Today -100: February 28, 1915: Of guarded potatoes, saving corsets, betraying dogs, wars of starvation, grieved plutocrats, and unabashed nudity

Headline of the Day -100: 

Another Headline of the Day -100: 

Maybe that guy shouldn’t have been cleaning that gun in a hotel lobby in the first place.

Still Another Headline of the Day -100, Because It Was Just That Sort of Day: 

Supposedly, Germans craftily chalked on a ruined house in a Flanders town from which they were withdrawing, “Please feed the dogs.” The incoming French and Belgian soldiers did, the dogs started howling at midnight, and the Germans used the noise to direct their shelling. Since then, the Allied soldiers have killed all the dogs.

Yet Another Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times):  “Declaration by the Allies of a War of Starvation.” Britain and France intend to stop all shipping to Germany.

Sad Headline of the Day -100: 

By the city of Cleveland, which is actually attempting to collect taxes from him. He says he spends a lot of money in the city, and years ago prevented it being wiped off the map when the Pennsylvania Railroad wanted to move its offices to Pittsburgh, so he shouldn’t have to pay any taxes, I guess.

Chinese people in San Francisco, Fresno, Vancouver, etc. are boycotting Japanese-owned businesses to protest the Japanese government’s demands on China.

Nude Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): 

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Today -100: February 27, 1915: No one can hold me responsible for the recent earthquake in Italy

The Supreme Court is hearing the Leo Frank appeal. The state of Georgia denies that there were any intimidating mob scenes during the trial, “except such as was developed in a ‘law-abiding community’ by the evidence as it was gradually unfolded.”

The British government orders shipbuilders in Scotland not to strike for a 4p/hour wage increase; says it will arbitrate.

The German naval attaché at the embassy in Washington, Capt. Karl Boy-Ed, laughs off the accusation that he is running a spy/sabotage ring: “If another accident happens in the subway I shall probably be accused of that. ... At any rate I am happy to say no one can hold me responsible for the recent earthquake in Italy.” No, but that explosion on the bridge at the Canadian border...

South African troops are invading German Southwest Africa (Namibia), led personally by Prime Minister Botha, who was a general in the Boer War.

Like Germany, Austria will turn its schoolchildren into agricultural laborers, closing all schools for summer a month early.

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Today -100: February 26, 1915: Of spies, mines, human shields, and aliens

Richard Stegler, a member of the Germany Navy’s reserves, is under arrest in New York for fraudulently obtaining a US passport. He has implicated the German naval attaché in Washington, Capt. Karl Boy-Ed, as head of the German secret service/sabotage operation in the US. Which he is. Stegler says Boy-Ed (who is half German, half Turkish) supplied Carl Lody, the spy executed by the British a few months ago, with his false US passport.

Woodrow Wilson politely asks Britain and Germany to remove all their mines from the high seas.

A Prof. Walker, an expert on international law at Cambridge, suggests putting interned German - not even POWs, just people who happened to be German who were in Britain when the war started – on commercial ships to prevent Germany sinking them. “If election must be between the discomfort of belligerents and the lives of non-combatants and peaceful neutrals, it is true humanity will have no hesitation as to a decision.”

The Scandinavian countries give up their plan of convoys for their merchant ships, because Britain opposes the scheme.

Italy and Austria are negotiating how big a bribe Italy would require to remain neutral.

Britain says it’s destroyed all the Turkish forts at the entrance of the Dardanelles and the no doubt successful invasion of Turkey can now commence.

New York’s highest court upholds the state’s ban on aliens being employed on public works. The opinion, written by future Supreme Court justice Benjamin Cardozo, says “The moneys of the State belong to the people of the State. They do not belong to aliens.” Good luck getting those subways built, New York City.

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Today -100: February 25, 1915: Of undead princes, unmutilated prisoners, women voters, Belgian millinery, and lady cops

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The Excelsior newspaper (Paris) reports that the German crown prince totally died last December. It’s been a while since one of these rumors.

More Fog: The German consul in Chicago, Baron Kurd von Reiswitz, gave newspapers an affidavit from one Robert Meyer, who says he enlisted in the British army and while he was in hospital in Ostend after sustaining a wound in Rheims in September, saw German soldier prisoners who had been mutilated – 3 whose eyes were gouged out, 3 tongues, 2 ears – at least 4 of whom were mutilated by British soldiers. The British ambassador responds that there is no record of such a person and points out certain problems with his timeline and other errors, such as there being no 14th Company of the Grenadier Guards, the unit he claimed to have been in, no British troops in Rheims in September, etc.

Birmingham, Alabama arrests Hiram De Laye, a newspaper/magazine distributor, for selling a copy of a newspaper published outside the state which contains a liquor ad, which is illegal under the state’s new strict prohibition law.

In Illinois, women have the vote in local and national elections but not state ones. This means they have separate ballots from men, so you can actually determine the gender differences in voting. Yesterday’s primaries show they don’t vote with their menfolk, but are more Democratic. And 900+ women in Chicago’s 32rd Ward, the NYT says, were “deceived by a political trick,” voting for a black barber named W.W. Taylor, who didn’t even know he was running for alderman, someone having submitted papers for him so he’d be confused for the popular W.A. Taylor. Ah, Chicago politics.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Germans Forbid New Belgian Millinery.” Women have been wearing Belgian soldiers’ caps, and the German occupiers are not best pleased.

The New Jersey Legislature passes a bill permitting the appointment of policewomen. Whatever is the world -100 coming to?

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Today -100: February 24, 1915: A people of poets and thinkers has been transformed into a united people in arms

Sarah Bernhardt is now minus one leg and is resting.

Sen. Albert Fall (R-New Mexico) proposes that the US, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil intervene in Mexico to restore order. It’s not clear what exactly he has in mind but on past form it’s something stupid.

The Prussian Diet sent Kaiser Wilhelm a message of congratulations on the victory in the Battle of the Masurian Lakes. He responds, “A people of poets and thinkers has been transformed into a united people in arms, and we can rely on the strength of its determination to triumph over all the enemies of German Kultur and civilization.”
Today’s shipping losses include: the US steamer Carib, which hits a mine off Germany, the Swedish steamer Specia, sunk by a mine in the North Sea, and the Norwegian ship Regin, hit by either a mine or a torpedo off the coast of Dover.

