Today -100: July 10, 1917: We regard as enemies those who advocate the abolition of our government

Anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman are convicted of conspiracy to obstruct the draft, sentenced to 2 years and $10,000 fines, after which they will be subject to deportation. The judge tells them, “In this country of ours, we regard as enemies those who advocate the abolition of our government, and those who counsel disobedience of our laws by those of minds less strong.”

Numerous lefty newspapers, including The Masses, The Appeal to Reason, The American Socialist, etc., have been banned from the US mails under the Espionage Act, which declares “nonmailable” any publication affecting military performance or obstructing recruiting (by, say, opposing conscription) or other vaguely defined offenses. Other publications have been held up while the government decides whether they’re kosher. All of which is intended to have a wider chilling effect, as is the refusal of Post Office Solicitor William Lamar to give reasons when banning things. The August issue of The Masses, he said, was banned because of its “entire tone and spirit.” You can evaluate its entire tone and spirit for yourself here. Here’s a cartoon from the issue:

That’s “Labor” and “Democracy” chained to the cannon.

Harry Auren (or possibly Aurin), whoever that is, is sentenced to 30 days (or possibly 90 days) for disorderly conduct for distributing a circular which quotes the Declaration of Independence “with uneven emphasis,” whatever that means. A State Supreme Court justice will release him, saying there is a right to criticize the government and laws.

Secretary of War Newton Baker orders soldiers not to attack anti-conscription (or other) meetings... while in uniform.

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Today -100: July 9, 1917: Of exports, bullets, and reichstags

Pres. Wilson declares that he now has complete control over exports. A large list of products will require an export license. One thing he plans to do with this power is starve neutral countries of food they might sell on to Germany, which is a bit ironic considering that Wilson’s main complaint about Germany that led him to decide on war was their interference with the US sale of goods to one side of the war. And Wilson is joining the Allied policy of trying to starve Germany into submission, without any public debate over the morality of that course.

The Illinois state militia will claim that the reason it failed to stop the East St. Louis race riots was that it didn’t have enough bullets.

Matthias Erzberger, leader of Germany’s (Catholic) Zentrum Party, commits his party to electoral reforms and calls for a peace without annexations. News of the last part hasn’t reached the NYT yet (3 days later), or indeed the German public, thanks to censorship. The government is losing control of the Reichstag.

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Today -100: July 8, 1917: Of emperors, wobblies, and race riots

Chinese Boy-Emperor, or I guess Tween-Emperor now, Hsuan Tung abdicates, again, as the Republican army menaces Peking.

Warrants are issued in Arizona for 15 IWW activists for calling a strike at the Golconda Company copper mine. Gov. Edward Campbell says IWW hq gave the strike order. The IWW denies it. He also hints at dark German influences and says even if there aren’t any, the strike directly benefits Germany.

Rep. William August Rodenberg, whose district includes East St. Louis, says the race riots in that city were not about race but labor conditions. They were about both, dude.

German newspapers have been downplaying the arrival of US troops in France, saying they are few in numbers and lack proper equipment.

Greece broke off diplomatic relations with Turkey, so Turkey will deport all Greeks and confiscate their property.

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Today -100: July 7, 1917: Of apologies for the murder of the helpless, draft cards, wobblies, and naked Russians

The Chicago newspaper The American Socialist is barred from the mails.

At a Carnegie Hall meeting organized by the American Friends of Russian Freedom, Theodore Roosevelt praises the Russian Revolution and denounces the race riot in East St. Louis. He’s followed by Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor, who blames the events in East St. Louis on those “luring” black men from the South, which he says “is on a par with the behavior of the brutal, reactionary, and tyrannous forces that existed in Old Russia,” because the blacks would be used to keep wages down for, you know, regular white workers (while representing a major wage increase for the blacks over what they could earn in the South, but for some reason Gompers doesn’t mention that). This outrages Roosevelt, who waves his fist literally in Gompers’s face, saying “never will I sit motionless while directly or indirectly apology is made for the murder of the helpless.”

Police and military – with bayonets – raid an anti-conscription meeting in Paterson, New Jersey called by the American Union Against Militarism and arrest young men who are unable to show draft registration cards. One of the speakers was Rev. Norman Thomas of the East Harlem Presbyterian Church, the same Norman Thomas who will run for president as a Socialist candidate 6 times (1928 to 1948).

The Army claims that the International Workers of the World have plans to burn crops simultaneously throughout South Dakota.

Peasants in Odessa who have been unable to get clothing are threatening to organize naked processions.

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Today -100: July 6, 1917: Of censorship and race riots

The government rather quickly backs off from censoring cables from France to US newspapers. Or as the New York Times puts it,

The American Federation of Labor denies that unions were responsible for the race riots/pogrom in East St. Louis.

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Today -100: July 5, 1917: Of censorship, deportations, and roughneck pacifists

Although Congress refused to include press censorship in the Espionage Act, the War Office just goes ahead and starts censoring press reports sent to US newspapers from France anyway. Which was a surprise to the AP, which was told that it could pick up its redacted reports from George Creel’s Committee on Public Information. It was also a surprise to the Committee on Public Information, which now has to create an extra-legal censorship system on the fly.

IWW organizer Joseph Graber, who has been organizing Pennsylvania coal miners, is arrested on Pres. Wilson’s order, his presence in the district declared a danger to the United States. They can do this because he is an “enemy alien.” He immigrated from Warsaw in 1910, and that part of Poland is
currently under German occupation. That’s an odd definition of “enemy alien,” which would also apply to every Belgian and change with every shift of the front lines. The government is claiming Graber is a German agent, which is of course bullshit.

