Today -100: August 8, 1913: Of misdemeanors, child labor, arbitration, and lepers

The investigation of NY Gov. William Sulzer by the Frawley Committee suggests that not only did he under-report campaign donations, but some of the money went into stock speculation rather than the campaign. Or it’s all just a frame by Tammany Hall. Either one’s believable, really. The Legislature will reconvene next week and State Sen. Frawley says there’s enough evidence to justify impeachment or indictment (conviction even for a misdemeanor would have the effect of removing him from office).

The Georgia Legislature considered a bill to ban 12-year-olds from working and to require that all children, before being allowed to work, have to prove an ability to read and write, but after strong opposition from mill owners it’s been dropped.

The US and El Salvador sign a treaty not to go to war with each other for the next five years “without first thinking it over seriously,” in the words of the NYT, which does not appear to be taking this very important treaty very seriously.

Headline of the Day That We Can Only Hope Wasn’t Meant Literally (LA Times): “Wife Sticks to Leper.” The wife of George Hartman of St Louis insists he doesn’t have leprosy but he’s less in denial (he used to be a guard at a leper colony in the Philippines).

I don’t know how many Americans catch leprosy in the Philippines these days, if any, but I do know that one-third of Americans who do get it, get it from armadillos.

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Today -100: August 7, 1913: Peace, ain’t it grand

A preliminary peace treaty is signed in the Second Balkan War. Bulgaria, which at the beginning of the First Balkan War was thinking of itself as the center of a new Balkan Empire, only to find itself at war with every other Balkan country in the Second Balkan War, will lose 90% of the territory it seized from Turkey, while Romania, Greece and Serbia will all become substantially larger. The NYT optimistically asks how soon it will be before the Third Balkan War. (Spoiler alert: one year, but it’ll have a different name.)

Sun Yat Sen flees China.

The Mexican government says that ex-governor Lind, Pres. Wilson’s personal envoy, must either come with credentials as a regular ambassador and recognition of the Huerta Junta, or he will not be welcome.

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Today -100: August 6, 1913: Of heads, policewomen, religious freedom in the Balkans, and the most vigorous of protests in favor of the national dignity and decorum

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Train Severs Man’s Head.”

Headline of the Day -100 That Sounds Like The Title of An Early Porno Film But Isn’t: “Chicago Rejoices in Policewomen.” Eight are sworn in. “The Captain told the women he would give them the handsomest detective in the district to show them about and tell them how to ‘pull a box.’” Maybe it really is an early porno film. It still hasn’t been decided whether they get to carry clubs and guns. Exclaims one of the new cops, “Why, I know I can arrest somebody today! The Park is just full of spooners, who should make love at home.” The police chief actually wants them to “instruct and persuade” people rather than arrest them. Yes, definitely 18 frames-a-second porn.

Oh, and we have a Name of the Day -100: Chicago Police Chief McWeeny. Which probably explains the porn thing.

In Denver, however, the city’s first policewoman, Josephine Roche, resigns as Inspector of Amusements (I could make a joke here but I’m beginning to feel bad about all the porno jokes) because her cases are never prosecuted.

The US asks the Second Balkan War combatants to include a provision guaranteeing religious freedom in the peace treaty currently being negotiated. The real target of this, Romania, says no. Romania will be acquiring many new, no doubt delighted, Jewish citizens. Or would be if Jews were ever allowed to become citizens in Romania.

The NYT asks Mexican dictator Huerta some questions. He responds that he will refuse all intervention or mediation from the United States, that he will deal with rebels only by shooting them, and that the “present war is the most vigorous of protests in favor of the national dignity and decorum.”

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Florida kills the Prince of God, evidently

Florida executes John Errol Ferguson, who believed he was the immortal Prince of God who could control the sun. The Florida Supreme Court ruled that that didn’t make him insane, because lots of Christians also believe they are immortal.

His last words were “I just want everyone to know that I am the Prince of God and will rise again.”

