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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