Theodore Roosevelt, in a Fourth of July speech partly devoted to attacking “roughneck pacifists,” whatever that means, calls for no discrimination against Americans of German background in the military. Doesn’t say a thing about the racial segregation of the military.

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Today -100: July 4, 1917: American citizens are being murdered in East St. Louis

A race riot (black v. white) starts in NYC, when a cop tries to disperse black National Guards who were just hanging out.

While arrests were made during the East St. Louis race riots, almost everyone’s been released. The pogrom is settling down. The secretary of the Freedman Foundation telegrams Woodrow Wilson asking for federal intervention to prevent more bloodshed, saying “American citizens are being murdered in East St. Louis.”

At her trial, Emma Goldman denies the accuracy of the report of her speech by a police stenographer, saying she speaks too quickly to be recorded accurately, which she proves by getting the same cop to attempt to take down her words in court, which he can’t. Witnesses say that neither she nor Berkman have ever advocated violence.

Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg says Germany will win soon. “If we hold our ground against enemy attacks until the submarine warfare has done its work, the war is won for us.”

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Today -100: July 3, 1917: Timber!

Race riots continue in East Saint Louis, Illinois. Blacks are shot and lynched, and their homes burned. No accurate count has ever been made of the deaths, but roughly 150 or so. The militia tamp down the rioting, although it doesn’t sound like they were trying that hard. The police are at best useless, at worst active participants. The NYT account is surprisingly detailed.

Russian Minister of War Alexander Kerensky personally leads troops into battle against Austria in Galicia. The Kerensky Offensive is going very well, they say. Enjoy it while it lasts, Alex, enjoy it while it lasts.

A military coup in China puts boy-emperor Hsuan Tung back on the throne as figurehead.

Thing I discovered about 1917 America today: they called the stuff you make cans out of “aluminium,” like the British still do. Anyway, Sen. James Reed (D-Missouri) attacks the president of the Aluminium Company of America (which is now Alcoa) for using his seat on the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense to raise the price paid for aluminum for army canteens, of which 1 million will be ordered from his company.

Wilson finally issues rules for draft exemptions. Interestingly, while men with dependents can claim exemption, his wife or other dependents can put in a claim on their own.

The National Civil Liberties Bureau, the forerunner of the ACLU, forms to protect free speech and the rights of conscientious objectors.

Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, foremost English actor of his generation, although his acting style is considered rather formal and old-fashioned now, dies at 64. He leaves a bunch of children, legitimate and otherwise. Amongst the latter is Carol Reed, director of The Third Man.

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Today -100: July 2, 1917: Of potato riots, peace parades, race friction, and East St. Louis

Headline of the Day -100:

Great name for a rock band.

Soldiers and sailors attack a peace parade – or as the NYT headline puts it, a “‘Peace’ Parade” – in Boston and attack the Socialist Party hq.

A meeting at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in NYC discusses the negro migration out of the South. There is a consensus that it’s less about higher wages and more about not being treated like shit and lynched and whatnot. Fred Moore, editor of the New York Age says “There is no race friction in the North.”

A race riot/pogrom begins in East Saint Louis, Illinois.

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Today -100: July 1, 1917: Of well-paid amusement, 10,000 planes, beer, and umpires

Charlie Chaplin signs a new contract with First National to make 8 films in 1 year for $1 million, “the largest salary ever paid to a performer in the history of the amusement world,” not that that stops the NYT from spelling his name wrong. First National is a new company, formed by owners of movie theaters.

Headline of the Day -100:

But then he would, wouldn’t he?

Reginald Aldworth Daly, a professor of geology at Harvard, says in a Sunday NYT Magazine article that Germany’s atrocities during this war can be blamed on beer. Since all Germans are a bit sloshed at all times, they’re all bad-tempered all the time.

Babe Ruth is suspended from baseball for a week after punching an umpire.

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Today -100: June 30, 1917: Of beer and wine, dumas, and activities of a sinister German character

Woodrow Wilson intervenes in the Food Bill to prevent it banning beer and wine along with distilled spirits, although he will have the power to put such a ban in place, which he doesn’t want and won’t use.

The Russian Duma will ignore the polite request of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet that it dissolve itself. It points to its role in getting the tsar to abdicate as proof that it is now independent of its previous position as part of the imperial regime.

The Greek government installed by the Allies breaks relations with Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey. Which is not quite declaring war, but close enough.

Arizona Gov. Thomas Campbell calls the work of IWW union activists organizing copper miners “activities of a sinister German character,” and asks the War Department to investigate.

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Today -100: June 29, 1917: Of premature news, arrests at the White House, and self-determination

Secretary of War Newton Baker is pisssssssed that the news of the arrival in France of US troops was published yesterday.

Suffragists trying to display banners to the president are now being arrested every single day. 25 so far in the last week.

Socialist members of the Austrian Parliament introduce an interpellation in favor of peace negotiations and demanding that Austria finally state its war aims. The socialists (led by Ignacy Daszynski of the Polish Social Democratic Party, who will be prime minister of Poland for a week in 1918) argue for the right of people to determine their own destinies, to which Austrian Minister-President Ernst Seidler takes exception, saying that only the emperor can determine Austrians’ destinies. The Austrian emperor.

