Today -100: February 12, 1911: Of Lincoln, borders, miscegenation, radium, and executions

It is Lincoln’s birthday and, hey, it’s also (nearly) the 50th anniversary of the election of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy. The NYT thinks that after all this time “we ought to be willing to leave the civil war to history.” It says that the South is no longer hostile to the North and the “occasional demonstrations of the sectional spirit” are only ginned up in order to pressure the states to keep paying pensions to Confederate veterans. “The new South, full of commercial and industrial energy, will not long pretend to mourn the failure of the Confederacy.” Not long, huh?

At a Lincoln Day speech, Teddy Roosevelt comes out in favor of the direct election of US senators and the president. He also says that “the Republican Party must be not only progressive but sane.” (So how’s that going?)

Congress rejects New Mexico’s demand for a revision of its border with Texas in its favor (the border was set 50 years before, but NM says there was a surveying mistake).

Nevada outlaws marriage between whites and Asians. Any minister or justice of the peace who performs one is henceforth guilty of a misdemeanor.

The Radium Bank in Paris, which I think sends radium out as needed to doctors and hospitals, is using more female porters because of fears that robbers will target the extremely valuable substance, which is after all the elixir of life.

Haiti executes two more rebel generals but promises to stop now after, as the NYT puts it in a sub-head, “Negro Government Informed by Washington That Execution of Prisoners Would Be Improper Act.”

Hosni goes bye bye

Just yesterday Mubarak was telling his “children” that he wouldn’t leave them, and now he’s buggered off to Sharm el-Shaikh for a packet of cigarettes and I don’t think he’s coming back. Bad daddy, bad daddy!

And what of his promise that, like O.J. looking for the real killer, “I will not relent in harshly punishing those responsible [for the violence against protesters]. I will hold those who persecuted our youth accountable with the maximum deterrent sentences.”

Personally, I’m glad he made the speech he did yesterday instead of the one Little Leon Panetta predicted he’d make, because I’d hate to think of Mubarak leaving with any more shreds of dignity than can possibly be removed from him, or which he can remove from himself by his own obtuse stubbornness.

Today -100: February 11, 1911: Of time, men of wisdom and experience, and Finnish fishermen on floes

France moves its clocks up 9 minutes and 21 seconds, bringing it into line with the rest of Europe – well, the Times says with Belgium, Holland, Spain and... England. Whatever.

Sen. Elihu Root denounces the proposed direct election of US senators as an effort of the people to shirk their responsibility to elect good state legislatures. He also worries about Southern states having power over their senatorial elections, for obvious reasons. And that many “men of wisdom and experience” would not be willing to undertake the work and inconvenience of an election campaign.

Evidently those Finnish fishermen did not drown.

Heads in the Sand

A Los Angeles city councilcritter who wants to mandate condom use in pornographic films says “We can’t keep our heads in the sand any longer.” Although if they did, it would be a pretty weird porn film. Just saying.

CONTEST I’M GOING TO TOTALLY REGRET, I JUST KNOW IT: What should the film’s name be?

Today -100: February 10, 1911: Of wet Alabama and prinking

Alabama is about to end prohibition.

Evidently, Wellesley students “lack prinking.”

Pursuing their own agenda

A few days ago, Hillary Clinton said, “There are forces at work in any society, particularly one that is facing these kind of challenges, that will try to derail or overtake the process to pursue their own agenda, which is why I think it’s important to follow the transition process announced by the Egyptian government, actually headed by vice-president Omar Suleiman.”

Yeah, it would be terrible if anyone tied to derail the democratization process in Egypt to pursue their own agenda, huh Hillary?

Telegraphing the punch

More news from Britain’s news leader, the Daily Telegraph:

Belgium has been without a government for 8 months. Socialist senator Marleen Temmerman calls “on the spouses of all negotiators to withhold sex until a deal is reached.” A Christian Democrat senator, Catherine Fonck responds, “I don’t want to take part in a sex strike. Politicians are not there to strike, on the contrary, politicians are there arouse the country.” Fonck is of course the Flemish word for a particularly naughty sex act. Okay, maybe it isn’t, but it should be.

The Romanian senate has passed a bill to license witches. They could also be fined or imprisoned if their predictions don’t come true, and would be banned from operating near schools and churches.

A British judge bans a man with an IQ of 48 from having sex.

Finally dispelling the rumors that they are actually the same person, Prime Minister David Cameron and David Hasselhoff meet.

Today -100: February 9, 1911: Of ostentatious watering and Finnish fishermen on floes

Night riders threaten Japanese working in orchards in western Colorado. The Japanese workers leave.

The Mexican minister of war says that the government attaches no importance to “the present seditious outbreaks” and that “Order will be restored within a very short time”. So that’s okay then.

