Today -100: May 13, 1913: I hope we have seen the last great war

At a conference celebrating the centennial of the Treaty of Ghent and 100 years of peace with Britain (I assume there are big plans currently for the bicentennial?), Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan says there will be no war while he is secretary of state, and no war “so long as I live. I hope we have seen the last great war.”

The Carlsbad, New Mexico Chamber of Commerce says that if California doesn’t want Japanese farmers, it does.

Headline of the Day -100: “Foreign Pulp Men Win.”

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Today -100: May 12, 1913: Misdirected sex is a national tragedy

Mexico: Constitutionalists execute 25 Federal soldiers by firing squad.

Woodrow Wilson seems to have moved away from his initial position that California’s proposed Alien Land Act is a matter of state’s racist rights, and asks Gov. Hiram Johnson to delay or veto it (Secretary of State Bryan had suggested a referendum, to delay it until 1914). If Johnson does this, Wilson promises to negotiate with Japan to, I don’t know, get it to stop its citizens buying land in California, like it voluntarily agreed to restrict emigration a few years ago.

Mrs. Arthur Dodge, President of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage says that the suffrage movement is “a sex disturbance” born of
“straining after artificial happiness and unnatural enjoyment which indicates an unsettled and an unsatisfactory state of mind.” She says that the costumes of the women in the NYC women’s suffrage parade relied on their sex to appeal to men. If women go out to work on political causes, “the home may be crucified by the ballot”. She links the suffrage movement with immodesty in dress, looseness in conversation and impropriety in dancing. “Misdirected Government is a bad thing, so bad that the men of this country can be relied on to correct it whenever necessary, but misdirected sex is a national tragedy, which, if it is not checked, will degenerate the race.”

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Today -100: May 11, 1913: Of Sheldons, cigarettes, dueling, dynamite, and menschenschlachthauser

Horace Olin Young, Republican member of Congress for Michigan for the last ten years, resigns. In the 1912 election, the name of his Progressive opponent William MacDonald was incorrectly rendered on the Ontonagon County ballot as Sheldon William MacDonald, and 458 votes for “Sheldon” were thrown out, giving the election to Young. Young felt that MacDonald was the choice of the majority of electors and does the right thing. In August, the House Committee on Elections will award the seat to MacDonald, who will lose the 1914 election.

Pennsylvania passes a law banning the sale of cigarettes to minors under 21. Minors caught with cancer sticks must say who gave or sold them to them or face the juvenile court (if under 16) or a fine or imprisonment (if over).

The Duc de Cazes has sent a letter to society folk in Paris and to members of clubs and sporting societies, asking them to shut up about their duels, which have been attracting large audiences recently, so they don’t, you know, ruin it for everyone.

Headline of the Day -100: “Dynamite Destroys Town.” Uniontown, Pennsylvania. A coal town, thus the dynamite. I suspect they’re exaggerating a little about the town being destroyed.

The German government suppresses Wilhelm Lamszus’s book The Human Slaughter-House: Scenes from the War that is Sure to Come (Menschenschlachthaus; trust the Germans to have a word for human slaughter-house), although only after it had already become a best-seller. Evidently Lamszus thinks the next war will be mechanized and brutal, which is just crazy talk.

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Today -100: May 10, 1913: Of rumbles, the root of our free institutions, and amateur theatrics

Under the martial law which Gov. Hatfield declared in West Virginia because of the coal strike, he has ordered the military to seize several newspapers and their employees held without trial, including our Name of the Day -100, Elmer Rumble, reporter for The Socialist and Labor Star. Let me repeat that: Elmer Rumble, reporter for The Socialist and Labor Star.

The speaker of the House of Representatives orders Charles Glover, president of the Riggs National Bank, to be arrested and brought before the bar of the House for slapping the face of Thetus Sims (D-Tenn.), who had attacked him in a speech in Congress. They explained to Glover that the ability of members of Congress to say whatever they want, including slandering businessmen, is “at the very root of our free institutions.”

The NYT fails to name the play being performed by a local lodge in Sharon, PA, when the heroine fainted and “In the excitement, Frederick McIntyre, who played the villain, accidentally shot himself in the left hand with a revolver. The show ended abruptly.”

