Today -100: March 13, 1910: Of automobilists, trolleys, persuasive language, and Los Angeles forever

At least in NYT usage, people who drive cars are now “automobilists” and not “autoists” as they were in 1909.

Taft refuses to intervene in the Philadelphia strike. A trolley which sped up “to avoid a fusillade of missiles” ran over a 3-year-old girl. The crowd tried to seize the scab motorman and lynch him, but the police clubbed them back.

A US Court of Appeals lets stand an injunction against the United Mine Workers by the Hitchman Coal & Coke Company of West Virginia, restraining the UMW from unionizing employees or picketing “for the purpose of using violence or threatening or persuasive language” to induce employees to strike.

On Feb. 20, the NYT ran an editorial insisting that the proper way to pronounce Los Angeles was “Loce Ahng-hayl-ais” (with a long o in Los) as opposed to Loss Anjelees, with a short o. It claimed that everyone on the Pacific Slope called it simply “Los” (I have never ever heard anyone do this), which it doesn’t like at all, and says rather bitchily that “There is nothing about [LA’s] present state of profitable confusion to suggest angels, and very little to suggest Spanish origin or the poetical conceits of Iberia. ... Los Angeles has outgrown its traditions and its angels.” The LA Times has responded to the “illiterate, unlettered, and altogether uninformed provincial person of this New York newspaper,” “Does he not know that Los Angeles was named in an hour when Destiny stood breathless on the hill tops and the Star of Empire held the constellations tied at the post? ‘Los Angeles’ is a name wrought from the singing soul of Castile to the music of golden harps. Los Angeles forever.”

Today -100: March 12, 1910: Of general strikes and trolleys, and tax cheats

The Philadelphia general strike grew again today, or is about to collapse, depending on who you believe. Some more attacks on trolley cars, some more attempts to force the transit company into arbitration.

Samuel Gompers, president of the AFL, says that in banning meetings etc, Philadelphia is treating Americans as Russian subjects are treated.

And in Trenton, the trolley strikers win. What do they win? 23¢ an hour and a (roughly) 10-hour day within 12 consecutive hours (i.e., no shifts), but not union recognition.

David Francis, governor of Missouri in the 1880s and ‘90s and interior secretary in the 1890s, is arrested for property tax evasion.

Today -100: March 11, 1910: Of navies, trolleys, car salesmen, and sensitive suffragists

Canada wants to build its own navy, independent of Britain’s. Isn’t that adorable?

Another trolley strike, this one in Trenton. Strikers and strikebreakers engaged in a shoot-out, but no one was hit.

And in Philadelphia, thousands fought with police, with no deaths but plenty of injuries, after police banned a mass meeting by strikers at the National League ball park (that is, on private property). So they marched to City Hall, singing “Hang Mayor Reyburn to a Sour Apple Tree,” where the real fight with mounted police took place. High school boys joined in, although they seem mostly to have “contented themselves with smashing every hat in sight”.

Russia is issuing expulsion orders against Jews in various towns.

The news of the plight of young Philander Knox Jr, shunned by his father for marrying without permission, has brought offers of employment from all over the nation. He has decided to sell automobiles.

NY Assemblyman James “Paradise Jimmy” Oliver denies that he insulted the suffragist, and is backed up by other assemblymen, while Henrietta Mercy’s version is backed up by another suffragist. A NYT editorial insists he hadn’t meant to insult her, but “When he pointed out to his visitor, who, by the way, did not wait for the formality of an introduction, that the younger Assemblymen would likely be more susceptible to feminine arguments than a seasoned old legislator, he spoke truly enough. He meant nothing wrong.” And “When he addressed his visitor as ‘little girl’ he merely recognized her youth.” (She seems to have been at least 21). The paper suggests that “When the women get into politics they must expect to be treated as other politicians. The suffragists must get over their sensitiveness.”

The Christmas Miracle

Secretary of War Gates visited the town of Now Zad, Afghanistan.

He was accompanied by Marine Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, who said, “This represents the rebirth of a city that had been dead.” Because nothing says rebirth like an American invasion. “We call this [place] the Christmas miracle.” Really, is that what you call it. I don’t think I’ve run across Nicholson before, but for “Christmas miracle,” I am bestowing upon him this blog’s highest military accolade, the title of Military Moron (MM).

You know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?

In the wake of the revelations of hot Rahm-on-Massa lobbying, the WaPo launches an investigation of “how much business politicians conduct while naked.”

Sen. John Tester said, “This morning [at the Senate gym] I talked with Lamar Alexander about a hold”.

On a nomination! A hold on a nomination!

Rep. Patrick Kennedy said, “It’s the only place where you get to see a member in a different light.”

