Today -100: February 25, 1913: They dare not let us die, because they are too cowardly

The US ambassador to Mexico, Henry Lane Wilson, issues a statement: “In the absence of other reliable information I am disposed to accept the Government’s version of the manner in which the ex-President and ex-Vice President lost their lives. Certainly the violent deaths of these persons were without Government approval... Mexican public opinion has accepted this view of the affair, and it is not at all excited. The present Government appears to be revealing marked evidence of activity, firmness, and prudence”. The State Dept will say that Amb. Wilson made this statement entirely on his own. Others... all right, me... will say that of course he exonerated the people with whom he conspired of cold-blooded murder.

Texas Gov. Oscar Colquitt is sending four companies of the Texas National Guard to the Mexican border. The federal government is afraid he intends to send them into Mexico, supposedly to protect American citizens in Matamoras, so the War Dept orders federal troops on the border to prevent them crossing. More federal troops are also being sent to the border in readiness for whatever, bringing the total up to 10,000.

The new Mexican regime is busily executing troops that don’t fall into line behind it.

British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst is arrested for supposedly ordering the attempt to burn down Lloyd George’s country house.

The NYT editorializes that this is an opportunity to suppress suffragist militancy once and for all, if only the authorities don’t release Mrs. Pankhurst when she hunger strikes (or, as they put it, if “the jail officers are not permitted to lose their wits when she pretends to prefer self-imposed starvation to obeying the law”). What the NYT is calling for is a game of hunger-strike chicken, based on a low estimate of the suffragettes’ dedication (or female willpower generally). The Women’s Social and Political Union also sees this as a game of chicken. Annie Kenney, the Pankhursts’ lieutenant, is quoted in the London Times: “We say, ‘Let us die.’ We are prepared to die. They dare not let us die, because they are too cowardly.” If women are allowed to die in prison, Kenney says, even non-militant suffragists will turn militant.

The US Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the White Slave Act under the Interstate Commerce Clause. In other words, prostitutes are not human beings, who have the right to move between states, whether induced to do so or not, but products; the Act regulating their movement is thus akin to legislative control over inter-state trade in impure food or lottery tickets or pornography.

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Today -100: February 24, 1913: Of Mexican traditions

Deposed Mexican President Madero and Vice President Suarez are murdered. The Huerta Junta is claiming this occurred when Maderistas attacked the escort taking Madero and Suarez to prison, and they were shot attempting to escape or in the cross-fire or something (no one else was hit). Nobody believes this.

Well, except the NYT, which thinks we shouldn’t jump to incredibly likely conclusions. After all, “Sentiment against [Madero] has been growing, and it is in accord with Mexican traditions to satisfy hatred by killing.”

Huerta is replacing all the governors with generals.

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Priorities

A few days ago (I just found the note I wrote on a scrap of newspaper), McNeil-Lehrer had on Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to talk about what sequestration means to our war machine. He reassured us that “we’re going to protect the wars in Afghanistan.”

Phew.

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Today -100: February 23, 1913: Of repressed women, sent-down students, warts jubilees, and standing presidents-elect

Headline of the Day -100: “Repress the Women, Clamors England.” The women being suffragettes, of course.

The NYT passes along a ridiculous rumor that the anonymous person paying the fines of some of the suffragettes, much against their will, is none other than Lloyd George.

Cambridge University (and town) authorities are not happy about the mock funerals sometimes held for students who have been expelled. The authorities’ idea of tradition is only college fellows being allowed to walk on the grass. The students’ idea of tradition sounds more fun: in one case a mile-long procession complete with coffin and weeping widow, with every hurdy-gurdy that could be found, thousands of mouth organs, and the former student accompanied by friends in pajamas, wearing Chinese mustaches and opera hats.

German actors are appealing against the provision of the new national insurance law where they have to give their ages.

A Catholic priest in the German town of Schnittweiler insulted a woman from the pulpit and ordered her to leave the church because he didn’t like her clothes (too modern), saying “This is no comedy theater.” She sued for being insulted and was awarded 50 marks.

NYT Index Typo of the Day -100: “KAISER DESIRES NO GIFT.; Warts Jubilee Funds to be Devoted to Charitable Purposes.”

President-elect Woodrow Wilson rode a train from NYC to Princeton; this is front-page news at the New York Times. He had to stand part of the way (the New Jersey part). Fellow passengers knew who he was, but no one gave up their seat to him. Later he got one, but quickly gave it up to a lady, as was evidently not the custom, because he was the only one to do so.

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Instrumental rape for everybody!

