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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