Today -100: March 10, 1914: Texas has not committed an act of aggression against Mexico

Texas Gov. Oscar Branch Colquitt says that Wilson’s Mexico policy is “a crime against civilization.” Texas governors, always so subtle. He blames Wilson’s “namby-pamby policy” for the outrages against American citizens. He again denies that the Texas Rangers crossed into Mexico: “Texas has not committed an act of aggression against Mexico... but Mexico, by reason of the conditions existing in that country, is constantly committing acts of aggression against the citizens of Texas.” He says each state has the right of self-defense.

Sen. Albert Fall (R-New Mexico) gives the names of 79 Americans he says have been killed in Mexico and calls for military intervention in Mexico, but says “we do not war upon the Mexican nation or people... it is not our purpose to acquire territory, upset their laws or overturn their constitution; and with an invitation to the masses of the Mexican people to cooperate with us...” We’ll be greeted as liberators! “...we should immediately direct the use of the land and naval forces of this Government for the protection of our citizens and other foreigners in Mexico and lend their assistance to the restoration of order and maintenance of peace in that unhappy country.” In other words, Senator Fall owns property in Mexico.

The NYT calls bullshit: “‘Intervention’ in the Southwest has always meant annexation.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Streams of Water Rout 1,500 Hoboes.” Sacramento decides to deal with the unemployed army by driving them out of the capital with beatings and water cannon (except for the leaders, who are arrested) and keeping them from returning by lining the bridge over the Sac River with cops with shoot-to-kill orders.

NY Gov. Glynn plans to deal with the unemployed movement in NYC by removing the unemployed from the city and putting them to work as farm laborers. Their wives can be maids. Problem solved.

The National Civic Federation responds to the IWW threat by setting up a committee chaired by Alton Parker, the Democratic candidate for president in 1904, “to study the scope and limits of the rights of free speech and assembly both from the standpoints of the individual and of public order and welfare.” The NYT thinks the IWW’s ideas are outside of Constitutional protection.

Emmeline Pankhurst is arrested in Glasgow at a public meeting. Suffragists resist with pails of water, guns firing blanks, and small bombs. Also, the platform on which Mrs P was speaking was protected by barbed wire cunningly concealed by floral decoration. She will be moved to London.

NY State Supreme Court Justice Chester denies former Gov. Sulzer’s application to be paid his post-impeachment salary. Because it would have prejudiced this case, poor Bill hasn’t drawn his salary as a member of the Assembly.

British Prime Minister Asquith offers concessions on Ulster: before Home Rule goes into effect, there will be referenda in each of the nine counties in Northern Ireland (note: present-day NI consists of 6 of those counties) on whether to exclude the county from Home Rule for six years. Sir Edward Carson calls this plan “a sentence of death with a stay of execution.”

But that’s not the only important issue being addressed by Parliament: the House of Commons is considering a Plumage Bill, which would ban the importation and sale of the plumage of wild birds.

Foreshadowy Headline of the Day -100: “Mrs. Wilson Still Ill.”

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Today -100: March 9, 1914: Of bodies

The body of Clemente Vergara, the American rancher killed by Mexican federal soldiers, is returned to the US by persons unknown, supposedly. The Texas governor’s office absolutely denies the rumor that the Texas Rangers crossed into Mexico to retrieve it. I have no idea whether to believe him. Vergara’s body has three bullet wounds, a broken skull, and charred fingers (so he was tortured before being killed).

The Italian cabinet resigns.

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Today -100: March 8, 1914: Of two-by-four know-it-alls, vodka, unemployed armies, monks, and hearing voices

In Congress, Rep. Asbury Lever (D-SC) quoted unfavorably a remark he’d overheard in his hotel dining room by “one of those two-by-four know-it-alls” that only farmers and criminals can get money from the government. As it happened, the very same two-by-four know-it-all was in the gallery at that moment and sent him a note saying he’d be at the Shoreham Hotel if Lever wanted to challenge him to a duel or have lunch with him. Lever has called the hotel three times without finding the two-by-four know-it-all in, but it is unknown which offer he desired to take up.

Czar Nicholas goes to war against vodka (spoiler alert: vodka will win; vodka always wins), ordering the end of the ceremony at the end of every army parade in which commanders toast the imperial family in front of the troops. The czar would like to reduce the state’s financial dependence on its vodka monopoly (one-third of state revenue), but is facing opposition from his cabinet.