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Today -100: May 9, 1913: Of recognition, and long suits

The House passes a tariff bill, and a newly constitutional graduated income tax, in case you were wondering why I haven’t written anything about what Congress has been doing for the last few weeks.

Victoriano Huerta, dictator of Mexico, is threatening that if the US doesn’t recognize his regime (Britain just did), he won’t recognize the US either and will de-ambassadorize (that’s a word, right?) US Amb. Henry Wilson. Funnily enough, Woodrow Wilson would love to replace the other Wilson, who he quite rightly doesn’t trust, but has refrained because of precisely this problem that there’s no one to whom the replacement could present his credentials.

The city of NY finally settles a lawsuit stemming from the burning down of the Hotel Allerton during the Draft Riots almost fifty years before. The 88-year-old who brought the suit will get $7,300.

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Today -100: May 8, 1913: Of amendments, 4th-class postmasters, and hooting anarchists

The 17th Amendment is re-ratified, after the Wisconsin Legislature passes the correct version.

Pres. Wilson orders all 4th-class postmasters to take a competitive civil service exam to keep their jobs. In other words, he’s trying to get rid of Taft’s patronage appointments.

A supposed British suffragist plot to blow up St. Paul’s is foiled.

Headline of the Day -100: “Paris Anarchists Hoot King Alfonso.”

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In case you were wondering whether rape is patriotic, it’s totally not

Asked about sexual assault in the military: “And if it’s happening inside our military, then whoever carries it out is betraying the uniform that they’re wearing. And they may consider themselves patriots, but when you engage in this kind of behavior that’s not patriotic -- it’s a crime.” So that clears that up.

“And for those who are in uniform who have experienced sexual assault, I want them to hear directly from their Commander-In-Chief that I’ve got their backs.” That probably could have been better phrased.

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Sophistication and precision

Peter King (Know Nothing Party-NY) says that the Boston bombers couldn’t possibly have been acting alone: “It’s very difficult to believe that these two could have carried out this level of attack with this level of sophistication and precision acting by themselves, either without training from overseas or having at least facilitators here at home.”

You can see King’s why thinks this: King isn’t smart enough to wipe his own ass with any level of sophistication or precision acting by himself without training from overseas or at least facilitators at home.

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Today -100: May 7, 1913: Of the interdependence of the sexes on one another, and strikes

The British Parliament rejects the women’s suffrage bill by 47 votes. Many will blame militant suffragette tactics for this, and not without reason, but the desire of Irish Nationalist MPs not to disrupt the Liberal government or force a new election before Home Rule is enacted is arguably more important. Prime Minister Asquith, arguing against the Dickinson Bill, says there would be a decline of courtesy and chivalry “and the interdependence of the sexes on one another”. He also says that this issue was not before the electorate at the last general election, though since the Liberal and Tory parties are both split on the issue, it’s impossible for a general election to turn on the public’s views on suffrage (the argument that the government did not have an electoral mandate to enact a social change which did not divide on party lines was also made in 2013 against gay marriage).

Syracuse police shoot to kill (in the words of the police chief’s orders) at mostly Italian striking building laborers who attacked negro scabs.

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Today -100: May 6, 1913: Of amendments, isolated orders, silent stares, and hats in Parliament

The 17th Amendment, for the popular election of US senators, is unratified, because Wisconsin accidentally ratified the wrong draft.

Montenegro yields to the Great Powers (and to the threat of Austria and maybe Italy sending in troops), and will evacuate Scutari.

Arizona is working on its own racist land law.

A federal district court judge in Washington State rules that a high-caste Hindu from India is an Aryan, a “free white person,” under the law and thus is eligible for naturalization. Ahkay Kumar Mozumdar, a yogi who plans to teach what the NYT calls “ancient nonsense for which the present has little use and the future none,” thus becomes the first Indian to become an American citizen.

Paterson’s silk strike is now a general strike, enforced with violence and staring: “Their method of gaining recruits was that of collecting in a large body around a gang of laborers and staring silently.” The Wobblies will totally kick your ass in a staring contest.