Outside Ciudad Juarez, Orozco has his men “ostentatiously” water their horses (to show that the federales are unwilling to come out and fight).

The leaders of the recent rebellion in Haiti are executed.

Remember the 253 Finnish fishermen who refused to be rescued from an ice floe? Most of them drowned.

Front Page Headline of the Day -100: “Kaiser Has a Cold.”

Today -100: February 8, 1911: Of planes, sallies, recalls, and the elixir of life

The new Army appropriation bill includes $25,000 to purchase airplanes to patrol the Tex-Mex border to insure against violations of the neutrality laws by either side in the Revolution.

Americans (and Mexican nationals)(and American soldiers) gathered outside El Paso to observe a minor battle in the Mexican Revolution from the safe side of the Rio Grande. After the fight, in which the insurrectos under Pascual Orozco beat the federales into a retreat (there seem to have been no casualties), rebels posed for pictures.

The NYT notes that the rebels have no female camp followers but the federal troops do, because the Mexican Army has no organized commissary system. Rather, it gives a small sum to each soldier, who hands it over to a woman who forages and cooks for him, occasionally gets accidentally killed in battle, and strips the bodies of the dead. (However the NYT headline “Orozco Beats Back Sally From Juarez” does not refer to one of those camp followers.)

Seattle Mayor Hiram Gill loses the recall election, which is I believe the first recall of a mayor. The NYT attributes the result to women voters, for no good reason that I can see, although it is the case women did not yet have the franchise in Washington when Gill was elected last March. The first woman ever to vote in the state of Washington was a Mrs. Rebecca Hall, aged 80.

A French veterinarian claims to have discovered the secret of rejuvenation, the elixir of life, at least in the horses he’s experimented on: injections of radium.

There are a whole bunch of secular folks in Egypt

Before the Super Bowl, Barack Obama made his famous dip. No, sorry, he was interviewed by a famous dip.

Bill O’Reilly asked him when Mubarak was leaving.

“Only he knows what he’s going to do. But here’s what we know: is that Egypt is not going to go back to what it was.” Unlike Mubarak’s hair.

WHEN HAS IT EVER MATTERED WHAT THE EGYPTIAN PEOPLE WANT? “The Egyptian people want freedom. They want free and fair elections. They want a representative government. They want a responsive government.”

WHAT THE UNITED STATES CAN’T ABSOLUTE DO: “Well, you know, ultimately, the United States can’t absolute dictate – But what we can do, Bill, is we can say that, ‘The time is now for you to start making a change in that country.’” Again, and I can’t believe Obama needs to be told this, Mubarak is an illegitimate, unwanted dictator and he has no moral authority to make any change in Egypt except removing his ass from it.

NOT SUSTAINABLE: “But we’ve also said consistently said to him both publicly and privately is that trying to suppress your own people is something that is not sustainable.” 30 years and counting. It’s not the pyramids, but 30 years seems pretty damned sustainable to me and probably to Mubarak.

The Muslim Brotherhood “don’t have majority support” and “there are a whole bunch of secular folks in Egypt”.

He denies wanting to redistribute wealth.

He denies moving to the center.

THE BIGGEST PROBLEM FOR HIM: “The biggest problem for me is being in the bubble. It’s very hard to escape. You know, you can’t go to the corner...” Because bubbles don’t have corners.

O’Reilly broke the news to Obama that people hate him. Well, replied Obama, “The people who dislike you don’t know you.” O’Reilly interrupted to take issue with the word dislike: “They hate you.”

WHAT HE KNOWS: “Oh, I know football, man.”

Today -100: February 7, 1911: Of income tax, spies, fishermen on the ice, and race riots

The NYT opposes the proposed 16th Amendment for an income tax (whose ratification is about to be considered by the NY Legislature) as an idea from a bygone age “when it was still thought that the Government ought to do almost everything for everybody with the taxes which other people would pay. The time has arrived when people generally are preferring lower costs of living to the hopes of beneficence through taxation”. The Times suggests (rightly, for all I know) that the Amendment was part of a deal to buy votes for the Republican tariff bill.

The Spy Bill passes the House. It would make it illegal to make drawings or photographs onboard battleships or in navy yards or forts without permission, or to sell such information to foreign governments.

Russia adopts mandatory elementary-school education.

The NJ Legislature is considering Governor Woodrow Wilson’s reform proposals. Some of them: Direct primaries for governor & congresscritters. No one to be allowed to run for the Legislature unless they pledge to vote for whoever receives the most votes at primaries for US Senator. Ballots to contain the names of all candidates, replacing whatever system they have now.

12 black men and 3 black women are beaten and threatened with lynching during a race riot in Chicago by white people who objected to them moving into their neighborhood.

