Today -100: May 25, 1912: Of terrorists, vigilantes, limousines, and negro elks

Taft campaign manager Rep William McKinley (R-No Relation and Stop Asking Already) says Roosevelt and his supporters “will resort to every known means to terrorize the Chicago convention.”

The chief of police of San Diego claims that the IWW has armed men in town, who were chosen by lot to assassinate the mayor, district attorney, police chief, etc.

The LA Times’ support of the anti-IWW vigilantes in San Diego was totally in character, but I’m a little surprised at the NYT also doing so.

Every year, students at Dickinson College are collectively assessed a charge for damage to school property during the session. Students angry at an increase in the charge this year to $1.95 each, stone the dean’s house in protest. Getting their money’s worth, I guess.

The limo of Max Blanck, one of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company’s two owners, hits two children in two separate incidents on the same day. The same chauffeur was driving both times, but one time he was driving Max and the other time his wife. Both instructed him not to tell the other, but they found out when a reporter came to ask about one of the incidents, and hilarity ensued – “Do you mean to say you had an accident and didn’t tell me of it?” “Well, you didn’t tell me of your accident either, did you?” It’s like a really crappy episode of a really crappy sitcom, starring Max Blanck as the lovable scamp who should have been in jail for manslaughter instead of tooling around New York.

Headline of the Day -100: “Negro Elks Restrained.” A black fraternal lodge is enjoined from using the name Elks.

Today -100: May 24, 1912: Of battleships, ever victorious Italians, and muck

Democrats in the House refuse to include funds to build new battleships in the Navy budget.

Riots and a general strike in Budapest over the postponement of a bill for universal male suffrage end when the government reverses itself.

In Libya, the Italians have been dropping leaflets from airplanes telling the Arabs that they should surrender because Italy is totally winning the war, which “indicates that God is the protector of the Italians. As for the Turks, they have the habit of lying, and they will tell you that these things are not true. But we swear that all these things are true.” Other letters assure the Arabs that “the ever victorious Italians” consider them as their own children. Children that they will drop bombs on, “annihilating you and your domestic animals” but “take refuge with us and you will be treated with kindness.”

The US is sending 700 marines and some gunboats to Cuba because of the “negro uprising,” supposedly just to protect Americans (and American-owned property, naturally).

The NYT explains that while negro Cubans performed well in the fight to overthrow Spanish rule and were thwarted in their desire for their share of public offices and whatnot after independence, “The plain truth is that Cuba had to decide whether she would be a black or a white republic, and a black republic meant in time another Haiti.” The NYT doesn’t mention this, but the proximate cause of this rebellion is a law banning the negroes from forming a race-based political party.

Headline of the Day -100: “Urge Prussia to Keep Muck.” That’s conductor Karl Muck, who plans to move from Germany to Boston to take up the directorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Today -100: May 23, 1912: Of undoubtedly pure motives

Women’s Social and Political Union leaders Emmeline Pankhurst and Emmeline and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence are sentenced to 9 months for conspiracy to break windows. The jury recommended leniency on the grounds of the “undoubtedly pure motives underlying the agitation,” but Lord Chief Justice Coleridge ignores them.

Today -100: May 22, 1912: Whereas Taft is round in the middle

Theodore Roosevelt wins the primary in Ohio, Taft’s home state (TR 165,809, Taft 118,362, LaFollete 15,570). Taft was counting on the black vote but didn’t get it. Ohio Gov. Judson Harmon beats Woodrow Wilson in the Democratic primary. D. voters could actually vote for the candidate they preferred, while R’s had to vote for delegates, with nothing printed on the ballot indicating who they supported. The Taft people tried to put large banners near polling places listing Taft delegates, some of which were torn down. The Roosevelt people (including election officials) handed out cards.

Prince George of Cumberland dies in a car accident. This will evidently end the Guelph claims to the throne of Hanover. Whatever.

