Today -100: June 2, 1912: Of constitutions and lecherous fauns

The Ohio Constitutional Convention votes to put 42 constitutional amendments before the voters, including women’s suffrage, popular election of US senators, the initiative and referendum, and limiting saloons to one per 500 people.

Nijinsky’s ballet L’après-midi d’un faune (Afternoon of a Faun), based on Debussy, opens in Paris to great scandal, because of, you know, the leotards and the sexy. Le Figaro denounces it on the front page as “neither a pretty pastoral nor a work of profound meaning. We are shown a lecherous faun, whose movements are filthy and bestial in their eroticism, and whose gestures are as crude as they are indecent.”

Today -100: June 1, 1912: Of suing for peace, daiquiris, and wild men of Borneo

Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti says he’d be perfectly happy if Turkey “sues for peace,” as long as it agreed to Italian sovereignty over Libya. “Italy in her might has hitherto been merciful, but her patience is nearly exhausted.”

Some at the University of Michigan are worried that discriminatory treatment of its Hindu students, who have been refused service at restaurants and hotels in Detroit and Ann Arbor, will drive them to Harvard and Yale, where Indians are treated as Aryans rather than as negroes.

Cuban President Gomez “consents” to US Marines and a gunboat guarding mining companies at Daiquiri, like he had a choice in the matter. In fact, the US seems to have informed him of this by a telegram from the American ambassador (ending “My Government adds explicitly that this should not be considered as an intervention,” which I think means, We don’t care who wins your stoopid civil war, we just want the iron).

“Plutano,” one of the “Wild Men of Borneo,” from P.T. Barnum’s freak show (actually mentally disabled dwarf strong men from Ohio), dies at 92 (or 85-ish, according to Wikipedia).

Today -100: May 31, 1912: Get him a nurse and a perambulator

Wilbur Wright dies of typhoid fever at 45.

There’s some nonsense about a memo from then-President Roosevelt about some architectural alterations to the White House being “permanent during my lifetime,” which some people are claiming means he envisioned making himself president-for-life, or something. TR says this can only be “heeded by men with brains of about three guinea-pig power.” He’s not wrong.

Headline of the Day -100: “Talk of Imperialism Annoys Roosevelt.” At Gettysburg for a Memorial Day speech, TR says that just like the talk by “foolish people” after the Civil War about the North establishing a dictatorship, so too if any man talks about Roosevelt making himself a dictator, “get him a nurse and a perambulator.”

Possibly needing an especially sturdy perambulator, Taft, making his Memorial Day speech at Arlington, says the Civil War was all about preserving the limitations of the Constitution and popular representative institutions, by which I assume he means no one serving a third presidential term.

US Marines will guard mines in Cuba.

Today -100: May 30, 1912: Of lepers and falling window-washers

Headline of the Day -100: “Back Porch for Leper.” Health authorities will let a leper in Bay City, Michigan stay in his own home, but he has to build a new back porch, stay off the front porch and not leave his property. His wife will stay with him and be similarly quarantined, but their four children can’t live with them.

Headline of the Day -100, Runner Up: “Hurt by Falling Workman.” A window-washer fell from the 8th floor of a Chicago office building onto a Rev. Henry Heck (!) breaking his ankle. The rev’s ankle, that is. The window-washer died, although that part didn’t make the headline, and his name didn’t make it into the story. Priorities.

Today -100: May 29, 1912: Of feeble Republicans, sleeping Roosevelts, machete-wielding Cubans, and the kaiserin’s hats

In Texas, it’s the Taft supporters who split from the main Republican state convention to hold their own. Usually it’s the other way around.

Theodore Roosevelt easily defeats Taft in the New Jersey primaries. The NYT is very, very disappointed: “The Republicans of New Jersey must be accounted a feeble folk.”

Election Headline of the Day -100: “Roosevelt Sleeps at Ease.” But wakes up carrying a big stick.

NJ Gov. Woodrow Wilson also wins his primary.

There’s a small push, which will go nowhere, to nominate Robert Lincoln, son of the president (and a critic of Roosevelt’s), as Republican candidate for president.

