Today -100: May 13, 1914: Of extreme art criticism, lighthouses, archbishops, primaries, lynchings, and doubters

Maybe if they just stopped letting women with hatchets into art galleries? A suffragette attacks the Sir Hubert von Herkomer portrait of the Duke of Wellington at the Royal Academy (she’ll be sentenced to six months).

The ABC countries are proposing to negotiate a provisional government for Mexico, with elements of the Huerta and Constitutionalist sides. The Consts say no thanks, we are winning you know.

The Huerta Junta complains that the US seized a lighthouse on Lobos Island in violation of the ceasefire. The US says it took it over when the lighthouse keeper decided to leave and denies that it is an occupation in the military sense.

Huerta may have expelled the archbishop of Mexico City.

Both houses of Congress pass a bill for organizing primaries for the election of US senators in states that haven’t bothered to do so since the 17th Amendment passed.

A negro is lynched in Shreveport, Louisiana for supposedly attacking a 10-year-old white girl. He was hanged and stabbed.

Headline of the Day -100: “Roosevelt Made Angry By Doubters.” That he discovered a new river in Brazil.

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Today -100: May 12, 1914: We have gone down to Mexico to serve mankind if we can find out the way

A French plane drops bombs during a battle with Moroccans.

German socialist Reichstag deputy Karl Liebknecht accuses army and navy officers and government officials of being members of the board of Krupp’s and other armaments companies. He seems to think that’s some sort of conflict of interest.

The special session of the Colorado Legislature, called to deal with issues arising from the coal strike, rejects Gov. Elias Ammons’ proposal for a statewide constabulary, correctly seen as being intended as a police force to protect the mineowners’ interests.

Mary Wood, the suffragette who slashed the John Singer Sargent painting last week is released under the Cat and Mouse Act after a hunger & thirst strike.

Headline of the Day -100: “Bandits Wreck Windmills.” Huerta-backed privateers, after American ranchers in Chihuahua refused demands for money. Many cattle are threatened, as the windmills supply their water.

Woodrow Wilson gives a speech at the Navy Yard, commemorating the dead in his Mexico adventure. Dead Americans, that is. Naturally. “We have gone down to Mexico to serve mankind if we can find out the way. We want to serve the Mexicans if we can.... a war of service is a thing in which it is a proud thing to die. ... I fancy that it is just as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shooting at you.” Um, no, no it isn’t.

Mexican rebels blow up one of the government’s five gunboats.

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Today -100: May 11, 1914: Of scabs, men of tact, and dulling the brain

Woodrow Wilson orders the military ruler of the Colorado strike zone to stop the influx of strike-breakers.

Some IWW protesters invade John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s church, the Calvary Baptist Church in NYC. Ushers beat them up and eject them, as was the custom. The pastor went on with his sermon on “Samson, the Man of Sunlight, the Man of Tact.”

Thomas Edison bans cigarettes at his plants. “They Dull the Brain,” say his No Smoking signs. Of course Thomas Edison being Thomas Edison, he only did this after some scientific and some not-so-scientific investigation: 1) he investigated 20 brands of cigarettes and found poisonous material in the paper, 2) he talked to a Mexican who told him that everyone in Mexico smokes; “That is why Mexicans as a race are not clear-headed.”

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Today -100: May 10, 1914: What scares French ghosts?

Constitutionalists suggest that American citizens get out of Tampico, which they’re planning to start bombarding soon.

Mexican Freemasons break off relations with the American Freemasons.

Headline of the Day -100: “Spread of Leprosy Alarms Frenchmen.” Among other possibly fictitious cases, “the story is told of Michel, a grave digger at Trinité, near Saint-Roch, whose face was such a horror that the inhabitants finally demanded his removal on the ground that the dead were so terrified that they were unable to rest.”

French newspapers have been claiming that various recent explosions (on a battleship, on other ships, in coal mines) were caused by wireless waves.

Germany denies planning to expel all French citizens from Alsace-Lorraine (it is definitely refusing to renew residency permits, but it’s unclear in what numbers).

