Today -100: February 4, 1914: Of immigration, parcels, women’s suffrage, and dreadnoughts in the air

The House, working on an immigration bill, rejects amendments excluding Asiatics (and Africans) by 203-54 after appeals by the Wilson administration that they not fuck up relations with Japan.

People are still getting the hang of the new parcel post system. A two-year-old was just posted by his grandmother in Oklahoma to his aunt in Kansas. To answer your next question: 18¢.

Pres. Wilson removes the ban on arms sales to Mexico (either side) imposed by Taft two years ago.

Pancho Villa says he will execute any Spaniards siding with Federal forces. Pancho Villa does not like Spaniards.

The lower house of the New Jersey Legislature passes a women’s suffrage bill 49-4.

At the national level, the Congressional Democratic caucus votes 123-57 that women’s suffrage is a matter for the states, not for a national constitutional amendment.

British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey admits that Britain was partly responsible for setting off the naval arms race by building the first dreadnought, but, he says, at the time the idea of dreadnoughts was in the air.

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Today -100: February 3, 1914: Him or it

The South African government is pushing through a bill to indemnify (i.e., retroactively make legal) its illegal act in deporting trade union leaders. The bill would also ban them from returning.

Carranza warns foreigners that they will be executed if they have aided Huerta. It is feared that “aid” will be interpreted to include merely paying the extraordinary taxes and forced loans levied by the Huerta Junta.

Self-exiled Gen. Felix Díaz sends an emissary, Francisco Guzman, to try to woo Pancho Villa’s support away from Carranza. Villa has Guzman shot. A simple no would have sufficed.

The Panama-Pacific Exposition planned for San Francisco in 1915 will feature an around-the-world airplane race. Unless other events, you know, intervene.

Woodrow Wilson meets a deputation of working-class women’s suffragists, and again refuses to come out for women’s suffrage.

Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, refuses to declare to tax authorities the value of her personal property. The form she was sent asked her to declare any property owned by “him or it.” Since she is neither a him or an it, she says she must be exempt.

Norfolk, Virginia’s residential race segregation law is ruled unconstitutional “on a technicality.”

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Today -100: February 2, 1914: Of railroads and forcible feeding

Germany completes its East African Central Railroad. I’m sure that investment will really make Germany’s colonial presence in Tanganyika pay off for decades to come.

The Women’s Social and Political Union badgers the bishop of London into visiting Holloway Prison to determine whether suffragettes are being tortured (other prisoners can hear Rachel Peace screaming). He “investigates” and claims that she’s just being forcibly fed and is perfectly fine. The screams, he says, are protests rather than expressions of pain. The WSPU responds, as was the custom, by heckling him during services.

While Rachel Peace may have seemed perfectly “calm” to the archbishop (possibly because she was being drugged), she was driven insane by this forcible feeding and spent the rest of her life in and out of asylums.

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Today -100: February 1, 1914: The Delilah of Syndicalism has endeavoured to cut the locks of trades unionism, so that it becomes a mere piece of putty in the hands of the political authorities

Queen Mary of Britain has lifted her ban on women in the royal household belonging to any women’s suffrage society, as long as they don’t set stuff on fire or something.

Collectors of parliamentary mixed metaphors (and there certainly are collectors of parliamentary mixed metaphors) are exulting over this one, from future British prime minister and turncoat Ramsay MacDonald: “No sooner do [Syndicalists] get themselves into a hole than they put down a string so that we may pull them out of it. The Delilah of Syndicalism has endeavoured to cut the locks of trades unionism, so that it becomes a mere piece of putty in the hands of the political authorities.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Arrests in Plot to Oust Huerta.” Isn’t pretty much all of Mexico in a plot to oust Huerta at this point?

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Today -100: January 31, 1914: My alphabet has been the sight and trigger of a rifle

The British Labour Party’s annual conference again supports women’s suffrage, only 2 of the 600 delegates voting no.

Headline of the Day -100: “Villa To Adopt Civilized Warfare.” He will stop executing Federal prisoners unless they had been captured once before, released on a promise not to fight again, and broken that promise. Villa denies wanting to be president: “I never went to school a day in my life, and I am not educated enough for the post. My alphabet has been the sight and trigger of a rifle; my books have been the movements of the enemy.”

More military-civilian conflict in Germany’s most recently acquired provinces: at a concert for the Kaiser’s birthday in Metz, Lorraine, a lieutenant orders two locals to stop speaking French. They leave the concert hall but he follows them to a restaurant, where he is outraged to find that they (and two others) are persisting in not speaking German to each other. He calls in a major, who is outraged that they do not remove their caps in the presence of a royal Prussian major and knocks the cap off one of them, as is the custom with royal Prussian majors. The four Lorrainers are arrested and turned over to the police, who release them.

At the United Mine Workers convention, the Illinois secretary-treasurer accuses Samuel Gompers of having gotten “gloriously drunk” at the Seattle convention and having a “snoot-full” at the Atlanta convention. Miners are pissed that the AFL hasn’t given sufficient financial support to the striking Michigan copper miners.

The steamship Monroe goes down after being hit in the fog by the Nantucket in the Atlantic Ocean, 50 miles off Virginia. 41 die. Much is made of the heroism of the wireless operator, who stayed at his post signaling for help after giving his life preserver to a “hysterical woman.” His mother had had a premonition and begged him not to go to sea.

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Today -100: January 30, 1914: Of leaks, Confucianism, archbishops, sick animals, large families, and awed bears

After details of American negotiations with Japan over the racist alien land law in California leak, the Wilson administration suggests that newspapers should in future refrain from discussing the US’s foreign relations, especially since it might embarrass the US when foreign governments read in newspapers stories about America’s policies that contradict what the US government has told them. And this means you, Edward Snowden!

The Wilsonites say that they do not consider as unfriendly the actions of Japanese companies in selling arms to the Huerta regime in Mexico.

Chinese President and Aspiring Dictator Yuan reestablishes Confucianism. Yuan will set an example for his religion-deficient people by starting to worship at the Temples of Heaven & Confucius, just like the emperors did, but without wearing a crown, because that would be too obvious.

British suffragettes lay siege to Lambeth Palace, demanding to see the Archbishop of Canterbury on the subject of forcible feeding. Eventually he reluctantly agrees to see one of them, but will only say that he would definitely have a think about the subject of forcible feeding (which has been going on in British prisons since 1909, so you’d think he’d have an opinion by now).

Honestly, I liked the old Mad King of Bavaria better: King Ludwig tells aristocratic women that instead of patronizing charities for sick animals, they should take care of sick poor people: “Sick animals should be killed, but sick people cured.”

The League of Large Families in France proposes Mme. Amet, mother of 22 living children, for the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

Headline of the Day -100: “Girl Teachers Awe a Bear.”

