Today -100: May 2, 1913: Let Greed Not Feed on Need

The Brooklyn Institute rejects the offer of “To the Highest Bidder,” a 1906 painting by Harry Roseland of two slaves, mother and daughter, at an antebellum slave auction, because it “tends to keep alive memories that had better be forgotten.” Oprah owns it now.

The Daily Mirror (UK) claims that there’s a suffragette plan to burn down London.

They do burn down a stable, leaving a placard reading “Votes! Votes! Votes! Beware!”, which I suppose is a good motto for the WSPU’s current strategy.

The Common Cause, the newspaper of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, the non-militant British organization, complains, “Militancy has introduced into the Suffrage movement elements of revenge, of contempt for others, of unreason, of deafness to honest and considered criticism, which in a movement that stands for peace and justice and humanity, are tragic.”

Montenegro, which seized Scutari last week after a six-month siege, is now preparing the city for a new siege by Austria. Poor Scutari.

The NYT notes that yesterday’s NYC May Day parade was the first in a years not to coincide with a major strike; “the paraders had to import some 110 children of Paterson silk strikers from New Jersey to give concrete embodiment to the woes of the workers.” (Lexicological note: this is before the term “the concrete embodiment of workers’ woes” in New Jersey came to refer to union leaders being buried in the foundations of thruway overpasses).

(click on photo for full-length)

Banners & placards at the parade included: “The Unionized Needle is Mightier Than the Sword,” “We Want a Square Deal and No Triangle Disasters” and “Let Greed Not Feed on Need.” Very Dr. Seuss, that one. The Bakers and Confectioners’ Union baked a giant cake.

Everett Pepperrell Wheeler, prominent lawyer, author, and failed candidate for NY governor in 1894, is forming a men’s anti-women’s-suffrage organization, although he has thought better of calling it the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Women (the “cruelty” consisting of forcing them to suffer “the burden of political activity”).

Ten companies of the Georgia state militia are mobilized to prevent the lynching of Leo Frank, the Jewish “carpetbagger” superintendent of the National Pencil Company of Atlanta, and Newt Lee, a black night watchman, both arrested after Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old employee of the company, is found murdered.

NY Gov. William Sulzer’s bill for direct primaries fails, and Sulzer is pissed off: “The vote in the Senate yesterday expressed nothing except what the people know – that the Senate of the State of New York is not a free agency. The Senators did not discuss the merits of the Direct Primary bill. They amused themselves by criticizing the Governor ... both political parties caucused to defeat a bill to carry out the solemn pledges of their platforms.” Opponents say that in fighting Tammany, Sulzer is using its methods of intimidation and patronage to influence the Legislature (but less successfully).


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It’s just never enough for those people, is it?

Actual AP headline: “Guantanamo Strike Still on Despite New Obama Vow.”

That would be the “vow” (a word Obama did not use) to “re-engage with Congress to try to make the case that this is not something that’s in the best interests of the American people.” I don’t know what more they could ask for.

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Today -100: May 1, 1913: Raided!

British police (74 of them!) raid the Women’s Social and Political Union hq, arresting six leaders and seizing the suffrage organization’s papers (which no law actually authorizes them to do). Director of Public Prosecutions (and winner of Name of the Day -100) Sir Archibald Bodkin threatens any printer who prints The Suffragette, saying “That organ must be put a stop to.” He even threatens to go after its subscribers. (Spoiler alert: The Suffragette won’t miss a single weekly issue before World War I starts, not even tomorrow’s. The front page of tomorrow’s issue will feature the single word: RAIDED!)

What asshole wrote that NYT article? It says the Cat and Mouse Act is “turning the laugh against hunger strikers”.

In Mexico, Federal troops evacuate Juarez under pressure from the Constitutionalists.

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Barack Obama and the Permission Structure of Doom

Obama held one of his increasingly rare press conferences today.

A SLOWLY UNFOLDING DISASTER: “on Syria, I think it’s important to understand that for several years now what we’ve been seeing is a slowly unfolding disaster for the Syrian people, and this is not a situation in which we’ve been simply bystanders to what’s been happening.” True: we’ve been supplying one side with exactly enough assistance to keep the situation at a bloody stalemate.