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Today -100: June 28, 1917: Over there

The first US troops arrive in France.

The Pan-Russian Congress of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Soviets votes against a separate peace with Germany, but it wants peace now, given that “The present war arose in consequence of aspirations of imperialists, prevailing among the ruling classes of all countries and tending toward the usurpation of markets and submission to their economic and political influence of small and decadent nations.” Decadent? The Congress also opposes a war that ends with the defeat of one side, which would only lead to more wars.

6 suffragists are sentenced to 3 days for picketing the White House. Too short for a hunger strike.

The NYT claims Lenin just attempted a rising against the Russian government, with German money.

Eleftherios Venizelos takes office as Greek prime minister.

The US War Department rejects the offer of some short dude to form “bantam regiments” of men too small to join the army (below 5’4” and 120 pounds).

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Today -100: June 27, 1917: Of air raids

The recent German raids on London by fixed-wing planes have led to demands for reprisals in kind on German towns, but Minister of War Lord Derby tells the House of Lords that Britain should not try to imitate German brutality. Baron Montagu says that the Germans have a perfect right to bomb London.

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Today -100: June 26, 1917: Of pickets and prohibition

The situation in front of the White House is escalating, with 12 suffragists arrested yesterday. Notably, only one of them is married.

Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore opposes the prohibition clause in the food bill.

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Today -100: June 25, 1917: It would be better for you to face ten German bayonets than one tigree mother of Russia and the curse she lays upon you

Headline of the Day -100:

The Russian Women’s Battalions of Death issue an appeal/threat: “And you others, soldiers in name but Judases in fact, who are selling Russia to the foe, know that the time will soon be at hand when it would be better for you to face ten German bayonets than one tigree mother of Russia and the curse she lays upon you.”

Germany orders that all publications discussing questions of public interest be submitted to military censorship.

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Today -100: June 24, 1917: The soviets are getting a little uppity

The Pan-Russian Congress of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Soviets votes to dissolve the Council of the Empire and asks for the Duma to be dissolved as well. Or I guess dissolve itself, since it was the czar who used to do that. The soviets don’t actually have the authority to dissolve anything, but hey.

The House passes the Food Administration Bill 365-5, with the surprise inclusion of an amendment banning the production of liquors during the war and authorizing the president to seize all existing stocks.

The Justice Dept bans pro-German newspapers printed in Mexico from entering Texas.

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Today -100: June 23, 1917: Loud and boisterous talking is the worst kind

The Chicago City Council begins moves to impeach Mayor Big Bill Thompson. He is considered pro-German, won’t help raise the Liberty Loan, and wasn’t nice to Balfour when he came to town. Thompson tries to adjourn the Council, but it refuses to go.

Two of the White House women’s suffrage picketers, Lucy Burns and Katherine Morey, are arrested with a banner displaying only Woodrow Wilson’s words about democracy and people having a voice in their own government (who thought there would be ironic protest banners in 1917?). They are charged with obstructing traffic, unlawful assemblage, and “loud and boisterous talking.”

Germany officially divides Belgium into two bits, Flemish and Walloon.

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Today -100: June 22, 1917: Of former kings, women’s battalions of death, pickets, and who owns the news

From exile, former Greek King Constantine I says he’s still the king.

The NYT has an AP article on the Russian Women’s Battalion of Death, a source of endless interest to the Western press, although not enough interest that they don’t mangle the name of its “girl commander,” “twice wounded girl officer” (she’s in her late 20s) Yashka Boshkareva. Boshkareva points out that the battalion still uses the disciplinary system of the tsarist army, with none of that soldier self-government stuff. And yes, they shave their heads.

The Associated Press wins a lawsuit against Hearst’s International News Service, which was stealing its news stories. It’s an interesting legal decision, by the 2nd Circuit Court, in that news is held to be property. News is evidently something distinct from facts.

Suffragist pickets outside the White House are again attacked by angry mobs.

The Maryland House of Delegates votes down women’s suffrage 56-41.

The FTC recommended that the railroads, coal mines and coke producers be run by the government. Big Business is not best pleased, nor by the administration’s attempts to keep prices on raw and manufactured goods down or the president’s new powers to embargo the export of any products he likes.

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Today -100: June 21, 1917: America Is Not A Democracy

Headline of the Day -100:

As a delegation from Russia visits the White House, a suffrage banner hoisted by the National Woman’s Party’s White House picketers informs them (in English), “President Wilson and Envoy Root are deceiving Russia. They say, ‘We are a democracy. Help us win a world war, so that democracies may survive.’ We, the women of America, tell you that America is not a democracy. ... Help us make this nation really free. Tell our Government it must liberate people before it can claim free Russia as an ally.” Reporters are on hand, having been told this was coming. Crowds tear the banner apart, because freedom, to the annoyance of police who wanted it as evidence. No arrests are made, though police warn the suffragists there will be if they do it again. They will do it again. A lot of Washingtonians are quoted disapproving of the banner, none in favor. Rep. Jeanette Rankin, a former suffrage activist herself, expresses no opinion either way, which is disappointing.

Russia indicts government officials from the Czarist era, including former Prime Minister Boris Stürmer and various cabinet ministers and governors. The most interesting charge is against former Interior Minister Alexander Protopopov for stealing the original telegraph dispatches between Rasputin and the czar and czarina. 

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Today -100: June 20, 1917: Of women’s suffrage, fecking rioting, and German titles

The British House of Commons votes 214 to 17 for women’s suffrage, on an unequal basis. Even former Prime Minister Asquith votes for it. Efforts to expand the provision to women below the age of 30 are turned down.

