1919

A flu epidemic kills millions.

 

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“I believe that as this war has drawn the nations temporarily together in a combination of physical force we shall now be drawn together in a combination of moral force that will be irresistible.” 

President Woodrow Wilson

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David Halberstam describes Woodrow Wilson this way, as “a figure of austere, almost harsh moralism…” (Book 491)

 

* 

“Tommie, what is the chief end of man?” 

In the Midlands, during his trip to Europe to fight for a just peace, Wilson speaks to British people weary of the horror of war. At church one Sunday, in the kirk where Wilson’s grandfather had once preached, and his mother had walked about, the minister prevailed on the president to speak. He stood before the communion rail, rather than go to the pulpit.

Wilson talked about his family first.

 

Harking back to his grandfather, he recalled “how much he required” and “the stern lessons of duty he gave.” He could still hear that – flavored by a mild toddy and smoke from a clay pipe – asking, challenging: “Tommie, what is the chief end of man?” As he stood on boards that his mother’s tiny feet had once trod, he was moved to recall her “sense of duty and dislike of ostentation.” He spoke fervently of his twentieth century mission to the world: “I believe that as this war has drawn the nations temporarily together in a combination of physical force we shall now be drawn together in a combination of moral force that will be irresistible … It is from quiet places like this all over the world that the forces accumulate which presently will overbear any attempt to accomplish evil on a large scale.”

 

Save for the compelling voice, there was no sound but the patter of rain on the roof. The Bishop of Carlisle, closing the service, could hardly master his feelings to articulate the benediction: “God save you and guide you, sir!” The president was glad to step into the seclusion of the vestry to sign the book, for there he could get control of his emotion. (10/229 II)

 

Asked later to speak to the Chamber of Deputies, Wilson asked Italian lawmakers to have sympathy for the Balkan states that “must now be independent.” This despite Italy’s own hopes for expansion along the Adriatic coast. “Again,” writes Arthur Walworth, “the prophet warned Old World politicians that a new concept of government was dawning.” In Northern Italy, Wilson “had his chance to appeal directly to the people for a new world order, and they swarmed about him and cheered themselves hoarse.” (10/233 II)

 

* 

“To purify, to rectify, to elevate.” 

February 14: Wilson stands before the plenary session of the peace conference to announce, in Walworth’s words, a “constitution to the twentieth century world.” He was conscious that he was speaking to representatives of twelve hundred million people. “I think I can say of this document that it is at one and the same time a practical and humane document. There is a pulse of sympathy in it. There is a compulsion of conscience throughout it. It is practical, and yet it is intended to purify, to rectify, to elevate.” 

“The listeners,” Walworth says, “sensed that it was a great moment in history.” When Wilson finished, “the delegates besieged the American to shake his hand and thank him for his leadership. Sophisticated statesman walked out into a cold fog with warm confidence that the horrors of World War would not afflict humanity again.” (10/260 II) 

Of course, reality was far less attractive than the picture Wilson hoped humanity would help him paint. 

(One American diplomat reported, for example: “High military leaders [of Britain and France] had definite plans for dividing Russia up, as they frankly told me in Paris in July, 1919. The top leadership did not.”) (10/267 II)

 

* 

“Think of the utter blackness that would fall on the world.” 

February 24: President Wilson and his wife Edith return to the U.S. for a brief rest. Gov. Calvin Coolidge comes aboard the George Washington, and escorts the couple ashore. Stores and schools have declared a holiday. Speaking later to an audience of eight thousand in a packed hall, Wilson has this to say:

 

Speaking with perfect frankness in the name of the people of the United States I have uttered as the objects of this great war ideals, and nothing but ideals, and the war has been won by that inspiration. We set this nation up to make men free and we did not confine our conception and purpose to America, and now we will make men free. If we did not do that, all the fame of America would be gone and all her power would be dissipated. … Think of the picture, think of the utter blackness that would fall on the world. (10/269 II)

 

While they were home, Colonel House did his best to keep other leaders focused on the task Wilson had set for them. Edith Wilson blamed House for failing to stand firm, when working out details for the League. “I think he is a perfect jellyfish,” she grumbled to her husband. (10/322 II)

 

* 

“The cause of humanity and mankind.” 