20 cases of arms that were shipped from Boston are seized in Belfast.

1,100 cans of opium are seized in San Diego from a ship headed for Ensenada that made an emergency stop in SD to refuel. Officials eventually decided that the ship hadn’t legally landed and gave back the opium, which is intended for the Chinese population of Mexico.

There’s an earthquake in Sicily.

China says it will execute anyone under 40 smoking opium in Changtu; those older than 40 will be jailed.

Italy tells Colorado that it will demand damages for each of the Italian citizens (somewhere in the double figures) killed during the coal strike.

Le Matin has an article about Germany’s predilection for eating dogs.

The NYT has a fierce editorial against the practice of people whose secretaries telephone you and ask you to “hold the wire” for them. “Impudence could not go much further... the telephone... has developed in its use and abuse a tendency to discourtesy, a shameless regard of human rights.” The Times also thinks women talk on the phone too much.

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Today -100: May 9, 1914: Of disarmament, cease-fires, refugees, lynch-trains, and what 24¢ will buy you

South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease joins a debate over medical inspection of school children, saying he will pardon any father who kills a doctor who attempts to examine the father’s daughter against his will, because that’s what he would do.

The UMW orders its Colorado members to comply with the military order to hand in their arms, or be expelled from the union.

Mexico accuses the US of violating the cease-fire by continuing to land troops in Vera Cruz. The US admits doing so, but denies it’s a violation of the cease-fire.

The Federals may or may not have executed a captured US soldier, Private Samuel Parks, an orderly who had gone insane, possibly from sunstroke, and rode off by himself towards Federal lines. A Mexican officer suggests Parks probably went insane from a poisoned cigarette (he means marijuana) given to him by some woman in Vera Cruz.

Huerta still controls most of Mexico’s railroads, I believe, but rebel attacks on Tampico are preventing him getting any oil, so he’s converting locomotives to run on wood.

Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan receives the Mexican Constitutionalist Minister of the Interior, who brought a memorandum detailing the rebels’ friendly attitude towards the American occupation. The Consts view the acceptance of this memorandum as de facto recognition (at least in the parts of Mexico they now control).

Some of the American refugees insist that they were tricked into leaving Mexico. They went aboard ships believing they’d be put back ashore when the rioting in Tampico and Tuxpam was over, and then found themselves in Galveston. The US says it will pay their passage back to Mexico.

A Federal District Court rules that a railroad is liable if one of its trains is chartered by a lynch mob. The widow of the lynchee in this case is awarded $7,000.

A negro, Sylvester Washington, who killed a deputy sheriff is lynched in St. James, Louisiana. Earlier a white guy was mistaken for Washington and shot.

Invention of the Day -100: the vending machine. The first one ever is installed in Macy’s, which rotates the merchandise on offer. Yesterday its offerings, for 24¢, were soaps, face powder, tooth paste, hosiery, garters, shine kits, sanitary supplies.

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Today -100: May 8, 1914: Of tecks, conquests, humanitarian considerations, ethnic cleansing, White House weddings, and rallying geographers

Prince Alexander of Teck, a brother of Queen Mary, is appointed governor-general of Canada.

Several wealthy American idiots take a yacht out to the Coronado Islands, Mexican possessions, and claim them for the United States “by right of conquest.”

Police arrest silent protesters in front of the Rockefellers’ (John D. and Jr’s) NYC houses. One protester who wore a shroud is sentenced to 60 days in the workhouse.

The Mexican rebel air force, which consists of Carranza’s nephew in a biplane, drops a couple of bombs on Mazatlan, killing three men and a baby. Tom Selleck, nooooo!

Pancho Villa complains that the US arms embargo is prolonging the civil war needlessly. Therefore, “every humanitarian consideration” calls for the lifting of the embargo.

Five Mexican rebels are arrested... actually I’m not sure if they’re arrested on the Mexico or Texas side of the border, but the US military grabs them for violating the embargo on contraband of war (they were buying uniforms in the US).