Today -100: March 10, 1910: Of New York’s need for mothering, New York assemblymen’s need for hugs and kisses, and of course trolleys

As happened at this time every year, women suffragists and anti-suffragists traveled to Albany to lobby the NY state Senate and Assembly Judiciary Committees. Mrs. Anna Etz, President of the Steuben County Woman Suffrage Association, said, “New York State needs mothering.” Carrie Chapman Catt said NY might fall behind in the progress of democracy, noting that “woman suffrage prevails over 1/15th of the earth’s area”. Well, that’s Finland and Australia and New Zealand, is that really 1/15 of the earth’s area?

On the anti-suffrage side, a Mrs. Henry Stimpson argued that “Were we so presumptuous as to think we could take up men’s work we should have to take it up in addition to our own, and, while the Legislature might make us voters it could not make you men mothers. ... Women, if they become voters, will succumb to the nerve-racking brain strain,” lowering the birth rate.

One suffragist “girl delegate,” identified by the NYT as “Little Miss Henrietta Mercy,” lobbied Assemblyman James Oliver of NYC, who she says told her he didn’t want to be bothered about it, and that she should find some young assemblyman and give him a hug and a kiss. “That’s the way the girls on the street get what they want.” He denied to the NYT that he’d used those words – “It isn’t like me, is it?” – but admitted saying something about the advantage of bringing women’s charms to bear in appealing to the younger, more susceptible, more good-looking members of the Legislature.

The Philadelphia general strike grew or shrank again today, depending on who you believe. One trolley car in operation was caught in a blast of dynamite laid on the tracks.

Speaking of trolleys, a trolley on Nevsky Prospect (St Petersburg) clipped Emperor Nicholas’s carriage.

Today -100: March 9, 1910: Of trolleys, trusts, secret marriages, moving pictures, blackmail, and lenten ideas

In Philadelphia, a party of strikebreakers respond to attacks by strikers on trolley cars by stealing a trolley car and going on a joyride, shooting into crowds, hitting 6. The general strike grew or shrank today, depending on who you believe.

Standard Oil files a brief in the Supreme Court arguing against its being broken up for violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. Rather than getting stinking rich by restraint of trade, the brief says, Rockefeller et al did so by “untiring energy, with infinite skill, with abundant capital, and the steady reinvestment of early profits”.

Secretary of State Philander Knox’s college-aged son Philander Jr. (!) secretly married without parental permission. He brought his new wife to Washington but failed to receive forgiveness.

Headline of the Day -100: “Roosevelt is Now Hunted.” Teddy Roosevelt, still on safari in Africa, is being stalked by American journalists “lying in wait for him all along the river [Nile].” They want to ask him if he will run for president again.

A Circuit Court gives Thomas Edison an injunction against three movie production companies, saying he has the sole patent on the process of making motion pictures. There are 13,000 movie theaters in the country; ticket prices average 7¢ each.

Enrico Caruso is now being given the sort of police protection normally accorded presidents, thanks to a stack of threatening letters (blackmail letters, in the older use of the word) from the Black Hand, including a threat to throw acid on him from an upper box in the Academy of Music.

A letter to the NYT calls for heathen countries to be divided up by the Christian ones so that they may be forced to become Christians. It is signed “A Lenten Idea.”

Difficult words

California State Senator Roy Ashburn, who was caught drunk driving on his way home with a, ahem, friend from a gay nightclub, now says: “I’m gay. Those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long. Because I had a cock in my mouth.”

I may have made up the last sentence.

Today -100: March 8, 1910: Of general strikes, shirtwaists, hatpins, and the Solomon of Flatbush Court

Philadelphia general strike: the unions say 100,000 are on strike, the police authorities say 18,407, the mayor 12,000.

Remember the shirtwaist strike? The Women’s Trade Union League states that it was won on more or less favorable terms, and the WTUL is now focusing on publicizing the firms that made the best settlements. Two firms, the NYT notes, are even putting union labels on their goods. So, um, look for the union label.

One thing they credit with helping the strike: the change of police policy, stopping arrests of peaceful picketers, by Mayor Gaynor after he came to office in January.

The Chicago city council’s judiciary committee orders an ordinance drawn up to ban hatpins extending half an inch beyond the crown of the hat. Several women came to express their disapproval of the City of Chicago regulating their clothing. Alderman Mack responded, “Well, you women want to regulate what we men drink, don’t you?” and Alderman Bauler said, “If women care to wear carrots and roosters on their heads, that is a matter of their own concern, and it cannot be interfered with by the city, but when it comes to wearing swords they must be stopped.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Policeman Swims for Negro.” An exciting story of a cop who jumped into Rockaway Inlet to capture an armed killer trying to escape by launch, who was not only, as the story informed us repeatedly, a negro, but a “giant negro.”

Two neighbors in Brooklyn go to court over possession of a newly lain egg found in a vacant lot. Magistrate Nash says he will ponder the matter a few days. “It is believed that the Magistrate will settle the dispute by having the egg hard boiled and divided equally between the two families.”

