Today -100: October 21, 1915: All the forces of wickedness were against the women

Russia declares war on Bulgaria (actually on the 18th, but they didn’t tell anyone for a couple of days).

Britain offers Greece a present if it joins the war on the Allied side: Cyprus.

Carrie Chapman Catt says suffragists never expected to win the NJ referendum because “all the forces of wickedness were against the women.”

The New York National Guard’s commanding officer, Maj. Gen. John F. O’Ryan, says the lesson of the European war is that soldiers have to have all initiative destroyed and be turned into “mere automatons” under the control of officers ready to shoot them if they disobey. “The recruits have got to put their heads into the military noose.” So join up today!

The US puts an embargo on arms shipments into Mexico, except to the Carranza regime.

Crowds in Petrograd demand the reopening of the Duma, while conservatives in Germany demand the closing of the Reichstag because, with so many Socialists, it is unfit to discuss peace terms.

Someone accidentally drops a grenade in a munitions factory in Paris which is now no longer a munitions factory. 52 dead. “Reports that the explosion was the result of the work of spies were absolutely denied.”

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Today -100: October 20, 1915: With bleeding heart it draws its sword against her

Headline of the Day -100: 

Male voters in New Jersey reject women’s suffrage in the referendum by roughly 133,000 to 184,000. It loses in every county except Ocean County (the Jersey Shore) and in every one of Hoboken’s 45 precincts. It is thought that some voters in Atlantic City rejected the amendment to express disapproval of the presence of black women poll-watchers.

Woodrow Wilson went to New Jersey to vote, while his fiancée, not a Jersey voter, announced her opposition to women’s suffrage. Other prominent Anti women include the wife of Vice President Marshall, the wife of Secretary of State Lansing, and the wife of Elihu Root, who many expect to be the next Republican candidate for president. And yes, the only women whose opinion the NYT cares about are wives of important men.

The new plan for the US Navy is to spend $500 million over the next 5 years to add 85 ships and 100 submarines.

Tsar Nicholas issues a manifesto about how upset he is with Bulgaria’s “treason... to the Slav cause. ... Bulgaria, our co-religionist, liberated just a short time ago from the Turkish yoke by the fraternal love of the Russia people, openly took sides with the enemies of the Christian faith, Slavism, and Russia. The Russian people regard with sorrow the treason of Bulgaria, which was so near to it until these last few days, and, with bleeding heart, it draws its sword against her, leaving the fate of the betrayer of the Slav cause to the just punishment of God.” Such a drama tsarina.

After a train is robbed near Brownsville, with bandits from Mexico killing 3 people, a posse kills (lynches) 10 Mexicans, some of them chosen more or less at random as near as I can tell.

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Today -100: October 19, 1915: A small group of men has landed the nations over there in this awful cataclysm

Russia’s new minister of justice, Aleksandr Khvostov (the NYT wrongly says interior minister), is investigating the occult German forces who are doubtless behind the series of recent riots.

Harriot Stanton Blatch has returned from Europe more convinced than ever of the necessity for women’s suffrage: “No one can go to Europe without realizing that a small group of men has landed the nations over there in this awful cataclysm.”

The German people are focusing on the Balkans as the key to the outcome of the war, one way or the other, now that the Western Front is recognized as being completely stalemated.

Turkey bans the Red Cross from coming to help the (remaining) Armenian people.

Britain removes Gen. Sir Ian Hamilton from command of the Gallipoli expedition, replaces him with Maj. Gen. Sir Charles Carmichael Monro.

Serbia complains to the US that German troops are massacring Serb civilians.

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Today -100: October 18, 1915: What Joisey women don’t want

France declares war on Bulgaria. And invades it, alongside British and Serbian troops.

Woodrow Wilson has evidently promised that when peace in Europe comes, he will advocate for the rights of Jews in Russia and Romania.

The Daily Mail (London) reports on Nurse Edith Cavell’s execution, including the untrue bit about how she fainted and was shot whilst unconscious. I wonder who started that story? MI5?

Headline of the Day -100:

The Times deduces this from the number who have joined suffrage organizations. Of course membership in the Anti organization is far smaller, but an (unnamed) Anti leader attributes this to the suffragists enrolling “infants in cradles as members in order to swell their numbers.”

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Today -100: October 17, 1915: Of redemption, St George, public executions, and movie murders

Headline of the Day -100: 

The region Italy and Austria are fighting over would prefer the fighting not take place right there.

Headline of the Day -100: 

I don’t think the NYT has previously mentioned the various ghost stories and supposed appearances of warrior angels, Joan of Arc and so on that spread early in the war, but today there’s a mention of this pamphlet,

which you can read or downloaded (free) here. The French thought it was St Michael, but the British soldiers knew it was St George, they recognized him from the money.