Indiana is moving towards requiring women who want the RU-486 pill to have not one but two transvaginal ultrasounds, before and after. The second one is to check that the pregnancy was indeed terminated, but peeing on a stick would of course be easier, cheaper and less invasive, so this is purely punitive. Fortunately, Indiana isn’t planning (yet) to send cops to physically drag women into clinics to force the second probe into her, so the provision requiring the second instrumental rape isn’t a mandate so much as an aspirational expression of what the legislators would like to see happen to sluts.

Another bill passed committee requires that the illustrations accompanying the “informed consent” forms be in color rather than black and white. I’m picturing a doctor handing her patient a consent form and some 3-D glasses.

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Today -100: February 22, 1913: Crimes excusable only in primitive people

Huerta reassures the US that he’s definitely, absolutely not going to have Francisco Madero killed. So that’s okay then.

Millicent Garrett Fawcett, president of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, the major non-militant women’s suffrage group in Britain, gives a speech highly critical of the Pankhursts’ Women’s Social and Political Union’s escalation of militant tactics: “They had induced women, who ought to be symbols of refinement and civilization, to commit crimes that were excusable only in primitive people – in savages or in children. It was a very serious menace to our civilization.” However, she also castigates the government for force-feeding suffragette prisoners. (The next issue of the WSPU’s The Suffragette will fire back that Fawcett supported the Boer War and the use therein of concentration camps and farm-burning.)

Suffragettes may or may not have tried to burn down the grand stand of the Kempton Park Race Course. Starting at about this point in time, it will become a little hard to affix responsibility for fires, since The Suffragette will pointedly report on any fire anywhere in Britain, whether started by suffragettes or not. It’s going to be a great time to be an arsonist in Britain. Cabinet ministers are adding guards for fear they’ll be kidnapped or something.

Headline of the Day -100: “Wouldn’t Stamp Czar’s Face.” Russia withdraws postage stamps issued for the tricentenary of the Romanov dynasty, because patriotic postal employees are unwilling to stamp them.

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Today -100: February 21, 1913: Of fugitive laws and donkeys

The Huerta junta in Mexican (I know it’s more of a dictatorship than a junta, I just like the phrase Huerta Junta) is putting out a story that Gustavo Madero, the former finance minister, the real power behind the throne of his brother the ousted president, was shot attempting to escape. Thing is, the NYT said yesterday -100 that he was told to run and then shot multiple times in the back, as was the custom in Mexico (they call it the “fugitive law”). Madero’s clothes and the stones he bled to death on were taken (by soldiers, onlookers? not made clear) as souvenirs; a shard of his glasses has already resold for $25.

Pres. Francisco Madero and Vice President José Pino Suarez, who were going to be sent into exile, are arrested instead.

There will be no donkeys in the inaugural parade. Repeat: NO DONKEYS! That is all.

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Today -100: February 20, 1913: To wake him up

A secret (and no doubt very scared) session of the Mexican Congress elects Gen. Victoriano Huerta provisional president.

Gen. Félix Díaz cables the NYT that yesterday’s coup was “the beginning of peace and progress for the republic.”

In one example of the this peace and progress, Díaz has Pres. Madero’s brother Gustavo, who was arrested yesterday, murdered. Why did Díaz have custody of the Madero brothers? Because Gen. Huerta, who just two days ago was supposed to be fighting Díaz, handed them over to him. The two signed an agreement ending that fighting in the American Embassy, where Amb. Henry Wilson and the coup leader “chatted for some time and mutually felicitated each other on the end of the fighting.” Wilson isn’t even trying to hide his complicity in the coup.

The irony of this is that when Díaz was captured a couple of weeks ago, Pres. Madero decided to exercise mercy and not execute him.

The House fails to override Taft’s veto of the immigration bill.

Romania is threatening to go to war with Bulgaria, because why not.

Remember those suffragists marching from New York to DC for the inauguration? In Delaware a couple of Southerners asked whether they supported negro women voting. Ru-roh. “General” Rosalie Jones replied that it was up to “certain states” to “solve their own problems.”

In Britain, where suffragists are less wimpy, the country house of British Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd George is blown up. Mrs. Pankhurst gives a speech taking responsibility. Someone in the audience asks “Why did you blow him up?” “To wake him up,” she replied. Just to clarify, Mrs. P. didn’t personally blow anything up, and no one was in the house, which wasn’t actually Lloyd George’s house, but a house he planned to rent.

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You want pictures of the president playing golf? We got pictures of the president playing golf.

The press is bitching about being excluded from Obama’s golfing weekend extravaganza.

