Today -100: March 14, 1914: Of dances not conducive to propriety, happy hoboes, crazed explorers, refugees, monopolies, and frank witnesses

Italian troops kill 263 natives in still-unpacified Libya, as was the custom.

The Massachusetts Legislature rejects a bill to ban the tango and other dances “not conducive to propriety.”

Happy Headline of the Day -100: “Hobo Army Happy.” Yolo County ordered the unemployed men to leave, but it lacks sufficient police to enforce the order. The unemployed non-marchers are currently being fed by Sacramento unions while Sacramento, Yolo, Placer and Nevada counties debate what to do about them. The governor of Nevada says he’ll stop them at the border. “So Kelley’s men continue to fish, eat, and bask in the sunshine.”

Crazed Headline of the Day -100: “Crazed by the Antarctic.” Sydney Jeffreys, the wireless operator on ill-fated Mawson expedition, driven crazy by memories of the cold and starvation and whatnot, wanders off into the Australian bush to die but is found before he succeeds. He’s now in a nice warm lunatic asylum.

The US bills the Mexican government $100,000 for the care and feeding of Mexican refugees. Huerta is disinclined to pay. Meanwhile, lawyers for 3,600 Mexican soldiers interned at Fort Bliss are filing habeas writs claiming that while the Hague treaty requires soldiers escaping a war into a third country to be held for the duration of that war, this does not apply to civil wars.

Supposedly, King George has told Prime Minister Asquith that while his government does indeed have an electoral mandate for Home Rule (contrary to the position of the Tories), it lacks one to coerce Northern Ireland. He bases this on Asquith’s off-hand remark during the last elections that he didn’t contemplate the possibility of Ulster resistance. This royal intervention (if the story is true) was responsible for Asquith’s offer of referenda in the nine NI counties on a temporary opt-out.

Pres. Wilson decides not to protest on behalf of Standard Oil (as the Taft Administration did) against German moves to establish a state oil monopoly (it would still import about the same amount of American oil, just not necessarily as much from Standard).

Another witness in the Leo Frank case comes forward. She heard screams, presumably those of Mary Phagan being murdered, but the solicitor-general couldn’t get her to change her story to say that they occurred at the time his theory of the case called for, rather than at a time when Frank had an alibi, and he never called her as a witness.

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Today -100: March 13, 1914: Ton Jo

The NY state Senate rejects a bill to make insanity and confinement to an institution for more than a decade a legal cause for divorce.

Sacramento and three surrounding counties come to an agreement for dealing with the “hobo army” of the unemployed. If they agree to be dispersed in groups no larger than 50, their rail fare will be paid (up to 50 miles). They will not be permitted to march in a group, and if they refuse, well...

Mary Richardson is sentenced to six months for slashing the Rokeby Venus (“malicious damage to a picture”), although of course she will hunger strike. This is the maximum sentence for damaging a work of art in a public museum; had it been privately owned she could have gotten two years. Had it been a window she could have gotten 18 months.

Pres. Wilson’s daughter Eleanor Wilson is engaged to Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo. She’s 24, he’s 50 and even in 1914 they knew that was icky.

Danish political parties come to an agreement on a suffrage bill removing property qualifications and giving the vote to women.

The front page of Le Figaro features a photograph of a 13-year-old letter written by Finance Minister (and former prime minister) Joseph Caillaux to his future first wife while she was still married to her first husband, although Le Fig doesn’t disclose to whom the letter was written or that it was supplied to the paper by the bitter former Madame Caillaux, who he divorced a few years back to marry a woman he also lured away from her husband, because he was just that French and that studly.



The letter, signed Ton Jo (your Jo), includes some political tittle-tattle about Caillaux (who was finance minister then too) sabotaging a tax bill he publicly supported; the date of the letter is not shown in the reproduction in order to mislead readers into thinking that it was a recent letter about current tax debates. Le Fig’s editor Gaston Calmette was a bit of a dick and has been pursuing a vendetta against Caillaux for some time.

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Today -100: March 12, 1914: Did you ever hear of a woman losing an argument with a man?

Pres. Wilson is moving two more infantry regiments to the border, mostly to prevent Texas Gov. Colquist invading Mexico. Colquist, who is sending more Texas Rangers to the border, gives a speech in which he says “I defy any authority on the face of the earth, Washington included, to prevent me from protecting our citizens along the border.” I suppose a US-Texas war would be entirely out of the question? Because that would be awesome.

The Colorado Democratic Party has to remove Gertrude Lee as chair of the party’s state Central Committee, because Democratic party rules don’t allow a woman to run a campaign – and this in a state with women’s suffrage. Mrs. Lee was quoted by the LA Times last week: “There is no reason why a woman should not be as good a campaigner as a man. Did you ever hear of a woman losing an argument with a man?”

Sacramento police forbid the supplying of food to the encampment of the unemployed marchers. Surrounding counties are threatening to meet them with armed force if Sac County decides to move them on once again. Plans to disperse them in small groups are thwarted because the railroads refuse to carry them since the practice of moving undesirables on to other counties, as has been happening for days, is illegal under California law. Gov. Hiram Johnson insists there is no unemployment problem but rather a problem of men who prefer vagrancy and will not work.

Following the Rokeby Venus incident yesterday, all the big museums in London are closed. London businesses dependent on the tourist trade are worried. Fat American tourists are moving on to Paris.

Ulster Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson has a counter-offer: he’ll call an Ulster convention to consider Asquith’s plan, provided that the period for which counties can vote to exclude themselves from Home Rule is extended from six years to forever.

23 lawsuits arising from the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire are settled with the building’s insurance company for $75 each, if you’re wondering what a dead seamstress was worth.

Gen. Scott refuses to allow the lawyers working on habeas corpus petitions for Mexicans being held in Fort Bliss into the fort to sign up clients.

The NYC Board of Education says that “most imbeciles and all idiots can in no way derive any lasting benefits from attendance at the public school. Their mental condition cannot be improved either by the course of study or discipline. The only practical and humane solution is institutional care.” It suggests the appointment of a state commission to investigate a “permanent solution” that might include involuntary sterilization and compulsory segregation.

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Today -100: March 11, 1914: You can get another picture, but you cannot get a life

In the National Gallery in London, Suffragette Mary Richardson slashes Velasquez’s Vensus at Her Mirror (aka the Rokeby Venus)

in protest at the treatment of Emmeline Pankhurst. She tells the cops who arrest her: “You can get another picture, but you cannot get a life, as they are killing Mrs. Pankhurst.” And in a statement sent to the WSPU she said, “I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs. Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history.” In court, she tells the judge, “You must surely see that you cannot administer the dead letter of the law against the spirit of the new letter as manifest in the Suffragette!” Richardson claimed in her 1953 memoirs that she got permission for this action from Christabel Pankhurst. She explained, “I had to draw the parallel between the public’s indifference to Mrs. Pankhurst’s slow destruction and the destruction of some financially valuable object.” Certainly the act shocked a British grown jaded by mere arson.

The National Gallery will be closed until further notice.

(The painting, which took multiple serious-looking cuts, has been pretty much fully restored.)

