Today -100: March 26, 1910: Of Liberians, Martians, and sexist laws

An American Commission to Liberia concludes that the republic is in trouble, beset by the British and French Empires on either side. What would really help Liberia out, the Commission suggests, is if the US take control of its customs collection. And organize its police. And establish a naval coaling station. “[T]he whole situation is summed up as very hopeless for the little nation unless the United States steps in and helps her out.”

Astronomer Percival Lowell talks about what he thinks Martians are like. Evidently, they’re not human beings. “They are intelligent organisms, but not in the least like men.” Sadly, Mars is dying from lack of water. Perhaps it would help if the US takes control of its customs collection.

The NY State Woman Suffrage Association issued a pamphlet, “Laws Discriminating Against Women in the State of New York.” The NYT gives a long list of them. Go read it.

Alaska’s powerful beauty

The cable channel TLC will bring us “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” Peter Liguori, CEO of the TLC’s parent company, Discovery Communications, says the program will “reveal Alaska’s powerful beauty as it has never been filmed,” which I believe is Liguori’s attempt to make us think Palin will be naked.

I was about to suggest a contest along these lines: clearly, TLC can no longer stand for The Learning Channel, so suggest what TLC now stands for in its Palinolithic period. But then I checked what TLC is up to these days, and figured out why I haven’t watched anything on it in years an forgot that it existed: its current focus seems to be not so much learning as reality shows about families with lots of children (Jon & Kate, the Duggars, etc), plus programs such as What Not to Wear, Cake Boss, Policewomen of Maricopa County, Paranormal Court, Hoarding: Buried Alive, and Extreme Forensics. The Losers Channel? In fact, I think that TLC has been dis-abbreviated and no longer does officially stand for The Learning Channel, just as A&E no longer stands for Arts & Entertainment since that channel dropped both from its schedule. Don’t get me started on the inevitable dumbing-down trend of cable channels (see also Bravo, BBC America).

So, CONTEST: the TLC thing, or suggest a better name for the program than “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” (Possibly “Look! A moose!”)

Today -100: March 25, 1910: No need of being hysterical

The Equal Franchise Society holds its last meeting of the season (evidently there’s a season for women’s suffrage). President Katherine Mackay notes that the Society has grown in its first year to 625 members, adding “We have been doing a propaganda work; we have not been preaching, been hysterical, or emotional. There is no need of it.”

Teddy Roosevelt is in Egypt. Sees the sphinx. And vice versa.

Speaking of TR, the circus was in town at Madison Square Garden. Barnum & Bailey. A trapeze artist fell, fracturing both wrists, distracting three other trapezists, who also fell, with lesser injuries. But the show went on, including a little parody of TR, a van filled with stuffed lions, hippos, giraffes, zebras etc, the driver dressed as Roosevelt, with giant fake teeth, followed by a clown with “a little dog incased in something that made him look like a lizard. The clown announced that this was ‘the only animal Teddy left alive in Africa.’”

Today -100: March 24, 1910: Of union wusses, uniforms, and fashionable hats

The Pennsylvania Federation of Labor decides against a state-wide strike in support of the street car strike in Philadelphia.

The House voted to make it illegal for theaters in D.C. or territories of the US to discriminate against military people in uniform. Rep. Sims (who I take to be Thetus Sims, D-Tenn.) moved to amend the bill to apply only to white wearers of the uniform, but was told that the bill banned discrimination solely on account of the uniform and didn’t prevent other types of discrimination. Satisfied, he withdrew his amendment.

The NJ Legislature’s lower house passed an Audubon Society-sponsored bill by a vote of 33 to 11, to ban women (I assume the law actually applies to hat-wearers of both sexes, but the NYT says women) wearing hats decorated with feathers, wings or entire bodies of dead birds, with the exception of the feathers of birds of paradise, ostriches, domestic pigeons or domestic fowl.

