Today -100: August 14, 1912: Of lynchings, funerals, and traps to catch the votes of discontented people

A mob seizes a 16-year-old black youth in Columbus, Georgia, after he receives a sentence of only three years for manslaughter of a white boy, and you know the rest.

Sing Sing set some sort of record for most executions in a day this week. And the bodies of five Italian men who were sent to the electric chair for a single murder are put on display at an entrepreneurial undertakers on Mulberry St. Everyone is welcome! Donations gratefully accepted.

Eugene Debs, in a letter to the NYT, says that the really progressive planks of the Progressive Party were stolen from the Socialist platform, but that the Bull Moose Party contains too many diverse and conflicting economic elements, and its platform is too much a hodgepodge, to form the basis of national party, and further, it depends too much on the personality of one man, who has “shrewdly seized upon the prevailing popular unrest and has baited his platform like a trap to catch the votes of the discontented people.” Gotta say Debs pretty much nails it.

Composer Jules Massenet dies.

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Sarah Palin is excited to hear voices

Sarah Palin won’t speak at the Republican Convention: “This year is a good opportunity for other voices to speak at the convention and I’m excited to hear them.”

People, Sarah, I know it’s hard to conceive of there being other people than yourself, but those would be people speaking, not voices.

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Today -100: August 13, 1912: Of women smokers, canals, bears, and opened mail

Woodrow Wilson’s wife Ellen repudiates a fake interview which claimed she endorsed women smoking. In fact, she denounces the practice as having “an extremely injurious effect on the nerves.” (The interview may in fact not have been fake, but an interview of a Mrs. Wilson Woodrow rather than Mrs. Woodrow Wilson. Mrs. Wilson Woodrow actually used to be married to a relative of Woodrow Wilson).

Nicaraguan rebels bombard Managua.

Rep. Theron Catlin (R-Missouri) is unseated and replaced by his Democratic opponent for having spent $10,200 on his election campaign, in violation of Missouri law restricting him to $662 (Catlin will run again in November, and lose).

Germany is threatening that if Holland doesn’t accede to its plans to take control of the Rhine river and impose high tolls, it will build a canal between Cologne and Emden to transfer the traffic currently going through Rotterdam to Emden.

Remember that bear cub given to Robert Taft by the Blackfeet? Another bear, possibly its mother, bit through the rope tying it to a tree and it escaped.

Robert La Follette, who has been investigating something or other in the Post Office system, says his mail has been opened. LA Times headline: “La Follette Seeing Things.”

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Today -100: August 12, 1912: Of firing squads, cows, and ringlings

Nevada gave prisoners who were sentenced to death the right to choose between hanging and firing squad, and Andriji Mirkovich chose the latter. But the warden can’t find five men to form the firing squad.

Woodrow Wilson comes out against prohibition but in favor of local option, and says such social and moral issues should not be part of party platforms.

Republican congresscritters, scared shitless that they might have to declare in favor of either Taft or Roosevelt, have found a loophole in an anti-corruption law forbidding congressional candidates from promising public offices in return for support. They say that means they can’t announce their support for T or R, which of course it doesn’t.

The NYT is endlessly fascinated with the participation of women in Bull Moose politics, including the naming of four women, one of them Jane Addams, to the National Committee. I’m waiting with some trepidation for the Times to realize that a female bull moose is called a cow.

The NYT says Hiram Johnson, Roosevelt’s running mate, will resign as governor of California. The LAT says he will not resign.

The sultan of Morocco plans to abdicate in favor of his brother, but France won’t let him until he publicly announces that he is doing it for health reasons, so no one thinks they forced him out.

A con man is arrested on the verge of marrying a Miss Grace Spence of Berkeley. He was impersonating, of all people, one of the Ringling Brothers. He was also in the middle of negotiating with the city of Venice, CA for a $25,000 bonus to locate the winter quarters of the circus there, but was found out when he bounced a check, one of many.

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It’s the granny-eyed zombie-starver, or something

My observations on the announcement of Paul Ryan: There’s something deeply weird about a chant of “Mitt Mitt Mitt Mitt.”

That is all.