Despite the case against him having fallen apart since his trial, Leo Frank is re-sentenced to be hanged on April 17th. His 30th birthday.

The unemployed army demand that California Gov. Hiram Johnson provide them food and transportation to the state border. He refuses, but offers them work. They say they’ll finish their march to Washington first.

There’s a Supreme Court case about a guy, Augustine Wirth, who quit the Benedictine monks in 1897, got fairly wealthy writing books, and died in 1907. The Benedictines are claiming that his estate should go to them rather than to his heirs because he took a vow of poverty.

Headline of the Day -100: “Helen Keller Hears Voice.” The high notes of an opera singer singing Die Walküre.

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Today -100: March 7, 1914: Of drunks, the unemployed, and extraditions

The Special Commission on drunkenness appointed by the Massachusetts Legislature says that prohibition is a bad idea and that drunks should receive medical treatment rather than prison sentences.

Here’s how California cities have decided to deal with the army of the unemployed that intended to make its way to D.C.: Contra Costa County (Richmond, I assume) is sending them north to Benicia, which plans to ship them to the Sacramento area...

Suffragettes camp out for 40 hours on the doorstep of Ulster Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson in an attempt to extract a promise from him that no deal on Ulster would be acceptable that did not include women’s suffrage. Carson has stayed inside for two days, claiming to have a cold.

Texas Gov. Oscar Branch Colquitt decides to send extradition requests for the Federal soldiers who killed Clemente Vergara to both the Federals and Constitutionalists who claim authority in the states of Nuevo Leon and Coahuila. The extradition would only be for horse theft, since the shooting took place on the Mexican side of the border.

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Today -100: March 6, 1914: Of watchful waiting, unemployed marchers, lèse-majesté, and hollow legs

Pres. Wilson asks Congress to repeal the act which exempts American ships from the Panama Canal toll.

Brazil declares a state of siege in major cities. Because of an insurrection, not because of Theodore Roosevelt.

Secretary of State Bryan convinces the House Committee on Foreign Affairs to shelve a resolution asking the administration for an account of Mexican outrages against Americans. However, the New Jersey Legislature is considering a resolution declaring that Wilson’s “watchful waiting” policy just encourages barbaric practices.

Huerta suggests that his regime and the US could work together to suppress disorder in Mexico, and the US could start by reimposing the ban on arms shipments. The Wilson administration plans to ignore this note.

The lower house of the Austrian Parliament, which was suspended five weeks ago after “violent obstruction” by Czech deputies, resumes its session and is immediately suspended due to more of the same.

An intended march by 2,000 unemployed men from San Francisco to Washington DC ends abruptly in Oakland, when cops with rifles round them up and put them on streetcars to Richmond, for some reason, I guess just passing the problem along, where they rioted until dispersed by more violent cops.

New York cops break up an IWW meeting in Seward Park. The NYPD announces that all future IWW meetings in public places will be dealt with similarly, though meetings in hired halls may proceed unmolested.

The Suffragette says that the Women’s Social and Political Union now wants a Tory government, because at least then Liberal and Labour politicians would condemn trickery and torture. The WSPU has taken to heckling Labour Party leader Ramsay MacDonald at every public meeting at which he speaks.

More alibi witnesses turn up for Leo Frank. The detective accused of suborning perjury says he’ll whip anyone who says so, which presumably means the 15-year-old who recanted his testimony yesterday.

In Germany, Hans Leuss is sentenced to six months in a closed-door trial for writing an article saying that the crown prince’s telegram of congratulations to the colonel responsible for the military clashes with civilians in Zabern, Alsace meant that it would be a misfortune if he became king.

Headline of the Day -100 (L.A. Times): “Hollow Legs Convict Him.” Chair legs, as it turns out, not human ones. Something to do (the article is unclear) with spiritualists tricking people at a seance.

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Today -100: March 5, 1914: Of perjury, church invasions, battlin’ governors, department stores, and bentons

Another of the witnesses against Leo Frank, a 15-year-old newsboy, recants his testimony, saying he was coerced into lying by the detective and DA.

