Today -100: April 27, 1912: He means well, but he means well feebly

In history-repeats-itself news, 1) the ocean liner Empress of Britain hits an iceberg, but isn’t badly damaged, and 2) in a re-run of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, 25 people jump from a burning factory in the Bowery; one hits head-first and dies.

Theodore Roosevelt responds to Taft’s speech: “It is a bad trait to bite the hand that feeds you.” [Insert fat joke here]. He seems especially pissed that Taft released his 1907 letter ordering his attorney general to postpone anti-trust actions against the International Harvester trust as well as cordial personal, private letters TR had sent Taft in 1910-1, which Taft is releasing to show that TR didn’t always think he was a big ol’ loser. TR says by this action Taft has been not only “disloyal to our past friendship, but has been disloyal to every canon of ordinary decency and fair dealing”. “Such conduct represents the very crookedest kind of a crooked deal” and for Taft to say he had not been disloyal is “the grossest and most astounding hypocrisy.”

He accuses Taft of a “quality of feebleness, yielding to the bosses and the great privileged interests,” although he concedes “I do not think Mr. Taft means ill; I think he means well. But he means well feebly, and during his administration he has been under the influence of men who are neither well meaning nor feeble. It is this quality of feebleness in a normally amiable man which pre-eminently fits such a man for use in high office by the powers of evil.”

The Missouri Republicans will send rival Taft & Roosevelt delegations to the national convention.

Secretary of War Stimson says he plans to equip the army with 120 airplanes, including 8 in Hawaii, 8 in Panama and 16 in the Philippines.

The Japanese administration in the colony of Korea is trying 82 Koreans for attempted assassination of the governor-general. It says the bombs they planned to use came from Russia and China via American missionaries.

Last year, Taft vetoed the Arizona statehood bill because the territory’s prospective constitution included the recall of judges. Well, now AZ is a state and can do what it likes and an amendment for recall has passed the Legislature (unanimously in the lower house) and been signed by the governor.

Today -100: April 26, 1912: Sometimes a man in a corner fights

Taft made several campaign speeches in Massachusetts, going negative on Roosevelt, reluctantly, or so he claims: “This wrenches my soul... I do not want to fight Theodore Roosevelt, but then sometimes a man in a corner fights.” Roosevelt, he says, can’t be trusted because he promised never to run for president again (which is arguable), and that if he considers himself so indispensable now, he might continue to do so and can’t “safely be intrusted with successive presidential terms.” He complains about TR’s “appeals to discontent and class hatred” and accuses him of distorting Taft’s words and taking them out of context. He says that if there was fraud in the NY primaries as Roosevelt says, the courts are open to him to seek redress. He also denies Roosevelt’s attempts to link him with the corruptly elected Sen. Lorimer of Illinois, TR’s charges that his supporters have been fired from patronage jobs (they have), and other charges, in a point-by-point rebuttal.

Taft also gave an address to a dinner of newspaper publishers, by telephone (they were in NY, he was in Boston). They each had to listen on their own receiver. Also addressing them telephonically were the prime minister of Canada, the actor Lewis Waller, who read Kipling’s “If” to them, and José Collins, who sang to them, and a couple of women whose phone conversation leaked through the line while the prime minister was trying to speak.

Another Republican convention, another fight. In Pulaski County, Arkansas (which includes Little Rock). The nephew of the chairman of the county Republican organization was hit over the head with a tomato can by one of the Roosevelt supporters trying to gain admission to the convention. This was followed by a general melee.

Venice inaugurates the Campanile of San Marco. I had no idea that the current Campanile was a replica (the old one fell down in 1902), only a couple of years older than the replica on the UC Berkeley campus.

Titanic Butt Headline of the Day -100: “Students to Honor Butt.” Oh, Titanic Butt headlines, how we’ve missed you! (Elsewhere in the paper, a near miss for another Titanic Butt Headline when Taft sends an army major to Halifax to look at the recovered bodies and see if one of them is Maj. Butt: “Taft Orders a Search.” They could have gone with “Taft Orders a Search for Butt,” but no.)

