Today -100: April 17, 1912: Of parliamentary machines, women and children first, and Taft concerned

The Irish Home Rule Bill passes its First Reading in the House of Commons, 360-266. Tory opposition leader Bonar Law threatens civil war, declaring that the people of Ulster are ready to resist this measure with their lives, and that if it is not put to a referendum, “you will succeed only in breaking the parliamentary machine.”

They still know the names of less than half the Titanic survivors, which is all that the Carpathia wirelessed, possibly because of electrical storms.

(The Carpathia, by the by, was torpedoed by the Germans in 1918.)

The LAT says that relatives of lost Titanic passengers won’t be able to collect damages from the White Star line because the ship was on the high seas, covered by no nation’s laws. They can be reimbursed for lost property (which was insured, so the company will lose nothing).

The NYT editorializes on the importance of the unwritten “women and children first” rule. If men violate it, “they will find themselves shunned as alien to humanity wherever they go ashore. ... However valuable to his race a man may be, he can serve it best by giving his life for the inexorable maintenance of this ancient custom.” The narrative of civilized, chivalrous men calmly giving up their places on the lifeboats to women ‘n children will be central to the story this era told itself about itself (another NYT editorial two days from now: “There was no disorder, no rioting, the rule of the sea prevailed over the rule of nature. With band playing and the lights of the sinking ship still burning, the doomed company awaited the end. They died like heroes, they died like men. It is a tragic and dreadful story, but it tells us how civilization conquers the primal, savage instincts and brings into being and dominance the higher and nobler qualities of man’s nature. There is not in history a more splendid and inspiring example of self-control, of sacrifice, of courage, and of manliness.”)

Of course in 2½ years it’ll be all made-up propaganda about Huns ripping the fetuses out of pregnant Belgian women with bayonets.

Titanic Butt Headline of the Day -100: “Taft Concerned for Butt.”

Berlusconi’s usual generosity

Silvio Berlusconi explains that his giving large sums of money to prospective witnesses in his trial for paying a underage prostitute for sex, including 100,000 to showgirl slash dental hygienist slash regional councillor slash pimp Nicole Minetti was an example of his “usual generosity,” (update: correction, that’s his lawyer speaking) and that “When someone in difficulty asks for help, you don’t ask what for.” Of course since she’s about to go on trial for procuring prostitutes for him, he probably didn’t need to ask what for. “When I am confronted with dramatic and touching cases, I don’t hesitate to intervene whether it be for individuals or for charities.” Yeah, touching... cases.

Berlusconi is finally on trial for the underage prostitute thing. Evidently his parties featured women, including Lombardy regional councillor (that’s roughly the equivalent of a US state legislator) Minetti, dressed as nuns, stripping. Also, a stripper dressed as AC Milan footballer Ronaldhino. Also, twins.

Today -100: April 16, 1912: Of enemies of toil and order, and the Titanic, the wonder ship of brief career

Headline of the Day -100, some more objective coverage by the LA Times of the IWW plan to send members to San Diego to assert the IWW’s right to organize in the city without being beaten and kidnapped by vigilantes: “Hoboes in Marching Order. Enemies of Toil and Order Invade Fresno En Route to San Diego.”

The Titanic hit an iceberg and you know the rest. Fortunately, it was insured.

Among the non-millionaire dead (and at this point it’s not known who or how many survived; the Carpathia, the only ship that arrived in time to rescue survivors, hasn’t radioed a list of them yet) are:

-Taft’s military aid Archibald Willingham Butt, aka Major Butt (NYT: “Throughout Washington to-night every comment on the disaster is followed by the expression, ‘I hope Butt is safe.’”).

-W.T. Stead, editor of the Review of Reviews, one of the creators of modern journalism, who once (1885) set out to uncover the white slave trade and confirm that one could buy a virgin for £5 (he had a doctor confirm her virginity)(He also found out that you can go to jail for buying a little girl from her mother at least you can if you don’t also pay off the father).

-Painter Frank Millet, coming over because he’d been commissioned to paint four panels of the new Wisconsin State Capitol.

-Jacques Futrelle, an author who created a Sherlock-Holmes-type detective, Professor Augustus van Dusen, “The Thinking Machine.”

-The Titanic’s captain, Edward Smith, who went down with the ship.

An interesting point, which may or may not actually be true, about the insufficient number of lifeboats: it was impossible to carry enough lifeboats to hold all the passengers and crew and also have them in positions where they could be lowered into the water quickly.

