August 1923

The following events occurred in August 1923:

August 1, 1923 (Wednesday)

• A medical bulletin from President Harding's physicians reported "slight improvement in the lung condition" but no change otherwise.^[1]
• The wife of film comedian Al St. John was granted a divorce in Los Angeles court. "He started drinking in October 1917, and I haven't seen him sober since that time", she testified.^[2]
• The Sunrise Theatre opened in Fort Pierce, Florida.

August 2, 1923 (Thursday)

• President Warren G. Harding died at 7:30 p.m. San Francisco time. The cause of death was officially said at the time to have been from a stroke, but it is now more commonly believed to have been from heart failure.^[3]
• The British House of Commons held a debate on the Anglo-French diplomatic deadlock over the German reparations issue. "I have always acted on the assumption that the object of our Allies in pursuing their Ruhr policy is to obtain reparations, as is our object", Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin said. "It has often been stated that there are ulterior motives. I do not desire to believe that, but, if it is so, I would just say this ... If the British people feel, after a lapse of time, that the wounds of Europe were being kept open instead of being healed, there might then easily ensue the last thing in the world that I would like to see, and that would be an estrangement of heart between our people and those who take the opposite view." Ramsay MacDonald of the Labour Party was more blunt. "It is perfectly clear that France is in the Ruhr not for the purpose of getting reparations. No sane man can hold to that view now", he said. "Are we not compelled to come to the conclusion that the French policy in the Ruhr is a policy that is prompted by war-like feelings, feelings that have been handed over from the War, feelings that were unsatisfied as a result of the War, and that, in a sentence, it is an attempt to continue war after formal peace has been declared?"^[4]
• Born: Shimon Peres, President and Prime Minister of Israel, in Wiszniew, Poland (d. 2016)
• Died: Warren G. Harding, 57, 29th President of the United States

August 3, 1923 (Friday)

• The inauguration of Calvin Coolidge as 30th President of the United States was held at the family home in Plymouth Notch, Vermont at 2:47 a.m. Coolidge took the oath of office from his father John Calvin Coolidge, Sr., the local notary public, by the light of a kerosene lamp.^[5]
• Baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis released a statement which read, "It is the sentiment throughout baseball that no games be played either today nor on the day of the funeral for the late President, and as a further mark of respect for his memory, flags at ball parks will be displayed at half mast until after the burial."^[6]
• President Coolidge took a train to Washington and arrived in the nation's capital at 9:10 p.m.^[7]
• Born: Jean Hagen, actress, in Chicago, Illinois (d. 1977); Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, in Abnub, Egypt (d. 2012)

August 4, 1923 (Saturday)

• Rauf Orbay resigned as Prime Minister of Turkey.^[8]
• Calvin Coolidge's first official act was to declare August 10 a day of national mourning of prayer on the occasion of Warren Harding's funeral.^[9]
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ended his visit to North America, boarding the RMS Adriatic in New York bound for England. "After a period of about three days the spirit of President Harding may, if sought, advise Calvin Coolidge, the nation's new chief executive, wisely and helpfully on the great problems confronting him", Doyle said just before leaving.^[10]

August 5, 1923 (Sunday)

• Iowa Senator Albert B. Cummins proposed a constitutional amendment limiting the president to one term only. "Human frailities are too great to stand the strain which the presidency places on a man", Cummins said. "We should limit the President to one term. It might be made a six year term, but I am not so sure about that even."^[11]
• Born: Michael Kerry, British Procurator General and Treasury Solicitor (d. 2012); Devan Nair, 3rd President of Singapore, in Malacca, Straits Settlements (d. 2005)

August 6, 1923 (Monday)

• Henry Sullivan became the first American to swim the English Channel, accomplishing the feat in 27 hours and 25 minutes.^[12]
• The United States and Turkey signed treaties of commerce and extradition.^[13]
• Born: Moira Lister, actress and writer, in Cape Town, South Africa (d. 2007)

August 7, 1923 (Tuesday)

• German Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno called a conference of the six top party leaders where it was decided to put the country back on a gold basis.^[14]
• Harding's funeral train reached Washington, D.C. at 10:22 p.m.^[15]

August 8, 1923 (Wednesday)

• A state funeral was held for Warren Harding in the United States Capitol rotunda^[16]
• Born: Eve Miller, actress, in Los Angeles (d. 1973)

August 9, 1923 (Thursday)

• Thousands of stores in Berlin went on "strike" and closed in an attempt to force Wilhelm Cuno from office.^[17]
• Born: Ned Martin, sportscaster, in Wayne, Pennsylvania (d. 2002)
• Died: Petar Angelov, 45, Bulgarian military officer and revolutionary

August 10, 1923 (Friday)

