by Thai Jones
December 31, 1919
304 With more defiance than joy: “‘Dry’ Eve of 1920 Is Wet and Merry; Wine Given Away,” the World (Jan. 1, 1920); “except a certain one”: “1920 Welcomed in Wine Oceans by Joyous Folk,” the Sun (Jan. 1, 1920); “For twenty years”: “Outlaw Citizens,” the World (Dec. 31, 1919).
305 feeling of good riddance: “The Old and the New,” New York Times (Jan. 1, 1920); “Automobiles in City Kill 1,270,” Evening Post (Jan. 2, 1920); Ernst Christopher Meyer, Infant Mortality in New York City (New York: The Rockefeller Foundation, 1921), 130; “few mourners”: “The Task for 1920,” the World (Jan. 1, 1920).
306 a sense of betrayal: No Title, Mondavi (Wis.) Herald (Jan. 2, 1920), John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Personal Papers, series IX, Scrapbooks, volume 9, RAC; a few bombs: “The Old and the New”; “Briefly summed up”: The reporter mistook Berkman’s age, asserting that he was fifty-one years old. It has been changed in the text for clarity. “The Kind of Man Alex. Berkman Is,” the World (Dec. 28, 1919); dropped his parcel: “1920 Welcomed in Wine Oceans by Joyous Folk,” the Sun (Jan. 1, 1920); “Scores of ‘Reds’ Arrested Up-State,” Evening Post (Dec. 31, 1919); “Jury to Resume Anarchy Inquiry,” Evening Post (Dec. 31,1919).
306–7 After everything that had passed: “The Old and the New”; “at least one final”: “Last Hopes of the Beaten ‘Wets,’” New York Tribune (Dec. 28, 1919).
307–9 John D. Rockefeller, Jr.: “John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Visiting Palm Beach,” Palm Beach Post (Dec. 28, 1919), John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Personal Papers, series IX, Scrapbooks, volume 9, RAC; After two futile weeks: Haggai Hurvitz, “Ideology and Industrial Conflict: President Wilson’s First Industrial Conference of October 1919,” Labor History (Fall 1977); “corner grocery”: “What Rockefeller’s Like,” San Jose News (Dec. 26, 1919), John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Personal Papers, series IX, Scrapbooks, Volume 9, RAC; “We believe”: No Title, Mondavi (Wis.) Herald (Jan. 2, 1920), John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Personal Papers, series IX, Scrap-books, Volume 9, RAC; “happiest days”: John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to John D. Rockefeller, Jan. 5, 1920, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Papers, Record Group III.2.Z, Correspondence, box 2, folder 19, RAC; gold tiepins: John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to John D. Rockefeller, Feb. 16, 1920, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Papers, Record Group III.2.Z, Correspondence, box 2, folder 19, RAC; “wonderful gifts”: John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to John D. Rockefeller, Jan. 12, 1920, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Papers, Record Group III.2.Z, Correspondence, box 2, folder 19, RAC; Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (New York: Random House, 1998), 623–624.
309 “no special observance” for the new year: “Big New Year Feast Decreed for Wilson,” New York Tribune (Jan. 1, 1920); Edwin A. Weinstein, Woodrow Wilson: A Medical and Psychological Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 357.
309 The crisis had come in September: J. Michael Hogan, Woodrow Wilson’s Western Tour: Rhetoric, Public Opinion, and the League of Nations (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, c. 2006); Weinstein, A Medical and Psychological Biography, 353; “Keep Faith with the World, Wilson’s Appeal to America,” Boston Globe (Sept. 5, 1919).
310–12 The tour reached Pueblo: Philip Kinsley, “‘Act, Then I’ll Decide,’ Wilson Word to Senate,” Chicago Tribune (Sept. 26, 1919); “Huge Crowd Sees Wilson Arrive at Depot in Pueblo,” Pueblo Chieftain (Sept. 26, 1919); “Pres. Wilson Attracted Big Crowd to Fair,” Pueblo Chieftain (Sept. 26, 1919); “Wilson Closely Guarded by the Federal Detectives,” Pueblo Chieftain (Sept. 26, 1919); “Steel Committee and Welborn Hold a Secret Conference,” Pueblo Chieftain (Sept. 26, 1919); Molding his message: “President Wilson’s Address on League as Delivered in the City of Pueblo,” Pueblo Chieftain (Sept. 26, 1919). This transcript of the speech is as it was transcribed by a team of stenographers, working in relays, at the auditorium in Pueblo. It is slightly truncated compared with the version that is usually published in collections of the president’s speeches. “Extra Work Getting News of Wilson’s Visit Here to World,” Pueblo Chieftain (Sept. 26, 1919); wife was crying: “‘Act, Then I’ll Decide,’ Wilson Word to Senate”; “Huge Crowd Cheers Wilson Leaving Hall,” Pueblo Chieftain (Sept. 26, 1919); “Grayson’s Order Ends Tour,” New York Times (Sept. 27, 1919); appearances were canceled: Hogan, Woodrow Wilson’s Western Tour, 162; Weinstein, A Medical and Psychological Biography, 356.