Carter Harrison, Jr., 5-time mayor of Chicago, though non-sequentially, loses the Democratic primary for a 6th term in some sort of intra-Democratic feud that doesn’t sound like it has a lot to do with actual issues. He was first elected mayor in 1897, 4 years after his father, Carter Harrison, Sr, who was also the mayor of Chicago, was assassinated. Both were elected five mayor times.

At the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, which just opened, a janitor finds a bomb at the Japanese building.

Dirty-Sounding Headline of the Day -100: 

To make it worse, her name was Mae Cockrell. She committed suicide in the elevator shaft of the Washington Monument.


Turkish newspapers, perhaps being fed stories by the German press bureau, have reported that His Islamic Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm has already entered Paris in triumph and had his hand kissed by the French deputies. Also, Wilhelm’s harem and the harems of his staff officers will be visiting Constantinople. So that’ll be nice.

Indian troops on the way to fight in Egypt mutiny in Singapore and go on a rampage.

The German government is asking people to stop stamping the words “God punish England” on mail going to other countries, as it might give the wrong impression.

Congress passes the Army appropriation bill, including a provision banning the use of stopwatches and other “scientific management” methods in government plants.

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times, but possibly from the Manchester Guardian):  “Terrors of Bearded Troops.” Russian soldiers are going all shaggy because they think it frightens the Germans.

The US Supreme Court upholds the California law setting a maximum 8-hour work day for women in factories and shops (but not in agricultural labor, canning, boarding-houses, nurses or domestic servants).

The NYT misses this story, and the LA Times gives precisely two sentences to it: the US Supreme Court unanimously rules in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio that motion pictures do not have 1st Amendment protection against local censorship boards. They are not akin to newspapers, as Mutual had argued, the Court says, but more like circuses, theater and “other shows and spectacles” which the state can regulate in the interests of public morality. “Moving pictures is a business pure and simple, originated and conducted for profit,” and “not to be regarded... as part of the press of the country, or as organs of public opinion.”  The Court seems rather scared of movies, for some reason: “Their power of amusement, and, it may be, education, the audiences they assemble, not of women alone nor of men alone, but together, not of adults only, but of children, make them the more insidious in corruption by a pretense of worthy purpose or if they should degenerate from worthy purpose. Indeed, we may go beyond that possibility. They take their attraction from the general interest, eager and wholesome it may be, in their subjects, but a prurient interest may be excited and appealed to.” Just a few days before, Chief Justice Edward Douglass White had seen his very first motion picture - “The Birth of a Nation.”

The Mutual decision was reversed in 1952, when motion pictures were ruled to come under the 1st Amendment after all.

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times):  “Bryan Wears a Toy Dove.”

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Today -100: February 23, 1915: First they came for the pigs, and I said nothing...

Germany is calling up 17-year-olds. Farm work will now be done by older children, who will be let out of school. Of course this is only until the end of the war, which they expect to be in November or so.

Germany responds to British claims of cruelty towards its POWs with an inquiry which totally clears itself, so that should settle that. “The evidence expressly states that when some of the allegations of cruelty published in England were read to the prisoners all of the Englishmen present broke out into laughter.”

The London Times reports that Turkish troops have been killing Armenians and leaving their bodies in the streets to be eaten by dogs.

Germans are told it is their patriotic duty to eat pork in order to reduce the numbers of pigs and save the grain they would have eaten for humans. There are 25 million pigs in Germany. For now.

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Today -100: February 22, 1915: Of curtailed sandwiches, sunk ships, lynchings, jewels, and bluffs

Headline of the Day -100:  “Ask German Children to Curtail Sandwich.” For the war effort, they are supposed to eat only one slice of bread.

The US steamer Evelyn strikes a mine in the North Sea and sinks, with no loss of life but considerable loss of cotton, which it was bringing to Bremen. It is not currently known whose mine it was and I don’t think it ever will be. (Correction: one dead - frozen to death - and 13 missing, it will be reported tomorrow).

Austrian torpedo boats and airplanes bomb two fishing boats clearly flying the flag of neutral-for-now Italy.

A possible train robber who got into a gun fight with cops, killing one, is lynched in Pleasant Hill, Missouri. He is white, as was not the custom.

King George of England arranges a £50,000 loan for the Queen of the Belgians, putting her jewels (which were sent to the UK before the Germans occupied Antwerp) up as collateral, although it’s not quite clear which of the jewels are legally hers and which belong to Belgium.

The Berlin police ban afternoon teas in hotels, cafés etc if they are accompanied by music, recitations, or lectures. No one knows why.

A posse led by a US marshal fights Piute Indians near Bluff, Utah.

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Today -100: February 21, 1915: Woman in politics is the last thing a real woman wants

The Lusitania arrives in New York. It didn’t fly the American flag this time, but neither did it fly the Royal Naval Reserve flag Capt. Dow is entitled to fly, and usually does.

A U-boat sinks a steamer off the Welsh coast without warning, and a Norwegian ship is sunk by a mine off the Danish coast.

Germany and Austria complain that submarines are, they say, being built for Britain in the US and shipped in pieces via Canada.

Britain and France claim to have successfully bombarded the Turkish forts guarding the entrance to the Dardanelles, silencing their guns. Turkey, of course, claims the forts haven’t been damaged.

Carranza arrests 180 native priests (i.e., not the Spanish priests Villa hates so much) for non-payment of a 500,000 peso levy on them, supposedly to be used for the poor.

Sarah Bernhardt on her forthcoming leg amputation: “I would rather be mutilated than powerless.”

The NYT prints another batch of letters on women’s suffrage:

Elizabeth Goldsmith says “It sometimes seems as if the suffragist had ceased to think of man and woman as two halves of a whole” and cites the “law of unity and polarity” in nature. You know, man the active principle, woman the passive principle, like fire and water, day and night, etc. Since woman is “the passive, the acted upon,” if she has the vote “she will do nothing original with it, nothing creative.”

Florence Howe Hall says that far from coarsening women in the states that have it, women’s suffrage has refined men.