Joe Deberry, a negro, is executed in Murphysboro, Illinois, hanged in front of an audience of 2,000 (there wasn’t room for 3,000 more ghouls who showed up).

The NYT wonders why women are even trying to win the vote:

One Genevieve Hamilton writes a letter to the NYT complaining that there is too much killing shown in the movies, at least in those labeled as melodramas. Even when the villain is shot or stabbed, the emotion conveyed is relief that the hero and heroine can now be married rather than horror at the taking of a life. “Since the melodrama can rarely get along without the death of some one, why not let the villain pass from the films otherwise? Not by his own hand; that is not an idea to picture to youth. Let the villain become ill. Drown him!”

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Today -100: October 16, 1915: A man is only one man, after all

Britain declares war on Bulgaria. So does Serbia.

First report of the execution of Nurse Edith Cavell.

Thomas Edison says the US should prepare for a war which will be fought by machines. “A man is only one man, after all. A machine can be easily as good as twenty men. Then one man, using it, is as good as twenty men. He should be at least that good if he is American.” Properly preparing for such a war – stockpiling the materials for shells and such – would mean there would be no need for a large standing army in peacetime. Just robots or whatever the hell he’s talking about (probably not robots, but it’s hard to be sure because the word hadn’t been coined yet).

Sarah Lund of Chicago sues Dudley Field Malone, collector of the Port of New York, and Captain William Turner of the Lusitania for conspiring to allow explosives to be loaded illegally onto the ship. Lund survived the sinking, obviously, but her husband of less than a year and her father did not. Her mother also died in a maritime accident, that of the RMS Empress of Ireland in May 1914. In fact, the family was sailing for England to investigate the possibility that some random woman in an English asylum with amnesia and a fear of water was actually her. Which she wasn’t. A photograph would have cleared that up without the need for a dangerous ocean voyage. Anyway, Lund is suing for $40,000. I assume the case was dismissed, but eventually (1925) she’ll be awarded $5,629.75, covering her personal injuries and the loss of her husband and their luggage. She remarried in 1916 (a man employed in investigating Lusitania claims) and died in 1978 at the age of 92.

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Today -100: October 15, 1915: Of repugnant work, yacht escapes, and suf profs

Following another zeppelin raid on London, a meeting demands reprisal raids on Germany. The motion was passed unanimously except for one call of No, by a man who was subsequently beaten with walking sticks. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes to the London Times supporting such reprisal raids, three for every attack by Germans on an open town in Britain. He admits that British airmen “would find such work repugnant,” but it’s the only way to stop the attacks.

Six (12, we’ll find out tomorrow) German officers interned in Norfolk, Virginia escape on a small yacht. The ship couldn’t possibly cross the Atlantic, which is presumably why they were given permission to buy it, so it’s not clear where they’ve gone.

The Daily Princetonian polls the Princeton faculty about the NJ women’s suffrage referendum. Of the professors who replied, 57 are for women’s suffrage, 33 opposed. There’s a breakdown by department, if anyone’s interested.

Princeton didn’t admit women until 1969.

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Today -100: October 14, 1915: Of unselfish marriages, reserves, imposed responsibilities, and boy geniuses

A Rev. Ernest Houghton of Bristol, England starts a League for the Marrying of Broken Heroes. He says such marriages will be happier than normal marriages because they’ll be based on unselfishness. Well, unselfishness on the part of the woman, and that’s the important thing, I guess.

Greece refuses to come to Serbia’s aid against Bulgaria, denying that the 1911 Greek-Serb treaty applies here. Greece claims that “common interests demand that the Greek forces still be kept in reserve for a better use later.”

Gov. James Fielder of New Jersey (D) says that unlike Woodrow Wilson, he will vote against women’s suffrage next week “because I am very much opposed to imposing on women a responsibility which I feel certain a majority of women in the State do not seek.” Suffragists are alarmed to discover that the ballot are not numbered, making election fraud much easier.

Orville Wright sells the Wright Company. It is believed he will get $75,000 a year for the life of his patent, or $675,000, and $1.5 million for the company as a whole.

Norbert Wiener becomes a philosophy professor at Harvard at 19.

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Today -100: October 13, 1915: Of weeping kaisers, massacres, hazing, and balls

Headline of the Day -100:

James Couzens, the vice president and general manager of Ford Motors, resigns to protest Henry Ford’s peace views.

Turkey has been celebrating Bulgaria’s entry into the war with a new massacre of Armenians, as was the custom.

The students (I refuse to call them midshipmen) at Annapolis voluntarily abolish hazing.

