Today -100: February 3, 1918: Of reason in Ulster, the spirit of 1776, and red armies

A couple of weeks ago, Sir Edward Carson resigned from the British War Cabinet. He explains that this was because the Irish Convention might break down and he didn’t want to be bound to support whatever action the British government took in response. He always wants to hold the treason card, does Sir Edward. He suggests that any agreement is likely to be a surrender and Northern Ireland wouldn’t be unreasonable to resist: “Ulster alone in Ireland has shown any reason at all.” Because when you think pure, dispassionate reason, you think Northern Fucking Ireland.

A Federal District judge in Los Angeles rules that the movie “The Spirit of 1776” can be seized by the government because its scenes of British atrocities during the War of Independence (which was evidently fought because King George III wanted to make his half-Native-American mistress Queen of America, or something; also, King George is seen beating up Benjamin Franklin) would create dissension between the people of the US and Britain, which is evidently illegal now. The film’s author Robert Goldstein will soon be sentenced to 10 years under the Espionage Act solely for writing this screenplay. The film is now lost.

The Espionage Act is also being used to ban a Sinn Fein newspaper from the mails.

Name of the Day -100: the Chicago chief censor, who seized “The Spirit of 1776” when it played there last May, is one Metallus Lucullus Cicero Funkhouser.

Germany declares martial law in 7 striking factories in Berlin.

With peace talks going badly, Russia gingerly works at re-establishing a military, consisting only of people who volunteer and support the ideals of the Revolution. A Red... Army, if you will.

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Today -100: February 2, 1918: Of prisoners of war, strikes, grand dukes and ex-czars

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: American soldiers claim to have captured German military documents ordering that American POWs should be kept for 4 days in cages without food, standing at all times.

The German military is cracking down on the strike movement, conscripting strike leaders, censoring news of the strikes, banning meetings, and threatening to fire on any “disorders.” Needless to say, Chancellor Herdling refuses to meet with representatives of the workers. The London Daily Mail thinks the whole thing is a plot by the German government to stimulate copycat strikes in Britain and France, at which point Germany will pounce, POUNCE I tell you!

Some deputies in the Baden Landtag ask the Grand Duke of Baden to kindly pay some fucking taxes because there’s a war on. He says no. Must be nice to be a grand duke.

Not so nice to no longer be a czar. A New York state Supreme Court judge rules that Nicholas Romanov can be sued now that he is just an ordinary person. The Maritime Transportation Company is suing him for breach of contract.

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Today -100: February 1, 1918: The real terror has yet to come

At Brest-Litovsk, Germany has been holding parallel talks with a delegation from the Ukraine Rada (parliament). Now there will also be a delegation from Ukrainian Bolshevik soviets. The problem for Russia is that it’s trying to split Austria from Germany and come to a separate peace, but the Austrian section of the eastern front is not with Russia but with now-sort-of-independent Ukraine, so if Austria comes to an arrangement with Ukraine, it doesn’t have to deal with Russia at all.

Did Lenin really boast “the real terror has yet to come”?

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Today -100: January 31, 1918: We have left the imperialistic war and shall never return to it

Russia sends journalist John Reed back to New York to act as consul for Russia. Although in his absence, Reed was indicted under the Espionage Act...

Trotsky addresses the All-Russian Assembly of Soviets, before returning to Brest-Litovsk: “The bourgeois governments can sign any kind of peace. The government of the Soviets cannot.” “We have left the imperialistic war and shall never return to it.”

The new New York Mayor John Hylan is opposed to the police clubbing people.

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Today -100: January 30, 1918: Blasphemy in the sight of blood-covered Europe

Russia and Romania are conducting a, to coin a phrase, cold war over Bessarabia, whose regional council declares independence from Russia. Russia breaks relations with Romania.

Russian Foreign Minister Leon Trotsky tells the Congress of the Council of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Delegates that Germany “thought Russia needed peace at any price. They were mistaken... We still insist on a democratic peace.” Unless, you know, Russia is exhausted, then it will totally give in to an undemocratic peace. He also indicates that a separate peace is entirely possible: “To call a separate peace a disgrace is blasphemy in the sight of blood-covered Europe.”

Germany responds to strikes by arresting of Independent Socialist leaders and newspaper editors and barring Social Democratic Party leader Philipp Scheidemann from speaking at a meeting scheduled for next week in Leipzig.

Germany warns the US that it is expanding the zone of its naval blockade, enforced by u-boat operations, to the Azores and Cape Verde Islands.

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Today -100: January 29, 1918: Of civil wars, not ladylike but strong telegrams, unlikely Bolsheviks, and bread

The full-scale civil war everyone knew was coming in Finland has arrived, with Russians aiding the Red side. The Finnish ambassador complains and is told that Russia, “true to its principles, is in duty bound to support the proletariat in Finland in its battle against the Finnish Bourgeoisie.” Well, when you put it that way...

The New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage meets and agrees to push for a new referendum in NY to rescind women’s suffrage. The NYSAOWS president, Mrs. (Alice) James Walcott Wadsworth, is not present, but its secretary suggests that a good candidate for governor would be Sen. James Walcott Wadsworth. Speakers are worried by the prospect of immigrant women voting. Henry Wise Wood says that when Bolshevism fails in Russia and autocracy returns, all the Bolsheviks will flee to the US, and vote. The meeting resolves to send telegrams – “not ladylike, but strong” – to members of the Legislature to defeat the federal amendment.

Doubtful Headline of the Day -100: 

That’s Edward Ross, professor of sociology at U Wisc-Madison, who’s been touring Russia and says the revolution is swell. Ross is a famous opponent of Chinese immigration (for which view he was forced to resign from Stanford), a eugenicist and, somehow, a future head of the ACLU.

