Welcome Back, Folks!

It’s been nearly a year since I quit Substack and shifted this venerable newsletter over to my Patreon in protest of Substack’s insistence on promoting transphobia and other hate speech. Substack has gotten no better in that regard—indeed, both the platform and the media landscape at large are more comfortable with fascist ideology than ever before!—and I’ve gotten sick of Patreon’s text editor, which remains stubbornly rooted in 2010, so I’ve decided to try Beehiiv. If it doesn’t work, maybe I’ll go back to Substsack, maybe Patreon. We shall see!

I am really excited to get back into the 1921 Times. In a moment when American journalism is under threat by the government and by the billionaires who own most media outlets, I take inspiration from seeing what a beautiful overstuffed mess a daily paper looked like 100 years ago. August 4 is a good issue to return to, as it features both the weirdness and ugliness that this project is all about. In addition to our regular twice-monthly tours of the Times, I’m planning on using this newsletter to release regular special issues about whatever’s on my mind. These could be essays, photo collections, bits of calligraphy or recommendations of the things helping to keep me sane. The more the Internet is overrun with AI slop, the more I treasure human connection and human-made art. This is one way I like to share mine. As we get back underway, I hope to hear from you. Use the comments to let me know what in these stories tickles you and what else you’d like to see.

Today we have obscene dances, disputatious actors, a lynching in Virginia and lies from the Klan. Raise dancing to a higher level on…

August 4, 1921

• The police of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, insist that there is no danger to the town’s Mexican residents after anonymous notices warning that their houses will be burned if they do not leave town within twenty-four hours.

• The Grand Jury hears testimony in the matter of NYPD detective Charles F. Tighe, who has been accused of battering 40 men, women and children with his blackjack during a raid on on Patrick Coen’s restaurant last Thursday. Alleged victim Catherine Gaiety testifies that she smelled whiskey on Tighe’s breath during his blackjacking spree.

• Although the Chicago White Sox players accused of throwing the 1919 World Series have been cleared by the courts, “the rulers of organized baseball” refuse to let the players return to the game.

• The mysterious “lion” that has been terrorizing the people of New Jersey is revealed to be a large mastiff, which is killed after biting two in South Bound Brook.

• King Victor of Italy announces special ceremonies to honor legendary tenor Enrico Caruso who died this week after a long illness.

• The Weather: Fair today and Friday, with moderate temperature; moderate northeast and east winds.

Fenton Bott, master of dancing and director of dance reform, is a new hero of this newsletter. Sadly, he was not much of an SEO expert, because attempts to research the Wesleyan dance have run aground on the liberal arts college who shares the name. If any of you masters of dancing have any details of this lost obscenity, please share in the comments.

The Wesleyan, the dance which caused such a storm of protest among Methodists when it was created at the convention of the American National Association of Masters of Dancing last year, has been withdrawn from the list of dances approved by the association at the association convention now being held at the Hotel Astor. Fenton Bott of Dayton, Ohio, the director of dance reform, said yesterday that the purpose of the Wesleyan had been entirely misunderstood by the members of the Church, but since they considered it an affront the association was very ready to withdraw it.

“The dance was a very graceful one, showing the proper position of the dancer and created to meet with the approval of the most rigid church member,” said Mr. Bott, “but our effort was misinterpreted and, unfortunately, the people we were trying to win over to our side were further antagonized, and additional attacks upon dancing followed. In view of this we have withdrawn the Wesleyan, and for the present will take no further action in trying to win our religious antagonists.

“We are making great headway with our dance reform program. We have literature which we send to welfare organizations, owners of dance halls and dancing teachers throughout the country. This literature explains the dances approved by the association and urges those in charge of the various dancing resorts to aid the organization in its efforts to raise dancing to a higher level. We have large charts showing the different positions, and these can be found on the walls at dancing halls, at least they are sent to these places, and, in our investigation, we have found a splendid willingness on the part of the owners of these places to cooperate with us.”

The Spanish schottische was the most popular dance taken up yesterday. It is a mixture of the Walk Around, a dance in itself which was approved at the session yesterday, pivot turns and clicks steps in both fast and slow movements.

I’m not sure why Margot Asquith, whose ex-prime minster husband is best remembered for disclosing state secrets to a mistress during a notorious affair, was asked for her views of film acting. She hated women’s suffrage and didn’t think much of actresses either. Lady Diana Manners seems like much more fun—in addition to her acting, she modeled for a striking collection of photos called The Book of Fair Women in 1922.

LONDON, Aug. 3.—“What a dreadful life! Not at any price would I ever go through the monotonous drudgery of acting for the films.” This was the comment of a Mrs. H.H. Asquith the other day at a film studio.

Lady Diana Duff-Cooper, or Lady Diana Manners, as she still prefers to be called in connection with her moving-picture work, thinks otherwise. When seen in her dressing room at a studio Lady Diana expressed enthusiasm for the work after a four weeks’ experience.

“I was never happier in my life,” she said. “I am enjoying every minute of my time, both in the studio and while at work outdoors on exterior scenes. But it is more difficult before the camera than before an audience. This silent acting takes every atom of intelligence and dramatic instinct that I have.”

Although his name is not given in this story, the man murdered by the lynch mob in Brunswick County was Lemuel Johnson, a 23-year-old Black man who had been accused of killing a white postmaster. While Johnson was being transported to the county jail, he was pursued by around 100 cars, whose drivers forced his guards off the road and abducted him. He was taken back to Tobacco, tortured until he confessed to the crime, and hanged before a 2000-person mob. Far from being “not molested,” the other accused prisoner, Will Elmore, escaped lynching only by being removed to Richmond. He was convicted of the murder and sentenced to the electric chair. No one was indicted for the lynching.

PETERSBURG, Va., Aug. 3.—One of two negroes arrested last night in connection with the murder of Tingley Elmore, Postmaster, and storekeeper of Tobacco, Va., on Monday, was taken from the Brunswick County Jail at Lawrenceville early today by a mob and lynched. The other negro was not molested.

The lynching was the first in Virginia for many years. The mob was said to have numbered about 2,000. The negro was hanged to a tree at the scene of the murder. He was reported to have confessed his guilt.

Racists are terribly sensitive, aren’t they? That’s part of why it’s so important to call them what they are.

LOS ANGELES, Cal., Aug. 3.—The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a corporation, today brought suit for libel against the Los Angeles Express Publishing Company, a corporation, demanding $105,000 damages for the publication in three editions of the paper of an article over which appeared banner lines reading “Great Ku Klux Klan Outbreak,” “Ku Klux Klan Terrorizes South,” and “Ku Klux Reign of Terror.”

The article, which was set forth in full in the complaint filed in the Superior Court here today, credited certain raids in Southern States to “a secret organization similar to that of the Ku Klux Klan of reorganization days.”

The complaint relates that the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan are organized as a “fraternal, patriotic and ritualistic society of national scope,” and states that the corporate purposes are to promote patriotism and insure protection for the happiness of the people, among other things.