Headline of the Day -100: 

There’s a dirty joke in there somewhere.

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Today -100: October 12, 1915: Patriotism is not enough

The German occupation authorities in Belgium execute Nurse Edith Cavell, age 49. A British nurse who operated a nursing training school in Belgium since before the war, Carvel last November started hiding British soldiers caught behind enemy lines and helping smuggle them out of Belgium. Soon she was performing that service for a stream of French soldiers, Belgian soldiers, young Belgians seeking to join the Belgian army, etc., as part of a loose underground railroad, most of which was rolled up by the Germans simultaneously, thanks to some German-paid infiltrators and a gossipy nurse. One other member of the group was executed, the rest were imprisoned and released at the end of the war; several of them did the exact same things during the Second World War.

Cavell was certainly breaking the rules of war and the Germans were within their rights to try and execute her, but boy it didn’t look good and the British exploited the story and mythologized it for all (and more than) it was worth (one of the posters below illustrates the made-up story that the German firing squad refused to carry out the order to shoot and an officer stepped in with his revolver or, alternately, that she fainted and was shot while laying on the ground unconscious). The night before her execution she told a chaplain: “Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness toward any one.” In the ‘20s there was some debate over whether these words were too pacifist to be included on her memorial. After the war, her body was repatriated and buried at Norwich Cathedral and her dog Jack was stuffed and displayed at the Imperial War Museum.

For the month after the news of the execution reached England (a few days from now), enlistment doubled. British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey pointed out in Parliament that Britain never subjected even spies who happened to be women to more than penal servitude. Kaiser Wilhelm ordered that no more women be executed without his personal authorization, although a few more would be.

The NYT describes Minnie Reynolds, President of the Women’s Political Union of New Jersey: “She is a woman of middle age. There is nothing mannish about her except possibly the businesslike way in which she conducts the conversation”. Reynolds says that Woodrow Wilson’s endorsement is very helpful: “it will stop the vacant laughing of shallow minds and check these fools who go about yapping about woman suffrage, trying to make it a joke.”

Abigail Scott Duniway, Northwestern women’s suffragist and publisher, dies at 81. An early (1852) pioneer settler in Oregon, she published the New Northwest (“not a Woman’s Rights, but a Human Rights organ”) for 16 years. She opposed prohibition, mostly because she believed the association of some suffragists with that cause was responsible for the defeat of several women’s suffrage referenda in Oregon. She also blamed the opposition of The Oregonian and its editor – her brother.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The German press says there is rioting in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, while the Italian press says there are mutinies in the Bulgarian army.

At a Daughters of the American Revolution event, Pres. Wilson says that Americans must declare whether they are for America first or not, whether they are “hyphenated Americans” who want to “use the might of America in some manner not of America’s originative.” (Huh, my spellcheck isn’t complaining about originative; I guess it is a real word).

Headline of the Day -100:

William Gillette revives his play “Sherlock Holmes” at the Empire Theatre, New York. Moriarty is played (by Joseph Brennan) as Irish.

By the way, the recently rediscovered 1916 film version, the only film Gillette ever shot, will play on Turner Classics on the 18th.

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Today -100: October 11, 1915: Of secret treaties, treating, and dry Sundays

Greece hears of a secret treaty between the Central Powers and Bulgaria in which the former promised the latter the parts of Macedonia which are currently part of Greece and Serbia. Germany denies that such a treaty exists. It does.

London bans treating. Now everyone has to buy their own booze.

Chicago has survived – somehow – its first “dry” Sunday.

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Today -100: October 10, 1915: You men are too belligerent to run the Government alone

Teutonic troops capture Belgrade.

At a women’s suffrage party, Carrie Chapman Catt says “You men are too belligerent to run the Government alone.”

Count Ernst von Reventlow, a retired German naval officer, writes in the Deutsche Tageszeitung that Turkey should be allowed to suppress the Armenians by any means it sees fit and suppress uprisings and intrigues “so that a repetition will be impossible.” That’s not chilling at all. And if you were wondering, why yes the good count will indeed join the Nazi party.

Pope Benedict gets all belligerents to promise not to make POWs work on Sundays.

The Rockefeller Foundation of Medical Research has found a cure for diabetes. Bicarbonate of sodium and salt.

Before their retreat from Poland, Russian troops evidently killed a lot of Jews who they claimed to suspect were spies (but mostly Jews who’d been denounced by Poles).

The Pan-American conference of Secretary of State Lansing and the ambassadors of six Latin American countries decide to recognize Carranza et al as the de facto government of Mexico.

Douglas Fairbanks, back from LA after shooting his first films, says of the movies, “They get me.” Also, they’re paying him a shitload of money. 5-year-old Douglas Jr makes an amusing cameo in this interview.