The release of Irish political prisoners is celebrated in Dublin by rioting, as is the custom. Actually, the article calls it rioting, but it sounds much more like ordinary or garden-variety demonstrating. The Sinn Fein flag is hung on the wreckage of the Central Post Office. The police don’t intervene until 2 in the morning, which does seem to be the time to tell the marching bands to go the feck home.

Did I do that right? Feck?

King George is forcing all the princes and princesses of his large family who are English subjects to drop any Germany titles (lookin’ at you, Prince Louis of Battenberg).

The Austrian Cabinet resigns because the Polish deputies in the Reichsrath are now joining other Slavs in refusing to vote for the war budget.

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Today -100: June 19, 1917: This disagreement will be resolved by a Marx Off to see who can interpret Marx faster, probably

The All-Russian Congress of all Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviets calls for a new treaty with the Allies aligning their war aims and rejecting a separate peace with Germany. Lenin is not pleased, and calls War Minister Kerensky’s call for a new offensive treason to international socialism. Kerensky accuses Lenin of misinterpreting Marx.

102 US coal corporations and 51 persons associated with them are on trial for conspiring to fix prices.

Annie Besant, the Theosophist leader who will soon be president of the Indian National Congress, is banned by British Indian authorities from lecturing, publishing, or participating in meetings. Also her letters will be censored and she’s banned from Madras City.

Irish political prisoners jailed after the Easter Rising are released. This is partly to make sure the Irish Convention goes ahead, partly to keep the US sweet. Also released are Sinn Feiners who organized a banned meeting on June 9th to protest against the imprisonments; a police inspector was killed as police broke up the meeting.

An Army training camp for negro officers opens. It’s in Iowa, because of course it is. White officers will train the negroes, who will run segregated negro regiments.

Haiti breaks relations with Germany.

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Today -100: June 18, 1917: Meet Countess Sofia Panina, the woman pioneer you’ve never heard of

Headline of the Day -100:

When a Frenchman has to find something nice to say about an American, but he’s just so... American.

The Russian Duma votes for starting an immediate military offensive. Why that required a secret session is unclear.

Also, the Russian government is joined by a new Assistant Minister of Social Tutelage (aka State Welfare), Countess Sofia Vladimirovna Panina of the Kadet Party, the first woman cabinet minister in any country ever. She plans for her staff to consist mostly of women. The Bolsheviks will put her on trial, and she will spend the last decades of her life in exile.

An independence movement is growing in Catalonia.

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Today -100: June 17, 1917: We ask you to fight for our freedom equally with yours

Woodrow Wilson gets tired of waiting for Congress to pass legislation authorizing a Food Administration, so he just goes ahead and tells Herbert Hoover to start organizing the housewives of America to use food efficiently under his directions.

Charles Jonnart, the French former governor-general of Algeria who spearheaded the Allies’ successful efforts to force Greece’s King Constantine to abdicate, publishes a proclamation telling the Greeks that that forcible abdication and the military occupation of Athens are all in the interests of “the independence, greatness, and prosperity of Greece.” Greece has been freed from the German-Bulgarian yoke, he says. Constantine is now out of the country, on his way to exile in Switzerland.

Elihu Root, in Petrograd heading a mission from the US, tells the Russian people, “we are going to fight and have already begun to fight for your freedom equally with our own, and we ask you to fight for our freedom equally with yours.”

Kaiser Wilhelm sends a telegram to ousted Greek King Constantine, his brother-in-law: “I assure you that your deprivation can be only temporary. The mailed fist of Germany, with further aid from Almighty God, will restore you to your throne, of which no man by right can rob you. The armies of Germany and Germany's allies will wreak vengeance on those who have dared so insolently to lay their criminal hands on you.” Criminal hands are the worst kind.

The new Greek king, Alexander I, the NYT reports, likes driving cars fast.

Headline of the Day -100:

Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman are being held on $25,000 bail, which they cannot raise. The article quotes a surprisingly long extract from an anti-draft pamphlet.

The British government use the Defence of the Realm Act to ban all dog shows. Something about the dogs eating too much food that might go to soldiers. Also, all unregistered dogs are to be killed.

Alice Hill Chittenden, president of the NY State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, warns of the “servant slacker” and says the role of American women in this war is to stop “noisily pursuing useless activities” like, oh for example, women’s suffrage, and spend their time supervising their servants and keeping their cooks from wasting food. This article is everything you expect an anti-suffrage woman to say about servants.

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Today -100: June 16, 1917: Of anarchists and conscription

Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman are arrested by the feds at the oxymoronic “anarchist headquarters” for conspiring to “aid, counsel, and induce” men not to register for the draft.

Headline of the Day -100:

The NYT now regularly uses loaded terms like slackers and shirkers and  sedition and patriotic (and unpatriotic) in its news reporting.

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Today -100: June 15, 1917: Deceitful peaces are the worst kind

Headline of the Day -100:

In a Flag Day address, Pres. Woodrow Wilson lays out the case for war against Germany, which “denied us the right to be neutral” by sending “vicious spies and conspirators” (vicious spies and conspirators are the worst kind), and by “impudently” denying us the use of the high seas. But we are not at war with the German people we will be attempting to slaughter. “They did not originate or desire this hideous war or wish that we should be drawn into it; and we are vaguely conscious that we are fighting their cause, as they will some day see it, as well as our own.” (Historical question: have the Germans ever seen it, and have they sent us a nice card and maybe an edible arrangement?). He spends a surprising amount of time painting Austria as a puppet of Germany, considering the US and Austria are not at war. He describes Germany’s calls for peace as a “sinister intrigue” (sinister intrigues are the worst kind) because Germany’s bargaining position can only decline from here.