Bread rationing is introduced in Paris.

We’re all picturing a Parisian on a bicycle with a beret and a Gauloise carrying HALF a baguette, right?

Thought so.

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Today -100: January 28, 1918: Of black storks, ruling by force, and happy independence day, Ukrainia!

Dr. Harry Haiselden of the German-American Hospital in Chicago allows yet another baby with birth defects to die, because “it... would have been a burden to itself and its parents.” I think the pronoun you’re looking for is “she,” doctor. This is at least the 5th time he’s done this, one of which resulted in a 1915 coroner’s trial in which he was acquitted. He then gave lectures on eugenics and even acted in a movie about the case, “The Black Stork” aka “Are You Fit to Be Married,” playing a eugenicist doctor named Dr. Dickey (!).

Ukraine’s parliament (Rada) votes 508-4 for complete independence for Ukraine.

German Foreign Minister Richard von Kühlmann accuses the Bolsheviks of “ruling by force.” And your point is?

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Today -100: January 27, 1918: Of the Marseillaise, separate peaces, wheatless days, and Tarzan of the Apes

German Social Democratic Party leader Philipp Scheidemann responds to Chancellor Georg von Hertling’s speech, saying Germany’s leaders will be “hurled from power” if peace is not made with Russia. He says they wasted the opportunity for peace arising from the February Russian Revolution by escalating u-boat warfare and bringing in the US. He notes that unlimited submarine warfare was supposed to end the war in 6 months, but, you know, didn’t. However, he insists that Germany will keep Alsace-Lorraine.

Meetings held by the annexationist Pan-German Fatherland Party’s have lately been broken up by peace supporters. In Munich the pan-Germans tried to over-awe the disrupters with a rousing round of Deutschland Uber Alles, only to be drowned out by the Marseillaise.  That’s in Germany, not Casablanca.

Supposedly Austria has told Russia it’s willing to come to a peace agreement separate from Germany.

Food Dictator Herbert Hoover calls for 2 wheatless days a week, 2 porkless days, 1 wheatless and 1 meatless meal per day, and “Victory bread” which will be 20% non-wheat (corn, sawdust, that sort of thing).

Happy 59th birthday, Kaiser Wilhelm!

Now playing: The first Tarzan movie, starring Elmo Lincoln and Enid Markey.

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Today -100: January 26, 1918: Of the unbroken joy of battle

German Chancellor Georg von Hertling responds to Wilson’s 14 Points speech and Lloyd George’s speech in an address to the Reichstag. He complains that Wilson and LG “speak with respect of Germany’s position, but their conception, ever afresh, finds expression as if we were the guilty who must do penance and promise improvement.” He says the army is in a great position right now and “in the officers and the men lives unbroken the joy of battle.” And Germany won’t give up Alsace-Lorraine, because it’s German! German! German! My favorite part of the speech is when he deals with Wilson’s 13th point, on Poland, saying that no one ever cared about Poland when Russia was “crushing her national characteristics,” but Germany and Austria-Hungary “liberated” Poland and can safely be trusted to come to an agreement on Poland’s future.

A deserter from the Germany Navy says there have been several recent revolts in the Navy, especially on mine-sweepers. He says a motorboat used its machine guns to break up one such mutiny, killing 44 sailors.

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Today -100: January 25, 1918: Of treason, candy, and price increases

The Russian negotiators reject German demands that Russia give up Courland and the Baltic provinces.

The German socialist newspaper Vorwärts is suspended, as was the custom. This time it’s for reporting on the strikes in Austria. Also the Tageblatt, for the same reason. German military censors are only allowing the German public to be told that the strikes are because of food rations, rather than for peace and against German negotiating tactics that are prolonging the war.

The first US treason trial of the war begins. Paul C.H. Hennig, a naturalized US citizen from Germany, who worked in a Brooklyn torpedo-manufacturer and is accused of tampering with their gyroscopes. He says it’s a conspiracy by workers under him who resented his Germanic discipline.

Headline of the Day -100: 

As if the torpedoes weren’t bad enough. Navy canteens will no longer sell

candy, because impurities (possibly glass) have been found in some, whether from enemy agents or because the Navy bought from the lowest bidder is unclear.

From tomorrow, all New York newspapers currently selling for 1¢ will sell for 2¢. Other cities did this a while ago.

The cost to you to read this blog will therefore also double. There’s a war on, you know.

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Today -100: January 24, 1918: Teddy’s back

Headline of the Day -100: 

Well, not really. Some Republican guests at TR’s son-in-law’s house seem to accept the “Colonel’s” leadership for 1920. One topic of discussion: whether it is patriotic to publicly criticize Wilson’s management of the war. I leave it to the reader to guess on what side of that argument Roosevelt falls.

TR wants Republicans to push for 1) compulsory military service, forever, 2) a War Cabinet and a Munitions director, 3) wartime measures such as control of the railroads expiring when the war ends.

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Today -100: January 23, 1918: Of peace strikes and anthracite pools

Maxim Litvinov, the former revolutionary exile from Russia who is now serving as unofficial ambassador to Britain (because Britain doesn’t recognize the Bolshevik government), attends the annual Labour Party congress in Nottingham. He calls for revolution in Britain to end the war.

There’s a big peace strike in Austria. Some of this is standard dissatisfaction with the endless war, some of it is resentment that expansionist Germans are running the Brest-Litovsk negotiations with complete disregard for Austria.

Headline of the Day -100: 

He’ll stick to plain ol’ water.

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Today -100: January 22, 1918: No longer necessary in a socialist state

The Romanovs are to be tried for treason. With lawyers and everything.