See if you can find the very Washington D.C. word in this sentence: “My policy from the beginning has been President Assad had lost credibility; that he attacked his own people, has killed his own people, unleashed a military against innocent civilians; and that the only way to bring stability and peace to Syria is going to be for Assad to step down and -- and to move forward on a political transition.” Only politicians would say that a value judgement like “Assad has lost credibility” or a statement of fact like “Assad has killed his own people” is his “policy.”

If Syria used chemical weapons it would be “a game changer” because “when you use these kinds of weapons, you have the potential of killing massive numbers of people in the most inhumane way possible”. Because if the United States stands for one thing above all others, it is killing massive numbers of people in the most humane way possible.

If it’s any help in establishing the official US definition of “humane,” yesterday a Gitmo spokesmodel said, “we will continue to treat each person humanely,” by which he meant forcibly feeding hunger-striking prisoners.

THE SYRIAN GOVERNMENT IS KILLING ITS PEOPLE WITH WHAT NOW? “and the proliferation risks are so significant that we don’t want that genie out of the bottle.”

AS OPPOSED TO ALL THE GOVERNMENTS THAT CARE MORE ABOUT THE WELL-BEING OF THEIR PEOPLE THAN ABOUT STAYING IN POWER. THE MANY, MANY GOVERNMENTS THAT CARE MORE ABOUT THE WELL-BEING OF THEIR PEOPLE THAN ABOUT STAYING IN POWER. “But even if chemical weapons were not being used in Syria, we’d still be thinking about tens of thousands of people, innocent civilians, women, children, who’ve been killed by a regime that’s more concerned about staying in power than it is about the well-being of its people.”

IF WE DON’T JOG, THE TERRORISTS WIN: “There are joggers right now, I guarantee you, all throughout Boston and Cambridge and Watertown.”



THEN WHY DID YOU FUCKING AGREE TO IT? “Congress responded to the short-term problems of flight delays by giving us the option of shifting money that’s designed to repair and improve airports over the long term to fix the short-term problem, well, that’s not a solution. So essentially, what we’ve done is we’ve said, in order to avoid delays this summer, we’re going to ensure delays for the next two or three decades.”

On whether he has “juice” in Congress: “But, you know, Jonathan, you seem to suggest that somehow, these folks over there have no responsibilities and that my job is to somehow get them to behave. That’s their job. They are elected, members of Congress are elected in order to do what’s right for their constituencies and for the American people.” So THAT’s why members of Congress are elected. I’ve been wondering that for years.

WHO SAYS WE DON’T BUILD ANYTHING ANYMORE? “And we’re going to try to do everything we can to create a permission structure for them to be able to do what’s going to be best for the country.” He thinks Republican congresscritters would do what’s going to be best for the country if only they had a permission structure, isn’t that just adorable?



GREAT MOMENTS IN MORAL OUTRAGE: “I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe.” And what is he going to do about it? “I’m going to re-engage with Congress to try to make the case that this is not something that’s in the best interests of the American people.”

NOT SUSTAINABLE: “And it’s not sustainable. I mean, the notion that we’re going to continue to keep over a hundred individuals in a no man’s land in perpetuity, even at a time when we’ve wound down the war in Iraq, we’re winding down the war in Afghanistan, we’re having success defeating al-Qaida core, we’ve kept the pressure up on all these transnational terrorist networks, when we’ve transferred detention authority in Afghanistan – the idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried -- that is contrary to who we are, it is contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop.” Context is fucking irrelevant to this argument. Guantanamo was wrong and unconstitutional even when we hadn’t “wound down” the war in Iraq, whether or not we are defeating “Al Qaida core.”

That said, while he’s busily re-engaging with Congress, the force-feeding of prisoners will continue: “Well, I don’t -- I don’t want these individuals to die. Obviously, the Pentagon is trying to manage the situation as best as they can.” Manage the situation, yeah, that’s one term for it. Torture would be another. Violation of human rights would be yet another.

He crows about getting the application form for the medical exchanges from 21 pages down to 3. “We’re using a really tiny font size,” he said.

Asked about Jason Collins, because of course he is, Obama says that even though Collins is gay, he can “bang with Shaq” and “deliver a hard foul.” I’ll bet he can, I’ll bet he can.

