Today -100: June 14, 1912: Of Hatfields & McCoys

RNC hearings continue, give Roosevelt a few delegates, for once. Lots of debate about whether party conventions at the congressional district level were held without notice and whether negroes and Roosevelt supporters were ejected from Mississippi conventions.

The Republican candidate for governor of West Virginia is a Dr. Henry Hatfield, as in Hatfields & McCoys (evidently the feud is over and the McCoys will work for his election).

Window-smashing by suffragettes in Dublin.

The Socialist mayor of Schenectady appoints Helen Keller to the Board of Public Welfare.

Today -100: June 13, 1912: Of saturnalias of fraud and larceny

The RNC gives another 40 contested seats to Taft and none to Roosevelt, including 2 in California, simply disregarding the California primary law, because RNC rules are “supreme.” (This was the first ever presidential primary in California. When the Progressives came to power, they decided to go with principle over party machinery and enacted a primary law that awarded delegates based on the proportion of votes in the state as a whole. The Taft side accepted this, because it would give them some power, and Taft himself gave written approval to his list of delegates, as required by the law. But when he lost badly, his side claimed that party rules required that delegates be awarded by district, then claimed to have won two districts by a small margin, which is literally impossible to determine, since some precincts crossed district lines. Got it?) Gov. Hiram Johnson refuses to go before the committee to argue against the decision, saying it would be “an insult to the people of California were I to appear in a trial of the title to stolen property, with the thief who stole it sitting as Judge.” Sen. Dixon of Montana says the RNC is presiding over a “Saturnalia of fraud and larceny”. The Arizona primaries were also basically ignored in awarding that state’s delegates.

In a statement denouncing the RNC, Roosevelt says that the opponents of the Republican bosses are not the “irregulars” and would not be “bolting” the party, as the common usage would have it, but vice versa. He points out that the Taft majority on the RNC comes from territories (Alaska, the Philippines, etc) which don’t have a vote, states with very few actual Republicans, and states where Taft was rejected in the primaries.

Roosevelt finally comes out unequivocally in favor of a women’s suffrage plank in the party platform.

175 Mexican federales and rebels are killed in a battle in the Mormon colony – the battle that caused the Romneys to flee back to the US.

Striking Hungarian and Slav workers take over Perth Amboy, NJ after the companies bring in strikebreakers and guards, who shoot at the strikers.

The kind of healthcare they deserve

Romney gave a speech on health care today: “I believe that states have responsibility to care for people in the way they feel best.” Doesn’t the phrase “in the way they feel best” strip that “responsibility” of all content whatsoever?

Of course the real solution is to “get health care to act more like a consumer market”. Isn’t it adorable how a profit-based, capitalist approach is called a “consumer market”?

Worried about pre-existing conditions after he repeals Obamacare? “We’re gonna have to make sure the law we replace Obamacare with assures that people who have a pre-existing condition, who’ve been insured in the past, are able to get insurance in the future so they don’t have to worry about that condition keeping them from getting the kind of healthcare they deserve.” Don’t you feel “assured” by that? I mean, wouldn’t you feel assured if you could figure out what the hell it meant? Also, when health care acts more like a consumer market, people won’t get “the kind of healthcare they deserve,” they’ll get the kind of healthcare they can afford. I guess for Romney, having money and deserving the things money can buy are the same thing.

Today -100: June 12, 1912: Of adjournments and discredited bosses

Rep. Robert Wickliffe (D-LA) is run over by a train. A resolution to adjourn the House out of respect was being read out when suddenly someone realized that the congresscritter’s wife was in the gallery, and hadn’t been informed yet that she was a widow. Someone took her to one side and explained it.

Today for the first time, the RNC decided a disputed national convention delegate in Roosevelt’s favor. And awarded 17 more to Taft. Of the disputed seats decided so far, that’s 101-1.

Daily Telegraphy

News you can abuse, from the world’s foremost “news”paper:

London Mayor Boris Johnson (ah, this will be on tonight’s Daily Show) offers New Yorkers freaked by Bloomberg’s “soda tyranny” refuge in London.

Incidentally, if Johnson is interviewed by Jon Stewart instead of by John Oliver, a great opportunity for comedy will have been lost.

Woollen coffins?

One Ray Dolin, hitchhiking the US while writing a book called “The Kindness of America,” is shot in a drive-by in Montana, because of course he is.