Fortunately, we can always go into the archives.















You’re welcome.

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Today -100: February 19, 1913: The people should embrace one another and live in peace

Just what Mexico needed: a coup. Troops loyal to Gen. Victoriano Huerta seize Pres. Madero and the vice president and all but one member of the Cabinet and Madero’s brother Gustavo, who was actually eating lunch at a restaurant with Huerta when Huerta had him taken into custody. They force Pres. Madero to resign and proclaim Huerta provisional president as reward for his complete inability to defeat Díaz’s forces. Díaz says he and his followers will declare allegiance to the Huerta dictatorship. The Times notes that “The peace was brought about through the intermediation of the American Ambassador, Henry Lane Wilson and other diplomats.” If by “intermediation” you mean conspiring to overthrow the elected leader of a sovereign nation (Amb. Wilson left Taft more or less in the dark about what he was up to).

Huerta makes a speech from the balcony of the National Palace: “The killing of brother by brother is over. The people should embrace one another and live in peace.” Sweet.

Stupid Headline of the Day -100: “Huerta Has Been a Loyal Soldier.”

Headline of the Day -100 (which I have slightly improved by the addition of three words): “Taft is Relieved By Madero’s Fall and Forthcoming Murder.” The article says that the Taft administration’s preference for Huerta over Madero is entirely based on the belief that the former will keep Americans resident in Mexico safer than the latter.

The Senate votes 72-18 to override Taft’s veto of the immigration bill, with its literacy requirement.

Lloyd’s of London is offering a special rate to insure golf greens against having “Votes for Women” inscribed on them with vitriol.

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So when Pope Benny has to clean out his desk

at the end of the month, do you think one of these guys



will hold his cardboard box for him while the others watch to make sure he doesn’t steal any office supplies?

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Today -100: February 18, 1913: All the news that the Times pulled out of its ass

With the telegraph wires from Mexico City operating under government censorship, the NYT is just printing random rumors now. Today’s: Díaz has seized the Presidential Palace!

Speaking of random rumors, the Times passes on one that Enver Bey, Turkey’s war minister, has been assassinated. He hasn’t.

The Nevada Legislature extends the residence period for a divorce from 6 months to 1 year, which will put a crimp in Reno’s divorce industry.

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Today -100: February 17, 1913: Of peace, truces, hats in elevators, and the Armory Show

Woodrow Wilson is honorary president of the American Peace Society. I guess it’s like Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. Wilson hopes to attend their next congress in May. The American Peace Society was founded in 1828 and still exists but now seems to call itself... oh lord... The Human Club.

A 24-hour truce in the fighting in Mexico City did not last 24 hours. More like 6.

A letter to the NYT addresses the pressing question: does etiquette really require taking one’s hat off in an elevator when there are women present? “W.J.L.” asserts that it does not and that “Etiquette without a basis of reason is a relic of barbarism”.

The Armory Show, an exhibition of Cubist, Fauvist, Post-Impressionist and Futurist art, opens in NYC. 1,600 works of art by all the European biggies, but also many Americans. Important in introducing modern art to the backward Americans, some of whom were not ready for it. Teddy Roosevelt wandered around the exhibition, pointing and saying “That’s not art!” and reviewed it in The Outlook: “The Cubists are entitled to the serious attention of all who find enjoyment in the colored puzzle pictures of the Sunday newspapers.” “Probably we err in treating most of these pictures seriously. It is likely that many of them represent in the painters the astute appreciation of the powers to make folly lucrative which the late P. T. Barnum showed with his faked mermaid.”

The painting that became synonymous with the Armory Show: Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2).

The NYT is pretty sure the painting’s actually an elaborate practical joke. The Literary Digest printed letters to the editor about the exhibition from various newspapers.

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Today -100: February 16, 1913: Of French suffragettes, self-proclaimed presidents, voting kings, and bathtub trusts

French suffragists, the NYT says, will soon adopt British militant tactics, window-breaking and the like. They won’t, actually, but what’s interesting is that the demand of even this supposedly militant wing of French suffragists is for the vote for single, widowed and divorced women only, with a married woman allowed to vote only if her husband gives permission or is incapacitated.

Well, the NYT is just ignoring the fact that it reported yesterday -100 that Mexican Pres. Francisco Madero had resigned, which he hadn’t. Just pretending those front-page stories never happened. (Meanwhile, the LAT prints a story denying that Madero has been shot dead. And indeed he hasn’t been. Yet.)

Emilio Vásquez Gómez, released on bail in San Antonio, where he was arrested for violating the neutrality laws, crosses back into Mexico and declares himself president.

