. The Maharajah is dead, long live the Maharajah, and congratulations Miss America. It's September 1922.
Your world news update: the messy aftermath of the Great War continues. In Germany, protests against the cost of living are getting out of hand. In Eberswalde, about an hour's ride from Berlin, demonstrators began looting shops, and police took action. A score of citizens have been shot and one is dead.
It's not just the poor who are turning to violence. In the capital itself the constabulary have closed the Reichsbank after fisticuffs broke out during a run on the bank by sitting employers fighting over marks to meet overdue payrolls. Two and a half billion marks are being printed every day but that's enough to satisfy only about a tenth of the demand. As the cashiers' windows closed, violence erupted and the police arrived. The businessmen were all expelled from the bank and its doors locked.
That's the bad news. The good news is that the German Republic has a new national anthem.
["Deutschlandlied" plays]
If you're thinking, wait a minute, isn't that the Austro Hungarian anthem? Well you're right but President Ebert has now proclaimed it the National Anthem of the Weimar Republic. It has the same tune by Joseph Haydn but uses Lyrics by Auguste Heinrich Hoffmann, "Das Lied der Deutschen"the song of the Germans. Only the third verse, Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit, unity and justice and freedom, will be sung, although there are those who think the first stanza is far more stirring, Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, Über alles in der Welt. Germany, Germany, above everything, above everything in the world.
[Wine, Women and Song, plays]
Wine, Women and Song, the famous Viennese waltz by Johann Strauss II. Is there anything more Austrian, but it's looking like Austrians will have to make do with just two thirds of those indispensable elements. The government has just issued a decree forbidding, except in the city of Vienna, the sale of alcohol in restaurants after 10 p.m. and in bars after midnight. The newspapers are calling it a first step towards prohibition.
A new law has gone into effect in Poland as part of the state's determination to stop the spread of venereal diseases. The government has amended the basic sanitation law to more or less ban brothels and require prostitutes to operate as individual practitioners with no more than two ladies of the evening in any one house, so restrictions on the procurement of wine in Austria, on the procurement of women in Poland. Let us hope they still allow us the song.
The Greek army has begun to evacuate Smyrna and has asked the victorious Turks for an armistice in the Greco-Turkish war, but the Turkish commander Mustapha Kemal is not yet done with the woeful Greeks. He has reasserted the Turkish claim to East Thrace and declared that as part of any settlement of the war, territory ceded to Greece just two years ago, must be returned to Turkey.
["Hindustan" by Campbell and Burr plays]
Hindustan, my Hindustan, where we stopped to rest our tired caravan
Hindustan, my Hindustan, where the painted peacock proudly spreads his fan
[Song ends]
His Highness the Maharaja of Jaipur GCSI GCIE GCVO GBE is dead at 60. Madho Singh II was the adopted son of the previous Raja, Ram Singh II and if you're curious about an hereditary throne, passed on through adoption; it appears to be becoming something of a pattern in Jaipur. Madho Singh II sired at least 65 children by various concubines, but as an adopted child himself, he was very wary of legitimate heirs and took great care not to impregnate any of his five wives. Last year he adopted a nine-year-old boy who now succeeds him as Maharaja of Jaipur, Man Singh II.
["The Sheik of Araby" plays]
Elsewhere in the British Empire, His Majesty's government is now implementing its constitution for Mandatary Palestine. It invests executive authority in a British High Commissioner assisted by an elected Legislative Council. As to the judicial branch there will be both civil and religious courts.
A terrible disaster at The Haig Colliery at Whitehaven on England's northwestern coast. An awful, sudden explosion has killed 39 miners. And for the second time in a decade, the women of Whitehaven wait at the pit head, with babies in their arms and tiny hands clinging to their skirts for news of whether their own husband and family breadwinner is among the dead.
Less fatal mining news: in the United States an agreement to end the nationwide coal mining strike has been reached between the United Mine Workers of America and the policy committee of the Anthracite Coal Operators. It comes after an appeal by President Harding to both sides to accept "in the name of public welfare," a proposal to end the strike before the onset of winter. It was made by the two senators from Pennsylvania. The basic agreement extends the terms of the contract between labor and management to at least August 31 next year.
