Today -100: August 25, 1912: Of general deficiencies, campaign contributions, a byword and cause for hissing, and duels

Congress was supposed to adjourn for the year, but instead is deadlocked on the General Deficiency Bill. And I’m not going to read any more of the article than that, because the reality of whatever a General Deficiency Bill is just would not, could not match up to any of the ideas of what a General Deficiency Bill might be that are going through my head.

One thing the Senate is doing: discussing campaign finances. Or, to put it a another way, Republicans are trying to accuse trust-buster Roosevelt of having been aware of campaign contributions Standard Oil made to the Republican Party in 1904, and that he then ordered Standard prosecuted as a monopoly because it refused to give even more money. This is all nonsense, and as near as I can figure, the R’s are trying to raise the issue just enough that it’ll tarnish TR without holding a full inquiry that would exonerate him. TR is demanding that he be allowed to testify, sharpish. Threats of libel suits are winging back and forth. John Archbold of Standard, who made these charges, has conveniently gone on vacation in Europe.

South Carolina Sen. Benjamin Tillman asks voters not to re-elect Coleman Blease, who he says has disgraced South Carolina “and its good name made a byword and cause for hissing.” That’s “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman saying that.

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Fatal Duel Fought With One Revolver.” They took turns. One is dead, the other will probably die too.

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Today -100: August 24, 1912: Of canals, plots, and Balkan wars

Taft will give in to the Senate and sign the Panama Canal Bill, violating various treaties by exempting American ships going from one US coast to the other from the toll. Britain will then demand arbitration under its treaty with the US, which the Senate will reject on the grounds that the Canal is a domestic issue.

6 IWWers arrested for an alleged plot to blow up a theater in San Diego and assassinate the chief of police and captain of detectives.

Turkey is fighting Montenegro (which was more or less a country).

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Today -100: August 23, 1912: Darn the government, darn the socks

Headline of the Day -100: “Suffragists To Darn Socks.” Minnesota suffragists at the state fair. Bring your socks, fellas. Oh, and there’s a “war cry”:

Darn the Government; darn the socks;
That’s the way to the ballot box;
Patch the holes in hubby’s hose,
March to the polls and voice our woes.

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Today -100: August 22, 1912: Of dying veeps

The US sends more troops to Nicaragua to protect American-owned property.

Vice President James Sherman makes a speech accepting the Republican nomination for vice president, against doctor’s orders. This was the only time the Republican Party had ever re-nominated a VP, and he happens to be dying. He grumps that everything in this new age is going too fast, with the frenzied speech and the “automobiles rac[ing] to carry their passengers to death at a mile a minute” and that Titanic. I guess that’s meant to refer to Roosevelt. He also says that Wilson is a pedant not a statesman.

The Bull Moose Party will run Dr. A. O. Zwick against Rep. Nicholas Longworth, Theodore Roosevelt’s son-in-law. But what will Alice do?

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Today -100: August 21, 1912: Of Sally generals and bandstands

“General” William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, dies at 83.

Indiana Gov. Thomas R. Marshall is officially informed of his nomination as Woodrow Wilson’s running mate at an event at which 75+ people are injured when a bandstand collapses.

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A rape is a rape is a rape, to quote Gertrude Stein

Mitt Romney used stronger language – “reprehensible,” “terrible mistake” – against Kevin Yoder’s skinny-dipping than he did against Todd Akin’s legitimate rapeiness.

By the way, I’m not sure why, but “yoder” seems like the perfect word, if one were needed, for someone who gets drunk & swims naked in the Sea of Galilee.

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Obama held a short surprise press conference today.

He explained, “Rape is rape.”

He denied accusing Romney of being a felon.

MAN, HE IS SO NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THIS ELECTION CAMPAIGN: “They can run the campaign that they want, but the truth of the matter is you can’t just make stuff up.”

NOTHING IS MORE “OVERLY PERSONAL” TO MITT ROMNEY THAN HIS MONEY: “The American people have assumed that if you want to be President of the United States, that your life is an open book when it comes to things like your finances. I mean, this isn’t sort of overly personal here, guys. This is pretty standard stuff.”

WHAT HE HAS INDICATED REPEATEDLY TO PRESIDENT ASSAD: “I have indicated repeatedly that President al-Assad has lost legitimacy, that he needs to step down. So far, he hasn’t gotten the message, and instead has double downed [sic] in violence on his own people.” Well, I’m sure he’s heard the message, he just doesn’t acknowledge the role the president of the United States evidently assigns himself in determining the legitimacy of Syrian leaders.

