July 1923

The following events occurred in July 1923:

July 1, 1923 (Sunday)

• The Chinese Immigration Act went into effect in Canada.
• France passed a naval budget providing for the construction of four new submarines.^[1]

July 2, 1923 (Monday)

• Pope Pius XI sent a letter to the papal nuncio in Berlin appealing to Germany to make every effort to make its payment obligations and cease its resistance campaign which removed the possibility of coming to an agreement.^[2]
• The Allied delegates at the Conference of Lausanne made their final offer to Turkey.^[3]
• An unauthorized docker's strike began in England protesting the reduction of wages by a shilling a day.^[4]
• Henry Segrave of the United Kingdom won the French Grand Prix.
• Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Ted Lyons made his major league debut with the Chicago White Sox, pitching a scoreless inning against the St. Louis Browns.^[5]
• Born: Wisława Szymborska, Polish writer and Nobel Prize laureate, in Prowent, Poland (d. 2002)

July 3, 1923 (Tuesday)

• Four Germans were shot dead in Buer for being outdoors after the curfew that was imposed after the June 30 train bombing.^[6]

July 4, 1923 (Wednesday)

• The Jack Dempsey vs. Tommy Gibbons boxing match was held in Shelby, Montana. Dempsey defeated Gibbons by decision to retain the World Heavyweight Championship, but the bout is mostly remembered as a debacle for the promoters who lost a fortune staging it in a remote oil town hoping to attract investors.^[7]
• A massive Ku Klux Klan rally, the largest in the organization's history, was held in Kokomo, Indiana. Attendance estimates ran as high as 200,000.^[8]
• Born: Rudolf Friedrich, Swiss politician (d. 2013)

July 5, 1923 (Thursday)

• Ethel Barrymore was granted a divorce from Russell G. Colt in Providence, Rhode Island court on grounds of nonsupport. Neither principal was present, but testimony taken by deposition for the court was entered in which Barrymore said that Colt had struck her on numerous occasions.^[9]
• U.S. President Warren G. Harding and his entourage left Tacoma, Washington on a ship headed for Alaska.^[10]

July 6, 1923 (Friday)

• Suzanne Lenglen of France defeated Kitty McKane in the Women's Singles Final at Wimbledon.^[11]
• An agreement was reached at the Conference of Lausanne.^[12]
• Born: Wojciech Jaruzelski, 1st President of Poland, in Kurów, Poland (d. 2014)

July 7, 1923 (Saturday)

• In an all-American Men's Singles Final, Bill Johnston defeated Frank Hunter at Wimbledon.^[13]
• The French Chamber of Deputies ratified the Washington Naval Treaty.^[14]

July 8, 1923 (Sunday)

• President Warren G. Harding arrived at Metlakatla, Alaska, becoming the first president to visit the state.^[15][16]
• In Czecheslovakia, woman deputy Betta Kerpiskova introduced a bill that would make bigamy mandatory, as it required all men to take two wives as a means of replenishing the population lost in the years of the war. Wives of the deputies shouted down the bill from the gallery, and one speaker said Czhecheslovakia would face ridicule around the world if the law was passed. The session was adjourned after a shouting match.^[17]
• The bodies of Takeo Arishima and his wife were found in the Japanese novelist's villa. They both committed suicide by hanging but were not found for a month.^[18]
• Born: Harrison Dillard, track and field athlete, in Cleveland, Ohio

July 9, 1923 (Monday)

• The Conference of Lausanne completed an agreement at 1:20 a.m.^[19]
• Russell Maughan was unsuccessful in his initial attempt to make the first dawn-to-dusk transcontinental flight across the United States, landing in a cow pasture in St. Joseph, Missouri with engine trouble.^[20]

July 10, 1923 (Tuesday)

• An explosion at a cartridge plant near East Alton, Illinois killed 11.^[21]
• Born: John Bradley, U.S. Navy Hospital corpsman and flag raiser on Iwo Jima, in Antigo, Wisconsin (d. 1994)
• Died: Albert Chevalier, 62, English comedian and actor

July 11, 1923 (Wednesday)

• France notified Britain that it would not accept an international conference to discuss the German reparations problem. "The reparations commission was legally created by the Versailles treaty to handle the problem and this cannot be transferred elsewhere without violating the treaty", a spokesperson for the government said.^[22]
• Harry Frazee sold the Boston Red Sox to a group led by Bob Quinn for $1.25 million.^[23]
• Born: Dan Berry, American cartoonist (d. 1997)

July 12, 1923 (Thursday)