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Today -100: October 9, 1915: Or unserious riots, trees, ambassadors, abusive speaking, and ancient aunties

The head of the Russian Red Cross, Dr. Sosnowski, says that last month’s riots in Moscow were not serious and were totally started by German provocateurs, and everyone really leaves Tsar Nicholas. Just keep telling yourself that, comrade.

Karl Liebknecht, the socialist member of the German Reichstag illegally drafted despite his parliamentary immunity, is injured by a falling tree. War is hell.

The Allies’ ambassadors all leave Bulgaria.

Jacques Delcassé, son of French Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé, is a prisoner of war of the Germans, who sentence him to one year in a fortress (which is probably not as cool as it sounds) for “speaking abusively of Germany” and refusing orders. His father will resign as foreign minister next week, although as far as I know that’s unrelated to this.

Headline of the Day -100:

“Auntie” Mahaley Gibbs of Memphis, age 137.

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Today -100: October 8, 1915: Of judges, spies, and torpedoes

William Willett, a former two-term United States congressman from New York, finally achieved his goal of becoming a judge. Well, a “judge” on the prisoners’ court which enforces the rules in Sing Sing, where he’s serving a stretch for attempting to buy a seat on the state Supreme Court. And now a boxer named Tim Cronin registers an objection to Willett sentencing him to 10 days confinement for attempting to evade prison mail censorship by punching him very hard indeed in the face.

A large force of Austrian and German soldiers attacks Serbia.

Last January, Kenneth Triest, a Princeton freshman, somehow snuck off to England and joined the Royal Navy, pretending to be a Canadian, with the intention of ferreting out naval secrets and giving them to Germany. He has been arrested and is being held in the Tower of London. His father (who was born in Germany) says he’s mentally unbalanced. He is believed, incorrectly, to have been sentenced to death. The US State Department and Theodore Roosevelt will put pressure on Britain, which will return him next month. I think the British government thought leniency would make a nice contrast with Germany’s execution of Nurse Edith Cavell. Er, spoiler alert.

Headline of the Day -100:

A Dutch couple planning to marry in the US, whose legal papers went down with the Arabic.

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Today -100: October 7, 1915: Going Galt

Woodrow Wilson officially announces 1) that he will vote for the New Jersey women’s suffrage referendum and 2) that he is engaged to Edith Galt, a 38-year-old widow, the NYT says (actually she’s 42). Wilson makes clear that he is voting for the referendum as an individual, not as POTUS or as leader of the Democratic Party, although oddly he will be marrying Mrs. Galt as POTUS and the leader of the Democratic Party. He reiterates his opposition to a federal suffrage amendment.

Bulgaria rejects Russia’s demand that it expel the German officers who have recently arrived to run the Bulgarian Army. Russia and the Allies all break diplomatic relations with Bulgaria.

Bulgaria has also reportedly sent its own ultimatum to Serbia demanding all of Macedonia, within 24 hours.

Greece protests to France against the landing of its troops on Saloniki. Austria points out that the Allies are doing exactly the thing they complained about when Germany invaded Belgium.

Lord Bryce of Bryce Report fame says that 800,000 Armenians have been killed.

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Today -100: October 6, 1915: Of the missing, ultimata, arabics, posses, and bacon

Rudyard Kipling’s only son John is “missing, believed killed” at the Battle of Loos. He was 18, barely, and had been in the war since the start. Rudyard used his influence to get him into the Irish Guards despite his weak constitution, even weaker eyesight, and his age. Rudyard will spend months trying to confirm that his son is in fact dead and find the body, which he never will, the shell that killed him not having left any identifiable remains.

Bulgaria is said to be disconcerted by Russia’s 24-hour ultimatum to expel German officers. They’d expected a much weaker response, like a simple request for information, which they planned to fudge by giving the Germans short leaves of absence and saying “Germans? No Germans here, mate.” The ultimatum has expired but the Russian ambassador hasn’t left; he recently had an appendicitis operation.

Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos resigns – for the second time this year – after a dispute with the king over whether Greece should join the war. The two disagree over whether there is still a treaty between Greece and Serbia which will oblige Greece to come to the defense of Serbia when Bulgaria attacks it and whether the promise of Kaiser Wilhelm (who is Greek King Constantine’s brother-in-law) that Bulgaria won’t attack Greece is sufficient guarantee. French troops are arriving in Saloniki to aid Serbia.

Germany apologizes to the US for the sinking of the Arabic in August, blaming the u-boat commander and promising to pay compensation for the 3 Americans killed. Amb. von Bernstorff says, that new orders to sub commanders have “been made so stringent that the recurrence of incidents similar to the Arabic case is considered out of the question.” It is thought on both sides that this puts to rest the whole unpleasantness between Germany and the US over submarine warfare in general.