Wilson soon returned to France to lead the fight. Speaking at the cemetery for America’s war dead on Mt. Valerian, overlooking the Seine, he explained:

 

No one with a heart in his breast, no American, no lover of humanity, can stand in the presence of these graves without the most profound emotion. These men who lie here are men of a unique breed. Their like had not been seen since the far days of the Crusades. Never before have men crossed the seas to a foreign land to fight for a cause which they did not pretend was peculiarly their own, but knew was the cause of humanity and mankind.

 

He added, finally, “I sent these lads over here to die. Shall I – can I – ever speak a word of counsel which is inconsistent with the assurances I gave them when they came over?” (10/327 II) 

Speaking to the Senate about the treaty, later, he had in mind something he had said in Paris. “Senators do not know what the people are thinking. They are as far from the people, the great mass of people, as I am from Mars.” (10/338 II) 

But the American people – and in many cases, their representatives – were having second thoughts. Sen. William Borah of Idaho, called Wilson “Britain’s tool – a dodger and cheater.” Other Republicans called him a hypocrite, who preached sacrifice but took extravagant presents from crowned heads. Even William Howard Taft, who had previously supported the idea for a League of Nations, now turned against the proposal. (10/344 II) 

Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, a sworn enemy of the president, warned against “those who have tried to establish a monopoly of idealism” through “a murky Covenant.” Laying out an alternative vision, he proclaimed: “Our first ideal is our country, and we see her in the future, as in the past, giving service to all her people and to the world. Our ideal of the future is that she should continue to render that service of her own free will.” 

Walworth calls Lodge’s rebuttal to Wilson “one of the great orations of American history.” (10/347 II) 

Wilson, speaking to a friend, responded, “if I said what I thought about those fellows in Congress, it would take a piece of asbestos two inches thick the hold it.” 

Senator Frank Kellogg assured him that thirty-seven Republicans would support the treaty with moderate reservations; but Wilson did not seize this opportunity. Senator James Watson came to the White House and told the president that the only way the United States could be taken into the League was by acceptance of the Lodge reservations. 

“The Lodge reservations!” Wilson exclaimed. “Never! Never! I’ll never consent to adopt any policy with which that impossible name is so prominently identified.” (10/348 II) 

Meantime, the president was forced to address growing unrest among workers, as the transition from a wartime to peacetime economy played out.

 

[Secretary of State Robert] Lansing, who equated labor unrest with bolshevism, had been recommending blunderbuss tactics. He was alarmed when the president suggested that the tendency of labor to revolt against the economic order sprang from an awakening consciousness of a right to share profits that was essentially just, that “industrial democracy” was fundamental to political democracy. (10/357-358 II)

 

“Revolutions come from the long suppression of the human spirit,” Wilson once said. “Revolutions come because men know that they have rights and that they are disregarded.” (10/364 II)

 

* 

Fifty percent return in only 90 days! 

Charles Ponzi launches his famous swindle. In an old article from the Cincinnati Enquirer, written by John Eckberg, we have this:

 

Ponzi took in millions of dollars by promising enormous returns to the small investor – up to 50% within 90 days.

 

Ponzi claimed that he made the extraordinary profits by taking advantage of foreign exchange rates. Investors flocked to him with overflowing pockets.

 

And his idea worked for some – as long as there was a ready supply of new investors willing to buy a Ponzi note for $100 down.

 

Ponzi, a thin immigrant from Parma, Italy, had a flair, as well. He had been a laborer, clerk, fruit peddler and waiter until he devised the investment scam.

 

And for a while it turned his life around. He drove a $12,000 automobile in a day when cars cost $1,000. He bought a huge estate and hobnobbed with Brahman Boston.

 

He bought a bank to maintain a flow of cash. He did not advertise because word-of-mouth was good enough. The money poured in from widows, youths and others looking for a quick buck.

 

Eventually, however, the walls to Ponzi’s house of cards came tumbling down. Later investors found out their money had gone to pay off earlier ones and that there was little left in the way of interest or principle.

 

When his scheme finally failed and investigations followed, Ponzi was sentenced to seven years in prison. Investors received 30 cents on every dollar. Estimates at the time said Ponzi had taken in $15 million. He died in 1949, in Brazil, where he was teaching English. “Those were confused, money-mad days,” he told a reporter before he died. “Everybody wanted to get rich quick, I hit the American people where it hurt – in the pocketbook. I was Number One in those days.