NYPD arrest 190 IWW church invaders in St Alphonsus Church (Catholic). They asked Father Hanley if they could stay there – No – if he’d give them money – No – food – No – work – No. He later complained that they were wearing hats.

Headline of the Day -100: “Blease Near a Fist Fight.” South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease goes to the Legislature to make some remarks about an inquiry into something or other, tries to start a fight with a rep. who pointed out that he had no right to just come in and speak. The governor went as far as to take his coat off but sadly there were no fisticuffs. That’s our Coley!

The Italian Chamber of Deputies passes a budget for the colony of Libya, which I only mention because I believe it’s the first time I’ve seen the name Libya used, although until the 1920s Italy treated Libya as the two provinces of Tripoli and Cyrenaica, as they had been under the Ottomans.

Gordon Selfridge spends $1,250,000 on the shop next to his, to turn Selfridge’s in London into a mega-store, as depicted in that not-very-interesting tv series.

The commission that was supposed to examine the body of William Benton gives up, convinced that the rebels are using delaying tactics endlessly while the corpse deteriorates.

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Today -100: March 4, 1914: Of rangers, women’s suffrage, women cops, war plans, nipped plans, and Americans abroad

Texas Gov. Oscar Branch Colquitt sends an open letter to Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, asking to be allowed to send the Texas Rangers into Mexico. Since the Mexican government has failed to rein in its marauders, it’s up to us, he says. Actually, it’s not clear to me what the T-Rangers are supposed to do when they catch up to bandits. Drag them back over the border for trial? Or just kill them on foreign soil, which seems to be suggested by his approving references to times in the past when the Rangers ranged across the Rio Grande “in pursuit of bandits, marauders, and inflicted chastisement to them on Mexican soil.”

Congress is considering a women’s suffrage amendment to the Constitution. Arguing against, Sen. Nathan Philemon Bryan (D-Fla.) makes the states’ rights argument that California has no more right to say whether negro women can vote in Florida than Florida has to say that Japanese can vote in California. Suffragist witnesses warn of dire consequences which will be inflicted on the Democratic Party by the 4 million women in suffrage states if Democrats block this. And Dr. Mary Walker insists that women already have a constitutional right to vote. Margery Dorman of the Wage-Earners’ Anti-Suffrage League of NY, which I’ve never heard of, says that women’s participation in the world of paid work is only “transitory and accidental” and they lack the experience to cope with government’s problems.

Chicago Police Chief James Gleason removes policewomen who had been sent to deal with a strike by waitresses at a downtown restaurant. He says that evidently women will resist arrest when the cop is female.

The Cologne Gazette claims that Russia is secretly planning for a war with Germany. The plans may not be complete until 1917. (This is not entirely inaccurate: Russia was working, not secretly because how could you, on extending its railroad network to the German border, facilitating troop movements in event of war, and the German military did therefore consider 1917 a sort of deadline, if they were going to have a war with Russia. Ironically, the absence of those rail lines in 1914 meant that it would take a long time to mobilize the Russian army, so they had to make the decision to start mobilizing early if they didn’t want to be over-run if a war started, and when they did so, there were threats and ultimata...)

Confusing Headline of the Day -100: “NIP PLOT TO BRING STRONG OPIUM HERE; Customs Inspectors Find Chinamen Had Arranged to Smuggle in Persian Drug.” At first I thought the NYT had gotten its racist epithets mixed up, but it’s “nip” as in put a stop to. I should have known the NYT would never gets its racist epithets mixed up.

Austria-Hungary sentences 32 Ruthenians to prison for inciting rebellion, by which is meant trying to convert Ruthenians to Russian Orthodox Christianity.

Theodore Roosevelt is not making a good impression in Brazil. Despite receiving lavish hospitality, including Brazil’s president turning over Guanabara Palace and its servants to him for a week, he sent bills for every speech he gave, including one for $3,000 for a short lecture to the Rio Historical and Geographical Society. Also, he kept talking about the Monroe Doctrine.

(Update: or possibly that was all made up??)

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Constant training exercises and the International Fallout of Doom

Obama is interviewed by Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg News.

On Israel-Palestinian negotiations: “There comes a point where you can’t manage this anymore, and then you start having to make very difficult choices. Do you resign yourself to what amounts to a permanent occupation of the West Bank? Is that the character of Israel as a state for a long period of time?” It’s been 47 years, and he thinks that Israel is discomfited by the thought of permanent occupation?