It is only six years since John Hessin Clarke was appointed to the US Supreme Court but it has not been a happy tenure. He found the transition from autonomous trial court judge to 1/9th of a more collegiate bench difficult and unsatisfactory, and he has announced his resignation effective upon his 65th Birthday, September 18. Mr. Justice Clarke intends to resume his progressive activism and campaign for bringing the United States into the League of Nations.
["Rio Nights" plays]
Rio nights are full of silent splendor
When the tropic moon is in the sky
[Clip ends]
Oh those Rio nights. Brazil is celebrating 100 years since its independence from Portugal in 1822. Observances began with a 21-gun salute at midnight, followed by parades through the day in the streets of Rio de Janeiro.
You can now love her by radio in Rio because Brazil took the occasion of its 100th birthday, to inaugurate its very first radio station, which came on air with what the President has now proclaimed is officially the national anthem.
["Hino Nacional Brasileiro," plays]
Well, the tune was composed in 1831 but the words have varied somewhat over the years. Now the President has clarified the official words and the state has purchased the copyright to the lyrics from their author, Osório Duque-Estrada.
["Hello, Hawaii, How Are You?" by Billy Murray, plays]
Captain Jinks one night on Broadway, all alone.
Read the news about the wireless telephone
Pretty soon his thoughts began to stray
Over 7000 miles away.
Then he went and drew a whole month's pay to phone and say:
Hello, Hawaii, how are you?
Let me talk to Honolulu Lou
To ask her this
Give me a kiss
Give me a kiss
By wireless
Please state
I can't wait
To hear her reply
For I had to pawn
Every little thing I own
To talk from New York
Through the wireless telephone
Oh, Hello, Hawaii, how are you?
Good-bye!
[Song ends]
Hello, Hawaii, how are ya? Mighty fine thanks if you're referring to the new theater on the corner of Pauahi and Bethel Streets in Honolulu. The Hawaii Theater is said to be the most opulent theater west of San Francisco, boasting 1700 seats and two wings of private loges. They're calling it the pride of the Pacific.
First Lieutenant Jimmy Doolittle is a daring and inspirational pilot with the U.S. military. He has just flown America's first cross country flight and in a single day. His modified de Havilland DH-4B departed Pablo Beach, Florida at three minutes past 10 p.m. and landed 21 hours and 19 minutes later at Rockwell Field in San Diego California, having made just one stop for refueling at Kelly Field in Texas
["Round on the End and Hi in the Middle" plays]
Round on the end and "Hi" in the middle.
Tell me if you know.
Don't you think that's a cute little riddle
Round on the end and "Hi" in the middle
You can find it on the map if you look high and low.
The O's are round, it's high in the middle.
O-H-I-O That's the riddle!
Round on the end and "Hi" in the middle.
O-HI-O!
[Song ends]
It would be ungallant to suggest that Miss Mary Catherine Campbell of Columbus is like her state, round on the end and high in the middle, but she is certainly a most pulchritudinous embodiment of Ohio, and it has paid off for her in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Last year. 16-year-old Margaret Gorman, Miss District of Columbia was declared The Most Beautiful Bathing Girl in America and won $100. Everybody enjoyed the competition, except for that rather cumbersome title. Now the Most Beautiful Bathing Girl in America has been rechristened simply Miss America. And the winner is Mary Katherine Campbell, Miss Columbus, who triumphed over more than 500 competitors, including in the final round last year's winner Miss Gorman. Mary Catherine or Miss America as we should all call her, will return to Ohio with $5,000 and a most impressive Golden Mermaid Trophy.
