Today -100: January 26, 1914: Of held Mexicans, royal yachts, and ex-towns

Headline of the Day -100: “NATION HAS RIGHT TO HOLD MEXICANS.” (We will hug him and squeeze him and call him Jorge). District court rules that the US Secretary of War can keep refugees from the Mexican Army interned.

Prince Wilhelm of Wied plans to arrive in Albania, the country whose king he’s going to be, on a new yacht, the Mohican. That’s assuming his rival Essad Pasha allows him to land at all.

Remember how the governor of Oregon sent his secretary to put the town of Copperfield under martial law because its saloons violated closing hours laws and its mayor & some city council members owned saloons? Now he’s ordered the town disincorporated unless its officials all resign.

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Today -100: January 25, 1914: Of typograms (or something), kidnapping, and naval demonstrations

Technology Headline of the Day -100: “Typewriter May Soon Be Transmitter of Telegrams.” Some New Zealand guy has invented a doohickey. But really, sending messages around the world from your keyboard? That’s just crazy talk.

A special grand jury in Michigan refuses to return a true bill against the men who assaulted two miners’ union officials, kidnapped them, and forcibly deported them last month. The prosecutor had helpfully explained to the jury that it wasn’t kidnapping if there was no intent to confine them or to hold them in service, as opposed to forcing them over state lines against their wills.

The Senate passes a bill for a government railroad in Alaska.

The European Great Powers will each send a ship to Albanian waters in a “naval demonstration,” to suggest politely to Essad Pasha that he not try to make himself king of Albania.

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The strong interest of the Texas Legislature

The lawyer for the Texas hospital keeping the brain-dead pregnant woman on life support (and not enough has been made of the fact that this is a public hospital, owned by Tarrant County) argued in court, “Given the strong interest of the Texas Legislature in protecting the life of unborn children, it is unlikely the Legislature contemplated only the welfare of the mother”.

Wait, let me correct that for you: “it is unlikely the Legislature contemplated only the welfare of the mother”.

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Today -100: January 24, 1914: Of fake unions, defective Asiatics, and big sticks

German Chancellor Theobold von Bethmann-Hollweg accuses socialist MPs who are asking questions in the Reichstag about the soldiers acquitted for their actions in Zabern of undermining the throne.

The convention of the United Mine Workers expels Local 979 of Pocahontas, West Virginia, on the grounds that it’s a front organization created by a detective agency to get an agent into the UMW convention.

Labor Secretary William Wilson proposes to Congress a ban on Hindu immigrants (who are supposedly sneaking into the US via the Philippines). He also suggests physical tests for prospective Asiatic laborer immigrants to exclude defectives; he’s presumably okay with white-skinned defectives.

The Bonapartist pretender to the French throne, Victor Napoleon (known as Napoleon V to a handful of cranks), fathers a male heir to his non-existent throne.

You know that “big stick” Theodore Roosevelt carried? It just got stolen.

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Today -100: January 23, 1914: Of profit-sharing, voting rights, and war movies

Ford is quizzing its employees about how they spend their money before allowing them into the profit-sharing program. If they say they send it back to the Old Country, they’re not allowed to participate.

South Carolina’s General Assembly votes in favor of repealing the 15th Amendment.

The first fruits of Pancho Villa’s film deal are shown in New York City, and they sound rather disappointing. Villa is shown smiling as he leads his troops into battle at Ojinaga, then he is shown smiling as he leads his troops out of the battle at Ojinaga, but there’s no actual battle footage because the battle was fought at night. A likely story.

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Counseling or screaming

During last week’s Supreme Court hearings on the Massachusetts abortion clinic buffer zone case, Stephen Breyer commented that the particular context of an abortion clinic might justify such a law: “Everyone is in a fragile state of mind.” He said, “It’s just tough to say whether they’re counseling somebody or screaming at somebody.” Breyer has clearly spent way too much time with Antonin Scalia.

