Today -100: November 18, 1914: Of mediation, good times in Warsaw, elusive teetotalers, wet military zones, and humane projectiles

Headline of the Day -100:  “President to Await Mediation Request.”  And await... and await...

Command of Mexico City is seized by Gen. Álvaro Obregón.  On behalf of Carranza, but that part is not clear to a confused NYT yet.  The move was intended to forestall Villa, who is sending troops towards the capital.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Germans Expected Good Time in Warsaw.”  This is why you should never trust graffiti in bathroom stalls.  The Germans had been planning to hold a ball in Warsaw after they captured it – they printed invitations and everything.  The army is now retreating, leaving behind horses and artillery, although it claims this is merely a strategic maneuver.

To pay for the war, British Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George proposes doubling the income tax and increasing the tax on beer and, so that the “elusive teetotalers” don’t escape having to pay, on tea as well (at this point Liberal MP and temperance advocate Leif Jones stalked out of the House of Commons chamber in protest).

Britain declares the whole North Sea a military zone, supposedly in response to Germany using civilian shipping vessels to lay mines.  So really, this military zone thing is a benevolent act to protect neutral ships from German perfidy and not at all a naval blockade intended to starve Germany.

Britain denies German charges that it uses dum-dum bullets, and says Germany does.  On the standard British army bullet, “In the opinion of Sir Victor Horsley, a well-known surgeon [and well-known vivisector of dogs], this bullet is ‘probably the most humane projectile yet devised’”.

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Today -100: November 17, 1914: The Germans all boast of their culture

Russian troops may have set Cracow on fire.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: More Russian rumors about Austria: Austria is planning to seek a separate peace, independently of Germany;  Germany demanded that Austria fire 11 generals and the heir-apparent, Archduke Karl Franz Josef (as a field marshal; he can continue being heir-apparent); and have taken command of Cracow’s defenses away from the Austrians.

The war is costing Britain £1 million a day.

Germany is re-naming French cities it claims to have annexed: Calais will be Kales, Dunkirk Dünkirchen, Lille Ryssel, Boulogne Boonen, Nancy Nanzig, etc.

Pope Benedict urges peace.  He blames the war on materialism and lack of brotherly love.  “The spirit of Christ does not reign today,” he says.

Pancho Villa accepts Carranza’s offer that they both quit their positions and leave the country.  So we’re all agreed, and this will definitely happen, right?  Eulalio Gutiérrez certainly thinks it has, and has written to Woodrow Wilson, “president” to president, that “the time of dictatorships born of violence and personal ambitions has passed forever” in Mexico.  So that’s all good.

Name of the Day -100: Americans with German names are being warned by the State Department against traveling to countries at war with Germany after complaints from a George Rottweiler of Chicago about ill-treatment in France and Britain.

In the NYT letters pages appears what you didn’t even realize the war needed: a limerick.

The Germans all boast of their culture
In a way that would almost insult you;
But the wreckage at Rheims,
And the loot of Louvain
Show their “culture” develops a vulture!

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Today -100: November 16, 1914: Of foxes, censorship, flügels, uriahs, fortresses, and Masonic conspiracies

First World War Problems: the war is seriously interfering with fox hunting in England.

All train passengers heading from London to the Continent will be searched for spy stuff.

The Daily Chronicle (UK) complains again about military censorship.  Germany has accredited war correspondents and “If Germans die in the performance of a heroic exploit, they do not die unheard of, unhonored, and unsung, as with rare exceptions their British and French opponents do.  In this way the martial enthusiasm of the nation is kept at the highest pitch.”  But the French War Office’s “policy it has been to hound down British correspondents in France like vermin and treat them as if they were worse than spies.”  And the British government has taken to seizing reporters’ passports.  The Chronicle claims Germany treats reporters from neutral countries very hospitably, but NYT correspondents report frequently being arrested as suspected spies.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Worry Over War Kills Dr. Fluegel.”  Worst Dr. Seuss book ever.  Ewald Flügel was chair of the Stanford English Philology Dept, working on a massive project to create a concordance to Chaucer’s work.  And he was worried about the war.