No applause, please, we’re British

The British general election will feature the first ever debate between party leaders, and the rules have been agreed upon: there will be an audience, but there will be complete silence. No booing, hissing, applause, or heckling. In other words, it will be exactly like British sex.

Today -100: March 7, 1910: Of general strikes, quiet rubber, and phosphate violence

The city of Philadelphia’s director of public safety claims there are only 30,000 out on strike; the unions disagree. (And many paragraphs later, the NYT gets around to mentioning that the director of public safety is also a major stockholder in the Rapid Transit Company). Rioting was met by police shooting (annoyingly, the NYT is making no effort to keep count of the fatalities in this strike, but it’s certainly in the double digits). Emma Goldman is said to be on her way to the city, but the union leaders don’t want her. So far, 500 trolley cars have been burned or so damaged that they can’t be used, and people are soaping rail lines so the cars can’t climb hills. Scabs are being imported and paid a princely $5 a day (and some of them seem also to be keeping the fares they collect), compared to the $2 to $2.50 earned by the men they are replacing, who have actual experience.

The price of rubber has become less volatile, leading to the Headline of the Day -100: “Rubber Quiet in London.”

A short story with no details reports a race war with two dead in a phosphate camp in Florida. Don’t know what it’s about, but suddenly I want a chocolate phosphate.

What, too soon?

A new level of vulnerability for government officials that would be chaotic

Robert Fisk on Turkey’s tantrum over a possible US recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide: “The message is simple. Acknowledge the genocide, and the US will lose its airbases in Turkey and the Turkish roads its military convoys use into Iraq. The fact, unfortunately, is that these roads are the very highways down which the Armenians were sent on their death marches in 1915.”

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David Paterson is refusing to resign but it’s not for himself, it’s for the benefit of future scuzzy politicians: “To step down from office over unproved allegations would create a new level of vulnerability for government officials that would be chaotic.” “Vulnerability” may not be a word someone who bullied a woman who’d been physically abused by his aide should really be using. Also, note the non-denial denial: “unproved” allegations. The same thing Israel says about that Mossad murder in Dubai.

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Speaking of which, when I heard that some of those killers came directly from Dubai to the United States (using false passports yet), I sort of assumed that meant we’d have to join in investigating the affair. Not that I expected US politicians to criticize Israel for making us look complicit in their crimes (assuming we weren’t).

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NYT headline: “More Scanners Headed to Airports.” 3 nerd points if, reading that headline, you pictured a head exploding. 10 nerd points if, reading that headline, you muttered to yourself, “Scanners live in vain.”

Government in a box

McChrystal said, “We’ve got a government in a box, ready to roll in” to Marja, failed to specify what type of box. It seems the new governor, Abdul Zahir Aryan, spent 4 of those 15 years in Germany in prison for getting all stab-y on his stepson, who’d complained when Zahir beat up one of his wives. The WaPo quotes American military types saying it’s not a “big deal,” but not, for some reason, by name.

Must... resist... tasteless joke.... Can’t... resist... tasteless joke

Headline of the Day (WaPo): “Rep. Barney Frank Warns of Fannie, Freddie Risks.” And when Barney Frank warns you about fannie risks....

Sorry.

Today -100: March 6, 1910: Of general strikes

A NYT editorial on the Philadelphia general strike displays several assumptions that are worth examining. It assumes, without feeling any need to argue the point, that it is the job of the government to put down the strike, not simply because of the violence already displayed against trolleys and the scabs operating them, but because a general strike is inherently illegitimate, an act of violence rather than a withdrawal of labor. That definition in turn rests on the assumption that workers, even 100,000 of them, many in highly skilled trades, are simply interchangeable cogs. “The real element of efficacy in the general strike consists in the violence that would follow if it were carried out in the spirit already shown. ... If employers and merchants and tradesmen of all sorts had nothing to fear but the inconveniences attending the changes in employés that would occur, they would look upon a general strike with a good deal of equanimity.” Unionists, the NYT goes on, would not have voted for a general strike had they depended solely on this “inconvenience” to enforce their demands, given how very replaceable they know themselves to be, but on violence as well, and it is the duty of the authorities to repress this violence with, um, violence. A general strike is “a dream of the revolutionary minds of Europe”, a “declaration of war upon the community. It sets the unions apart from the rest of society in a hostile camp. It differentiates their members from the mass of the people, not only as a class, but as an enemy class, bent on attaining selfish ends by unfair and cruel means.”

Embracing the agenda

Right-wingers’ latest crusade is four SEALs who beat up an Iraqi prisoner of war and are being court-martialed. Here’s Sarah Palin’s tweeted contribution:


Yes, question that anti-beating-prisoners-up-and-lying-about-it agenda. Question it, I say!