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The military can’t keep running the country

John McCain and Lindsey Graham are in Cairo to “defuse the crisis,” because if there are two people who are all about defusing crises, it’s John McCain and Lindsay Graham (it was evidently the Obama administration’s idea to send these guys, which says all you need to know about how seriously the Obama administration is taking the coup in Egypt).

Graham says the Egyptian army “move more aggressively” to hold elections. Really really aggressive elections.

“The military can’t keep running the country,” Graham says, demonstrating his firm grasp of the last 60 years of Egyptian history.

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Today -100: August 5, 1913: Of hop riots, lectures, and special envoys

There is a battle between IWW-led striking hop-pickers and a sheriff’s posse in Wheatland, California, with four deaths. This is the famous Wheatland Hop Riot (I’d never heard of it either)(or, indeed, of Wheatland, California).

Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan has abandoned some of his planned paid lectures, and the Democratic Party of Texas has offered to raise a large sum of money for him if he’ll stop lecturing when he’s supposed to be secretary of stating.

US ambassador to Mexico Henry Lane Wilson has resigned/been fired, at long last. John Lind, the one-armed former governor of Minnesota, will be sent as special envoy. Lind knows nothing about Mexico, has no experience in diplomacy, and doesn’t speak any Spanish, but his instructions from Woodrow Wilson are to end the fighting in Mexico, establish a provisional government satisfactory to all sides, secure free elections, get Gen. Huerta not to run in those elections, etc. These instructions immediately leak to the press.

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Today -100: August 4, 1913: Of the fruit of an unnatural task

There’s rioting in Cawnpore, India, when British authorities demolish part of a mosque for road improvements.

The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage issues a statement of its objects. “We, more than any other organization, believe in woman’s rights. We are fighting for woman’s rights. First in the catalogue of woman’s rights is the right of exemption. By that we mean exemption from active politics and all that it involves. ... by virtue of it woman is able to do her half of the world’s work. Deprived of this exemption, woman becomes an incongruity. Called upon to do double duty, she will face the failure which is the fruit of an unnatural task.” It insists that the “franchise is not a right, nor a privilege. It is a duty, a stern duty imposed by the State upon that class of persons thought by the State to be best equipped to perform it.”

Suffragettes interrupt services at St Paul’s in London to chant “Save Emmeline Pankhurst. Spare her, spare her, etc.”

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Today -100: August 3, 1913: Of protectorates, eugenics, feather men, sugar senators, tea, and hypnotists

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee informs Secretary of State Bryan that the “protectorate” bits of the proposed treaty with Nicaragua are not acceptable. They are willing to keep the provision giving Nicaragua $3 million in exchange for rights to build a canal that no one would ever want to build. (I wrote that before China announced plans to build just such a canal.)

It’s the first day of the eugenic marriage laws in Pennsylvania: “The questions relating to the health and moral character of the applicants as propounded by Thomas C. Smith, the application clerk, were received and answered with varied emotions. Young women blushed and became indignant, and then stammered out their answers under protest.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Say Feather Men Dominate Senate.” A letter signed by various Audubon Society types says that the feather trade has thwarted attempts to protect birds by banning the importation of plumes, feathers, quills etc for anything but scientific purposes.

Another Headline of the Day -100: “Defends Sugar Senators.” Another indigenous tribe brought to light by the Tariff Bill: alongside the Feather Men, the Sugar Senators are defending tariffs on imported sugar.

The Bishop of Kerry says that the recent spread of lunacy in that Irish county has been caused by drinking. Tea-drinking.

The LA Times has two stories about hypnotists today, for some reason. A hypnotist in Dulwich, England has reportedly cured a 9-year-old girl of blindness. The case “is arousing considerable interest in gullible British medical circles,” the Times says (I may have added a word). And a M. Lerambourg of Paris “used to invite women to tea, hypnotize them, and cut strands of their hair.”

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Oaths & impunity

When American politicians express indignation over Russia’s refusal to hand over Edward Snowden to face “the rule of law” (which as we know always begins with extraordinary rendition from a country with which we have no extradition treaty), I think – well, there are lots of people I could think of, but I think of this dude,

who spent his latter years as the owner of a pizza parlor in a Washington DC suburb in Virginia.

