Caption contest

John McCain is in the Ukraine, which rhymes. Captions, rhyming or otherwise, please.

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Today -100: December 14, 1913: Of sieges, operas, and literacy requirements

In the ongoing rebel siege of Tampico, Mexico, both sides are executing prisoners, as was the custom. First the Federales hanged rebels in view of the rebel lines, then the rebels responded in kind.

Elsewhere, Pancho Villa’s men are reportedly merrily looting Chihuahua and extorting priests, as was the custom. Villa orders all Spaniards out of the city and indeed the country. He’s got a thing about Spaniards. Many are seeking refuge in El Paso. Villa also calls together a meeting of merchants and demands millions of dollars as revolutionary tax.

Headline of the Day -100: “Militants Shout To King at Opera.” After the first act of... wait for it... Verdi’s Joan of Arc, militants in the box opposite the royal box unfurl a banner saying “Women are being tortured in your Majesty’s prisons.”

Congress brings back the bill creating a literacy requirement for immigrants that Taft vetoed. California and Washington state congresscritters try to add bans on Asiatic immigrants, but fail.

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Today -100: December 13, 1913: Of Monas Lisa, primaries, and gunboats

The Mona Lisa, stolen from the Louvre in 1911, is recovered in Florence. The thief, an Italian named Vincenzo Peruggia (also spelled Perugia), said he stole it out of spite for France. He wanted it returned to Italy in compensation for all the works of art removed from Italy by Napoleon. He offered it for sale to an art dealer, who turned him in and will collect a rather large reward. Perhaps because of his supposed patriotic motives, an Italian jury will (next June) give Peruggia a sentence of only one year and 15 days. He heard this sentence “with a facial expression somewhat akin to ‘Mona Lisa’s’ enigmatic smile.”

The New York Legislature has been quite productive since impeaching Gov. Sulzer, passing a bill for Sulzer’s beloved direct primaries, as well as a major workmen’s comp bill. There will also be a referendum in April on whether there should be a constitutional convention in 1915.

The commander of the US naval forces off of Mexico, the alliterative Rear Admiral Frank Friday Fletcher, orders both sides to stop fighting in Tampico or his gunboat will open fire with its cannon. They stop fighting (but not for long).

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Today -100: December 12, 1913: Of matrons, vice film plays, kidnappings, and skinny tafts

In the Old Bailey, a jury of matrons is convened to determine whether a woman convicted of killing her 4-year-old son is really pregnant, as she claims, in which case they can’t execute her (not that a woman was terribly likely to be executed in 1913 England, especially not for child-murder).

John D. Rockefeller, who chaired an inquiry into “white slavery,” denounces the spate of recent films on the subject that claim to be dramatizations of his report, Law & Order-style. “Manufacturers of moving picture films throughout the country are said to be working night and day to get out vice film plays now that the craze for that sort of pictures is at its height.” At its height? Oh, I don’t think so.

Mexican rebels break into the British consulate in Chihuahua and seize Luis Terrazas Jr., son of the richest man in Mexico (he owns 2/3 of the land of the state of Chihuahua), for ransom.

The British Army is short of recruits and will, for the first time I believe, advertise.

Taft has lost 70 pounds since leaving the presidency 6 months ago. He’s down to a svelte 270 pounds. He no longer eats potatoes, bread, pork or salmon and limits himself to two glasses of water with dinner.

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Today -100: December 11, 1913: Of peace, temperance, women’s parties, and independence

Sen. Elihu Root wins the Nobel Peace Prize because of... his work in the pacification of Cuba and the Philippines as secretary of war, as well as his work on arbitration treaties while he was Roosevelt’s secretary of state.

Secretary of State Bryan, bucking for his own prize, says there will be no war between the US and any other country during the present administration. In fact, he says, the time is coming when there will be wars at all, and disputes between nations will be solved by reason and argument.

The Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League hold the largest prohibition demonstration Washington DC has ever seen. About 1,000 of each sex.

Sir Richard McBride, Prime Minister of British Columbia, rejects the demand of suffragists for the government to bring in a bill for women’s suffrage, saying that it would start a slippery slope leading first to women members of Parliament and then to the formation of a women’s party which would attempt to run the affairs of the country.