On the other hand, without the invention of the Marconi wireless, there would have been no survivors.

Titanic Headlines of the Day -100: LA Times: “Wonder Ship of Brief Career in the Graveyard of the Sea.” For a story which opens rather crassly by totting up the fortunes of the richest men on the Titanic: John Jacob Astor IV, $150 million, Benjamin Guggenheim $95 million, etc. (For comparison, the Titanic itself was worth $7,500,000.)

Newburyport (Mass.) Morning Herald: “Band Played Till End!”

NYT:

The Onion:

So Warren Buffet is the new Joe the Plumber?

In his weekly radio address, Obama talked about the “Buffet rule”.

IT’S WORTH POINTING OUT THAT YOU’RE ALL SUCKERS: “as many Americans rush to file their taxes this weekend, it’s worth pointing out that we’ve got a tax system that doesn’t always uphold the principle of everyone doing their part.”

1) THEY DON’T NEED TO “ASK”, 2) THEY DON’T “ASK” FOR ANYTHING: And we can’t afford to keep spending more money on tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans who don’t need them and didn’t even ask for them.”

IF I’M GOOD, HE LETS ME CALL HIM WARREN: “As Warren points out, that’s not fair and it doesn’t make sense.”

Today -100: April 15, 1912: Of armed marches, so-called hunger strikes, and...

A boat ferrying passengers disembarking from the British steamship Seang Chun sinks in Amoy (China), drowning 40. On another day, this might be bigger news.

The Industrial Workers of the World plan to send large contingents into cities where they have recently been violently driven out by Vigilance Committees, including San Diego, Fresno, L.A., Spokane, Kansas City, etc. Or as the always hysterically anti-union LA Times’s headline terms it, “I.W.W.’s Plan Armed March on San Diego.”

A NYT editorial complains about British suffragettes getting out of prison through use of “the so-called hunger strike” (the term hunger strike was new in the English language, popularized by the suffragettes but adopted from the Russian) and says that forcible feeding by tube is not torture. So why don’t ordinary criminals use it to get out of prison? Probably, says the Times, because of “the low intelligence of the ordinary criminal, his acceptance of confinement as more or less a matter of course, to be made the best of, and his inability to resist the temptation to eat when he is hungry.”

When today’s edition of the NYT went to press, they knew only that the Titanic has hit an iceberg and that rescue ships are on the way.

The NYT notes that several steamers have recently arrived in NY with damage caused by making their way through ice packs.

Today -100: April 14, 1912: Of campaign contributors, Republican fights, and the dangers of the bells of Venice

The House Committee on Election of the President and Vice President unanimously supports a bill to make public the names of contributors of $100 or more to presidential campaigns, as well as the amounts spent and what on.

Another Republican convention, in Davies County, Missouri, turns into a brawl.

To everyone’s surprise, Roosevelt wins the Pennsylvania primary.

And Woodrow Wilson wins the D. primary there.

The courts are ordering deportations of IWW members of foreign origins.

Taft signs a bill to put a prohibitively high tax on white phosphorus matches. There was no legal way to outright ban the things, even though they tended to poison the workers who manufactured them, so they’re doing this.

Several British suffragettes imprisoned for the window-smashing raid in London have secured their release through a hunger and thirst strike.

Headline of the Day -100: “POPE MUST NOT HEAR PEALS.; Physician Forbids Listening to Venice Bells Lest It Kill Him.” He was going to listen to them over the telephone, because he’s homesick, but his doctor thinks the emotional impact would give him a heart attack. Also, they can’t figure out how to transmit the sound of the bells over the phone.

Today -100: April 13, 1912: If England drive us forth / We shall not fall alone!

Clara Barton, one of the first female employees of the federal government in the 1850s, a nurse during the Civil War and other wars throughout the world, and the leading founder of the American Red Cross and its president for many years, dies at 90.

In the British Parliament, Liberal MP Joseph Martin calls Rudyard Kipling’s anti-Home Rule Bill poem “Ulster” seditious and asks whether it will be prosecuted. I don’t know about seditious, but pee-yoo:

The dark eleventh hour
Draws on and sees us sold
To every evil power
We fought against of old.
Rebellion, rapine hate
Oppression, wrong and greed
Are loosed to rule our fate,
By England’s act and deed.