253 Finnish fishermen are swept out to sea on an ice floe during a gale. When ships are sent to rescue them, they refuse. Don’t ask me why.

Today -100: February 6, 1911: Of unrelief and beaten beaters

The Mexican government’s relief force arrives at Ciudad Juarez. Except... the soldiers had to ditch their train 10 miles outside of Juarez and by the time they reached the town, half of them were dead or wounded and they had abandoned all their supplies, including field guns, to fall into the hands of the rebels.

Oregon has abolished, after four years, the public whipping of wife-beaters.

Today -100: February 5, 1911: Of smoking, pulp, lions, auras, exercise, and dirty pilferers of words

The secretary of the Anti-Cigarette League goes to meet Massachusetts Governor Eugene Foss – who is a vice president of the League – to discuss the serious problem of boys riding in the smoking cars of elevated trains, and she catches Foss... smoking. Foss said later he had no recollection of having become the vice president of the Anti-Cigarette League. It’s all very mysterious.

Headline of the Day -100: “Muddling the Pulp Question.” Something to do with the reciprocity agreement with Canada, so who cares, I just like the sound of it: Muddling the pulp question.

The brother of British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey is mauled by a lion.

The Persian Finance Minister, Sani ed Dowleh, is assassinated on the streets of Tehran by two Armenians. There has been much debate over what nationality of financial advisers the ministry should hire. Parliament just voted to hire five Americans to reorganize the country’s fiscal system, but Dowleh had wanted Frenchmen, and some wanted Swiss.

Dr. W. J. Kilner has photographed the human “aura.”



President Taft meets with 1908 Olympics gold-medal-winning runner John Hayes, and offers his views on exercise: he believes in it, but “great care should be used so as not to overdo it and destroy the good effects.” No one will ever accuse Taft of not taking great care not to overdo it and destroy the good effects.

An Ohio newspaper held a poll to select ten “beauties” to send to Europe. They are in France now. France is not impressed.

Rep. Robert Macon (D-Ark.), the subject of an article in the Washington Times about his failure to get changes in an agriculture bill, called the author of that article a “willful, deliberate liar, a dirty pilferer of words, a contemptible little ass, and a falsifier of facts” on the floor of the House. The author approached him, “at the same time removing his eyeglasses,” and said, “You have called me a liar and other things. I wish to say to you that you are the liar.” Sadly, they were prevented from duking it out.

Making the right decision

Obama (alongside the Canadian harper, Stephen Prime Minister) spoke about Egypt again.

CRYSTAL: “[w]e continue to be crystal-clear that we oppose violence as a response to this crisis. In recent days, we’ve seen violence and harassment erupt on the streets of Egypt”. Passive voice. It erupted. Like some sort of natural phenomenon for which no human agency is responsible.

UNACCEPTABLE: “So we are sending a strong and unequivocal message: Attacks on reporters are unacceptable. Attacks on human rights activists are unacceptable. Attacks on peaceful protesters are unacceptable.”

SINCE WHEN? “The Egyptian government has a responsibility to protect the rights of its people.”

CLEAR: “It’s also clear that there needs to be a transition process that begins now. That transition must initiate a process that respects the universal rights of the Egyptian people and that leads to free and fair elections.” A transition. That initiates. A process. A process that leads to stuff.

And if you thought that was roundabout, see how many words you evidently need to use when you’re not quite willing to come out and say that Mubarak should resign:

Now, I believe that President Mubarak cares about his country. He is proud, but he’s also a patriot. And what I’ve suggested to him is, is that he needs to consult with those who are around him in his government. He needs to listen to what’s being voiced by the Egyptian people and make a judgment about a pathway forward that is orderly, but that is meaningful and serious. And I believe that -- he’s already said that he’s not going to run for reelection. This is somebody who’s been in power for a very long time in Egypt. Having made that psychological break, that decision that he will not be running again, I think the most important for him to ask himself, for the Egyptian government to ask itself, as well as the opposition to ask itself, is how do we make that transition effective and lasting and legitimate. ... And as I said before, once the President himself announced that he was not going to be running again, and since his term is up relatively shortly, the key question he should be asking himself is, how do I leave a legacy behind in which Egypt is able to get through this transformative period. And my hope is, is that he will end up making the right decision.

Today -100: February 4, 1911: Of sending in the Marines, pastors & leopards

American naval forces have landed in Honduras in order to force a settlement between the government and the insurrectionists, evidently at the request of President Miguel Davila, who offered in return a deal over Honduras’s debt.

More US cavalry is (are?) being moved to the border with Mexico at the behest of the Mexican government, to stop the revolutionaries passing freely back and forth between the US and Mexico.

Headline of the Day -100: “Pastor Fights a Leopard.”