Meanwhile, Mrs Pankhurst is removed from Glasgow to London, with a large number of cops necessary to thwart plans to rescue her by suffragettes in London, and suffragettes who rode to London on the same train.

The NYT says that the British government is getting what it deserves for its earlier “foolish tolerance” – arrests, imprisonments, forcible feeding, the Cat & Mouse Act, you know, tolerance – of the “harridans called militants.”

The London Times, due to the grave political situation (Ireland, not women’s suffrage), is temporarily reducing its price to 1p.

It seems that Clemente Vergara’s body was recovered from Mexico not through a sneak invasion by the Texas Rangers but through the power of bribery. Also, initial reports that Vergara’s hand was burned were wrong.

Germany demands an increase to three cardinals in the Catholic Church.

The German stock exchange drops due to rumors of a war between Russia and Germany.

The Colorado militia invades the tent city of striking miners near Ludlow. All strikers without wives or children are ordered to leave. The union says the colony is on land leased by the union.


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Today -100: March 10, 1914: Texas has not committed an act of aggression against Mexico

Texas Gov. Oscar Branch Colquitt says that Wilson’s Mexico policy is “a crime against civilization.” Texas governors, always so subtle. He blames Wilson’s “namby-pamby policy” for the outrages against American citizens. He again denies that the Texas Rangers crossed into Mexico: “Texas has not committed an act of aggression against Mexico... but Mexico, by reason of the conditions existing in that country, is constantly committing acts of aggression against the citizens of Texas.” He says each state has the right of self-defense.

Sen. Albert Fall (R-New Mexico) gives the names of 79 Americans he says have been killed in Mexico and calls for military intervention in Mexico, but says “we do not war upon the Mexican nation or people... it is not our purpose to acquire territory, upset their laws or overturn their constitution; and with an invitation to the masses of the Mexican people to cooperate with us...” We’ll be greeted as liberators! “...we should immediately direct the use of the land and naval forces of this Government for the protection of our citizens and other foreigners in Mexico and lend their assistance to the restoration of order and maintenance of peace in that unhappy country.” In other words, Senator Fall owns property in Mexico.

The NYT calls bullshit: “‘Intervention’ in the Southwest has always meant annexation.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Streams of Water Rout 1,500 Hoboes.” Sacramento decides to deal with the unemployed army by driving them out of the capital with beatings and water cannon (except for the leaders, who are arrested) and keeping them from returning by lining the bridge over the Sac River with cops with shoot-to-kill orders.

NY Gov. Glynn plans to deal with the unemployed movement in NYC by removing the unemployed from the city and putting them to work as farm laborers. Their wives can be maids. Problem solved.

The National Civic Federation responds to the IWW threat by setting up a committee chaired by Alton Parker, the Democratic candidate for president in 1904, “to study the scope and limits of the rights of free speech and assembly both from the standpoints of the individual and of public order and welfare.” The NYT thinks the IWW’s ideas are outside of Constitutional protection.

Emmeline Pankhurst is arrested in Glasgow at a public meeting. Suffragists resist with pails of water, guns firing blanks, and small bombs. Also, the platform on which Mrs P was speaking was protected by barbed wire cunningly concealed by floral decoration. She will be moved to London.

NY State Supreme Court Justice Chester denies former Gov. Sulzer’s application to be paid his post-impeachment salary. Because it would have prejudiced this case, poor Bill hasn’t drawn his salary as a member of the Assembly.

British Prime Minister Asquith offers concessions on Ulster: before Home Rule goes into effect, there will be referenda in each of the nine counties in Northern Ireland (note: present-day NI consists of 6 of those counties) on whether to exclude the county from Home Rule for six years. Sir Edward Carson calls this plan “a sentence of death with a stay of execution.”

But that’s not the only important issue being addressed by Parliament: the House of Commons is considering a Plumage Bill, which would ban the importation and sale of the plumage of wild birds.

Foreshadowy Headline of the Day -100: “Mrs. Wilson Still Ill.”

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Today -100: March 9, 1914: Of bodies

The body of Clemente Vergara, the American rancher killed by Mexican federal soldiers, is returned to the US by persons unknown, supposedly. The Texas governor’s office absolutely denies the rumor that the Texas Rangers crossed into Mexico to retrieve it. I have no idea whether to believe him. Vergara’s body has three bullet wounds, a broken skull, and charred fingers (so he was tortured before being killed).

The Italian cabinet resigns.

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Today -100: March 8, 1914: Of two-by-four know-it-alls, vodka, unemployed armies, monks, and hearing voices

In Congress, Rep. Asbury Lever (D-SC) quoted unfavorably a remark he’d overheard in his hotel dining room by “one of those two-by-four know-it-alls” that only farmers and criminals can get money from the government. As it happened, the very same two-by-four know-it-all was in the gallery at that moment and sent him a note saying he’d be at the Shoreham Hotel if Lever wanted to challenge him to a duel or have lunch with him. Lever has called the hotel three times without finding the two-by-four know-it-all in, but it is unknown which offer he desired to take up.

Czar Nicholas goes to war against vodka (spoiler alert: vodka will win; vodka always wins), ordering the end of the ceremony at the end of every army parade in which commanders toast the imperial family in front of the troops. The czar would like to reduce the state’s financial dependence on its vodka monopoly (one-third of state revenue), but is facing opposition from his cabinet.

Despite the case against him having fallen apart since his trial, Leo Frank is re-sentenced to be hanged on April 17th. His 30th birthday.

The unemployed army demand that California Gov. Hiram Johnson provide them food and transportation to the state border. He refuses, but offers them work. They say they’ll finish their march to Washington first.

There’s a Supreme Court case about a guy, Augustine Wirth, who quit the Benedictine monks in 1897, got fairly wealthy writing books, and died in 1907. The Benedictines are claiming that his estate should go to them rather than to his heirs because he took a vow of poverty.

Headline of the Day -100: “Helen Keller Hears Voice.” The high notes of an opera singer singing Die Walküre.

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Today -100: March 7, 1914: Of drunks, the unemployed, and extraditions

The Special Commission on drunkenness appointed by the Massachusetts Legislature says that prohibition is a bad idea and that drunks should receive medical treatment rather than prison sentences.

Here’s how California cities have decided to deal with the army of the unemployed that intended to make its way to D.C.: Contra Costa County (Richmond, I assume) is sending them north to Benicia, which plans to ship them to the Sacramento area...

Suffragettes camp out for 40 hours on the doorstep of Ulster Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson in an attempt to extract a promise from him that no deal on Ulster would be acceptable that did not include women’s suffrage. Carson has stayed inside for two days, claiming to have a cold.

Texas Gov. Oscar Branch Colquitt decides to send extradition requests for the Federal soldiers who killed Clemente Vergara to both the Federals and Constitutionalists who claim authority in the states of Nuevo Leon and Coahuila. The extradition would only be for horse theft, since the shooting took place on the Mexican side of the border.

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Today -100: March 6, 1914: Of watchful waiting, unemployed marchers, lèse-majesté, and hollow legs

Pres. Wilson asks Congress to repeal the act which exempts American ships from the Panama Canal toll.