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Today -100: August 11, 1912: Of funerals and massacres

Secretary of State Philander Knox is going all the way to Tokyo to attend the emperor’s funeral.

Turks massacred 140 Bulgarians, supposedly.

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Today -100: August 10, 1912: Of dirty and black-hearted liars, American bottoms, and canals

Headline of the Day -100: “‘Liar!’ Shouts Gov. Blease.” South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease, who does not seem to be running out of ways to call people liars, calls the person who says Blease was paid to steer the case of a millionaire wanted on a Tennessee warrant to a judge who would release him “as dirty and black-hearted a liar as ever disgraced a Christian state.”

The House passes the Wireless Bill, giving the federal government the power to license and regulate the airwaves. It includes a provision that wireless messages must only be given to those for whom they are intended.

The Senate passes the Panama Canal Bill, giving American ships free passage through the canal (when it opens), or as the NYT puts it, “From the beginning to the end it was evident that the Senate was bent on granting free passage to American bottoms.” This is a violation of the treaty under which the Canal is being built. Also, ships owned by companies which are in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act or the Inter-State Commerce Act or are owned by railroad companies will be banned from the canal.

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Note to Scott Brown

If you find yourself following the words “I want every legal vote to count” with the word “but”, you might want to stop right there and have a little think.

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Today -100: August 9, 1912: Of blown-up presidents

The Pope orders the Catholic Total Abstinence Union (meaning abstinence from booze – get your mind out of the gutter), currently holding a convention at Notre Dame, not to affiliate with the Prohibition Party.

The Haitian presidential palace and indeed the Haitian president Cincinnatus Leconte are blown to bits. Hundreds die. Maybe not a good idea to keep massive quantities of explosives in the basement.

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Today -100: August 8, 1912: A train robber is better than a public yeg

The Bull Moose Party nominates one Theodore Roosevelt for president and California Gov. Hiram Johnson for vice president. TR’s nomination was seconded by Jane Addams, the first time a woman performed such a role.

In Oklahoma County, the retired train robber Al Jennings, who was pardoned by President Roosevelt, wins a primary for the office of county attorney. He accuses the current “Court House gang” of embezzling $50,000. “A train robber is better than a public yeg” is his slogan.

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Today -100: August 7, 1912: Of bull moosers, burning houses, and bears

Roosevelt gives a speech or, as he insists on calling it, his confession of faith, to the Bull Moose convention (this may be the first time a presidential candidate of any party has given a speech at a party convention). Excerpt: “the fundamental concern of the privileged interests is to beat the new party. Some of them would rather beat it with Mr. Wilson; others would rather beat it with Mr. Taft; but the difference between Mr. Wilson and Mr. Taft they consider as trivial, as a mere matter of personal preference.”

He calls for standardized factory and mine inspection; standardized compensation for industrial accidents and death; a ban on the employment of women over forty-eight hours per week; a ban on the seven-day working week; the protective tariff (set “scientifically”); women’s suffrage (“In those conservative States where there is genuine doubt how the women stand on this matter I suggest that it be referred to a vote of the women”); court rulings to be subject to the “final control of the American people as a whole.”

In a supposedly impromptu deviation from the prepared text, TR goes into the whole negro question, saying that the negro delegates to Republican conventions for the last 45 years have been of such a character as reflected discredit on both the Republican Party and the negro race. Which I guess is supposed to justify excluding Southern negro delegates of whatever character from the Progressive convention. He notes that many northern states and even Maryland and West Virginia voluntarily sent black delegates, “because they represent an element of colored men who have won the esteem and respect of their white neighbors,” which is obviously the important thing. And by not forcing negroes on the South, we shall “naturally and spontaneously” see the Southern states do what Maryland and West Virginia did in the, you know, future.

The NYT calls TR’s program “a vast system of State Socialism, a Government of men unrestrained by laws. ... business would be regulated and controlled from Washington... he would teach the weak, the unfortunate, and the unemployed to look to the Government for relief.”

At the trial of suffragists for attempting to burn down the Theatre Royal in Dublin, Gladys Evans says she was encouraged to do so by the words of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (that is to say, a member of the Cabinet), C.E. Hobhouse, who said that the suffragettes would accomplish nothing until they begin to burn houses.