The new hard-line German governor of Alsace-Lorraine intends to expel all French citizens from the Lost Provinces (as France refers to them) or force them to adopt German citizenship. France notes that there are 100,000 Germans living in Paris....

Woodrow Wilson’s daughter Eleanor marries Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo in the 14th ever White House wedding. He’s 50, with 7 children (two of them older than Eleanor) from his first wife, who died two years ago; she’s 24. They’ll divorce in 20 years and he’ll immediately marry his 26-year-old nurse because ick. McAdoo would later run for president (check back in this space in 10 years or so) and was a US senator from California. Oddly, he was once law partners with a former congresscritter also named William McAdoo, who was not a relation of his. Worst. Sitcom. Ever.

Headline of the Day -100: “Geographers Rally Around Roosevelt.”

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Today -100: May 7, 1914: Of disappointing votes, salutes, sawmills, rivers, and fear conferences

The House of Lords votes down the women’s suffrage bill 60-104. The Times of London warns that women would find the vote “profoundly disappointing,” which would lead to further demands – and the same methods. They would demand to sit in Parliament, then to govern the country, then who knows what.

The British Boy Scouts refuse to take part in the Empire Day parade if Girl Guides are included.

The Mexican rebels are attacking Mazatlan.

American war vessels off Vera Cruz fire their guns, scaring everyone in Vera Cruz, but it was just a salute to honor the accession of King George of England, which is totally a thing you’d do in a country you’re at war with.

Theodore Roosevelt has lost 55 pounds on his trek through the Amazon, which just shows the benefits of poor planning, starvation, and tropical diseases.

Facing a British ultimatum, Haiti pays $62,000 to a British subject whose sawmill burned down during one of Haiti’s weekly revolutions.

Leo Frank’s motion for a new trial is rejected. It will now go to the Georgia Supreme Court.

California is about to have its first Hindu naturalized citizen, Sakharen Ganesh Pandit, a lecturer on Hindu philosophy, yoga etc who has gone through several courts, which finally decided he was Caucasian. In the 1920s, the US government began revoking citizenships granted to Indians (invalidating their marriages to American citizens). Pandit, now a lawyer, argued his own case before the Supreme Court, winning in 1927 and ending the denaturalization policy.

English geographers doubt that Theodore Roosevelt really discovered a thousand-mile-long river.

Headline of the Day -100: “Fear Conference Will Fail.” Here is a brief excerpt from the minutes of the Fear Conference:

Mr. Lovecraft, delegate from Rhode Island: “Tentacles! So many tentacles.”

And your Movie of the Day -100: In “A Busy Day” (aka “A Militant Suffragette”), released 100 years ago, Charlie Chaplin dons his familiar... well, okay, he’s in drag, and it’s not all that good slapstick, but there are a couple of seconds of him twerking in front of a band that I liked.

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The people of Oklahoma do not have blood on their hands

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin wrote a defense of the botchecution of Clayton Lockett, and the only true sentence in it came right at the beginning: “(Warning: this column contains descriptions of a violent crime and is unsuitable for children)”.

She does admit one thing and only one thing wrong about the botchecution: “the process of death by lethal injection took too long.” Delayed the after-party, and we can’t have that: the champagne went all flat.

She complains that “Some anti-death penalty advocates have even gone so far as to say that all Oklahomans have blood on their hands.” In the next sentence she calls them “out-of-state pundits,” smugly implying that every single person in Oklahoma is as comfortable as she is with torturing people to death, which if true would provide a clue to the identity of the liquid on their hands.

“Justice was served,” Gov. Fallin claims. “The people of Oklahoma do not have blood on their hands. They saw Clayton Lockett for what he was: evil. His execution means he will never again harm or terrorize another person.” Unlike yourself, governor.

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Today -100: May 6, 1914: Of mediation, suffrage, crucifixions, and circuses

A date is set for the ABC mediation of the US-Mexico contretemps:
two weeks from now, at Niagra Falls, Canada. It remains to be seen if the Constitutionalists will be represented. The ABC countries want to settle all issues in Mexico, but may have to settle for mediating between the US and the Huerta Junta, presumably over just how many guns should be fired to salute the American flag, if anyone still remembers that that’s what this is all supposed to be about.