Also dead: Uriah Hill, a retired stove manufacturer.  Nothing noteworthy, but you just don’t see many Uriahs anymore.

Russia is imposing financial penalties on East Prussian towns, just like Germany does in Belgium.  The German military authorities have ordered East Prussians to flee and leave nothing behind that the Russian troops can use, bringing their flocks with them and burning their homes.

Exotic-As-Hell Headline of the Day -100:  “Indians Take Turkish Fortress in Arabia.”

Cardinal O’Connell of Boston blames the disorder in Mexico on a “Masonic conspiracy.”

Masonic conspirator Carranza offers to turn control of the military over to Masonic conspirator Gutierrez and go into exile in Cuba – provided that Masonic conspirator Villa does the same, on the same date.

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Today -100: November 15, 1914: Of little Bobs, touchy czarinas, Belgian caps, audaciouses, illustrations independent of accordance with fact, and ice

Field Marshal Frederick “Little Bobs” Roberts, the 1st Earl Roberts of Kabul and Kandahar, the retired former Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, dies of pneumonia at age 82 in France, where he had gone to visit Indian troops.  He bounced around the colonies most of his military career, which spanned the Indian Mutiny to the Boer War.  He spent the last years before the war agitating for compulsory military service and for the army to rebel and refuse to enforce Irish Home Rule.  At five foot two, he was too short to be an enlisted man, even with the newly reduced minimum height.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Touch of Czarina Like Miracle Cure.”  A barracks near the Winter Palace has been converted into a military hospital, and Mrs Tsar and a couple of the czarettes play at nurses.

Fashion Headline of the Day -100:  “BELGIUM MAY BE INSPIRATION FOR WINTER'S NEW FASHIONS; Details of Costumes Worn by Inhabitants of Little Nation Which Has Stirred the Imagination of the World May Be Reproduced in Other Lands. Already Belgian Cap Is the Smart Thing in Millinery.”  I’m assuming a Belgian cap is some sort of contraceptive device.

The super-dreadnought HMS Audacious, the 3rd largest ship in the British Navy, was sunk by a mine last month in the North Sea.  Most of the crew was rescued by the Olympic.  The news was kept secret for more than two weeks, despite being known by the crews and civilian passengers of multiple ships.

If a dreadnought fears nothing, what is a super-dreadnought?

The federal commissioner of Indian Affairs, Cato Sells, admits that Kate Barnard’s accusations about Indians being robbed of millions are true, but says he inherited the situation from previous regimes and he’s now sending probate lawyers to try to straighten it out.  He doesn’t seem to be as willing as Barnard to accuse the newish state of Oklahoma of being a giant criminal conspiracy to defraud Indians of their lands, which is what it was.

The Rev. Hugh MacCauley of the Second Presbyterian Church in Paterson, NJ, says that his mention in a recent sermon of a New Jersey woman who adopted two Belgian boys, only to find when they arrived that their hands had been cut off by German soldiers, was just a rumor which he used as an “illustration” and “its value as an illustration was quite independent of its accordance with fact.”

The city of Bakersfield’s new charter, which has to be ratified by the California Legislature, declares ice a public utility and authorizes the city to manufacture and sell it.

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Quote of the Day

Asked in Burma about press freedom, Obama says he has raised the issue with both the Chinese and Burmese governments: “I’m pretty blunt and pretty frank about the fact that societies that repress journalists ultimately oppress people as well”. First they came for the journalists, but they weren’t people, so I said nothing....

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The return of In Other Words

George Bush is interviewed by NPR, because of course he is. He mostly talked in other words about the book he totally wrote all by himself about his father.

IN OTHER WORDS: “He had a strategy to deal with Saddam Hussein. And then when he said, this will not stand, he meant it. In other words, he understood that when a president speaks, he’s got to mean what he says.”