The Senate concludes its investigation into the Titanic disaster. Votes $1,000 for a gold medal for the captain of the Carpathia. Votes a spanking (they’ll leave actual punishment to the British authorities) for the captain of the California, which ignored the Titanic’s distress signals, and for the late Capt. Smith of the Titanic, and for the White Star Line’s executives for ordering insufficient lifeboat drills, and for Leonardo DiCaprio, “who knows what he did.” The report calls for various reforms in ship safety: more lifeboats, life preservers, etc etc.

The State Dept explains to Cuba: “If a commander of an American force now on the island sees or hears of a Cuban holding his machete over the head of an American, he certainly is not going to enter into negotiations with Cuba nor question Washington as to whether he shall stop it or not.”

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Kaiser Buying Hats for Wife Called Good Omen.” The Temps (Paris) thinks that a monarch who chooses his wife’s hats himself isn’t preparing for war.

Today -100: May 28, 1912: Of lynchings, the restless and the reckless, frothing reds, and Dutch necks

Taft responds to Cuban President Gomez’s cablegram, insisting that he didn’t intend to intervene in Cuban affairs, this time. Still sending the Marines, though.

A black man is lynched in Robertson County, Tennessee; shot 100 times.

The NYT wants Republicans in at least one primary, that of New Jersey tomorrow, to not vote for Roosevelt. “It would be unjust and untrue to say that all of Mr. Roosevelt’s followers are revolutionists, that all of them are dangerous radicals. But it is true that the unstable, the ignorant, or the half-informed, the restless and the reckless part of our political society is to be found in the Roosevelt ranks. Are the men of substance and soberness going to let the party they have so long and so loyally sustained be destroyed by what Mr. Roosevelt correctly describes as the ‘crowd’? ... The conservative Republicans have acted this year as if they had lost interest in their party.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Frothing Reds Leave in Irons.” The LA Times gloating over the deportation of two foreign IWW activists, Abraham Joseph Dumont and Albert Wilson.

Confusing Headline of the Day -100: “Dutch Necks Forbidden.” Some sort of fashion thing, and Western Union employees can’t wear them.

Today -100: May 27, 1912: Of marines, smart sets, and pie

Cuban President José Gomez protests against the US sending Marines, and anyway we can kill our negroes without any gringo help, thank you. He has also refuses an offer of aid from 500 American cowboys.

Theodore Roosevelt, writing in The Outlook, notes that in the 11 states that had primaries, Taft received only 48 delegates out of the 324 selected and has only won victories in states “where the party is in control, not of the people but of the bosses.” So a Republican national convention that nominates Taft “would have to defy the will of the voters.”

The San Diego police have told the LAT that many fugitives are taking refuge in the unwashed ranks of the IWW forces converging on SD, including safecrackers, murderers, burglars, and hold-up men.

1912 sports news: The NY Giants arrive in Paterson for a game and are horrified to find that the team they were scheduled to play is a negro team, the Smart Sets. After arguing about it for a while, they finally agreed to play, although their pitcher, Louis Drucke, insisted on being announced by a different name. After various displays of ill temper, the Giants stormed off the field during the 10th inning (tied at 3-3). Their bus was surrounded by the crowd, which threw things at it.

1912 nutrition news: The New York Medical Journal says that pie is good for you.

Some great conspiracy

David Cameron: “Some people are saying there was some great conspiracy between me and Rupert Murdoch to do some big deal to back them in return for support. Rupert Murdoch has said that’s not true, James Murdoch has said that’s not true, I have said that’s not true. There was no great conspiracy.” So that settles that.

Today -100: May 26, 1912: How can a man speak of the questions of the day when a prizefight is going on?

One of Theodore Roosevelt’s guards is run over and killed by TR’s car in Atlantic City after he fell off its running board. Meanwhile, Taft is driving around New Jersey at speeds of up to 70 mph.

In Elizabeth, NJ, Roosevelt says Taft can’t win the popular vote and can’t win over the Republican national convention either without “deliberate cheating,” i.e., refusing to sit TR delegates.

Woodrow Wilson asks, “How can a man speak of the questions of the day when a prizefight is going on?” How indeed.

2,000 people help lynch a black man in Tyler, Texas. They make him confess to attacking a white woman, then set him on fire, as is the custom.

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.