Or is this the Headline of the Day -100?: “Kisses Baby and Is Killed.” (LA Times). A Baptist minister in Georgia leans over to kiss his child good-bye, the gun he always carries so his children don’t play with it falls out of his pocket and goes off.

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Today -100: January 29, 1914: Of wireless, marches on Washington, red lights, and once again Oklahoma is not OK

Wireless communication is established between Germany and the United States, without any relaying. The first message is from Kaiser Bill to Woodrow Wilson, and just says whassup.

Gen. Coxey announces a new “Coxey’s Army” march of the unemployed on Washington, on the 20th anniversary of the last one. He wants there to be government-owned banks in every town with 1,000 people.

Ah, European aristocratic mating habits: Prince Blücher von Wahlstatt is now his son’s brother-in-law; his son is now uncle of his own half-siblings and is indeed his own uncle. That is, the prince and his son, Count Lothar, both married sisters (albeit 18 years apart), Princess Louise Radziwill and Princess Wanda Radziwill. The son married the older sister, because of course he did. If Lothar and Louise have children, he will be their 1) father, 2) cousin, and 3) great-uncle.

Pres. Wilson won’t sign a bill abolishing the red light district of the District of Columbia until there is non-prostitute work available for any prostitutes who want it. Or they could just all move to Alexandria.

Rear Admiral Charles Vreeland tells the House Naval Committee in secret session that in event of war Japan could easily seize the Philippines, but not Hawaii, Alaska or the Panama Canal. “Members of the committee got the impression from Admiral Vreeland’s testimony that preparation for any trouble with Japan must be based upon the idea that Japan would strike without notice if she went to war with the United States.”

As a result of the military-civilian contretemps in Zabern, Alsace, the entire Alsace-Lorraine government resigns. Berlin will probably appoint a more hard-line governor-general.

The federal circuit court upholds Oklahoma’s Jim Crow law against a negro doctor who was told, when the train he was on crossed into the state, to leave the “white” car. He refused, there was a lively debate and he was arrested.

In other segregation news, it has been noticed that a bill working its way through Congress for agricultural education allows any state with more than one agricultural college to decide how to allocate the funds. In other words, Southern states will send all the money to white colleges.

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Today -100: January 28, 1914: Of canal governments, rubber warships, exiles, coups, lions, and lynchings

Woodrow Wilson creates, by executive order, a government for the Panama Canal Zone, and names the Canal’s chief engineer, Col. George Goethals, governor. A bit of a conflict with New York City, which has offered him the post of police commissioner.

The British Navy is experimenting with rubber-plated warships. That just sounds dirty.

South Africa will exile 10 of the leaders of the general strike. To England. Without a trial. On a ship with no wireless that will take months to arrive.

Haitian President Michael Oreste resigns in the face of a successful revolution, and seeks asylum on a German warship. Meanwhile, American and German troops land, in order to protect their nationals and their property.

I wonder who the first person was to die making a film? Possibly Fritz Schindler, who was trying to film lions in Kenya, although he probably meant to film the exteriors of lions rather than their interiors.

A negro accused of the murder of a Mrs. Lynch in Wendell, North Carolina, is, well, the hint’s in that name, isn’t it?

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Today -100: January 27, 1914: Of watchful waiting, anarchist MPs, and gypsy wars

Woodrow Wilson tells members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he will end the arms embargo against the Mexican rebels, but that his policy is still the alliterative “watchful waiting” thing.

Amilcare Cipriani is elected to the Italian Parliament for Milan. A famous anarchist, he fought for Garibaldi, and for the attempted Greek revolution in the 1860s, and for the Paris Commune, and has spent much of his life in Italian prisons or the French penal colony New Caledonia. Which also means he’s been stripped of his civil rights in Italy, so he can’t take his seat even if he were willing to swear allegiance to the king.

Headline of the Day -100 (Washington Post): “France Wars on the Gypsies.” France plans to expel foreign-born gypsies and require all gypsies to carry i.d. cards with a picture and fingerprints. This brings France into line with most other gypsy-hating European countries. Germany is the most unpleasant to Roma.

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Today -100: January 26, 1914: Of held Mexicans, royal yachts, and ex-towns

Headline of the Day -100: “NATION HAS RIGHT TO HOLD MEXICANS.” (We will hug him and squeeze him and call him Jorge). District court rules that the US Secretary of War can keep refugees from the Mexican Army interned.

Prince Wilhelm of Wied plans to arrive in Albania, the country whose king he’s going to be, on a new yacht, the Mohican. That’s assuming his rival Essad Pasha allows him to land at all.

Remember how the governor of Oregon sent his secretary to put the town of Copperfield under martial law because its saloons violated closing hours laws and its mayor & some city council members owned saloons? Now he’s ordered the town disincorporated unless its officials all resign.

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Today -100: January 25, 1914: Of typograms (or something), kidnapping, and naval demonstrations

Technology Headline of the Day -100: “Typewriter May Soon Be Transmitter of Telegrams.” Some New Zealand guy has invented a doohickey. But really, sending messages around the world from your keyboard? That’s just crazy talk.

A special grand jury in Michigan refuses to return a true bill against the men who assaulted two miners’ union officials, kidnapped them, and forcibly deported them last month. The prosecutor had helpfully explained to the jury that it wasn’t kidnapping if there was no intent to confine them or to hold them in service, as opposed to forcing them over state lines against their wills.

The Senate passes a bill for a government railroad in Alaska.

The European Great Powers will each send a ship to Albanian waters in a “naval demonstration,” to suggest politely to Essad Pasha that he not try to make himself king of Albania.

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The strong interest of the Texas Legislature

The lawyer for the Texas hospital keeping the brain-dead pregnant woman on life support (and not enough has been made of the fact that this is a public hospital, owned by Tarrant County) argued in court, “Given the strong interest of the Texas Legislature in protecting the life of unborn children, it is unlikely the Legislature contemplated only the welfare of the mother”.

Wait, let me correct that for you: “it is unlikely the Legislature contemplated only the welfare of the mother”.

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Today -100: January 24, 1914: Of fake unions, defective Asiatics, and big sticks

German Chancellor Theobold von Bethmann-Hollweg accuses socialist MPs who are asking questions in the Reichstag about the soldiers acquitted for their actions in Zabern of undermining the throne.

The convention of the United Mine Workers expels Local 979 of Pocahontas, West Virginia, on the grounds that it’s a front organization created by a detective agency to get an agent into the UMW convention.

Labor Secretary William Wilson proposes to Congress a ban on Hindu immigrants (who are supposedly sneaking into the US via the Philippines). He also suggests physical tests for prospective Asiatic laborer immigrants to exclude defectives; he’s presumably okay with white-skinned defectives.