IN OTHER WORDS: “We both went to the United Nations to get a resolution. In other words, this wasn’t a unilateral American action.”

IN OTHER WORDS: “It was more complex because this decision was made in a post-9/11 world. In other words, the removal of Saddam from Kuwait was definitely in our national interest. But it didn’t necessarily mean that the United States’s homeland would be threatened or not threatened depending upon his actions.” No, it didn’t necessarily mean that. I think. Wait, what did you say?

WHAT GEORGE CAN UNDERSTAND (NOT GRAMMAR. NEVER GRAMMAR): “I can understand the comparisons between he and me.”

WHAT GEORGE COULD ENVISION: it was totally necessary to invade Iraq because “one could envision a nuclear arms race between Iran and Iraq.”

A BETTER SHOT: “And I would argue that the people of Iraq have a better shot at living in a peaceful state.” They certainly have enough ammunition.

THE CONDITION ELSEWHERE MATTERS:

GREENE: I guess I just wonder broadly what you tell Americans who look at the chaos today and link it back to your decision to invade in 2003. And...

BUSH: I just say the condition elsewhere matters to the security of the United States, and we cannot become isolationists.

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Today -100: November 14, 1914: Of insane dukes, passports, villas, and punctured romances

Headline of the Day -100:  “Duke of Cumberland Made Insane By War.”  Found wandering around in a demented state because his son, the Duke of Brunswick, has been declared missing in battle.  I don’t know if either element of this story – the insanity or the MIA thing – have any truth to them.  This could be British disinformation aimed at two guys on the German side (the elder Duke used to be the king of Hanover, when there was still a kingdom of Hanover, and the younger is married to Kaiser Wilhelm’s daughter) who happen to possess English titles (which they will be deprived of in 1919).  The inter-marrying of royalty creates these problems.  The dukes are direct descendants of George III, who was king of both Britain and Hanover, as were all British monarchs from George I until Victoria – Hanover’s rules of succession did not allow for female monarchs.  (Update: Germany denies, a few days later, that Brunswick is wounded or missing or a prisoner.)

The US says it will end its occupation of Vera Cruz in 10 days.  Evidently trying to get out before the newest civil war heats up.  Now they just have to decide which government to give the customs duties they’ve been collecting.

Kate Barnard, the state commissioner of charities in Oklahoma, says there is a conspiracy in the state legislature and congressional delegation to rob Cherokees, Seminoles and Chickasaws, especially orphans, of tribal funds.  This theft was facilitated by the 1908 decision to turn the cases over from federal courts to Oklahoma courts.  Once she started advocating for Indian wards, the Legislature de-funded her Department of Charities and Correction, which now runs on, well, charity.  Incidentally, state commissioner of charities is the only office a woman was allowed to hold under the OK constitution.

Britain will now require Americans boarding steamships for America to show passports, but...

The State Department admits that foreign spies have gotten American passports (such as Carl Lody, who was just executed in Britain) pretty easily.  Under new rules, people will have to do more than pretend they’ve lost their passport and swear that they’re American, like Lody did.

Kaiser Wilhelm, afraid that Greece might soon join the Allies, is trying to sell his villa, Achilleion, on Corfu before it gets confiscated.  Which is in fact what happened.  It became a wartime hospital, an orphanage, a Nazi headquarters, and a museum/casino (in which the casino scene in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only was filmed).

Speaking of film history, “Tillie’s Punctured Romance,” the first full-length comedy motion picture, starring Marie Dressler, Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand, directed by Mack Sennett, is released.  This is a pretty good print, but turn off the obnoxious sound.



The New Statesman publishes George Bernard Shaw’s article “Common Sense About the War,” which will also begin running in the NYT tomorrow and lead to much vituperative debate in Britain, questions in Parliament about why it wasn’t censored, etc (some of the debate is reproduced in the book version at the link). Read it and decide for yourself (in other words, I completely forgot I intended to read it by today).

