Wednesday, November 01, 2017

Today -100: November 1, 1917: Of perjury, rallies, and unserious music


NYC mayoral race: John Hylan denies Mayor John Mitchel’s charge that he is a member of the Society of Friends of Peace. So Mitchel now demands he repeat that under oath subject to perjury. And, er, how would he even do that?

Socialist New York mayoral candidate Morris Hillquit holds a rally filling Madison Square Garden. The government sends stenographers as a subtle warning to watch what he says.

Henry Higginson, the founder and chief patron of the Boston Symphony, threatens to shut it down if there continues to be pressure from the public and the government  to play the Star-Spangled Banner, which he considers inappropriate for a program of serious symphonic music. The clamor, which was stirred up by the Providence Journal, will continue until the symphony’s conductor, Dr. Karl Muck, a German-born Swiss citizen, is interned in March.

A new issue of the Wipers Times is out.

From the diary of Lieut. Samuel Pepys: “On the Thursday of last week we did take up our residence in a new part of the trench. Tis a noisome place, and I am disgusted of it. The mud is of a terrifying stickiness, and I am feared for my breeches, which cost me one guinea at the Hope Brothers’ establishment in Cheapside. Also I have spoiled my new coat on the barbed wire, which has grieved me, as it was of a good shape and fitting. ... As I must take a party out for the sandbagging, to bed at 7 of the clock, after a poor dinner, the Macconnochie being but of medium quality and not too hot.”

And a poem:

Sentry! What of the night?
The sentry’s answer I will not repeat.
Though short in words, ‘twas with feeling replete,
It covered all he thought and more,
It covered all he’d thought before,
It covered all he might think yet
In years to come. For he was wet
And had no rum.


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