It’s not only in the Huerta camp that there are intrigues. Pancho Villa replaces a Constitutionalist governor of Chihuahua, Mañuel Chao, who was supposedly conspiring against him, although it sounds like the real cause was that Chao expropriated the property of one of Villa’s friends, after Villa asked him not to, and gave it to one of his own friends. After Chao refused to leave office, Villa went to Chihuahua to fire him personally, and by fire I mean punch.

A women’s suffrage bill is introduced in the British House of Lords. It would give the parliamentary vote to women already eligible for the municipal vote (local ratepayers, about 1 million women). Lord Curzon, the former viceroy of India, says it would hurt relations between the sexes and Britain’s prestige in the world. He helpfully adds that non-militant suffragists could stop the militant outrages by merely giving up all suffrage work for six months.

250 Muslims are reportedly crucified in Albania by the Epirotes (Greeks).

Woodrow Wilson goes to the circus.

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Today -100: May 5, 1914: This is why we can’t have nice things

Suffragist Mary Wood hacks up John Singer Sargent’s 1913 portrait of Henry James at the Royal Academy exhibition. The NYT says the militants are all crazy and should be put in asylums and forcibly fed.



The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage has chosen an emblem to wear on the day of the D.C. suffrage demonstration in order to break up the suffragist color scheme (which I’m assuming is white, purple and gold). The NAOWS statement says: “The anti-suffragists disapprove strongly of street parades, hikes, and other spectacular and unwomanly tactics employed by suffragists... They realize, however, that absence of any sign of disapproval may be misconstrued by onlookers to be an acquiescence in the clamor of the streets. Consequently, as a means of voicing their disapproval in a quiet and dignified manner they have issued instructions for the wearing of the red rose.”

Some of the witnesses Leo Frank’s lawyers and private dick William Burns found to his innocence have been recanting, claiming they were bribed. Some of these were originally prosecution witnesses, who have now changed their stories twice.

Some US senators are fighting a proposal to accept Rockefeller money for boll weevil extermination. Harry Lane (D-Oregon) says the money is “covered with the blood and tears of women and children shot down in the Colorado strike. ... some folks believe the curse of God is on every dollar he possesses.”

The ABC countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile) revoke their invitation to the Constitutionalists to join the mediation process, because of Carranza refuses to agree to an armistice.

Zapata issues a proclamation that he will attack Mexico City on Cinco de Mayo, and will execute Huerta and Gen. Blanquet. So, um, no deal with Huerta, as previously reported, huh?

Constitutionalists at Tampico threaten that if any US warships enter the Panuco River, they’ll open up the oil tanks and burn Tampico.

More and more generals are coming out against Huerta, including Gen. Velasco, who is pissed that he got blamed for losing Torreón when the government deprived him of supplies.

It seems that many of the first anti-American flood of recruits into the Mexican army after the occupation of Vera Cruz were sent to fight the rebels instead of the Americans, and arms were only supplied to units fighting the rebels.

British Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George proposes a soak-the-rich budget, with a “supertax” on incomes above £3,000 and increased land taxes and death duties to pay for increased spending in health, education, insurance, etc.

Gov. Coleman Blease of South Carolina fails badly in getting his supporters elected to the state Democratic Party convention.

The NYT editorial page is indignant at the IWW picketing campaign against John D. Rockefeller, Jr. A “menace to human rights,” they say.

Civil War general Hiram Duryea is shot dead by his lunatic son.

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Today -100: May 4, 1914: Of military rule, duels, and revolting Mecca

Maj. Holbrook, the new military ruler of the Colorado mining regions, has banned the shipment of arms into Colorado and between regions within Colorado. And he’s ordered the closing of saloons in the disturbed areas.