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Today -100: November 13, 1914: Before the leaves have fallen from the trees

Berlin: Censorship to repress any news of the Russian invasion of East Prussia doesn’t really work if your city is filling up with refugees.

A guy told a guy who told a NYT correspondent that Kaiser Wilhelm, visiting a field hospital, told soldiers, “Mark my word, there will be peace before the leaves have fallen from the trees.”

Russia claims that Armenians are gleefully welcoming Russian troops and even joining them.  Which a few certainly are doing, but this Russian  propaganda plays into the pre-genocidal all-Armenians-are-traitors propaganda that the Turkish government is already beginning to ramp up.  Also, it will soon be clear that the move into Armenia was more of a feint by a single army corps than a real invasion, so any Armenians who did gleefully welcome Russian troops would be kind of screwed.

Japan is upset at California’s re-election of Gov. Hiram Johnson and the election of still more racist legislators.  They fear new legislation will prevent Japanese not just owning land in California as at present, but leasing it.

Headline of the Day -100:  “President Resents Negro’s Criticism”  (Alternate headline, in the LA Times: “Wilson and a Negro Clash in White House”).  The critical negro is William Monroe Trotter of the small National Equal Rights League and the criticism is over Wilson’s segregation of federal offices.  Wilson repeatedly insists that segregation, which was of course implemented for the comfort and in the best interests of negroes, is not a political issue.  Trotter promises united negro opposition to the Democrats in 1916 and expresses disappointment in Wilson, who says he’s never been so insulted in his life, and that mentioning votes is a form of blackmail, finally ordering Trotter out, saying that if the NERL ever came to the White House again, it had better be without Trotter.  The next day, various negroes sent telegrams to the White House disavowing Trotter, and the White House trumpeted its great support of black federal employees: why, two negro messengers have been advanced to clerkships!  Two of them!  One of whom had only been waiting for a promotion for 45 years.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Disobeyed His Orders, Killed 600 Germans.”  A French gunner, so it’s okay.

Headline of the Day -100 (Chicago Tribune):  “Sneeze Powder Kills Man.”  In a New York streetcar. James C. Allan, 78, one-time Greenback-Labor Party candidate for lieutenant-governor.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Kaiser Clips Ends off His Mustache.”  The London Standard claims this has brought home to Germans that they are losing the war.

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Today -100: November 12, 1914: The Battle of Cocos. No, really, that’s what it’s called.

The German cruiser Emden, which has been very successful against Allied ships – mostly British – for two months (2 warships, 16 steamers and a merchant ship captured or sunk) is attacked and destroyed by the Australian cruiser Sydney off the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean, with 1/3 of its crew killed.  The Emden’s captain and officers will be allowed to keep their swords.  They won’t be returned to Germany until 1920.  A landing party on Direction Island when the battle occurred escaped capture, stole a ship and got back to the German fleet safely.  One of the Emden’s guns may now be viewed in Hyde Park, Sydney:

German newspapers are neglecting to mention that Russian troops have crossed into German territory.

The NYT’s military expert says “The close fighting of the last nine weeks in France has been very trying to the morale of the troops.”

Luxemburg’s Parliament opens, not that it matters, given the German occupation.  Grand Duchess Marie says the Germans are promising an indemnity, presumably because they didn’t resist like Belgium did.  “Our rights, though violated, remain. ... I thank the people for their correct attitude, whereby disagreeable events have been prevented.”

Carranza declares war on Villa.

The NYT praises Southern women suffragists for opposing the federal route to women’s suffrage:  “If they cram the vote down the throats of a large part of the United States which does not want it and is even hostile to it,” the Times says, the “indifference and lack of intelligence” which the new voters will display “will be a body blow to the influence and standing of women in politics.”  The lesson from negro voters is that “the real friends of the negroes” wanted to start with just a few negroes voting and gradually expand it and had this been done, the Times says, some negroes might still have the vote, because evidently the reason they were deprived of the vote was that they weren’t very good at it, and for no other reason.