Chaos, chaos I tell you

Mubarak: “If I resign today, there will be chaos.” He claims he told Obama, “You don’t understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now.”

And it’s actually a great personal sacrifice for him to remain dictator because he’s “fed up” with it.

Of the violence by his thugs (who state tv are referring to as “pro-stability demonstrators”): “I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other.” It’s true, because that would imply that the anti-Mubarak demonstrators were fighting back.

Headline of the Day: “Egypt’s Vice-President Complains Rioting Is Bad for Business.” He also said that those responsible for the violence would be punished, which should be easy because he’s got their pay stubs, right?

And, in news you can use from the Daily Telegraph, parrots are left-handed.

-100

In 1911, a popular uprising in Mexico threatened the corrupt, repressive 30-year rule of an octogenarian president. Eventually, Porfirio Díaz announced that he would not stand for reelection, but would serve out the remainder (5½ years) of his term. Then he said he would resign, but only “when, according to the dictates of my conscience, I am sure that my resignation will not be followed by anarchy.” Compare and contrast. (Mubarak two days ago: “I am now absolutely determined to finish my work for the nation in a way that ensures its safekeeping.”)

Díaz, of course, fled the country and lived out the last four years of his life in luxury in France.

Today -100: February 3, 1911: Of votes, booms, and burros

The California state assembly votes for women’s suffrage to be put to a popular vote (in November). And in the state senate, an amendment to the state constitution is proposed which would remove the voting rights of American-born children of fathers who were ineligible for citizenship (i.e., who were Chinese or Japanese immigrants).

Warrants are issued over that dynamite explosion in Jersey City (death toll is 24 to 30), including for officials of the Central Railroad of New Jersey and for the owner of the lighter on which the initial explosion occurred. Evidently you need a permit to store and transport explosives. There’s a $25 fine for that.

The Mexican rebels are threatening to bombard Juarez if it does not surrender by 3:00 today. Juarez police blew up the Federal gunpowder supply to keep it out of rebel hands and the railroad tracks were dynamited to prevent rebels coming in from the south.

Rhyming Headline of the Day -100: “Woman Insane on a Train.”

The reciprocal tariff treaty with Canada is still a hot topic. Do we care? We do not. Are we reading an editorial entitled “Reciprocity Is Reciprocal”? We are not.

Baseball news: if the Chicago White Sox finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the American League, each player will get a burro.

Today -100: February 2, 1911: Of commutations, bigamists, and booms

Taft commutes the sentence of Fred Warren, the editor of the newspaper Appeal to Reason, jailed for announcing a “reward” for the return to Kentucky of its fugitive former governor (Warren was making a point about a Supreme Court decision that it was perfectly okay to kidnap labor leaders and carry them across state lines to put them on trial). Taft also reduced Warren’s fine from $1,500 to $100. Taft insists that instead of “feeding his vanity by treating him seriously,” Warren should be “treated with ridicule”.

Edward Mylius, distributor of a British republican (anti-monarchist) newspaper printed in Paris, is imprisoned for 12 months for a report in the paper that George V was a bigamist. Which he wasn’t. It was shown in court that in 1890, when the story said George was secretly married in Malta, he wasn’t actually in Malta. The king did not appear in court, claiming it would be unconstitutional to do so, but had a letter read out. Mylius objected that he was being denied his right to question his accuser and that there was not even proof that King George was at present alive.

All of New York is shaken by an explosion of 25 tons of dynamite in Jersey City, some on a tug boat, some on a freight car (a chain reaction). At least 24 dead, hundreds injured, including some at Ellis Island, where the windows were blown out, millions in property damage. Buildings were rocked in Manhattan. I’m always surprised by the level of gruesome detail the NYT was willing to publish: “The head and arm of a stevedore near the end of the demolished pier hung in the torn rigging of the nearest ship.”

Today -100: February 1, 1911: Of licenses and dashes

The mayor of McKeesport, PA, visited the house where still-blind Margaret Shipley has been staying, suggesting that her hosts force her to end her fast or else. Shipley blames her continued sightlessness on having lacked sufficient faith.

The Maryland DMV refused to issue licenses for President Taft’s four automobiles, mostly because he failed to pay the fee. The governor ordered the DMV to issue the licenses without charge, as a courtesy. And another NYT Index Typo: that’s “Maryland Governor”, not “Mary and Governor.”

Speaking of typography, Samuel Gompers may be charged with contempt of the Supreme Court for a boycott of the Bucks Stove and Range Company, in which case a document written by him on the subject of boycotts and injunctions might be entered into evidence, containing the phrase (this is literal) “Go to —.” The Supreme Court, the NYT notes, may have to rule on the interpretation of a dash.