The IWW, following Upton Sinclair’s lead, is picketing John D. Rockefeller, Jr at his country estate, his NY house, and his church. Rockefeller brings in armed guards, so it’s like Colorado in miniature, or something.

Gen. Frederick Funston, the new military ruler of Vera Cruz,
establishes full military government there, giving up on the pretense that Mexicans would be allowed to run their own city.

Lots of rumors about Huerta resigning.

A Catholic-Greek Orthodox riot in Butler, Pennsylvania leaves one man dying from a stab wound and several injured. One of the Orthodox made a remark about the Catholic Church, and hilarity ensued.

Joseph Caillaux won’t fight that duel after all. His electoral opponent d’Aillières’s seconds contend that the words on his electoral bills didn’t constitute an insult and were about a matter of public interest, so Caillaux isn’t entitled to demand satisfaction. Arbitrators were chosen, who agreed. Who knew there was so much bureaucracy involved in dueling?

Headline of the Day -100: “Mecca Is In Revolt.”

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Today -100: May 3, 1914: Suffrage for women is a question that men will decide according to the demands of women

9,000 march in a women’s suffrage parade in Boston, not normally a hotbed of suffragism.

A military commission investigating the Colorado coal strike blames the Ludlow Massacre on Greek strikers – the phrase “ferocious foreigners” appears in its report. The union boycotted the inquiry because it was not conducted publicly. The report essentially blames the suffocation deaths of 11 children and two women in a pit on the lack of foresight of the strikers in not digging a big enough pit for people to hide in while the militia shot at them and set their camp ablaze. It also blamed the strikers for hiding behind women by placing their own defensive rifle pits where the National Guard could not help killing non-combatants with return fire. While claiming it was not determining who was responsible for the strike, “we feel that for their treason and rebellion against organized society, with the horrible consequences of anarchy that followed, certain union leaders must take responsibility before man and God.”

The coroner’s jury, however, says the Ludlow fire was deliberately started by the state militia, mine guards, or both.

Secretary of War Garrison issues a proclamation that all persons in the Colorado strike area who are not in the military must turn in their arms, mine guards as well as strikers (but probably not the state militia, which will simply leave the area).

Headline of the Day -100: “Mexicans Demand the Prompt Surrender of Pumping Station.” Several hour stand-off, with a few shots fired at the end, just to make a point.

Headline of the Day -100, runner-up: “Mexicans Will Not Attack Us Again.” A cease-fire. After the Battle of the Pumping Station.

There are repeated rumors that Huerta is about to flee, while everybody is still fussing about details of the mediation process – where should it be held? Havana?

Joseph Caillaux, the French former prime minister and finance minister whose wife shot the editor of Le Figaro, challenges Fernand d’Aillières, who ran against him for parliament, to a duel. D’Aillières’ election posters said those who voted for Caillaux would be “accomplices in crime.”

Name of the Day -100: Rep. Samuel J. Tribble (D-Georgia), who I haven’t run across before but is causing trouble, as Tribbles do, by preventing a provision to double the number of chaplains in the Navy. He said navy personnel who live in cities can just go to church and complained that 3 of the current navy chaplains were not born in the US. There followed a discussion about how many Jews there are in the Navy.

The German Reichstag is considering a bill against nudity in art that might “arouse the phantasies of unripe youth.” The phrase comes from a decision of the Imperial Supreme Court about postcards of famous but nudey works of art that works are only indecent which injure the feelings of modesty of a normal person, as opposed to the phantasies of horny unripe youth.

NY Mayor John Purroy Mitchel, addressing a Suffrage Day meeting in Carnegie Hall, says that women don’t really need the vote, but will get it when enough of them want it: “Suffrage for women is a question that men will decide according to the demands of women.”

A suffrage meeting in Brooklyn sends its resolutions off to Pres. Wilson by carrier pigeons.

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Today -100: May 2, 1914: Of May Day, neutralization, mobs, and sulphur

New York police attack May Day celebrants in Union Square, using a squabble between Socialists and Anarchists as an excuse to unleash their clubs on both, as was the custom.