Headline of the Day -100 (London Times): “Damages for Seduction.” There are two words in that headline that need explanation; I believe “for” is relatively self-explanatory. The “seduction” was by a doctor who supposedly drugged his 17-year-old typist. The £350 damages were awarded to... her father, for injury to his property (the daughter, that is). Who is pregnant, by the way.

China’s Gen. Chang Hsun, who back in September was forced by a Japanese threat to invade Nanjing to apologize for insults to the Japanese flag (and, secondarily, for the deaths of some Japanese people), proclaims the province of Kiang-Su independent of China.

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Today -100: December 10, 1913: Of null elections, so-called votes of lack of confidence, lack of sympathy, and hair of Dickens

Theodore Roosevelt’s campaign secretary in the 1912 election says TR expects to win the mainstream Republican Party nomination for president in 1916.

The Mexican Congress declares the last presidential elections null, since 95% of polling districts failed to send in any returns. Huerta will remain “interim” president until new elections in, oh how about July, they say.

German Chancellor Theobold von Bethmann-Hollweg refuses to resign, rejecting the Reichstag’s “so-called vote of lack of confidence” in favor of the undiluted power of the kaiser to name his own officials.

In Britain, a congress called by the Trades Union Congress rejects Jim Larkin’s call for it to support the Dublin strikers with a sympathy strike. Larkin doesn’t like English union leaders and they don’t like him.

The governor of Kiev orders 1,100 Jewish dentistry students expelled from their schools and the city.

British Columbia bans the immigration of all artisans and laborers until March 31. It actually just wanted to ban Hindus, but a court said no.

Brentano, the book store guy, ordered some books from London, including Dickens first editions. His dealer included, as a free extra, a lock of Dickens’ hair. But US Customs is demanding that he pay $70, a tariff of 35% of the hair’s value. Brentano (who doesn’t even want the hair, he already has some Dickenshair) wants to get his books and return the hair, or alternately have the hair allowed in free as an antiquity (anything over 100 years old is allowed in without a tariff, and Dickens was born in 1812, even if this particular hair was removed from his person later).

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Today -100: December 9, 1913: To speak for myself would be an impertinence

Woodrow Wilson meets a deputation of suffragists and says that he supports the creation of a standing committee on women’s suffrage in the House, but since the subject wasn’t in the Democratic party platform, he won’t publicly give his personal views (on this or any issue). “I conceive it to be part of the whole process of government that I shall be spokesman for somebody, not for myself. To speak for myself would be an impertinence. When I speak for myself, I am an individual; when I am spokesman of an organic body, I am a representative.” I call bullshit.

Gov. Hunt of Arizona sends a message to Mexican rebel leader Carranza asking him to knock off all the executions. Carranza replies, reassuring him that the only people executed were real “traitors to the cause of popular government.” So that’s okay then.

The House of Representatives votes 317-11 for a resolution in favor of Churchill’s proposed naval holiday (when everyone else agrees to it, of course).

Gaston Doumergus forms a new French government from the Radical, Socialist, and Radical-Socialist parties (in France, parties tend to drift to the right over time; the Radical-Socialist party, of which the new PM is a member, is neither).

Paris City Council decides not to let Catholic nursing orders back into Paris hospitals (they were expelled following the legal separation of church and state in 1905). The debate was heated; there will be a duel.

Huerta’s family leaves Mexico City for Guadalajara, allowing easy escape from the country if the Huerta Junta loses the war.

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Today -100: December 8, 1913: Of hunger strikes

Emmeline Pankhurst is released from prison, suffering from pleurisy due to her hunger strike. There will be acts of revenge.

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Today -100: December 7, 1913: Of floggings, deluxe apartments in the sky, the suggestion, gratification, and education of sexual emotion, and shooting Ulstermen

Delaware whips three more prisoners, all of them black. This is in addition to prison sentences, not instead of, if I haven’t mentioned that before. I hadn’t realized the public were allowed to witness these punishments (except women, who are barred by prison officials, although there is no law against them spectating).