Today -100: May 21, 1912: Marching on the swampy ground of trickery and humbug

At the London conspiracy trial of Women’s Social and Political Union leaders, Frederick Pethick-Lawrence (treasurer) says the true conspiracy was that of the Liberal Cabinet, who were not open to listening to reason and argument: “The methods of the politician were the methods of trickery and chicanery. For two years they went on in a constitutional way, but they were marching on the swampy ground of trickery and humbug.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Roosevelt Drinks Too Much Milk.” The Tafties have been spreading a rumor that Roosevelt’s a booze-hound. He insists he’s never had a martini or highball in his life.

Negro uprising in Cuba!

Albert, King of the Belgians, is suing a newspaper for reporting various rumors about his private life, including one that Queen Elisabeth caught him in flagrante with a chambermaid, pulled out a revolver and shot her dead. Evidently that’s not true.

Today -100: May 19, 1912: Here you are, boys; start at once

Roosevelt has discovered that Alphonso Taft, the president’s father, was one of the people trying to get Grant a third, non-consecutive term as president in 1880. If that doesn’t prove that Roosevelt deserves another term, nothing does.

The NYT graciously refrains, unlike some, from calling Theodore Roosevelt insane: “We decline to throw the charitable mantle of insanity over Col. Roosevelt. He is as sound in mind as any other calculating and unscrupulous demagogue.”

The lord mayor of Belfast, R.J. McMordie, tells Parliament that 300,000 young men in Northern Ireland have armed themselves. He complains that Parliament is ignoring this state of affairs in passing the Home Rule Bill, saying “Here you are, boys; start at once.”

The LA Times on the tar & feathering of Ben Reitman: “Lynch law is to be deplored, but it is sometimes better than no law at all. ... Maybe he got on the whole about what was coming to him.”

Baseball news: the Detroit Tigers walk off at the beginning of a game to protest the suspension of Ty Cobb, who last week went into the stands to beat up a spectator –- a crippled man missing one hand and several fingers on the other hand. Rather than face a $1,000 fine for forfeiting, the manager recruited a whole new team from the spectators, who lost to the Athletics 24-2. Naturally, everyone in Detroit supports Cobb. Mayor William Thompson says “Cobb was perfectly right in resenting with his fists insulting remarks from the stands. The fan who insulted Cobb deserved what he received.”

Today -100: May 18, 1912: Debs-Seidel 1912!

The British court of inquiry into the Titanic sinking interrogates survivors, including Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff-Gordon, over whether they and other passengers had objected to the suggestion that their lifeboat row back and pick up more survivors. Which it didn’t, they say.

The Arizona Legislature is discussing a bill to segregate public schools (or possibly just remove black children altogether from any school attended by white children, the LA Times isn’t clear). During the debate, Rep. A. G. Curry calls the Speaker a “nigger lover” and is removed.

The Socialist National Convention nominates Eugene Debs for president and former Milwaukee Mayor Emil Seidel as his running mate. The party also adds to its constitution a commitment to women’s suffrage and a provision for the expulsion of any member who advocates violence or sabotage by the working class.

Philipp Scheidemann, Socialist Reichstag deputy (and future Weimar chancellor), points out that the kaiser’s threat to incorporate Alsace-Lorraine into Prussia (“smash the constitution of that province into fragments” is how he delicately put it) is “a momentous confession” that being part of the Prussian state is “the most severe punishment that can be inflicted upon a people – a punishment like imprisonment and the forfeiture of civil rights.” The Conservatives storm out of the chamber in protest.

LA Times headline: “Iron Hand Used to Stop Misconduct of Vagrants.” Or to put it another way, vigilantes are threatening (“resumed their programme of ‘friendly advice’”) anyone who posted bond for IWW members arrested for making speeches in the street, in an attempt to get their bails revoked. The vigilantes will also read all articles proposed for the two pro-IWW newspapers and decide if they get to print them.

Today -100: May 17, 1912: The elector’s bullet is his ballot

The London Times reports that in the conspiracy trial of Women’s Social and Political Union leaders in Britain, Emmeline Pankhurst’s lawyer, the Irish Nationalist MP Timothy Healy, quotes... someone... saying “the days are past for rioting” because people have the franchise now. “Formerly, when the great mass of the people were voteless they had to do something violent to show what they felt; today, the elector’s bullet is his ballot.” Obviously, Healy points out, this doesn’t apply to women, who are therefore perfectly justified in breaking a few windows. Then he reveals that he was quoting the attorney general, Rufus Isaacs, who is prosecuting the case but was temporarily out of the room.