Idle Monday yesterday not only shut down factories but offices in skyscrapers whose elevators were not operating.

Woodrow Wilson denies that there is any inefficiency in the military establishment and says he will fight the moves in Congress to correct that inefficiency, such as creating a Director of Munitions and a streamlined War Cabinet.

Wilson “desires and enjoins” members of the military to follow the sabbath.

The decree dissolving the Russian Constituent Assembly issued by the Executive of the Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Delegates says that after the February Revolution, the Congress “perceived the illusion of an understanding with the bourgeoisie and its deceptive parliamentary organization”. Lenin says, “The Constituent Assembly is the highest expression of the political ideals of bourgeois society, which are no longer necessary in a socialist state.”

The Supreme Court rules that Puerto Rico is not a territory of the United States and the Constitution does not apply there.

The NY Philharmonic will no longer play music by living German composers. Beethoven is still okay, but sucks to be you, Strauss.

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Today -100: January 21, 1918: At 4:00 this morning the Constituent Assembly was dissolved by sailors

The conscription authorities in the UK accidentally discover a female factory worker “masquerading in male attire,” one Ellen Harriet Capon (!), or Charles Brian Capon as she’s been calling herself. She says she did it in order to earn more money, although she was also dating a woman, so make of that what you will. That phrase, “masquerading in male attire,” is actually what Capon is charged with, because that’s actually a crime (I think the police court just called her a naughty girl and let her off, and she went back to work).

Lenin dissolves the Constituent Assembly, invoking authority that he pulls out of his ass, as was the custom. His decree reads in part: “At 4:00 this morning the Constituent Assembly was dissolved by sailors. Today a decree dissolving the Assembly will be published.”

The US War Dept will run psych evaluations on all soldiers.

Italy is pissed off at a speech by British Prime Minister Lloyd George in which he mentioned Alsace-Lorraine, Belgium, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, but did he mention Italian territorial aspirations? No he did not.

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Today -100: January 20, 1918: Of constituent assemblies, idle Mondays, and peace talks

The Russian Constituent Assembly meets and elects Viktor Chernov of the Social Revolutionary (SR) Party chair rather than the Bolshevik candidate. Chernov tells a reporter he doesn’t think the Bolsheviks will dissolve the Assembly. The Bolsheviks and Left SRs pull out after the Assembly refuses to give the Lenin government veto power. Armed sailors posted by the Bolsheviks loom threateningly and occasionally tell the delegates to go home.

Fuel Administrator Garfield agrees to allow theatres, cinemas, pool halls, bowling alleys and other places of amusement where booze is not sold to remain open on Idle Mondays – but they have to close on Tuesdays.

The Best-Litovsk peace talks are suspended, again. Germany is willing to commit to referenda in Poland, Lithuania and Courland about whether they want to be absorbed into Germany, within a year after the end of the war, but won’t commit to not occupying those areas militarily while the referenda are conducted.

Would you like to read an article in the Sunday NYT Magazine section entitled “Vivisection’s Many War Achievements”? Yeah, me neither.

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Today -100: January 19, 1918: Of free passage, gas masks, and income taxes

Russia (actually the Revolutionary Committee of the 9th Army) gives an ultimatum to Romania demanding free passage through Jassy.

The US army is (according to the Providence Journal, so who knows if it’s true) sending back 200,000 gas masks because they’re “useless.” Soldiers are borrowing British and French gas masks, which smell respectively of... nah I’m not doing that joke. (Update: tomorrow the government will deny this story, but admits 20,000 gas masks were replaced by better ones.)

Headline of the Day -100: 

Rude.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: January 18, 1918: Of the disappointing American spirit, and kings

The Senate passes a resolution asking for the delay of Fuel Administrator Harry Garfield’s order to shut industries east of the Mississippi for the next 5 days and the following 10 Mondays to save on coal. So he signs the order while they’re still voting (Dems block a vote in the House).  Garfield says he doesn’t think employers will stop their workers’ wages during the idle days or “I shall be disappointed in the American spirit.” US Steel says it will disappoint Garfield in the American spirit.

Lenin orders the arrest of King Ferdinand of Romania. This follows the arrest a couple of days ago of the Romanian ambassador, from which Russia had to back down after the concerted opposition of all the other ambassadors in Petrograd. The story about the inciting incident keeps changing: the arrest by Romania of Austrian officers who wanted to fraternize with Russians during the current cease-fire, or the capture by Romania of Bolshevik irregulars doing god knows what.

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Today -100: January 17, 1918: Of idle Mondays, Armenias, and assassination attempts

Fuel Administrator Harry Augustus Garfield responds to the coal shortage (really more a distribution problem than a supply problem) by ordering non-essential industries east of the Mississippi to close for 5 days and then for every one of the following 10 Mondays. No one is happy about this. Some congresscritters are wondering from where Garfield thinks the legal authority for this order derives. Garfield, who is the son of Pres. James Garfield and president of Williams College but is basically unknown, issued this far-reaching order with no advance notice.

It’s not just factories either, and Broadway theatres are pissed off, as, presumably, are the people whose jobs will be shut down on Monday but won’t be able to take advantage of the day off.

The Hungarian Cabinet resigns after Emperor Charles refuses their request for a separate Hungarian army.

Russia supports a free Armenia, including territory now held by both Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

A break (or even a coup) between German military and political leaders is averted, reports say, by a compromise in which there will be no annexations in the east that might screw up a peace with Russia but Hindenburg retains full authority to grab whatever land he wants in the West. Provided he wins the war, of course.

Someone shoots at Lenin’s car in Petrograd, breaking the windshield.