“Do you place restrictions on Arab-Israelis in ways that run counter to Israel’s traditions?” Well, Netanyahu again today demanded that Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish state,” so um, yeah.

Asked whether Iran takes seriously Obama’s threats over their nuclear program: “We have a high degree of confidence that when they look at 35,000 U.S. military personnel in the region that are engaged in constant training exercises under the direction of a president who already has shown himself willing to take military action in the past, that they should take my statements seriously. And the American people should as well, and the Israelis should as well, and the Saudis should as well.” Constant training exercises, people! Be afraid, be very afraid!

Okay, nobody believes the US is going to invade Iran, so this is just another case of Obama, as Gene Weingarten put it on Twitter, rattling Nerf sabres. But he did just threaten to invade Iran unless he gets his way so, um, that happened.

He says he opposes Congressional attempts to impose new sanctions on Iran because there are always little pauses in negotiations: “Even in the old Westerns or gangster movies, right, everyone puts their gun down just for a second. You sit down, you have a conversation; if the conversation doesn’t go well, you leave the room and everybody knows what’s going to happen and everybody gets ready. But you don’t start shooting in the middle of the room during the course of negotiations.” Nothing says negotiating in good faith like references to Gunfight at the O.K. Corral fantasies.

On Israeli settlement activity: “The U.S. commitment to Israel’s security is not subject to periodic policy differences.” Wow, good poker face there, Barack.

So what can he threaten Israel with? “if you see no peace deal and continued aggressive settlement construction -- and we have seen more aggressive settlement construction over the last couple years than we’ve seen in a very long time -- if Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited.” So he’s threatening Israel with... international fallout. Is that anything like the “costs” he’s threatening Russia with? And notice he’s saying he’ll still try to manage that international fallout and protect Israel from the consequences of doing things he doesn’t want it to do.

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I’d make them salute the flag if we had to blow up the whole place

Sometimes the present and one-century-ago align themselves thematically with perfect precision, and sometimes they annoy me by being just slightly off. This is one of those times.

In honor of John Kerry’s repeated statements yesterday against Russia’s “trumped-up excuses” in “behaving in a 19th-century fashion” in Crimea, I bring you an early preview of my post scheduled for April 15, covering the start of the US occupation of Vera Cruz on that date in 1914:

In response to the Mexican Federal regime’s refusal to fire a 21-gun salute to the US flag, as ordered by Adm. Mayo, to apologize for the insult of having briefly detained some American sailors who were wandering around a war zone in uniform, Pres. Wilson is sending the entire North Atlantic fleet to Tampico. Or, to put it another way, Admiral Badger is being sent to back up Admiral Mayo.

Any wariness in Congress about military intervention has evaporated: “No Senator questioned the right of the United States to occupy Tampico or Vera Cruz as a step to enforce respect for the uniform, and all agreed that a firm course must be followed from now on. Many Senators of long experience and conservative judgment expressed the view that the ordering of the fleet to Tampico meant armed intervention, but this belief did not seem to lessen their satisfaction. ... There was little inclination to comment on the fact that stronger measures seemed to be in contemplation to enforce a matter of etiquette than were adopted as a result of the murdering of American and foreign residents in Mexico.” Sen. Chilton (D-West Virginia): “I’d make them salute the flag if we had to blow up the whole place.”

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Today -100: March 3, 1914: Everything in this world belongs to us, and we’re going to take it

The Industrial Workers of the World are organizing the unemployed in New York City (which is experiencing storms and very cold weather) to occupy churches. Local IWW leader Frank Tannenbaum tells workers not to accept charity, because they built this city and own a share of it: “Everything in this world belongs to us, and we’re going to take it.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Eminent Britons Threaten Revolt.” Revolt against Home Rule, if it is passed without there having been an election first. The eminent ones include Viscount Milner, Lord Balfour, Rudyard Kipling, etc.

Emmeline Pankhurst sent the king a letter demanding that he meet a deputation. Norah Dacre-Fox says that if he refuses, they will go anyway.

The Philippine Assembly passes a resolution asking the US Congress to make provision for Filipino independence this session.