Helen Glover, vice president of the Connecticut Anti association, says “The hysterical, emotional way in which women are clamoring for the ballot, without rhyme or reason, only shows how unfitted they are for it, and of how little use it would be in their hands if they had it. Woman in politics is the last thing a real woman wants”.

Henrietta Wheatley says “Men and women were created to co-operate – not to compete.”

Frederic Almy replies to the original editorial: “You say that women must work as men work in order to vote as men vote. I do not want them to vote as men vote, but differently.”

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Today -100: February 20, 1915: Of open doors, drugged soldiers, and chandlers

New York bankers refuse to give a loan of ten to twenty million dollars requested by French bankers, backed by French government bonds.

Pres. Wilson will complain to Japan about its demands on China, which violate the US “Open Door” policy in China.

Etherical Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: A French officer says that Germans only fight when drugged with a mixture of ether and alcohol, which sometimes causes them to fall asleep in the trenches they’ve just captured, whereupon French soldiers “butcher them like sheep.”

Britain responds to the US note complaining about the false use of US flags on British ships, saying yeah, we’re gonna keep doing it, and pointing out that US ships did the same thing during the Civil War.

The NJ Legislature’s committee investigating last month’s fertilizer strike in which deputy sheriffs shot at strikers, killing five, is told by a doctor who treated 16 of the shot strikers that all 16 were shot in the back.

Harry Chandler of the LA Times Chandlers is indicted, along with Boer general-turned-mercenary Ben Viljoen, for conspiring to foment a revolution in Mexico – actually against Carranza’s governor in Baja California – and recruiting troops in the US for that purpose. Chandler owns millions of acres of land in Baja and Gov. Cantu has been insisting that he actually pay the tax on exporting cattle to the US, which was never collected under the previous governor Chandler is, coincidentally, trying to reinstate.

Wikipedia tells us that Chandler “attended Dartmouth College, and on a dare, he jumped into a vat of starch that had frozen over during winter, which led to severe pneumonia. He withdrew from Dartmouth and moved to Los Angeles for his health.” And married a newspaper heiress. His Wikipedia entry doesn’t mention this trial, which seems to have fizzled out, with no outcome (dismissal, I assume) reported in either the New York or Los Angeles Times. The latter doesn’t even mention the legal action against its part-owner until Feb. 23, and then just in a reprint of a Detroit Free Press editorial which asks, “Can One Conspire Against a State of Anarchy?” I’m not sure “things in Mexico are so anarchical that one more mercenary army won’t make any difference” is a great legal defense.

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Today -100: February 19, 1915: All the things we have been trying to forget

Germans are very excited about news that the blockade of Britain will involve zeppelins as well as submarines. What’s the German for “That is so fucking steampunk”?

The Iowa Legislature votes in prohibition.

Frank James of James Gang fame (I believe he was the Ringo) dies at 74. He’d been a farmer for 30 years. He was tried once, but was never convicted of any crimes.

Woodrow Wilson tells a deputation of mostly German-American women that banning the export of munitions to warring countries would be an un-neutral act at this time.

Jacob Dickinson, secretary of war under Taft, says that the US land forces aren’t in a state of readiness for defense, and calls for rearmament, saying no one could suspect the US of preparing for world conquest if it did so.

Protests in Atlanta by Southern women’s groups against a theatrical production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin has resulted in the removal of scenes involving slave auctions and the whipping post and the change of the play’s name to Old Plantation Days. Said Mrs. Joseph Morgan, president of the Women’s Pioneer Society, “The play appeals to all the things we have been trying to forget.” The Daughters of the Confederacy says the play carries suggestions that are filled with injustice and misrepresentation of the South. Like the fact that there used to be slavery within living memory, probably.

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Today -100: February 18, 1915: Sweet charity

Henry Ford is making job offers to every inmate at Sing Sing before they are released (or other companies participating in his scheme are). Part of the deal is that they go wherever they are sent, which will be nowhere near New York, because Ford’s reform theory involves removing offenders far from their old environment. He even plans to give them new names.

The Rockefeller Foundation is trying out a new scheme for the relief of Belgian refugees in, um, concentration camps in the Netherlands, where instead of being given relief because they’ve been, you know, driven out of their homes and their country penniless by marauding German soldiers, they’ll have to work in exchange for food and clothing, because slavery is so much better than charity.

The mayor of Vancouver, L.D. Taylor, is unseated by the Supreme Court for lacking the property qualification required for the office.

The Nevada Legislature again makes Reno a divorce destination, reducing the residency period for divorces back to 6 months.

Paris will issue no new alcohol sales licenses.

D.W. Griffith holds a special secret screening of “The Birth of a Nation” at the White House (secret because Wilson is still in mourning for his wife, and secret only until Griffith breaks his promise not to leak the story to the press, in other words not secret for very long), arranged by Wilson’s old college buddy Thomas Dixon, author of the books on which Birth is based and a huuuuge racist. Wilson is supposed to have said that the film is “like writing history with lightning,” but he probably didn’t.

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Today -100: February 17, 1915: Of plocks, suffrage, and the day of slapstick and rough-house stuff

German troops occupy Plock. Or possibly they’re just making up names now.

The Massachusetts Legislature votes to hold a referendum on women’s suffrage in November. It will require a 2/3 vote.

The South Dakota State Senate rejects a bill passed by the lower house giving women the municipal and (partial) county and state vote. Suffrage bills are also working their way through the Indiana and Rhode Island legislatures.

The Arizona Legislature defeats a prohibition bill that was considered too strict (1% alcohol counted, clubs banned, powers of search extended).

Mack Sennett says, “The day of slap-stick and rough-house stuff is swiftly passing.” He says he will now produce works of “a distinctly higher class of comedy.” (Spoiler alert: no he won’t).

The film page of the LA Times explains how D.W. Griffith got a little black girl to cry in “The Clansman.” He had tried telling her the boogy man would get her and that bears would eat her. Finally he yelled at her that she was a lousy actress and he was going to send her home. That did it.

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Today -100: February 16, 1915: Germany cannot be allowed to adopt a system of open piracy and murder

Russia orders Jews in Poland to evacuate to at least 50 miles from the front, following the discovery of a concrete base for heavy guns at a factory that before the war employed only Jews.

German Socialist leaders meet and decide not to support any peace movement until Germans, you know, win. On at least one front.