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Today -100: January 16, 1918: Of religious maniacs, Polish Jews, and the tango

Russia arrests the Romanian ambassador and his staff, for reasons they will not disclose. The other ambassadors are worried/pissed off.

According to “news” that has reached Geneva, the former Czar Nicholas now “seeks only oblivion and silence” while Mrs. Czar “has become a religious maniac.” Become?

Officials from the Polish puppet regime meet with Jewish leaders, who are demanding that special laws and taxes applying only to Jews be abolished as they have been in Russia. The officials reply that instead, they might want to get all the Jews the hell out of Poland.

Supposedly, former French Prime Minister Joseph Caillaux was arrested because US Secretary of State Lansing informed France that Caillaux was in contact with the German Foreign Office when he visited Argentina in 1915. Also supposedly, the documents found in his bank deposit box in Italy show that in 1916 he was planning, if he became prime minister again, to order the arrests of several politicians and soldiers, including current Prime Minister Clemenceau. Also, everybody’s making a big deal about a supposed order by German censors for the press not to mention Caillaux at all.

The Vatican bans the tango.

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Today -100: January 15, 1918: Of treason, annexations, and juries of one’s socialist peers

France’s former Prime Minister Joseph Caillaux is arrested (the police held off for a day when they found he was having a dinner party, because France). Evidently... something... was found in a bank vault in Italy under his wife’s maiden name.

The NYT thinks the German military establishment is about to force out Foreign Secretary Richard von Kühlmann and Chancellor Georg von Hertling. The military is grumbling at the possibility that peace talks won’t result in Germany annexing major territory and placing other areas (the Baltics, the Ukraine) under German “influence.”

Russo-German peace talks break down as Germany refuses to remove its troops from Lithuania, Courland, Riga, etc.

The US Supreme Court affirms that aliens in the US are subject to the draft. In another case, it rules that socialists were not tried unconstitutionally because jury members from other political parties were prejudiced against them. The Court says, hey we’re okay with black people being tried by all-white juries, so...

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Today -100: January 14, 1918: Of curtseying to Bolshevist authority and cussing out mules

At the Brest-Litovsk conference, the Germans complain that while the talks were recessed, Russians officials were talking about their hopes for a revolution in Germany. The Germans say they’ve very politely refrained from talking about internal conditions in Russia. Go ahead and talk, Trotsky responds.

Izvestia says Wilson’s 14 Points speech is “a great victory in the great struggle for democratic peace”. Pravda, on the other hand, calls Wilson a representative of capitalism and says the 14P are a mask for the old war formulas and for “plundering under the mask of self-definition of nations”; “the American Bourse found it necessary not only to reckon with the Bolshevist authority, but to make its curtsey to it.”

US Army muleteers are ordered to stop cussing out lazy mules.

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Today -100: January 13, 1918: Wilson is seeking a way out of war

German newspapers are interpreting Wilson’s 14 Points speech in different ways. The Frankfurter Zietung, for example, thinks it shows that Wilson realizes the Allies can't win the  war; “Wilson is seeking a way out of war, although he is doing it in a manner not yet quite acceptable to us.” The paper seems to think the US has given up on getting Alsace-Lorraine back for France, which is very much not what Wilson said.

Russia gives in to Germany’s refusal to remove the peace talks from occupied Brest-Litovsk to a neutral country (which many think was a Germany ploy to force a break in talks). The armistice is extended a month.

Lithuania declares independence. Well, a bunch of Lithuanians in Stockholm declare independence anyway. They have rather expansive ideas about what constitutes Lithuania, including areas presently part of Germany such as Königsberg (Kaliningrad), the capital of East Prussia, as well as all of Russian Lithuania. They point out that they have names in Lithuanian for the territories they’re claiming, and if that doesn’t prove they rightfully belong to Lithuania then they just don’t know what more proof you need.

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Today -100: January 12, 1918: Morally dished

Germany withdraws its Christmas offer of a peace without annexations or indemnities, since only Russia was willing to talk to them about it.

Former NYC Boy-Mayor John Purroy Mitchel joins the Army Aviation Service. Don’t forget to fasten your seatbelt, Mr. Boy-Mayor!

Spoiler Alert: He will totally forget to fasten his seatbelt.

Food Czar Herbert Hoover calls for still more food savings in the US so meat exports to France, Britain and Italy can be doubled. While he’s not proposing rationing, he does plan to send out thousands of agents to prosecute hoarders – regular consumers as well as wholesalers.

On Feb. 4, the US will start registering all Germans in the Southern District of New York, which means photographing and fingerprinting all males 14 and older.

Christabel Pankhurst says women’s suffrage will be used in Britain for “disciplining democracy.” Kinky!

Mary Kilbreth, acting president of the New York Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, says “representative government has been wrecked” by Congress’s vote for the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, and a “woman autocracy” established. She hopes the American people won’t “tamely submit to the yoke.” Kinky! Anti-suffragist women will have to use their ballots to elect men who have not yet lost “all the male instincts of domination and sovereignty.” JUST. SO. KINKY!