Brazil declares a state of siege in major cities. Because of an insurrection, not because of Theodore Roosevelt.

Secretary of State Bryan convinces the House Committee on Foreign Affairs to shelve a resolution asking the administration for an account of Mexican outrages against Americans. However, the New Jersey Legislature is considering a resolution declaring that Wilson’s “watchful waiting” policy just encourages barbaric practices.

Huerta suggests that his regime and the US could work together to suppress disorder in Mexico, and the US could start by reimposing the ban on arms shipments. The Wilson administration plans to ignore this note.

The lower house of the Austrian Parliament, which was suspended five weeks ago after “violent obstruction” by Czech deputies, resumes its session and is immediately suspended due to more of the same.

An intended march by 2,000 unemployed men from San Francisco to Washington DC ends abruptly in Oakland, when cops with rifles round them up and put them on streetcars to Richmond, for some reason, I guess just passing the problem along, where they rioted until dispersed by more violent cops.

New York cops break up an IWW meeting in Seward Park. The NYPD announces that all future IWW meetings in public places will be dealt with similarly, though meetings in hired halls may proceed unmolested.

The Suffragette says that the Women’s Social and Political Union now wants a Tory government, because at least then Liberal and Labour politicians would condemn trickery and torture. The WSPU has taken to heckling Labour Party leader Ramsay MacDonald at every public meeting at which he speaks.

More alibi witnesses turn up for Leo Frank. The detective accused of suborning perjury says he’ll whip anyone who says so, which presumably means the 15-year-old who recanted his testimony yesterday.

In Germany, Hans Leuss is sentenced to six months in a closed-door trial for writing an article saying that the crown prince’s telegram of congratulations to the colonel responsible for the military clashes with civilians in Zabern, Alsace meant that it would be a misfortune if he became king.

Headline of the Day -100 (L.A. Times): “Hollow Legs Convict Him.” Chair legs, as it turns out, not human ones. Something to do (the article is unclear) with spiritualists tricking people at a seance.

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Today -100: March 5, 1914: Of perjury, church invasions, battlin’ governors, department stores, and bentons

Another of the witnesses against Leo Frank, a 15-year-old newsboy, recants his testimony, saying he was coerced into lying by the detective and DA.

NYPD arrest 190 IWW church invaders in St Alphonsus Church (Catholic). They asked Father Hanley if they could stay there – No – if he’d give them money – No – food – No – work – No. He later complained that they were wearing hats.

Headline of the Day -100: “Blease Near a Fist Fight.” South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease goes to the Legislature to make some remarks about an inquiry into something or other, tries to start a fight with a rep. who pointed out that he had no right to just come in and speak. The governor went as far as to take his coat off but sadly there were no fisticuffs. That’s our Coley!

The Italian Chamber of Deputies passes a budget for the colony of Libya, which I only mention because I believe it’s the first time I’ve seen the name Libya used, although until the 1920s Italy treated Libya as the two provinces of Tripoli and Cyrenaica, as they had been under the Ottomans.

Gordon Selfridge spends $1,250,000 on the shop next to his, to turn Selfridge’s in London into a mega-store, as depicted in that not-very-interesting tv series.

The commission that was supposed to examine the body of William Benton gives up, convinced that the rebels are using delaying tactics endlessly while the corpse deteriorates.

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Today -100: March 4, 1914: Of rangers, women’s suffrage, women cops, war plans, nipped plans, and Americans abroad

Texas Gov. Oscar Branch Colquitt sends an open letter to Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, asking to be allowed to send the Texas Rangers into Mexico. Since the Mexican government has failed to rein in its marauders, it’s up to us, he says. Actually, it’s not clear to me what the T-Rangers are supposed to do when they catch up to bandits. Drag them back over the border for trial? Or just kill them on foreign soil, which seems to be suggested by his approving references to times in the past when the Rangers ranged across the Rio Grande “in pursuit of bandits, marauders, and inflicted chastisement to them on Mexican soil.”

Congress is considering a women’s suffrage amendment to the Constitution. Arguing against, Sen. Nathan Philemon Bryan (D-Fla.) makes the states’ rights argument that California has no more right to say whether negro women can vote in Florida than Florida has to say that Japanese can vote in California. Suffragist witnesses warn of dire consequences which will be inflicted on the Democratic Party by the 4 million women in suffrage states if Democrats block this. And Dr. Mary Walker insists that women already have a constitutional right to vote. Margery Dorman of the Wage-Earners’ Anti-Suffrage League of NY, which I’ve never heard of, says that women’s participation in the world of paid work is only “transitory and accidental” and they lack the experience to cope with government’s problems.

Chicago Police Chief James Gleason removes policewomen who had been sent to deal with a strike by waitresses at a downtown restaurant. He says that evidently women will resist arrest when the cop is female.

The Cologne Gazette claims that Russia is secretly planning for a war with Germany. The plans may not be complete until 1917. (This is not entirely inaccurate: Russia was working, not secretly because how could you, on extending its railroad network to the German border, facilitating troop movements in event of war, and the German military did therefore consider 1917 a sort of deadline, if they were going to have a war with Russia. Ironically, the absence of those rail lines in 1914 meant that it would take a long time to mobilize the Russian army, so they had to make the decision to start mobilizing early if they didn’t want to be over-run if a war started, and when they did so, there were threats and ultimata...)

Confusing Headline of the Day -100: “NIP PLOT TO BRING STRONG OPIUM HERE; Customs Inspectors Find Chinamen Had Arranged to Smuggle in Persian Drug.” At first I thought the NYT had gotten its racist epithets mixed up, but it’s “nip” as in put a stop to. I should have known the NYT would never gets its racist epithets mixed up.

Austria-Hungary sentences 32 Ruthenians to prison for inciting rebellion, by which is meant trying to convert Ruthenians to Russian Orthodox Christianity.

Theodore Roosevelt is not making a good impression in Brazil. Despite receiving lavish hospitality, including Brazil’s president turning over Guanabara Palace and its servants to him for a week, he sent bills for every speech he gave, including one for $3,000 for a short lecture to the Rio Historical and Geographical Society. Also, he kept talking about the Monroe Doctrine.

(Update: or possibly that was all made up??)

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Constant training exercises and the International Fallout of Doom

Obama is interviewed by Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg News.

On Israel-Palestinian negotiations: “There comes a point where you can’t manage this anymore, and then you start having to make very difficult choices. Do you resign yourself to what amounts to a permanent occupation of the West Bank? Is that the character of Israel as a state for a long period of time?” It’s been 47 years, and he thinks that Israel is discomfited by the thought of permanent occupation?

“Do you place restrictions on Arab-Israelis in ways that run counter to Israel’s traditions?” Well, Netanyahu again today demanded that Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish state,” so um, yeah.

Asked whether Iran takes seriously Obama’s threats over their nuclear program: “We have a high degree of confidence that when they look at 35,000 U.S. military personnel in the region that are engaged in constant training exercises under the direction of a president who already has shown himself willing to take military action in the past, that they should take my statements seriously. And the American people should as well, and the Israelis should as well, and the Saudis should as well.” Constant training exercises, people! Be afraid, be very afraid!