The Bonapartist pretender to the French throne, Victor Napoleon (known as Napoleon V to a handful of cranks), fathers a male heir to his non-existent throne.

You know that “big stick” Theodore Roosevelt carried? It just got stolen.

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Today -100: January 23, 1914: Of profit-sharing, voting rights, and war movies

Ford is quizzing its employees about how they spend their money before allowing them into the profit-sharing program. If they say they send it back to the Old Country, they’re not allowed to participate.

South Carolina’s General Assembly votes in favor of repealing the 15th Amendment.

The first fruits of Pancho Villa’s film deal are shown in New York City, and they sound rather disappointing. Villa is shown smiling as he leads his troops into battle at Ojinaga, then he is shown smiling as he leads his troops out of the battle at Ojinaga, but there’s no actual battle footage because the battle was fought at night. A likely story.

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Counseling or screaming

During last week’s Supreme Court hearings on the Massachusetts abortion clinic buffer zone case, Stephen Breyer commented that the particular context of an abortion clinic might justify such a law: “Everyone is in a fragile state of mind.” He said, “It’s just tough to say whether they’re counseling somebody or screaming at somebody.” Breyer has clearly spent way too much time with Antonin Scalia.

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Today -100: January 22, 1914: Only those persons who have lost all moral sense can endure it. It is the shame of our days.

Headline of the Day -100: “SUFFRAGE HIT BY KINDNESS.; Senate Ready to Pass the Bill, but Ashhurst Talks Too Long.” Sen. Henry Ashurst (D-Arizona) (misspelled in that headline) gave a three-hour pro-suffrage speech, using up the time needed for a pro-suffrage vote, so the Senate moved on to the Alaska Railroad bill.

Alliterative Headline of the Day -100: “Menace By Militants.”

Straw Headline of the Day -100: “Straw Hat Appears in Mobile.” Sign of spring, or something, 1914-style.

Mesmeric Headline of the Day -100: “Raid Broke Up ‘Trance.’” Arresting 20 white people, evidently a Spiritualist meeting, at the home of a negro woman the Paterson, NJ who police describe as a “common clairvoyant.” She will be fined $100 and each of the attendees $3. For what crime, I don’t know.

The NYT letter columns for the past couple of weeks has been deeply concerned with palindromes.

Cardinal Cavallari, the patriarch of Venice, says the tango is “everything that can be imagined. It is revolting and disgusting. Only those persons who have lost all moral sense can endure it. It is the shame of our days. Whoever persists in it commits a sin.” He orders that absolution be denied to anyone who confesses to having tangoed without promising to abstain in the future.

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Gender diversity

The state of Utah’s latest arguments to the Supreme Court in favor of marriage inequality is that the state is supporting diversity, just like affirmative action or something:

Society has long recognized that diversity in education brings a host of benefits to students. If that is true in education, why not in parenting? At a minimum, the State and its people could rationally conclude that gender diversity — i.e., complementarity — in parenting is likely to be beneficial to children. And the state and its people could therefore rationally decide to encourage such diversity by limiting the coveted status of ‘marriage’ to man-woman unions.

The state doesn’t explain what gender diversity in parenting actually means, and should be made to explain its “Men do parenting like this, but women do parenting like this” argument in excruciating detail. As I’ve said before, homophobia is basically a subset of sexism.

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Today -100: January 21, 1914: The antagonism between business and government is over

Pres. Wilson appears before both houses of Congress to lay out the principles behind five anti-trust bills he will send them. These would 1) set up an Interstate Trade Commission (for disseminating information, not enforcement, except for fining corporations that do not provide information to it); 2) ban interlocking directorates; 3) better define the existing Sherman Anti-Trust Act; 4) allow individuals, not just the attorney general, to initiate anti-trust suits; 5) something or other about railroad securities. “The antagonism between business and government is over,” Wilson says. In other words, he’s denying that these measures are as radical as business types will no doubt make them out to be.

Headline of the Day -100: “Union Breaks Up Funeral.” During the funeral service for a Mrs. Marion Auzone of Trenton, the hearse drivers were informed that the musicians playing the dirge were non-union, so they quit and drove off. The pallbearers had to carry the coffin to the cemetery, stopping for occasional breaks, and if you’re not thinking of that Monty Python episode by now I don’t even want to know you.

The Wisconsin eugenic-marriage law is declared unconstitutional, both for setting doctors’ fees for issuing health certificates too low ($3) and for impairing the right of matrimony. However, the circuit judge did not agree that the law was unfair in only demanding medical examination of men.

The Ulster Women’s Unionist Council is organizing Ulsterwomen to participate in the upcoming civil war: driving ambulances, nursing, carrying messages, etc.

A French dancing teacher sues the archbishop of Paris for banning the tango. Loss of business.

Has the NYT been covering the Haitian revolution and I’ve just missed the stories? Anyway, the rebels have defeated government forces in a battle and the minister of war is running for his life.

The NYPD has some sort of objection to the play “The House of Bondage.” A play by one Joseph Byron Totten, something about a brothel, described by the New York Telegram as “so scarlet it screams.” Evidently it’s already been so expurgated in response to police pressure as to be silly, and it lasted 8 performances.

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Today -100: January 20, 1914: The King has got to see us, or we shall know the reason why

Headline of the Day -100: “Women Now Menace King.” The Women’s Social and Political Union’s Norah Dacre-Fox on the WSPU’s plan to petition the king in person: “The King has got to see us, or we shall know the reason why.”

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Today -100: January 19, 1914: Of assassins, sneezes, and funny money

In Paris a few days ago there was an assassination attempt on Mehmed Cherif Pasha, a former Turkish ambassador to Sweden who is now an anti-Young-Turk exile. The assassin did succeed in killing his valet before being shot dead by Cherif’s son-in-law. Anyway, since then a French lawyer, Georges Desbons, who claims to have information about another planned assassination attempt, was refused entry at Cherif’s house (possibly because the last stranger to turn up had a gun and a dagger and a Koran), so now he’s demanding an apology or a duel with Cherif, because of course he is.

A jury in Bunzlau, Germany, refuses a police demand that a man be convicted of disturbing the public police for sneezing too loudly.

Bulgaria sells Turkey 200,000 rifles it captured from Turkish troops during the Balkan war.

Venezuela says that it will not be able to hold congressional and state elections next month because of the state of rebellion and because Gen. Gomez really doesn’t want to give up power. They may not have said the last part out loud.

Mexican rebels are either issuing their own currency now or counterfeiting it, it’s not really clear. Anyway, 10 million pesos in paper money of this currency were seized in Chicago, but since the US doesn’t recognize any Mexican government, the money can’t be considered counterfeit under US law and will be given back.