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Today -100: April 30, 1913: Of alien land

Secretary of State Bryan’s conference with California legislators aimed at persuading them to postpone passage of the racist Alien Land Bill ended late at night, and three minutes later the State Senate convened and guess what they did...

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Today -100: April 29, 1913: Of alien land, poets, and angry Churchills

Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan meets in a closed-door session with the California Legislature and Gov. Hiram Johnson to ask them to delay the anti-Japanese Alien Land Bill, maybe appoint a commission or let the feds negotiate a treaty with Japan (a treaty to restrict the rights of its citizens abroad, really?), or apply the law to all aliens, not just ones “ineligible for citizenship.”

In Congress, Rep. Thomas Sisson (D-Miss.) says the US should, if necessary, go to war with Japan to protect California’s right to pass racist legislation. He says to exempt aliens from laws would give them greater privileges than American citizens. Which sounded nonsensical to me at first, but I think he’s saying that Asian non-citizens can be legally discriminated against on account of their race because non-white Americans can be legally discriminated against on account of theirs, and fair (or in this case unfair) is fair.

Journalist John Reed (you know, Warren Beatty in Reds) is arrested for refusing the orders of a cop to move it along when he was chatting with three strikers in Paterson, NJ. Asked in court what his business is, he says poet. He gets 20 days.

Bulgaria has evidently fought several battles with its former allies Serbia and Greece. Meanwhile, Montenegrin troops (with Serb backing) are taking up positions in preparation for a likely attack by Austria.

Headline of the Day -100: “Churchill Very Angry.” At being called to testify before the parliamentary committee on the Marconi scandal.

I just imagined Winston Churchill intoning, “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” in a Winston Churchill voice and then turning into Hulk Winston. Awesome.

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Today -100: April 28, 1913: Of Scutaris, and kings

Austria is sending 10,000 troops to force Montenegro to evacuate Scutari.

So Albania may get Scutari after all. But what it still doesn’t have is a king, and it’s put the Help Wanted sign out. Various European powers support various princelings from various Germanic and Scandinavian states for the job. The Albanians have offered the crown to Philippe d’Orléans, the Duke of of Montpensier, son of the French king deposed in 1848, but he turns them down. Austria would like to give it to Ismail Kemal Bey, who spent his life alternating between positions in the Ottoman government and living in exile before hitching his star to Albanian nationalism (Kemal will later irritably reject the idea of offering the throne to Teddy Roosevelt). Montenegro is attempting to install Essad Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman troops in Scutari who surrendered the city to Montenegro, which now begins to look rather suspicious. He declares himself king, to little effect. The NYT calls him “a native chieftain of the type that earned for the Albanians a reputation for barbaric simplicity, approaching savagery.”

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Today -100: April 27, 1913: Of degraded navies, shortcuts, and haircuts

Headline of the Day -100: “Opium Degrading the French Navy.”

I prefer to think that the French Navy is degrading opium.

300 soldiers from the Mexican Federal forces arrived in El Paso, intending to pass through US territory and re-enter Mexico at Juarez. Instead, the governor of Texas had them arrested. They are now being held at Fort Bliss until someone decides what to do with them.

Tonsorial Headline of the Day -100: “ASQUITH HAS A HAIRCUT.; News Recorded In London -- And They Complain About Our Papers!”

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Today -100: April 26, 1913: Of horses, unlawful assemblages, priests in cars, and dry canals

The lower house of the NY Legislature has evidently recently voted to ban the use of horses to pull street cars, and the NYT has an editorial about how wonderful horses are, because the NYT editorial page, then as now, is run by 12-year-old girls. “Happily for the glory of the horse he must survive in warfare”.

The Paterson silk-workers’ strike: the NJ grand jury indicts the IWW leaders, including Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, on charges ranging from “unlawful assemblage” to disorderly conduct to inciting riot and preaching anarchy.

The Catholic Bishop of Treves forbids priests owning automobiles or even riding in them, as being contrary to proper priestly modesty.

The US’s Panama Canal Zone colony will ban saloons and the selling of alcohol from July.

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A Texas-sized party

The George W. Bush (Snicker) Presidential Library was dedicated today, and yes, that (Snicker) is part of the official title. All the living former presidents were there, some with teeth gritted more tightly than others.


Put your right hand on your heart, George. No, your other right.