312–13 in New York City that night: “New Year Services in Churches Here,” the World (Dec. 31, 1919); “With unlimited money”: “New Year’s Here and There,” the World (Dec. 31, 1919); THE ARMY WISHES … “For wounded soldiers”: “Wine Can’t Be Sold So Hotels Say They Will Give It Away,” Evening Post (Dec. 31, 1919); “‘Carry On’ Dances to Be Given at Hotels,” New York Tribune (Jan. 11, 1920); “New Year’s Eve Gay in Hotels, Quiet on Streets,” New York Times (Jan. 1, 1920); “so without noise”: “Crowds in Streets Strangely Silent,” the Sun (Jan. 1, 1920); “New Year’s Eve as an institution”: “New Year’s Eve Gay in Hotels, Quiet on Streets”; “Only in the hotels”: “New Year’s Eve Gay in Hotels, Quiet on Streets”; “another chair”: “Hotel Throngs to Greet New Year in Usual Fashion,” New York Herald (Dec. 31, 1919); “Bohemia”: “Last Hopes of the Beaten ‘Wets’” New York Tribune (Dec. 28, 1919). 314 Berkman stood at the rail of the Buford: Alexander Berkman, The Bolshevik Myth (New York: Bone and Liveright, 1925), 16–27.
Afterword
317–18 John Purroy Mitchel’s body: “Nation and City Unite in Honors to Honor Mitchel,” New York Times (July 12, 1918); “Mitchel Laid to Rest as All in City Mourn,” New York Tribune (July 12, 1918); “valiant knight”: Quoted in “Honoring a Mayor,” New York Times (Nov. 16, 1928); “A brilliant career”: Quoted in Reminiscences of Frances Perkins (1955), Columbia University Oral History Collection, 264.
318–19 hard-won gains were easily effaced: Charles T White, “Hylan Appointees Typical of Old Tammany Day,” New York Tribune (Jan. 2, 1918); budget rose: “A $316,000,000 City Budget,” New York Tribune (Oct. 16, 1919); reelected Hylan: Kenneth T. Jackson, ed., Encyclopedia of New York City, 2nd edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), “Mayoralty.”
319 Efficiency in and of itself: William Hard, “John Mitchel,” Everybody’s (June 1917); “saving rubber bands”: Robert Moses, Working for the People: Promise and Performance in Public Service (New York: Harper, 1956), 29–30.
320–21 a full decade after Mitchel’s death: “Memorial Tributes Paid to J.P. Mitchel,” New York Times (July 20, 1937); visitors to the memorial: “La Guardia Honors Mitchel at Shrine,” New York Times (May 31, 1934); it was left for La Guardia: Mason Williams, City of Ambitions: Franklin Roosevelt, Fiorello La Guardia, and the Rise of Liberal New York (New York: W.W. Norton, 2012).
321–22 New York’s bomb squad: Thomas J. Tunney and Paul Merrick Hollister, Throttled! The Detection of the German and Anarchist Bomb Plotters in the United States (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1919), vii, xi; “eternally and comprehensively vigilant”: Ibid., ix–x. The new mayor replaced Tunney with a Tammany man, James Gegan, the detective who had arrested Frank Tannenbaum at St. Alphonsus’ Church. Gegan then justified Woods’s fears by discharging all the officers assigned to the squad by the reformers. Tammany reorganizes police: Richard Polenberg, Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, the Supreme Court, and Free Speech (New York: Viking, 1987), 60; Twenty-four out of thirty-four: Tunney, Throttled!, 3–5; “Tammany’s favorites”: Quoted in “N.Y. Bomb Squad Drafted by U. S. for Army Service,” New York Tribune (Dec. 13, 1917).
322 the core of military intelligence: Roy Talbert, Negative Intelligence: The Army and the American Left, 1917–1941 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991), 212; “in no way restrained”: Quoted in Clayton D. Laurie and Ronald H. Cole, The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Disorders, 1877–1945 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1997), 337; amassed information: Bruce W. Bidwell, History of the Military Intelligence Division, Department of the Army General Staff: 1775–1941 (Maryland: Uni
versity Publications of America, 1986).