Okay, nobody believes the US is going to invade Iran, so this is just another case of Obama, as Gene Weingarten put it on Twitter, rattling Nerf sabres. But he did just threaten to invade Iran unless he gets his way so, um, that happened.

He says he opposes Congressional attempts to impose new sanctions on Iran because there are always little pauses in negotiations: “Even in the old Westerns or gangster movies, right, everyone puts their gun down just for a second. You sit down, you have a conversation; if the conversation doesn’t go well, you leave the room and everybody knows what’s going to happen and everybody gets ready. But you don’t start shooting in the middle of the room during the course of negotiations.” Nothing says negotiating in good faith like references to Gunfight at the O.K. Corral fantasies.

On Israeli settlement activity: “The U.S. commitment to Israel’s security is not subject to periodic policy differences.” Wow, good poker face there, Barack.

So what can he threaten Israel with? “if you see no peace deal and continued aggressive settlement construction -- and we have seen more aggressive settlement construction over the last couple years than we’ve seen in a very long time -- if Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited.” So he’s threatening Israel with... international fallout. Is that anything like the “costs” he’s threatening Russia with? And notice he’s saying he’ll still try to manage that international fallout and protect Israel from the consequences of doing things he doesn’t want it to do.

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I’d make them salute the flag if we had to blow up the whole place

Sometimes the present and one-century-ago align themselves thematically with perfect precision, and sometimes they annoy me by being just slightly off. This is one of those times.

In honor of John Kerry’s repeated statements yesterday against Russia’s “trumped-up excuses” in “behaving in a 19th-century fashion” in Crimea, I bring you an early preview of my post scheduled for April 15, covering the start of the US occupation of Vera Cruz on that date in 1914:

In response to the Mexican Federal regime’s refusal to fire a 21-gun salute to the US flag, as ordered by Adm. Mayo, to apologize for the insult of having briefly detained some American sailors who were wandering around a war zone in uniform, Pres. Wilson is sending the entire North Atlantic fleet to Tampico. Or, to put it another way, Admiral Badger is being sent to back up Admiral Mayo.

Any wariness in Congress about military intervention has evaporated: “No Senator questioned the right of the United States to occupy Tampico or Vera Cruz as a step to enforce respect for the uniform, and all agreed that a firm course must be followed from now on. Many Senators of long experience and conservative judgment expressed the view that the ordering of the fleet to Tampico meant armed intervention, but this belief did not seem to lessen their satisfaction. ... There was little inclination to comment on the fact that stronger measures seemed to be in contemplation to enforce a matter of etiquette than were adopted as a result of the murdering of American and foreign residents in Mexico.” Sen. Chilton (D-West Virginia): “I’d make them salute the flag if we had to blow up the whole place.”

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Today -100: March 3, 1914: Everything in this world belongs to us, and we’re going to take it

The Industrial Workers of the World are organizing the unemployed in New York City (which is experiencing storms and very cold weather) to occupy churches. Local IWW leader Frank Tannenbaum tells workers not to accept charity, because they built this city and own a share of it: “Everything in this world belongs to us, and we’re going to take it.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Eminent Britons Threaten Revolt.” Revolt against Home Rule, if it is passed without there having been an election first. The eminent ones include Viscount Milner, Lord Balfour, Rudyard Kipling, etc.

Emmeline Pankhurst sent the king a letter demanding that he meet a deputation. Norah Dacre-Fox says that if he refuses, they will go anyway.

The Philippine Assembly passes a resolution asking the US Congress to make provision for Filipino independence this session.

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Today -100: March 2, 1914: Of bentons, hatpins, clippers, and burning nuts

Gen. Carranza, who has been very quiet up til now about the murder/execution of British rancher William Benton, decides to scuttle Pancho Villa’s agreement for a US-UK commission to examine the body. It certainly looks like Carranza and Villa are conspiring in a cover-up here, but relations between the two have recently deteriorated sharply after Carranza finally realized that no one really thinks of him as the leader of the Constitutionalist movement any more, or thinks about him much at all, given Villa’s constant self-promotion and military successes. Carranza says he won’t report to the US on the death of Benton, but only to Britain. The problem here, and he knows it, is that the UK recognized the Huerta Junta. The British ambassador to Mexico rather haughtily asks why he should be asking the rebels and not the government about the killing. Oo, oo, I know, I know, call on me: because the rebels did it and because they did it in Juarez, where the Federals have no authority whatsoever. Do try to keep up, Sir Lionel.

In a letter to the NYT, suffragist Harriot Stanton Blatch gives another great reason why women’s suffrage is necessary: hat pins. The Paris police have been trying to stop the proliferation of stabby hat pins with no success. Blatch says this is “another painful illustration of the fact that men cannot discipline women.” Men also haven’t been able to get women to stop wearing slit skirts or feathers in their hats. Women will only be civilized (her word) if they are ruled by “the wise and good of their own sex.”

The US will recognize the coup government in Haiti.

Travel in 1914 wasn’t all state-of-the-art zeppelins and monoplanes and jalopies: a clipper ship gets caught in storms and takes 162 days to make the voyage from San Francisco to New York. It had a cargo of barley, so totally worth it.

Headline of the Day -100: “Firemen Sickened by Burning Nuts.”

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Today -100: March 1, 1914: Of income taxes, dead ranchers, outrageous, un-called for, ill-advised and dictatorial legislation, honours, and ominous fainting

The first returns for the new income tax are due. The government is expecting a lot of errors. Evidently it’s the government which then determines how much tax is due.

Woodrow Wilson’s presidential salary is exempt from the income tax.

The NYT says a secret report (from whom, it does not say, but presumably some part of the US government)(a day later the Times explains that “the report was prepared in an authoritative way” and “the testimony obtained in it is of a very direct sort,” which isn’t much more informative) has determined that William Benton was shot by a pistol in Pancho Villa’s hq in Juarez and not by firing squad after a trial, and that he was, according to his friends, unarmed at the time.

The Mexican government now claims that it didn’t hang American citizen Clemente Vergara after all, he escaped and joined the rebels. Um, no, he didn’t.

South Carolina Coleman Blease vetoes a bill which he calls “outrageous, un-called for, ill-advised and dictatorial”; he says that rather than sign it “I would resign and go into eternal oblivion.” It’s for medical inspection of schoolchildren in Richland County.

The Portuguese prime minister says there isn’t a revolution going on.

The British House of Lords is considering whether to reform the honors – excuse me, honours – system to make it a bit less dependent on contributions to political parties. So some feminist suggests another reform: not giving honors – excuse me, honours – exclusively to men. In a discussion of this in The Gentlewoman, Viscountess Hawarden says that since the honors – excuse me, honours – would be awarded by men, they would probably go only to young, pretty women. Lady Gainsborough thinks the husband of an honoree – excuse me, honouree – “could not be expected to look with favour on a title, conferred after marriage, independently of him.”

First Lady Ellen Wilson faints.

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A clear violence

Obama made a statement on Ukraine. The transcipt’s been corrected in the version at the link, but the earlier one on the RSS feed had this Freudian typo: “It would be a clear (violence) of Russia’s commitment to respect the independence and sovereignty and borders of Ukraine, and of international laws.”