First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill tells Parliament that he plans to choke off Germany’s food supply in retaliation for its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, which he calls “piracy and murder” in, no doubt, Churchillian tones. He also reports that 5,500 British sailors have been lost, mostly to U-boat attacks.

Actually, although I think Churchill wouldn’t have known this when he spoke, Germany just floated a proposal to modify its U-boat plans if Britain stops attacking its food supply. But it also claims that British civilian merchant shops are preparing to fight, that they’re being equipped with naval guns and plan to ram U-boats. [Update: just noticed that typo, which is so awesome that I’m leaving it in]. This not only makes them fair game, but makes boarding them to ascertain their civilian status too risky. As the German ambassador to the US says, “Germany has been compelled to resort to this kind of warfare by the murderous ways of British naval warfare, which aims at the destruction of legitimate neutral trade and at the starvation of the German people.” I doubt the neutral countries will be any more impressed by this game of “But they started it” (Churchill is pretending that choking off Germany’s food supply is a new policy) than they were by the “But they mobilized first/they went to war first” claims of last September.

Sarah Bernhardt corrects the story from a couple of days ago, saying “It is next Monday that the surgeon will amputate my leg, and after that I shall be happy again.”

The House of Representatives passes a child labor bill, banning children from mines and quarries until 16 and factories until 14 (or working more than 8 hours a day or 6 days a week until 16). Farm work is still okay at any age. Actually, child labor isn’t quite banned, but products of child labor can no longer be sold across state lines.

A jury summons is mistakenly sent to A.E. Wicke of Brooklyn, who is actually Antoinette Wicke. She is a feminist and would love to serve, but of course women are not allowed on juries (in fact, even when they were, jury duty wasn’t mandatory for women in NY state until the US Supreme Court struck down discriminatory jury-duty laws in several states in 1975).

I just don’t understand the selection process for the front page of the NYT. That story is on the front page, right below Greece breaking diplomatic relations with Turkey and right above “Girl, Yawning, Sprains Jaw.”

Austria is drawing up a census of church bells, because it may want to melt them down for the copper.

China has rejected all of Japan’s demands re railroads and treaty ports and Manchuria and whatnot.

The US claims that an attack by a mob in Panama on American soldiers, in which shots were fired by both sides, was due to the “carnival spirit entirely.”

Ottawa has a second night of air raid scares. The first one may have been caused by children sending up fire balloons, but they’re taking no chances.

The Germans are worried about possible British submarines in the Baltic and asking how they got there. One theory is that they followed in the wake of a German warship (which would know where the mines are), but my favorite theory is that the subs were shipped in pieces and assembled in Kronstadt.

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Today -100: February 15, 1915: Why should Germany and the United States wage war on each other?

Headline of the Day -100: “Bernhardt Loses a Limb.” To be specific: the actor Sarah Bernhardt and her right leg, respectively. Also, it’s not true. Yet.

Headline of the Day -100: “Snow Entombs Thousands.” On the Eastern Front, where it’s evidently quite cold.

Invention of the Day -100: The sardine cannon (a sardine can filled with dynamite which launches a re-filled shell case into the enemy trenches).

Ottawa has an air raid scare. Some planes – or possibly UFOs - were spotted crossing the border from New York. They failed to make an appearance in Ottawa, but everyone in Ottawa was pretty excited for, you know, Canadians.

The German government has made public the letter from the United States protesting its declaration of submarine warfare, and the public is pretty relieved that its terms weren’t particularly strong. Now US Ambassador to Germany James Gerard gives an interview with a German newspaper, in which he asks, “Why should Germany and the United States wage war on each other? There is not the slightest question of a conflict between them; their interests oppose each other nowhere in the world.” He also points out that the two countries are in completely separate continents, so really, how could you even fight a war?

France exempts fathers with six children from the draft.

Racist Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times):

Albanians invade Serbia, although it is not clear if Albania is even an actual country right now, its sort-of leader Essad Pasha being either president of an independent Albania or commander of the Ottoman army in the province of Albania, depending on who he’s talking to.

Headline of the Day -100:

Not a euphemism.

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Today -100: February 14, 1915: When a woman gets this bee in her bonnet she loses all sense of proportion

The Lusitania leaves Liverpool for New York, flying the British flag. 200 Americans who had tickets of the Lusitania canceled them and took an American ship home instead.

Carranza executes four Syrians he believed were spies from Pancho Villa.

Syrians?

Carranza expelled the Spanish ambassador for giving refuge to a Spaniard who worked for Villa. Spain has decided not to make a big deal about it.

Gen. Obregon levies a tax of $250,000 on the Catholic clergy in Mexico.

The Germans have supposedly expelled all foreigners from Upper Alsace and are now evacuating all civilians. Actually, they may just be fleeing into Switzerland, it’s not clear.

A French POW writes to Kaiser Wilhelm asking permission to return to France to visit his dying mother, promising to return. The kaiser lets him go, and he does return after the funeral.

The Bishop of Oxford, Charles Gore, bans prayers being offered for animals doing war work.

Pancho Villa captures Guadalajara.

The race difficulties in Gallup, New Mexico, have been, in the words of the LA Times, “amicably settled by the town authorities by compromise.” Every negro won’t be ordered out of town after all: “those blacks who are acceptable to the authorities will be allowed to remain”. So that’s all right then.

There are dozens of letters in the NYT today (the whole of pages 83-8) responding to its anti-suffrage editorial of February 7th. The majority are opposed to it, and some refer to how out-of-date, even medieval, it sounded. The Times, however, in a new editorial, says, “when in this age of mushiness and confusion, so many weakly yield to the allurements of all the new cults, it is, we take it, a tribute to courage to be called old-fogeyish.”

No it isn’t.

So what did some of the letters say?

In hers, Alice Stone Blackwell claims that suffragist Washington State has a low death rate, proving that women are not neglecting their homes and failing to properly nourish their husbands.

On the other hand, Caroline Holmes of the Guidon Club, Opposed to Woman Suffrage, which I’ve never heard of, says suffrage in Colorado has failed “to produce even a reasonably governed state”.