The Faith in which we stand,
The laws we made and guard,
Our honour, lives, and land
Are given for reward
To Murder done by night,
To Treason taught by day,
To folly, sloth, and spite,
And we are thrust away.

And it doesn’t get any better from there.

Today -100: April 12, 1912: Of weapons, icebergs, contentious conventions, and Irish Home Rule

The House passes a bill banning weapons in D.C., including knives with blades longer than three inches.

Foreboding Headline of the Day -100: “Carmania [a Cunard liner] Meeting Many Icebergs.”

The Republican state convention in Michigan turns into a riot between Taft & Roosevelt supporters. Both sides name their own delegates to Chicago, literally at the same time and in the same hall.

Prime Minister Asquith introduces the Irish Home Rule bill.

Bottom up

Obama yesterday: “In this country, prosperity has never trickled down from the wealthy few. Prosperity has always come from the bottom up, from a strong and growing middle-class.”

See, Barack, the middle class are not the bottom, thus the word “middle.” You have literally forgotten about the existence of the poor, or “lower” class.

Today -100: April 11, 1912: Of primaries, reds, titanics, and human dykes

The Republican establishment in Illinois is scheming to rob Roosevelt of the fruit of his primary upset by controlling the Congressional-district conventions and selecting Taft delegates to the national convention.

The NYT, in denial, insists that Illinois did not, all appearances to the contrary, go Progressive. They say this is proved by the strong vote for former Speaker Joe Cannon, a reactionary old-guard Republican, in his district. They say the real issue in Illinois is not Taft or Roosevelt but Senator William Lorimer (R). Lorimer was just “cleared” by another whitewashing investigation into his bribery-fueled election to the Senate, but was denounced loudly by Roosevelt in speeches right there in Illinois (Spoiler Alert: Lorimer will finally be expelled in July). Roosevelt said that Taft, Lorimer, Guggenheim, and their allies want to make “a government by corporation attorneys.” The NYT says this language shows he is not fit to be president.

Taft’s people also insist their Illinois defeat was due to “local issues.”

Roosevelt, who speaks entirely in editorial cartoons, says “We knocked them over the ropes in Illinois.”

Some desperate Republicans are suggesting that the party needs some third candidate in place of Taft or TR, such as Supreme Court Justice and recent NY governor Charles Evans Hughes.

There is some question whether the Electoral College this year should be based on the pre- or post-reapportionment numbers.

A Superior Court judge in Seattle is asking suspected “reds” applying for citizenship whether they would obey court orders that conflicted with those of their union. When one Lars Emanuel Boman said “A man who belongs to an organization should stick to it,” the judge told him to fuck off, and if anyone else in the court “would supplant the Stars and Stripes with the red flag,” they could also fuck off. A dozen walked out.

The Ohio Constitutional Convention rescinds its invitation to US Assistant Attorney General William Lewis to speak, presumably after realizing that he’s black.

Foreboding Headline of the Day -100: “Titanic In Peril on Leaving Port.” The huge ship created so much suction (I know there’s a technical boating term for that) that another liner broke free of its mooring and almost crashed into it.

Headline of the Day -100: “Human Dike Used to Hold Back Flood. Negroes Lie on Top of Weakening Levee and Save Day Near Greenville, Miss.” Yes, when they ran out of sandbags, they used negroes.

I wish they weren’t called the Bush tax cuts

George Bush says he wishes the Bush tax cuts weren’t called the Bush tax cuts, because “If they were called someone else’s tax cuts, they’d be less likely to be raised,” because everyone hates him. Evidently someone finally told Bush that everyone hates him. Good. I’d hate if he went the rest of his life without coming to that realization.

Oh wait, then he says he doesn’t criticize Obama because “I don’t think it’s good for our country to undermine our president and I don’t intend to do so.” So evidently he still thinks that his criticizing Obama would undermine Obama. I guess he doesn’t realize that everyone hates him after all. Sigh.

IN OTHER WORDS: “we believe that government oughta trust the people, the collective wisdom of the people. In other words, we trust people when it comes to spending their money, and so should the government.”

SO-CALLED BECAUSE THEY FUCKING ARE: He objects to taxes being raised on “the so-called rich.”

WHAT THE VOICES IN HIS HEAD OFTEN ASK HIM: “I’m often asked ‘Do you miss the presidency?’ I really don’t.” Although “it was really inconvenient having to stop at stop lights”. Actually, he may just miss the days of drunk driving all over Houston.