• British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made a speech before the House of Commons about the issue of German reparations and the occupation of the Ruhr, stating that "if we ask Germany to pay in excess of her capacity we shall not succeed ... We are convinced that an indefinite continuation of this state of affairs is fraught with great peril. Germany herself appears to be moving fast towards economic chaos, which may itself be succeeded by social and industrial ruin." Baldwin proposed that an impartial body be allowed to investigate Germany's capacity to pay.^[24]
• Turkey and Poland signed a trade agreement.^[25]
• Died: Ernst Otto Beckmann, 70, German pharmacist and chemist

July 13, 1923 (Friday)

• France refused to sign on to the British reply to Germany's offer on reparations unless its primary demand stated that passive resistance in the Ruhr be ended.^[26]
• The Hollywood Sign was officially dedicated. It was originally erected earlier that year as a temporary structure to promote real estate, but the sign quickly became a landmark. The sign actually read "Hollyoodland" until the 1940s.^[27]
• American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews discovers the first dinosaur eggs near Flaming Cliffs, Mongolia.
• Born: Norma Zimmer, singer, in Larson, Idaho (d. 2011)

July 14, 1923 (Saturday)

• Hermann Ehrhardt escaped from prison ten days before his trial for high treason over the Kapp Putsch was set to begin.^[28]
• U.S. President Warren G. Harding visited Anchorage, Alaska.^[29]

July 15, 1923 (Sunday)

• French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré made a speech to the senate rejecting almost every item of Stanley Baldwin's speech, saying that "we wish only that the treaty signed by twenty-eight powers shall not be considered an antediluvian fossil and placed in an archaeological museum after four years. It seems that we ask too much. Certain friends say to make concessions for a common interest. Since the end of the armistice we have done nothing but make concessions. We are at the end of making concessions because until now we stood all the costs ... Instead of helping us obtain payment Germany has organized resistance, forcing us to accentuate the pressure. We thus are not responsible for the resulting situation."^[30]
• Bobby Jones won his first career major golf championship at the U.S. Open.
• The Alaska Railroad was completed when President Harding drove the golden spike at Nenana.^[31]
• The Italian parliament passed Benito Mussolini's electoral reform law by a vote of 303 to 140 which permitted gerrymandering favorable to the incumbent Fascist Party.^[32]
• Died: Wilhelm Jerusalem, 69, Austrian Jewish philosopher

July 16, 1923 (Monday)

• Italy and Britain agreed to call an international conference on the German reparations issue, with or without the participation of France.^[33]
• Magnus Johnson of the Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party was elected to the U.S. Senate in an election to fill the seat opened by the death of Knute Nelson.^[34]
• Gambling was banned in Italy.^[35]

July 17, 1923 (Tuesday)

• A libel trial opened in England between Lord Alfred Douglas and The Morning Post. Douglas was suing the newspaper for printing a letter from a Jewish correspondent saying that it must no longer be a paying proposition for men like Douglas "to invent vile insults against the Jews." This remark was a reference to Douglas' newspaper, Plain English, which regularly printed antisemitic articles alleging Jewish conspiracies.^[36][37]

July 18, 1923 (Wednesday)

• Winston Churchill took the stand in the Lord Alfred Douglas libel trial and said that the plaintiff told an absolute lie when he alleged that Ernest Cassel had paid Churchill to print a false account of the Battle of Jutland attributing victory to Germany so stocks would fall and a group of Jews could turn a profit when they went up again. A deposition from Arthur Balfour was read in which he said that he alone had written the Jutland report and that Churchill had nothing to do with it. The jury returned a verdict awarding Douglas one farthing in damages.^[38]
• Italy published a "timetable" for the Italianization of South Tyrol. Italian was to be made the official language of the mostly German-speaking region, and Austro-German immigration into the region would be banned.^[35]
• Born: Jerome H. Lemelson, engineer and inventor, on Staten Island, New York (d. 1997)

July 19, 1923 (Thursday)

• Russell Maughan's second attempt at the first dawn-to-dusk transcontinental flight across the United States ended 738 miles short of his goal of San Francisco when an oil leak forced him to land in Rock Springs, Wyoming.^[39] Though Maughan got closer this time, he decided not to try again until the following year.