Embarrassing Death of the Day: A South African man wearing his dead dog’s leash around his neck – as a tribute and certainly not for any kinky reasons, whatever makes you think that – got into his car without noticing that its end was sticking out the door. It got caught in his front wheel and snapped his neck as he reversed out of a restaurant. “Police captain Stanley Jarvis confirmed that police are not treating the incident as hilarious suspicious.”

And, of course, the story that David Cameron accidentally left his 8-year-old daughter in a pub (right after his government launched a “troubled families” initiative)(the Telegraph doesn’t mention that, but does interview social workers who say, yeah, you’d normally make a couple of calls after something like that to see if everything was all right in the home).

Today -100: June 11, 1912: Of reassuring warships, conspiracies, and turkey trots

Unconvincing Headline of the Day -100: “Havana Reassured as Warships Arrive.”

As the RNC decides yet more disputed delegations to the party national convention in favor of Taft supporters, Roosevelt writes in The Outlook that Taft’s people are “conspiring to steal the victory from the people.”

The Senate votes for an Army appropriations bill that includes a provision ousting the current chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood. Not sure what they have against him.

Headline of the Day -100: “Dies After a Turkey Trot.”

Today -100: June 10, 1912: Of warships, wretched palterers in chicane and corruption, and the mighty Mississippi

The US is now sending two warships to Cuba, without having informed Cuba in advance.

The NYT says that the RNC’s rejection of all of Roosevelt’s contested delegates demonstrates a plot to buy the presidency for Roosevelt, a plot which has failed “because of the utter incapacity of his miserable agents. Had their skill been equal to their, and his, unprincipled audacity, if instead of being wretched palterers in chicane and corruption they had been competent in crime, men thoroughly schooled in the higher branches of political villainy, the picture now presented to the eyes of the Nation in Chicago might have been very different.” (In another editorial a couple of days ago I didn’t link to, the NYT dismissed the primaries, in which TR beat Taft’s ass like a flabby drum, as a failed experiment, because turnouts were so low that clearly most people would rather just leave the selection of their presidential candidate to the party bosses.)

Pro-Roosevelt Gov. Walter Stubbs of Kansas says “It is just as reprehensible to steal delegates as it is to steal sheep or horses.” And that’s pretty darn reprensible.

The Mississippi has been flooding. Roosevelt says if he’s elected president, he’ll put a stop to that.

Today -100: June 9, 1912: Of sinister plots and kaiser hands

Anti-negro riots in Cuba.

Sen. Knute Nelson (R-Minn.) claims that the insurrections in Cuba and Mexico are financed by American owners of businesses in those countries, trying to provoke annexation. Which is one way to get around the sugar duty.

The Republican National Committee is in the process of deciding every single contested national convention delegate seat in favor of Taft supporters.

Cruel Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Kaiser’s Hands Strengthened.”

Doing fine

Obama held a press conference today.

NOW IN MISLEADING COMPARISONS THEATRE: “The fact is job growth in this recovery has been stronger than in the one following the last recession a decade ago.”


He complained that Congress (i.e., Republicans in Congress, but he didn’t say that) “left most of the jobs plan just sitting there. ... They’re not just my ideas; they’re not just Democratic ideas -- they’re ideas that independent, nonpartisan economists believe would make a real difference in our economy.” After 3½ years in office, he still believes that the opinions of “independent, nonpartisan economists” hold some sort of sway. Isn’t that adorable?

No, no it isn’t.



TO THE MERKEL-PHONE, CHIEF O’HARA! “We have been in constant contact with Europe over the last -- European leaders over the last two years”.

DOIN’ FINE: “we’ve created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone. The private sector is doing fine.”

Later in the day, at an event with whichever member of the Aquino dynasty is currently ruling the Philippines, he was forced to address the issue of whether the private sector was, in fact, actually doing fine: “Listen, it is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine. That’s the reason I had the press conference.” Obama 2012: Fixing The Economy One Press Conference At A Time.

SO STOP SPECULATING, OR HE WILL TOTALLY DRONE YOUR ASS: On the NYT killer flying robot story, he claimed that “my attitude has been zero tolerance for these kinds of leaks and speculation. ... The notion that my White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive. It’s wrong.” So that settles that.

Today -100: June 8, 1912: Of treaty obligations

Secretary of State Philander Knox informed Cuban President José Gomez that if he continued to fail to protect American nationals and their property from the negro rebellion, the US would be compelled, yes, compelled under its treaty obligations to intervene. 5,000 more troops are ordered into readiness to be transported to Cuba to act in accordance with American treaty obligations with extreme prejudice.