Love Story or Whatever of The Day -100: A German dude, J. Paul Schabert, in Reno to get a divorce, hears that his wife was on the Titanic and was rescued, abandons his divorce suit and races to New York where they are reconciled.

Today -100: April 25, 1912: Where do icebergs come from?

The House of Representatives votes 81-25 to allow the Territorial Legislature of Alaska to vote on women’s suffrage. The House divided almost exactly on North-South lines. An unfortunately unnamed congresscritter interrupted Victor Berger’s pro-suffrage speech to ask whether, if women had the same rights as men, they would they have the same privileges as they did on the Titanic. Berger says they would, because women are more important to the race than men.

Taft wins the Republican conventions in Iowa and Rhode Island.

Taft sends to the Senate letters Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his attorney general in 1907 ordering him to postpone anti-trust action against the International Harvester company.

The NYT blames the outbreak in Fez against Morocco’s new French masters on “the blind loathing of the Mohammedan masses for all Christians”.

The city editor of the Spokane Chronicle is shot dead by a crazy Russian, who said too much had been printed about the Titanic. He also claimed to have been on the Titanic, which he wasn’t.

The British are beginning to get annoyed at the US Senate’s decision to arrogate to itself the power to investigate the sinking of a British ship. The London Times notes that the questions have been rather ignorant and aimed at finding someone to pillory (although I’m sure everyone was charmed by Sen. William Alden Smith [R-Mich.]’s questions to Fifth Officer Lowe, “Where do icebergs come from?” and “Of what is an iceberg composed?”)

A very Hope-y Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day

Another year, another wishy-washy presidential statement on “Armenian Remembrance Day,” as he calls Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, because he failed to remember the genocide. HI-larious! Armenian Remembrance Day could be the day we all remember some random Armenian, possibly one of the Kardashians.

As is traditional with these statements, the passive voice abounds. 1.5 million Armenians “were brutally massacred” – I guess by person or persons unknown – and they “senselessly suffered and died”. He says “My view of that history has not changed,” but he doesn’t remind us what that view of that history is, for those who came in late, i.e., sometime in the last four years. He suggests that “Moving forward with the future cannot be done without reckoning with the facts of the past. The United States has done so many times in our own history, and I believe we are stronger for it.” Yes, if there’s one thing Americans are known for, it’s reckoning with the facts of the past.

In fact, Obama doesn’t even reckon with the facts of the present, since he “commit[s] to bringing a brighter future to the people of Armenia” but fails to mention the status of the Armenians remaining in Turkey and elsewhere.

“Although the lives that were taken can never be returned, the legacy of the Armenian people is one of triumph.” So that’s okay then.

Today -100: April 24, 1912: Of presidents fighting back, Moroccans fighting telegraph operators, and binoculars

This must be at least the third time I’ve seen a story along these lines: the Cabinet urges Taft to fight back against Roosevelt. Among other things, they want him to release some of TR’s correspondence. Taft is about to make some campaign speeches in Massachusetts (which will have its first ever primaries this year) and this is actually something new: it’s unprecedented for a sitting president to campaign openly for re-election.

Taft wins the New Hampshire primary. This is the first presidential primary ever held in New Hampshire and indeed in New England.

Moroccans are evidently not so happy with their new “protectorate” and attacked and killed a bunch of French soldiers in Fez. There have been stories running for days about the four brave French telegraph operators who held off their attackers for hours before being killed (it’s all very Rudyard Kipling but, you know, French). The Jewish quarter of Fez was set on fire, as is traditional.

More bodies are recovered from the wreck of the Titanic.

The Titanic’s lookout tells the Senate’s Titanic hearings that the ship might have been saved if he had been given some binoculars.

These guys toughed it out

Here’s the thing about Barack Obama. He can look just as solemn and intense staring at a souvenir football, as he did this afternoon,


as he can when staring at an eternal flame at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, as he did this morning.