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Today -100: March 2, 1914: Of bentons, hatpins, clippers, and burning nuts

Gen. Carranza, who has been very quiet up til now about the murder/execution of British rancher William Benton, decides to scuttle Pancho Villa’s agreement for a US-UK commission to examine the body. It certainly looks like Carranza and Villa are conspiring in a cover-up here, but relations between the two have recently deteriorated sharply after Carranza finally realized that no one really thinks of him as the leader of the Constitutionalist movement any more, or thinks about him much at all, given Villa’s constant self-promotion and military successes. Carranza says he won’t report to the US on the death of Benton, but only to Britain. The problem here, and he knows it, is that the UK recognized the Huerta Junta. The British ambassador to Mexico rather haughtily asks why he should be asking the rebels and not the government about the killing. Oo, oo, I know, I know, call on me: because the rebels did it and because they did it in Juarez, where the Federals have no authority whatsoever. Do try to keep up, Sir Lionel.

In a letter to the NYT, suffragist Harriot Stanton Blatch gives another great reason why women’s suffrage is necessary: hat pins. The Paris police have been trying to stop the proliferation of stabby hat pins with no success. Blatch says this is “another painful illustration of the fact that men cannot discipline women.” Men also haven’t been able to get women to stop wearing slit skirts or feathers in their hats. Women will only be civilized (her word) if they are ruled by “the wise and good of their own sex.”

The US will recognize the coup government in Haiti.

Travel in 1914 wasn’t all state-of-the-art zeppelins and monoplanes and jalopies: a clipper ship gets caught in storms and takes 162 days to make the voyage from San Francisco to New York. It had a cargo of barley, so totally worth it.

Headline of the Day -100: “Firemen Sickened by Burning Nuts.”

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Today -100: March 1, 1914: Of income taxes, dead ranchers, outrageous, un-called for, ill-advised and dictatorial legislation, honours, and ominous fainting

The first returns for the new income tax are due. The government is expecting a lot of errors. Evidently it’s the government which then determines how much tax is due.

Woodrow Wilson’s presidential salary is exempt from the income tax.

The NYT says a secret report (from whom, it does not say, but presumably some part of the US government)(a day later the Times explains that “the report was prepared in an authoritative way” and “the testimony obtained in it is of a very direct sort,” which isn’t much more informative) has determined that William Benton was shot by a pistol in Pancho Villa’s hq in Juarez and not by firing squad after a trial, and that he was, according to his friends, unarmed at the time.

The Mexican government now claims that it didn’t hang American citizen Clemente Vergara after all, he escaped and joined the rebels. Um, no, he didn’t.

South Carolina Coleman Blease vetoes a bill which he calls “outrageous, un-called for, ill-advised and dictatorial”; he says that rather than sign it “I would resign and go into eternal oblivion.” It’s for medical inspection of schoolchildren in Richland County.

The Portuguese prime minister says there isn’t a revolution going on.

The British House of Lords is considering whether to reform the honors – excuse me, honours – system to make it a bit less dependent on contributions to political parties. So some feminist suggests another reform: not giving honors – excuse me, honours – exclusively to men. In a discussion of this in The Gentlewoman, Viscountess Hawarden says that since the honors – excuse me, honours – would be awarded by men, they would probably go only to young, pretty women. Lady Gainsborough thinks the husband of an honoree – excuse me, honouree – “could not be expected to look with favour on a title, conferred after marriage, independently of him.”

First Lady Ellen Wilson faints.

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A clear violence

Obama made a statement on Ukraine. The transcipt’s been corrected in the version at the link, but the earlier one on the RSS feed had this Freudian typo: “It would be a clear (violence) of Russia’s commitment to respect the independence and sovereignty and borders of Ukraine, and of international laws.”

Obama is threatening that there will be “costs” for Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine (well, he says for any military intervention, which suggests he’s not willing to say that what’s going on in Crimea is a military intervention – come to think of it, when is he going to come to a decision on whether there was a coup in Egypt last year?). Oo, “costs.” I love it when Obama talks vaguely tough.

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Today -100: February 28, 1914: Of CSI Chihuahua, Texas Rangers, women’s parliaments, rivers, and talking horses

Pancho Villa gives in, partly, on William Benton. He will allow a party consisting of two Americans, two Brits, two doctors and Benton’s widow to examine his body (which for some reason was buried 300 miles away from where he was murdered/executed)(or he’s lying about that too, because Chihuahua is much harder to get to than Juarez). Villa will not, however, return the body to his widow.

