Month: January 2020
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Carillon Tower Planned as a Victory Memorial
In 1920, a tower of bells to honor America’s WWI victory — one bell provided by each U.S. state — was planned for Washington, D.C. The structure was never built. Further to enhance the proposed carillon with a peculiar memorial significance, bills have been introduced in Congress to grant the use of 200,000 pounds of […]
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France’s New President
When Paul Deschanel was elected president of France in January 1920, this article predicted great things. Instead, his behavior proved so erratic that he resigned after seven months and entered a mental institution. Now if Paul Deschanel is to tread carefully in the footsteps of his excellent predecessors of the Third Republic, he has received […]
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Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Unhappiness
In the early months of Prohibition, a common phrase swept the land. “Of course, that was before the first of July,” one heard everywhere. Men winked at you in the street and whispered that “was before the first of July.” Children in the schools are taught ancient and modern American history now. Our ancient history […]
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Democratic Candidates: Hoover, Without a Political Past, With Palmer and McAdoo in Forefront of Discussion
10 months before the 1920 presidential election, there were three leading Democratic candidates. None would become that year’s nominee, but one would later be elected president… as a Republican. The three leading contenders were Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, former Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo, and former Federal Food Administrator Herbert Hoover. Prior to the […]
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Madame Ouija, Bolshevik of the Spirit World
The huge fad in 1920: ouija boards. Americans went crazy trying to communicate with the deceased and the great beyond. This January 1920 article hyperbolized and satirized the trend: Telephones are rapidly falling into the discard; men, women and children ring up Hyperspace and talk with their ancestors and their pre-natal souls. Books are being […]
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Paraguay, Land of the Tea With a “Kick”
This 1920 article predicted Paraguay’s beverage yerba mate “may become a habit some day in the United States.” It was not to be. The article also noted the country’s 10:1 female-male ratio. Today, it’s completely even. A celebrated and valuable product of the little inland South American Republican of Paraguay is “yerba maté,” made from the […]
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