So today he met Elie Wiesel and other Holocaust survivors, and also the Fighting Falcons, and gave speeches to both. See if you can tell which excerpts are from which speech:

And most of all, we are honored to be in the presence of men and women whose lives are a testament to the endurance and the strength of the human spirit -- the inspiring survivors.

Even when they were dogged by injuries, this team pulled together when it mattered most.

These guys faced a brutal schedule, but they never backed down.

despite all the tanks and all the snipers, all the torture and brutality unleashed against them, the Syrian people still brave the streets.

As Coach Calhoun said, “This group had a warrior spirit in them.”

To stare into the abyss, to face the darkness and insist there is a future -- to not give up, to say yes to life, to believe in the possibility of justice.

These guys toughed it out

So God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

and God bless Air Force.

Today -100: April 23, 1912: Of Bram Stoker, waifs, and rioting Zionists

Bram Stoker dies. The two articles about him in today’s NYT mostly refer to him as Henry Irving’s theatrical manager. Dracula is mentioned only in a list of his writings (unless you count the comment that “his stories, though they were queer, were not of a memorable quality.”)

More Titanic waifs. A different two “waifs” than those in yesterday’s story. Two French children, Louis and Lolo, roughly 3-4, may be the children of a French woman whose estranged husband kidnapped them after telling friends he was going to America. Ship officers, enforcing the “women and children” first rule, evidently kept the kids’ father from entering the lifeboats. That rule certainly created a lot of widows and orphans.

Virginia Brooks is elected president of the Board of Education of West Hammond, Ill. (which is now Calumet City) “after scenes of violence, during which her women supporters all but drowned one political foe and administered beatings to others.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Zionist Riot Over Smoking.” That is, residents of Zion City, Illinois, a planned community built a few years ago by a faith healer in association with his Christian Catholic Apostolic Church. Smoking is banned in the town, but some “crusaders” learned that factory workers were smoking, so they formed a posse to escort those workers forcibly to view the “no smoking” signs. The workers resisted and... now, “Every person in Zion City owning a revolver carried it to-day. Others paraded the street with pieces of lead pipe.”

Today -100: April 22, 1912: Of compromise candidates, the excessive pursuit of luxury, and waifs

Justice Charles Evans Hughes sends reassurances to President Taft that he won’t accept the Republican nomination for president as a compromise candidate.

And a former Texas land commissioner, A.J. Baker, announces his candidacy for vice president for the Democrat party. Evidently people did that then.

Cardinal Gibbons, the Archbishop of Baltimore, blames the Titanic sinking on “the excessive pursuit of luxury.”

Tear-Jerking Titanic Headline of the Day -100: “Seek Waifs of Titanic.”

There are no funny headlines about Archibald Butt today. Let the national mourning begin.

Today -100: April 21, 1912: War is right and peace is wrong

The White Star Company is keeping the Titanic crew members who testified before Congress under guard aboard the Celtic. They have been told they’ll be fired if they talk to the press. A NYT editorial denounces the crew’s ill-preparedness for the fact that so many of the lifeboats were launched with only a few people in them.

In addition to the much-vaunted “chivalry” of the men, such as Astor, who died so that women & children could live (a subject under some discussion by British suffragists), there has also been praise for the women who refused to let that policy turn them into widows and chose to stay with their husbands to the end.

Titanic Butt Headline of the Day -100: “Pope Mourns for Butt.” Runner-up: “Official Praise of Butt.”

A petition signed by many German academics, lawyers, military men, scientists, etc, has been sent to Russia, denouncing the notion of ritual murder by Jews.

Roosevelt wins West Virginia’s county-level primaries.

Headline of the Day -100: “War Is Right, Peace Wrong, Says German General.” Friedrich von Bernhardi, author of “Germany and the Next War,” a best-selling (in Germany) bit of warmongery. Sadly, Gen. Bernhardi did not die in Germany’s next war.

Some French dude invents a motorless, hand-cranked airplane.