Mexican rebels are beginning their attack on Tampico, even though the US asked them nicely not to because that’s where Mexico keeps our oil. The US called for “neutralization” of the oil fields. Carranza rejects the idea. Nor is he receptive to the idea of a cease-fire with the Federals. In other words, the rebels are winning.

Mexican Foreign Minister José Portillo y Rojas is fired, which is significant since there is no vice president, meaning he was next in line if Huerta resigned.

The NYT keeps insisting that the residents of Vera Cruz welcome the American occupation and would like it to continue.

The US is trying to track down rumors that Edward Ryan, a doctor for the Red Cross, was arrested by the Federal authorities in Zacatecas, Mexico as a spy and sentenced to death. Huerta orders his release, if he is indeed a prisoner.

William Burns, the private detective investigating the Mary Phagan murder, is mobbed in Marietta, Georgia, Phagan’s home town, and forced to leave the city by a crowd evidently more interested in seeing a Jew executed for the murder than a negro, even if the latter was actually guilty.

Kiev orders 580 Jewish families to leave the city and closes three private girls’ high schools.

Obit of the Day -100: Herman Frasch, America’s sulphur king. He is survived by his daughter, the sulphur princess I guess.

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Oklafuckinghoma

So not only did Oklahoma botchecute Clayton Lockett, they also tased him that day (why were they trying to x-ray him anyway?), and the IV was stuck in his groin (and then covered with a sheet, which is why they didn’t notice it wasn’t working correctly). And they ran out of their death drugs, so they couldn’t have completed the execution even if they could have found a usable vein.

Says Gov. Mary Fallin, choosing her subordinate, the commissioner of public safety, to conduct an “independent” investigation of the botchecution, “We need to take as long as possible to get the answer right.” I’m sure no one can take as long to get the right answer as you can, Gov. Fallin.

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Today -100: May 1, 1914: Of bull moose, funstons, campaigns of extermination, and teddies with boils

The Progressive (Bull Moose) Party’s executive decides to run full state tickets in all the Northern states this year, focusing on Kansas, Pennsylvania and Illinois, hoping to win 3 US Senate seats. A cablegram is sent to Theodore Roosevelt in Brazil asking him to return.

The US Navy hands control of Vera Cruz over to the US Army, and from the alliterative Rear Admiral Frank Fletcher to the alliterative Gen. Frederick Funston.

If there was ever a man with a name that sounds like he was destined to join the army and become a general, it was Frederick Funston.

A new constitution is promulgated for China by a puppet Constitutional Convention appointed by President Yuan Shikai after he dissolved Parliament in January. Surprisingly, the document gives Yuan Shikai near absolute control.

A truce in the Colorado coal war goes into effect as the federal troops arrive. Yesterday’s armed battles in Forbes and Walsenburg resulted in 15 deaths. A United Mine Workers explains that the strikers welcome the troops if they disarm mine guards and displace the state militia, and if the mines remain closed. That’s adorable. Actually, the mine companies will use the troops as cover to import even more scabs. Major Holbrook is talking about disarming the strikers but not the mine guards. Owners of 19 coal companies refuse the suggestion of Rep. Martin Foster (D-Ill.), chair of the House Mines Committee, for negotiations to be held without recognition of the United Mine Workers union. The owners accuse the UMW of waging a “campaign of extermination” and destroying mines and equipment.


British suffragists heckle the wedding of Noel Buxton, a Liberal MP, asking if he will promise to insist that his wife has the vote. Leaflets are thrown from the gallery.

Theodore Roosevelt is coming home. He has explored the Amazon enough, and is suffering from boils.

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It’s all about standards, people

Jay “Hey Rube” Carney weighs in on the Oklahoma execution debacle: “We have a fundamental standard in this country that even when the death penalty is justified, it must be carried out humanely.” Also, drone strikes must be carried out gracefully and genocide must be carried out prettily.

Some adjectives don’t belong with some nouns, is what I’m saying.

Also, too, the death penalty is never “justified.”