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Today -100: January 18, 1914: Of overrated navies, internationales, and gangsters’ balls

Headline of the Day -100: “Navy Is Overrated, Says F.D. Roosevelt.” Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt says the navy doesn’t have nearly enough dreadnoughts to protect the East Coast from invasion in event of some sort of war. He doesn’t say who he thinks would land soldiers on the East Coast. (The thing about the Navy being “overrated” is that people overestimate the number of ships it has; FDR says only 16 of them are good enough to be sent against an enemy fleet).

Two brothers, Pierre and Adolphe de Triter, went to court in France in a dispute over which of them composed the music of the song The Internationale in 1888. The court rules in Adolphe’s favor, but Wikipedia says that he was put up to falsely claiming ownership by Lille’s mayor and the French Socialist Party (Pierre had moved ideologically to their left). Adolphe admitted the fraud in his suicide note in 1916 and the copyright was re-awarded to Pierre in 1922. It is still in effect.

The House Rules Committee decides against setting up a special committee of the House on women’s suffrage.

New Headline of the Day -100: “Police Didn't Know of Gangsters' Ball.” An NYPD police captain is being investigated for neglect of duty for not stopping or at least keeping a watch on a gangsters’ ball which ended, as gangsters’ balls do, with a gun battle that killed a passer-by, who happened to be a City Court clerk. Cops from Capt. Sweeney’s precinct testifying in his defense say that no one knew about the ball, despite the placards which advertised who would be attending.

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Today -100: January 17, 1914: Of subs, Hindus, and fleas

The British submarine A7 sinks to the bottom of Whitesand Bay, killing 11 men.

A meeting of Colorado miners threatens to free Mother Jones, currently being held by the military under martial law, by force of arms.

Canada will require Hindus entering the country to prove they have $200.

Alfred de Rothschild (of the London Rothschilds) buys a flea for $5,000. A sea otter flea. He collects fleas. Because of course he does.

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Today -100: January 16, 1914: Of insurance, spoils, general strikes, and the tango

Lloyd’s of London calculates an insurance policy for Shackleton’s polar expedition based on a risk of failure of only 10%.

Pres. Wilson is in a dispute with Congressional Democrats over spoils in the postal system. Wilson says he will veto the Post Office appropriations bill if it contains an amendment removing 2,400 positions from the civil service and returning them to the spoils system.

Mexico mostly stops paying postal orders. Well, the PO will make full payment, but in stamps. The problem is that military units have been looting post offices.

South Africa has crushed the general strike, arresting many union leaders, some of whom surrendered after a field gun was trained on the Trades Hall in Johannesburg. The government mobilized Boer burghers into militias, telling the strikers in so many words, Hey the army might not shoot you, but these guys are crazy!

The pope comes out against the tango. So don’t dance the tango, dude. He also objects to the “new paganism,” although I doubt he was particularly fond of the old paganism.

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Today -100: January 15, 1914: Of militias, fast cars, and honored women

Congress and the secretary of war are working on a bill to make the state militias available for use in foreign countries, and by foreign countries they of course mean Mexico.

Ford Motors in Detroit may recently have started the first moving assembly line, but Ford in Manchester, England, builds a car in 11 minutes and started driving it around in 19 (the 8 minutes were wasted because someone forgot to “pack the induction pipe,” whatever that means).

In a change of policy by Pancho Villa, the capture of Ojinaga is not followed by executions.

Sarah Bernhardt is named to the Legion of Honor.

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Today -100: January 14, 1914: Of lynchings, defaults, strikes, intellectual equals, disagreeable or incompatible races, and volcanoes

Booker T. Washington says there were only 51 lynchings in 1913, compared to 64 in 1912. Um, yay?

Mexico announces it will default on the interest on its bonds. And seize the property of rebels.

US District Court upholds the Wright brothers’ patent on heavier-than-air flying machines.

A general strike is declared in South Africa. The government declares martial law. Prime Minister Botha says he will crush the strike so that there won’t be another strike for a generation. Gandhi – that Gandhi – helps out the government by calling a halt to the Indians’ protest campaign against the pass laws (within a couple of days he will have negotiated a deal ending Indian-specific taxes and allowing polygamous marriages).

Members of the Paterson (NJ) Woman Suffrage League ask Mayor Fordyce why he refused to appoint any women to the Board of Education. Because “I do not regard women as the intellectual equals of men,” he says.

South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease spends much of his annual state of the state message attacking some of the many people he considers his enemies: a US district court judge for being “a little cheap partisan politician,” Navy Secretary Daniels for being small and stupid (Daniels would not approve improvements to the Port Royal Naval Station unless the sale of whisky in the barracks was stopped). He complains about encroachments on states’ rights by the federal government, such as fixing hunting seasons. Why, he says, “one of the greatest and noblest battles ever waged was fought in the sixties for State’s rights... Now are we to sit idly by and see their work undone and the results achieved by them set at naught?” Does he think the South won the Civil War, or is he talking about the Ku Klux Klan?

Gov. Blease calls for bans on football and on smoking in restaurants patronized by women. He again calls for a ban on white women teaching in negro schools and for the banning of negro lodges. And for a law banning all state colleges and any public schools for white children from “admitting any negro, Chinese, Japanese, Cuban, or other disagreeable or incompatible race into said school or school with white children.”

(The consul-general of Cuba objects to the “patent intention of this message officially to belittle and disgrace the Cuban people by putting them on a level with the South Carolinian estimate of the negro... nothing could be more insulting.”)

The volcano Sakurajima erupts in Japan.

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Bulldozer

Obama sent Joe Biden to Ariel Sharon’s funeral to say nice things about him, just confirming Robert Gates’ assertion that Biden is always wrong.

“But when the topic of Israel’s security arose, which it always, always, always did in my many meetings over the years with him, you immediately understood how he acquired, as the speakers referenced, the nickname ‘Bulldozer.’” No, Joe, I think that was because he bulldozed the homes of Palestinians, sometimes with them still inside. Hope that clears up any confusion.

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Today -100: January 13, 1914: Of tiny elephants, banishments, race betterment, profit-sharing, and refugees

Headline/Fashion Tip of the Day -100: “St. Petersburg Women Have Tiny Elephants Painted on Their Faces.”

Mother Jones returns to the Colorado coal fields from whence she was illegally deported last week, and is arrested. Gov. Elias Ammons says she will be held, incommunicado, until she agrees to leave the strike region.

A Dr. J. McKeen Cattell tells the Conference for Race Betterment that if the birth rates of Britain, France and Germany continue to decline, in 100 years there will be no births at all. Other attendees express alarm that superior human stock aren’t producing enough children.

Henry Ford’s profit-sharing plan attracts 12,000 men seeking jobs, a line so long that it blocked the arriving morning shift. So they turned the fire hoses on them, in 0° weather.