Emmeline Pankhurst denounces trade unions which oppose the employment of women in munitions as “traitors.” Never one to mince words, is Mrs. P.

New Jersey’s political parties hold their conventions. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats come out officially for women’s suffrage. The Progressives do.

A letter to the NYT points out that unmarried women had the vote in New Jersey from 1797 to 1807, when women (and blacks, though the letter doesn’t mention them) were disfranchised.

A posse that prevents a lynching in Bowling Green, Missouri includes Speaker of the House Beauchamp “Champ” Clark.

Britain seizes three cargoes of bacon on their way to Denmark, presumably not believing the Danish claim that it’s for the home market and not re-export to Germany. Denmark is mad, because bacon.

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Today -100: October 5, 1915: Of American good feeling and supremely right moments

Bulgaria denies that its army is now run by German officers.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Frank Sheehy-Skeffington, editor of the Irish Citizen (Dublin) writes to the NYT that Irish Nationalist leader John Redmond fucked up at the start of the war. “That was the supremely right moment to emphasize Ireland’s national position, outside of and indifferent to all English politics.” In other words, he could have offered Irish assent to the war only on the condition of full autonomy. But he didn’t. And this was so unpopular in Ireland that Redmond can’t now address a public meeting in Dublin.

In six months or so, the English army will murder Mr. Sheehy-Skeffington. Um, spoiler alert.

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Today -100: October 4, 1915: Civilization is spreading

The Committee on Armenian Atrocities reports that there have been atrocities in Armenia.

Russia, in the name of the Allies, gives Bulgaria an ultimatum: expel all the German and Austrian officers now directing its army within 24 hours, or else.

Turkey will cede a small strip of territory to Bulgaria, so now Turks are preparing for the handover by looting the property of all the Christians in the area and ethnically cleansing Christians from villages on their side of the border to make room for Turkish refugees from the ceded lands.

Theodore Roosevelt sends the Equal Suffrage League of New Jersey a message of support for the women’s suffrage referendum. He says it’s working pretty well in the Western states that have it, and the East should catch up. “Civilization is spreading,” he says. Even to New Jersey?

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Today -100: October 3, 1915: Of torpedo ears, treacherous courses, and Woodrow and the women

Headline of the Day -100: 

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Sazonov (which is a seriously great name) warns the Bulgarian government that if they “persist in their present treacherous course they must answer to Russia.” That “treachery” is to “the Slavic cause.” Russia considers that Bulgaria owes its independence to it, so its feelings are seriously hurt by Bulgaria going over to the dark side.

In addition to those threats, both sides are trying to bribe Bulgaria. Germany et al offer it some Turkish territory if it refrains from declaring war on Turkey, and help in annexing all of Macedonia. The Entente powers are also offering part of Macedonia as well as parts of Turkey. The Teutons are only requesting that Bulgaria be neutral while the Entente wants active military action against Turkey.

Russia expands newspaper censorship from war news to all news.

Woodrow Wilson lets it be known that he will vote Yes on the New Jersey women’s suffrage referendum in two weeks. As will Secretary of War Lindley Garrison and Wilson’s secretary Joseph Tumulty.

Here’s an anti-suffrage poster from NJ:

The NYT Sunday Magazine has an article about NY women’s suffrage posters. Here are some:

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Today -100: October 2, 1915: Oh, Bulgaria

British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey tells Parliament that German officers are arriving in Bulgaria to lead its army, in a probable sign that Bulgaria will soon enter the war.

Britain claims to have developed a range of techniques which have defeated the German u-boat campaign, and to have sunk 50 to 70 subs (there was, supposedly, a recent secret dinner party to celebrate the 50th sinking)(actually they haven’t sunk half that many). It’s true that the height of effectiveness of the German u-boats is now past (and that’s before depth charges began to be used against them in 1916).

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Today -100: October 1, 1915: Don’t spend it all in one place, boys

Serbia offers a bit of Macedonia to Greece as a bribe to join in military action against Bulgaria (at least according to an Italian newspaper).

Russia’s Council of the Empire has its first ever Jew. Hurrah.

French army privates are getting a pay raise! From 1¢ a day to 5.

Sometime this month, Kafka’s Metamorphosis is published.

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Now with S

This blog is now available with https.

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Today -100: September 30, 1915: Of strikes, wirelesses, conductors, military training, and rainbows

A strike begins at the Pratt & Whitney factories in Hartford for an 8-hour day and overtime pay. The general manager refused to negotiate with workers’ leaders he called transient agitators and new employees unrepresentative of the employees as a whole. At some point no doubt he’ll also claim, as was the custom, that they’re being paid by the Germans, but the truth is that with all the war orders this is a great time for the workers to press demands.