(Correction: Clayton Lockett did not say “Something’s wrong” during his botched execution. The AP reporter now says that was a guard. He did say, “Oh, man,” which seems equally appropriate.)

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Today -100: April 30, 1914: Mediation all around?

Overly Optimistic Headline of the Day -100: “Ulster Crisis Is At An End.” Like Ulster crises are ever at an end. Former Conservative Prime Minister Balfour, who has fought Home Rule for Ireland his entire career, makes a speech of semi-surrender, accepting the inevitability of Home Rule, so long as Ulster is completely excluded from it forever. Asquith, who has been weaseling his way towards any compromise that might work, now has to get the Irish Nationalists to go along with a permanent division of their country. Good luck with that.

Alexander Berkman, chair of the Anti-Militarist League of the Anarchists, says the League will begin recruiting a regiment to assist the strikers in Colorado.

Headline of the Day -100: “Wilson to Try Mediation in Colorado War.” Meanwhile, strikers fight with mine guards and the Colorado National Guard, with a death toll of at least 15, as everybody tries to get in a last bit of mayhem before the federal troops arrive.

At the inquest for the Ludlow Massacre dead (25, including 14 children), a union doctor testifies that the militia set the camp’s tents on fire (in other words, it wasn’t a fire that started by accident and spread; the tents were too far apart for that) and that they fired on a ranch house in which women and children had taken shelter from the shooting. The doctor showed the white flag he used while trying to treat the injured; it was, of course, bullet-ridden.

Upton Sinclair and others picket John D. Rockefeller Jr’s offices, or rather, appear in mourning for the Colorado dead. “Free silence,” Sinclair calls it.

Carranza accepts mediation and Huerta accepts it “in principle” (well, they both only accept in principle, but Huerta’s track record suggests that he plans endless negotiations about negotiations). There is now an implicit armistice between the US, federal Mexican and Constitutionalist forces, and the US military won’t expand outwards from Vera Cruz or land troops elsewhere.

A federal judge rules that $600,000 in Mexican rebel currency seized by the US War Department must be returned because currency does not constitute munitions of war.

A story on the US War Dept sending troops to the Mexican border mentions a Col. Spunk, who works for Gen. Bliss. Just saying.

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Something’s wrong

Last week the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that death row prisoners couldn’t prove “actual injury” caused by the state’s keeping secret the source and makeup of the drugs they planned to use in their executions.

Today, Oklahoma fucked up the first of those executions. Clayton Lockett was still convulsing and trying to speak after they claimed he was unconscious (“Something’s wrong,” according to one report), so after a bit they admitted they’d only partially executed him and called a halt, but 20 minutes later he had a heart attack and died. All in all, it took nearly 45 minutes to torture him to death. The state blamed the botched execution on “vein failure,” because it certainly couldn’t have had anything to do with the Mystery Death Chemicals they were trying to put in his failed vein. Imagine, by the way, what sort of condition Lockett would have been in if he hadn’t had that unexpected heart attack after they’d stopped trying to kill him, with three poisonous drugs running through his body, but not in large enough quantities to do the job.

They didn’t give him the last meal he asked for either. Evidently there’s a $15 limit.

They decided not to go ahead with the second execution, also scheduled for today. I think that guy can prove “actual injury” now, although maybe not to the satisfaction of the fucking Oklahoma Supreme Court.

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Today -100: April 29, 1914: Of insurrections, mine explosions, cyclopes, naked savages, and gyro-cars

Woodrow Wilson sends the army into Colorado, because there’s an “insurrection” (the word used in the Constitution). As required by law, he issues a proclamation ordering the insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes by April 30th. Perhaps he doesn’t know that the strikers were evicted from their company-owned abodes and then burnt out of their tent camp.

The Colorado Fuel & Iron Company is suing various newspapers for refusing to censor news of the Ludlow Massacre, according to the editor of the Rocky Mountain News.