George Bernard Shaw writes a letter to the Daily Chronicle about the recent proliferation of statements (from Wilson, Lloyd George, etc) about war aims: “The bidding for peace took a long time to start, but now that it is started it is bewilderingly brisk. It seems only yesterday that to have any war aims at all was denounced as the blackest pro-German treason. Victory, a smashing, triumphant victory, without any ulterior object whatever except ‘the crushing of Prussian militarism,’ (the same thing in other words,) was the whole aspiration of the pugnacious patriot.” It suited Germany’s rulers that “we should keep declaring that we were out to crush them. That was precisely what they had been telling the German people”. But with the Russian Revolution there is a new situation “in which it was extremely important to all belligerents that they should appear in the character of grievously molested Quakers, reluctantly forced to defend their countries against imperialist aggression.  To take up the pacifist position in the moral tug-of-war that goes on between Governments in their appeals to the conscience of civilization the Germans suddenly let go the rope, and we sat down with a crash. We were morally dished.” Wilson backed down from demanding a complete democratization of Prussia and set out the 14 Points (which no one is calling that yet , by the way), and “any sort of definite war aims must seem so clear and reasonable in contrast with the crude ravings they replace, that we are for the moment cheated into believing that the Germans must think them as moderate as they seem to us.” Shaw declines to “join the ranks of those kindly people who cry peace when there is no peace.” Rather, “When both sides become convinced that neither of them can both win and survive the effort, then it will be time to talk of peace.”

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Today -100: January 11, 1918: A question of evolution

The House of Representatives votes 274 to 136 in favor of the women’s suffrage amendment to the Constitution, which is exactly the 2/3 vote required. All very dramatic. Democrats were 104 to 102 in favor, Republicans 165 to 33 in favor. A proposal for a 7-year deadline for ratification, such as the one attached to the prohibition amendment, fails. The opening speech is made by the first and only woman congresscritter, Jeanette Rankin (R-Montana). “We are facing a question of evolution,” she says. She argues that during the war, when American soldiers are dying for lack of a woolen shirt, women, who unlike men think in terms of human needs, might have something to contribute.

The House of Lords, which is usually firmly against evolution, rejects Lord Loreburn’s amendment to remove women’s suffrage from the Representation of the People Bill by an astonishing 134 to 71, despite warnings from Lord Curzon that it would lead to socialism and disturb home life and that in a future war men might resist being conscripted by the female vote. The Lord Chancellor added that pacifists might work on politically inexperienced women and force an inconclusive peace. Every bishop and archbishop who voted supported the women’s suffrage provision.

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Today -100: January 10, 1918: Of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, ex-villages, and mutinies

Woodrow Wilson reverses his previous position that women’s suffrage should be determined at the state rather than the federal level, and comes out in support of the federal constitutional amendment “as an act of right of justice.” He was evidently influenced in part by the granting of suffrage to women in Britain. And by the fact that the Republican Party came out in favor of it first. The NYT, anti assholes to the end, accuses the Democrats of chicken-heartedness.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Gen. Hindenburg is reported by Matin to have ordered the destruction of 130 French villages behind the Western front.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Boy is that headline over-selling the story. The crew of the Portuguese battleship Vasco de Gama mutinies and fires on a fort, which fires back, the government retakes the ship, the end.

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Today -100: January 9, 1918: Didn’t your mother teach you that it’s not polite to point?

Woodrow Wilson, as is his wont, calls Congress into session with almost no advance warning so he can make a speech at them. This is the 14 Points speech, in which he lays out the basis for peace and the post-war rearrangement of the map of Europe. These are:

1. Open peace treaties established by open diplomacy with no secret bits.
2. Freedom of navigation of the seas.
3. Free and equal trade conditions (Republicans are not so thrilled with the free trade bit).
4. Reduction of armaments.
5. Adjustment of colonial claims, with consideration of the interests of the colonial populations (guess who gets to decide what those interests are? not the colonial populations, that’s for sure).
6. Withdrawal of occupation troops from Russia.
7. The restoration of Belgium.
8. And France, to which Alsace-Lorraine will be returned.
9. Enlargement of Italy along lines of nationality.
10. “Autonomous development” of the peoples of the Austrian Empire (he’s being a bit vague on whether this means breaking up the Empire).
11. Restoration of Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro.
12. More autonomous development, this time for the peoples of the Ottoman Empire, which Wilson rather more clearly intends to break up.
13. An independent Poland.
14. A League of Nations.

This is the first time Wilson has publicly supported France and Italy’s aspirations to reclaim territories lost in the 19th century to Germany and Austria respectively.

George Creel, head the Committee on Public Information, decides that his remit now includes propagandizing abroad. Without asking the State Department, he sends Vira Boarman Whitehouse to Europe to spread the good news about the US’s war aims. Whitehouse’s previous experience in publicity was for the women’s suffrage movement in New York.

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Today -100: January 8, 1918: Of self-determination, soldiers & suffrage, and conscription

The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) says a lasting peace can only be based on the principle of self-determination, putting them at odds with the increasingly aggressive annexationists (encouraged by Hindenburg and Ludendorff).

Since soldiers voted by mail in November’s elections, it is possible to see how they voted in aggregate. Soldiers from New York voted 26,664 in favor of the women’s suffrage referendum and 15,760 against. Soldiers from New York City voted 17,428 for and 8,323 against.

The US Supreme Court rules in 7 cases that conscription is constitutional, saying that governmental power isn’t real without sanction, that is, sanction against non-consenting US citizens. “[T]he very conception of a just Government and its duty to the citizen includes the reciprocal obligation of the citizen to render military service in case of need and the right to compel it.” That’s... really weak logic. The problem is that the Constitution only gives the federal government the power to raise an army, it doesn’t say how, and World War I was the only the second time conscription was used. The 14th Amendment, which some lawyers argued invalidates the draft, on the contrary, the Court says, “broadened the national scope of the Government by causing citizenship of the United States to be paramount and dominant.” That... in no way follows. The Court doesn’t even bother making up more crap arguments about why the 13th Amendment’s ban on involuntary servitude doesn’t apply, saying the argument that it does is just “refuted by its mere statement.”

