Headline of the Day

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Today -100: May 18, 1913: Of peace & disarmament, and women state senators

A Franco-German Peace and Disarmament Conference was just held. German nationalist newspapers made fun of it.

The NYT Magazine profiles State Sen. Helen Ring Robinson of Colorado, the only female state senator in the United States. (The Times says she is also the first, but the Times is wrong, that would be Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon of Utah, who served two terms in the 1890s and was in a polygamous marriage.) Robinson compares legislatin’ to housework (she told her fellow senators that prisoners could be fed for just 35¢ a day because she fed her poor husband for that), and talks about how she used her skills as a former English teacher to correct the grammar in bills, and how the male senators were all afraid that she would abolish the custom of smoking cigars in the senate, but she totally didn’t.

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Today -100: May 17, 1913: Of rebellion & militancy, more alien land bills, and street car strikes

The London Times reports that three Dublin suffragists (Margaret Palmer, Dora Ryan, and Annie Walsh) were tried in the Dublin Police Court for breaking windows at the United Irish League and at the house of John Dillon MP. At the trial, Dillon is asked if he signed petition for restoration of political rights for Dr. Jameson following his conviction for leading the Jameson Raid on the Transvaal before the Boer War. Dillon says that was a rebellion and militancy is disgraceful but rebellion isn’t.

NYC Mayor Gaynor says the way to end suffragist militancy in England is to find husbands for the suffragettes, adding “Is there any suffragette in the world who would not give up her principles for a nice man?” He thinks most women in NY don’t want the vote, while most men “are in that mood that they just laugh and rub their stomachs and say that they are perfectly satisfied for the women to vote if they want to.” (Rub their stomachs?)

Arizona bans any alien who does not declare an intention of becoming a US citizen from owning land. This affects not just Asiatics, who are debarred from citizenship by racist federal laws, but also Mexican nationals who want to retain their citizenship. The governor refused to veto the bill because, he says, it’s necessary in the interests of the white race.

Headline of the Day -100: “Editor Shoots a Mayor.” Of Mount Auburn, Ill. To be fair, the mayor attacked the editor first.

The Cuban congress has appropriated funds to send soldiers to the US to march in the parade for the dedication of the Maine Memorial, but is fighting over whether some black soldiers will be sent or just white ones.

The NYT optimistically reports the “first big riot of the street car strike” in Cincinnati.

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Obama press conference: And so I make no apologies

Obama and Turkey’s prime minister held a press conference outside in the rain, but did they bring enough umbrella-toting marines for everyone? No they did not.



SITUATION NORMAL... “I want to note the Prime Minister’s efforts to normalize relations with Israel.”

BECAUSE OBAMA IS ALL ABOUT MAKING PROGRESS ON A TWO-STATE SOLUTION, IN EVERY WAY EXCEPT ACTUALLY MAKING PROGRESS ON A TWO-STATE SOLUTION: “This will benefit both the Turkish and Israeli people and can also help us make progress on a two-state solution, including an independent Palestinian state.”

NEEDY: “We both agree that Assad needs to go. He needs to transfer power to a transitional body.” Christ I hate that formulation: Obama treating his personal preferences as things the rest of the world “needs” to do. The presidential God-complex.



On IRSgate: “I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the IG report before the IG report had been leaked through the press. Typically, the IG reports are not supposed to be widely distributed or shared.” So he’s bitching about leaks – and no doubt reading the emails of the entire press corps to find out who’s responsible – while admitting he wouldn’t even know about these abuses of power for which he is ultimately responsible without the leak.

SEPARATE BUT EQUAL OUTRAGE: “it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, you should be equally outraged at even the prospect that the IRS might not be acting with the kind of complete neutrality that we expect.” Except for class neutrality: obviously we all expect the IRS to continue to focus its enforcement efforts much more on poor people than rich people.



Asked about the trawl through AP phone records, Obama uses the words National Security as often as he can. Of course this is a “pending case,” so he can’t comment about it specifically, he says, but he can strongly suggest that AP reporters Hate Our Troops: “Leaks related to national security can put people at risk. They can put men and women in uniform that I’ve sent into the battlefield at risk. They can put some of our intelligence officers, who are in various, dangerous situations that are easily compromised, at risk. ... And so I make no apologies, and I don’t think the American people would expect me as Commander-in-Chief not to be concerned about information that might compromise their missions or might get them killed.” And so the National Security State speaks, now and forever, world without end.