New York City, not surprisingly, has the most expensive apartment in the world, renting for $25,000 a year, in the new 15-apartment, 12-story building at 998 Fifth Ave, which is still around and still kinda pricey. 998, as it is known, was built by Jackie Kennedy’s grandfather. For $25,000 in 1913 you get an entire floor and 25 rooms. And the fireplaces all work, the NYT hastens to point out. Residents include Sen. Elihu Root (rumor is he was given a reduced rate as part of an attempt to lure millionaires from mansion-living to super-luxury-apartment-living, a new concept), as well as a Winthrop and a Guggenheim, former Vice President and former NY governor Levi Morton, and the aptonymed Watson Bradley Dickerman, a former president of the NY Stock Exchange.

Bernard Shaw and the Bishop of Kensington are having a flame war in the letter columns of the London Times over the issue of theatre censorship. Says Shaw, “a Bishop who goes into a theatre and declares that the performances there must not suggest sexual emotion is in the position of a playwright going into a church and declaring that the services there must not suggest religious emotion. The suggestion, gratification, and education of sexual emotion is one of the main uses and glories of the theatre. It shares that function with all the fine arts.”

A scientist discovers that it’s possible to use x-rays to read sealed letters. And the NSA is born!

Ulster Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson denies trying to persuade the army to refuse orders. “Nobody would blame the army for shooting upon Ulstermen.”

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Today -100: December 6, 1913: Of gun-running, blacklists, amnesties, and grippe

Britain bans arms importing into Ireland by royal proclamation. It won’t affect hunting weapons, because of course it won’t. Will this order be enforced more vigorously against Irish Nationalists than against Ulster Loyalists? What do you think?

If you need a hint: the secretary of war demanded the resignation of a major of the Horse Guards, the son of a viscount, because of his membership in the Ulster Volunteers, the group pledged to fight the army in the event of Home Rule. But several other officers threatened to resign, so he was allowed to remain.

Judge Loring of the Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that it’s legal for companies to combine to blacklist workers who participated in a strike.

The kaiser orders the transfer of the regiment that’s been causing so much friction (to say nothing of head injuries) in Zabern, Alsace, in a grudging surrender to the Reichstag.

Cuba finally passes the amnesty bill for the negro rebellion which was previously halted by objections (and the customary threats of military intervention) from the United States after amnesty for corrupt politicians was snuck into the bill. The new version includes amnesty for corruption politicians.

Woodrow Wilson has a case of grippe. Or grip, depending on which newspaper you read.

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Today -100: December 5, 1913: Of beautifully gowned anti-suffragists, firing squads, arrests at sea, and lack of confidence

Anti-suffrage women descend on Washington D.C. to lobby against the creation of a permanent suffrage committee in Congress. They are, the NYT feels impelled to inform us, “beautifully gowned.” Also present: Everett Pepperrell Wheeler of the “Man Suffrage Association,” who says “clenched fists,” such as Anna Howard Shaw waved yesterday, “mean fight.... but if [men] are challenged to fight this movement there will be blows to give as well as blows to take.” The first rule of Suffrage Fight Club is you do not talk about Suffrage Fight Club.

The United States will assist the Dominican Republic in organizing elections. The US ambassador “has already notified the restless and turbulent elements in Santo Domingo that the long period of revolutionary disturbances must cease”.

Mexican Federal Col. Exiquio Barbosa survives a mass execution by firing squad, plays dead, and escapes.

You know who would really be helpful in resolving the Mexican revolution? Former Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz. Well, that’s what current Mexican dictator Huerta thinks, for some reason, and he’s placed the 83-year-old exile on the army’s active list and will try to force him to return from France. This could all be a rumor, though, and Díaz plans to stay where he is.

British police succeed in arresting Emmeline Pankhurst by boarding her trans-Atlantic ship before it reached port in Plymouth, where a bodyguard was waiting to protect her. The suffragettes had their own boat to remove Mrs P before her ship reached dock, but two navy ships were deployed to block it, which seems like an awful lot of trouble. She begins a hunger and thirst strike.