Robert Taft, son of the president, is given a bear by the Blackfeet Indians.

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Today -100: August 6, 1912: Of bull moosers

The NYT on the Bull Moose convention: “It was not a convention at all. It was an assemblage of religious enthusiasts. ... It was a Methodist camp meeting done over into political terms.”


Jane Addams of Hull House is a delegate at the convention and is not happy with its fucking-over of Southern blacks.

Oh, those Marines Taft sent to Nicaragua were sent at the request of the government. If you say so.

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Today -100: August 5, 1912: Dat jes’ makes me laff

Just for laughs, the NYT has been asking Southern politicians what they think of Roosevelt’s bifurcated policy of white supremacy in the South/asking for negro votes in the North. Rep. Ben Johnson (D-Kentucky) says it “makes me think of the old darky down in the Blue Grass region, who, when asked what he thought of a certain utterance, said, ‘Dat jes’ makes me laff.’” Southern politicians – always ready with a good “darky” story.

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That’s upside-down economics

Today, Obama gave a little speech on the subject of tax cuts.

And who was with him, you ask? “I am joined here today by moms and dads, husbands and wives, middle-class Americans who work hard every single day to provide for their families. And like most Americans, they work hard and they don’t ask for much. They do expect, however, that their hard work is going to pay off.” Wow, they just don’t understand America at all, do they?

What do they want to know? “They want to know that if they put in enough effort, if they are acting responsibly, then they can afford to pay the bills; that they can afford to own a home that they call their own; that they can afford to secure their retirement; and most of all, that they can afford to give their kids greater opportunity -- that their children and grandchildren can achieve things that they didn’t even imagine.” Or at least pierce body parts that they didn’t even imagine.

BUT HE DOESN’T SAY HOW MANY AMERICANS FEELING THEIR FINANCIAL SECURITY SLIPPING AWAY IS THE RIGHT NUMBER: “We’ve got more work to do on their behalf -- not only to reclaim all the jobs that were lost during the recession, but also to reclaim the kind of financial security that too many Americans have felt was slipping away from them for too long.”

WHO DOES ALL THAT REBUILDING? I’M GUESSING MEXICANS. “Rebuilding a strong economy begins with rebuilding our middle class.”

BUT HE DOESN’T SAY HOW MANY WORKING FAMILIES STRUGGLING TO MAKE ENDS MEET IS THE RIGHT NUMBER: “So, at a time when too many working families are already struggling to make ends meet”.

SO AMERICANS SHOULD GROW THEIR MIDDLES AND BOTTOMS? WAY AHEAD OF YOU, MR. PRESIDENT! “That’s not how you grow an economy. You grow an economy from the middle out, and from the bottom up.”

KINKY! “That’s not just top-down economics, that’s upside-down economics.”

WHAT WE CAN ARGUE ABOUT: “Let’s keep taxes low for 98 percent of Americans, and we can argue about the other 2 percent.”

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Today -100: August 4, 1912: With antlers on my forehead and a big stick in my hand

The NYT is surprised and fascinated and aroused by the number of women participating in the NY Bull Moose convention (one-fourth, they say). At any rate, its focus on the women allows the Times to treat the convention with all the condescension in its considerable arsenal. Mary Dreier, president of the New York Women’s Trade Union League (we’ve seen her before helping organize the shirtwaist-makers’ strike), is selected as one of 4 delegates.

The Bull Moose national committee is rejecting the credentials of negro delegates from the South in much the same way that the Republican convention rejected credentials of Roosevelt supporters. This would have been ironic, but I don’t think irony had been invented yet. In Florida, it seems that the party’s national committee told negro Roosevelt supporters that they should meet in St. Augustine – on the same day the state convention was being held in Ocala. In Mississippi they didn’t have to resort to a ruse, because they held the convention in a segregated hotel.

Here, by the way, is what seems to be the party song:

I like to be a Bull Moose
And with the Bull Moose stand,
With antlers on my forehead
And a big stick in my hand.

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Today -100: August 3, 1912: Of gunboats, harbors, black bull moose, and lepers

Revolution in Nicaragua, again. Taft sends a gunboat, as is traditional.