A Mrs. Minnie Lincoln Hansel of Cranford, New Jersey, says suffragists are just women who have never found themselves; “Happiness or freedom of soul is a state of mind purely and is rather to be found in simple duties well performed, in the love of united family relations, and more likely in an atmosphere pungent with the smell of baking bread or fragrant with the odors of flowers wafted from quiet garden paths than from the heights of a soapbox amid the clatter of cobblestones.”

Mrs. Arthur Dodge (Artie, as I call her), president of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, says that the majority of women are not prepared to renounce their current status as a “privileged sex before the law.”

Everett Pepperrell Wheeler, chairman of the NY State Men’s Association Opposed to Political Suffrage for Women, says that “when a woman gets this bee in her bonnet she loses all sense of proportion... We pity them from the bottom of our hearts.”

Mrs. George Douglas Miller, president of the Albany branch of the Anti society, thinks the feeling of the average woman on this subject is conveyed by a Michigan woman she claims to have met who voted once but won’t do it again, because when she got home the bread she was baking had gone sour.

Lovell Oldham says women are far less tolerant than men of other opinions than their own.

George Foster Peabody (banker/philanthropist/inventor of the Peabody Award) wonders where the “political genius” that the NYT thinks is only possible in a male-controlled political system actually is.

Alva Belmont points out that the societal catastrophes the NYT predicts in the event of women’s suffrage are the exact same ones it predicted for the legal recognition of married mothers as parents (women would become unsexed, neglect their homes, chivalry would be destroyed, etc). Alice Dewey points out that similar arguments were used against college education for women.

Christina Morton thanks the Times for proving by its editorial that there is no valid argument against women’s suffrage.

Margaret Aldrich, chair of the Women’s Suffrage Party, points out that the “needless political muddle” and “social and political turmoil” that the NYT predicts would result from women’s suffrage is rather amply evidenced just at present in the male-run nations of Europe. On the other hand J. Howard Cowperthwait thinks that if Britain had had women’s suffrage, it would have been less prepared for the war and maybe not even joined in.

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Today -100: February 13, 1915: Of air raids, shell shock, cruises, gallups, and economical kings

The largest ever aerial raid, 34 planes in all, is sent by Britain against the Germans in Belgium, aimed at disrupting facilities required for the U-boats used in the German blockade of Britain. Some of the planes are shot up, but no pilots are killed, though Flight Commander Claude Grahame-White has to be fished out of the sea. Whether the bombing did much damage is a question, but the British seem to think this was a great psychological victory. There will be a lot of self-proclaimed psychological victories in this war.

The Daily Mail (UK) warns its readers against the unwarranted wave of anticipation that the war will be over soon.

First known use in print of the term “shell shock,” in an article in The Lancet by British army doctor Charles Myers.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Russia claims (again) that Austria intends to re-create the Polish monarchy and name Archduke Charles Stephen, a grossadmiral in the Austrian Navy, king. Austria seems to think the one thing Poles really need to make them loyal is a Hapsburg king. To be fair, they seem to be thinking along the lines of a semi-autonomous kingdom within the Empire, like Hungary (and with more Polish territory, seized from Russia - all of which is currently moot, since it’s the Russian troops who are occupying Austrian Galicia). Austria may also be trying to head off Kaiser Wilhelm picking one of his relatives for the (non-existent) throne. In fact, it will be a couple of years before Austria half-heartedly names a Polish king.

Sir Roger Casement says he has proof that the British government is trying to kill and/or capture him. Some plot to bribe his manservant. Also, his pension as a former diplomat has been suspended.

With the impending German threat to shipping, a lot of Americans are booking passage home on the Lusitania. There’s a quote from a Cunard official about the threat not being “sufficient reason for the cancellation of passengers.” I’m not sure what that means, but it might mean that the company won’t refund tickets held by people too scared to sail. The article says “the chances of a submarine being either able or likely to attack the Lusitania on the coming voyage were as one in a million”; for a start, the Lusi is just too fast for a sub to catch it. It will, however, likely take a different route than usual - and fly an American flag again.

Placards appear in Gallup, New Mexico, warning negroes to leave town, following an incident where a white woman accused a black man of whatever. Half the negro population has fled.

Headline of the Day -100: “King George Economizes.” Well, he cuts the salary of the head chef at Buckingham Palace in half, if that counts as the king economizing. That said, the head chef’s salary was £2,500 a year, which was rather a lot, certainly a lot more, even after being cut in half, than that of Flight Commander Claude Grahame-White, whose daily pay is 25 shillings (£1¼).

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Today -100: February 12, 1915: We are a tongue-tied brood at the best

The Pancho Villa-appointed governor in southern Baja California ousts all of Carranza’s appointees (judges, customs officials, etc) and declares the currency issued by the Carranza governor void, criminalizing acceptance of it.

In Parliament, Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey is asked whether the Allies will make public their peace terms. Nope.

Kaiser Wilhelm, on the other hand, is quite willing to make his peace terms clear, telling his troops in Poland that Germany will not rest until the enemy is beaten to the ground. “He emphasized this statement with a crack of his riding whip.” As was the custom.

Britain more or less says it will start seizing all food shipped to Germany.

A German submarine shells a British steamship, the Laertes, in the North Sea, refusing to stop shelling the ship even when it raised a Dutch flag (which it was not entitled to use).

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Artillery Duel Worst of War.” Everyone’s a critic.

The Republican Majority Leader in the NY Legislature, Harold J. Hinman, opposes a bill for widows’ pensions, which just “encourages the relatives of poor widows to cast their burden upon the state.”

Rudyard Kipling gives a speech at a recruitment meeting for military bands. Why, a few fifes and drums spur troops to march at least five extra miles and “can swing a battalion back to quarters happy and composed in its mind, no matter how wet or tired its body may be.” “We are a tongue-tied brood at the best. The bands can declare on our behalf without shame and without shyness something of what we all feel and help us to reach a hand toward the men who have risen up to save us.”

There was a lot of obfuscation about who tried to assassinate Pancho Villa last month, but it was his long-time deputy and companion Rodolfo Fierro, who was upset by Villa criticizing him for losing all but six of his command in a battle and tried to kill him. Villa of course had him immediately executed.

The German ambassador to the US tells a New York German-language newspaper that this war will totally do away with anti-Semitism in Germany. Also, some of the kaiser’s best friends are Jews.