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Today -100: January 22, 1914: Only those persons who have lost all moral sense can endure it. It is the shame of our days.

Headline of the Day -100: “SUFFRAGE HIT BY KINDNESS.; Senate Ready to Pass the Bill, but Ashhurst Talks Too Long.” Sen. Henry Ashurst (D-Arizona) (misspelled in that headline) gave a three-hour pro-suffrage speech, using up the time needed for a pro-suffrage vote, so the Senate moved on to the Alaska Railroad bill.

Alliterative Headline of the Day -100: “Menace By Militants.”

Straw Headline of the Day -100: “Straw Hat Appears in Mobile.” Sign of spring, or something, 1914-style.

Mesmeric Headline of the Day -100: “Raid Broke Up ‘Trance.’” Arresting 20 white people, evidently a Spiritualist meeting, at the home of a negro woman the Paterson, NJ who police describe as a “common clairvoyant.” She will be fined $100 and each of the attendees $3. For what crime, I don’t know.

The NYT letter columns for the past couple of weeks has been deeply concerned with palindromes.

Cardinal Cavallari, the patriarch of Venice, says the tango is “everything that can be imagined. It is revolting and disgusting. Only those persons who have lost all moral sense can endure it. It is the shame of our days. Whoever persists in it commits a sin.” He orders that absolution be denied to anyone who confesses to having tangoed without promising to abstain in the future.

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Gender diversity

The state of Utah’s latest arguments to the Supreme Court in favor of marriage inequality is that the state is supporting diversity, just like affirmative action or something:

Society has long recognized that diversity in education brings a host of benefits to students. If that is true in education, why not in parenting? At a minimum, the State and its people could rationally conclude that gender diversity — i.e., complementarity — in parenting is likely to be beneficial to children. And the state and its people could therefore rationally decide to encourage such diversity by limiting the coveted status of ‘marriage’ to man-woman unions.

The state doesn’t explain what gender diversity in parenting actually means, and should be made to explain its “Men do parenting like this, but women do parenting like this” argument in excruciating detail. As I’ve said before, homophobia is basically a subset of sexism.

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Today -100: January 21, 1914: The antagonism between business and government is over

Pres. Wilson appears before both houses of Congress to lay out the principles behind five anti-trust bills he will send them. These would 1) set up an Interstate Trade Commission (for disseminating information, not enforcement, except for fining corporations that do not provide information to it); 2) ban interlocking directorates; 3) better define the existing Sherman Anti-Trust Act; 4) allow individuals, not just the attorney general, to initiate anti-trust suits; 5) something or other about railroad securities. “The antagonism between business and government is over,” Wilson says. In other words, he’s denying that these measures are as radical as business types will no doubt make them out to be.

Headline of the Day -100: “Union Breaks Up Funeral.” During the funeral service for a Mrs. Marion Auzone of Trenton, the hearse drivers were informed that the musicians playing the dirge were non-union, so they quit and drove off. The pallbearers had to carry the coffin to the cemetery, stopping for occasional breaks, and if you’re not thinking of that Monty Python episode by now I don’t even want to know you.

The Wisconsin eugenic-marriage law is declared unconstitutional, both for setting doctors’ fees for issuing health certificates too low ($3) and for impairing the right of matrimony. However, the circuit judge did not agree that the law was unfair in only demanding medical examination of men.

The Ulster Women’s Unionist Council is organizing Ulsterwomen to participate in the upcoming civil war: driving ambulances, nursing, carrying messages, etc.

A French dancing teacher sues the archbishop of Paris for banning the tango. Loss of business.

Has the NYT been covering the Haitian revolution and I’ve just missed the stories? Anyway, the rebels have defeated government forces in a battle and the minister of war is running for his life.

The NYPD has some sort of objection to the play “The House of Bondage.” A play by one Joseph Byron Totten, something about a brothel, described by the New York Telegram as “so scarlet it screams.” Evidently it’s already been so expurgated in response to police pressure as to be silly, and it lasted 8 performances.