Obama is threatening that there will be “costs” for Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine (well, he says for any military intervention, which suggests he’s not willing to say that what’s going on in Crimea is a military intervention – come to think of it, when is he going to come to a decision on whether there was a coup in Egypt last year?). Oo, “costs.” I love it when Obama talks vaguely tough.

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Today -100: February 28, 1914: Of CSI Chihuahua, Texas Rangers, women’s parliaments, rivers, and talking horses

Pancho Villa gives in, partly, on William Benton. He will allow a party consisting of two Americans, two Brits, two doctors and Benton’s widow to examine his body (which for some reason was buried 300 miles away from where he was murdered/executed)(or he’s lying about that too, because Chihuahua is much harder to get to than Juarez). Villa will not, however, return the body to his widow.

Constitutionalist leader Carranza, increasingly worried by Pancho Villa’s independence, cracks the whip and gets Villa to say that he will stop all his negotiating with foreign powers.

The US demands that the Mexican government (which it doesn’t recognize) punish the Federal soldiers who hanged Clemente Vergara.

Texas Gov. Oscar Branch Colquitt writes to Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan to clarify his intentions: “I do not want to invade Mexico with a military force”, i.e., the state militia. He just wants to send Texas Rangers into Mexico “in pursuit of those who are constantly transgressing our laws.” The reason he asked the State Dept who it recognizes as the legitimate government of Mexico was that he wants to know where to send requests for the return of fugitives who have escaped, as was the custom, across the border (US border states like Texas were allowed to request extraditions from Mexican border states without going through the federal government).

Gen. Chao Ping-chun, former Chinese premier and current Governor of Chi-li, dies, but was he poisoned?

British novelist and anti-suffragist Mrs. Humphry Ward will form an unofficial “women’s parliament” to advise the government on matters affecting women, because that’s totally better than women having the vote.

There’s a revolution, or something, going on in Portugal. Arising from a railroad strike.

Headline of the Day -100: “Roosevelt Finds a River.” A tributary of the Amazon. Now called Roosevelt River.

Animal Headline of the Day -100: “LIBELED BY A HORSE.; Spinster Sues Because Talking Animal Said She Was in Love” In Germany. And it all leads to a shooting (but not of the horse), because of course it does.

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Y not?

During the 2004 Ukrainian election fight between Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovich, I helpfully dubbed them Pock-Marked Mr Y and Square-Headed Mr Y.

Well, the new prime minister is named Arseniy Yatsenyuk.



So what do we think? Prematurely Bald Mr Y?



Egg-Shape-Headed Mr Y? The future of Ukrainian democracy might well depend on our getting this right, people.

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Today -100: February 27, 1914: I must protect property and, if possible, life

Texas Gov. Oscar Branch Colquitt asks the federal government who it recognizes as the constituted authority in Mexico, following the seizure and execution by Mexican federal forces of a Texan rancher, Clemente Vergara, on an island in the Rio Grande claimed by both the US and Mexico. Just as William Benton was killed by Villa when he complained about rebels stealing his cattle, Vergara was killed by the government when he complained about its troops stealing his horses. Gov. Colquitt wants permission to send Texas Rangers across the border to pursue lawless elements of either Mexican faction if they commit crimes inside Texas. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan telephones him to tell him no and also hell no.

Ethel Moorhead, a Scottish suffragette and prospective arsonist, is forcibly fed in a Scottish prison, the first time forcible feeding has been performed north of the border. She would claim that it was done by young students from the local asylum. The Edinburgh WSPU questions the medical prison commissioner, who says “I must protect property and, if possible, life” by keeping Moorhead inside prison or (at least this is what she says he told her) until she was reduced to a physical wreck, unable to do anything militanty.

Suffragettes burn a church in Whitekirk, Scotland, which was built in 1297.

In Metz, Germany, two lieutenants of the 98th Infantry fight a duel after one flirted with the other’s wife. The interesting thing is that a military court of honor, which I assume is not an official thing, ordered them to fight the duel, and that it be to the death. Which it was. The husband died.

Orville Wright bitches about his difficulties in enforcing his patent. He says in future he will demand 20% of the selling price of all airplanes.

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Today -100: February 26, 1914: Of bentons and roving bandits, deadly drifting, and perjury

Pancho Villa is now saying that William Benton’s widow and one (1) American official can view his body but not take possession of it, and must do so under conditions that would preclude a proper examination, which would presumably show that he died of a revolver bullet wound at close range rather than from a firing squad. Some American officials are discussing whether sending a small military force into Juarez to seize the body would constitute an act of war requiring congressional approval; advocates say it wouldn’t, because there is no government in Mexico, hence noone to go to war with. The US has been quietly moving marines closer to Mexico (New Orleans etc), just in case. The NYT says Villa’s continued defiance is getting irritating to the US government: “It is all the more embarrassed and chagrined by the fact that it is acting in behalf of the British Government. To have a man who has been regarded as little more than a roving bandit defy two great powers is getting on the nerves of the Administration, which realizes the undignified position that it may come to occupy before the civilized world.” But there is a hitch: if the US doesn’t recognize Villa as having an official position in an acknowledged government, then the US can’t act to hold him responsible or make demands of him. Tricky.

Rep. Henry Ainey (D-Ill.) calls Wilson’s Mexico policy one of “deadly drifting,” which is just as alliterative, and therefore just as true, as Wilson’s term for his policy, “watchful waiting.”

One of the witnesses against Leo Frank says she lied after detectives got her likkered up.

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Today -100: February 25, 1914: Of adulterated food, bentons, and women voters

The Supreme Court rules that adulteration of food is okay unless it disguises defects in the food or consumers are actually, you know, poisoned. The ruling will obviously make the post-The-Jungle Pure Food Act harder to enforce, forcing the government to determine just how much poison people can eat without being harmed.

Constitutionalist leader Carranza privately warned the US a couple of weeks ago against sending American troops into Mexico to protect Americans and other foreigners.

Pancho Villa now claims that William Benton was a cattle thief and that he had killed at least four men without provocation. And he was totally trying to assassinate Villa. Villa also says he won’t give up Benton’s body “out of respect to the dead. It was interred with all religious observances and a cross erected over it, and I will not allow the sacrilege of its removal.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Burn Negro in a Box.; Mississippi Mob Takes Vengeance on Slayer of a Deputy Sheriff.” As gruesome as it sounds.

The ship carrying those illegally deported South African union leaders arrives at Gravesend, UK, where the British labor movement had laid on lavish reception plans, but the South Africans had their own protest in mind, which involved refusing to leave the ship. There was a stalemate of sorts for several hours before they agreed to come out and be honored.

The New Jersey State Senate joins the Assembly in voting for women’s suffrage, although another vote and a referendum are still required. All the Republican senators voted for it and all but three Democrats.

Women vote for the first time in Illinois’s primaries, including 89-year-old Eveline Guthrie Dunn, who attended the convention that first nominated Abraham Lincoln for president. At some polling places special arrangements are made for women voters, such as mirrors to help women whose hats got entangled with the curtains. Several women won aldermanic primaries (Democrats, Progressives and a “socialistic” candidate).