Theodore Roosevelt also speaks, at a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Nebraska’s statehood. He complains that we didn’t go to war much earlier, calls for “an absolute and undivided Americanism” during this “war for liberty and democracy” and for the suppression of German-language newspapers, and says churches which don’t fly flags should be closed. Also, everyone should give to the Red Cross. He says, “I wanted to go to war and the people wanted me to go. But now I am feeling fine. I keep my good health by having a very bad temper, kept under good control.”

Japan thinks that with the US and Japan now on the same side of the war, the US should recognize Japanese paramountcy in China.

The first result of the forced abdication of Greece’s King Constantine: the Allies occupy Athens, because of course they do.

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Today -100: June 14, 1917: Of air raids, glasses, and horses

German planes bomb London, killing over 100 people. All civilians, Britain will claim. It was a daytime raid and – a detail the NYT misses – the first air raid on London composed of airplanes rather than Zeppelins. One silly theory is that the Germans were trying to kill American Gen. Black Jack Pershing, currently visiting London.

The War Department has decided not to draft men with tuberculosis, but it will take men with glasses, since the outdoor life will cure them of their ocular deficiencies because that’s totally how eyes work.

The committee drawing up new election rules for Russia will give the vote to... the former czar.

Germany will start food rationing for horses. But they won’t stop horse racing, because none of the other warring countries stopped horse racing so they won’t either.

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Today -100: June 13, 1917: Of conscription, abdication, and rumors

Sen. William Calder (R-NY) points out that basing conscription on districts’ population, as the Selective Draft Act envisions, means that in areas with proportions of draft-exempt immigrants, this will mean drafting high proportions of citizens.

King Constantine I of Greece abdicates, forced out by Allied threats to bomb Athens if he doesn’t. His younger son Alexander will now be king, because the Allies didn’t like older son Crown Prince George either.

The US Secret Service is arresting people (12 so far) who have been circulating a (false) rumor that US ships were in a battle with German ones and several were sunk and there was a mutiny on one ship.

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Today -100: June 12, 1917: We can put an end to disloyalty, and we are going to do it

A policeman is killed at a banned Sinn Fein meeting in Dublin as the cops arrested speakers, including Count Plunkett, MP, because there is totally a Sinn Fein member of Parliament named Count Plunkett. He was elected in a by-election in January. All three of his sons were sentenced to death after the Easter Rising and one was executed.

Headline of the Day -100:

US marshals raid an anti-conscription meeting in New York City called by Emma Goldman, and arrest men not carrying registration cards. US Marshal Thomas McCarthy says he’ll stop any further such meetings and arrest Emma Goldman and “all of her kind” if they organize any more meetings. “We can’t stop free speech as contemplated by the Constitution, but we can put an end to disloyalty, and we are going to do it.” Marshal McCarthy does not do irony.

The Canadian government introduces a bill for conscription.

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Today -100: June 11, 1917: Of the Women’s Battalion of Death

Russian War Minister Kerensky’s wife Olga enlists in the Women’s Battalion of Death. This isn’t actually true, but I believe this is the first NYT mention of the Battalion, which was ordered formed last month, although women have been allowed to serve in the regular army for a couple of years (each one had to be individually approved by the czar). The efficacy of those soldiers, combined with the lobbying of “Yashka” Boshkareva, a semi-literate peasant soldier, and the idea of embarrassing male soldiers into resuming active military operations, led the Provisional Government to create several of these units. Being all-volunteer meant they were more gung ho than the male conscripts, who were not in fact embarrassed into fighting or into backing up the battalions or holding positions the female units captured. Boshkareva fell afoul of the Bolsheviks and was executed in 1920. There’s a recent okay, by-the-numbers Russian movie on the Battalion.

The Swedish Riksdag rejects women’s suffrage.

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Today -100: June 10, 1917: 4,000 men in a week

The Central Powers are holding 874,271 prisoners of war. Of whom more than 2 million are Russian.

William Redmond, MP for County Clare and brother of Irish National Party leader John Redmond, is killed in action.

Headline of the Day -100:

No comment.

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Today -100: June 9, 1917: Of hysterical and unseemly appeals, yachts, overly political PJs, and driver’s licenses

Sen. Warren G. Harding (R-Ohio) in a Memorial Day speech calls the administration’s Liberty Loan appeal “hysterical and unseemly.” Sen. J. Hamilton Lewis (D-Illinois) accuses him of undermining the loan program and of telling his German constituents that the US, contrary to what Wilson is saying, is fighting the German people rather than the Hohenzollerns. Harding alludes to the remarks of a “certain gentleman” in a recent secret session of the Senate containing facts which would startle the American public, if only he were able to divulge them, “But I cannot talk of it here”.

Henry Ford donates his yacht to the government for use as a submarine chaser.

The American Red Cross rejects 37 pairs of pajamas intended for US soldiers donated by the Woman’s Political Union of Roselle, New Jersey, because they came with “Votes for Women” tags.

Prohibition will be enforced on the navy and marines too, not just the army.