["Feather Your Nest," plays]
The birds are humming, "go feather your nest"
Tomorrow's coming so feather your nest
It's time for mating, no use hesitating
The parson is waiting, he knows just whether it's best
In a home for two, love, together we'll rest
Where only true love, can weather the test
Don't be delaying, the organ is playing
The whole world is saying, "Go feather your nest"
[Song ends]
Very few homeowners feather their nest as Sarah Winchester did. Mrs. Winchester was the widow of William Wirt Winchester, and as such the majority owner of the Winchester Firearms Company. She was reported to be the wealthiest woman in the world, but believed herself to be haunted by the spirits of those killed by the famous Winchester rifle and that the only way to exorcise these ghosts was to add new wings to her mansion in California, because only the sound of continuous construction could banish the interlopers. There was only so much one can add. As a result, there are handsome staircases that ascend to nowhere. On the other hand, there are those who say this was nothing to do with Mrs. Winchester's fears of the numerous dead from her company's products, but due to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, after which the mansion, which lost three of its seven stories, was somewhat hastily repaired by incompetent contractors taking advantage of her boundless wealth. Sarah Winchester is dead at 83.
Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Albany was the widow of Queen Victoria's youngest son and an aunt of King George V. Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont had a happy marriage, but one lasting less than two years before her hemophiliac husband died after a fall in Cannes, leaving the Duchess four months pregnant with their second child. That son was to prove a huge disappointment to the royal family. He is now the Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha and was so pro German in the late war, that last year he was stripped of his British titles. A mother's love cannot be extinguished though. Her Royal Highness was visiting her no longer royal son in the Tyrol when she was felled by a heart attack. The Duchess of Albany is dead at 61. Fortunately, her daughter, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, is proving a great credit to the royal family.
In stark contrast to the Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha, was Lt. General Pratap Singh, Maharaja of the princely state of Idar and also regent of Jodhpur. He could have led a pampered life in India but instead after being mentioned in dispatches during the Second Afghan war, he became a lifelong soldier of the Empire commanding the Jodhpur troops during the Boxer Rebellion in China, serving as honorary commandant of the Imperial Cadet Corps and even in his 70s, during the late World War, commanding his regiment in France, in Belgium and in Palestine. His Highness is dead at 76.
James Young was a successful Scottish footballer, the popular right half of the winning Celtic team of the early years of the century. A knee injury ended his career six years ago. Now a motorcycle accident has ended his life. Mr. Young was 40.
William S. Halsted was one of the so called Big Four Physicians who founded the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He was a pioneering surgeon who introduced many things we now take for granted, such as beginning in 1889 rubber gloves for those doctors and nurses in an operating room. And also localized anesthesia. Experimenting on himself with respect to the latter left him with a lifelong addiction to morphine and cocaine, but it did not impair his surgical skills. He invented the residency system for training medical school graduates in hospital and in 1882 he performed the first "radical" mastectomy in the United States, by which cancer in the female breast is aggressively treated by removing the entire breast. He was a cautious surgeon when operating within the body. Dr. William Mayo, founder of the Mayo Clinic, once remarked that Dr. Halsted took so long to perform procedures that the patients usually healed before he had a chance to close the incision. William Halted is dead at 69 of bronchopneumonia.
[Edelweiss Glide Waltz plays]
Ah is there anything more evocative of Austria than that lovely tune, the Edelweiss Glide about the famous Alpine flower? We play it in honor of a lady of distinguished Austrian Hungarian and indeed British lineage. Agathe Whitehead's paternal grandfather, Robert Whitehead, gave his name to the Whitehead torpedo, the first ever self propelled torpedo. On her mother's side, Agathe was the niece of Prince Victor II, Duke of Ratibor and a cousin of Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia. Shortly after her birth, the family home was honored by a visit from no less than the Emperor Franz Josef. On February the 10th 1909, the 17-year-old Miss Whitehead was invited to christen the Austro Hungarian submarine U5. At the celebratory ball later that evening, she danced with the u-boat's commander, George von Trapp. Two years later, she and Baron von Trapp married and had seven children. Last Christmas, Scarlet Fever swept through the area and afflicted five of their children. Their mother spent seven months in hospital in Vienna, and then convalesced in Hungary after coming home just a week ago. Agathe Baroness von Trapp is dead at 31, leaving her husband to raise a septet of young children without a mother.
And that's the way of the world, September 1922.
[The Hundred Years Ago Show is a production of Mark Steyn Enterprises and Oak Hill Media. All rights reserved.]