A fair fight

Maverick John McCain & Holy Joe Lieberman issue a statement from a refugee camp for Syrians in Turkey, saying the usual stuff. Including that the international community needs to supply the Syrian rebels with arms because “The slaughter in Syria has now claimed more than 10,000 lives. And it is not a fair fight.”

No one who uses the term “fair fight” about a war deserves to be taken seriously.

Today -100: April 10, 1912: The man that pulls the rope should hang by the rope

There have been few real opportunities to test the relative popularity of Taft & Roosevelt, with there being so few primaries and no such thing as opinion polls. This means that the Illinois primary is especially important symbolically and as a measure of what the voters might do in November. And TR kicked Taft’s ample behind, gaining more than twice as many votes. Roosevelt supporters are making the case that while the Tafties, with their tight grip on the party machinery, can secure Taft’s re-nomination, the Illinois primary shows that he’s too unpopular to win the general election.

On the Democrat side, Speaker of the House Champ Clark beat Woodrow Wilson by better than 3 to 1.

A black man, Thomas Miles, is lynched in Shreveport, LA, after he is acquitted “because positive proof was lacking that he wrote letters to a young white woman”.

Pres. Taft makes an anti-lynching speech at Howard University, saying “The man that pulls the rope should hang by the rope.”

NY Governor Dix is planning a European vacation. On the Titanic, when it returns to England from its maiden voyage (which commences.... today).

Long division

One of Obama’s spokesmodels calls an anti-gay marriage initiative “divisive,” which is a rather weak way of saying hate-mongering. Also, as far as I know Obama still opposes gay marriage but he’s against anti-gay marriage measures – how does that work?

Anyway, it just reminded me that I’ve been meaning to point out that “divisive” is the trendy tut-tutting put-down of this election cycle, used by all sides (so everyone’s united against divisiveness, because disagreement is icky). Newt Gingrich, for example, has used it against Obama’s comment that Trayvon Martin looked like his hypothetical son, and Romney against the Occupy movement.

Today -100: April 9, 1912: Of delegates, the elusive Christabel, and dead guards

The Louisiana Republican Convention excludes “several negroes who declared they were delegates”. Pro-Roosevelt delegates.

Christabel Pankhurst Rumor of the Day: Boston, she’s totally in Boston (she isn’t).

Headline of the Day -100: “Dead Man on Guard Over Insane Woman.”

Today -100: April 8, 1912: Of fighting senators, Mormons, and women in Turkey

Headline of the Day -100 (LAT): “Senator From Arizona Fights Negro.” Marcus Aurelius Smith (D), a new senator from the new state, beat up a hotel elevator operator who finished taking another passenger up when the senator wanted to be taken down.

The Mormon church comes out in support of Taft. So that settles that.

The British Daily Chronicle reports on the backlash against women’s rights in Turkey. Women were briefly encouraged to liberate themselves at least a little after the 1909 revolution, but some of those who, for example, stopped wearing the veil, have been beaten by their fathers, divorced by their husbands, etc. The government has also cracked down on women entering European shops without escorts, gatherings of women, etc.

Today -100: April 7, 1912: It’s a vagina, not a troop-carrier

Rep. William Francis (D-Ohio) introduces a bill to grant a pension to a Mrs. Sarah Brandon, 16 of whose children (out of, dear Christ, 33 total) fought for the North during the Civil War. She claims to be 114 years old.

More vigilante anti-Wobblie activity in San Diego: 5 masked men kidnap a pro-IWW newspaper editor, drive him 25 miles, and turn him loose in Escondido.

Today -100: April 6, 1912: Of the elusive Christabel and airboatmanship

Christabel Pankhurst Rumor of the Day: The NYT says that Christabel Pankhurst wasn’t on the Mauretania after all, but she was definitely spotted dining at the Hotel Majestic in NYC. Nope.

The captain in charge of the US Navy’s aviation dept says the word for the art of flying hydro-airplanes should be “airboatmanship.” So that’s that settled (this post will bring the total number of Google hits for the word airboatmanship to 3).

Today -100: April 5, 1912: Of cats, piles of skulls, fugitives, and forced flag-kissing

Germany is considering a tax on cats to pay for armaments.