323 “The best New York ever had”: Quoted in John J. Leary, Jr., Talks with T.R. (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1920), 226; Arthur Woods’s career: “Arthur Woods, 72, Is Dead in Capital,” New York Times (May 13, 1942); “The association”: John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to Mrs. Woods, June 8, 1942, Rockefeller Family, OMR, Friends and Services, Record Group III2H, box 122, folder 909, RAC; “our birthday”: Arthur Woods to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., telegram, Jan. 29, 1939, Rockefeller Family, OMR, Friends and Services, Record Group III2H, box 122, folder 909, RAC; Tunney and the former police: Raymond B. Fosdick to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Jan. 15, 1923, Rockefeller Family, OMR, Friends and Services, Record Group III2H, box 24, folder 178, RAC.
324–25 Junior a worthy successor to Mitchel: Judith Sealander, Private Wealth & Public Life: Foundation Philanthropy and the Reshaping of American Social Policy from the Progressive Era to the New Deal (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 185; Milbank Fund: J. A. Kingsbury Quits the Milbank Fund,” New York Times (April 20, 1935); Reminiscences of Frances Perkins (1955), Columbia University Oral History Collection, 259; “stormy petrel”: “John Kingsbury, Lecturer, Dead,” New York Times (Aug. 4, 1956); “anarchistic rich”: “Saturday’s Disturbance,” Globe and Commercial Advertiser (April 6, 1914).
325–26 During his first trip to Colorado: Jonathan Rees, Representation and Rebellion: The Rockefeller Plan at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1914–42 (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2010), 3; imagine: Quoted in Raymond B. Fosdick, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., A Portrait (New York: Harper, 1956), 166; “bringing suit against the devil”: Quoted in Rees, Representation and Rebellion, 5; “grown both in comprehension”: Quoted in Fosdick, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 168; “‘richness oblige’”: “Mr. Rockefeller’s Letter,” San Jose News (Dec. 30, 1919), John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Personal Papers, series IX, Scrapbooks, volume 9, RAC, “new money king”: F. A. McKenzie, No Title, London Sunday Pictorial (Jan. 18, 1920), John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Personal Papers, series IX, Scrapbooks, volume 9, RAC; quarter of a million dollars: “Rockefeller Says Good Will Reigns in Ludlow Fields,” New York Tribune (Aug. 12, 1918); “genuine spirit of brotherhood”: Quoted in Charles E. Harvey, “John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the Interchurch World Movement of 1919–1920: A Different Angle on the Ecumenical Movement,” Church History (June 1982); Ludlow monument: Scott Martelle, Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007), 211–212.
327–28 He died on May 11, 1960: “Sleepy Hollow Folk Mourn Man They Knew as ‘Neighbor John,’” New York Times (May 12, 1960); Newspapers described: “John D. Jr., 86, Dies in Tucson, Nelson at Side,” Chicago Daily Tribune (May 12, 1960); “I never read the papers”: Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (New York: Random House, 1998), 584; “one of the best things”: Rockefeller Family JDR, Jr., Personal Record Group III2Z, series V, Biographical Works, box 57, folder 503, 44b, RAC.
328–29 Upton Sinclair wrote to Rockefeller: Sinclair misremembered the date of the Ludlow crisis, referring to forty-eight years (it had actually been forty-five) and mentioning the year 1911. Upton Sinclair to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Aug. 22, 1959, Rockefeller Family, OMR, Business Interests, Record Group III2C, box 20, folder 183, RAC; “making amends”: Upton Sinclair to Mr. Rockefeller, May 5, 1966, Rockefeller Family, OMR, Business Interests, Record Group III2C, box 20, folder 183, RAC.
329 Though critically diminished: Edwin P. Weinstein, Woodrow Wilson: A Medical and Psychological Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 371–378; Walter Lippmann, Public Persons (Piscataway: First Transaction Printing, 2010), 139.
331 large-scale agglomeration: Lippmann, Drift and Mastery, 2–3; “stealthily scheming”: “Gives $100,000,000; Furnishings $20,000,” Forbes (Jan. 10, 1920), John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Personal Papers, series IX, Scrapbooks, volume 9, RAC.
332 that a radical movement had ever thrived: “Sweetened ‘Reds’ and Rebels of Yesteryear,” Literary Digest (Jan. 31, 1925); “What has become of the pre-war radicals?”: Leon Whipple, “A Pilgrim’s Progress in Politics,” the Survey (Dec. 1, 1925); “Where Are the Pre-War Radicals?” the Survey (Feb. 1, 1926).
333–34 Next came Rebecca Edelsohn: “Sweetened ‘Reds’ and Rebels of Yesteryear”; Robert Plunkett Interview; Whether she feared exposure: “Death Like Dog’s, Girl’s Threat for Rockefeller, Jr.,” the World (May 1, 1914); Stephen A. Black, Eugene O’Neill: Beyond Mourning and Tragedy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 201; Plunkett Interview; “Helen R. Crawford” Death Certificate, Ancestry.com.