In the very next sentence he praises the free press and the open flow of information, at least in, you know, theory, and the need to “strike that balance properly,” because Barack Obama is always all about striking balances. So he supports a Media Shield Law that would require judges to allow exactly such fishing expeditions through news agencies’ records if the administration says it’s necessary for “national security.” I’m not sure what the point of having a judge in the process even is, since they wouldn’t be allowed to question such a designation.

Oh, and he has complete confidence in Eric Holder.



He says that Syrian President Assad “lost legitimacy when he started firing on his own people and killing his own people”. He still doesn’t say when Assad acquired legitimacy. By the way, did you know that the Chicago police shot 57 people last year, 50 of whom were black? Just saying.

(I’d have given you a national figure but, huh, the federal government doesn’t seem to compile that data. Funny, that.)

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Today -100: May 16, 1913: The whiskey constables are useless

South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease fires all 100 whiskey constables after a state Supreme Court decision legalizes the importation into the state of booze for personal use.

The grand jury in Chicago is investigating Charles De Alvandros, lawyer/clairvoyant/con artist. As a fake lawyer, he referred clients to himself, wearing a disguise, as a clairvoyant with remarkable insight into the affairs the client had disclosed to the lawyer, if you follow.

There are more strikes going on than I’m even attempting to keep up with, with more ominous developments – dynamite going missing, attempted train derailings, etc. So this may be my only mention of the barbers’ strike in NYC: there is a barbers’ strike in NYC. There’s also a strike by iron miners in Wharton, NJ. Women and children have supposedly been attacking deputies because they know the cops have been ordered not to shoot. So the local sheriff and judge want the military sent in to shoot the women and children. But a general, I assume of the state militia, is disinclined to do so because a detective agency hired by the mineowners says it can break the strike in four days. Oh good.

French aviator Marcel Brindejonc des Moulinais sets a speed record by flying in just 20 minutes from Calais to Dover, where he was arrested for breaking the new law against foreigners landing in Britain without a permit.

Headline of the Day -100: “Wilson Puts Check on Rumors of War.” With Japan. Over California’s racist Alien Land Act.

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Today -100: May 15, 1913: We hope this is not a poor widow’s house

In Britain, someone sent a mail bomb to the magistrate who has presided over many trials of suffragettes. It did not explode. And fires were started at a house and a church. Found at the unoccupied house, the message, “We hope this is not a poor widow’s house.” Boys have been leaving fake bombs in various places as pranks, because hilarious.

An international force has arrived to occupy Scutari until the Albanians get their little country organized.

Evidently China came to a secret agreement with Russia to give up Outer Mongolia to it.

The US Navy seems to have lost/had stolen plans for the electrical systems of the latest battleship (or “superdreadnought” as they call it, which would be an awesome name for an Edwardian superhero). The Burns Detective Agency is looking into it.

Nevada executes one Andrija Mircovich for the murder of a former state senator. Mircovich is the first person ever executed by automatic rifles, because they couldn’t find any people willing to shoot him.

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That can’t be Halal

There’s a video on the web of a Syrian rebel commander cutting the heart out of a government soldier and taking a big juicy bite out of it.

This will only make John McCain love the rebels all the more.

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Today -100: May 14, 1913: Of the smokeless power of love, goat lymphs, censorship, and alien land

At a meeting for the centenary of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, Secretary of State Bryan exercises his wit in the interests of diplomacy, saying that the best battleship is... friendship. “Its compass is the heart, its shells carry good will; its missiles are projected by the smokeless power of love; its Captain is the Prince of Peace.” Beat that, John Kerry!

William Lorimer, who was US senator from Illinois until he was expelled in 1912 for having gotten his seat through bribery, is now revealed to be behind a fake mail-order tuberculosis cure (a lymph taken from goats).

The British Labour Party’s publishing house says that it will take over the publication of The Suffragette as a matter of principle, namely opposition to the government’s attempt to pre-censor the newspaper.

A Paterson jury convicts IWW organizer Patrick Quinlan of inciting a meeting to attack scabs, after a hung jury last week. A bunch of cops testified that he made the speech, a bunch of IWWers and a reporter that he never spoke at all. At the second trial, Quinlan did not use some anarchist witnesses who made a poor impression at the first trial when they replied no to the prosecution asking whether they believed in country, law or God. Quinlan could be sentenced to 7 years.

California Gov. Hiram Johnson responds to Sec of State Bryan with a letter explaining why he won’t veto the racist Alien Land Act, but without actually explaining it. He refers to “a very grave problem, little understood in the East” (meaning the East Coast of the US, not Asia), but fails to say what there is about a, let’s face it, rather small number of Japanese buying farmland, that constitutes a very grave problem.

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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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