President David Starr Jordan of Stanford University says that nations should be gentlemen and arbitrate their differences rather than go to war. He says that if the skulls of the victims of the Napoleonic Wars were placed together, the pile would be 31 times as tall as the Washington Monument, and 31,000 times as awesome. Okay, he didn’t say that last part, but it totally would be.

Christabel Pankhurst Rumor of the Day: The NYT reports that fugitive British suffragette Christabel Pankhurst has reached the United States and is living in NYC under an assumed name. According to a Major George William Horsfield, who claims to have spotted her aboard the Mauretania and seen through her clever disguise (a veil), “No one who has ever seen her aggressive-looking face, with its over-hanging black eyebrows, could make a mistake.” And yet...

Deputies and armed San Diegans meet a train on which 100 Wobblies were arriving and force them to kiss the American flag, then throw them out of the county into Orange County.

I think they take their responsibilities very seriously

Obama gave a speech yesterday to the Associated Press Luncheon.

BOY, THAT GUY’LL BE KIND OF FUCKED, WILL HE? HATE TO BE THAT GUY. “Whoever he may be, the next president will inherit an economy that is recovering, but not yet recovered, from the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression.”

“TOO MANY,” HE SAYS, BUT HE NEVER TELLS US HOW MANY IS JUST THE RIGHT NUMBER: “Too many Americans will still be looking for a job that pays enough to cover their bills or their mortgage. Too many citizens will still lack the sort of financial security that started slipping away years before this recession hit.”

AND LET’S FACE IT, WE DON’T MAKE ANYTHING IN THIS COUNTRY ANY MORE: “I believe this is a make-or-break moment for the middle class”.

ALSO, TRYING TO IMPRESS CHICKS: “I believe deeply that the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history.”

RUPERT MURDOCH? “Show me a business leader who wouldn’t profit if more Americans could afford to get the skills and education that today’s jobs require.”

THE ENTIRE ECONOMY? WHAT ABOUT THE CAR ELEVATOR BUSINESS? “What drags down our entire economy is when there’s an ever-widening chasm between the ultra-rich and everybody else.”

He says the “trickle down theory” has been tried and failed, and that Paul Ryan’s budget (he never mentioned Ryan by name) is “so far to the right it makes the Contract with America look like the New Deal.” He notes that Romney (he does invoke the Mittster’s name) called the Ryan budget “marvelous.” He calls it “a Trojan Horse” and “thinly veiled social Darwinism.” So it’s social Darwinism in a wooden horse which is wearing a veil.

OBAMA WANTS TO BE JUST LIKE REAGAN, IF ONLY THE REPUBLICANS WOULD LET HIM: “Ronald Reagan, who, as I recall, is not accused of being a tax-and-spend socialist, understood repeatedly that when the deficit started to get out of control, that for him to make a deal he would have to propose both spending cuts and tax increases. Did it multiple times. He could not get through a Republican primary today.” The deficit didn’t “get out of control,” Reagan and the Republicans cut taxes drastically on the rich, then pretended to be shocked at the increase in the deficit.

NOTE HOW HE ZOOMS RIGHT IN ON THE IMPORTANT THING ABOUT “SIGNIFICANT CHANGES TO ENTITLEMENT”: THE EFFECT ON DEMOCRATS’ POLITICAL INTERESTS. “I’ve got some of the most liberal Democrats in Congress who were prepared to make significant changes to entitlements that go against their political interests, and who said they were willing to do it. And we couldn’t get a Republican to stand up and say, we’ll raise some revenue, or even to suggest that we won’t give more tax cuts to people who don’t need them.”

He goes on to point out that all of his current positions are the past positions of Republicans: cap & trade, mandatory insurance, etc.


I DIDN’T LEAVE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, THE REPUBLICAN PARTY LEFT ME: “So as all of you are doing your reporting, I think it’s important to remember that the positions I’m taking now on the budget and a host of other issues, if we had been having this discussion 20 years ago, or even 15 years ago, would have been considered squarely centrist positions. What’s changed is the center of the Republican Party.” Although to be fair I don’t think they’d have liked the idea of a black president back then either.

WILLING? WE ARE TOTALLY SCREWED. “And that’s part of what this election and what this debate will need to be about, is, are we, as a country, willing to get back to common-sense, balanced, fair solutions that encourage our long-term economic growth and stabilize our budget.”

SO TOTALLY, TOTALLY SCREWED: “So I don’t anticipate the Court striking [health care reform] down. I think they take their responsibilities very seriously.”