---

Bradley Manning’s crime is often described as violating his oath. Conservatives attach a great deal of importance to oaths; maybe I’ll write about that one day, hopefully more coherently than in the paragraph I just deleted. But Manning’s oath of secrecy was a blank check. How is an oath to protect secrets one doesn’t know yet morally binding? If he’d discovered that the reason we invaded Iraq was to kill Iraqi children and drain them to slake Dick Cheney’s insatiable thirst for human blood (sorry if I just scooped you, Glenn Greenwald), would everyone expect him to have kept schtum?


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Today -100: August 2, 1913: Of fire traps, loan-shark diplomacy, policewomen, and dog-combing monarchs

NYC Fire Commissioner Johnson inspects the Asch Building, the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, and discovers that the conditions that led to that fire – flammable scrap material lying about the floors, employees allowed to smoke, etc. – are still being practiced.

The Liberal Party in Nicaragua evidently doesn’t want their country to become a protectorate of the United States (“loan-shark diplomacy,” Theodore Lippincott calls the proposed treaty).

Venezuela’s former president Cirpriano Castro returns from exile with an army in an attempt to overthrow the government, as was the custom. President Gomez assumes dictatorial powers until the crisis is over, as was the custom.

Chicago hires ten policewomen, to police dance halls and public beaches. “Their uniforms have not been decided upon.”

Kaiser Wilhelm criticizes the Balkan monarchs, except for Greek King Constantine (his brother-in-law), for failing to lead their armies in the Balkan Wars: “The others have stayed at home and combed their dogs.”

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Today -100: August 1, 1913: Of peers, ambassadors, and pseudonyms

British Chancellor David Lloyd George attacks the House of Lords as undemocratic and, with its insistence on obstructing measures proposed by Liberal governments, as creating in effect one constitution for Tory governments and another constitution for Liberal ones. Sound familiar?

Ambassador to Mexico Henry Lane Wilson has come to Washington and made his case to the president for recognition of Huerta as dictator of Mexico, but to no avail. President Wilson just will not recognize a government founded on murder. Okay, when I put it like that it just sounds funny.

Headline of the Day -100: “Suffrage Autoists Besiege Senators.” A convoy of 60 autos brings women’s suffrage petitions to the US Senate.

A letter to the Times says that author pseudonyms are unethical and proposes that they be required to register their noms de plume. Of course the letter is by the (future) author of “The Jolly Book of Funcraft,” who delights in the given name Patten Beard.

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Or you could just stop lying already

I like how Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald waited between the time Snowden said he could read everybody’s emails from his desk until all the outraged denials and tut-tuttings were out there before releasing the documents proving it.

Where have we seen this before?

When the Soviet Union shot down a U-2 spy plane in 1960, they similarly let the US lie about its spy plane program, even giving Eisenhower one more chance to come clean, then produced the pilot, Francis Gary Powers. It was more of a shock back then to many people that the US government lies so much.

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Today -100: July 31, 1913: Of campaign funds

NY Gov. William Sulzer is being investigated by the state senate, which has uncovered two checks to his 1912 campaign fund, amounting to $3,000, which he did not report as required by law. More will be heard of this.

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Law & Order

Israel will free long-term Palestinian prisoners as part of the deal to resume peace talks, but... “The pace of the releases will depend on progress in the talks.” If you’re using prisoners as a bargaining chip to ensure actions on the part of other people, they’re not prisoners, they’re hostages.

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Today -100: July 30, 1913: Of wrong buildings

Headline of the Day -100: “Wrong Building Put Up.” During the planning for a new hq for the Admiralty in London, the wrong blueprints got shown to the royal family, so they just had to go with it.

A conference of the ambassadors of the Great Powers agrees to establish a commission, with each of the six countries naming a member, to rule Albania for six months, at which time they will nominate a king. There will be a gendarmerie with Swedish officers.

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Intense

The BBC World Service said that John Kerry was undertaking “intense diplomatic efforts” towards Middle East peace. Because if there’s one word that comes to mind when you think of John Kerry, it’s “intense.”