A new law will require driver’s licenses in New York City for everyone who actually, you know, drives. This is purely for identification purposes – there is no driving test. Also, it seems to be a state law applying only to NYC.

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Today -100: June 8, 1917: Of conchies, Romanovs, and vivisection

Theodore Roosevelt doesn’t think much of conscientious objectors.

The workers’ section of the Petrograd Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet vote to send ex-Czar Nicholas and his family to Kronstadt. The Leninists had suggested putting them to work in the gold mines of Siberia.

Rutgers University’s application to the state of New Jersey to teach using vivisection is turned down.

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Today -100: June 7, 1917: Of Alsace-Lorraine and socialist congresses

The French Chamber of Deputies’ insistence that peace terms must include the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine (and indemnities) is pissing off German socialists, who want peace but also want to retain the provinces, which are German and have always been German, according to Germans with either relatively short memories or relatively long memories.

In Iowa, several men from Alsace-Lorraine registered for the draft, but will be exempt because the US considers them German, even though they think of themselves as French (the US insists this is not taking a position on who owns the provinces, just what their status was at the start of the war).

The Petrograd Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet will summon an international socialist congress in Stockholm next month. They think peace would more likely come from talks with other representatives of the proletariat than between nation-states.

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Today -100: June 6, 1917: Of registration

National Registration Day passed off successfully, with estimates of over 10 million men having registered. There is little resistance, and that mostly by individual agitators. A march in Butte (evidently organized by Finns) is dispersed by soldiers with bayonets and the Negaunee, Michigan sheriff swears in all the men who registered to prevent an anti-conscription march. Navajos drive off an Indian agent who comes on their reservation to try to register them. Ute Indians also resist, pointing out that they don’t have the vote. A man in Waterbury, Connecticut asks to be exempted because he’s supporting a wife and two children here and another wife and three children in Russia.

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Today -100: June 5, 1917: Of registration, awed anarchists, Albanias, and the Pulitzers

Preparing for Registration Day today, the government claims to expect everything to go smoothly, with minimal resistance. Men will just be registering today; any claims for exemption (conscientious objection, being a foreign citizen) will be made later. Secretary of War Newton Baker says men should “rejoice” at the opportunity to register. Rejoicing will be vigorously enforced:

Austria-Hungary is talking about a peace without annexations of Russian territory, but it still plans to annex Serbia, take Italian territory, and it will demand an indemnity. Also a dependent (but nominally independent) Albania, and the Balkan states forced into a customs union with Austria.

Italy also wants indirect control of an independent-but-not-really Albania.

The first ever Pulitzer Prizes are awarded. The New York Tribune wins best editorial for one on the anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania that used the phrase “wanton murder.” Other winners are the French ambassador J.J. Jusserand for “With Americans of Past and Present Days” and a bio of Julia Ward Howe.

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Today -100: June 4, 1917: Of concrete expressions of a new idea for democracy, and the mad hatters

Russia’s Provisional Government threatens to cut off the Kronstadt fortress if the Petrograd Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet doesn’t give it back. The Kronstadt revolt is led by Anatoly Lamanov who is a third-year chemistry student. He believes Russia should devolve power to the communal level and that Kronstadt is leading by example as “the concrete expression of a new idea for democracy.” But the fort will still be ready to fight off any Huns who show up.

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This stems from the ridiculous 1908 Supreme Court ruling that a boycott of Danbury hat companies using scab labor during a 1902 strike was illegal under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The company was awarded heavy damages and is now seizing hatters’ homes. It plans to shut its factories while that’s going on, because of the aforementioned fear of revenge. Just as an aside, mercury was a major component of hat manufacturing, so it was a pretty fucking dangerous trade.

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Today -100: June 3, 1917: Of objectionable zitheads, parading anarchists, submarine warfare, and banned leaflets

An article in the NYT Sunday Magazine section explains the standards theoretically used by army surgeons to inspect potential recruits, but somehow I doubt that anyone is really rejected for excessive acne (because “The man must not be objectionable to his tent mates”).

Armed anarchists parade in Petrograd.

When Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, the German people were told that it would end the war in two or three months. Well, Germans have calendars, and...

The US is considering giving every soldier and sailor free life insurance out of the goodness of its heart. $4,000.

British and French airplanes have been dropping leaflets on Belgium. The German occupation authorities impose a fine of 10,000 marks and 3 years’ imprisonment for any Belgian reading them.

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Today -100: June 2, 1917: Of draft dodgers and fortresses

Pres. Wilson warns the young men fleeing draft registration by traveling abroad that they will be prosecuted when they return. US borders and outgoing ships are now being watched carefully and new passports not being issued to draft-age men.

The Petrograd Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet decides that it’s in sole control of the Kronstadt fortress now, and the provisional government can go suck eggs.

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The fruits of our labor will be seen very shortly even more so

Today Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord.

SO SAD. BIGLY SAD: On a failed robbery in Manila that wasn’t terror: “But it is really very sad as to what's going on throughout the world with terror.”

WE DON’T: “It was a very, very successful trip, believe me.”

STILL DOESN’T KNOW ISRAEL IS IN THE MIDDLE EAST: “We’re also working very hard for peace in the Middle East, and perhaps even peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.”

WE (SIGH) DO: “And believe me, we’ve just begun.  The fruits of our labor will be seen very shortly even more so.”

