Strange Times 110: Women Help Women
Strange Times is a newsletter that explores the weirdest news of 1921, one day at a time. If you like it, you will probably like Westside Saints, my latest Jazz Age mystery novel, as well.
Today brings a declaration from Lady Astor and a bludgeoning near the Boardwalk. Cower from your relatives on…
April 20, 1921
In order to discourage postal robberies, the United States Post Office announces a plan to arm its workers with sawed-off shotguns left over from the Great War.
Perhaps in honor of 4/20, a gold star mother has accused a veterans hospital of dosing patients’ milk with “dope” in order to keep them docile.
Five days after climbing down a well to rescue her 14-month-old baby boy, the truly remarkable Mrs. Norman Gurling has given birth to a daughter.
The Weather: Generally fair and warmer today and Thursday; moderate, shifting winds.
When last we encountered Lady Astor, she was chasing down a burglar in the street. Today this fascinating person (who would one day become an accused Nazi sympathizer), is in the news to make two seperate points we can all surely agree on: women should help women, and Lady Astor’s sister is lazy.
LONDON, April 19.—“It is time women did something to help women instead of helping men,” said Lady Astor at a meeting held at her house today to discuss plans for a fete to take place in London on June 10 and 11.
“Since I have been working fourteen hours a day, I have got rather angry with my sister who is not working six,” she added in appealing to all women to help those who were unemployed.
From Atlantic City comes a tale of the black sheep of a German noble family, murdered for money or revenge or old fashioned Bavarian hate.
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J., April 19.—Advices from Germany today have established definitely that the man murdered here last Thursday was Heinrich von Pickler, whose mother was one of the noble Von Buelow family of Bavaria. At the same time developments in the investigation of his death, here and elsewhere, tend to strengthen the belief of the authorities that the victim, known many years in this country as Henry Buelow, was assassinated with either hatred or revenge, not robbery, as the motive. While the police still think several hundred dollars were taken from a secret waistcoat pocket, they believe the theft was but a blind to conceal the motives of the slayer.…
Belief in this “international” phase is based upon the discovery, already outlined, that Von Pickler, was driven out of Germany more than a quarter of a century ago by junker members of the Von Buelow family who despised him because a club foot made it impossible for him to serve in the Kaiser’s armies. It may yet be shown that that hatred pursued hum across the water, followed him in all the years he dwelt in obscurity in this country and intensified itself into a passion of destruction when Von Pickler in wartime refused to render such service to the Fatherland as many other Germans in this country gave.
Quarreled With Another German
It has been learned here that at the onset of the war Von Pickler quarreled bitterly with another German who was interned because of pernicious activities whereas Von Pickler so conducted himself that he was allowed liberty as a registered enemy alien. This man is reported to have been in Atlantic City within a week or so of the slaying and the police here hope to find him soon. They believe he may be able to throw some light on those who were unfriendly to Von Pickler.
The source of this hatred has been pretty well established by piecing together accumulated information about Von Pickler’s history. He had been banished from his own country by his own kin and later disinherited by an uncle whose estate in the normal course of things would have made him wealthy. Burning with a sense of injustice heaped upon him on account of a deformity, Von Pickler foreswore all allegiance to the Fatherland. Some of those with whom he associated in Atlantic City and elsewhere readily became cogs in the wartime plot and propaganda machine and, it is believed now, they never forgave a man to whom they turned in certainty of sympathy and help because of his family connections, only to find him cold to their appeals for aid. Private detectives aiding the prosecutor in his end of the investigation expect to establish that one such disgruntled Teuton made an overt threat to “get” Von Pickler.
The police are elated with the discovery of the identity of the wearer of the pepper and salt cap found near the body on the outskirts of the city. The cap lay near Von Pickler’s own. It bore the label of a local merchant who has been able to tell who bought it. Beyond saying that this man was “of foreign extraction,” the authorities would give no clue to him.
They said they expected to arrest him almost any hour and that then they would be able to learn whether the killing was done by one man, or whether the murder was the result of a conspiracy.
Intensifying the belief in a murder plot was the disclosure by a respected resident of this city that two nights before the killing he emerged from a house in the South End, where Buelow as he then was known, had been a frequent visitor. This man said that as he reached the curb a touring car stopped and a man invited him to ride. They started toward the heart of the city, and the man asked him if he worked at the St. Charles Hotel. It was there that Von Pickler was employed.
Citizen Resembled Von Pickler
When the citizen responded no, the other man manifestly lost interest in his “pick up,” but took his passenger to his destination. The man who told the story resembled Von Pickler to such an extent that he readily might have been mistaken for him in a gloomy street.…
Much detail follows about the police hunt for Von Pickler’s ex wife, and testimony from an acquaintance insisting that Von Pickler was a withdrawn man with an intense hatred for the Von Buehlows of Bavaria.
Nothing was brought out to clear the uncertainty as to whether Von Pickler was murdered where his body was found or whether the body was taken to that spot in an automobile. If it was committed on the spot, the authorities believe it was done with an automobile crank wielded by a powerful man, because of the extent to which the skull was crushed. If it happened elsewhere, it well may have been committed with a blackjack or hammer, more probably the last named instrument.