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Today -100: February 11, 1915: There is a certain feeling between the races

Another British ship, the Cunard Line’s Orduna, has also been flying an American flag, before the Lusitania did it.

The Wilson administration has sent letters to Britain, asking about this use of false flags, and to Germany, asking how it plans to ascertain which commercial ships with the flags of neutral countries are actually legitimately entitled to those flags before, you know, sinking them.

A Swiss newspaper reports that last September Germany secretly offered peace to France. France would acknowledge the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine and Belgium in exchange for acquiring Strassburg and a bit of Belgian land north of Calais. The offer was made through former prime minister Joseph Caillaux, who has since, entirely coincidentally, been sent to Brazil.

French senator/mayor of Lyon (and future prime minister) Édouard Herriot proposes proxy marriages for soldiers to, ahem, “regularize their domestic relations.”

Judge Jackson of L.A. makes permanent the injunction allowing the showing of “The Clansman,” and tells the negroes in his courtroom that while he didn’t approve of the movie himself, they should just shut up about it: “There is a certain feeling between the races and there always will be as long as both live in this country,” but the movie won’t affect the position of the colored people either way.

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Today -100: February 10, 1915: Of strict accountability, things you find in coffins, annoying shells, and selling munitions for fun and profit

Woodrow Wilson sends Germany a secret note saying that if they start sinking ships without warning, the US will hold them to “a strict accountability,” whatever that means.

The Russian Duma convenes for the first time in six months. It approves of the war, in case anyone was wondering. Prime Minister Goremykin says the war has brought the Russian people closer together and brought about a rapprochement between the Russian and Polish people, who don’t mind at all a war being fought on their soil. He talks about all the land Russia is planning to seize from Austria and Turkey in Galicia and the Black Sea region. Foreign Minister Sazonov denies that there have been any pogroms against the Jews, which he says is just German propaganda to stir up the Americans.

Woodrow Wilson claims that Col. House is not in Europe as any sort of peace envoy. No, he always takes a European vacation this time of year, war or no war, just like Chevy Chase.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: the London Times claims that relatives of German soldiers killed in Belgium are being allowed to go to Belgium to find their dead and bring them back in coffins, which they are also filling up with loot. “On Jan. 30 one of these coffins fell off a truck. The lid came off and silver teapots and trays fell out.”

Headline of the Day -100:

Luxembourg’s 20-year-old monarch, the Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde, has refused to leave her palace since the Germans occupied her country, in case she might be forced to meet some of them. She even refused an invitation to visit Kaiser Wilhelm on his birthday, though she did send kind wishes. (This article suggests she was more opposed to the occupation than was actually the case, a stance which led to her being forced to resign after the war and become a nun).

Former Pres. Taft makes public a letter he wrote declining to support a bill to forbid the export of arms to nations at war. He makes an interesting case that such a policy would give an advantage to the more militaristic and heavily armed countries and incentivize the sort of arms race we saw in Europe before this war broke out.

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Today -100: February 9, 1915: A difficult Birth

Philip Snowden, a British Labour MP and future chancellor of the Exchequer, who only just got back to Britain after being caught in Australia when the war broke out and coming back by way of the United States, writes that he discovered in the US that pro-Allied Americans are not particularly pro-British, but believe in the democratic principles Britain is supposedly fighting for. But if the US ever attempts to enter the war, he says, it will have a serious problem with its German immigrant population. And the Irish in the US aren’t particularly fond of the English either, you’ll be surprised to hear.

Germany explains that its declaration of a watery war zone around Britain doesn’t mean it will sink every neutral ship, just those carrying contraband. Of course the definition of “contraband” is elastic, and the British have already stretched it quite a bit in their blockade of Germany.

A Turkish newspaper says a jihad has been declared in Afghanistan, so that’ll end well.

Sen. Robert La Follette proposes a resolution directing President Wilson to attempt to convene a peace conference to end the European war.

The US State Dept is refusing to answer any questions about the Lusitania’s use of the American flag.

“The Clansman,” still not named “The Birth of a Nation,” opens in LA, despite the efforts of the City Council which, after hearing protests from the NAACP  that “The Negro is made to look hideous”– just proving the line in the movie, “Dem free-niggers f’um de N’of am sho’ crazy” –  asked the censors not to allow it and then ordered the police chief not to allow it. The first matinee was cancelled, but D.W. Griffith got an injunction and the show went on, pending a further hearing. The LAT reviewer thinks it’s the best motion picture ever made but that 3 hours is too long for any movie.

Well, I watched the movie – the things I do for this blog – but found I don’t have much to say about it. As a movie, it was innovative then, making many realize for the first time that film was capable of being its own art form, not a bastardized version of theater or photography but capable of representing the world in a way entirely its own. The furious ride of the avenging Klansmen startled audiences; some screamed as the horses seemed to be coming right at them – that’s how new the conventions and capabilities of cinema were to people. Now, of course, we have Jar Jar Binks, so we’re pretty jaded to that shit.

As a piece of propaganda for white supremacy, it doesn’t seem as particularly effective. It no doubt reinforced the stereotypes of racists, but it’s hard to see it making many converts. For example, the scene in which Ben Cameron, a former Confederate soldier, refuses to shake the hand of a mulatto only works if you’re already inclined to view a dark-skinned gentleman extending a hand as an act of uppity presumption and a violation of the natural order of things. Otherwise, Cameron just looks dickish, standing there with folded arms.

I had a similar reaction to the famous scene in which Gus (Walter Long) chases Flora (Mae Marsh), who throws herself off a cliff to preserve her purity, as was the custom. I know what the scene is supposed to be conveying, but to me it looks like Flora became needlessly hysterical when a black man spoke to her on the street (well, a white man in black face, I guess that would be kind of creepy). Here’s a 9-minute clip of that scene (the most frequently censored scene of the movie).

A better-quality version can be viewed here.

And just for the hell of it, here’s Walter Long in the ’30s without the black face.

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Today -100: February 8, 1915: Now let us ray

It is reported that it was the British admiralty which ordered the Lusitania to raise an American flag, although they will deny it and I’m not actually sure whose decision it was. (If you’re wondering, as I was, how a British ship happened to have an American flag, it’s because it’s customary to fly the flag of your destination on the foremast and your national flag on your taffrail.)