A NYT account of the Battle of Loos, 4 days in, fails to mention, as they all have, the British use of chlorine gas.

A wireless phone call is successfully placed from Arlington, Virginia to Mare Island, California, 2,500 miles away. This should enable the Navy to communicate with ships at sea. (In fact, the message reached all the way to an AT&T mast at Pearl Harbor.)

Headline of the Day -100, Because Inter-Racial Marriage Is Always News:

Arturo Toscanini, the principle conductor of the Metropolitan Opera House, who left for Italy some months ago (originally booked on the Lusitania), won’t be coming back. He actually volunteered for the Italian army after Italy entered the war, despite his age (48) and terrible eyesight. He will later flirt with fascism before sharply breaking with Mussolini, but he won’t return to the US until 1939.

Massachusetts Governor David Walsh wants to introduce mandatory military training for boys at age 14 and to excuse men who serve 3 years in the state militia from paying poll taxes.

D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow is published. It will be prosecuted for obscenity and all the copies seized and burned. It won’t reappear in Britain for 11 years (except for illicit copies of the American edition, published next month).

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Today -100: September 29, 1915: Of victim-blaming, aggression, kindred nationality, primaries, loafing agitators, and mittens

Headline of the Day -100:

Wow. In a couple of days Bernstorff, the German ambassador to the United States has switched from calling accounts of the genocide “pure inventions” to “greatly exaggerated” to military necessity and they were asking for it.

Headline of the Day -100:

Their own fault, presumably.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Spoiler Alert: Bulgaria will totally attempt aggression.

Grey claims in his friendly warning to Bulgaria that Germany is trying to stir up disunion and war in the Balkans by promising territorial gains, but these will only come at the cost of complete subordination to Germany. On the other hand, Britain’s policy is “to insure each [of the Balkan states] not only independence but a brilliant future, based as a general principle on territorial and political union and kindred nationality.”

With Austrian Amb. Dumba’s recall, the US considers the whole sorry affair “closed,” and won’t take any action against German military attaché (and future chancellor) Franz von Papen, although just to be sure von Papen plans to go to Mexico to lay low for a while.

A US cavalry private who went missing last week during a cross-border scuffle is reportedly seen on the Mexican side - well, his head anyway.

New York primaries continue the recent sorry trend of Tammany politicians winning back their party from the reformers. There are “only” 17 election-related arrests in NYC (15 fraudulent voting, most of those just people who’d supposedly lived at their addresses less than a year, and 2 for electioneering).

L.T. Russell, a New Jersey Democrat, wrote an editorial about a threatened Singer sewing-machine factory strike, suggesting that “every loafing agitator” be taken to Staten Island Sound, have a rock tied around their neck and be thrown off the dock. Although he didn’t name any loafing agitators in particular, John Keyes of Elizabeth NJ swears out a warrant for Russell for inciting to murder. In fact, there was no strike: Singer took the less murderous step of firing workers who had the effrontery to ask for higher wages.

I know, the “rock tied around the neck” thing seems so much more Jersey, doesn’t it?

Headline of the Day -100:

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Today -100: September 28, 1915: Of Mexican Wobblies, pure inventions, personae non gratae, and political offenses

Carranza is blaming the recent cross-border shootings on Mexican Wobblies wearing imitation Carranzista army uniforms. A likely story. Something about a plot to provoke US intervention, which will lead, somehow, to land redistribution.

German Ambassador to the US Count von Bernstorff says the reports lately filling the newspapers about the Armenian Genocide are “pure inventions.”

Austria, after trying to get the US to agree to Amb. Konstantin Dumba going on a leave of absence until that whole thing about trying to disrupt work at US munitions factories dies down, will recall him as the US demanded.

A person or persons unknown tries to burn down Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Hyde Park mansion.

Miroslav Sichynsky, a Ukrainian/Ruthenian who assassinated the Austrian governor of Galicia, Count Potocki, in 1908 and escaped prison in 1911, surrenders to the US commissioner of immigration. He’s been living in the US since November and wants US citizenship. The bureau will rule in December that the assassination was a political rather than a criminal offense and so will not deport him. He died in Michigan in 1979.

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Today -100: September 27, 1915: Cloth caps off

Keir Hardie, the first proper Labour (and socialist) member of Parliament (from 1892, when some of his campaign funds came, curiously, from Andrew Carnegie), former leader of the Labour Party and the Independent Labour Party, anti-imperialist, supporter of women’s suffrage, secret lover of Sylvia Pankhurst, and cloth-cap owner extraordinaire, dies at just 59, worn out from fighting the war.