Remember the baseless panic about the Japanese supposedly secretly buying Magdalena Bay in Mexico? The Senate has voted to expand the Monroe Doctrine to oppose any harbor in the Western Hemisphere falling into the hands of any corporation or association connected to foreign powers (except for the US, of course). During the discussion, one (unnamed) senator suggested leveraging US claims for compensation for damage from the two Mexican revolutions to force Mexico to give us Baja California.

The only Bull Moosers that they could find in South Carolina willing to be delegates to the national convention were black. So... there will be no South Carolina delegates to the national convention. There will be competing black and white delegations from Miss., Alabama and Georgia.

Who knew so much of the talk about the new third party would revolve around race? Certainly not Theodore Roosevelt, who tries to explain how he’s really a great friend of the negro in a letter – and I swear to god I’m not making this up – to Uncle Remus Magazine. He says he’s in favor of treating all men the same. He says that in the South the Democrats have maintained their power by encouraging the hatred of the white man for the black, while the Republican machine has tried to perpetuate itself by stirring up the black man. In fact, it was the corrupt black delegates to the 1912 Republican convention, by “their own greed for money or office” (i.e., their support for Taft and the party establishment), who brought about the split in the party. And as long as the parties in the South exploit race in the way he describes, we can’t “secure what a future of real justice will undoubtedly develop, namely, the right of political expression by the negro who shows that he possesses the intelligence, integrity, and self-respect which justify such right of political expression in his white neighbor.” So anyway, the exclusion of negro delegates from the South from the Bull Moose convention is really for the benefit of negroes, the end.

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Leper Worrying Denver.”

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When Ann Romney says...

that a certain family member is “consistent and elegant,” “did not disappoint” and “thrilled me to death,” you can be pretty sure she is not talking about her husband.

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For those majoring in crazy and/or meatheadedness

If you were a student of one of these Southern Californian universities, I’m not sure which would be more worrying to read in today’s LA Times:

1) A pharmaceutical sciences professor at UC Irvine (his UCI faculty page only misspells pharmaceutical once) set several fires and planned to get “a dozen machine guns” to shoot up the high school attended by his son, who committed suicide.

2) USC will establish a think tank in association with well-known thinker Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sez the former governator, “It would be a shame to think what I learned from my governorship over seven years … ways of solving problems — will now be left behind and no one will benefit.” Yup, that would be a shame all right.

Oh lord, USC will make him a professor of state and global policy. And “The university is also in discussions with Schwarzenegger to house his personal collection at the institute.” Personal collection of what, the LAT does not explain. The mind boggles, really.

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Today -100: August 2, 1912: Of race and progress

Blacks in Mississippi hold their own Bull Moose convention separate from the white convention and elect their own delegates to the Chicago convention.

Roosevelt sanctions the exclusion of negro delegates to the national “Progressive” Party convention from the Southern states, but he tries to position it as a principled position, to prevent a situation like that at the Republican Convention, where black delegates from the Democratic South represented no one, there being no functioning R party there, and were used as fodder by the national party establishment. There will be black delegates from the North, he says, a fair number of them in fact.

At the White House, Taft gives a speech accepting the nomination. He is against socialism. I mean, if you were wondering about that. He admits that certain douchebags have accumulated “ill-gotten wealth,” but says the best way to deal with this is “to await the diminution of this evil by natural causes”. He says Wilson and Roosevelt’s policies both lead to “appropriation of what belongs to one man to another.” He is also against Progressive reform of political institutions, because the American people are too lazy to handle referenda and recalls and so on.

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Today -100: August 1, 1912: Of third parties and Prince Alberts

The nascent Bull Moose/Progressive Party is looking to be an ill-thought-out mess. The problem is that it’s not clear whether it’s intended to be simply a vehicle for Roosevelt’s ambitions or a real third-party, and until that’s clear few people are willing to commit to it. The man the party intended to run for attorney general in Illinois, for example, State Sen. Albert Isley, refuses to run, saying there is no need for a third party.

Former House Speaker Joseph Cannon pops in to the White House offices to ask if he needs to wear his Prince Albert to the ceremonies notifying Taft of his re-nomination. Um, right.

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