Obama was there, which marks the first and last time a black man will visit the George W. Bush (Snicker) Presidential Library, and he gave a little speech.

WE’RE GOING TO TRY TO GET CARTER HAMMERED: “This is a Texas-sized party.”

A DIORAMA OF SHAME: “When all the living former presidents are together, it’s also a special day for our democracy.”

NEITHER OF WHICH WERE SPELLED CORRECTLY: “The first thing I found in that desk the day I took office was a letter from George, and one that demonstrated his compassion and generosity.”

WHICH JUST MAKES IT THAT MUCH SADDER: “And what I know is true about President Bush, and I hope my successor will say about me, is that we love this country and we do our best.”

ALTHOUGH THE HAGUE WOULD LIKE TO GIVE IT A SHOT: “Now, in the past, President Bush has said it’s impossible to pass judgment on his presidency while he’s still alive.”

TWO WORDS: FLIGHT SUIT. “He doesn’t put on any pretenses.”

UM, NO, BARACK. “He is a good man.”

Trying to hint at some sort of relevance to the present day, he talked about Bush’s “commitment to reaching across the aisle”. Yeah, if there’s one thing Bush is remembered for, it’s his commitment to reaching across the aisle. Obama has two examples: immigration reform, which didn’t happen, and No Child Left Behind, which was crap.

---

And Bush also gave a speech.

SHARED LAUGHTER AT HOW PIG IGNORANT HE IS: “There was a time in my life when I wasn’t likely to be found at a library, much less found one. [laughter]”

YEAH, UNLIKE THAT LAZY OLD FART CARTER: “I am very grateful to President Obama and Michelle for making this trip. [applause] Unlike the other Presidents here, he’s actually got a job. [laughter]”

THAT WORD, HISTORY, I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS: “History is going to show that I served with great people; a talented, dedicated, intelligent team of men and women who love our nation as much as I do.”

WOW, YOU’RE GOING TO BLAME HIM FOR THAT, I MEAN HE’S SITTING RIGHT THERE, DUDE: “Dad taught me how to be a President, before that he showed me how to be a man.”

Evidently, future generations are going to learn in this library “That we expanded freedom at home by raising standards at schools and lowering taxes for everybody. That we liberated nations from dictatorship and freed people from AIDS.” Freed people from AIDS?

And now, the GEORGE W. BUSH MEMORIAL CAPTION CONTEST:

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Today -100: April 25, 1913: No political party can make me a political hypocrite

Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan calls in a bunch of foreign ambassadors to explain his plan for a cooling-off period and a thorough investigation of inter-nation disputes by a joint commission before the start of any war. However, he wants this done through bilateral treaties, not by creating any “peace league” of civilized nations.

President Wilson’s daughter Margaret says women’s suffrage is not necessary.

California Gov. Hiram Johnson says it is within the state’s “legal power and its moral right” to discriminate against Japanese people. He points out that the state constitution has been bigoted since 1879 when it called “the presence of foreigners, ineligible to become citizens... dangerous to the well-being of the State”. And he points out that it was the federal government that made Japanese and Chinese people ineligible to become citizens in the first place.

Carlos McClatchey of the Sacramento Bee explains in a letter to the NYT that the Japanese can never be assimilated, including through inter-marriage, that they lack morality – why, prostitution is “no bar to marriage” for them – and they are tricky and unreliable in money matters. One such trick is to buy a piece of farmland, after which the Jap can buy all the land around it “for a song, for no white people will live next to Japanese”. If not remedied, he says, in 50 years California will be Japanese.

Austria tells the other Great Powers that if they don’t get Montenegro’s troops out of Scutari, it bloody well will.

After the Mexican Chamber of Deputies refuses to set a date for new elections, citing the continued, you know, civil war, Gen. Felix Díaz withdraws as candidate for president.

The Woolworth Building opens. At 55 floors and 792 feet, it’s the tallest building in the world after the Eiffel Tower (and will be until the Empire State Building opens). The signal for the building to be lit was sent by Woodrow Wilson, pushing a button in D.C. The skyscraper was paid for entirely by F.W. Woolworth, with no mortgage.