335 dramatically as Frank Tannenbaum: “Sweetened ‘Reds’ and Rebels of Yesteryear”; academic life: Helen Delpar, “Frank Tannenbaum: The Making of a Mexicanist, 1914–1933,” the Americas (Oct. 1988); Peter Winn, “Frank Tannenbaum Reconsidered: Introduction,” International Labor and Working-Class History (Spring 2010); When he died: Carter B. Horsley, “Dr. Frank Tannenbaum, 76, Dies; Organized Columbia Seminars,” New York Times (June 2, 1969).
335–36 Berkman’s euphoria … in Russia: “I have seen the future” became Steffens’s most famous refrain, and he repeated it often. Quoted in Dimitri S. von Mohrenschildt, “Lincoln Steffens and the Russian Bolshevik Revolution,” Russian Review (Autumn 1945); Russian sojourn: Linnea Goodwin Burwood, Alexander Berkman: Russian-American Anarchist (doctoral thesis, SUNY Binghamton, 2000), chapter seven; After two years in Russia: Ibid., chapter eight; “It is not bombs”: Quoted in ibid., 332; suicide: “Exiled Berkman Commits Suicide,” New York Times (July 2, 1936).
336–37 Arthur Caron had emerged: “Reeves J. Caron,” San Jose Mercury (June 13, 1978); Correspondence with Thomas Krieg, Reeves Caron’s son-in-law; “the peaceful function”: Harry Kelly, quoted in Paul Avrich, The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States (Oakland: AK Press, 2006), 208.
Footnotes
1 The number of annual traffic fatalities has dropped significantly in the past century. Despite having to avoid infinitely more cars, only 269 pedestrians in New York were killed by automobile accidents in 2010. Deaths by horse-drawn wagon have also dropped substantially.
2 As of 2009, this infant-mortality rate would have ranked between the nations of Zambia and Mali.
3 The Tartarin of Tarascon—“Traveler, ‘Turk,’ and Lion-Hunter”—was the title character of an adventure novel popular during the 1880s.
4 The highest wind velocity recorded in New York City to that point had been eighty miles an hour. At roughly 120 miles an hour, a Weather Bureau anemometer in Galveston, Texas, had blown from its mooring.
5 One infant girl came to have her whooping cough treated and acquired “measles, pneumonia, abscess and possibly erysipelas” as well. A four-year-old boy had been in the wards for more than a year, though his health seemed fine. Doctors diagnosed him with a troubling condition: “no residence, no disease, no friend, no parents.”
6 The previous time that temperatures had fallen so low had been fifteen years earlier, in 1899.
7 The A.F. of L. annual convention, which had just met in Seattle, had brought together the Alliance of Bill Posters and Billers of America; the International Association of Heat, Frost, Insulators, and Asbestos Workers; the Pocketknife Blade Grinders’ and Finishers’ National Union; the International Union of Pavers, Rammermen, Flaglayers, Bridge, and Stone Curb Setters; the Travelers’ Goods and Leather Novelty Workers’ International Union of America; the International Union of the United Brewery, Flour, Cereal and Soft Drink Workers of America; and the International Union of Journeymen Horse-shoers of the United States and Canada.
8 Today, a restaurant “omnibus” would be called a “bus boy.”
9 Rutgers Square is now Straus Square.
10 William Gibbs McAdoo, the secretary of the treasury, was a former police commissioner of New York City.
11 This absurd “experiment” is characteristic of the Mitchel admini
stration’s efforts at social science. Combining minuscule research samples, compromised and biased observations, and outrageously broad goals, its uselessness as a practical solution to the structural problems of unemployment is apparent. Just as an example, the men were supposed to be chosen at random but were in fact “typical” cases handpicked by charity experts. The Binet tests, involving reciting the days of the week, could supposedly measure mental acuity. Here is a newspaper’s description: “The Binet tests used consisted of noting how rapidly or slowly the mind of the examined man worked. The doctors knew just how long it should take a person of a certain age to answer certain questions, to do simple problems requiring thought, or to run through certain formulae, such as the days of the week, the months of the year, forward and backward.”
12 A successful movement: Blackwell’s Island was renamed Welfare Island in 1921; since 1973, it has been known as Roosevelt Island.
13 In Chicago, the arrival of The Inside of the White Slave Traffic was not welcomed. “The New York police stopped it,” opponents argued, “and our police should never let it open here.” In D.C., the mayor himself declared, “If it’s too bad for New York, it certainly should not be shown in Washington.”
14 The chicken belonged to one Ned O’Neill, who had recently been arrested; the bird was serving an indeterminate sentence.
15 Not, it will be noted, the two women that Davis had claimed.
16 The cost of alcohol had risen dramatically as Prohibition approached. Rye whiskey had gone from five dollars a quart in August to twelve dollars in September; by October, champagne was selling for fifty dollars a bottle—ten times its prewar price.