Strange Times 196: Find Italians Guilty
I’m now planning on launching my new letter writing RPG, Letters to the Stars, on Kickstarter at the end of the month. I’ve just finished the layout and I think it’s the loveliest book I’ve ever made:
If you think this looks cool, ask Kickstarter to notify you when it launches.
Today we have historical injustice, skeptical aliens, mythical Turks and aquatic snakes. Just swim for it, dammit, on…
July 15, 1921
The Canadian Pacific railway allocates special smoking cars for women, saying the equality of the sexes must be respected while traveling.
The Mayor of Boston expresses approval for the one piece bathing suit, saying “I think the one-piece bathing suit is a sensible and comfortable thing for a woman to wear. I don’t know how they can swim at all in those clumsy suits.”
D.G. Reid squabbles with his ex-wife in court over their pet Pekingese. He claims the dog is part of the household furniture and must go to him, while his wife’s attorney insists that a Pekingese “is universally regarded as a woman’s pet,” and must go to Mrs. Reid.
The children of Boston march on City Hall demanding a reduction in the price of ice cream.
Led by Congressman C. Bascom Slemp, the Virginia Republican party bars all but three Black delegates from the state convention.
The Weather: Probably thunder showerse today; partly cloudy, lower temperature tomorrow.
Usually the historic events from 1921 that have stuck in the public memory find themselves to the front page of the Times. The fight for Irish independence, the debates over Versailles, the Tulsa Race Massacre—all of that stuff was recognized as extremely important as it was happening. With the exception of Tulsa, I usually don’t include those stories in the newsletter, because they’re too big to contain in a single item. So it’s interesting to see that the story of Sacco and Vanzetti, who would become a leftist cause as their execution neared, received such minor attention when the actual trial took place.
DEDHAM, Mass., July 14.—A jury after five hours’ deliberation today found Niccola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti guilty of first degree murder. The men were tried for the killing of a paymaster and his guard in a robbery at South Braintree in April, 1920.
Each of the two defendants was found guilty on each of two indictments, one of which charged them jointly with the murder of Payamster Frederick A. Parmenter and the other with the murder of Allessandro Berardelli, his guard.
When the verdict returned both men were calm but pale. A moment later, in an outburst, levelled his finger at the jury and cried: “You kill two innocent men,” repeating this again and again in English and Italian. “We are innocent,” he said. Vanzetti was silent.
Judge Webster Thayer extended to Nov. 1 the time allowed for filing exceptions taken by the defense with a view to an appeal. Sentence was temporarily stayed.
The jury was charged by Judge Webster Thayer to seek courage in its deliberations, “such as was typified by the American soldier boy on the battlefields of France.” The fact that the defendants had admitted fleeing the country to Mexico to evade the draft in 1917, and were admitted radicals in 1919-20, should not weigh with the jurors in finding the verdict, the Court cautioned.
“In the administration of our laws there is and should be no distinction between parties,” he said. “I therefore beseech you not to allow the fact that the defendants are Italians to influence or prejudice you in the least degree. They are entitled to the same rights and consideration as though their ancestors came over in the Mayflower.”
The Italian Consul, Marquis A. Ferrante, and Vice Consul Silvio Vitale, occupied the front seats in the bar enclosure during the Judge’s charge.
Foreigners don’t trust Americans, you say? [Glances at prior story.] I wonder why.
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J., July 14.—“So long as American crookedness is the foreigner’s idea of America it will be increasingly difficult to Americanize.”
This was the substance of an address by James Hatton of Bayonne, Chairman of welfare work for the Standard Oil Company, given before the Atlantic City Kiwanis Club at its weekly luncheon today.
“Many people think that when you go up to a foreigner in the mill and invite him to become an American citizen he throws his arms around your neck and kisses you—but he does no such thing,” said the speaker.
The petty grafting of lawyers, real estate dealers, steamship agents and others who take advantage of the foreigner in America was pictured as the greatest foe to Americanization because it gave foreigners an inaccurate idea of what America represents.
This is an extremely strange little story, mainly because despite extensive searching I couldn’t find a single piece of information about Ayesha Hanum that wasn’t drawn from this short item. It doesn’t help that the piece is sloppy—it’s not clear if Hanum’s fighting force was called the Kain Brigade or the Kadin Brigade; it gave the wrong last name for Halide Edib. Perhaps this was just rumor, perhaps a publicity stunt, perhaps an interesting true story that got lost to history. If you know anything about women fighters during the Greco-Turkish War, please share!
ANGORA, June 15.—A Turkish Joan of Arc, Ayesha Hanum, has started a woman’s fighting brigarde against the Greeks. Her organization, called the Kain Brigade, has already taken part in active fighting, and she is constantly enrolling new recruits.
This is the first time in Turkish history that a woman has been so militantly active. She has been dubbed by the people of Anatolia “The Conquerer.” Her personality is in distinct contrast to that of the beautiful Halide Edib Adıvar, the writer and graduate of the American Constantinople College, who has been so active in nationalist politics for two years and who fled to the interior in March, 1920, to escape imprisonment by the Allies.
Ayesha Hanum is a stern, dark woman of the soil, aged 52, who sees visions and believes she is inspired by the prophet. She wars a veil, but carries a rifle, and when not at the front goes through the villages accompanied by her fifteen-year-old son, urging the peasants to contribute food and money and their able-bodied women, to cast out the enemy from the homeland. The uniform of the women of the Kadin Brigade corresponds to that of its leader.
Indirectly, Ayesha Hanum is doing as much as Halide Adıvar to emancipate Turkish women. When she began her work, the Turkish men, who dislike to have women interfere in politics, tried to force her to return to her farm. But, by the courage born of her visions, Ayesha Hanum has continued until she is recognized as an aid to the nationalist cause.
This is like the first chapter in a Stephen King novel. What do the snakes know that the old inhabitants don’t?
CAPE MAY, N.J., July 14.—Robert Turner, who was fishing off Cape May some fifteen miles today, said that he saw a water snake heading off shore.
Turner, who is one of Cape May’s respected negro fishermen, was telling an employee of the Bethlehem Steel Company about it at the proving grounds on the Delaware Bay shore, when a black snake crawled to the water’s edge and struck out for the Delaware shore, some eighteen miles away at this point.
Old inhabitants here are much mystified over the occurence.