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Today -100: July 29, 1913: Of shocking bloomers

Headline of the Day -100: “Bloomers Shock Chicago.” There are women who take off their bathing skirts at the public beaches and Mayor Harrison WILL NOT STAND FOR IT.

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Today -100: July 28, 1913: I walked, the sooner to be free

Lois Marshall, wife of Vice President Thomas Marshall, says that “the fashions of today ought to convince anyone that a woman is not fit to vote.” Instead, women should work to do away with the slashed skirt and the turkey trot.

British suffragist Sylvia Pankhurst describes being violently arrested by the Metropolitan Police, and her subsequent hunger, thirst and sleep strike. “By Friday to walk about the cell meant to faint many times; but, when I could summon up the strength for it I walked, the sooner to be free.” Released again on license, she leads a crowd from Trafalgar Square toward Downing Street to deliver a petition from the East End to the prime minister, but they are broken up by police. Sylvia, no less militant than her mother and sister, is increasingly turning to the poor women of the East End and towards mass protest rather than the individualistic acts of property damage in which the WSPU now specializes (although she did break a window in the police station).

The bodies from the Binghamton Clothing Company fire that could not be identified, 21 of them, are buried. They had to use a trolley to bring all the caskets to the cemetery, since there were not enough hearses in the city.

The US demands the Mexican government arrest soldiers who shot an American immigration officer in Juarez. He was there investigating an American negro white slaver, who may have bribed the soldiers to kill him. They arrested the immigration cop and when he realized they were not taking him to hq and were probably intent on murdering him, he ran away and was shot in the back, as was the custom.

The NYT editorializes in favor of recognizing the Huerta Junta in Mexico: “The character of Gen. Huerta is none of our business. It need not be considered”.

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Today -100: July 27, 1913: We have not the serf’s mind

Southern racists are gearing up to fight Pres. Wilson’s nomination of a negro, Adam Patterson, to be Register of the Treasury, one of a handful of federal posts traditionally occupied by negroes. No one has anything against Patterson personally; the objection is the one expressed in a letter to Wilson from Thomas Dixon, author of the novels that would be adapted for the screen as Birth of a Nation: “I am heartsick over the announcement that you have appointed a Negro to boss white girls as Register of the Treasury.” Wilson reassured him that he planned to make the registry division exclusively black to prevent race-mixing. (The LA Times story on this yesterday, headlined “Wilson Names a Negro,” said “The Republicans are laughing up their sleeves. They are chuckling at the latest faux pas of the administration”.)

The NYT claims to know what Henry Lane Wilson, US ambassador to Mexico, is telling his bosses: the US must either recognize Huerta or invade. He prefers the former.

The other Great Powers refuse Russia’s proposal that they jointly coerce Turkey into abandoning its military actions against Bulgaria through a joint naval demonstration and a mobilization of Russian troops.

We have a great rarity in NYT coverage of the British women’s suffrage movement: a story about something the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies did. The NUWSS was by far the largest suffrage organization, but it was non-militant: didn’t break windows, didn’t shout at politicians, didn’t get a lot of ink. Anyway, it just completed a Women’s Suffrage Pilgrimage, in which women from all over the country marched to London, holding meetings (and being attacked by hooligans) all along the route. To distinguish themselves from the militants, they were asked not to wear the WSPU’s colors (purple, green & white) and carried banners saying only “Law-Abiding Suffragists.” A deputation of pilgrims meets with Prime Minister Asquith; NUWSS president Millicent Garrett Fawcett tells him, “What has been given to native races we demand should be given to the women of our own race. We are not political serfs. We have not the serf’s mind.”



Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Upper Lip Like a Girl.” That lip is the 19-year-old Prince of Wales’ stiff but girlish upper lip, which would have prevented him joining the cavalry but for an order issued by the War Office on his behalf, making it no longer mandatory for officers to have a ‘tash.

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The exception that proves the rule, or something

The US tells Russia that we won’t torture or execute Edward Snowden if they deport him, adding “But everyone else in the world? Yeah, Obama totally has the power to torture and/or kill them.”

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