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Meat riots in Chicago. Which sounds like a funny way of describing the Republican convention, but no, it’s actually rioting over the high price of meat.
Sen. Francis Newlands (D-Nev.) proposes a “white plank” for the Democratic platform: a constitutional amendment to disenfranchise all black people and ban all non-white immigration.
Republican delegates are arriving in Chicago, marching from the railway station to hq behind bands which only seem to know “Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here” or “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.”
William Jennings Bryan, covering the convention for many newspapers, notes that “The Taft men, excepting the Southern delegates, are as a rule of the conservative type. They speak more deliberately and show less animation. Many of them are politicians of long experience who have been accustomed to the methods of the inner circle. They speak cautiously, act deliberately, and are more inclined to ‘view with alarm’ than to enthuse. They feel that things have been going along fairly well, and are anxious that such changes as are necessary may be made ‘slowly and only after careful investigation.’ The Roosevelt men, on the contrary, are largely of the aggressive type. They have already decided matters and have no doubts to settle. They are not waiting for investigation and are not weighing reforms in apothecary scales.”
For the first time, the Socialist Party will be on the ballot in every state.
The Canadian Supreme Court rules that Quebec can’t make mixed marriages between Catholics and Protestants illegal if performed by a Protestant (but not a Catholic) priest.
The head of the negro rebellion in Cuba orders all foreigners in areas under his control to leave or be hanged.
Taft campaign director McKinley says Roosevelt’s followers are trying to “sweep delegates off their feet by bluff, bulldoze, and bluster.”
The LA Times describes the California delegation, arriving in Chicago for the convention, as “screaming protests” at the unseating of their delegates from the 4th Congressional district (in violation of California election law).
The RNC has finished adjudicating contested convention seats, deciding 19 seats for Roosevelt and 235 for Taft, including those named by all-white conventions in Virginia. The NYT says that the Taft delegates from the South who were approved by the RNC are “decidedly of a better type” than the rejected Roosevelt delegates, but complains that the Southern states are represented at all, since those states are “hopelessly Democratic, where the actual Republican vote is very small, and where it is made up almost altogether of the weaker of the two races”; this is “bad for the negroes, for the Republican Party, and for the whole country. At home the negroes suffer from the bitterness of political feeling.”
Arriving in Chicago, Roosevelt tells the crowd greeting him, “It is a fight against theft, and the thieves will not win!”
The Perth Amboy strike may be near an end, following numerous shootings and other violence (Gov. Woodrow Wilson refused to send in the militia, and claims he can’t find any strike leaders to deal with personally). One of the demands of the strikers is an end to the system by which men who worked more than 24 days in a row at the foundries got a bonus. Sentences of 6 months or a year have been handed out to strikers for throwing stones or “inciting to riot,” but the guards and/or deputies who shot down two strikers yesterday remain at large, although the prosecutor admits the shooting was illegal without the Riot Act having been read.
The Texas attorney general’s office rules that married women aren’t eligible for public offices that require bonds because married women can’t execute valid bonds unless they go through a lengthy legal procedure to remove coverture.
The NYT condemns a recent bit of naughtiness by British suffragettes, saying “The right to vote will never be secured through disorderly conduct.” When has it been secured through anything else?
Headline of the Day -100: “Only The Kaiser Can Blow This Horn.” Evidently no one is allowed to copy the sound of Kaiser Bill’s car horn, which “differs from any other signaling instrument in the world in that it consists of four or five distinct tones, blended into a harmonious whole, which produces more the effect of an operatic recitative than a prosaic blast”.
The RNC today awards 14 more disputed delegates to Taft, none to Roosevelt.
More accusations of bribery between the Roosevelt & Taft camps, related to negro delegates from the South. No need to get into the details, but it arises because it is “traditional” to pay the traveling expenses of these (usually poor) negroes.
In Virginia, Taft is trying to build up a whites-only Republican party to counter-balance Roosevelt-supporting black Republicans. Both sides are trying to scrounge up delegates from the South, where they don’t have to worry so much about the feelings of the rank and file Republican party members, because there basically aren’t any. Roosevelt is actively courting negro Taft delegates to switch their votes.
Taft issues a denial that he is considering stepping aside in favor of a compromise candidate, a fairly remarkable statement for a sitting president to have to make.
Rumors (reported as fact) that VP Sherman, who is not at all well, will not run again this year.
Name of the Day -100: A NY judge is marrying a Miss Beatrice Biddle.
San Diego police buy 20 rifles but deny it has anything to with the IWW.
Romney a speech on the economy in which he criticized Obama for giving a speech on the economy: “He’s doing that because he hasn’t delivered a recovery for the economy.” “Talk is cheap,” Romney says. While talking. Cheaply.
He said he’d build the Keystone pipeline “if I have to build it myself”. It’s good to have a hobby.
Then Obama gave his economic speech. It was very much a campaign speech, explicitly defining itself against the Romneybot and the Republicans. It didn’t, for example, ask Congress to do anything before November.
COMPLETE AGREEMENT ACHIEVED! “there’s one place where I stand in complete agreement with my opponent: This election is about our economic future.”
WHAT THIS ISN’T: “Now, this isn’t some abstract debate.” Really? Because Romney’s economic plans are based entirely on abstract ideology. Also, Barack, what’s so wrong about have having “some abstract debate”? Ideas are good. Ideas are your friend.
It’s not only not some abstract debate, it’s also “not another trivial Washington argument.” It’s “a make-or-break moment for America’s middle class”.
WHAT NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN: “And while there are many things to discuss in this campaign, nothing is more important than an honest debate about where these two paths would lead us.” Oh good, nothing is more important than an honest debate, because I’m sure an honest debate is just what we’re going to get. Honest debate, woo hoo.
THE RETURN OF IN OTHER WORDS: “In other words, this was not your normal recession.”
THE CRISIS OF 2008: “So recovering from the crisis of 2008 has always been the first and most urgent order of business”. “The crisis of 2008” is probably a good phrase for him.
MAN, WE CAN’T AFFORD ANYTHING ANY MORE: “We can’t afford to jeopardize our future by repeating the mistakes of the past”.
BUT YOU’LL TELL US WHEN IT IS TIME TO GO BACK TO A GREATER RELIANCE ON FOSSIL FUELS FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES, RIGHT? “Now is not the time to go back to a greater reliance on fossil fuels from foreign countries.”
BUT YOU’LL TELL US WHEN IT IS TIME TO SADDLE AMERICAN BUSINESSES WITH CRUMBLING ROADS AND BRIDGES, RIGHT? “now is not the time to saddle American businesses with crumbling roads and bridges”.
BUT YOU’LL TELL US WHEN IT’S TIME TO GO BACK TO TAKING ON OUR FISCAL PROBLEMS IN A DISHONEST, UNBALANCED AND IRRESPONSIBLE WAY, RIGHT? “And finally, I think it’s time we took on our fiscal problems in an honest, balanced, responsible way.”
WHO’S SAYING THAT? ARE ANY CANDIDATES FOR ANY PUBLIC OFFICE SAYING THAT? “And let me leave you with one last thought. As you consider your choice in November -- (applause) -- don’t let anybody tell you that the challenges we face right now are beyond our ability to solve.”
In its story about the Michigan legislator not allowed to speak after using the word “vagina” during the debate on abortion restrictions, ThinkProgress says “Republicans sought to gravel down the women.”
ThinkProgress of course meant to say gaveled down.
But I like it.
I therefore propose the immediate introduction of the phrase “graveled down” into our political discourse.
That is all.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.”
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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....?
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.
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?
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.
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.