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Today -100: January 7, 1918: Of Frankensteins, Yugoslavs coming in, and bank accounts

NYT correspondent Harold Williams, who admits “I do not understand the Bolsheviki” but is sure that German secret agents created the Russian Bolshevik movement, or something, says of the peace negotiations, “The Germans, having created a Frankenstein for their own purposes, seem to be considerably perplexed by his antics.” And back then a NYT reader who wanted to say “ACTUALLY, Frankenstein was the MONSTER” would have to dip a pen in an inkwell, write it down on stationary, and mail it in. Who says civilization hasn’t progressed?

Headline of the Day -100: 

British Prime Minister Lloyd George gave a speech a couple of days ago, which I skipped, sorry, in which he added to the Allied war aims the breaking off from the Austrian Empire of any nationalities who wanted to do so, especially Poland, but also areas with large Italian and Romanian populations who might want to be annexed by Italy and Romania. Now the “Southern Slavs” (Croats, Slovenians and the like) are asking, Hey, what about us?

Russia and Ukraine have come to some sort of armistice deal.

Foreign Minister Trotsky forbids banks releasing funds deposited by foreign embassies until their home countries hand over deposits made by the Tsarist government in banks in those countries.

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Today -100: January 6, 1918: Of peace talks, spelling, and electric chairs

For some reason, Russia is trying very hard to have the peace talks transferred from Brest-Litovsk to Stockholm, and Germany is resisting very hard.

A decree orders the adoption of phonetic spelling of Russian next week, eliminating 3 vowels and a consonant.

Headline of the Day -100: 

These are in fact electric WHEELchairs for wounded soldiers.

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Today -100: January 5, 1918: We can quietly wait and see how the incident will pass off

German Chancellor Georg von Hertling tells the Reichstag that Germany will refuse Russia’s request that it withdraw its troops from occupied territories in the east before holding referenda on whether they’d care to be annexed by Germany. “We can quietly wait and see how the incident will pass off.”

Rep. Jeannette Rankin introduces a resolution in favor of Irish independence, and another for equal wages for women and men.

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Today -100: January 4, 1918: Of peace talks, ambassadors, and rice

Izvestia publishes, and denounces, Germany’s negotiating terms. Foreign Minister Leon Trotsky also denounces them. But everyone knows that Russia is in no shape to resume the war, so it is, as they say in Russian, fucked.

Trotsky is naming new ambassadors. The ones he names for Britain, Switzerland and Sweden were all political exiles under the tsar.

Ukraine demands that the Russian Bolsheviks withdraw their troops within 24 hours and say whether or not Russia and Ukraine are at war now.

There’s a war on, you know:

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Today -100: January 3, 1918: Of peace talks, trusts, plots, and translations

The Russo-German peace negotiations are not going well. Germany is claiming that Poland, Lithuania, Courland and parts of Estonia and Livonia have all declared their desire to be free of Russia, and Germany accordingly recognizes them and won’t withdraw troops from them because they’re no longer Russia (Germany is clearly planning to annex them). Trotsky notes that since those areas are under German occupation they can hardly have expressed themselves freely. Since Ukraine has said it won’t be bound by negotiations to which it is not party, Germany wants to retain its troops in strategic points, including Riga. Russia has demanded that Germany release imprisoned German socialists, which Germany says is an internal matter.

Attorney General Thomas Gregory asks the Supreme Court to defer hearings on 7 anti-trust cases (including suits against US Steel, Eastman Kodak, and Quaker Oats) because of the war.

Albert Kaltschmidt, on his way to Leavenworth for plotting (before the US entered the war) to blow up munitions plants and the like in the US and Canada, says “Germany will bring the United States to its knees, which would all have been prevented had not German-Americans been inefficient, stupid, white-feathered, and cowardly” and not defeated Wilson in 1916. For example, he says, he organized a Bund in Detroit ostensibly to raise funds for widows and orphans of German soldiers but really to propagandize against the US entering the war, and those stupid literal-minded Germans insisted the money go to widows and orphans of German soldiers.

The editor of the St. Paul Die Freie Presse is arrested for giving the government inaccurate translations of articles in his paper, such as ones praising the Austrian offensive in Italy.

In The Tribunal, the newspaper of the (British) No-Conscription Fellowship, Bertrand Russell writes that if the Allies refuse Germany’s peace offer, it will “make it clear to all that they are continuing the war for purposes of territorial aggrandisement.” Further warfare will lead to mass starvation. “The American Garrison which will by that time be occupying England and France, whether or not they will prove efficient against the Germans, will no doubt be capable of intimidating strikers, an occupation to which the American Army is accustomed when at home.” For criticizing an ally, Russell will be sentenced to 6 months in prison.

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Today -100: January 2, 1918: Of flags

Finland is the first of the bits of Russia which have declared independence to choose a flag: a lion with a weird sword on a red background.

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Today -100: January 1, 1918: Happy 1918!

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Today -100: December 31, 1917: Of earthquakes and peace

An earthquake, actually part of a series that isn’t over yet, largely wipes out  Guatemala City. The world will rush aid to Guatemala, and President Cabrera will sell that aid and keep the money for himself, as is the custom.

Bulgaria accepts Russian peace proposals.

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Today -100: December 30, 1917: Of phantom bases and unconscious perverts

Headline of the Day -100: 

They were ordered to report to the ordinance base, which does not exist. Locals are struggling to house them all. More will come tomorrow and the army is skeptical when local officials phone to inform them there’s no ordinance base here, really there isn’t.

The NAACP holds its 7th annual conference. Someone claiming to be from the Committee of Public Information, the government censorship and propaganda body, but who refuses to give his name, warns against stirred hatred among black soldiers against white soldiers and says Germany is trying to make black people believe black soldiers are being discriminated against in the (segregated) military. Perish the thought.