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. refused a request by Rep. Martin Foster (D-Ill.) to do something about the violence in Colorado. Today Junior explains that Foster had failed to suggest any course of action that didn’t involve recognizing the union or putting the question of recognition to arbitration. Which would obviously be out of the question. (His statement lists “concessions already granted” to the ungrateful miners, such as payment twice monthly instead of monthly, non-compulsory use of the company store, the 8-hour day, etc, which a letter to the NYT by Arthur Taft points out are only concessions in the sense only that mineowners gracefully agreed to obey Colorado law, after a long period of not doing so, and then only because of the strike.)

Explosions in a coal mine in West Virginia entomb 203 men without hope of rescue, kill at least 5 miners, burn dozens. Two carloads of coffins have been ordered from Cincinnati, which will be sent by (coal-fueled) train. A West Virginia workmen’s compensation act enacted since the last major mine disaster will ensure that the victims’ widows receive $20 a month and their children $5 (up to 3 children).

Huerta claims that Emiliano Zapata and his rebels have joined with the government against the Americans. He is mistaken.

US ships move away from Tampico. Adm. Fletcher explains that he was afraid their presence was causing the Federals and Constitutionalists to unite against Americans and that foreigners in the town were at risk. The local German commander threatens to send his sailors in if foreigners are harmed.

The Americans release from Vera Cruz prison 325 Mexicans who were imprisoned without trial in order to force them to join the army.

US railroads will charge the State Dept half rates for transporting American refugees from Mexico.

Medical Headline of the Day -100: “Find Smallpox on Cyclops.” The Cyclops being a ship bringing refugees from Mexico. All refugees arriving at Galveston in the future will be vaccinated, especially if they’re cyclopes.

Cyclopes is the plural of cyclops, I’ve just learned.

Anthropological Headline of the Day -100: “Roosevelt Finds New Tribe.” The Pauhates, naked “savages” in Brazil.

Headline of the Day -100: “Amazed by Gyro-Car.” A two-wheeled gyroscopic automobile is unveiled in London. It reached speeds of up to 4 miles per hour.

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Today -100: April 28, 1914: Of hunger strikes, war correspondents, the real infamy in Colorado, and votes of censure

Becky Edelson is released on bail, without the condition that she shut up whenever a cop tells her to. She denies having failed in her hunger strike; rather, she fasted 56 hours until she heard that a motion for appeal would be heard.

Mexican Federales abandon Nuevo Laredo; rebels occupy it.

The US War Dept is now licensing war correspondents, who must provide a $2,000 bond for good behaviour and $1,000 which may be drawn on for supplies.

Some members of Congress are complaining about the alarmist false reports sent last week by the US consul in Vera Cruz (a Taft appointee) about mobs in Mexico City, planned massed executions of Americans, etc.

Woodrow Wilson is still dilly-dallying about whether to send troops into Colorado and has yet to utter a word publicly about the Ludlow Massacre. It’s not like it’s some Mexicans who dared to diss our flag by detaining a few sailors for part of an afternoon while finding a translator (as opposed to Gen. Chase, who locked up Mother Jones without trial for months).

The Colorado strikers demand that the mine guards be disarmed. They also seem to be acquiring territory, attacking Louisville, Lafayette, and Marshall and the McNally coal mine.

The NYT editorializes: “There are those who think that ‘infamy’ in Colorado consists in the fact that the militia are shooting workmen. It may be contended that there is something like infamy in the opposition of workmen to society and order. The militia are as impersonal and as impartial as the law.” Let me stop you right there and point out that the mining companies have been sending their gun thugs into the Colo. National Guard for months, while regular militiamen, who feel they didn’t sign up in order to guarantee the Rockefellers’ share value, are increasingly mustering out.

In Parliament, Austen Chamberlain proposes an inquiry into the Curragh Mutiny. He accuses the government of lying its head off, the not-so-subtext being that the government planned to incite a rebellion in Northern Ireland in order to suppress it so all the gun-running is totally justified. Churchill responds that this is “the most impudent demand for a judicial inquiry of which our records can provide a parallel. ... what we are now witnessing in the House is uncommonly like a vote of censure by the criminal classes on the police.”

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