The US is trying to figure out what to do with all the refugees streaming in from the fighting in Mexico, including fleeing Federal soldiers as well as civilians. There are various plans to move them to army bases or camps where they can be fed. The US plans to bill Mexico for reimbursement later.

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Today -100: January 12, 1914: Of pogroms, tangoes, and circus girl wars

In Lodz, a “fanatical mob” attacks Jews and loots their homes and shops, as was the custom.

Munich police ban the tango, as do the Geneva police. And the archbishop of Paris declares dancing the tango a sin which must be confessed.

Alice Paul announces that her Congressional Union, which was a committee of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association focused on working for a federal suffrage amendment, has had its NAWSA funding cut off, but will continue to operate as an independent organization. The CU and its younger members are now free to adopt more confrontational methods. And will.

Headline of the Day -100: “Circus Girls to War on Foreign Invasion.”

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Today -100: January 11, 1914: Of ojinagas, strikes and scabs, exposition fatigue, and punitive self-defense

Mexican rebels led by Pancho Villa capture Ojinaga, for whatever that’s worth (the rebels have tended not to have sufficient troops to occupy the territory they capture). Several of the Federal generals and many soldiers, who had not received ammunition, much less pay, for months, have surrendered – to the United States authorities, who are rather less likely to put them in front of a firing squad than the rebels.

The US Dept. of Labor has issued a report on the Calumet, Michigan copper strike. It faults mine owners for their refusal to negotiate with the Western Federation of Miners (or, indeed, to employ any of its members). Jesus, the scabs were only paid $2.50 a day (Henry Ford pays the kid who sweeps the floors $5) and have to pay up to $22 per month for board and $24.50 for the cost of transportation from where they were hired (NY) to Michigan. The employment forms for the scabs were filled out in German but with the word “strike” in English because NY law requires workers to be told they’re being hired as scabs, but it doesn’t say they have to be told in a language they understand (several of the scabs, on arrival in Calumet, immediately defected to the union, saying they’d been told there was no strike). Michigan Gov. Woodbridge Ferris claims not to have read the report yet, but says that the strike “would have been settled long ago” if it weren’t for those outside agitators and the insistence of miners on having a union. It would all have been ok, he says, “if the miners had been allowed to treat with the operators as miners, and not as representatives of any organization”.

Several European countries are boycotting the San Francisco Exposition to protest the discriminatory rates they’ll be charged to use the Panama Canal, although Germany is claiming it’s just “exposition fatigue.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Sabre Rule Upheld by Army Courts.” A German court-martial acquits Col. von Reuter and Lieut. Schad of the Ninety-ninth Infantry for running amok in Zabern, Alsace, and reverses the conviction of Lt. Gunther Freiherr von Forstner for attacking a lame shoemaker with his saber, which the court deems an act of “punitive self-defense.” The acquittals are predicated on the supposed failure of the civilian authorities to stop the Alsatian natives from, I don’t know, looking funny at the soldiers, and the absolute requirement of military personnel to follow orders in the most Prussian way possible. Evidently under a Prussian Army regulation from 1820 (i.e., before the creation of Germany, much less the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine), the army can establish martial law whenever it likes.

Former President Taft sends 35 pants to the tailor to be taken in: he’s lost 80 pounds since leaving office.

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Today -100: January 10, 1914: Of widows & orphans, dynamite, sanded chickens, and gay scenes

Ulster Unionists set up a $5 million fund for the widows and orphans of the civil war they plan to start in Northern Ireland.

In the railway workers’ strike in South Africa, a mail train is dynamited. Elsewhere, dynamite is discovered on railroad tracks before it goes off.

Headline of the Day -100: “Sanded Chicken Swindle.” Well, that’s gross. Before chickens are brought to the New York City market, they are first starved for 24 hours, then fed ground-up sand, gravel and stone. Then they’re sold by the pound.

Headline of the Day -100 That Wouldn’t Have Sounded Dirty in 1914 But Not In 2014: “British Ball Gay Scene at Waldorf.”

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Today -100: January 9, 1914: They have for women no constitutional existence

The Women’s Social and Political Union plans a deputation to the king to discuss women’s suffrage. It says it will no longer attempt to talk with cabinet officials, who have “degraded themselves by their cruelty and treachery.” Anyway, writes Christabel Pankhurst, “Parliament and the Government represent only men, and therefore they have for women no constitutional existence.”

The German princeling selected by the European Powers to be the first king of Albania is having second thoughts.

Headline of the Day -100: “Sailor Sues for an Eye.”

French doctors at Charenton asylum (you know, the one the Marquis de Sade was locked up in) claim to have successfully cured cases of previously incurable insanity with radium. Oh radium, is there nothing you can’t do?

H.G. Wells sells the film rights to his books for a reported $25,000 a year.

Boston Mayor John Fitzgerald bans a production of Salome.

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Today -100: January 8, 1914: I do not intend to let the people laugh in this way

Headline of the Day -100: “GUNS TO STOP LAUGHING.; Even Smiling Offended the Military at Zabern.” This is the court-martial of the German officers who declared themselves in charge of the Alsatian town of Zabern/Saverne. When Col. von Reuter was asked to withdraw his provocative patrols and reminded that the Zabernhoovians weren’t doing anything more than standing around, he responded “I intend to prevent this standing about at any cost. I do not intend to let the people laugh in this way. If it continues I shall order the troops to shoot.” Von Reuter admits having stationed machine guns on the streets of Zabern.

The new nation of Albania arrests 200 soldiers sent by Turkey to install Izzet Pasha (Turkey’s ex-minister of war) as king.

Old Timey Lingo: “booze baiting,” the practice, now outlawed in Burlington, New Jersey, of washing the pavement in front of a bar with beer slops so that the smell brings in customers.

Joseph Chamberlain, 77, announces that he will retire from the British Parliament at the next election. Ill health has kept him from attending Parliament for three years, and he will (spoiler alert) die in July. The most powerful late-19th-century politician who failed to become prime minister, in part because he split the Liberal party over the issue of Irish Home Rule in the 1880s and then in the 20th century divided the Conservatives over his anti-free-trade posture, which was never all that popular with the public, even when cloaked in imperialist rhetoric. His sons Austen and Neville will both lead the Conservative Party.

The election of Frank Williams as a state senator in Maryland is challenged because he is a clergyman. The state constitution bans ministers and preachers from being senators. Williams says he has resigned his ministry (after an investigation, the Senate will agree, and seat him).

The Chicago School Board bans sex hygiene and personal purity lectures, which were introduced in 1912.

Guess I haven’t mentioned the suffrage march from New York to Albany. Anyway, the 11 marchers, three of whom did the entire route, arrive and meet Gov. Glynn, “who appeared loath to accept a ‘Votes for Women’ button that ‘Gen.’ Jones pressed upon him.”