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Today -100: January 20, 1914: The King has got to see us, or we shall know the reason why

Headline of the Day -100: “Women Now Menace King.” The Women’s Social and Political Union’s Norah Dacre-Fox on the WSPU’s plan to petition the king in person: “The King has got to see us, or we shall know the reason why.”

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Today -100: January 19, 1914: Of assassins, sneezes, and funny money

In Paris a few days ago there was an assassination attempt on Mehmed Cherif Pasha, a former Turkish ambassador to Sweden who is now an anti-Young-Turk exile. The assassin did succeed in killing his valet before being shot dead by Cherif’s son-in-law. Anyway, since then a French lawyer, Georges Desbons, who claims to have information about another planned assassination attempt, was refused entry at Cherif’s house (possibly because the last stranger to turn up had a gun and a dagger and a Koran), so now he’s demanding an apology or a duel with Cherif, because of course he is.

A jury in Bunzlau, Germany, refuses a police demand that a man be convicted of disturbing the public police for sneezing too loudly.

Bulgaria sells Turkey 200,000 rifles it captured from Turkish troops during the Balkan war.

Venezuela says that it will not be able to hold congressional and state elections next month because of the state of rebellion and because Gen. Gomez really doesn’t want to give up power. They may not have said the last part out loud.

Mexican rebels are either issuing their own currency now or counterfeiting it, it’s not really clear. Anyway, 10 million pesos in paper money of this currency were seized in Chicago, but since the US doesn’t recognize any Mexican government, the money can’t be considered counterfeit under US law and will be given back.

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Today -100: January 18, 1914: Of overrated navies, internationales, and gangsters’ balls

Headline of the Day -100: “Navy Is Overrated, Says F.D. Roosevelt.” Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt says the navy doesn’t have nearly enough dreadnoughts to protect the East Coast from invasion in event of some sort of war. He doesn’t say who he thinks would land soldiers on the East Coast. (The thing about the Navy being “overrated” is that people overestimate the number of ships it has; FDR says only 16 of them are good enough to be sent against an enemy fleet).

Two brothers, Pierre and Adolphe de Triter, went to court in France in a dispute over which of them composed the music of the song The Internationale in 1888. The court rules in Adolphe’s favor, but Wikipedia says that he was put up to falsely claiming ownership by Lille’s mayor and the French Socialist Party (Pierre had moved ideologically to their left). Adolphe admitted the fraud in his suicide note in 1916 and the copyright was re-awarded to Pierre in 1922. It is still in effect.

The House Rules Committee decides against setting up a special committee of the House on women’s suffrage.

New Headline of the Day -100: “Police Didn't Know of Gangsters' Ball.” An NYPD police captain is being investigated for neglect of duty for not stopping or at least keeping a watch on a gangsters’ ball which ended, as gangsters’ balls do, with a gun battle that killed a passer-by, who happened to be a City Court clerk. Cops from Capt. Sweeney’s precinct testifying in his defense say that no one knew about the ball, despite the placards which advertised who would be attending.

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Today -100: January 17, 1914: Of subs, Hindus, and fleas

The British submarine A7 sinks to the bottom of Whitesand Bay, killing 11 men.

A meeting of Colorado miners threatens to free Mother Jones, currently being held by the military under martial law, by force of arms.

Canada will require Hindus entering the country to prove they have $200.

Alfred de Rothschild (of the London Rothschilds) buys a flea for $5,000. A sea otter flea. He collects fleas. Because of course he does.

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Today -100: January 16, 1914: Of insurance, spoils, general strikes, and the tango

Lloyd’s of London calculates an insurance policy for Shackleton’s polar expedition based on a risk of failure of only 10%.

Pres. Wilson is in a dispute with Congressional Democrats over spoils in the postal system. Wilson says he will veto the Post Office appropriations bill if it contains an amendment removing 2,400 positions from the civil service and returning them to the spoils system.