ER, ISN’T THAT PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE? “We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people.”

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Trying to shut that whole thing down

If Todd Akin drops out because he’s an idiot, that’s good for America. If he drops out because Karl Rove is cutting off his money, that’s actually bad for America.

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Today -100: August 20, 1912: Of massacres and copyrights

Headline of the Day -100: “To Celebrate Massacre.” The town of New Ulm, Minn., is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Dakota Sioux attack on the town. I assume there will be cake.

Congress votes for motion pictures to come under the copyright laws.

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Deep empathy just sounds dirty when Todd Akin says it

Todd Akin issues a statement saying he has “deep empathy” for women who have been (legitimately) raped, he just thinks they have an extra internal organ that shoots lasers at the sperm of rapists, or something.

While he says he “misspoke,” he does not say in what way he misspoke, i.e., whether he knows that his comments about female biology are batshit crazy. He’s not even willing to pretend that he knows that his comments about female biology are batshit crazy.

Finally, he insisted that his “primary focus” in the senatorial race are deficits and unemployment, and accused people focusing on his batshit craziness of trying to “distract” from those things, so stop distracting everyone, slutty rape victims! Todd Akin, of course, is distracted by shiny objects and fetuses.

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The female body has ways

So according to senatorial candidate Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), victims of “legitimate rape” can’t get pregnant – “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” He knows this from doctors. So if you get pregnant, you’re a slut who is lying about being raped. And if you float, you’re a witch.

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Today -100: August 19, 1912: Of apples and Southerners

Throngs hanging around Woodrow Wilson’s home, waiting for a glimpse of the man, have taken all the apples from his apple trees.

Today -100’s NYT is filled with letters from Southern editors, politicians and others saying that Southerners won’t vote for Roosevelt. The editor of the Augusta Chronicle, for example, says that there are only two white men in Richmond County who incline to him and “one of these is a Taft disappointee, while the other is just queer.”

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Today -100: August 18, 1912: Of party-line voting, dead issues, indecision, and jury-tampering

This is the 1,000th Today -100 post. Collect them all.

Republicans in Illinois are considering fucking with the Bull Moosers by depriving them of the circle on the ballot that voters can use to vote a straight-party ticket, so that Bull Moose voters, unlike R’s & D’s, would have to find and vote for each BM candidate one by one.

Roosevelt, asked by an audience member at a speech to talk about Taft, said “I never discuss dead issues. I want to come back to something serious.” Ouch.

Woodrow Wilson’s people say he hasn’t made up his mind about women’s suffrage, but he’s thinking about it really really hard and might come to a conclusion, oh, some time after the election.

Clarence Darrow is acquitted of bribing a juror, but there will be a second trial for alleged bribery of another juror.

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Mitt would approve

The Cal State system plans to admit almost no Californian students for the spring 2013 semester, but will admit out-of-staters and foreign students who pay the big bucks. So much for the concept of state universities. Also, lovely to see admissions policy being made primarily on financial rather than academic grounds. How many years before admissions are auctioned off on eBay?

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Today -100: August 17, 1912: To have a man on both sides of the fight when we are on one side is uncomfortable, especially when he is behind you

President Taft attacks presidential electors whose names appear on the Republican ballot but who intend to support Roosevelt. “[W]e have to be a single party, and not a part of two parties. I don’t think we are unfair in asking that we be given a chance for a fair fight, and in counting those against us who are not with us. To have a man on both sides of the fight when we are on one side is uncomfortable, especially when he is behind you.” Taft sounds rather as if he’s heading for a nervous breakdown.

Helen Keller sings to a convention of otologists at Harvard Medical School. Evidently she has absolute pitch.

A Philadelphia city council member resigns. He turns out to have had a former life as a thief, under another name, possibly Jean Valjean. He served a 7-year prison sentence and then made good, but a former prison associate found him and was blackmailing him, so he quit.

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Today -100: August 16, 1912: Of taking sides, and singing

The Nicaraguan government asks the US for help in fighting the rebels. Meanwhile, the State Dept is denying yesterday’s report that US forces fought the rebels.

Headline of the Day -100: “Helen Keller Can Sing Now.” Review in tomorrow’s paper.

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Today -100: August 15, 1912: Of taking sides, and emancipation

American troops have been fighting the rebels in Nicaragua.

Taft wants to establish a preliminary commission to consider holding an exposition to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The commission would serve without salary, because irony.

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Collapsing

Riyad Hijab, the Syrian prime minister who defected, says that the Assad regime is collapsing, adding, hey, you didn’t think I left for moral reasons, did you?

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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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