HE NOT ONLY DOESN’T KNOW THAT ISRAEL IS IN THE MIDDLE EAST, HE DOESN’T KNOW THAT THE UNITED STATES IS IN THE WORLD: “The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries”

WHAT A CYNIC (WITH NO UNDERSTANDING OF CLIMATE SCIENCE) WOULD SAY: “This agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States.  The rest of the world applauded when we signed the Paris Agreement -- they went wild; they were so happy -- for the simple reason that it put our country, the United States of America, which we all love, at a very, very big economic disadvantage.  A cynic would say the obvious reason for economic competitors and their wish to see us remain in the agreement is so that we continue to suffer this self-inflicted major economic wound.”

MAYBE HE THINKS WE’RE FINLAND? “The United States, under the Trump administration, will continue to be the cleanest and most environmentally friendly country on Earth.  We’ll be the cleanest.”

OH, LET’S: “So if the obstructionists want to get together with me, let’s make them non-obstructionists.”

He wants to re-negotiate the Paris Accord, although if climate change isn’t real I’m not sure why we’d bother.

WHAT HE’LL ENSURE: “I will work to ensure that America remains the world’s leader on environmental issues”.


NOVEMBER 8, 2016: “At what point does America get demeaned?  At what point do they start laughing at us as a country?”

HORRIFIED SNIGGERING, YES, LAUGHING, NO: “We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore.  And they won’t be.  They won’t be.”

YEAH, FUCK PARIS!  “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” (Actually, Hillary kicked his ass in Pittsburgh.)

(Update: He made two of those cracks, the second being about putting Youngstown, Detroit etc before Paris, France. He does know that the city is just the place the agreement was signed, right? The Accord wasn’t issued as a decree by the mayor of Paris. Or is it just an attempt to tap into American anti-French sentiment like failed missionary Mitt Romney used to?)

NICE NAME: “Beyond the severe energy restrictions inflicted by the Paris Accord, it includes yet another scheme to redistribute wealth out of the United States through the so-called Green Climate Fund -- nice name –”

SURE, DIMES ARE AMERICAN MONEY: “Many of the other countries haven’t spent anything, and many of them will never pay one dime.” Yeah, the idea is to distribute money from the rich countries to the poor ones. There wouldn’t be a lot of point to it if everyone was paying in.

IS THAT THE SAME NOBODY WHO DIDN’T KNOW HEALTH CARE WAS COMPLICATED? “And nobody even knows where the money is going to.”

WE DON’T BELIEVE YOU; IT WAS ALWAYS NON-BINDING: “Believe me, we have massive legal liability if we stay in.”

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Today -100: June 1, 1917: Over where?

The House again votes down Wilson’s censorship provisions in the Espionage Bill, 184 to 144. Many of those opposing it express a touching faith in the patriotism of US newspapers.

US medical societies are asking the government to abrogate or suspend German drug patents for the duration. They’re especially worried about the supply of Salvarsan, because there’s a war on, and where there are soldiers and sailors, there’s syphilis. Lots and lots of syphilis.

At the Stockholm international socialist peace conference, German socialists insist that Germany must keep Alsace-Lorraine.

The Justice Dept arrests more people for counseling resistance to draft registration, including two Columbia students and one (female) from Barnard.

In Austria, a minor government official is sentenced to 5 years for distributing the (American) song “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier.”

George M. Cohan publishes the song “Over There.” Here’s Cohan singing it in 1936 (1 minute in):



Here’s the first recording of it, by Nora Bayes in 1917:



She says “Sammies” instead of “Yanks.” And finally, Enrico Caruso in a 1918 recording. Kind of funny with his accent.

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Today -100: May 31, 1917: The first duty of a man is to be a man

In his Memorial Day address, Woodrow Wilson says “We did not set this government up in order that we might have a separate and selfish liberty”. “America will once more have an opportunity to show to the world that she was born to serve mankind.” (Warning to the world: It’s a cook book!).

At his own speech, Theodore Roosevelt tells young men not to wait to be drafted. “The first duty of a man is to be a man.”

What is it with race riots this week? A couple of hundred negroes in Harlem fight cops trying to arrest a man.

The Germans have evidently been asking Turkey not to expel Jews from Jerusalem, because it looks bad.

Anti-black violence continues in East St. Louis, although reduced by rain and the National Guard. Blacks are fleeing the city.

Some draft-age males are escaping to Cuba and Mexico to avoid registration. France plans to force expatriates to register, or something. Also, June 5, National Registration Day, doesn’t really work in Alaska, because ice, so they’ll need a later date. Attorney-General Thomas Watt Gregory orders stenographers to attend anti-draft meetings to take down speeches with a view to prosecution.

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Today -100: May 30, 1917: No evasive reply is acceptable

The Petrograd Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet says that its policy of “peace without annexations or indemnities” means there should be an immediate offer of peace negotiations. And if Russia’s allies don’t agree to make this offer, they “take equal responsibility on themselves with the Governments of Germany and Austria-Hungary for the continuance of the war. No evasive reply is acceptable.”

The Russian War Ministry orders all monks sent to the front lines to work in sanitation. Try not to think about how long Russian Orthodox monks’ beards are.

And in other news from Russia: vodka riots! Or, as they call that in Russia: Tuesday.

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Today -100: May 29, 1917: I think it would be a good thing if all our young Quakers should go to jail

Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies votes 136-3 in favor of war on Germany, or to be more precise, to revoke the decree of neutrality. Brazil won’t actually declare war until October.