Mexico mostly stops paying postal orders. Well, the PO will make full payment, but in stamps. The problem is that military units have been looting post offices.

South Africa has crushed the general strike, arresting many union leaders, some of whom surrendered after a field gun was trained on the Trades Hall in Johannesburg. The government mobilized Boer burghers into militias, telling the strikers in so many words, Hey the army might not shoot you, but these guys are crazy!

The pope comes out against the tango. So don’t dance the tango, dude. He also objects to the “new paganism,” although I doubt he was particularly fond of the old paganism.

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Today -100: January 15, 1914: Of militias, fast cars, and honored women

Congress and the secretary of war are working on a bill to make the state militias available for use in foreign countries, and by foreign countries they of course mean Mexico.

Ford Motors in Detroit may recently have started the first moving assembly line, but Ford in Manchester, England, builds a car in 11 minutes and started driving it around in 19 (the 8 minutes were wasted because someone forgot to “pack the induction pipe,” whatever that means).

In a change of policy by Pancho Villa, the capture of Ojinaga is not followed by executions.

Sarah Bernhardt is named to the Legion of Honor.

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Today -100: January 14, 1914: Of lynchings, defaults, strikes, intellectual equals, disagreeable or incompatible races, and volcanoes

Booker T. Washington says there were only 51 lynchings in 1913, compared to 64 in 1912. Um, yay?

Mexico announces it will default on the interest on its bonds. And seize the property of rebels.

US District Court upholds the Wright brothers’ patent on heavier-than-air flying machines.

A general strike is declared in South Africa. The government declares martial law. Prime Minister Botha says he will crush the strike so that there won’t be another strike for a generation. Gandhi – that Gandhi – helps out the government by calling a halt to the Indians’ protest campaign against the pass laws (within a couple of days he will have negotiated a deal ending Indian-specific taxes and allowing polygamous marriages).

Members of the Paterson (NJ) Woman Suffrage League ask Mayor Fordyce why he refused to appoint any women to the Board of Education. Because “I do not regard women as the intellectual equals of men,” he says.

South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease spends much of his annual state of the state message attacking some of the many people he considers his enemies: a US district court judge for being “a little cheap partisan politician,” Navy Secretary Daniels for being small and stupid (Daniels would not approve improvements to the Port Royal Naval Station unless the sale of whisky in the barracks was stopped). He complains about encroachments on states’ rights by the federal government, such as fixing hunting seasons. Why, he says, “one of the greatest and noblest battles ever waged was fought in the sixties for State’s rights... Now are we to sit idly by and see their work undone and the results achieved by them set at naught?” Does he think the South won the Civil War, or is he talking about the Ku Klux Klan?

Gov. Blease calls for bans on football and on smoking in restaurants patronized by women. He again calls for a ban on white women teaching in negro schools and for the banning of negro lodges. And for a law banning all state colleges and any public schools for white children from “admitting any negro, Chinese, Japanese, Cuban, or other disagreeable or incompatible race into said school or school with white children.”

(The consul-general of Cuba objects to the “patent intention of this message officially to belittle and disgrace the Cuban people by putting them on a level with the South Carolinian estimate of the negro... nothing could be more insulting.”)

The volcano Sakurajima erupts in Japan.

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Bulldozer

Obama sent Joe Biden to Ariel Sharon’s funeral to say nice things about him, just confirming Robert Gates’ assertion that Biden is always wrong.

“But when the topic of Israel’s security arose, which it always, always, always did in my many meetings over the years with him, you immediately understood how he acquired, as the speakers referenced, the nickname ‘Bulldozer.’” No, Joe, I think that was because he bulldozed the homes of Palestinians, sometimes with them still inside. Hope that clears up any confusion.

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Today -100: January 13, 1914: Of tiny elephants, banishments, race betterment, profit-sharing, and refugees

Headline/Fashion Tip of the Day -100: “St. Petersburg Women Have Tiny Elephants Painted on Their Faces.”