Dr. H. Barringer Cox has invented a portable wireless system, which he will lend to “a certain foreign power” for war use. Unlike some of the inventors who have been surfacing lately, Cox has and will have a pretty good track record on dry cells and wireless systems.

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Today -100: September 26, 1915: Of long-distance treason, idiotic Yankees, dogs, and hobo poets

The detailed NYT story on the commencement of the Battle of Loos fails to mention the British use of poison gas.

The Imperial Court of Galicia (Austrian Poland) asks a Youngstown, Ohio court to question an Austrian subject, Joseph Ciepielowski, on their behalf about treasonous remarks he supposedly made, in Youngstown, about Austria. The judge actually summons Ciepielowski, who refuses to answer.

Military attaché of the German embassy Capt. Franz von Papen says the phrase in his intercepted letter, “idiotic Yankees,” was taken out of context; he only meant the publishers of a certain New York newspaper, you know, those idiotic Yankees. Also, he complains that it’s “deuced bad form” and “ungentlemanly” to publish a man’s letter to his wife.

The US federal government says that some of the recent cross-border firefights were provoked by Texas deputy sheriffs and civilians shooting into Mexico, and asks the governor of Texas to put a stop to it.

The team of dogs that won the whatever-Alaska-had-before-the-Iditerod race is sold to the French army for use in the mountains.

IWW members are flocking to Salt Lake City to protest the forthcoming execution of “hobo poet” Joseph Hillstrom, aka Joe Hill (coiner of the phrase “pie in the sky”) for supposedly shooting a grocer and his son as part of a robbery or something. He showed up at a hospital with a bullet wound after that event, but there was never any proof that the two shootings were related. Still, he was a Wobbly, so it’s off to the firing squad for him.

Headline of the Day -100:

Passaic election officials are “puzzled” about the rights of a second-generation US-born citizen.

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Today -100: September 25, 1915: Of looses, mobilizations, stolen wheat, and yeah I’m sticking with “lynchings”

The Battle of Loos begins with the British using poison gas (chlorine) for the first time. They had no delivery system except the wind, so some of the gas inevitably blew back on the British lines. One officer who pointed out that the wind was blowing the wrong way was ordered to release the gas anyway, which tells you everything you need to know about the military. Once the Germans saw what was happening, they started shooting at the gas tanks, with hilarious results. Still, the British did gas 600 or so Germans to death. And lost the battle.

Speaking of inhumane weapons, most of the British troops at Loos were Scottish, so they were led into battle by pipers. Don’t know how you play bagpipes wearing a gas mask.

Because Bulgaria mobilized its military, Greece is mobilizing its military. Isn’t that how this stupid war started to begin with?

A large band of Mexicans, some wearing the uniform of Carranza’s army, invade Progreso, Texas, loot the post office and burn it. Several are killed as well as one US Army private.

J.F. Lucey, a former US Army captain involved with Belgian relief, tells an interesting tale of how last November when Liège was starving, he requisitioned (i.e., stole) 5,000 tons of German wheat being held in Holland.

A 14-year-old negro is lynched in Jackson, Georgia for allegedly assaulting a white girl. Since he’s only 75 pounds, there is some discussion of whether weights need to be tied to his feet to hang him properly.

Did I say lynched? Actually he was legally executed, in public in front of a crowd of 50 or so . Sometimes it’s hard to tell the fucking difference.

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Today -100: September 24, 1915: Meet the Diminutive Submersible of Doom

Sexy, Sexy Headline of the Day -100: 

Reports received by the US government, including ones from its consular officials which are not being made public, indicate that Turkey has killed 500,000 Armenians.

Prof. Herschel Parker, physicist and mountain-climber, has invented a miniature two-man submarine (aka “diminutive submersible” or “motor torpedo”) and intends to give it to the US. He’s also invented a powerful underwater searchlight to spot enemy subs. Parker says 1,000 mini-subs can be manufactured for the cost of one dreadnought. I don’t think anything came of any of this. He claims to have the endorsement of Henry Ford, who will deny this rather vehemently next week.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: September 23, 1915: Of mobilizations and rescues

Bulgaria mobilizes its military, claiming it’s purely defensive and precautionary. It is not.

French naval ships which were on blockade duty off Ottoman Syria rescued 5,000 Armenian refugees (in July, but we’re just now hearing about it). They’re now in a camp in Egypt. Nice to know somebody is doing something about the Armenian Genocide.