The NYT Sunday Magazine has an article by Dr. Mary Keyt Isham, who says pacifism is associated with “a certain type of unconscious pervert,” i.e., they’re bottoms, who are naturally drawn to Prussian sadism, or something.

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Today -100: December 29, 1917: Of separate peaces, banks, and feet

Trotsky warns the Allies that if they don’t join the peace negotiations within 10 days, Russia will make a separate peace. He seems to think there will be plebiscites in Alsace-Lorraine and the former German colonies about what country they’d like to be attached to; Germany has other views.

Russia seizes all private banks (in Petrograd anyway).

Belarus secedes from Russia.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: December 28, 1917: Of stimulated France, independent socialists, and ferdinands

Headline of the Day -100: 

The French, eh? It’s just sex sex sex with them.

The German military rounds up hundreds of members of the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) on Christmas Eve, naturally.

The Central Powers respond to Russian peace proposals, saying they’re ok with an immediate general peace without annexations (and Germany wants its colonies back) or indemnities (although there is some difference over compensation for the cost of upkeep of POWs). King Ferdinand of Bulgaria immediately says that the Austrian foreign minister, who was supposed to be speaking on behalf of the Quadruple Alliance, doesn’t speak for Bulgaria, which intends to keep ever inch of land it’s seized in Serbia, Romania, and Greece.

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Today -100: December 27, 1917: Of bandits, godmothers, railroads, and visibly tiring Russians

US troops cross into Mexico to kill Mexican bandits (possibly Pancho Villa affiliated), as was the custom.

The US Army is trying to dissuade American women from “adopting” US soldiers in France – “godmothers” they’re calling themselves – and sending them stuff, because it’s clogging up the mails. Also, censorship regs forbid soldiers corresponding with strangers.

The US government will take control of the railroads tomorrow. Pres. Wilson will be guaranteeing the profits of the railroad companies, because of course he will.

NYT: “Russia is visibly tiring of the Bolsheviki; they may be overthrown at any time. They are without one vestige of legal authority to speak for Russia, they have no standing among nations.”

Prof. Jan Kucharzewski, the puppet prime minister of puppet Poland, says there is a lot of support for making the Austrian emperor the king of Poland, and it should definitely be done before any elections.

The NYC Board of Education decides to end all foreign language instruction in elementary schools next year (65% of the students taking a language were studying German).

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Today -100: December 26, 1917: Of troop transfers, conspiracies, and rotating governors

Russian Foreign Minister Leon Trotsky is pissed that, while peace negotiations are going on, Germany is transferring troops from the Russian front to the Western front, like they were supposed not to do.

The US government claims to have proof of a world-wide conspiracy of American Wobblies, Russian Bolsheviks, Irish Fenians etc to overthrow the existing order. This follows the discovery of some weapons on the Russian freighter Shilka, which they think were intended for the Wobblies. But somehow they’re also still pretending to believe that the IWW is paid by and operating on behalf of Germany.

Following the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision that George Hunt was elected governor last year after all, he resumes the office and offers his unseated predecessor a job on the state tax commission, which he declines.

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Today -100: December 25, 1917: We must bring peace to the world by battering in with the iron fist and shining sword the doors of those who will not have peace

Former British Prime Minister Asquith’s son Arthur is wounded while serving in the Royal Naval Division in France. His leg will be amputated.

Kaiser Wilhelm addresses the Second Army on the French front: “If the enemy does not want peace, then we must bring peace to the world by battering in with the iron fist and shining sword the doors of those who will not have peace.” If that’s not a peace-loving sentiment, I don’t know what is. He says the Germany army has done so well in 1917 that it’s clear God is on Germany’s side, that’s just science.

G.H. Mika of the Slav Press Bureau (in New York, I think) points out a little problem with the recent declaration of war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire: there are immigrants from the Dual Monarchy currently serving in the US military who have only taken out their first papers on the path to citizenship, which means if captured by Austria they will be treated as traitors subject to execution.

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Today -100: December 24, 1917: We would accept them only in order to rise together with the German people against German militarism as we did against Czarism

Peace talks begin between Russia on one side and Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria on the other. A Polish delegation wants to participate; good luck with that, guys. Trotsky worries aloud to delegates of the Petrograd Soviet, the Peasant Congress and the like about negotiating with representatives of the German kaiser rather than the German people and says “if, exhausted as we are by this unprecedented slaughter, we must accept the terms of the German emperor, we would accept them only in order to rise together with the German people against German militarism as we did against Czarism.”

Trotsky accuses the American ambassador and the head of the American Red Cross mission to Romania of “counter-revolutionary activities,” to wit, trying to send cars and other supplies to rebel Gen. Kaledin. They claim the goods were just being transported through Rostov on their way to Mesopotamia.

The German socialist newspaper Vorwärts is suspended for the umpeenth time for writing about poor conditions in Germany, saying many are starving and that war profiteers are hoarding, and because an “article denouncing the militaristic party’s demands for the annexation of large sections of Russian territory is considered likely to stir up trouble.” Trouble among, you know, soldiers who had been told they were fighting to defend Germany and are now fighting to expand the Reich.

The Hungarian government introduces a bill extending suffrage to all literate adults, male and female, over 24.

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Today -100: December 23, 1917: Of governors, Americanization, hommes du monde, and supermarkets

The Arizona Supreme Court, which after a close election in 1916 decided that Thomas Campbell (R) had been elected governor after 4 weeks of George Hunt (D) refusing to give up his office, now decides that Hunt is governor after all.