NY Gov. Sulzer, who has been trying to get the Legislature to pass a bill for direct primaries, thus eliminating Tammany-dominated conventions, vetoes a bill to make some changes to the primary laws, saying it was “enacted in bad faith; wholly fraudulent,” a violation of the D party’s pledges, and so on. “No political party can make me a political hypocrite.” His tone is rather pissing off legislators.

The Cat and Mouse Bill passes Parliament. The Standard claims to have unearthed a suffragette plot to kidnap the son of Mr. Justice Lush, burn Harrow, and blow up the house of Reginald Blair, MP. The evidence: someone in a train overheard two women discussing the plot.

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Today -100: April 24, 1913: Of mines, scutaris, alien land bills, and more Little Dorrits

A coal mine in Pennsylvania blows up, killing 120 or so miners, mostly by asphyxiation. Coal mines are fun.

Montenegro, the only Balkan ally not to have signed an armistice with Turkey, captures Scutari after a six-month siege, defying the many threats of the Great Powers (especially Austria).

Secretary of State Bryan is heading to California to try to persuade legislators to ban Japanese from owning land in a way that doesn’t offend Japan (Wilson’s first response was that this was a state’s rights issue, but Japan has made it clear that it’s a question of the treaty rights enjoyed by its citizens). The Japanese ambassador denies reports that he threatened that Japan will go to war with the US if this bill passes.

The woman who was the model for Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit has died. Thing is, I saw that exact same story 2½ years ago, about another person. How many Little Dorrits were there?

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Today -100: April 23, 1913: Of general strikes and lost planes

The Belgian general strike has more or less succeeded. The government, which had said it wouldn’t give in, does, at least to the extent of appointing a commission on extending the vote.

A German military airplane accidentally strays into France, again.

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Today -100: April 22, 1913: Of pauses, strikes, cat & mice, alien land bills, mad dogs & princesses, and maniacs

Secretary of state Bryan is working on a proposal for all countries to delay any future wars for 6-month or 1-year cooling-off period. His plan includes a no-fair-building-up-your-military-during-the-cooling-off-period provision that makes it even more unrealistic than it already is.

The Paterson, NJ silk strike is now in its 9th week, and the owners have been bringing in AFL organizers to counter the leadership of the Wobblies. The two labor groups are now happily denouncing each other and breaking up each other’s meetings, as was the custom.

The British Parliament passes the Cat and Mouse Act, whose purpose is supposed to be to deal with hunger-striking prisoners without resorting to forcible feeding, but the government refuses to accept an amendment banning forcible feeding.

The California Legislature is still mulling over various anti-Japanese land bills, but Gov. Hiram Johnson, an alleged progressive, doesn’t know what all the fuss is about: “Californians are unable to understand why an act admittedly within the jurisdiction of the California Legislature, like the passage of an alien land bill, creates tumult, confusion, and criticism, and why this local act of undoubted right becomes an international question.” Oo, oo, I totally know the answer to this one. Johnson points out that Arizona, Washington, Illinois, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky and Texas all have similar laws.

Royal Headline of the Day -100: “Mad Dog Bit Princess.” The princess is Princess Maria Immaculata, sister-in-law of the king of Saxony, and the dog is her own lapdog, which has been behaving oddly. She gets the rabies vaccination.

Other Royal Headline of the Day -100: “MANIAC NEAR KING GEORGE.; Swallows Half a Sovereign and Tries to Jump Through Window.” Actually, that’s all there is to the story (well, he also tried to swallow his glasses).

Um, the sovereign is a £1 coin.

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Today -100: April 21, 1913: Are we in Russia?

As mentioned, the British home secretary has banned women’s suffrage meetings in Hyde Park and other public spaces because they were leading to riots. Turns out, the British public likes bans on public meetings even less than it likes suffragettes, so Hyde Park was just as turbulent yesterday -100 (Sunday), with cries of “Are we in Russia?” The London Times thinks they resent losing their Sunday “sport” of hassle-the-suffragette.

60 IWW activists arrive in Grand Junction, CO, march to police hq and demand food. 16 of them then went to a restaurant, ordered food and refused to pay. Posses are being organized.

Isadora Duncan says she will quit the stage and become a nurse (her two children both just died in a car accident).

In France, the anarchist auto bandit gang members are guillotined (publicly, as was the custom). One of them was pardoned and exiled for life to Devil’s Island. There’s a nice write-up at Executed Today.