The anarchist Ben Reitman (Emma Goldmans’ manager) describes how he was grabbed by vigilantes in San Diego, taken into the desert, and tortured. Pretty horrific stuff. The Citizens’ Committee (i.e., the thugs responsible) try to stop the publication of the IWW-friendly San Diego Herald and Labor Leader and threatens every printer in town in an attempt prevent news of the vigilante violence being publicized. Reitman is trying to get warrants sworn out against his kidnappers from L.A., but the San Diego Under Sheriff says he’ll ignore any warrants not sworn out in SD, where Reitman is understandably reluctant to set foot again.

The Mexican government buys three airplanes to use in their war against the Orozco rebels.

Today -100: May 16, 1912: Of men on horseback, dead kings, red flags, and puzzlewits

Sen. Boies Penrose (R-PA) is thrown by his horse, spooked at the sight of a steamroller (Penrose “departed from his back parabolically”). His elbow is bruised. What I’m saying is, 100 years ago senators still rode around Washington D.C. on horseback.

More on the death of King Frederik VIII of Denmark: he died of apoplexy while walking alone on the street in Hamburg (in the Goose Market). Unrecognized and without i.d., he spent five hours in the municipal morgue.

The new king is Christian X, which sounds like a Black Muslim who is painfully unclear on the concept.

The Austrian prime minister, Count Karl von Stürgkh, goes suddenly blind. It is said to be hopeless, but I think not.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee reports out favorably the McCall resolution for an international ban on war for the acquisition of territory. (Elsewhere in the NYT, an editorial deplores the Democratic proposal to grant independence to the Philippines eight years from now, whether “the people are ready and fitted for it and wish it” or not.)

Spokane follows Seattle in banning red flags being carried in parades, requiring all such parades to be headed by an American flag, twice the size of any other flag, and also bans IWW street meetings.

Competing Taft and Roosevelt conventions were held in Washington state (after Roosevelt delegates, even uncontested ones, were thrown out of the state convention)(or so they say), and will each try to get their delegates seated at the National Republican Convention.

I must have missed it, but Roosevelt called Taft a “puzzlewit.”

Today -100: May 15, 1912: Of spectacular candidates, crooks, red flags, and dead kings

Roosevelt wins the California primary, on a low turnout, coming in first in every county but San Joaquin, where La Follette wins. The NYT blames TR’s strong showing on women, voting in their first presidential election in the state, saying they “voted for the spectacular candidate.” Champ Clark wins the D. primary with more than twice the number of votes as Woodrow Wilson.

In Steubenville, Ohio, Roosevelt denies the class warfare charge: “I preach hatred toward no class except the class of crooks – political crooks or financial crooks, big crooks or little crooks. Even then I do not preach hatred of the crook himself, but of his crookedness.”

Mexican President Madero is “highly elated” over Gen. Huerta’s victory over the Orozco rebellion. So that’s okay then.

Seattle bans the carrying of any flag (i.e., the red flag) other than that of the United States. All parades must be lead by an American flag no smaller than 54 X 66 inches.

King Frederik VIII of Denmark dies on a visit to Germany. He is best known for the song “I’m Freddy the Eighth, I Am, I Am,” probably.

Today -100: May 14, 1912: Of amendments, dancing, outrageous romantic lying, and honeyfugling

The Senate Judiciary Committee votes for a Constitutional amendment changing the presidency to a single 6-year term. Yes, it’s aimed at Roosevelt (the NYT editorializes that the notion of a president not being eligible for re-election must have gained “great multitudes of conversions” in the last month). One argument against the amendment is that the American people should be forced to pay attention to public business more often than sexennially.

The House passes a resolution in favor of another Constitutional amendment, for the direct election of senators. It includes a provision for federal supervision of elections, which Southern racists, i.e. the entire Southern delegation, oppose, joined by only two Republicans, Knowland and Kahn, for equally racist (anti-Japanese) reasons.