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Today -100: November 11, 1914: They will do what is just

Formal declaration of war by Britain, France, Russia, Belgium and Serbia on Turkey.

At the Southern States Suffrage Conference in Chattanooga, Alva Belmont says that with the European armies “shelling cities and destroying everything before them, leaving women and children without a place to lay their heads, it is somewhat illogical to talk of woman’s sphere as the home.”  Asked whether negro women in the South should be allowed to vote, Belmont would not venture an opinion, saying it should be “left entirely to the men of the South to decide.  They will do what is just.”  There’s a first time for everything, I suppose.  “We seek for women political rights equal to those of men.  Negro women could share the rights of negro men. If they are disfranchised let the women share the same treatment.”  Since she, unlike most Southern suffragists, supports a national constitutional suffrage amendment, I wonder how she thinks it should be phrased to allow for racial discrimination.

The German government is complaining about vulgar cartoons of the heads of enemy states.  “Germany does not require such poisonous medicine and should leave such things to the English mob, the Paris apaches, and Russian moujiks.”

14 states are under quarantine for foot-and-mouth disease.

Psychic Headline of the Day -100:  “Psychic War News.”  The Occult Messenger (UK) reports, via psychic sources, that the Allies will do very well in November and that “The United States, the most unlikely people of all, will put a finger in the Turkish pie.”  Very unlikely: when the US finally did join the war with the Central Powers, it did not declare war on Turkey.

Carl Lody, the German spy, is executed at the Tower of London, the first execution there since the 11th Lord Lovat, a Jacobite, in 1747.

Germany is threatening to ban the importation of food into Belgium (whose population is being partly fed by American charity) unless Belgians return to work.  What work? the Belgians wonder, since the Belgian economy has been wrecked, bombed, thoroughly looted, and is in no shape to provide jobs.  Every means of transportation has been commandeered.

Mexico orders a secret German wireless station in Ensenada closed.

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Today -100: November 10, 1914: More men and still more

Carranza declares himself chief head of Mexico, ordering generals to ignore the convention and subordinate officers to ignore their generals if they follow the convention.  Gutierrez also declares himself president.

Lord Kitchener, the British secretary of war, wants “more men and still more, until the enemy is crushed.”  He admits casualties have been “severe,” but says those casualties “will act as an incentive to British manhood to prepare themselves to take the places of those who have fallen.”  Come on, British manhood, those mass graves won’t just fill themselves.

Headline of the Day -100:  “RAIN OF GERMAN SHELLS MAKES YPRES A RUIN; Fine Old Buildings Destroyed ;- Lone Woman Fights Flames With Buckets of Water.”

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Today -100: November 9, 1914: Of absinthe & glass eyes

The US will intern the German cruiser Geier at Honolulu after it missed a deadline to leave port because it was trying to out-wait a larger Japanese ship waiting to sink it.

France bans absinthe.

First World War Problems: all of Germany’s glass-eye factories have shut down, and the US is running out of them.  The US manufactures some of its own, but the material came from Germany.

Britain denies German claims that German ships bombarded Yarmouth.

Germany imposes yet another $1.25 million fine on Brussels, for the crime of Brussel’s police having helped newspaper vendors resist arrest by German secret police for selling contraband Dutch newspapers.

The Mexican convention gives Carranza until Tuesday to relinquish the presidency, or force will be used.

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Today -100: November 8, 1914: Of beer, internment, wireless, and cow pictures

Japan previously said it would only keep Kiautschou temporarily but, now that it’s been captured from Germany, says it will administer it until the end of the war and then “open negotiations with China.”  Germany hasn’t left much of it intact.

Headline of the Day -100:  “A.F.L. Declares for Beer.”  Says prohibition is contrary to freedom and would throw (unionized) brewery employees out of work.

As threatened, Germany has ordered all male English nationals aged 17 to 56 to report for internment.

The exposition for New York’s tercentenary opens. It is opened by an Indian named... White Man Runs Him.

Cuba says it has put down an army mutiny.