• Warren G. Harding was interred in the Marion Cemetery Receiving Vault in Marion, Ohio.^[18]
• German President Friedrich Ebert issued a proclamation outlawing the circulation of pamphlets calling for the overthrow of the government or acts of violence. The penalty was three years' imprisonment or a fine of up to 500 million marks.^[19]
• Born: Bob Porterfield, baseball player, in Newport, Virginia (d. 1980)
• Died: Joaquín Sorolla, 60, Spanish painter

August 11, 1923 (Saturday)

• The Cuno strikes broke out across Germany as opposition to Wilhelm Cuno hardened.^[20] 35 workers were killed and 100 wounded around the country.^[21]
• The Social Democratic Party of Germany withdrew its support for Cuno.^[20]

August 12, 1923 (Sunday)

• Wilhelm Cuno resigned as Chancellor of Germany. Gustav Stresemann accepted President Ebert's offer to form a new government.^[22]
• 30 more demonstrators were killed in food rioting around Germany.^[21]
• Clarence Saunders announced that he was relinquishing control of the Piggly Wiggly supermarket chain after a failed gamble with Piggly Wiggly stocks cost him his entire fortune.^[23]
• Argentine swimmer Enrique Tirabocchi swam the English Channel in a record 16 hours 33 minutes.^[24]

August 13, 1923 (Monday)

• The Bucareli Treaty was signed.
• Belmond Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was inaugurated.
• The Washington Elm was officially pronounced dead.^[25]
• Gustav Stresemann was appointed chancellor of Germany.

August 14, 1923 (Tuesday)

• 99 miners died in a coal mine explosion near Kemmerer, Wyoming.^[26]
• After members of the Ku Klux Klan beat and mutilated an accused drug peddler in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Governor Jack C. Walton declared martial law in the city and county of Tulsa.^[27]

August 15, 1923 (Wednesday)

• A brawl involving 2,000 people broke out in Steubenville, Ohio when a banquet held in a hotel by the Ku Klux Klan was broken up by a mob swinging clubs and throwing bricks and bottles.^[28]

August 16, 1923 (Thursday)

• 70,000 workers in the Braunschweig region of Germany threatened to seize the government if their demands were not met.^[21][29]
• Born: Millôr Fernandes, cartoonist and playwright, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (d. 2012)

August 17, 1923 (Friday)

• Ratifications of the Washington Naval Treaty were exchanged in Washington, D.C.^[30]
• The Home Bank of Canada closed its doors, wiping out the savings of thousands of Canadians. The bank's collapse would become the subject of a government inquiry.^[31][32]
• The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was officially terminated.^[33]

August 18, 1923 (Saturday)

• Czecheslovakia and France signed a new trade pact.^[34]
• Ratified 19th Amendment.
• Born: Esmeralda Agoglia, ballerina, in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Ardeshir Tarapore, military officer, in Bombay, British India (d. 1965)
• Died: Ewald O. Stiehm, 37, American football and basketball coach and college athletics administrator (stomach cancer)

August 19, 1923 (Sunday)

• 8 died in forest fires along the French Riviera.^[35]
• Lord Rothermere, in an editorial in his Sunday Pictorial, entreatied Britain to preserve the Entente with France. "Europe without an entente is bound to mean an immense growth in armaments", he wrote. "We will have to resort at once to conscription without waiting for the outbreak of hostilities."^[36]
• German electrical engineer Charles Proteus Steinmetz said that by 2023, electricity would be doing all the hard work and people would not have to toil for more than four hours a day. Steinmetz also envisioned cities free of pollution and litter in a century's time.^[37]

August 20, 1923 (Monday)

• Mines and metal industries were shut down in the Ruhr and Rhineland by a new wave of strikes.^[21]
• A streetcar ride in Berlin cost 100,000 marks, ten times what it cost two weeks earlier.^[38]
• The seven-week docker's strike ended in England.^[39]
• Born: Jim Reeves, country singer-songwriter, in Galloway, Texas (d. 1964)

August 21, 1923 (Tuesday)

• France delivered an official note to Britain in which it refused to make any concessions on the occupation of the Ruhr.^[40][41]
• The city of Kalamazoo, Michigan passed an ordinance forbidding dancers to stare into their partner's eyes.^[24]
• Born: Larry Grayson, comedian and television presenter, in Banbury, England (d. 1995)

August 22, 1923 (Wednesday)

• Spain's war department announced it had landed 5,000 new troops in Morocco for a broad new offensive in the Rif War.^[42]
• Sloppy Thurston of the Chicago White Sox accomplished an "immaculate inning", striking out three Philadelphia Athletics on nine pitches in the 12th inning.