The Reichstag passes a resolution of lack of confidence in Chancellor Theobold von Bethmann-Hollweg by a vote of 293-54, over the bad relations between the army and the people in Zabern, Alsace. This is constitutionally irrelevant, since cabinet officials are responsible to the kaiser rather than to the Reichstag.

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Today -100: December 4, 1913: Of sabre dictatorships, cunning plans, Christmas in Mexico City, sea fights, and mustaches

The German Reichstag is debating the poor relations between the army and the people in annexed Alsace, which some are now calling “sabre dictatorship.” Chancellor Theobold von Bethmann-Hollweg gave the Reichstag “a lengthy dissertation on philology with a view to proving that the word ‘wackes’ used by Lieut. Baron von Forstner was not nearly so insulting as people thought.” The war minister blamed the press and the “systematically organized provocation” against the army, and reminded the deputies that without the army “there would not be a stone in its place in Germany to-day”.

The US House passes a bill allowing the president to organize volunteer military forces whenever a war is imminent (such as Roosevelt’s Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War), but with enlistment being for the duration of the war rather than for short terms.

Nicaragua’s former president José Zelaya is released from the Tombs. His lawyers are still saying that it’s conditional on him leaving the country for Spain on the next ship, but Zelaya says there are no conditions, and the assistant US attorney backs him. Don’t know what’s going on here.

Mexican Pres. Huerta says the rebels weren’t actually successful when they captured Juarez, Victoria, and Culiacan. Rather, the government evacuated all those cities (and more) as part of a clever plan of campaign.

Gen. Mercado has just fled Chihuahua, presumably another part of this awesome plan, after sending a peace commission to Pancho Villa as a ruse to give himself time to escape. Since the Federal troops hadn’t been paid in weeks, the locals in Chihuahua were very happy to see them go.

Villa says he’ll be in Mexico City by Christmas.

Headline of the Day -100: “May Be Sea Fight for Mrs. Pankhurst.” Emmeline Pankhurst is on her way back to England, and there will be a race between her supporters trying to spirit her away from her ship before it docks and police trying to arrest her (she’s out of Holloway Prison on a Cat and Mouse Act license).

Hirsute Headline of the Day -100: “Kaiser Decrees Mustaches.” He is dismayed that army officers have taken to shaving off their mustaches, thereby “Americanizing” their faces.

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Today -100: December 3, 1913: Of states of the union, watchful waiting, surrenders, sleeping gas, and royal trains

Woodrow Wilson’s first State of the Union address (in fact the first SOTU speech to use the phrase, which the annual address would now be called) calls for binding presidential primaries; full territorial government and railroads to be built and run by the government in Alaska; credits for farmers; workmen’s compensation, and other elements of the Progressive program. The remaining adherents of the Progressive Party are wondering whether it still has a role. He even calls for “social justice,” one of Theodore Roosevelt’s old phrases. And for “ultimate independence” for the Philippines.

One thing he didn’t mention: women’s suffrage.

Wilson predicted the future with astonishing accuracy: “The country, I am thankful to say, is at peace with all the world, and many happy manifestations multiply about us of a growing cordiality and sense of community of interest among the nations, foreshadowing an age of settled peace and good will.” Phew.

“There is but one cloud upon our horizon,” the meteorologist-in-chief remarked: “There can be no certain prospect of peace in America until General Huerta has surrendered his usurped authority in Mexico”. “Mexico has no Government. The attempt to maintain one at the City of Mexico has broken down, and a mere military despotism has been set up which has hardly more than the semblance of national authority. It originated in the usurpation of Victoriano Huerta, who, after a brief attempt to play the part of constitutional President, has at last cast aside even the pretense of legal right and declared himself dictator.” But he reassured Congress that “the collapse is not far away. We shall not, I believe, be obliged to alter our policy of watchful waiting.”

More fun and games in Zabern, Alsace: Baron von Forstner, the arrogant boy-lieutenant who started all the fuss with the local Alsatians, decided to chase down some men who jeered the German soldiers as they passed. He caught only a lame shoemaker, who he hit on the head with the sharp bit of his saber.