The revolution in China seems to have made little difference to the occupation in Tibet (yet another sentence that applies to Today or Today -100). The Chinese army is using machine guns to mow down thousands in Lhasa.

Today -100: April 20, 1912: Of suffrage in Arkansas, Mormons, the Nevada & Oregon primaries, immigrants, and the Titanic hearings

The proposed women’s suffrage amendment to the Arkansas state constitution for which suffrage groups are circulating petitions is so worded as to apply the “grandfather clause” in order to disenfranchise black women.

The Daughters of the American Revolution condemn Mormonism, saying that Mormon missionary work is another form of white slavery.

Roosevelt wins the Nevada Republican primary, by a lot. Champ Clark wins the Democratic primary, followed by Harmon, then Wilson. TR and Woodrow Wilson win the Oregon primaries.

The Senate passes the Dillingham Immigration Bill, requiring that every male immigrant be literate. Unlike earlier versions of the bill, Canada is not exempt. An amendment to exclude all negro immigrants loses 28-25. An amendment for the deportation of aliens conspiring to overthrow other government (i.e., Mexico) passes. Chinese will of course continue to be excluded.

Steamship lines have agreed to take more southerly, but longer, routes in the future.

The Senate is already investigating the Titanic sinking. It’s been focusing on how many of the lifeboats were launched with only a few people in them. It heard from J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Company, who was onboard as a passenger and who has been taking a lot of shit – and I mean a lot of shit – for still being alive.

Titanic Butt Headline of the Day -100: “Butt Was Tireless in Helping Women.” Runner-up: “Roosevelt’s Praise for Butt.”

Today -100: April 19, 1912: Of plain bribery and corruption, and waving farewells

Taft’s campaign manager Rep. William McKinley (no relation) asks if “the lavish expenditures of money” by Roosevelt supporters is responsible for his victories in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. “Plain bribery and corruption,” he calls it, claiming that they spent between $250,000 and $500,000 in Pennsylvania.

Italian warships bombard two Turkish forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles.

They finally have the numbers: 1,595 went down with the Titanic, 745 survived. Which isn’t what Wikipedia says.

Titanic Headline of the Day -100: “Col. Astor Went Down Waving Farewells to His Bride.”

Onboard the Carpathia, women Titanic survivors raised $7,000 for needy survivors.

Poetical Titanic Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “The Carpathia’s Arrival: Like Pall Bearers at a Shadow Funeral Tugs Clustered Around the Ship of Sorrows.”

Titanic Survivor Names of the Day: Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff-Gordon.

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

Outside of officially sanctioned purposes

According to an Army spokesmodel, “It is a violation of Army standards to pose with corpses for photographs outside of officially sanctioned purposes.” Ya know, that kind of raises the question what officially sanctioned purposes require posing with corpses.

Today -100: April 18, 1912: Of survivors, reservations, and the high priestess of red anarchy

The Carpathia has been in only spotty wireless communication, so the names of 300 of the survivors (and therefore by process of elimination the names of all the dead) are unknown.

Taft sends his secretary of commerce and labor to New York to take charge of the immigration inspection of the Titanic survivors. NYC Mayor Gaynor has offered housing for any steerage passengers who need it. The Cunard Company (owners of the Carpathia) and the city of NY will make sure reporters and photographers don’t get near the survivors.

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

The New Mexico Legislature is asking Congress to let white people (well, non-Navajos, but we know what they really mean) settle in the Navajo Reservation. Also, they’re pretty sure there’s gold and silver on the land, and they want that too.

An issue in the Texas gubernatorial race is Confederate pensions. Gov. Colquitt is accused of not being as supportive of them as he should be.

From the peerlessly objective LA Times: “Emma Goldman, the high priestess of red anarchy, and recognized leader of American nihilism, is to play ‘Joan of Arc’ – with her own interpretation of the role of Maid of Orleans – to the tattered army of I.W.W. malcontents boiling like some ill-smelling cauldron on the outskirts of San Diego.” (The LAT also likes to call the IWW the “I Won’t Works.”)

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.