While Women’s Social and Political Union leaders are in court in one part of London (the prosecutor claims that the WSPU is responsible for broken windows in 700 to 800 premises, and damage to 560 letter boxes and 8,400 letters), elsewhere Parliament debates a bill to enfranchise some women (house occupiers or wives of house occupiers, over the age of 25). Liberal Unionist MP Rowland Hunt brings up the important issues: “If you once give votes to women they could undoubtedly sit in this House. You could not prevent it, and whether rightly or wrongly they could be War Ministers or anything else. There would be nothing to prevent them being Speaker. We might have to address the Chair as ‘Mrs. Speaker, Ma’am,’ for all we could tell. ... There are obvious disadvantages about having women in Parliament. I do not know what is going to be done about their hats. Are they going to wear hats or not going to wear hats? If you ordered them not to wear hats, you might be absolutely certain that they would insist on wearing them. How is a poor little man to get on with a couple of women wearing enormous hats in front of him?” How indeed.

Helen Keller is a militant suffragette, supporting window-breaking etc, because she believes women’s suffrage will lead to socialism.

However, Carrie Chapman Catt, former (and future) president of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, who is on a visit to Britain, says that American suffragists won’t adopt militant methods: “Your movement resembles a battle; ours a process of evolution. Yours is picturesque and very tragic; ours is commonplace and sure.”

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Today -100: May 5, 1913: Of London mobs

Headline of the Day -100: “London Mob Riots for Free Speech.” I knew there was something about London mobs that I liked. The Free Speech Defense League organizes a meeting in Trafalgar Square against the government’s attempt to ban suffrage meetings in public spaces. The fight started when Socialists tried to speak on one side of the Nelson Monument at the same time as the organizers’ speakers (including Labour MP Keir Hardie and Women’s Freedom League president Charlotte Despard) were speaking on the other side, and were pulled down by police. A general fight ensued, as was the custom.

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Today -100: May 4, 1913: No Government Ever Yielded a Right Unless Bullied Into It

Something called the National Democratic Fair Play Association of the United States is formed. What constitutes democratic fair play, you ask? Segregating the civil service and preventing the hiring of negroes in the future. At the Association’s first mass meeting, a letter is read from an anonymous Southern white woman employed by the General Land Office who was forced, forced, to take dictation from negroes. “I became so nervous it almost shattered my reason.” Almost.

There is a women’s suffrage parade on 5th Avenue, NYC. The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage actually hired “experts” to count the marchers (experts in counting, one assumes), and claims there were only 9,613.

Signs included: “More Ballots; Less Bullets”, “Government is Housekeeping and Homekeeping,” “To Create Sex Antagonism Is an Unwise Precedent,” “Let the People Rule; Women Are People,” “Hasn’t Your Wife Brains Enough to Vote?”, “No Government Ever Yielded a Right Unless Bullied Into It.”

The NYT congratulates the marchers – “they marched well, they looked well” – and says that while it opposes women’s suffrage, it congratulates American suffragists on not being like the English militants.

Maj. John Finley, Governor of the Southern Zone of the Philippines, arrives in Constantinople to ask for Turkish help in subduing the Moros (he is supposedly acting as ambassador of the Moro people, not as a rep of the US government. Hah). He wants the Sheik-ul-Islam to tell the Moros that allegiance to US colonial rule is compatible with their religion, and that it is against the Koran to kill Christians and drink alcohol. The US is even offering to pay for Muslim missionaries to go to the Philippines.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is hauled into court by a neighbor who claims his collie, whose name I could not discover, had killed some of the neighbor’s sheep. Doyle acted as his own lawyer and neatly broke down the stories of the witnesses against the dog (the story quotes some of the cross-examination, which is very Perry Masonish).

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Today -100: May 3, 1913: Of recognition, suffrage, and polo ponies

The US recognizes the Chinese Republic, the first nation to do so.

The Florida legislature votes down women’s suffrage.

Headline of the Day -100: “English Polo Ponies Sail.” Oh, they’re good.

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And I want my cut (so to speak)

It’s only a matter of time before someone turns this cannibalism-in-Jamestown thing into a movie called Puritans vs. Zombies.

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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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