 

* 

Yale’s history of riots continues:

 

A period of wartime cooperation ends when returning local servicemen, angry over perceived insults from Yale students, attack the Old Campus. Finding the gates locked, they break hundreds of windows and move on to theaters and restaurants, assaulting any students they can find. (1919)

(See also: 1806, 1841, 1854, 1858 and 1959.)

 

* 

April 1: The “third wave” of Spanish flu, as we might call it today, rattles the world once more. Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Seattle Metropolitans and the visiting Montreal Canadiens is scheduled. 

That morning, all but four Canadiens come down with the flu, causing the game and the series to be canceled. (Both teams are engraved on the Stanley Cup above the words “SERIES NOT COMPLETED.”) 

President Woodrow Wilson falls ill so suddenly at the Versailles Peace Conference that his doctor believes he may have been poisoned. 

In fact, it was a severe case of influenza. 

 

*

 

A picture from a minor league game in Pasadena, California, shows an effort to avoid the spread of the flu, which had already killed millions around the world. 

  

 

*

 

A hitting streak that continued for over two months. 

June 14: Joe Wlhoit, 27, a former National Leaguer finds himself relegated to the Class-A Western League. Playing for the Witchita Witches, his average is hovering around .200, and as Bill Rabinowitz writes, he seems “destined for oblivion.” 

That day, he beats out an infield chopper for a hit. 

Then he goes on a tear, possibly after his manager suggests he switch to a lighter, thinner-handled bat. (At least a writer in 1933 suggested as much, since sportswriters in 1919 never interviewed players.) By July 11, Wilhoit had hit safely in 29 straight games; and there was talk he’d be back in the major leagues soon. On July 22, he hit safely in his fortieth straight game. 

The next day “he ripped five hits,” Rabinowitz says. 

On July 27, 4,600 fans jammed the Witchita stands to see if Wilhoit might break the record of 45 straight games with a hit, set by Jack Ness, a minor-leaguer, four years before. Wilhoit did, tying the mark in the first game of a doubleheader, smashing it in the second. “To show appreciation of their star, the Wichita fans showered the field with money,” Rabinowitz explains. “They didn’t stop until about $500 (accounts vary) was collected and given to Wilhoit, quite a some considering that the average Class A player then earned less than $200 a month.”

 

The local paper, the Witchita Eagle, had this to say: “The the great man refused to make a speech, proving that he is a great ballplayer. … Joe is not a pugnacious player. He takes things easy and the fans, players and umps delight in praising his work.” 

By August 14, Wilhoit’s streak had reached 61 games. The streak nearly ended, but the game went extra innings, and Wilhoit won it with a two-run homer, to extend his streak to 62. In the second game of a doubleheader, however, he came up to bat in the sixth, still without a hit, and his team down 9-2. He laid down a bunt. Bert Graham, the Omaha third basemen picked it up – and according to the Eagle, could have thrown him out. Instead, he held the ball as Wilhoit scampered to first. “Graham’s sportsmanship drew forth the admiration of the crowd.” 

His streak finally ended on August 19, at 69 games. During that stretch, Wilhoit hit .512 (153 for 299). He had 24 doubles, nine triples, five homeruns and walked 34 times. He finished the season hitting .412. Wilhoit was called up to play with the Boston Red Sox for six games, and had a chance to watch young Babe Ruth go to bat. That was the year that Babe led the American League with a record 29 homeruns himself. Wilhoit never saw the majors again and retired from baseball in 1923. 

 

* 

“The redemption of the world.” 

His cabinet and his doctors begged him not to throw his life away on a speaking tour to push the treaty through to ratification. 

As Walworth explains:

 

Wilson listened attentively, then walked to a window and looked out pensively at the monument of George Washington. “I promised our soldiers,” he said, “that it was a war to end wars; and if I do not do all in my power to put the treaty in effect, I will be a slacker and never able to look those boys in the eye. I must go.” It was he last desperate resort. “If the treaty is not ratified by the Senate,” he explained, “the war will have been fought in vain and the world will be thrown into chaos.” (10/361 II)

 

On another occasion, the president assured aides, “ I don’t care if I die the minute after the treaty is ratified.” 