Italy has succeeded in closing off the Aegean, preventing Turkey sending ships & troops to Libya.

Paraguay defeats a rebellion led by ex-President Alvino Jara, who is killed.

The Methodist church’s conference decides against allowing dancing.

George Bernard Shaw writes to the Daily News against the “explosion of outrageous romantic lying” by journalists and others about the Titanic to fulfill the narrative demands of “romance in a shipwreck,” which filled news reports whether true or not. These demands: That the captain must be a superhero, “a living guarantee that the wreck was nobody’s fault”. “Such a man Captain Smith was enthusiastically proclaimed on the day when it was reported that he had shot himself on the bridge, or shot the first officer, or been shot by the first officer, or shot anyhow to bring the curtain down effectively.” “The officers must be calm, proud, steady, unmoved in the intervals of shooting the terrified foreigners.” Everybody must face death without a tremor, though in reality the crew didn’t tell the passengers that the ship was sinking to prevent a panic, and the band was ordered to play Ragtime to reassure the passengers.

Arthur Conan Doyle naturally responded in the same paper a week later, singing paeans to those very romantic demands. The officers did do their duty and Shaw “tries to defile the beautiful incident of the band by alleging it was the result of orders issued to avert panic.” Shaw responded “there is no heroism in being drowned when you cannot help it.”

Your Old-Timey Vocabulary Word of the Day (from a Taft speech in Ohio): honeyfugle. To deceive or swindle.

The contrasting features of both genders

In 2004, Twitt Romney testified to Congress against gay marriage: “The children of America have the right to have a mother and a father.” It’s always bizarre when social reactionaries use the language of “rights,” isn’t it? “Of course, even today, circumstances can take a parent from the home, but the child still has a mother and a father. If the parents are unmarried or divorced, the child can visit each of them. If a mother or a father is deceased, the child can learn about the qualities of their departed parent. His or her psychological development can still be influenced by the contrasting features of both genders.”

The contrasting features of both genders. I’ve said this before: homophobia is a subset of sexism.

Today -100: May 13, 1912: Of wet corpses, butt missions, duels, and horse thieves

The Titanic’s bodies are still being recovered, four weeks after the sinking.

President Taft thinks “there is a conspiracy for the purpose of arousing religious prejudice against me.” Specifically, anti-Catholic prejudice, with claims that Taft is favoring the Catholic church. Taft himself is a Unitarian, but there were rumors that Major Butt was in Europe on a mission from the president to the Vatican (sub-hed for this story: “‘Butt Mission’ a Falsehood”) and that Taft wired congratulations to the new Apostolic Delegate, both of which he denies. But he did countermand an order by the Indian Commissioner banning nuns wearing their habits when teaching in Indian schools.

Theodore Roosevelt sweeps the Minnesota primaries.

In a duel in Hungary, one of the duelists accidentally chops off the hand of one of the seconds, who didn’t get out of the way fast enough when the duel started.

Italy extends the franchise to illiterates (over the age of 30).

I seem to have missed a story last week where the San Diego police killed Joseph Mikolasek, an IWW member (who came after the cop with an ax, if the LA Times and the SD police are to be believed, which they probably aren’t)(Update: a quick Google search tells me that Mikolasek was either 1) shot by cops in his own home, 2) shot down in front of IWW hq, or 3) died in jail. Thanks a lot, Google). Anyway, the IWW plans a procession (with the body) to protest the death, tomorrow. But today, the grand marshal is arrested as a horse thief.

Today -100: May 12, 1912: Of senators, serial killers, red flags, automobile brigands, dueling, and unwanted Canada

The House will vote next week on a constitutional amendment for the popular election of US senators. But evidently 9 Pacific Coast congresscritters will vote against it in exchange for Southerners voting against abolishing the mints at San Francisco and Carson City.

Remember the Atlanta Jack the Ripper? Just killed his 20th black woman, or “comely yellow girl,” as the NYT puts it.

Indianapolis Police Superintendent Martin Hyland bans red flags from tomorrow’s socialist parade (there’s a, um, National Socialist Convention).