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Today -100: February 24, 1914: I did not wish to appear bloodthirsty, and therefore did not shoot him myself

Pancho Villa is now claiming that William Benton was a naturalized Mexican citizen, so the UK can back the fuck off. This is also their excuse for not returning the body to his widow – it’s definitely not to hide that he was murdered rather than executed by firing squad after a trial.

The LA Times claims that an investigation conducted by the British embassy in the US concluded that Pancho Villa and his men “were crazed with mairhuana [sic] and tequila at the time Villa gave the order to shoot William S. Benton”.

Headline of the Day -100: “Say Villa Is An American.” Two retired soldiers from the U.S. 10th Cavalry, a negro unit, claim to remember that Pancho Villa was a member of the Tenth in 1882 (so... he’s a negro). This is a bit unlikely, since Villa would have been 4.

British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey tells Parliament that he is powerless to protect British citizens in the disturbed regions of Mexico.

Pancho Villa’s latest statement on the Benton affair: “He had not talked long when he reached for his hip pocket. It flashed over me that he intended to kill me. I grabbed his hand and at the same time thrust my revolver into the pit of his stomach to stop him. I did not wish to appear bloodthirsty, and therefore did not shoot him myself.”

Winston Churchill flies a hydro-plane, because he’s First Lord of the Admiralty, and can play with all its toys if he wants to.

Maxim Gorky signs a contract with an American studio to write ten film scripts. From imdb, it doesn’t look like anything came of this.

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Today -100: February 23, 1914: Of common liars, and funks

An important witness in the Leo Frank murder trial recants, saying he was pressured to perjure himself by R.L. Craven, an employee of the solicitor-general, who was after the reward money. Craven says of the witness, “The negro is just a common liar.” Well, yes, but which was the lie?

Name of the Day -100: Antoinette Funk, acting chair of the Congressional Committee of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, who announces that NAWSA intends to work to defeat congressional candidates who oppose women’s suffrage, regardless of party.

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Today -100: February 22, 1914: Of bentons, arbitration, and pardons

The NYT says that the five people in the room with Pancho Villa when William Benton confronted him are now all missing, possibly, the Times darkly suggests, murdered to prevent them saying what really happened. The records of Benton’s court-martial have just been released, and by released I mean fabricated. Benton supposedly made an armed attack on Villa and also gave aid & comfort to Federal forces.

In the absence of a British consul in Juarez, where Benton was shot, the US is supposed to be looking after the interests of British subjects there. Whether that means actually protecting them from this sort of thing is not entirely clear. To anyone, I mean, not just to me. So the US’s actual responsibility in this matter is open to debate.

The Senate renews arbitration conventions with Britain, Norway, Sweden, Japan, Portugal, Switzerland, Spain and Italy.

South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease, who has issued more pardons than any governor in US history, sends a 333-page message to the State Senate giving his reasons for those pardons. He explains that one of them, a manslaughterer named William White, has the same name as a childhood friend of his. He pardoned some rich folks from Jasper County for assault and battery on two negroes who had subjected them to “some very dirty and slanderous talk”; a crowd took the negroes into the woods and “gave them what they deserved - a genuine first-class whipping”. Another pardon went to a negro who had served 13 years of a life sentence for killing another negro, and had been punished in the penitentiary, i.e. beaten and shocked with a battery, for speaking to Gov. Blease when he was touring the facility. Blease also pardoned a rich man who paid the widow of the man he killed $2,750; the governor says the man should have been released as soon as she accepted (he served something less than 2 years). Another was a negro who killed another negro in “a fuss about a woman”; Blease approvingly quotes a petition supporting pardon which said “the morals and the mode of living between colored people are not up to the standard adopted and lived up to by the white people... it was more on the order of the lower animals, as the negro race has absolutely no standard of morality.”

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Today -100: February 21, 1914: Of bentons, bliss, and coves

William Benton, a British citizen ranch-owner long resident in Mexico, complains to Pancho Villa about the destruction of his cattle by rebels. He is promptly tried by a court-martial and executed. Or, more likely, shot dead on the spot by Villa, or by Villa’s men acting on his orders, we don’t really know. The Huerta side hopes this incident will turn the US against the rebels.

Two more Mexican generals escape from Fort Bliss.

Oregon Gov. Oswald West is targeting another town and the saloons it loves: he will send his secretary, as he did to Copperfield earlier this year, to Cove, a town which was voted dry in a referendum but whose officials have refused to comply or indeed to declare the result of the election. (Update: Ah, I see: they didn’t declare the result of the town’s election because the county voted wet at the same time, which over-rode the town’s vote).

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Today -100: February 20, 1914: Of fires, neutral zones, lite generals, and how to dress decently

In Britain, suffragettes set a fire at the Northfield Free Library. A copy of Christabel Pankhurst’s tract on venereal disease, The Great Scourge and How to End It, is left “to start your new library.”

The Mexican Federales and Constitutionalists are negotiating conditions for the forthcoming battle for Torreon: a neutral zone for neutrals to cower in during the fighting (an idea evidently presented to the parties by the US). I predict the Romulans will violate the neutral zone. Fucking Romulans.

The US complains to Huerta’s regime about the anti-American editorials in El Imparcial. So Huerta exiles the editor.

Last week, the White House got Congress to create the new rank of “vice admiral” in the Navy. Now, inevitably, the Army wants its own, lieutenant-general, so that the Navy doesn’t outrank the Army in joint matters, or something. Actually, there used to be lt.-generals, but the title expired with Arthur MacArthur, Douglas MacArthur’s father.

A bill is introduced in the Maryland Legislature banning girls from wearing slit shirts and high heels and also banning the dancing of the tango, the turkey trot, the bunny hug, and the loop the loop. It would use the money from the fines collected for these infractions to “educate girls how to dress decently.”

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Today -100: February 19, 1914: Of a calamity so unspeakable that the nation even yet is but beginning to think it possible

Pancho Villa takes out life insurance.

Some Mexican prisoners quietly escape from Fort Bliss: a Mexican general, Felix Terrazas, and a major.

Blind Senator Thomas Gore (D-Oklahoma) wins in court after the jury deliberates for 2½ minutes. Evidently the conspiracy to frame him for sexual assault – and it was quite clear in the trial that there was a conspiracy – was cooked up by a lawyer whose attempts to charge ridiculous fees for the transfer of Indian lands were opposed by Sen. Gore.

At Euston Station, London, a suffragette, Mary Lindsay, attacks Lord Weardale with a dog-whip. She later claims she thought he was Prime Minister Asquith, but this seems unlikely, since Weardale is joint president (one Liberal, one Tory) of the National League Opposed to Woman Suffrage. The magistrate wants her examined for insanity.

Maryland’s House of Delegates rejects women’s suffrage 60-24.

Another Jew is arrested in Kiev for “ritual murder,” but he’s released when the Christian boy who was his supposed victim turns up alive.

Pittsburgh Mayor Joseph Armstrong orders that all movie theaters be divided into three sections: one for men, one for women, and one for women accompanied by men.