August 23, 1923 (Thursday)

• German Finance Minister Rudolf Hilferding told the Reichstag that he planned to introduce heavy taxation as the only way to save the country.^[43]
• Turkey ratified the Treaty of Lausanne.^[44]
• The occupation of Constantinople wound down as allied forces began to pull out of Constantinople in accordance with the terms of the Lausanne Treaty.^[45][46]
• The romantic comedy film Bluebeard's 8th Wife, starring Gloria Swanson, was released.
• Born: Henry F. Warner, soldier and Medal of Honor recipient, in Troy, North Carolina (d. 1944)
• Died: Giovanni Minzoni, 38, Italian priest (murdered by fascists); Henry C. Mustin, 49, American naval aviator

August 24, 1923 (Friday)

• German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann offered France a share in German industry in exchange for ending the occupation of territory.^[47]
• Born: Arthur Jensen, educational psychologist, in San Diego, California (d. 2012)
• Died: Katō Tomosaburō, 62, Prime Minister of Japan; Kate Douglas Wiggin, 66, American novelist

August 25, 1923 (Saturday)

• Violence broke out in Carnegie, Pennsylvania between citizens of the heavily Catholic community and the Ku Klux Klan. The mayor of Carnegie had stopped the KKK from being allowed to march in the town, but 10,000 Klansmen came out to hold a rally on a nearby hill and then about half of them began moving towards Carnegie anyway. The locals threw stones and a Klansman was shot dead; about a dozen arrests were made.^[48][49]
• Germany decided to put all workers on the gold basis rate.^[50]

August 26, 1923 (Sunday)

• French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré rejected Gustav Stresemann's offer of two days previous. "What we did fifty-three years ago, our former enemies can at least try to do today", Poincaré said, referring to the French indemnity after the Franco-Prussian War. "If not, they force us to execute on them what they menaced us with then – pay us or we stay."^[51]
• Born: Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor and pianist, in Munich (d. 2013)
• Died: Rayko Daskalov, 36, exiled Bulgarian politician (assassinated by Yordan Tsitsonkov)

August 27, 1923 (Monday)

• The Irish Free State held a general election. Cumann na nGaedheal led by W. T. Cosgrave won a plurality of seats.
• A group of Italian officials including the general Enrico Tellini were assassinated by unknown assasilants at the border crossing of Kakavia between Albania and Greece.^[52]
• Neville Chamberlain took over from Stanley Baldwin as British Chancellor of the Exchequer.^[24]
• Born: Hun Neang, father of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Grand Order of National Merit recipient, in Peam Koh Sna, Cambodia (d. 2013)

August 28, 1923 (Tuesday)

• Germans offered to end their passive resistance campaign in the Ruhr in exchange for the release of deportees and prisoners and a guarantee of the "safety of life and subsistence of the Ruhr population."^[53]
• U.S. Army pilots Lowell Smith and John Richter broke aviation endurance records by staying in the air for 37 consecutive hours over Rockwell Field in San Diego. Mid-air refueling was used to accomplish the feat.^[54]
• Ex-Pennsylvania governor William Cameron Sproul suggested that Prohibition hastened the death of Warren G. Harding. "I think President Harding's death was accelerated by the fact that he thought it was his duty, because of Prohibition, to set a public example and abstain", Sproul said. "He was accustomed to an occasional drink of scotch. I was his personal friend and I know, and in that laborious task of a trip to Alaska, I'm sure he missed it."^[55]

August 29, 1923 (Wednesday)

• Italy delivered a seven-point ultimatum to Greece demanding satisfaction over the Kakavia ambush within 24 hours.^[52]
• Born: Sir Richard Attenborough, actor and filmmaker, in Cambridge, England (d. 2014); Marmaduke Hussey, Baron Hussey of North Bradley, Chairman of the BBC (d. 2006)
• Died: Princess Anastasia of Greece and Denmark, 45, American heiress (cancer)

August 30, 1923 (Thursday)

• The Greek government offered counterproposals to the Italian ultimatum, but Italy refused to negotiate.^[52]
• The film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Lon Chaney, premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York City.^[56]
• A riot broke out in the small city of Perth Amboy, New Jersey when a mob of 6,000 attacked a hall where a meeting of 150 members of the Ku Klux Klan was being held. Police and firemen tried to control the crowd with clubs, gas bombs and water hoses, but were overwhelmed.^[57] Two cars full of Klansmen were intercepted before they could escape and the occupants were beaten.^[58]
• Died: Nancy Green, 89, American storyteller, cook, activist and model for "Aunt Jemima" (car accident)

August 31, 1923 (Friday)

• The Corfu incident began as Italian naval forces shelled and occupied the unfortified Greek island of Corfu.^[52]
• Harry Greb beat Johnny Wilson by 15-round decision at the Polo Grounds in New York City to become the new middleweight boxing champion of the world.^[59]
• The United States formally recognized Mexico.^[60]
• Another anti-KKK riot broke out, this time near New Castle, Delaware when a mob attacked a Klan initiation ceremony. Five were shot in the fighting.^[61]

References