Q. David Bowers
The Year 1923 in History
President Warren G. Harding died on August 3, 1923, from pneumonia and an attack of food poisoning, the first incumbent to die in office of natural causes since Zachary Taylor's passing in 1850. Vice President Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as president at his family home in Plymouth, Vermont. According to tradition, one of the first things Coolidge did after ascending to the office was to have a refreshing glass of Moxie, a popular soft drink. Coolidge gained a reputation, for reticence and became known as "Silent Cal."
The activities of the Ku Klux Klan, which had terrorized many Southern and Midwest communities for several years, were exposed in a number of articles in 1923. On October 25, a congressional subcommittee convened to investigate the distribution of Teapot Dome oil leases in the Elk Hills district of California. The Teapot Dome scandal began in 1921 when Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall secretly leased the Teapot Dome government oil reserve to private operators Harry Sinclair and Edward Doheny.
The DuPont Corporation, with rights to a Swiss patent, began manufacturing cellophane in America. In August 1923 the U.S. Steel Corporation reduced its workday from 12 to 8 hours and raised wages, but profits increased. While reper-cussions from the recent recession were still felt, business trends turned upward with increased corporate profits and greater prosperity. Juan Trippe, later the founder of Pan American World Airways, began his career as an air taxi pilot in New York City. In Chicago, the Zenith Radio Corporation was founded, and John D. Hertz established the Hertz Drive Urself system. Milky Way and Butterfinger candy bars and the Popsicle made their debut in 1923.
Among songs popular that year were Yes, We Have No Bananas by Frank Silver and Irving Cohen, Barney Google, Linger Awhile, Who's Sorry Now, Mexicali Rose, and Sonny Boy. The Silver-Cohen song, which set a record for sheet music sales, was inspired by the visit of one of the songwriters to a fruit stand operated by a Greek immigrant, who in response to a request for a certain fruit gave the reply used for the title.
The first publication of Time magazine on March 3 began a vast publishing empire which would be augmented by Fortune Magazine (1930) and numerous other publications, and other activities, later including broadcasting; much of this was done under the direct supervision of founder Henry Luce. Frank Gannett, who acquired four original newspapers, founded the Gannett Company in upstate New York. Robert Frost's poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," was published. Silent films reached their zenith in the mid-1920s, and 1923 saw the release of The Ten Commandments directed by Cecil B. DeMille and The Covered Wagon, directed by James Cruze, who had been the leading male actor with the Thanhouser Film Corporation. Theatre organs made by Wurlitzer and its competitors typically provided musical accompaniment to silent films. By this time, motion picture theatres in many large cities were of grand proportions, prompting historian Ben Hall to call them "an acre of seats in a palace of splendor."
Economic chaos prevailed in Germany. On January 2, 1923, it took 7,260 German marks to buy a United States dollar; by July it took 160,000; by September the figure was up to 13 million; by November 1, it took 130 billion; and by the end of November it was 4.2 trillion. German citizens rushed to get rid of paper money, taking anything tangible in return, including furniture, paintings, coins and precious metals. Farmers refused to sell goods for the depreciated currency, and a barter system sprang up. Many municipalities issued their own provisional currency known as not gold. At age 34, Adolf Hitler staged the "Beer Hall Putsch" in Munich. Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) party achieved increased power, which became absolute within a decade. In Italy, dictator Benito Mussolini, who was to have served a limited term, dissolved competing political parties, strengthening his own position. On September 1, 1923 Tokyo and Yokohama were destroyed by an earthquake and the fires that resulted.
Reduced mintages for certain series continued in 1923.
On the commemorative scene, the illogical Monroe Doctrine Centennial coin was produced at the request of some Los Angeles promoters. The issue had little to do with the event it supposedly honored. The director of the Mint was F.E. Scobey, who served from March 1922 through September 1923. Occupying the post from November 1923 through May 1933 was Robert J. Grant.