Reload

Helpful advice, or incitement to violence, whichever, from Sarah Palin:

Today -100: March 23, 1910: Of poor Uncle Joe, peace and dreadnoughts, trolleys, and damned fools

Taft visited New York and, says the NYT, “probably established a new record... for a day’s activity for a President of the United States.” For example, he attended two luncheons and a dinner. The things he ate did for his country. At the Press Club, a photographer’s flash set a curtain on fire; the Secret Service put it out. The members then sang parodies of popular songs, such as this one about Speaker Cannon to the tune, with which I’m sure we’re all familiar, of “Old Uncle Ned”:

Hang up the gavel and cigar, cigar,
Close up the House and Senate bar;
There is trouble and woe for poor Uncle Joe,
Cause he went just a little too far!

His dinner was hosted by the American Peace and Arbitration League. He said he was all in favor of universal peace, which he intended to get... by building two new battleships each year until the completion of the Panama Canal. But he also agrees with the idea of an international arbitration court.

The trolleymen and the Philadelphia transit company haven’t come to an agreement, but the general strike seems to be breaking down, with textile workers and journeymen bricklayers returning to work. 35 motormen and conductors were arrested after a trolley car was dynamited.

NYC Mayor Gaynor ordered the NYPD to stop taking pictures and Bertillon measurements of prisoners for its Rogues Gallery unless they were actually convicted of a crime (while fingerprinting was known in 1910, evidently they didn’t keep a permanent record of fingerprints). And in 2010 there are op-ed articles in the NYT calling for a national database of everyone’s DNA.

In New Jersey, Mrs. Nellie Fitzherbert sued Surrogate David Young for saying she talked like a “damned fool.” Evidently in NJ, “The pain and suffering that can be caused by profane words is fixed by statute at 50 cents, plus the costs of court, which amount to $5.” He pleaded justification. The jury found him not guilty.

I’m sure it was the most sincere apology ever

Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Shouty Town) admits to having shouted “Baby killer” on the floor of the House during the HCR debate, apologizes “to all the baby killers.”

Census, follow-up

Sent in my census form today (and received in turn a postcard reminding me to send in my census form). Answered the race question by checking other and writing in “human,” as per the suggestion of commenter “Huntress.” Annoyingly, right-wing loons are objecting to the question for completely different reasons and are writing in “American.”

I have a question about HCR & abortion

So HCR allows parents to keep their children on their insurance until 26. If a daughter wants that extra abortion coverage and her parent doesn’t want her to have it, what happens?

Today -100: March 22, 1910: Of hatpins and goats, but not tariff wars

By the way, a possible tariff war with Canada was a big topic of discussion 100 years ago, but you don’t care and I don’t care. Let’s move on to matters of greater moment.

Chicago City Council voted 68 to 2 to outlaw long hatpins. Punishable by arrest and $50 fine. Women hissed and booed from the council galleries.

Headline of the Day -100: “Policeman Shot for Raid on Goats.” In Brooklyn, no less. Possibly “part of an organized plan of vengeance” by Italians who were subpoenaed because their goats were intruding, as goats will, on other people’s lawns and gardens.

Pro-choice?

Planned Parenthood: “We regret that a pro-choice president of a pro-choice nation was forced to sign an Executive Order that further codifies the proposed anti-choice language in the health care reform bill”.

When a president signs an executive order that codifies anti-choice language, maybe it’s time to stop referring to him as a pro-choice president.

Hard to reach places

An NYT editorial about the FCC broadband plan refers to “the Universal Service Fund, established decades ago to ensure phones got to hard-to-reach places”. Elsewhere in today’s paper, an article about the (stupid) use of laws against teenagers who engage in “sexting” says that one-fifth of them do so. So, mission accomplished.

Today -100: March 21, 1910: They shoot horses and speakers of the House, don’t they?

Speaker Cannon is not happy with yesterday’s coup against him. At a dinner of the Illinois Republican Association, he says that the majority in the House is no longer held by the R’s but by the D’s plus a “15% slough from the Republican Party.” Which was the most polite thing he called them, alongside “curs,” “feeble-minded,” “abnormal,” “insane,” and “cranks.”