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Today -100: September 22, 1915: I always say to these idiotic Yankees that they had better hold their tongues

Anthony Comstock, crusader against smut and general all-round asshole, dies at 71. Some of the “smut” he fought against included the works of Boccaccio, Zola and George Bernard Shaw as well as medical textbooks, some of which he banned from the US mails from his position as postal inspector, and of course anything relating to birth control. Most recently he hounded Margaret Sanger out of the country and put her husband in jail.

Germany is still claiming that the Hesperian was sunk by a mine rather than a German torpedo. Britain is sending the US government what it says is a fragment of the torpedo.

More of Austrian Ambassador Dumba’s letters, seized by the British from his courier, are made public. One to the Austrian foreign minister says it is pointless to continue complaining about US munitions sales to the Allies because of the “self-willed temperament” of Pres. Wilson. Dumba talks of the slave-like conditions in the steel factories and suggests commissioning an exposé novel along the lines of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. He also has plans to send agents into the Bethlehem steel factories to “work in secret among their fellow workers,” and to hire soap-box orators and subsidize foreign-language newspapers.

Also leaked to the press: Germany military attaché Capt. Franz von Papen’s letter to his wife: “I always say to these idiotic Yankees that they had better hold their tongues.” The future chancellor of Germany, ladies and gentlemen!

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Today -100: September 21, 1915: Shocked to hear that gambling etc

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Germany is claiming that France is forcibly enlisting men from Alsace-Lorraine into its army, and giving them forged French citizenship papers so they won’t be charged with treason if captured by the Germans. Alsace-Lorrainers who really don’t want to fight for France are sent to Africa, where it’s harder to defect, to fight in colonial units.

William Jennings Bryan objects to the big loan being arranged by US banks for the Allies, saying it is “getting the people of this country to gamble on the war” and creating a vested interest in one side winning.

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Today -100: September 20, 1915: Because not killing people is soooooo tiring

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Supposedly a German u-boat sneakily disguised as a British submarine is sunk by another u-boat (doubtful).

More Fog of War: The Austrians have supposedly melted down the Cesare Zocchi monument to Dante in Trento to make cannons (no, of course they haven’t).

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: September 19, 1915: You wouldn’t like them when they’re angry or playing ukeleles

Austrian Amb. Konstantin Dumba complains to Secretary of State Robert Lansing that his communications with his home government have been so censored by the US (he has to rely on US-controlled wireless stations, while his Allied counterparts can use the trans-Atlantic cables from Canada) that Vienna is likely to recall him without even knowing that he denies having violated any US laws with his plans to disrupt US munitions production. He continues to assert that his only aim was to protect his countrymen from inadvertently violating Austro-Hungarian law, which would be a good argument if his captured unencyphered letter hadn’t talked about disrupting munitions manufacturing.

Headline Combining the Words “Angry” and “Ukeleles” of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: September 18, 1915: Of explorers and protectorates

Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the Canadian arctic explorer, who has been out of contact for nearly 18 months, turns up at Herschel Island for supplies. He plans to continue mapping out the territories he’s discovered, at least until he runs out of expedition members (13 dead so far). Stefansson provides an account, if you’re interested. I notice the map in one of the NYT stories still includes the fictitious “Crocker Land.”

The US recognizes Haiti’s government – after it signs the treaty to no longer be a real government in control of its own finances and police.

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Today -100: September 17, 1915: Of dumas and toadvines

Tsar Nicholas prorogues the Duma, which has been pushing for reforms, for two months. The leftists in the Duma are not pleased, a deputy named... Kerensky shouting “Down with all traitors!”

Name of the Day -100: Ernest A. Toadvine, who wins the Democratic primary for clerk of the Circuit Court in Wicomico County, Maryland, despite having died the day before.

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Today -100: September 16, 1915: Of medicals, hangings, prisoners, and insulting Germans

One of the people mentioned in Austrian Amb. Dumba’s intercepted letter as a participant in his schemes to disrupt munitions production in the US was Consul-General Alexander Nuber von Pereked. Evidently he’s also been going around Ohio making Austrian and Hungarian nationals take medical exams for military recruitment and charging them $3. Which sounds so much like a scam that a Budapest newspaper denounced it as such, before having to reverse themselves the next day.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Turkey’s less-than-diplomatic response to efforts by US Amb. Henry Morgenthau’s attempts to get them to dial down the genocide.

Germany objects, officially, to the French and British use of non-white troops. African and Indian troops, they say, take ears as souvenirs and kill wounded soldiers. They’re just making this nice, decent war all uncivilized.

The Tsar of Russia orders an amnesty for all political prisoners, maybe 100,000 of them.

The German occupation authority in Belgium makes it illegal to boycott, blacklist or insult Germans or pro-German Belgians, a crime punishable by 2 years’ imprisonment, 5 if done by several people in collusion.

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