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Today -100: January 7, 1914: The family that Wagners together

The German royal family puts on a show of unity, implicitly denying that there is a rift between the kaiser and the crown prince, by appearing in the same theatre box to watch Parsifal. Family bonding through Wagner, the German way.

Obit of the Day -100: Duke Alain Charles Louis de Rohan, Prince de Leon, a member of France’s Chamber of Deputies since 1876 and, as the titles might suggest, a Royalist. In 1876 there was still a chance that some version of the monarchy might be re-established, so the past 37 years must have been a bit of a disappointment to him.

The president of the French National Aerial League orders aviator Jules Vedrines to fight a duel with the associate of another aviator who he hit in the face (something about monopolizing petrol along a route). Vedrines had refused the man’s seconds, but says he will fight... the president of the Aerial League.

Pancho Villa has a personal bugler (not a euphemism). He has also made a deal with Harry Aitken of the Mutual Film Corp. to make movies of the war. Eight filmmakers will be sent to his camp. Aitken (who later produced Birth of a Nation) commented, “It’s a new proposition, and it has been worrying me a lot all day. How would you feel to be a partner of a man engaged in killing people, and do you suspect that the fact that moving picture machines are in range to immortalize an act of daring or of cruel brutality will have any effect on the war itself?” It is an exclusive deal: Villa is required to keep other moving picture cameramen off the field during his battles.

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Today -100: January 6, 1914: Of profit-sharing, dueling immigrants, and whiskers

Henry Ford implements a profit-sharing plan. He will also switch to 24-hour production, three 8-hour shifts instead of two 9-hour ones. And there’ll be a minimum wage of $5 a day for even the lowliest of his workers. (Update: not true. The lowliest of his workers are the women, who will get a lower minimum unless they have large families financially dependent on them.)

US Immigration authorities clarify that they will not exclude all people who have engaged in duels: there will be exceptions for ambassadors, government ministers and their attachés.

Kaiser Wilhelm strips the Crown Prince of his military authority because he sent a telegram congratulating the commander of the regiment that implemented the “sabre dictatorship” in Zabern, Alsace for his “firm stand.”

At the University of Oregon, female students “adopted a series of resolutions against whiskers and since then have discriminated in social affairs against students wearing hirsute adornments”. In retaliation, all the male seniors have signed a pledge not to shave for the rest of the semester. That’ll show ‘em.

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Today -100: January 5, 1914: Of stabilizers and mothers Jones

Orville Wright says that air travel will soon be as safe as any other mode of travel, what with his new automatic stabilizer, which will prevent stalling.

Mother Jones is deported from Ludlow, Colorado, where she’d gone to buck up striking miners. She promises to return to Colorado “as soon as it becomes part of the United States.”

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Today -100: January 4, 1914: Of bankers, martial law, suicide clubs, and gay Italian cars

An international (New York, Paris, London) consortium of bankers has loaned money to Mexico to prevent it defaulting on its bonds, but what will it do if, as seems inevitable, Mexico defaults in the future? Since the 1910 and 1913 loans were secured by 62% and 38% of Mexican customs duties respectively, the bankers seem to think it would be incumbent on their nations to land troops to collect those duties. The French government, at least, seems to feel no such obligation to the bankers.

A court in Oregon enjoins the militia from holding the town of Copperfield under martial law (imposed by the prohibitionist governor to enforce the closing of saloons). The sheriff forms a volunteer posse to resist martial law.

The British Tory press has taken to referring to those Liberals who oppose increasing spending to build new battleships the “Suicide Club.”

The other big issue in British newspapers lately, evidently, is a spat over Christian missionary work in Kenya. Worried about the inroads Islam is making against Christianity, the Anglican bishops of Mombassa and Uganda held a meeting of missionaries. Since it included Baptists, Methodists and the like, the Bishop of Zanzibar is accusing them of heresy. This is the sort of thing that kept the letter columns of The Times of London filled.

Headline of the Day -100: “Italy Likes Gay Cars.”

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Today -100: January 3, 1914: Of human sacrifices, martial law, and taxing royalty

A Mexican rebel offensive at Ojinaga fails.

Headline of the Day -100: “Human Sacrifice to Czar.” The czar just took a train from Moscow to Tsarkoe Selo (near St Petersburg), so soldiers were posted every few yards along the entire 400-mile route during a raging storm. Four soldiers were hit by trains in three separate incidents because the couldn’t see that they were standing on tracks because of the snow.

Headline of the Day -100 #2: “Girl Puts Town under Martial Law.” Oregon Gov. Oswald West’s secretary, Miss Fern Hobbs, declares martial law in Copperfield in order to shut its saloons after the mayor and city council refused her demand that they resign (the governor wants the officials who own saloons removed from office).

Germany will implement new taxes on the wealthy to support an increased army. The NYT’s figures are all round numbers in US dollars, which seems a bit suspect, but it says the taxes will raise $250 million, of which $1 million will be paid by the royal family, the first time they have been subject to taxation.

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Today -100: January 2, 1914: Of tangos and radium

Headline of the Day -100: “Catholic Church Fighting the Tango.” Dance-off!

Dr. Carl Alsberg, chief chemist for the Department of Agriculture, warns against “fake radium cancer cures” offered by quacks.

Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears Roebuck, announces a semi-philanthropic scheme to open banks to lend small sums to working-class people so they aren’t driven to use loan sharks. Near as I can tell, nothing came of this.

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Today -100: January 1, 1914: Of eugenic marriages, divorces, colonies, and battleships

At the end of 1913, Wisconsin marriage license clerks were swamped by couples trying to beat the start of the new eugenic marriage law and avoid having to get medical approval (which may prove difficult to get since doctors are refusing to perform the exams for $3, the max the law allows them to charge, and other doctors point out that it is impossible for them to certify that people are VD-free).

And a new law in Nevada dissolves the divorce colony at Reno by requiring a one-year residence in the state before a divorce can be granted.

Bernard Shaw has a (possibly facetious, you can never be quite sure with GBS) plan to ensure peace in Europe: Britain should “politely announc[e] that war between France and Germany would be so inconvenient to England that England is prepared to pledge herself to defend either country if it is attacked by the other. If we are asked how we are to decide which is the real aggressor, we can reply that we shall take our choice, or even, when the problem is insoluble, toss up for it”.

Mexico extends the bank holiday another 15 days.

The British Foreign Office denies that the UK and Germany have come to a deal on dividing up Portugal’s colonies (and Portugal denies that they’re for sale).

British Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George “opens a peace campaign.” Actually, he’s pushing back against the demands of Winston Churchill (the First Lord of the Admiralty) for more expensive battleships, pointing out that 1) Britain and Germany are so friendly these days that there’s little chance of war, 2) European powers are focusing on enlarging their armies, so Germany won’t be challenging British naval supremacy any time soon.