July 20, 1923 (Friday)

• Retired Mexican Revolutionary general Pancho Villa was shot dead in an ambush by seven gunmen.^[40]
• A survey by the Carnegie Institute concluded that Germany was unable to pay any further reparations at this time because all the country's movable capital had been exhausted.^[41]
• Born: Stanisław Albinowski, economist and journalist, in Lwów, Poland (d. 2005); Elizabeth Becker, concentration camp guard, in Neuteich, Free City of Danzig (d. 1946)
• Died: Pancho Villa, 45, Mexican revolutionary (assassinated)

July 21, 1923 (Saturday)

• 1,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan paraded on the main street of Topeka, Kansas, defying a state order. Kansas Attorney General Charles B. Griffith ordered the local authorities to prevent the marchers from wearing masks, but Topeka mayor Earl Akers said that no law was being broken and so nothing was done.^[42]
• Born: Rudolph A. Marcus, chemist and Nobel Prize laureate, in Montreal, Canada

July 22, 1923 (Sunday)

• Henri Pélissier won the Tour de France.
• Walter Johnson became the first pitcher in history to record 3,000 career strikeouts during a game against the Cleveland Indians.^[43]
• A 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck near San Bernardino, California at 11:28 p.m. The County Hospital and Hall of Records were badly damaged but there were no fatalities.^[44]
• Born: Bob Dole, Kansas Senator and presidential candidate, in Russell, Kansas; The Fabulous Moolah, professional wrestler, in Kershaw County, South Carolina (d. 2007); Mukesh, singer, in Delhi, British India (d. 1976)

July 23, 1923 (Monday)

• An attempt by Labour to get the House of Commons to call for an international disarmament conference was spurned by Stanley Baldwin and the Conservatives, who believed that the time was not right.^[45]
• Born: Luis "Witto" Aloma, baseball player, in Havana, Cuba (d. 1996)
• Died: Charles Dupuy, 71, three-time Prime Minister of France

July 24, 1923 (Tuesday)

• The Treaty of Lausanne was signed. All the bells of Lausanne were rung as the final peace treaty of the Great War was signed at last.^[46]
• The Hague Academy of International Law was inaugurated.^[47]

July 25, 1923 (Wednesday)

• 103 were reported killed in a train crash in Bulgaria.^[35]
• Film star Lila Lee was married on her eighteenth birthday to actor James Kirkwood, twenty-six years her senior, in Hollywood.^[48]
• Born: Estelle Getty, actress (The Golden Girls), in New York City (d. 2008); Maria Gripe, author, in Vaxholm, Sweden (d. 2007)

July 26, 1923 (Thursday)

• U.S. President Warren Harding disembarked in Vancouver, the first time a sitting president ever visited Canada.^[49]
• Johnny Dundee beat Eugène Criqui by 15-round decision to win boxing's World Featherweight Title at the Polo Grounds in New York City.^[50]

July 27, 1923 (Friday)

• President Harding arrived in Seattle and delivered what would be his last major speech, on the subject of the future of Alaska.^[51][52]
• Born: Ray Boone, baseball player, in San Diego, California (d. 2004)

July 28, 1923 (Saturday)

• President Harding canceled his planned visits to Oregon and Yosemite National Park due to an illness reported to be ptomaine poisoning. His train continued on to San Francisco.^[53]
• In Australia, New South Wales Premier Sir George Fuller ceremonially turned the first sod in the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.^[54]
• Born: H. S. S. Lawrence, educationalist, in Nagercoil, British India (d. 2009)

July 29, 1923 (Sunday)

• German communists staged a "Red Sunday" with public demonstrations across the country, but turnouts in most cities were low. Four were killed in Neuruppin when communists rushed the city jail and police fired on the unruly mob.^[55]
• Warren Harding's personal physician, Charles E. Sawyer, issued a nighttime bulletin saying the president's condition had worsened with new symptoms.^[56]
• Born: Jim Marshall, businessman and founder of Marshall Amplification, in Acton, London, England (d. 2012)

July 30, 1923 (Monday)

• The physicians attending President Harding issued another nighttime bulletin reporting bronchopneumonia in the right lung and describing his condition as "grave".^[57]
• Sidney Bechet made his recording debut, cutting "Wild Cat Blues" and "Kansas City Man Blues" as part of a quintet known as Clarence Williams' Blue Five.^[58]
• The execution of Roy Mitchell was carried out.
• Born: Paul Minner, baseball player, in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania (d. 2006)
• Died: Charles Hawtrey, 64, English actor, director, producer and manager

July 31, 1923 (Tuesday)

• Dr. Charles E. Sawyer reported that the president's condition had improved and that he was resting comfortably.^[59]
• Suspended Labour MP James Maxton finally apologized for his remarks of June 27 and was readmitted to the House of Commons.^[60]
• In Britain, royal assent was given to several bills, including the Oxford and Cambridge Bill and Lady Astor's liquor sales restriction bill.^[35]
• Born: Ahmet Ertegün, founder and president of Atlantic Records, in Constantinople, Turkey (d. 2006)

References