The New York State Suffrage Party, having won suffrage, turns its attention to “Americanizing” immigrant women who now have the vote by virtue of being married to naturalized citizens, without having had to meet the tests their husbands did (speaking English, being of good character, 5 years’ residence, oath of allegiance, etc).

The French Chamber of Deputies votes to suspend the parliamentary immunity of former prime minister Joseph Caillaux so he can be charged with treason because he, I don’t know, supported peace, and conspired with people he says he couldn’t possibly have conspired with because he’s a gentleman (“un homme du monde”).  Caillaux claims this is all a political and personal attack on him on trumped-up charges, and he is not wrong. He ends by calling for the lifting of immunity that was going to happen anyway, because he wants all this cleared up in a trial (perhaps remembering how his wife literally got away with murder in a trial in 1914).

Canada is moving towards prohibition, to expire one year after peace.

The NYT has an article about a self-service market in Lockport, NY. Instead of the grocer standing behind a counter and the customers asking them for goods, this market’s items are put alphabetically on shelves. In fact, the idea, a product of wartime labor shortages, was originated and patented in October by Piggly Wiggly of Memphis (customers enter through a turnstile, take a basket, go up one aisle, down the next, up the next, down the next, and pay at the cash register, that’s literally all the patent was for).

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Today -100: December 22, 1917: Of secret treaties

Russia publishes another secret treaty, one between Russia and Japan in 1916 for joint military action against a third party like Britain or the US achieving dominance in China.

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Today -100: December 21, 1917: Of abandoned militarism and ultimata

British Prime Minister Lloyd George talks about Britain’s war aims, in the usual vague terms. Prussia must “abandon militarism” – what does that actually mean, in concrete terms? He says Germany’s overseas colonies will be disposed of by the peace congress and that future trustees of the colonies (independence is literally unthinkable) must take into account the sentiments of their peoples (Spoiler Alert: they won’t) (I mean, South West Africa was made a trust territory of South Africa, for fuck’s sake). And Turkey will never get Jerusalem back.

Ukraine rejects the Russian ultimatum that it stop assisting Gen. Kaledine and stop preventing passage of Russian troops through Ukraine to fight him.

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Today -100: December 20, 1917: Of contempt of court, states of siege, and enemy aliens

Philadelphia Mayor Thomas Smith is indicted for contempt of court for trying to cover up his role in the murderous violence on election day.

The Petrograd Soviet declares a state of siege in Petrograd to deal with all the looting of wine shops.

Renegade Gen. Kaledin proposes that the Don region, of which he is top dog, be given independence.

In Salt Lake City, a German named Herman Frederick Wilhelm Babbel (I know, you’d have been lost if I hadn’t already told you he was German) is ordered interned after saying that Germany would win the war.

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Today -100: December 19, 1917: Of spoils, bombs, prohibition, drill, and women doctors

New York Mayor-Elect John Hylan participates in that great tradition of NY politics: Tammany Hall’s Boss Murphy gives him a list of people to hire.

A bomb takes out part of the California governor’s mansion, near where Gov. William Stephens and Mrs. Governor are sleeping. The culprits are not caught, but Stephens says it was probably “done with a view to terrorism, the chief weapon of the alien enemy.”

The Senate passes the Prohibition amendment to the Constitution, 47-8. A lot of senators seem to have skipped the vote.

The NYT notes that many of the dry states wishing to impose prohibition on wet states are Southern states which object to having women’s suffrage imposed on them and which also continue to obstruct and nullify enforcement of the 15th Amendment.

The foreign ministers of Germany and Austria will go to Brest-Litovsk for negotiations with Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Trotsky informs the Allies and asks if they’d like to come to, or “state whether they wish peace or not.” Pravda denies rumors that Germany is demanding that Russia evacuate Finland and... Petrograd, disarm the Russian Army, and grant Germany a monopoly of grain exports.

City College of New York (presumably like many other colleges) has suspended or expelled 19 students for not attending military drill.

Obit of the Day -100: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917), the first woman doctor in Britain, the first woman elected to a school board (London in 1870, with three times as many votes as T.H. Huxley), the first woman mayor in England (Aldeburgh in 1908), the first woman magistrate, and a few other firsts. The doctor thing is a funny story. Doctors had only recently been legally required to have a license to practice, which could be issued by several medical societies (surgeons, physicians, etc). Garrett realized the apothecaries’ society didn’t specifically forbid women members (they changed that rule fast after she used it). She later founded the London School of Medicine for Women. A long-time suffragist – here’s Bertha Newcombe’s 1910 painting depicting her and Emily Davies passing John Stuart Mill a women’s suffrage petition, hidden under the apples for some reason, for him to present to Parliament in 1866 –

her younger sister Millicent Garrett Fawcett is president of the largest women’s suffrage society in Britain, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, which Anderson left for the more radical Women’s Social and Political Union, although she resigned when it became too militant for her.

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Today -100: December 18, 1917: Of yellow cats, curbing intemperance by law, and royal privates

Canadian elections: the Unionists do very well outside Quebec, leading to a likely showdown with Quebec over conscription.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: an American woman living in Venice claims German planes dropped poison gas on the city. It turned her cat yellow.

The House of Representatives votes 282 to 128 for a Prohibition amendment to the Constitution. Julius Kahn (R-California) objects, saying “You cannot curb intemperance by law, but you make sneaks, liars, and hypocrites of men when you attempt to put in force laws of this kind.” There is a 7-year time limit for ratification, which might or might not be constitutional.

Rep. Royal Johnson (R-South Dakota) takes a leave from Congress (he doesn't quit, as the NYT says) to join the army as a private.

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