Have a peaceful and prosperous and peaceful 1914, everyone!

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Today -100: December 31, 1913: Of divvying up Africa, saloons, starving artists, and monas lisa

Germany and Britain are working out a political agreement “which, optimists believe, will go far toward eradicating the danger of war between the two empires.” Phew. Among other things, they have agreed on dividing up Portugal’s southern African colonies (Germany gets Angola, Britain gets Mozambique), at least in commercial terms.

Headline of the Day -100: “WOMAN TO CLOSE SALOONS.; Gov. West Sends His Secretary, Male Officials Having Failed.” Oregon Gov. Oswald West wants the saloons and gambling houses of the mining town Copperfield shut down.

Futurist artist Wenceslas Pelzynnski, in what I can only assume is a delightful meta-commentary on the future of art, starves to death in a Paris garret.

The Mona Lisa is back in France, and all is right with the world.

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Today -100: December 30, 1913: Of expeditions and tax resistance

Sir Ernest Shackleton plans another polar expedition. He plans to cross the entire continent of Antarctica, 1,700+ miles. This will involve ships at either end, so he won’t have to make a round trip. He plans to use a sledge with an airplane engine to run a propeller.

Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, says that her appeal to women to refuse to pay taxes until they have the vote does not constitute “militancy.” Rather, it is passive resistance. It is the recent establishment of a federal income tax that makes this form of protest possible.

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Today -100: December 29, 1913: Of borders, treason, moral turpitude, and corset raids

Serbia has reportedly invaded Albania, capturing four villages the Powers decided should be part of Albania.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire will begin a treason trial of no fewer than 94 Ruthenians charged with spying for Russia, although they actually seem to just be converts to the Eastern Orthodox church who have been trying to convert Catholics.

Hungarian banker Emil Zerkowitz, arriving in the US, is detained and ordered deported for moral turpitude for having fought a duel in Budapest, although it was one of those duels in which both parties fired in the air. Zerkowitz pointed out to the immigration authorities that it is not illegal to duel in Hungary. (Two days later, the LAT reports that he is admitted to the US, on bond to leave within a month.)

Headline of the Day -100: “Corset Raids by Police.” Mannequins in corsets in shop windows in Berlin.

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Today -100: December 28, 1913: Also not fond of dogs

US Rear Admiral Cowles receives several Constitutionalists on the USS Pittsburgh, anchored at San Blas. The Huertaists are pissed.

The Mormons decide to flee Mexico, abandoning their polygamist colonies’ properties.

Charles H. Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners, who was organizing the copper strike in Calumet, Michigan, is beaten, shot in the back (superficially), and forcibly put on a train for Chicago, along with the union’s auditor. The sheriff claims to know nothing about it, although the two armed men who accompanied Moyer and the other guy claimed to be deputies. This was two hours after Moyer proposed by letter to the owners that the strike be submitted to arbitration by a board picked by Pres. Wilson and the governor of Michigan. There has also been friction because the union prohibited members affected by the fatal stampede at the Italian Hall from accepting money from the public relief fund; the union will look after its own, it says. Moyer also claimed that the man who shouted Fire was from the Citizens’ Alliance.

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “King George [of Britain] Dreads Fire. Lives in Constant Fear That One of Royal Palaces Will Be Burned. Is Also Not Fond of Dogs.”

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Today -100: December 27, 1913: Of firing squads, radium, duels, presidents & fires, and interrupted speeches

Pancho Villa issues an edict that all Federal soldiers are to be executed by firing squad as soon as captured – especially Gen. Orozco.

Rep. Robert Bremner (D-NJ) undergoes an experimental treatment. $100,000 worth of radium is (temporarily) embedded in his shoulder, where he has a cancerous growth. Which sounds painful, so they’re giving him cocaine for the pain, as was the custom. Spoiler alert: well, you can guess how this one turned out, can’t you?

I’ve reported on duels in France and Germany, but not many fatalities, because the rules of dueling, even where firearms rather than swords were involved, were designed to produce non-lethal results. Then there are Solomon Jackson and Tate Souders, two idiots in Kentucky, who shot at each other with guns in their right hands while clasping each other by the left hand. Both died.

Headline of the Day -100: “President Saves Cottage From Fire.” On vacation in Mississippi, he spots a judge’s house ablaze, has his cars stop and his chauffeurs and secret service agents put it out. Very Cory Booker of him (except for the part where his employees did all the work).

In 1894 “Coxey’s Army” of unemployed people marched on Washington from all over the country, but Jacob Coxey was arrested before he could finish his speech. Now his son-in-law, who was his lieutenant in the unemployed movement, finishes his speech on the “right to work” on the steps of the Capitol. He couldn’t get a permit, so he just said it quickly.

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Today -100: December 26, 1913: Of libraries

A letter to the NYT explains that the reason Montreal has no public library is that the Catholic Church blocked it, forcing the city to turn down Carnegie money. The students of Laval University (a public, not church uni) are prohibited from using any library other than that of the university.

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Today -100: December 25, 1913: His Santa Claus is dead

Headline of the Day -100: “CALLOUS AT GUILLOTINE.; Man Executed at Dunkirk Smokes a Cigar Before He Dies.” The priest tried to stop him making a pre-execution speech (France had public executions until the 1930s), but he insisted that he’d speak if he wanted to. Which he did. And what he wanted to say was: “You Dunkirk people are a lot of cowards!”

Frank Brown, the former governor of Maryland, says the automobile is responsible for the decline of agriculture, with all the joy riding and whatnot.

Festive Headline of the Day -100: “Xmas-Tree Panic Costs 80 Lives.” Including 56 children, trampled when some drunk shouted Fire in a crowded Italian Hall in Calumet, Michigan, in which children of striking copper miners were being given Christmas treats.

No, wait, new Festive Headline of the Day -100, on the front page of the NYT: “SANTA DIES ON XMAS TRIP.” And here’s the first sentence: “Little crippled Wilbur Harris, 8 years old, is to have a merry Christmas, but his Santa Claus is dead.” A philanthropist with tuberculosis went to deliver gifts to a poor family after hearing that the mother told Little Crippled Wilbur that there is no Santa Claus for poor children, but his car couldn’t make it past the snow drifts two blocks away from the poor section of town and he dropped dead walking through the snow with, you know, TB.

Secretary of State Bryan’s latest arbitration treaty has been negotiated with Denmark, and it doesn’t even exclude “questions of national honor” from arbitration.

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Today -100: December 24, 1913: Of currency, bridge-blowing, and secret rooms

The Currency Bill is passed and signed. Yay for the Federal Reserve!