The NYT claims the Paris automobile bandits (or “automobile brigands” – we don’t use the word brigand enough these days) are actually anarchists.

The German Reichstag’s Budget Committee asks the chancellor to wipe out the practice of dueling in the army.

Headline of the Day -100: “Roosevelt Denies He Wanted Canada.”

Today -100: May 11, 1912: Of yellow perils, veterans, draft riots, and dancing

The Dillingham Immigration Bill, passed by the Senate but not the House, would add a literacy requirement for male immigrants, and, they’ve just noticed, would probably accidentally remove the enforcement mechanism for the exclusion of Chinese, because Chinese immigrants would now only have to carry the same papers as other immigrants, not ones with their picture, as under previous racist immigration laws, which also provided for immediate deportation of any Chinese immigrant found without their papers on them, and it would abolish the provision that they prove, by the testimony of two white witnesses, that they were in the country legally before the first Chinese exclusion act of 1892.

The House votes 175-57 for pensions for every Civil War veteran 62 and older (I guess former child soldiers are screwed) who served at least 3 months. An amendment to segregate negro veterans in separate but no doubt equal old soldiers’ homes was defeated 137-43. The 43 were all Democrats.

Charles Appleby, 88, is suing the city of New York for damages to his property, the Hotel Allerton, which was burned down during the draft riots of 1863 (plus 50 years’ interest).

The barber of severe conservatism

Today -100: May 10, 1912: Of black perils, home rule, imperious ambitions, vanities, and mysterious antipathies, and ham strikes

South African Prime Minister Louis Botha announces there will be a commission into the “black peril.”

The Irish Home Rule Bill passes its second reading in Parliament 372-271.

There is a rumor that Theodore Roosevelt plans to be a delegate at the Republican National Convention.

Secretary of State Philander Knox, in a speech in L.A., says Theodore Roosevelt is a man “prompted by whims” and of “imperious ambitions, vanities, and mysterious antipathies.” And your point is? He attacks TR’s “new nationalism” as an assault on the autonomy of the states that might lead to a new civil war. Knox was Roosevelt’s attorney general (inherited from McKinley).

A white man is sentenced to hang (and his brother to life imprisonment) for killing a black man in Alabama. Huh. Didn’t think that was illegal in Alabama.

Headline of the Day -100: “Crew Strike for Ham.” The crew of the United Fruit Company’s steamship Admiral Farragut wanted ham instead of corned beef.

Two things I haven’t figured out about Mitt Romney yet

1) How intelligent is he? Smarter than George Bush, dumber than Barack Obama, sure, but where in that large gap does he fall? Part of the problem is that he’s so conventional in his thinking that it can barely be said to be thinking at all. And he says a lot of stupid things, but they generally arise from his narrow experiences, even narrower circle of acquaintances, and a complete lack of empathy rather than from faulty thought processes per se.

2) Why does he want to be president? The thought that he feels his privileges oblige him to give something back to his country is too ludicrous to be entertained, he seems too smugly self-satisfied to be haunted by the daddy issues that motivated GeeDubya, and he doesn’t have an agenda he’s burning to impose on the country. Sure, he wants to lower taxes on his rich friends, but does he seem like someone who would go this far out of his way for the benefit of his friends?

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I’ll give Obama one thing on gay marriage: he has ensured, I think, that he will be the last Democratic presidential candidate to oppose gay marriage.

Because it’s all about him

Obama: “for me personally it is important for me to affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

North Carolina’s long proud history of being stupid

North Carolina banned white people marrying blacks or Indians in 1715 and again in 1875 (blacks being defined as those with at least 1/4 black blood). Just for the hell of it, blacks were banned from marrying Indians in 1887.

NC was the only state to file a brief in support of Virginia’s anti-miscegenation laws in Loving v. Loving in 1967.

NC finally legalized interracial marriage in 1977 (technically the ban was invalidated by the Supreme Court in Loving, but it remained on the books until the state enacted a new constitution in 1971. The 1977 law recognized the legal validity of interracial marriages not recognized by the previous laws.

What is legal in NC: 14-year-old girls marrying. If they’re pregnant.