Constitutionalist leader Carranza, increasingly worried by Pancho Villa’s independence, cracks the whip and gets Villa to say that he will stop all his negotiating with foreign powers.

The US demands that the Mexican government (which it doesn’t recognize) punish the Federal soldiers who hanged Clemente Vergara.

Texas Gov. Oscar Branch Colquitt writes to Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan to clarify his intentions: “I do not want to invade Mexico with a military force”, i.e., the state militia. He just wants to send Texas Rangers into Mexico “in pursuit of those who are constantly transgressing our laws.” The reason he asked the State Dept who it recognizes as the legitimate government of Mexico was that he wants to know where to send requests for the return of fugitives who have escaped, as was the custom, across the border (US border states like Texas were allowed to request extraditions from Mexican border states without going through the federal government).

Gen. Chao Ping-chun, former Chinese premier and current Governor of Chi-li, dies, but was he poisoned?

British novelist and anti-suffragist Mrs. Humphry Ward will form an unofficial “women’s parliament” to advise the government on matters affecting women, because that’s totally better than women having the vote.

There’s a revolution, or something, going on in Portugal. Arising from a railroad strike.

Headline of the Day -100: “Roosevelt Finds a River.” A tributary of the Amazon. Now called Roosevelt River.

Animal Headline of the Day -100: “LIBELED BY A HORSE.; Spinster Sues Because Talking Animal Said She Was in Love” In Germany. And it all leads to a shooting (but not of the horse), because of course it does.

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Y not?

During the 2004 Ukrainian election fight between Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovich, I helpfully dubbed them Pock-Marked Mr Y and Square-Headed Mr Y.

Well, the new prime minister is named Arseniy Yatsenyuk.



So what do we think? Prematurely Bald Mr Y?



Egg-Shape-Headed Mr Y? The future of Ukrainian democracy might well depend on our getting this right, people.

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Today -100: February 27, 1914: I must protect property and, if possible, life

Texas Gov. Oscar Branch Colquitt asks the federal government who it recognizes as the constituted authority in Mexico, following the seizure and execution by Mexican federal forces of a Texan rancher, Clemente Vergara, on an island in the Rio Grande claimed by both the US and Mexico. Just as William Benton was killed by Villa when he complained about rebels stealing his cattle, Vergara was killed by the government when he complained about its troops stealing his horses. Gov. Colquitt wants permission to send Texas Rangers across the border to pursue lawless elements of either Mexican faction if they commit crimes inside Texas. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan telephones him to tell him no and also hell no.

Ethel Moorhead, a Scottish suffragette and prospective arsonist, is forcibly fed in a Scottish prison, the first time forcible feeding has been performed north of the border. She would claim that it was done by young students from the local asylum. The Edinburgh WSPU questions the medical prison commissioner, who says “I must protect property and, if possible, life” by keeping Moorhead inside prison or (at least this is what she says he told her) until she was reduced to a physical wreck, unable to do anything militanty.

Suffragettes burn a church in Whitekirk, Scotland, which was built in 1297.

In Metz, Germany, two lieutenants of the 98th Infantry fight a duel after one flirted with the other’s wife. The interesting thing is that a military court of honor, which I assume is not an official thing, ordered them to fight the duel, and that it be to the death. Which it was. The husband died.

Orville Wright bitches about his difficulties in enforcing his patent. He says in future he will demand 20% of the selling price of all airplanes.

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Today -100: February 26, 1914: Of bentons and roving bandits, deadly drifting, and perjury

Pancho Villa is now saying that William Benton’s widow and one (1) American official can view his body but not take possession of it, and must do so under conditions that would preclude a proper examination, which would presumably show that he died of a revolver bullet wound at close range rather than from a firing squad. Some American officials are discussing whether sending a small military force into Juarez to seize the body would constitute an act of war requiring congressional approval; advocates say it wouldn’t, because there is no government in Mexico, hence noone to go to war with. The US has been quietly moving marines closer to Mexico (New Orleans etc), just in case. The NYT says Villa’s continued defiance is getting irritating to the US government: “It is all the more embarrassed and chagrined by the fact that it is acting in behalf of the British Government. To have a man who has been regarded as little more than a roving bandit defy two great powers is getting on the nerves of the Administration, which realizes the undignified position that it may come to occupy before the civilized world.” But there is a hitch: if the US doesn’t recognize Villa as having an official position in an acknowledged government, then the US can’t act to hold him responsible or make demands of him. Tricky.