The US military is searching for secret wireless stations that certain unnamed European countries (Germany) are using to transmit military information – the positions of sinkable ships, that sort of thing.

Headline of the Day -100:  “War Facts in Cow Pictures.”  Supposedly, the German army is using cow-themed graffiti to leave messages directing troops – the cow’s head pointing in the direction of French troops, the size of the cow indicating the size of enemy forces, that sort of thing.

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What North Korean orphans shout for – joy, evidently

With all the election hoopla you may have missed the important news that North Korea has opened a new Pyongyang Baby Home and Orphanage.

“The baby home and orphanage were garbed in a festive atmosphere as the children were very happy and pleased with the best cradles. Entering the fairytale nurseries, education rooms, exercise rooms and other best-furnished places for living and entertainment, the children were so happy that they shouted for joy. Nurses, teachers and officials were very grateful to Marshal Kim Jong Un. The children gave art performances in their new buildings and they sang of their happiest life in the world.”

Kim Jung Un visited a few days before it opened, so he wouldn’t be bothered by actual babies and orphans, because you’d hate to have anything distracting mess up your PR photos.

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Today -100: November 7, 1914: We cannot see beyond the range of our guns

As the Turko-Russian war heats up, Russian newspapers have started calling Constantinople “Tzargrad.”

Woodrow Wilson declares the US neutral in the war between Britain and Turkey.  Jeez, we get it, you’re neutral already.

Germany surrenders the port of Tsing-tau to Japan after a 65-day siege.

Turkey’s chief religious leader, the Sheik-ul-Islam, decrees that it is the religious duty of all Muslims to fight Russia, France and Britain.  Yup, jihad.

Headline of the Day -100:  “English Eat Grapefruit.”

Britain is intercepting shipments of copper from the United States to Italian ports but intended, Britain says, for the German war machine.  All ships bound for Italy are being diverted to Gibraltar and copper removed.  American copper magnates say it’s just an excuse for Britain to create a monopoly in copper manufacturing.

George Bernard Shaw writes an open letter to Woodrow Wilson, asking him to request Britain, France and Germany all withdraw from Belgium and fight their war (which he calls “the quaint absurdity of a war waged formally between the German Kaiser, the German Czar, the German King of the Belgians, the German King of England, the German Emperor of Austria, and a gentleman who shares with you the distinction of not being related to any of them and is therefore describable monarchically as one Poincaré, Frenchman”) on their own territories.  He is appealing to the US because “We cannot be just.  We cannot see beyond the range of our guns.  The roar of the shrapnel deafens us; the black smoke of the howitzer blinds us.  And what these do to our bodily senses our passions do to our imaginations.  For justice we must do as the mediaeval cities did – call in a stranger.”

Montana suffragists are concerned that the delay in election returns from Anaconda might be part of a dirty trick to defeat the women’s suffrage referendum.  Evidently the poll workers just... forgot to count votes on the propositions. I mostly mention this because it’s the first time I’ve seen the name of future Congresscritter Jeanette Rankin, now the president of the Montana Equal Suffrage Association, in a newspaper (the LA Times).

Although on the same page they mis-spell the name of Frances Munds, an Arizona suffrage activist just elected to the state Legislature from Yavapai County, the first woman legislator in Arizona.

The NYT reports on a women’s suffrage meeting in Carnegie Hall, and for once doesn’t describe what a single one of the women speakers was wearing.  Is that even legal?

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Today -100: November 6, 1914: Of declarations of war, cypruses, dead klucks, and Ostendais

Britain and France declare war on Turkey (actually, France says that Turkey created the state of war by attacking a French steamer, I guess at Odessa, without immediately making amends by firing all the Germans in its army and navy as a way to disclaim responsibility for the act).

Britain annexes Cyprus.

France, Britain and Russia all having large numbers of Muslim subjects, there’s some concern about unrest in sympathy with the Ottoman Empire, although they’re all pretending not to worry.  Britain issues a proclamation – in India, which included what is now Pakistan – promising not to molest – is that really the exact word they used? – Muslim holy sites in the Middle East.