Federal troops in Mexico have adopted tactics previously only used by the rebels, blowing up railroad bridges and telegraph wires, to cut off communications between Pancho Villa in Chihuahua and the rest of the rebels.

Lawyer Melvin Couch, the former district attorney of Sullivan County, NY drops dead at 65 in his office in Monticello, NY. Who else was found in his office? His mistress of 15 years, Adelaide Brance, who had been secretly living in a secret room built into his inner office, never or rarely going out, for three years, except in a desperate search for a doctor when Couch collapsed; as luck wouldn’t have it, the nearest doctor turned out to be Couch’s wife’s brother. Couch also ate and slept in his office, having told his wife that his rheumatism made it impossible for him to climb the hill to their home every day. So he returned home only for Sunday dinners. Brance did all his office work, since he could hardly keep a clerk and secretary. For some reason, his funeral was more sparsely attended than a former DA’s would normally be. Which evidently made one of his friends, a retired jeweler he’d been to school with, so distraught that he committed suicide with a gun Couch gave him, souvenir of one of Couch’s biggest cases as DA, that of Jack Allen, the last man hanged in that county. In fact, the sheriff’s hands were shaking so much that Allen tied the rope himself, saying he wanted to be in Hell in time for supper. Brance was not allowed to go to the funeral, being held in the jail on robbery charges trumped up to hold her in case Couch turned out to have been murdered. Although Brance had almost nothing from Couch (a couple of mortgages worth $650) and he left no will, she will turn down offers of $1,000 for a two-week vaudeville engagement and $3,000 to appear in a film about the affair. The last trace I can find of her was being checked into a sanitarium in January.

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Today -100: December 23, 1913: Of holidays, negro supremacy, and splits

Huerta decrees a bank holiday until January 2, because everyone loves a long holiday. Banks won’t be obligated to pay off checks, letters of credit, etc. I assume this will just be putting off the inevitable national bankruptcy.

Sports Headline of the Day -100: “[The] Negro’s Supremacy in Ring Near End.”

There are rumors of strife among the Pankhursts. Sylvia Pankhurst (daughter of Emmeline, sister of Christabel) has been increasingly focused on working with the working class of the East End and on mass tactics, while E & C are focused on coercive individual acts of militancy. Questions of tactics have caused numerous splits in the militant end of the British women’s suffrage movement before, but the latest “split” is intra-familial (other sister Adela, a Sylvia ally, has already been packed off to exile in Australia).

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Today -100: December 22, 1913: Of munitions and volcanoes

Japan is making arms for the Huerta regime, but says it’s just business, not hostility towards the United States.

Mexican Constitutionalists say they’ll fire on any ships bringing in munitions.

500 people are killed by volcano eruptions on the island of Ambrin in the New Hebrides.

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Today -100: December 21, 1913: Of fagging princes, and advisers

Headline of the Day -100: “Prince Henry a ‘Fag.’ No Special Privileges at Eton for the King’s Third Son.” Unless you count, you know, going to Eton. He is fagging for Viscount Gage.

Russia, Britain and France object to Turkey’s using Germans to reconstruct and reorganize its military. Since they also used German advisers before the disastrous First Balkan War, I’m not sure why everyone’s complaining.

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Obama press conference: I adequately discussed my frustrations

Barack Obama had a gift for the Washington press corpse today: a surprise press conference.

On the lapsing of unemployment benefits: “So when Congress comes back to work, their first order of business should be making this right.” When Congress comes back to work. Funny how Congress isn’t working but they still collect pay. And by funny I mean awful.

On the Obamacare website problems: “I think in the last press conference I adequately discussed my frustrations on those.” There is no more Obamalike a phrase than “I adequately discussed my frustrations”.

Ed Henry says Merry Christmas to him and he says Merry Christmas back and nobody tell me what Bill O’Reilly has to say about this.

There’s some discussion of NSA snooping. He continues to say that the NSA has done nothing wrong ever. And while he’s pretending that NSA surveillance will be dialed back in some unspecified way (we need a metric: will they pull back to 3/4 of the way up our asses?), it’s only because of the entirely unwarranted suspicions of the American people (“that trust in how many safeguards exist and how these programs are run has been diminished. .... [I]n light of the disclosures that have taken place, it is clear that whatever benefits the configuration of this particular program may have may be outweighed by the concerns that people have on its potential abuse”).

On debt ceiling chicken games: “But I’ve got to assume folks aren’t crazy enough to start that thing all over again.”

And that’s where I stopped paying attention.

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Today -100: December 20, 1913: By fire and sword

Lt. Gunther Freiherr von Forstner is convicted by a court-martial for assaulting that lame cobbler in Zabern, Alsace with his sabre. Forstner said the lame cobbler looked like he might hit him, and a Prussian officer who allows himself to be struck is irretrievably dishonored.

Mexican Federal troops nearly capture Emiliano Zapata (or so they say). They moved in on his temporary hq and surprised the rebels, the last few of whom “cut their way out” with machetes (the NYT doesn’t quite say that they cut their way through troops rather than through bushes or something, but that’s the gist).

Zapata sends a circular to random addresses in Mexico City warning that he will soon take the capital “by fire and sword.” All members of the Federal Army will be executed without trial, he says, and Huerta will be hanged from the balconies of the National Palace “as a warning” and the other members of the Cabinet shot. After a short trial, of course, because justice.

AT&T is forced by the Department of Justice to reorganize and drop its control over Western Union to avoid anti-trust prosecution.

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Today -100: December 19, 1913: Of smallpox and prisons

The battleship Ohio was struck by a smallpox epidemic on the way from Europe to Guantanamo. One dead, 11 definite cases and 12 suspected.

British suffragettes seem to have attempted to blow up Holloway Prison, not very successfully. Presumably as a protest rather than an escape attempt.

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Today -100: December 18, 1913: Of hunger strikes, conventions, and mayors

The British prison authorities succeeded in keeping Emmeline Pankhurst in prison for three full days this time before having to release her. She adopted a hunger, thirst, and sleep strike.

The Republican National Committee proposes (it has to be ratified by state conventions) to reduce the representation at the 1916 National Convention of the Southern states, where there are basically no actual Republican voters. The South would lose about one-third of its current delegation, bringing them down to less than one-sixth of the total delegates, which would still be more than is warranted by its share of the national Republican vote. The NYT article doesn’t mention this, but many of the delegates from the South since the Civil War have been black. At the last convention, they were reliable votes for the party machine that delivered the convention for Taft rather than Roosevelt, and we know how well that went.

(By the way, this is why it helps to edit: I originally wrote “many of the delegates from the South have been black since the Civil War.”)

Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald will not run for re-election. He cites his poor health since he fell down stairs inspecting some buildings that had burned down. Fitzgerald would be JFK’s grandfather.

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