Rep. Henry Ainey (D-Ill.) calls Wilson’s Mexico policy one of “deadly drifting,” which is just as alliterative, and therefore just as true, as Wilson’s term for his policy, “watchful waiting.”

One of the witnesses against Leo Frank says she lied after detectives got her likkered up.

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Today -100: February 25, 1914: Of adulterated food, bentons, and women voters

The Supreme Court rules that adulteration of food is okay unless it disguises defects in the food or consumers are actually, you know, poisoned. The ruling will obviously make the post-The-Jungle Pure Food Act harder to enforce, forcing the government to determine just how much poison people can eat without being harmed.

Constitutionalist leader Carranza privately warned the US a couple of weeks ago against sending American troops into Mexico to protect Americans and other foreigners.

Pancho Villa now claims that William Benton was a cattle thief and that he had killed at least four men without provocation. And he was totally trying to assassinate Villa. Villa also says he won’t give up Benton’s body “out of respect to the dead. It was interred with all religious observances and a cross erected over it, and I will not allow the sacrilege of its removal.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Burn Negro in a Box.; Mississippi Mob Takes Vengeance on Slayer of a Deputy Sheriff.” As gruesome as it sounds.

The ship carrying those illegally deported South African union leaders arrives at Gravesend, UK, where the British labor movement had laid on lavish reception plans, but the South Africans had their own protest in mind, which involved refusing to leave the ship. There was a stalemate of sorts for several hours before they agreed to come out and be honored.

The New Jersey State Senate joins the Assembly in voting for women’s suffrage, although another vote and a referendum are still required. All the Republican senators voted for it and all but three Democrats.

Women vote for the first time in Illinois’s primaries, including 89-year-old Eveline Guthrie Dunn, who attended the convention that first nominated Abraham Lincoln for president. At some polling places special arrangements are made for women voters, such as mirrors to help women whose hats got entangled with the curtains. Several women won aldermanic primaries (Democrats, Progressives and a “socialistic” candidate).

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Today -100: February 24, 1914: I did not wish to appear bloodthirsty, and therefore did not shoot him myself

Pancho Villa is now claiming that William Benton was a naturalized Mexican citizen, so the UK can back the fuck off. This is also their excuse for not returning the body to his widow – it’s definitely not to hide that he was murdered rather than executed by firing squad after a trial.

The LA Times claims that an investigation conducted by the British embassy in the US concluded that Pancho Villa and his men “were crazed with mairhuana [sic] and tequila at the time Villa gave the order to shoot William S. Benton”.

Headline of the Day -100: “Say Villa Is An American.” Two retired soldiers from the U.S. 10th Cavalry, a negro unit, claim to remember that Pancho Villa was a member of the Tenth in 1882 (so... he’s a negro). This is a bit unlikely, since Villa would have been 4.

British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey tells Parliament that he is powerless to protect British citizens in the disturbed regions of Mexico.

Pancho Villa’s latest statement on the Benton affair: “He had not talked long when he reached for his hip pocket. It flashed over me that he intended to kill me. I grabbed his hand and at the same time thrust my revolver into the pit of his stomach to stop him. I did not wish to appear bloodthirsty, and therefore did not shoot him myself.”

Winston Churchill flies a hydro-plane, because he’s First Lord of the Admiralty, and can play with all its toys if he wants to.

Maxim Gorky signs a contract with an American studio to write ten film scripts. From imdb, it doesn’t look like anything came of this.

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Today -100: February 23, 1914: Of common liars, and funks

An important witness in the Leo Frank murder trial recants, saying he was pressured to perjure himself by R.L. Craven, an employee of the solicitor-general, who was after the reward money. Craven says of the witness, “The negro is just a common liar.” Well, yes, but which was the lie?

Name of the Day -100: Antoinette Funk, acting chair of the Congressional Committee of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, who announces that NAWSA intends to work to defeat congressional candidates who oppose women’s suffrage, regardless of party.

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