According to Walworth, even reporters were moved by Wilson’s efforts to stir the American people while on tour. “The sympathy and admiration of the newsmen on his train had increased almost to the point of veneration.” (10/369 II) 

Thinking back to the scene at the cemetery in France, he told one audience, referring to treaty foes,

 

I wish that they could feel the moral obligation that rests upon us not to go back on those boys, but to see the thing through…to the end and make good the redemption of the world. For nothing less depends upon this decision, nothing less than the liberation and salvation of the world. (10/370 II)

 

Finally, he…delivered to his age the warning that was to establish his place securely among the major prophets of his century: “I can predict with absolute certainty that within another generation there will be another world war if the nations of the world do not concert the method by which to prevent it.” (10/372 II)

 

* 

Between May and August, there are so many bloody race riots, that James Weldon Johnson calls it the “Red Summer.”

 

* 

October: General Billy Mitchell, the leading advocate of air power in future wars, decides to organize a race across the United States and back again – with half of the contestants starting in the east, and half starting in the west. The pilots are all military men; and more than sixty sign up. 

In a book review for The Great Air Race by John Lancaster, we learn about the state of aviation in 1919.

 

Many airplanes in those days were literal death traps. A biplane known as the DH-4, used as a bomber by Allied forces in World War I, had its gas tank immediately behind the pilot in the cockpit. As Lancaster explains, “Even in relatively low-speed crashes, the tank sometimes wrenched free of its wooden cage, crushing the pilot against the engine.” To get a DH-4 properly balanced for landing, a co-pilot or passenger might have to leap out of the open cockpit and climb back to hang onto the tail. And this was one of the era’s most popular and successful models.

 

Some planes had no gas gauge, so pilots would learn they had run out of fuel only when the engine stopped. Just a tiny portion of the country was covered by charts; pilots’ navigation tools were a magnetic compass and their own eyes. (Mapping was one of the industries that aviation’s growth fostered.) If pilots were fortunate, they could follow a river or railroad tracks, or read city names on water towers. If not, they went the wrong way, or landed in pastures to ask farmers where they were.

 

Weather reporting and forecasting were in their infancy. The most dangerous thing in small-plane flying is being inside a cloud. Unless you are trained to fly “on instruments,” you will inevitably become disoriented and lose control of the plane — this was the tragedy that befell John F. Kennedy Jr. But until the late 1920s such flight instruments did not exist. To stay out of the clouds, pilots might make trips at 150 to 200 feet above ground level, or about where a modern airliner is just seconds before it touches down. It’s small wonder that nearly 900 American pilots were killed, injured or captured during the country’s relatively brief combat involvement in World War I. Or that in a single week of operations by the newly formed U.S. Air Service, ancestor of the Air Force, in July 1919, nine of its pilots died in crashes.

 

If ordinary flying was risky, the race only increased the dangers and many entrants paid the final price. The reviewer, James Fallow explains:

 

What happened next — oh, boy. The pilot contestants were fabulously varied and colorful. A onetime movie actor. A former college track champion whose legs had been crushed in an earlier flying accident, and who got into his plane with crutches and wearing metal braces. A pilot who had attacked German planes over France while flying upside down, to confuse his adversaries. An ordained Baptist minister who had learned to fly just two years earlier but had become renowned as “one of the best American pilots in France.” Like most of his rivals, he competed in Mitchell’s race in the ill-designed DH-4, with a German police dog named Trixie along in the cockpit. The tabloids lionized him as “the Flying Parson.”

 

“As Americans would soon learn, there were many good reasons why an airplane race on such a scale had never been attempted,” Lancaster writes. The race was organized at the last moment — for October, just in time for the weather to get bad. Landing sites along the route were unfinished. On the first day of competition, three pilots were killed in crashes. By the time it was over, nine had died, and 54 airplanes had been damaged or destroyed. Newspapers and politicians denounced Mitchell for his recklessness. One contestant survived the eastbound leg to Long Island but said, “No one can make me race back.” He went home by train.

 

* 

October 7: The Palmer Raids begin, after Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer decides to crack down on “Reds,” anarchists, socialists, strike-breakers, immigrant protesters, and subversives of every kind. 

Palmer picks J. Edgar Hoover to head the Racical Division of what is then known as the Bureau of Investigation. A meticulous Hoover fills filing cabinets with index cards on thousands of troublemakers across the country. 

* 

November 19: The U.S. Senate rejects the Treaty of Versailles, including its provision for a League of Nations, supported by President Wilson.