Seven of Huerta’s generals in the north announce plans to surrender or switch sides or something (they say they’re surrendering, but at the same time they’re fleeing towards the American border as fast as they can), in a proclamation citing the important principle that they haven’t been paid.

Oil companies in Mexico have stopped supplying oil to the National Railways. Oil is mostly produced in the northern regions now held by rebels, whom the companies are unwilling to risk angering.

Pancho Villa’s chief of staff is arrested in El Paso on a complaint from Villa that he had embezzled rebel funds.

In US District Court in Phoenix, all cases against Texas and Arizona firms for smuggling weapons to the Mexican rebels are dismissed.

Saxony, Germany is developing a sleeping gas: “It is said that the gas from a single bomb has thrown several hundred men into a deep sleep lasting seven or eight hours.”

The teamsters’ strike in Indianapolis, the one that caused Mayor Shank to resign because he couldn’t avert it, is on. And we’ve got what the NYT optimistically calls its “first fatality,” a 19-year-old negro elevator operator shot by special officers “in a riot resulting from an attempt to move an ice wagon.” Don’t know who these “special officers” who are being sworn in are, but there’s also a “Citizens’ Cavalry.” The teamsters are calling for a general strike and for unions to withdraw their funds from local banks.

The government of French Prime Minister Louis Barthou falls after 8 months in office. Barthou himself will fall in a different way in 1934 as fatal collateral damage during the assassination of the king of Yugoslavia. Oh, and while the real cause of the fall of the Barthou government was the instability of multi-party democracy under the Third Republic, the vote the government lost was for tax-deductibility for the latest government loan to build up the army against Germany.

Headline of the Day -100: “May Look at Royal Train.” The German (Prussian?) Ministry of Railways issues an order that RR employees (gates-keepers, porters, etc) must stand at attention when a royal train passes.

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Today -100: December 2, 1913: Of Mexican thrills, exiles, smothered bandits, and flying churchills

Lead sentence of the Day -100: “President Huerta gave the people of the capital a thrill to-day by another of his periodical disappearances.” As always happens, rumors quickly spread that he had fled. Unfortunately, he came back.

The US, Nicaragua and deposed president José Zelaya come to an agreement: he will go back into exile in Barcelona. In other words, the US & Nicaragua leveraged the latter’s request for his extradition to force him back into exile across the Atlantic.

It is just coming out now that the United States almost invaded Mexico back in June. Rebels were being unpleasant to American citizens in Piedras Negras and were threatening to attack the consulate. Secretary of State Bryan wrote to Secretary of War Garrison asking that a force be held ready to cross the border if the consul asked for it. Someone talked to rebel leader Carranza, who settled the situation down. So why the leak now, six months later? Possibly the Wilson Admin needs to demonstrate that he is capable of being tough and getting results, now that Huerta has ignored Wilson’s demands with impunity.

Headline of the Day -100: “SEAL UP UTAH MINE TO SMOTHER BANDIT; Tons of Dynamite in Shaft Where Lopez Is Trapped Amid Deadly Gases. 200 ARMED MEN ON GUARD. Deputies at Every Entrance with Orders to Shoot Down the Desperado on Sight.” Ralph Lopez, Mexican bandit, killed a miner, a chief of police and no fewer than four deputies. The deadly gases, by the way, are actually being pumped into the mine by the authorities (wet gunpowder, sulphur, coal tar, formaldehyde, black oil, etc).

The Paterson strike fails to get going.

The NYT chides William Jennings Bryan for the fact that his old paper The Commoner, now run by his brother, accepts ads for quack medicines.

Winston Churchill becomes the first cabinet minister of any country to fly an airplane. Not fly in an airplane as a passenger, but actually steer it. Take-off and landing were handled by the commander of the British Naval Flying Corps, Capt. Gilbert V. Wildman-Lushington, possessor of the most English name in all Christendom, although not for long. Three days later Wildman-Lushington died in a plane crash.

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Today -100: December 1, 1913: And the Fatherland has only one

A week ago the Russians arrested and handed over to the Turks a man they’d told Russia was a common or garden-variety murderer. Turned out, he was one of the alleged conspirators behind the assassination of the Grand Vizier in June and had been sentenced to death in his absence. Russia feels it was tricked and demands he be released because it was a political crime. Instead, he “committed suicide.”