Taft and his Cabinet meet and decide again against military intervention in Mexico. Basically, Taft is too polite to leave that big a mess for Wilson, and too big a stickler for the Constitution to send in troops without Congress ordering it. Also, he thinks it would just make the situation in Mexico worse.

Maj. John Finley, Governor of the Southern Zone of the Philippines, is sent to Turkey on a mission from the US government to ask the Sultan to tell Muslims in the Philippines to submit to American colonial rule.

The House of Lords rejects Welsh Church disestablishment.

Franz Schuhmeier, an Austrian Socialist member of Parliament, is shot dead in a Vienna railway station by a Christian Socialist and labor union leader.

The Italian Superior Court rules that King Victor Emmanuel has a right to vote under the new franchise act, which would make him the first king anywhere allowed to vote (Queen Elizabeth II can’t). The king says, “Every man should take part in the affairs of the nation.” The Duchess of Sparta interjects, “And every woman.” The king shrugs his shoulders, as was the custom.

The Great Bathtub Trust Trial results in convictions for criminal conspiracy in restraint of trade. Fines totaling $51,007 are levied on the various individuals and corporations involved in the trust.

With 11 members of the West Virginia Legislature under indictment for bribery in the US senate election, State Senator Gray Silver leaps into action, introducing a bill to abolish the court in Kanawha County which is investigating.

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Horrifying Headline of the Day

NYT: “Brooklynite Hits France, With Plans to Seduce.” Some microbrew guy who wants to introduce pretentious beers to Paris, but you know what this is the first step towards, don’t you? French hipsters! This man must be stopped.

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That is unfortunate

Obama on the filibuster of Chuck Hagel: “it’s just unfortunate that this kind of politics intrudes at a time when I’m still presiding over a war in Afghanistan”. I say let’s keep the filibuster, and end the fucking war. Problem solved.

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Today -100: February 15, 1913: Of weak, nerveless men, literacy, and bribes

The NYT incorrectly reports that Francisco Madero resigns as president of Mexico after six days of bloody fighting in Mexico City.

Taft still doesn’t officially have this (false) news, because the American ambassador’s message reporting it to him has to be put in cipher, then it has to be deciphered at the other end, and that all takes time.

The NYT prematurely cheers the fall of Madero, “a weak, nerveless man, incapable of governing”. They’re just happy that this brings the warfare to an end (ha!) so the US won’t have to intervene.

Taft vetoes the immigration bill because of its literacy clause.

Six more West Virginia legislators are indicted for taking bribes to elect a US senator. The grand jury plans to question every member of the Legislature.

Pres. Taft approves the expulsion of a West Point cadet, Elmer E. Adler, for getting married.

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Today -100: February 14, 1913: Of bribes, strikes, and the next best thing to making laws

Col. William Seymour Edwards, a candidate for US senator for West Virginia, is arrested for attempted bribery of a state legislator to vote for him. This is the same Edwards who set up the sting against other bribe-seeking legislators, resulting in the arrests of five of them two days ago, so I’m not sure what’s going on here. The Legislature held its 7th inconclusive ballot for senator; one of the legislators under indictment showed up to vote.

After striking miners invade the West Virginia State Building to demand that Gov. Glasscock recall the soldiers he sent into the mining districts, Mother Jones and others are arrested for conspiracy in the death of Fred Bobbett during a strike-related riot.

British suffrage-leader-in-exile Christabel Pankhurst, in an editorial in The Suffragette, says that while women can’t make laws, “they have done the next best thing by raising themselves above the law.” This refers less to militancy than to the ability of suffragettes to escape imprisonment through hunger striking.

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The State of the Union is... stronger (we’re grading on a curve now)

Tonight Obama delivered the Motherfucking State of the Motherfucking Union Address (MSOTMU).

HE’S JUST NOT WILLING TO ADMIT IT’S BEEN MORE THAN ELEVEN YEARS, NOT “A DECADE,” IS HE? “After a decade of grinding war, our brave men and women in uniform are coming home.”

RUBBLE? WHAT CRISIS WAS THIS? DID I MISS SOMETHING? WAS IT AN ASTEROID HITTING THE EARTH? WHAT IS THIS RUBBLE OF WHICH YOU SPEAK??? “So, together, we have cleared away the rubble of crisis, and we can say with renewed confidence that the State of our Union is stronger.” Stronger than what, he does not say.

AS OPPOSED TO JUST THE RIGHT NUMBER OF PEOPLE: “too many people still can’t find full-time employment.”