Whoever’s in charge of Peru these days exiles former president Guillermo Billinghurst, ousted in a coup two weeks ago. He is put on a navy ship headed for Panama.

Pres. Wilson, not known for appointing negroes to anything, re-nominates Robert Terrell as a municipal court judge in the District of Columbia (Terrell was appointed by Taft in 1910). Sen. Vardaman (D-Miss.), who opposes negroes holding any public office, will fight the nomination.

Pres. Wilson responds to a letter from the editor of Protestant Magazine, who accuses Wilson’s secretary Joseph Tumulty (a Catholic) of keeping “any communication relating to the activities of the Roman Catholic Church” (presumably anti-Catholic communications, but I’d love to know to what specifically he was referring) off the president’s desk. Wilson says that accusation is “absurdly and utterly false.”

The London Times editorializes that Britain is “drawing [near] to a calamity so unspeakable that the nation even yet is but beginning to think it possible.” It warns the public “to fix their thoughts upon this one issue without being diverted from it by minor questions which arise from day to day.” Ireland, they’re talking about Ireland.

159 days to the start of the Great War.

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Today -100: February 18, 1914: Of totally fair trials and bandits

The Georgia Supreme Court denies Leo Frank a new trial in the murder of Mary Phagan. It says that all the crowds outside the courtroom calling for the Jew to be executed didn’t influence the jury.

Maximo Castillo, the Mexican bandit who killed those 55 people on the train, is captured, along with six of his men (a later story describes them as his brother, his trumpeter and his trumpeter’s wife, because of course he had a trumpeter, and two Indian women.) So I guess he wasn’t actually captured the last time his capture was announced. This time, he’s captured by American troops (a negro cavalry regiment) in New Mexico. Should be interesting, since he committed no crime in the US and surely can’t be extradited into the hands of the Mexican rebels. Oh, and he says it wasn’t him, it was Pancho Villa’s men who were responsible for the Cumbre Tunnel fire.

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Today -100: February 17, 1914: Now the suffragettes have a freaking cannon!

Huerta will finance the Federal side of the Mexican civil war with a new tax on all real estate and capital and by issuing fiat money (i.e., paper money backed by nothing but which people are required to accept as if it were, you know, real money).

The Vatican is strongly opposed to the literacy requirement for immigrants currently being considered by the US Congress.

British suffragettes fire a cannon captured from the Russians during the Crimean War which is now resident in the city park in Blackburn.

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Today -100: February 16, 1914: Of immigration, corruption, sullen refugees, unwelcome priests, and brains

Secretary of Labor William Wilson says immigration from poor countries should be limited in order to maintain American living standards.

I haven’t been paying much attention to the ongoing grand jury corruption investigation in New York, but it must be getting somewhere, because State Treasurer (and Tammany lackey) John J. Kennedy just committed suicide the day before he was scheduled to testify.

The US is still holding as prisoners hundreds of Mexican soldiers and civilians. Gen. Scott, in charge of Fort Bliss, tells Mexican Gen. José Salazar that if an attempt is made to rescue him, he will be the first one shot. Because of smallpox in the camp, few Americans have been allowed in, but those who do “say that the refugees are rather sullen.”

There is a riot at St Casimir’s Polish Roman Catholic Church in South Bend (or possibly Gary), Indiana, after the cops try to enforce a court order supporting the Church’s assignment of a new priest to run the church. Don’t know what they have against Father Gruza, but they’ve barred the doors against him, literally, for a year now. As the sheriff arrived, the Resistance rang the church bell to summon the mob, as is the custom. Police and mob fought with clubs and pickets torn from fences, respectively.

Headline of the Day -100: “Wilson’s Cold Improves.”

Alphonse Bertillon, who revolutionized the keeping of police records of prisoners before fingerprinting by developing a system of anthropometric measuring, has died. He donated his brain to science. It was 1,525 grammes, in case you were wondering.

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Today -100: February 15, 1914: Of quiet revolutions, coal taxes, opium, phineases, and champers

Headline of the Day -100: “Quiet Revolution Occurs in Portugal.” Which is good, because Spain was trying to sleep.

A House sub-committee investigating labor troubles in the mines hears about a tax levied by the Colorado mine owners on themselves, 1¢ per ton of coal to pay for guards and whatnot. C.L. Baum, president of the alliterative Consolidated Coal and Coke Company of Colorado, talks about the whatnot: “If any of my money was used for the purchase of machine guns and ammunition I assume the responsibility.” J.F. Welborn, president of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (in whose mines 17 miners died in 1913, 20 in 1912 and 22 in 1911) claims that his employees weren’t particularly friendly to the vice president of the United Mine Workers when he visited. The UMW lawyer questioning Welborn asks if he would go to the Ludlow tent colony (striking miners were thrown out of their company houses) and ask the men who their friends are. “Not without the militia,” he replied.

Some Chinese provinces have announced the death penalty for opium smokers.

If a man died in 1914 leaving a will which bequeathed $75,000 to his adopted son on the condition that he divorce his present wife, remarry, and become a “sober and industrious man,” is it at all surprising that his name was Phineas C. Kingsland? No it is not.

Headline of the Day -100: “W.J. Bryan Almost Drinks Champagne.”

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Today -100: February 14, 1914: Of vice admirals (or is the plural vices admiral?)(no, no it isn’t), deportations, riots, racist land bills, and racist immigration commissioners

Sen. Thomas Gore (D-OK)’s lawyer introduces (pretty convincing) evidence that the sexual assault lawsuit against him is a trumped-up conspiracy on the part of several disappointed seekers of federal patronage jobs.

At the White House’s request, the Senate votes to create the new rank of “vice admiral” in the Navy, above rear admiral and below admiral admiral. Evidently the worry is that if a multi-national force is sent to occupy Mexico City, a British vice admiral would outrank the American rear admiral in command at Vera Cruz.

South African Prime Minister Botha says that if he hadn’t illegally deported union leaders without a trial, SA would have been plunged into a reign of arson and murder. He accuses the British Labour Party of leading the movement to urge natives to rise up. If only.

Tax riots in Tokyo are dispersed by police with sabers, opposition newspapers are suppressed and their editors arrested.

A anti-alien land bill modeled after California’s and, like it, aimed at Japanese immigrants, fails in South Carolina’s Legislature.

Anthony Caminetti, US Commissioner-General of Immigration, tells the House Immigration Committee that Japanese laborers (or “Japs” as he insists on referring to them) are “a menace to the entire country” and he wants all Asiatics including Hindus banned. He says most lower-class Hindus and Chinese have dangerous diseases.

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Today -100: February 13, 1914: Of suffrage splits, smashing the British Empire, and English mustaches

Christabel Pankhurst sends a letter to the press about the split with her sister Sylvia. She says that the Women’s Social and Political Union is not a propaganda organization but a fighting organization (that is, they’ve stopped caring about what the public thinks and their activities are now exclusively directed at pressuring the government), so it must have one policy, one program, and one command. “Only by fighting them [the government], not by appealing to them, can women maintain their self-respect,” she rewrites in today -100’s The Suffragette.

British suffragettes burn down a library, and Mexican rebels blow up a train.