Lord Willoughby de Broke sends out a circular, marked “strictly confidential,” to rich landowners calling on them to enroll young men, preferably with military experience, to fight the British Amy over Home Rule.

Punch, December 3:

A Nation of Fire-eaters.
Peaceful Tuton: “Himmel! They have all those armies! And the Fatherland has only one.”

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Today -100: November 30, 1913: Of sabers in Zabern (almost poetical), and socialist senators

More anti-German-military sentiment is expressed in Zabern, Alsace. It started when some schoolboys jeered a group of army officers which included the lieutenant who told his men it was okay to shoot Alsatians. A crowd collected, troops from the barracks appeared, with drums and fixed bayonets and everything, and started arresting anyone they found on the streets, including two judges on their way home from court. These Alsatians were held overnight in the barracks’ basement, then turned over to the civil court, which promptly released them. “A number of young Lieutenants of the Ninety-ninth Infantry were seen to-day pursuing with drawn swords a youth who had shouted an insult to a man who was singing the German national anthem.”

In Flensburg, Schleswig, another part of the German Empire added by conquest, polar explorer Roald Amundsen has been forbidden from giving a lecture in Norwegian (which the Danish residents could presumably follow).

Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel III has been getting along fairly well with the Socialists these days. He gives a cabinet post to a Socialist who in 1900 shouted “Death to the King” in parliament, referring to VE3’s father, who was assassinated three months later. The king has also named Socialists to the Senate for the first time, three of them.

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Today -100: November 29, 1913: Of Mazalan, land swaps, strikes, and ear-boxing

The Mexican Constitutionalist rebels capture Mazatlan. Next stop: Chihuahua.

Not able to tap European money markets, Dictator Huerta may require banks to give him a forced loan.

Huerta also plans to go after every newspaper that reported the fall of Victoria. He hasn’t publicly admitted losing Juarez either.

Gen. Antonio Rábago, the military governor of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, commits suicide after losing the capital, Victoria, to the rebels.

Oh, and now Mexico has yellow fever, because of course it does.

Denmark is proposing a land swap: Germany would give Schleswig-Holstein (captured in the 1864 war) back to it, Denmark would give Greenland to the United States, the US would give Mindanao to Denmark, which would give it to Germany.

Indianapolis Mayor Samuel Shank met with the leaders of various unions and demanded a promise that there would be no more strikes during his period in office. They said no, so he has resigned. That’ll show them. (A detail I’d missed about the strike: the mayor had objected to cops being used to protect scabs. 31 cops refused orders to do so and were prosecuted, but were acquitted.)

The General Electric strike in Schenectady is over. Workers will work part-time rather than be laid off, and the two union organizers who were fired will be re-hired.

A German lawyer boxes the ears of an army lieutenant who he found in the company of his stenographer, and there was a duel, and... But here’s my point: no one boxes anyone’s ears anymore. Or do they? what is boxing someone’s ears, exactly?

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Today -100: November 28, 1913: Of lost turkeys, passive resistance, “clergywomen,” Lewis guns, snuff, and eugenic marriages

Headline of the Day -100: “Shipwrecked Men Lose Their Turkey.” The steamship Christopher arrives in Brooklyn, carrying six seamen rescued from the schooner Brookline, which was wrecked off Barbados. The ones who “lose their turkey” are five whose citizenship papers were lost in the mishap and were not permitted to land and thus went without Thanksgiving dinner.

“Lose their turkey” would be a good euphemism for something. Suggestions in comments.

A league is formed
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FA0B17F7355F13738DDDA10A94D9415B838DF1D3
in China to prevent the adoption of Confucianism as the state religion.

British Prime Minister Asquith has decided not to exclude Northern Ireland from Irish Home Rule after all.

The Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge, comes out in support of the passive resistance campaign of Indians in Natal, South Africa against the pass laws. The violence against Indian protesters in South Africa was beginning to rouse anti-imperial feelings in India. Hardinge took this position without clearing it with London, which was not best pleased.