The Justice Department arrests 9 men in Texas, claiming that a co-op had been infiltrated by German spies, or something, and turned into an anti-conscription action group, or something, with weapons and a secret oath and everything. And some others in the “feud region” of Virginia (including a McCoy) are arrested for plotting to murder draft officials and declare a rebellion. And 10 Detroit socialists are arrested for distributing anti-conscription literature.

There have been a lot of wild tales lately about forthcoming miracle weapons. The latest: a Brooklynite, Dr. Dayve De Waltoff claims to have invented a vastly superior explosive which he has named... wait for it... Terrorall. A mere five (5) grains of Terrorall would suffice to blow up the Woolworth Building, if that’s your idea of a good time.

Race war in East St. Louis, Illinois, with white mobs determined to force out the blacks who have been arriving from Mississippi to work, including in munitions factories.

Some Quakers are annoyed that the government so readily exempted them from the draft, depriving them of “their much cherished privilege of suffering for their convictions.” Says Isaac Sharpnell, president of Haverford College, “I think it would be a good thing if all our young Quakers should go to jail.” It would certainly make running an all-male Quaker college easier, huh Ike? The Quakers (at least at a NYC meeting) won’t admit any new members who are military-age males (which is irrelevant to the Draft Act, since the exemption doesn’t apply to those who joined after conscription was announced).

Russian monks want the vote.

Arthur Balfour, who was touring the US with great fanfare, has moved on to Canada, where he tells the Canadian Parliament “No greater miracle has ever happened in the history of civilisation than the way in which the co-ordinated British democracies worked together with a uniform spirit of self-sacrifice in the cause in which they believed not merely their own individual security, but the safety of the empire and the progress of civilisation and liberty itself were at stake,” which might have been more convincing if not for the anti-conscription riots a few days ago in Quebec.

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Today -100: May 28, 1917: Half the fun is saluting, ammiright?

Food dictator Herbert Hoover wants to “enlist” every housewife in the nation in his food administration and sign a pledge to carry out its culinary instructions. There will be serious pressure on women to do so.

The new censorship & propaganda czar George Creel releases proposed regulations of things newspapers should not write about. In addition to the obvious (troop movements, etc), it includes: disagreements between the Allies, speculation about peace, articles offensive to allies or neutral countries, etc. The idea was that if newspapers would agree to this voluntarily, there would be no need for the censorship law the administration is having trouble getting Congress to pass. There has been no such agreement.

Russian Minister of War Kerensky promulgates new rights for soldiers including freedom of opinion, no obligatory saluting, etc.

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Today -100: May 27, 1917: Of race riots, deadly pencils, and millionaire actors

There’s a race riot in NYC’s Upper East Side, following an incident where a bartender over-charged a black man that escalated thanks in part to some incompetent policing by National Defense Guards, who were covering for regular cops taking the sergeant’s exam. White and black men attack each other with razors and guns, and police shoot one black men dead.

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Baron von Rosen of Sweden is arrested in Norway with “an amazing collection of bombs, poisons, and deadly bacilli”. And exploding pencils! Which blow up whoever tries to sharpen them. But evidently the good baron is breaking no Norwegian law, so they let him go and tell him to leave the country.

The film industry has stopped blabbing about how much it’s paying its stars now that Congress is looking for sectors of the economy to soak in order to pay for the war, but three stars are evidently making more than $1,000,000 a year. And yes, they’re Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford (the Bank of America’s sweetheart), and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

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Today -100: May 26, 1917: Base instruments have begun to speak of the preservation of each soldier’s life

Rear Admiral William Sims, in charge of the US destroyers off Europe, complains that “the German spy system” informed Berlin that the destroyers were coming four days before they arrived (how he knows this is unclear).

The Petrograd Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet “menaces” Gen. Mikhail Alexiev, telling him to shut up after he gives a speech denigrating the notion of a peace without annexations or indemnities and complaining about the tendency among soldiers “to peace and ease instead of activity” while “base instruments have begun to speak of the preservation of each soldier’s life.”

New Jersey socialist Frederick Superior (!) has been posting circulars saying “Impeach Wilson” and “Free Speech Denied.” The police rather make his point by arresting him for sedition.

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Today -100: May 25, 1917: I do not think I should have enjoyed my luncheon if I had known I was eating off a German plate

It is now illegal in the US to sell booze to members of the Army in uniform. Sailors and marines seem not to come under this law.

The Washington Herald complains that after it wrote about the fatally defective shells supplied by the Navy to the Mongolia, the new chief propagandist George Creel called them up, “questioning the spirit and correctness” of the editorial. The Herald warns of censorship. Creel denies attempting to control them. He was totally attempting to control them.

Sinn Fein officially rejects Lloyd George’s proposed Irish convention unless it is elected by universal suffrage (unclear if this includes women), has the power to declare independence, and can’t have its decisions vetoed by the British government.

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Baseball’s National Commission bans the bean ball.

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Today -100: May 24, 1917: Of passports, tiszas, and potatoes

The US refuses passports to socialists who had intended to travel to the Stockholm peace congress, and threatens to prosecute any Americans who manage to attend it anyway.

Hungarian Prime Minister Count István Tisza and his cabinet resign. Tisza has been increasingly at odds with the Empire’s central government since the accession of Emperor Karl, and he especially opposes moves to expand Hungary’s very limited franchise (although he was willing to grant it to soldiers... if they had medals of courage).

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Pretty sure these are euphemisms for sex acts which commoners are forbidden from engaging in upon pain of death (see also “eating a swan”).

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