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Today -100: April 20, 1913: No court can tell me what to do

Featured in the NYT Sunday Magazine: “Famous French Duelist Defends ‘Affairs of Honor.’”

Belgian suffrage strike Day 6, still mostly peaceful.

Gov. Coleman Blease of South Carolina ignores a writ of habeas corpus, because “no court can tell me what to do,” and hands two fugitives wanted in New York for financial swindles over to NY detectives, suggesting they get their prisoners out of the state quickly, which they did, with the sheriff trying to serve the writ in hot pursuit in a high-speed car chase for the border.

The US Senate Woman Suffrage Committee hears from anti-suffragists. In the audience was “Dr. Mary Walker, who has the statutory right to wear trousers”. The only woman ever to win the Congressional Medal of Honor, and all anyone ever wants to talk about is the trousers (for example, this 1974 biography, “Dr. Mary Walker: The Little Lady in Pants.” Sigh.) A letter from Kate Douglas Wiggin, author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, is read to the committee: “I would have woman strong enough to keep just a trifle in the background; the limelight never makes anything strong.” A letter from Mary Elliot Seawell, another author, writes that a constitutional amendment would also allow negro women to vote. Which would be bad.

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Simple answers to stupid questions

Former Pakistani dictator Musharraf is finally arrested. He puts out a video in which he asks, “Why I am being stopped from pursuing politics in Pakistan. Is it because I brought progress to Pakistan and added to its security?”

No. No it isn’t.

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Today -100: April 19, 1913: Of sugar, alien land, and the military-industrial complex

Now that Bulgaria and Turkey have a truce, the Bulgarian Army will attempt to take Monastir from its erstwhile ally Serbia.

Some things never change: the US consumes 1/5 of the world’s sugar, a greater per capita consumption than any other country.

The NYT blames the outrage in Japan against California’s proposed racist land law on the yellow press. Ha ha.

German Socialist leader MP Karl Liebknecht accuses German military contractors of providing anti-German material to chauvinist French newspapers to stir up international discord. He also says they are illicitly acquiring military secrets in order to held win contracts. This is definitely true: Krupps will cop to it tomorrow -100).

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Today -100: April 18, 1913: Of general strikes, law-abiding and industrious races, and popped balloons

The Belgian suffrage general strike is now up to 400,000, half the male working population. Strikers are sending their children to Germany, presumably on trains, which will stop functioning soon when the country runs out of coal. My favorite detail: “A company of strikers in Brussels is being taken by professors on educational visits to the museums.”

Sen. John Works (R-CA) proposes a bill to ban D.C. newspapers publishing the details of crimes, accidents and tragedies. Or, as they call it in D.C., Congress.

In a letter to the NYT, Cleveland G. Allen, a black journalist, complains that Woodrow Wilson got black people’s votes under false pretenses, and is now giving the few positions in the federal government formerly held by blacks to whites. The NYT responds: “The negroes of the United States are doing very well. Thanks to the leadership of men like Booker T. Washington they have become a law-abiding and industrious race and their interests are not centered in politics or office-holding. ... If President Wilson is doing precisely what Mr. Allen accuses him of doing, he will meet no protest from men like Dr. Washington, who have the interests of the race at heart.” It goes on to quote approvingly Elihu Root’s belief that granting negroes the vote was a mistake.

Sixty of the 100 imprisoned IWW members in Denver jail begin a hunger strike.

NY Gov. Sulzer is trying to get the Legislature to pass a bill for direct primaries and abolish Tammany-dominated (on the Democratic side, obviously) conventions.

A French army balloon explodes. Oh the humanité.

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Today -100: April 17, 1913: I am insulted. Protect me!

The Belgian manhood suffrage strike continues to grow, to 300,000+. It’s day, 3 I think, and has been peaceful.

Some Germans visiting a casino in Nancy, France a few days ago were berated by some French students, and the German newspapers haven’t shut up about it since. The indignities supposedly inflicted on the tourists have only grown in the telling, in the German press anyway, while remaining on the level of youthful hijinks in the French press – “four or five young men surrounded the Germans, singing ‘You shall not have Alsace-Lorraine.’ One of the Germans went up to an official and said: ‘I am insulted. Protect me!’”

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