A British Labour Party amendment to the King’s Speech asking the king to veto the South African government’s attempt to indemnify itself for having illegally deported strike leaders is rejected by Parliament. Colonial Secretary Lewis Harcourt defends the “autonomy” of British colonies; efforts like this to interfere with it would “smash the British Empire.”

The House of Lords votes for an amendment demanding a referendum on Irish Home Rule.

Blind Senator Thomas Gore (D-OK, Gore Vidal’s grandfather) is being sued for $50,000 by a Mrs. Minnie Bond, for an alleged attempted sexual assault on her when she lobbied him for a job for her husband (who was once married to her bigamously).

The commander of the Kaiser’s Guard Corps bans the toothbrush (or “English”) mustache: “the modern fashion of wearing the mustaches as a trifling tuft of hair under the nose is unsuitable for Prussian soldiers and irreconcilable with the true German character.”

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A promise to God is different from a promise to anyone else

Clarence Thomas says Americans are just too darned sensitive about race. Er, who was it who insisted that criticism of his sexual predation was a “high-tech lynching for uppity blacks?”

That’s the bit that’ll get whatever attention this speech gets, but more important are his remarks about religion: “I quite frankly don’t know how you do these hard jobs without some faith. I don’t know. Other people can come to you and explain it to you. I have no idea. I don’t know how an oath becomes meaningful unless you have faith. Because at the end you say, ‘So help me God.’ And a promise to God is different from a promise to anyone else.”

So, 1) atheists are black boxes to him; he cannot even guess at their mysterious and unknowable motivations. 2) They cannot be trusted and probably shouldn’t be allowed to hold public office. Good to know. 3) Religion and government therefore are inextricably intertwined and cannot be separated.

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All of them are wonderful in their own ways

François Hollande visited the White House. A reporter asked Obama if France is our best European ally now. He says it’s like his daughters, he would never choose between them, “All of them are wonderful in their own ways.” Hollande said, “Hey, that’s just how I feel about my mistresses!”



RNC chair Reinhold Reince Priebus told MSNBC that if Hillary runs for president, they will absolutely be bringing up the Monica Lewinsky thing over and over: “I think everything’s on the table.”

Or in Monica’s case, under the table.

Obviously I would never have dared make such crude jokes while Shirley Temple was alive. I feel so free now.

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Today -100: February 12, 1914: Of unfused moose, primaries, hardies, and frozen tangoes

Headline of the Day -100: “Nebraska Moose Won’t Fuse.” Nebraska Progressives won’t merge with the Republican Party.

Pres. Wilson plans to introduce legislation to establish national presidential primaries for all the parties on the same day. States would still control election machinery and qualifications (to keep you-know-who from voting), and states and congressional seats would be the primary unit for counting votes. The latter provision is designed to screw up the Republicans’ attempt to reduce the power of the South in the party to something more proportionate to the actual number of Republican votes in the South (almost none).

The novelist Thomas Hardy (73) marries his secretary (and author of The Book of Baby Birds) Florence Dugdale (35).

Headline of the Day -100: “TANGOED IN HIS FREEZER.; Butcher, Locked In, Also Tried Jigs, His Yells Furnishing the Music.”

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Today -100: February 11, 1914: Of Chicago bribes, Belgian court dress, obliging weddings, Mexican bandits, Irish Home Rule, tricked London police, and impersonation and vilification

In the run-off to alderman elections in Chicago, the party machines are having to cope with the question of how to bribe the new female voters: candy instead of cigars, coffee wagons instead of booze.

A while back an (unnamed) Belgian woman “in Court circles” ordered a gown. Before it was finished, an episcopal letter was issued banning the wearing of dresses which are too, as they say in French, boobalicious. So the woman decided she couldn’t wear the dress and refused to pay her dressmaker, who sued. A judge ruled in the customer’s favor, but was reversed by the appeals court, which noted that the gown complied with the measurements of Belgian court dress regulations.

Headline of the Day -100: “To Wed to Oblige Kaiser.” German Foreign Minister Gottlieb von Jagow announces his engagement to the Countess Luitgarde Ernestine zu Salms-Laubach. For some reason it bothered the kaiser that his last two foreign ministers were bachelors.

Maximo Castillo, the Mexican bandit who suffocated the passengers on a train in the Cumbre Tunnel after holding it up a few days ago, is captured. Pancho Villa promises a public execution.

A new session of the British Parliament, which will focus on Irish Home Rule. The Tories say they will only agree if Ulster is excluded from the act, or there’s a referendum. If Ulster is not excluded, Austen Chamberlain says, civil war is certain. Prime Minister Asquith rejects the idea of holding another general election, saying that if the Liberals won, the Ulsterites would not lay down their arms, and if the Conservatives won, they’d have to deal with some very disappointed Irish people. But he’s still being wishy-washy over whether he might agree to Ulster exclusion or to Ulster being included in the Irish Parliament but with a referendum several years later to see how they were liking it.

The Swedish government resigns over King Gustaf’s refusal to stop mouthing off about political matters (especially military spending) without consulting his government ministers first.

Alfred Charles Sam (“Chief Sam”) has a scheme to bring negroes from the US to the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana). He’s off buying a steamship now. A white guy who transacts the company’s business says that the officers are all Gold Coasters whose names he could tell you, but you couldn’t pronounce them, much less remember them, so why bother? Passengers have to be stockholders in the company, and the company will sell them food on the ship and provisions in Africa and they’ll get 99-year leases. While not quite a Nigerian-prince-email scam, the 60 people who will get to Africa will not wind up at all pleased.

Headline of the Day -100: “Mrs. Pankhurst Tricks Police Again.” British police arrest Mrs. Pankhurst after a meeting and after a fight with her followers. Only it’s another woman in Mrs P’s clothes.

The Senate passes a law against “impersonation and vilification.” This is from the discovery that the Wall Street stock broker and lobbyist David “The Wolf” Lamar’s practice of impersonating members of Congress was not actually illegal. The bill would outlaw imitating any member of Congress or federal officer over the telephone.

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Today -100: February 10, 1914: The kindest possible spirit

Disappointing Headline of the Day -100: “Queen Louise Still Fast.” A beached ship, not a promiscuous royal.

Headline of the Day -100: “Bishop Absolves Jailers.” The bishop of London returns to Holloway Prison to check up on suffragette prisoners. While prison authorities don’t allow him to witness forcible feeding, he’s sure that “whether the orders are right or wrong, the officials are carrying them out in the kindest possible spirit.” So that’s okay then. Norah Dacre-Fox of the Women’s Social and Political Union suggests that the bishop come to Knightsbury Hall and be forcibly fed, “so that he could give voice to the faith that was in him in a practical manner.”

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Today -100: February 9, 1914: Of Balkan wars, divorces, and damns

Turkey is rumored to be considering restarting the Balkan Wars (good times, good times) in order to recover territory lost to Greece, and maybe Albania as well.

Arthur Conan Doyle argues for easier divorce.

Headline of the Day -100: “PASTOR SAID 'DAMN' TO DANCE OBJECTOR; Now Greenpoint's Reformed Episcopal Church Is to Lose the Rev. Charles Quinn.”

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