A dance marathon in San Francisco was stopped by police after a record 15 hours and 6 minutes, after doctors said that continuing might lead to fatalities.

You have suffered grievously

The pope wrote a pastoral letter to Ireland. He told the victims of priestly child sexual abuses, “You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry.” So that’s okay then.


His “truly sorry” face

“Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen.” He failed to mention the Cardinal Brady, who did listen – and then swore the children to silence (on the Bible? we still don’t know).

“It is in the communion of the Church that we encounter the person of Jesus Christ, who was himself a victim of injustice and sin. Like you, he still bears the wounds of his own unjust suffering.” Of course Catholics make paintings and stained-glass windows of Jesus receiving his wounds and wear little replicas of the instrument which inflicted those wounds around their necks...

The pope addressed the child abusers: “Sincere repentance opens the door to God’s forgiveness and the grace of true amendment. By offering prayers and penances for those you have wronged, you should seek to atone personally for your actions.” You know where they’d have plenty of time to offer prayers and penances? Prison. I must have missed the part of the letter where he told them to turn themselves in to the police, confess their crimes, and plead guilty. Maybe it just slipped his mind.

After he wrote the letter, he held a “special audience” with the Italian Civil Aviation Authority, and tried on a pilot’s hat. Remember: in the Vatican, it’s all about the hats.

I’ll be here all week

Catholic nuns, unlike the male bishops, are supporting the health care bill. They hear it’ll cover ruler elbow.

Today -100: March 20, 1910: Of House coups and death by suicide

The House votes 181-164 to remove Speaker of the House Uncle Joe Cannon from the Rules Committee, largely de-fanging him, 35 “insurgent” Republicans voting with Democrats. Then he is re-affirmed as speaker, with a 38-vote majority. Until this moment, Cannon, who had exercised a “czarist” control over Congress since 1903, was arguably more powerful than President Taft, and frequently thwarted Roosevelt as well.


The NYT notes in an editorial that when Roosevelt expressed an interest in currency reform, Cannon said, “There ain’t going to be no currency reform,” and that was that. “This was a typical manifestation of Cannonism. There has come an end to all that. The House is once more a deliberative body, not a meeting in vassalage to the Speaker.”

Since the revolt against Cannon began, Taft has consistently refused to say anything about it.

In Marion, Arkansas, a mob took two negroes from the jail and lynched them, hanging them in the Court House square. The coroner’s verdict: “death by suicide.”

Today -100: March 19, 1910: Of eggs

Remember the dispute in Canarsie between two families over possession of an egg lain by a passing hen in a lot on the border of their two properties? Two weeks later, it’s still going on, Magistrate Nash having passed it (the case and the egg, which the NYT insists on referring to as “Eggshibit A”) to Magistrate Voorhees, who is passing it to Special Sessions. More on this story as it develops (or hatches, as the case may be).

So that’s okay then

“Mr Netanyahu would also promise not to publicise further construction plans for Jerusalem.”

Today -100 goes to the movies!

100 years ago today, the horror movie was created, with the release of the Thomas Edison Company’s Frankenstein, with Charles Ogle in clown shoes as the monster. 12½ minutes.

Today -100: March 18, 1910: Of Short and Mud

The Philadelphia general strike will be supported by a state-wide strike. The transit company has again increased the number of trolleys running, and, indeed, running over two more children.

A man who tried to follow President Taft into a meeting in Chicago was seized by the Secret Service. He claimed to be a reporter, which he wasn’t, and that his name was, um, Dick Short. At the train station, a woman who tried to get into Taft’s car and fought with the Secret Service claimed that her name was Jennie Mud.

Republican Insurgents in the House are striking at the power of the over-powerful Speaker, “Uncle Joe” Cannon, by trying to remove him from the Rules Committee and strip him of the power to name members of the committee. One of the Insurgents, and presumably this is a real name, is Judge Crumpacker.