WHAT PART OF “CORPORATIONS THRIVE ON HUMAN MISERY” DO YOU STILL NOT UNDERSTAND? “Corporate profits have skyrocketed to all-time highs -- but for more than a decade, wages and incomes have barely budged.”

THE MIDDLE CLASS SHOULD BE A LITTLE WORRIED THAT IT’S ABOUT TO BE “REIGNITED”: “It is our generation’s task, then, to reignite the true engine of America’s economic growth -- a rising, thriving middle class.”

OUR UNFINISHED TASK: “It is our unfinished task to restore the basic bargain that built this country -- the idea that if you work hard and meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead, no matter where you come from, no matter what you look like, or who you love.” Slaves, women... he keeps forgetting those people. Also, the basic bargain that built this country was about fairness based on “who you love”? Unless the basic bargain that built this country had something to do with Jefferson fucking his slaves?

THAT SOUND YOU HEAR IS PAUL KRUGMAN GRINDING HIS TEETH: “we are more than halfway towards the goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists say we need to stabilize our finances.”

The sequester is “a really bad idea.” Almost makes you wonder how it got put into legislation. No, wait, it doesn’t.

He wants to cut Medicare... just like Simpson-Bowles!

IS THERE ANY REASON TO PAY ANY ATTENTION TO WHAT HE SAYS AFTER THESE WORDS? “So let’s set party interests aside and...”

AND YOU THOUGHT THE US DIDN’T MANUFACTURE STUFF ANY MORE: “The greatest nation on Earth cannot keep conducting its business by drifting from one manufactured crisis to the next.”

This speech is sprinkled with half-meaningful statistics. X million jobs have been created, gas mileage has doubled, etc but over what period of time? He doesn’t say; this is the sort of number meant to convey an impression of conveying information without actually doing so.

WE CAN HAVE IT ALL! “Now, the good news is we can make meaningful progress on [global warming] while driving strong economic growth.” Is “driving” really the word you wanted to use there?

CALM DOWN, KIDS, IT DOESN’T MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS: “And tomorrow, my administration will release a new ‘College Scorecard’ that parents and students can use to compare schools”.

OFTEN WITH ACTUAL HARNESSES: “Our economy is stronger when we harness the talents and ingenuity of striving, hopeful immigrants.”

SOUNDS DIRTY: “putting more boots on the Southern border”.

WHEREIN IS REVEALED WHAT MAKES YOU A MAN: “what makes you a man isn’t the ability to conceive a child; it’s having the courage to raise one.” And what makes you a sexist is talking about “what makes you a man.” (That said, how often do actual references to fucking make it into the SOTU? Not enough, that’s how often.)

DEFEATING THE CORE: “we can say with confidence that America will complete its mission in Afghanistan and achieve our objective of defeating the core of al Qaeda.”

He says he’ll withdraw 34,000 troops from Afghanistan over the next year and “by the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over.”

Except... he plans to continue “counterterrorism efforts that allow us to pursue the remnants of al Qaeda and their affiliates.” So the war will be dead, long live counterterrorism efforts.

A BIG SHOUT-OUT TO FLYING KILLER ROBOTS: “And all over the world, through a range of capabilities, we will continue to take direct action against those terrorists who pose the gravest threat to Americans.”

I THOUGHT WE’D ALREADY SENT THEM OFF TO DIE: “Now, as we do, we must enlist our values in the fight.”

HOW CAN WE TAKE YOUR WORD WHEN YOU WON’T EVEN USE THE WORD DRONES? “I recognize that in our democracy, no one should just take my word for it that we’re doing things the right way.”

He calls the North Korean nuke test a “provocation.” He’s feeling very provoked.

People affected by gun violence “deserve a vote” (on gun legislation). He’s not even asking that gun control bills be passed, because that would just be crazy talk, but that they not be bottled up, which is also crazy talk.

I’M THINKING DONUTS OF SOME KIND. MAYBE WITH SPRINKLES. “I’m announcing a nonpartisan commission to improve the voting experience in America.”

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Today -100: February 13, 1913: Of warships, dynasties, UFOs, and bacons

Now even Cuba is sending a warship to Mexico, to protect Cuban citizens there.

Russia is preparing for the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Romanov dynasty.

The British Parliament, tired of unidentified but presumably German airships flying over their country without permission, is working on a bill to make it illegal for foreign aircraft to do so, on penalty of being shot down. Which doesn’t mean Britain actually has the capability of shooting them down.

Name of the Day -100: President pro tempore of the Senate, Sen. Augustus Octavius Bacon (D-Georgia).

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