Japan is threatening military action against China if it doesn’t give in to a long list of sovereignty-damaging demands that include turning over all German concessions to it, extending the lease on Port Arthur and on several railroads to 99 years, access to ports and rivers, not making such leases to other nations without Japan’s permission, South Manchuria and East Mongolia opened up to Japanese colonists, Japanese “advisers” for the Chinese administration, police, and military, etc etc.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: A French prisoner of war has supposedly been sentenced to two years for defacing a portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm – specifically, gouging out its eyes.

One thing the Mexican turmoil won’t be allowed to disrupt: prize fighting. Jack Johnson, still in exile from the US, evading arrest for the crime of having sex with the (white) woman he married, has been assured by Pancho Villa that he’ll be able to reach Juarez to fight Jess Willard next month.

Turkey hands back the British consul they seized after storming the Italian consulate in Hodeida in Arabia (now Yemen) two months ago, and have “rendered honors” to the Italian flag, and that evidently settles that incident.

Headline of the Day -100:

We’ve all been there.


Proquest L.A. Times Typo of the Day -100: “Pope Rays for Peace.”

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Today -100: February 7, 1915: Of false flags, politically undisciplined children, bread, women’s suffrage, and casting Birth of a Nation

The Lusitania arrives in Liverpool. The British ship is flying an American flag because of fears of German submarines. Captain Daniel Dow (not the one who would be in command of the Lusitania in May) claims he has a right to do this because the ship was carrying neutral mail and neutral passengers. Evidently there is no actual rule of international or US law against such a ruse de guerre, although it is not considered “quite the proper thing”. Also, the Lusitania is recognizable and well-known, hard to mistake for another ship.

Headline of the Day -100:

The steamship, not the king.

The German Governor-General of Belgium, Gen. Moritz von Bissing, says that the Belgians are “politically undisciplined children” who keep expecting to be liberated.

Germany denies reports that it asked Bulgaria to attack Romania if Romania went to war with Austria.

Berlin will start rationing bread.

The New York Legislature has voted to put the issue of women’s suffrage before the male electorate in November, and the NYT could not be more pleased at the prospect: “The proposed amendment... should be voted down by such a majority of the voters as to deprive the advocates of an objectionable and unreasonable derangement of the political and social structure of any further hope of success in this State. ... The grant of suffrage to women is repugnant to instincts that strike their roots deep in the order of nature. It runs counter to human reason, it flouts the teachings of experience and the admonitions of common sense. ... Without the counsel and guidance of men no woman ever ruled a State wisely and well. The defect is innate and one for which a cure is both impossible and not to be desired. That they lack the genius for politics is no more to their discredit than man’s unhandiness in housewifery and in the care of infants... men vote according to judgments founded on observation and knowledge acquired in the pursuit of their daily business. Women would inevitably attempt to decide such matters empirically or emotionally. ... Either women must work as men work, or they will never be qualified to vote as men vote.” “Is it worth while to take women out of the school where she fits herself to her high natural duties to put her under a tuition against which her body and mind and soul would be in perpetual revolt? Of course, the most fanatical advocate of votes for women would never preach a doctrine so monstrous.” And the vote would “coarsen” women, and so on and so forth. The editors conclude, “it is just as well that the matter should be decided now by all the men of the State. They are facing a grave crisis.” They think that women’s rights can be decided by all the men, isn’t that adorable?

The LA Times has an article about the casting of Birth of a Nation: the difficulties finding someone who looked like Abraham Lincoln who could also act, the red tape to get the National Guard to fill out the war scenes, the problem in getting enough negroes, some of whom came all the way from the South. This is evidently the first movie to film night battles and to use real explosives in the war scenes, and real Civil War cannons, borrowed from the Presidio. The battlefield was two miles long, with the cosplayers directed by telephone.

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Today -100: February 6, 1915: Of blockades, pirates, more Mexican presidents, and prohibition

Alfred von Tirpitz, head of the German navy (and what a head),

seems to think that neutral countries should not only accept but positively welcome Germany’s blockade of the British Isles, “as England’s tyranny on the seas of the world would only be smashed in this way.” He says Britain itself assents to the legitimacy of Germany’s blockade by its own blockade of the North Sea. He’s got a point. Two points, actually.

He accuses Britain of putting the flags of neutral countries on its commercial ships.

The British Army now has 3,000,000 men.

Headline of the Day -100: “Roused by Russian Threat. Germany Protests Against Treatment of Bomb Droppers as Pirates.”

Congress passes a naval appropriations bill. Showing no sign of alarm about the changed international circumstances in the year since the last such bill, it votes to remove from the bill 5 submarines, a badly needed new hospital ship, half the aeronautics budget, etc.

A “peace conference” of Mexicans is about to begin in San Antonio, right-wingers I think, which will name yet another provisional president. Evidently there will be peace only when every single Mexican is president.

The Arkansas Legislature votes to make Arkansas dry. The 16th prohibition state.

The Free Speech League is raising funds to defend artist William Sanger, awaiting trial on a complaint brought by Anthony Comstock, for distributing his wife Margaret Sanger’s birth control pamphlet “Family Limitation.” Comstock has already driven Margaret Sanger out of the country.

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Today -100: February 5, 1915: Of watery war zones, Mexican presidents, sabotage, and literacy tests

Possibly in response to Winston Churchill crowing about Britannia ruling the waves, Germany announces it will consider all water around Britain a war zone. I believe this is the first time (of several) that Germany announced unlimited submarine warfare. American steamship companies think it’s a bluff – a word many of them use.

Pancho Villa says he only became military dictator “to preserve order and permit peaceful pursuits” and because he couldn’t find Provisional President of the Week Garza. He says he’ll totally retire when all this is over.

Carranza threatens to expel the Spanish ambassador if he doesn’t hand over a Spaniard hiding in the embassy who Carranza says has been working with Villa.

The US isn’t quite sure what to do about Canada/Britain’s request for the extradition of Werner Horn (the “von” in his name in earlier reports was either a mistake or self-aggrandizement) for his attempt to blow up the Vanceboro bridge. In a holding action, he is sentenced to 30 days in jail for the damage he caused on the US side of the border (the explosion blew out some windows). After the 30 days, he will be charged with transporting explosives on a passenger train (on the way to the bridge) and serve 18 months in US federal prison. After the war, he’ll be extradited to Canada and put in prison. In 1921 he’ll be adjudged insane and deported to Germany.