Today -100: March 5, 1910: Of strikes, Russian Jews, and Enrico Caruso and the Black Hand

The Philadelphia general strike has begun, with 60,400 said to be on strike, including 200 milk wagon drivers, 2,000 cigarmakers, 225 egg candlers, 150 piano wagon drivers, 300 horseshoers, 200 suspendermakers, and 350 fresco painters. A demonstration has been called for Independence Square, which the police plan to ban; Mayor Reyburn quotes, in support of the ban, a Supreme Court decision that “the public possesses in the highway the right of transit only”. He calls on people not to loiter on the streets, collect in or join crowds, or use insulting language.

Harriot Stanton Blatch (suffragist, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton) warns the NY Legislature against passing the Dana Bill, which has already passed the lower house, and would require that future amendments to the state constitution get a 2/3 vote of the electors rather than a simple majority. She believes (wrongly, I think) that it is intended specifically to thwart women’s suffrage and warns that “Heretofore there has been no reason in America for suffragettes to use militant methods... Our methods so far have been quiet and amiable. But with an added burden put upon us like this, we shall have to resort to...” wait for it... “open-air meetings, to bands and banners, and holding up people on the street corners.”

A committee of the Russian Duma denounces a 1907 government circular which instructed officials not to evict Jews who had settled recently outside the pale of settlement. The committee wants them not only evicted but brought to trial.

Two members of the Black Hand are arrested after sending threatening letters to Enrico Caruso demanding $15,000. Caruso wouldn’t talk to the press, and the director of the Met, Gatti-Casazza, merely “threw up his hands and said: ‘It is not musical and it is not artistic, and I know nothing about it.’”

Location location location

Senior German politicians suggest that Greece deal with its financial difficulties by selling off some of its uninhabited Aegean islands. I think we know what sort of buyers they might find, but how much income will that bring to the beleaguered Greek economy?

Today -100: March 4, 1910: Of civil wars, trolleys, lynchings, schools of crime, and presidential hoe-downs

I’ve more or less stopped following the stories of battles in Nicaragua, because they seemed highly untrustworthy, but the NYT reports that Estrada’s insurrection has been almost completely defeated, the impetus (as well as the possibility of direct American intervention) having gone out of it with Zelaya’s resignation.

The NYT publishes the positions of various sides in the Philadelphia trolley strike. The Central Labor Union complains that the trolley company sent detectives to spy on the union, fired employees purely for union membership, broke the agreement covering wages and negotiations, etc. Its manifesto also focuses on the role of City Hall in using violence and arrests against unionists and bringing in the State police. The trolley company claims that the June 1909 closed shop agreement was the result of “political coercion” and says it is fighting for the rights of its employees to deal directly with the company “without the intervention of an organization officered and controlled by outside men” and for the right of the company to fire anyone for any reason. Mayor John Reyburn criticizes the ministers’ association for “support[ing] a lot of men in the destruction of property and murder... Why, the same men would be the first to burn down their churches.”

In Dallas, a lynch mob of 3,000 people seized a black man in a courtroom where he was being tried for attacking a 3-year-old white girl, threw him out the window, which broke his neck, then dragged his body half a mile away and hung it on a spike. The mob stormed the jail, but other prisoners had been removed. Firemen tried to disperse the mob with water but “retired from the contest” when threatened with being lynched themselves. The first sentence of the longish story mentioned an “old negro” at the head of the mob, but nothing more was said about him.

Two women, 18 and 19 years old, arrested for shoplifting, tell the court that they were “instructed in the art of pilfering in a school of crime fitted up in imitation of a department store” in the home of a fellow employee of a button factory. Charmingly Dickensian, no?

President Taft gave a dinner in honor of Speaker of the House Cannon (who, rumor has it, he would love to get rid of). Afterwards, they danced. Cannon did a Highland fling, then, as he bragged about how well he’d done it, “For answer the President stepped smilingly forward and those who were present say the two executed several steps of an old-fashioned ‘hoe-down’ that delighted every one. Both were puffing when they finished.”

Today -100: March 3, 1910: Of ballots, guns, and sleeping bull moose

In an editorial on the Massachusetts ballot system, the NYT argues against its alphabetical listing of candidates and in favor of some system that allows voters to vote the party ticket, without bothering themselves to inform themselves about individual candidates. The real problem with elections is not straight-party voters, the Times says, but the large number of offices electors have to vote on. The “short ballot” would be a much more helpful reform than direct primaries or referenda.

Rep. Henry Rainey (D-Illinois), later Speaker of the House, accuses Bethlehem Steel, which has been getting increasing numbers of War Department orders, subcontracted from government arsenals, of doing shoddy work and of underpaying its skilled workers. A 14-inch gun burst during ordinance trials, Rainey says, and this was hushed up.

It is feared that Teddy Roosevelt, still on safari in East Africa, may have contracted sleeping sickness!