Jullus Kovacs, a member of the Hungarian Diet (rather unnecessarily described as a member of the opposition), shoots at Count Tisza, the president of the Chamber, who has been making a practice of having the police throw obstructive opposition MPs out of the chamber. Kovas misses Tisza with his three shots, then shoots himself in the head.

Today -100: June 7, 1912: Of lynch mobs & railroads, last interventions, colonial problems, and opium panics

The Supreme Court is reviewing a lawsuit brought by one Annie May Rogers against the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific Railroad Company. Her husband was accused of killing a Mr. Brown but was going to be released, due to double jeopardy, so Brown’s brother got together a lynch mob and hired a special train to take it from Monroe to Tallulah, Louisiana, where they lynched Rogers. Jumping ahead to 1914, we see that Mrs. Rogers got $7,000 from the railroad.

Cuban President José Gomez takes to the field personally against the negro rebels, afraid that if the army takes too long to defeat them, the US will invade and annex Cuba. Evidently one cause of Cubans’ refusal to believe that the US doesn’t intend to do this is an old comment by Roosevelt when he was president that “the next intervention will be the last.” Another is the Platt Amendment, in which Cuba was only granted “independence” if it “agreed” that the US could intervene whenever it felt like it.

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “FRANCE’S COLONIAL PROBLEMS.: The Wild Tribesmen of Morocco Are Difficult to Handle, War Being a Diversion to Them.” #1stWorldInvading3rdWorldProblems

Other Headline of the Day -100: “Panic in Opium Market.” Hey, you know what would take the edge off that panic....?

Today -100: June 6, 1912: Of primaries and torture

Roosevelt wins the South Dakota primary, which is the last primary of 1912. Only 12 states held primaries. Roosevelt won 9 of them, with landslides in 8.

The Presbyterians accuse Japan of torturing Korean Christians.

Today -100: June 5, 1912: Of pure political brigandage

Headline of the Day -100: “Brigands, Roosevelt Cries.” Taft is given Ohio’s delegates-at-large to the national Republican convention by the state convention, despite his humiliating electoral defeat. This, says Roosevelt, “is, of course, pure political brigandage.... fresh and conclusive proof that Mr Taft and his advisors care nothing for the will of the people”.

At the convention, Former Lt. Gov. Warren G. Harding speaks for Taft and is hissed. He complains that he was never hissed before. “Harding attempted to quote the words of the Saviour on the Cross, but was hooted down. ‘You will all repent of your sins,’ were the speaker’s closing words.”

The NYT does a better job today of explaining the spreading unrest in Belgium, which is a response to the defeat of a Liberal-Socialist alliance in the recent elections by the Clericals, who want more public money for Catholic schools. The Liberals were persuaded to add universal male suffrage and abolition of plural voting (extra votes for education qualifications and fatherhood) to their platform. Also, there’s a Flemish/Walloon element to the conflict.

LAT Headline: “COLORED MAN LIVES CENTURY.: Pomona Darkey Rounds Out One Hundred Years With Celebration and Expresses High Hope.” High hope that he won’t be called a pejorative name by a newspaper on his 100th birthday? That he’ll live to 106 so he can live as a free man for as long as he lived as a slave?

Today -100: June 4, 1912: Of angry Belgians, race wars, and clean senators

Republicans in the newest state, Arizona, hold competing Taft/Roosevelt state conventions.

Helpful Foreign News Headline of the Day -100: “Belgian Workmen Angry.” Liège gendarmes shoot up a meeting in front of the Socialist Club, killing 3. The anger has something to do with a strike and an election.

President Gomez asks the Cuban Congress for the power to suspend the constitution in order to take severe measures to strike terror into the colored race (I’m not sure if that’s a paraphrase or what). See, and we worried when we liberated Cuba from the Spanish that they wouldn’t be able to learn from us, but clearly they have. So the US will be selling the Cuban government 5,000 rifles and 1 million rounds of ammunition.

The French kill 600 Moroccan tribesmen, because why not. Hey, France, define “protectorate.”

Headline of the Day -100: “$6 to Bathe a Senator.” Evidently the Senate Office Building baths are really quite posh and expensive to maintain.

Today -100: June 3, 1912: Of Rodins

Auguste Rodin is being denounced for supporting L’après-midi d’un faune. There is also some debate over whether it’s worth it for the state to accept Rodin’s offer that if he is allowed to live rent-free at the Hôtel Biron (the current location of the Rodin Museum) for the remainder of his life, he will bequeath the state his sculptures.

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.