Germany is arresting the parents of young Belgian men who escape the country to join the army.

French socialists meet to condemn Sébastian Faure’s peace campaign and to support continuing the war until victory and the crushing of German imperialism.

Congress fails, barely, to overturn Wilson’s veto of the immigration bill.

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Today -100: February 4, 1915: In charge

Pancho Villa has declared himself “in charge of the presidency of Mexico,” which is probably different from declaring himself president, but not by much.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Supposedly the entire town council of Radnitz (Radnice, as the Czechs call it) has been arrested for failing to attend a mass for Kaiser Wilhelm’s birthday.

The German Social-Democratic Party is distancing itself from Karl Liebknecht’s anti-war position.

There’s been a sort of military coup in Portugal.

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Today -100: February 3, 1915: The sea is free

First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill says “For the first time in history England can say, ‘The sea is free.’” And they can say it with glee while climbing a tree.

There is a debate between German newspapers over whether the Belgians should be allowed to starve, with one writer calling for a “gospel of frightfulness,” which probably doesn’t sound better in the original German.

A Werner von Horn, supposedly a captain in the German reserves but caught on the wrong side of the Atlantic when the war started (on a coffee plantation in Guatemala), tries to blow up the Canadian Pacific Railroad bridge connecting Maine to New Brunswick, although without doing much damage. Captured in Vanceboro, Maine, mostly because he was the only stranger in town and you know Mainers and strangers, he is claiming that it was an act of war and that neutral US cannot hand him over to belligerent Canada (did I just really write “belligerent Canada”?). The funny thing there is that it would only be a legitimate act of war – maybe – if he was acting under orders. He was, his handler was the military attaché at the German embassy in Washington, but that’s not the story he’s giving out, which is that he was acting entirely on his own initiative, with help from some unnamed co-conspirators including a mysterious Irishman who passed him the dynamite.

Mexico: Carranza is distributing land to Zapatistas who turn in their weapons.

Austria says any Transylvanians or others found serving as volunteers with the Russians will be shot.

France will allow the pope’s prayer for peace to be read in churches after all.

The Cuban congress passes the amnesty bill over the president’s veto (and US objections), freeing the former governor of Havana Province, in prison for a year for killing the chief of the national police after a police raid on a club Gov. Asbert owned.

Headline of the Day -100:

It’s a great headline, but don’t bother to click on the link, you will be sorely disappointed.

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Today -100: February 2, 1915: Of peace prayers, the illusion that the woman always is the victim, ships, executions, and not-so-fatal wars

Pope Benedict orders prayers for peace to be said in all Catholic churches. The French government says it will prosecute any clergy who try it.

The Supreme Court decides that the Mann Act, aka the White Slave Act of 1910, which criminalizes transporting a woman across state lines for the purpose of prostitution, could be used to prosecute prostitutes, for example “a professional prostitute, as well able to look out for herself as was the man,” in Oliver Wendell Holmes’s words, who travels across state lines to blackmail a john. This would require, says Holmes, abandoning “the illusion that the woman always is the victim.”

French newspapers are indignant, as was the custom, that a German u-boat sank the British steamer Tokomaru in the English Channel without giving warning.

I guess I should mention the Ship Purchase Bill, currently experiencing fierce opposition in the Senate. Wilson’s idea, the bill would, among other things, allow the US to purchase German and Austrian ships interned at US ports (there are 66 of them). Whether the British Navy would respect the new American flags on these ships is an entirely different matter.

But what about the sailors on those 66 German and Austrian ships interned in the US? Well, they’re interned too. At the start, their employers put them on reduced shore pay. By December, when it was obvious they weren’t getting back to sea any time soon, their pay was reduced to 2/3 for married men and 1/3 for single men. The men refused to accept this, so the steamship companies fired them, but neither could they release them into the US, so the men are now their “guests” and are complaining about the food.

Carranza’s brother Gen. Jesus Carranza, captured a couple of weeks ago by Gutiérrez’s forces, is executed. I must have missed the fair trial they promised him.

Headline of the Day -100 (Los Angeles Fucking Times):

Given the advances in medicine, and the humanitarianism that results in prisoners being taken alive rather than massacred.

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Today -100: February 1, 1915: Of perverts, wires, liquid air bombs, sore throats, the aristocrats, and bullet ownership

Leo Frank’s prosecutor, Solicitor Hugh Dorsey (the future governor of Georgia), says that if the Supreme Court reverses Frank’s conviction, he will go to the Grand Jury to have him indicted on charges of “criminal assault or being a pervert.” Dorsey has just failed to win a conviction of several detectives from the Burns Agency for supposedly bribing a witness to say he heard Conley, the real killer of Mary Phagan, confess.

Headline of the Day -100: “300 Dead Hung on Wires.” German soldiers on Allied barbed wire. Although the “official” story of a British or possibly French soldier who single-handedly recaptured a house from 8 German soldiers, bayoneting four and taking the rest prisoner “while he continued to suck at his clay pipe” seems like it might possibly be slightly exaggerated.

Headline of the Day -100: “GERMAN 'LIQUID AIR' BOMBS WORK HAVOC; Look Like Champagne Bottles and Are More Deadly Than Melinite.” Also, chemical weapons were just used by the Germans on a fairly large scale, not very effectively, but that hasn’t made the paper yet. Something to look forward to.

Kaiser Wilhelm has left the front because his throat is sore. I’m sure the soldiers left in the war zone are very concerned for his health.

The British Army now includes 8 dukes, 10 marquises, 61 earls, 22 viscounts and 77 barons.

The German Juristic Magazine discusses the question of who owns a bullet after it has been used to shoot an enemy soldier. Does the state the first soldier works for give up its right of ownership when it fires the bullet away? Does the soldier who has been shot possess the bullet in his body merely temporarily as an agent of his state? Evidently German jurists have been debating this since the Balkan War, when a soldier and the surgeon who removed a bullet from him both wanted to keep it. This may be the most German thing I’ve ever heard.

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