Mexican government troops retreat from Ciudad Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas. “It is reported here that the rebels carried away trainloads of loot and many women.”

Headline Scare Quotes of the Day -100: “TO ADMIT "CLERGYWOMEN."; Synod of Canton of Neuchatel Decides in Favor of Innovation.”

“Wonderful” Headline of the Day -100: “A Wonderful New Gun.” The Lewis Automatic Machine Gun. It can fire 800 rounds a minute. Swell.

The North Dakota Supreme Court upholds the state’s ban on snuff.

Colorado’s Gov. Elias Ammons hosts a meeting of coal mine owners and the leaders of the striking miners. No agreement is reached, and the owners’ seeming willingness to relent on issues relating to company stores, checks on coal weight (miners being paid per pound), etc leaves the governor with the impression that the miners were being unreasonable because the only thing the owners were adamant against considering was recognition of the union. The governor will now tilt increasingly toward the owners, leading inexorably (spoiler alert) to the Ludlow Massacre.

The LAT summarizes states’ eugenics laws. Pennsylvania, for example, requires applicants for marriage licenses to swear that they are not imbeciles. In 3 states a marriage is invalid if one of the parties is drunk. In Delaware the child of a person who was insane before the child was born cannot marry. In Utah, epileptic women may marry only after the age of 45. Marriages of people with VD are illegal in just 5 states.

A Mrs. L. Brackett Bishop of Chicago plans to adopt 15 babies from 15 different races (this is the early-20th-century definition of race, so it includes a German, a Scandinavian, an Irish, and several South American types as well as black, Amerindian, Malay, Chinese and Japanese).

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Today -100: November 27, 1913: Of pardons, plagues, luggage, peace conferences, and breach of promise

South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease pardons and paroles 100 convicts for Thanksgiving, including 56 convicted murderers. Two days later one of them, who had served 3 years for murder, shoots a man. Another of the killers issued a pardon turned out to have already escaped from a chain gang two months ago.

There’s a bubonic plague outbreak in Ecuador’s rural regions, which the government is trying to hush up.

Ousted Nicaraguan president José Zelaya is arrested in a New York hotel. Evidently didn’t flee to Canada after all. And man he sucks as a fugitive: when you flee from one hotel because the cops are on the way, you don’t forward your luggage to another hotel.

The third international Peace Conference might have to be postponed from 1915 until 1916 or 1917. No rush, guys.

Jennie Carter of Wakefield, Massachusetts, sues the estate of Frank Sherburne for breach of promise of marriage. He broke their engagement by committing suicide. Tacky, Jennie, tacky.

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Today -100: November 26, 1913: Of wireless, espionage bureaux, obedient wives, and full and disgraceful retreats

For the first time, train passengers (on the Lackawanna Railroad) are able to read the current news, delivered by wireless radio (or Wi-Choo, as it was called)(well, as it should have been called). “To think we didn’t have it for the World Series,” said one passenger.

Switzerland uncovers “an extensive and cleverly organized international military espionage bureau” in Geneva run by a French ex-army captain, Larguier. Larguier has been ordered to leave the country and now must decide, depending on which of Switzerland’s four borders he exits by, which country will have the privilege of arresting him.

Jessie Woodrow Wilson, the president’s daughter (aka “the hot one”), marries Francis Bowes Sayre, a lawyer, in the White House. She actually insisted on including the word “obedient” in her vows.

The Mexican rebels are besieging Tuxpan, a town important to the oil industry. Rebels are demanding that (foreign) oil companies pay taxes to them and not to the Huerta regime. In Juarez, Pancho Villa says “The Federals are in full and disgraceful retreat.” And they are. Villa’s men are executing captured Federales.

14,000 General Electric employees go on strike in Schenectady after two union organizers are fired. Presumably they wanted to get the strike in while they still had a sympathetic Socialist mayor, George Lunn (his term expires at the end of the year).

NYC has police phone boxes (which are not bigger on the inside) for cops on the beat to call their precinct houses, but precincts have no way of contacting patrolling officers. But now, the 23rd Precinct will experiment with signal boxes on fixed posts, which during the day will ring until a cop answers and at night will flash a green light.

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