Mother Jones returns to the Colorado coal fields from whence she was illegally deported last week, and is arrested. Gov. Elias Ammons says she will be held, incommunicado, until she agrees to leave the strike region.

A Dr. J. McKeen Cattell tells the Conference for Race Betterment that if the birth rates of Britain, France and Germany continue to decline, in 100 years there will be no births at all. Other attendees express alarm that superior human stock aren’t producing enough children.

Henry Ford’s profit-sharing plan attracts 12,000 men seeking jobs, a line so long that it blocked the arriving morning shift. So they turned the fire hoses on them, in 0° weather.

The US is trying to figure out what to do with all the refugees streaming in from the fighting in Mexico, including fleeing Federal soldiers as well as civilians. There are various plans to move them to army bases or camps where they can be fed. The US plans to bill Mexico for reimbursement later.

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Today -100: January 12, 1914: Of pogroms, tangoes, and circus girl wars

In Lodz, a “fanatical mob” attacks Jews and loots their homes and shops, as was the custom.

Munich police ban the tango, as do the Geneva police. And the archbishop of Paris declares dancing the tango a sin which must be confessed.

Alice Paul announces that her Congressional Union, which was a committee of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association focused on working for a federal suffrage amendment, has had its NAWSA funding cut off, but will continue to operate as an independent organization. The CU and its younger members are now free to adopt more confrontational methods. And will.

Headline of the Day -100: “Circus Girls to War on Foreign Invasion.”

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Today -100: January 11, 1914: Of ojinagas, strikes and scabs, exposition fatigue, and punitive self-defense

Mexican rebels led by Pancho Villa capture Ojinaga, for whatever that’s worth (the rebels have tended not to have sufficient troops to occupy the territory they capture). Several of the Federal generals and many soldiers, who had not received ammunition, much less pay, for months, have surrendered – to the United States authorities, who are rather less likely to put them in front of a firing squad than the rebels.

The US Dept. of Labor has issued a report on the Calumet, Michigan copper strike. It faults mine owners for their refusal to negotiate with the Western Federation of Miners (or, indeed, to employ any of its members). Jesus, the scabs were only paid $2.50 a day (Henry Ford pays the kid who sweeps the floors $5) and have to pay up to $22 per month for board and $24.50 for the cost of transportation from where they were hired (NY) to Michigan. The employment forms for the scabs were filled out in German but with the word “strike” in English because NY law requires workers to be told they’re being hired as scabs, but it doesn’t say they have to be told in a language they understand (several of the scabs, on arrival in Calumet, immediately defected to the union, saying they’d been told there was no strike). Michigan Gov. Woodbridge Ferris claims not to have read the report yet, but says that the strike “would have been settled long ago” if it weren’t for those outside agitators and the insistence of miners on having a union. It would all have been ok, he says, “if the miners had been allowed to treat with the operators as miners, and not as representatives of any organization”.

Several European countries are boycotting the San Francisco Exposition to protest the discriminatory rates they’ll be charged to use the Panama Canal, although Germany is claiming it’s just “exposition fatigue.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Sabre Rule Upheld by Army Courts.” A German court-martial acquits Col. von Reuter and Lieut. Schad of the Ninety-ninth Infantry for running amok in Zabern, Alsace, and reverses the conviction of Lt. Gunther Freiherr von Forstner for attacking a lame shoemaker with his saber, which the court deems an act of “punitive self-defense.” The acquittals are predicated on the supposed failure of the civilian authorities to stop the Alsatian natives from, I don’t know, looking funny at the soldiers, and the absolute requirement of military personnel to follow orders in the most Prussian way possible. Evidently under a Prussian Army regulation from 1820 (i.e., before the creation of Germany, much less the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine), the army can establish martial law whenever it likes.

Former President Taft sends 35 pants to the tailor to be taken in: he’s lost 80 pounds since leaving office.

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