Death Rumor of the Day -100: The French newspaper Excelsior says that German Gen. Alexander von Kluck died 10 days ago, and they’ve been covering it up.  Nope.

Ostend, Belgium is about to come under artillery attack, and the Ostendais have been ordered (by whom?) to hide in their cellars for the next five days.

Ostendais: that’s what people in Ostend call themselves.  Now you know.

Someone from the Christian Science Committee on Publication feels obligated to write the NYT a letter denying that Gen. Moltke, former head of the German General Staff, is a Christian Scientist.

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Today -100: November 5, 1914: Subordinate to our rules and desires

This is the 5th anniversary of my first Today -100 post.

Headline I Really Didn’t Want to Click On of the Day -100:  “Wants Cat Skins for War.”

Okay, now I really want Germany to lose.

Headline of the Day -100:  “PICK OFF RUSSIAN OFFICERS.; German Soldiers Then Have to Stand Revengeful Bayonet Charges.”  Another London Standard propaganda story, the gist of which is that Russian soldiers love their officers and that Germans hate hand-to-hand fighting, preferring to take pot-shots from a distance, because they’re cowards.

Headline of the Day -100:  “French Officers Swordless.”  Not a euphemism.  Because of that pot-shot thing, they’re trying to be less conspicuous.  Their new uniforms will be indistinguishable from those of the grunts (poilus, to use the French term coming into use right about now).  Officers are also ordered to lead from the rear, because they’re so much more valuable than the poilus.

Mrs. Arthur Dodge of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage says the elections show that women’s suffrage is doomed.  In addition to losing 5 of the 7 state referenda, none of the 18 anti-suffrage members of Congress targeted by the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage lost their seats.

Turkey breaks off relations with Britain, France, Russia and Serbia.  Russia invades Armenia.  The London Daily Chronicle says “The campaign in this wild, mountainous Armenian region will mean considerable hardship at this season of the year, but it will certainly be a most picturesque episode of the great war.”  So that's okay then.

Gen. Paul von Hindenburg says “The war will not end until all the nations who are fighting against us have become subordinate to our rules and desires.”

Woodrow Wilson warns the people of the part of Arkansas into which he’s sending federal troops against “doing, countenancing, encouraging, or taking any part in such unlawful obstructions, combinations, and assemblages” and says they should return to their homes.

The British government pays Orville Wright £15,000 to settle his patent-infringement case and to cover any future use of airplane-related patents.

Walter Lanfersieck, executive secretary of the Socialist Party, is happy with the election results.  One Socialist congressman, several state legislators and city council members.  But with the general collapse of the Progressive Party, “There is now no place for honest Progressives to go but to the Socialist Party.”

The German minister of war bans the use of Boy Scouts in the field.  They have been used up to now to bring food, ammunition and such to the troops.

NYC Mayor Mitchel (a Democrat) says the poor showing of Democrats in the state’s elections shows that Tammany’s Boss Murphy must go.  Boss Murphy disagrees.

Elsewhere in fixing-the-blame news, the White House says congressional election losses were down to the changes made in tariffs.

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Today -100: November 4, 1914: The Suez Canal is threatened by camels?

Election results:

Women’s suffrage was on the ballot in 7 states yesterday, passing only in Nevada and Montana, bringing the number of suffrage states to 12 (plus Alaska), but losing by a 56% no vote in South Dakota (that initiative included a provision allowing foreigners who intended to become citizens to vote), 55% in North Dakota, 64% in Missouri, I dunno in Nebraska, and 60% in Ohio, whose constitution defined voters as white male until 1923.  Jane Addams thinks the bad suffrage showing is the result of the European war causing men to lapse into primeval instincts.  “Persuasion has no place in the psychology of men who are contemplating resort to force.” Ain’t it the truth.

The 8-hour day and/or the 48-hour week fails everywhere they’re on the ballot (California, Oregon, Washington).  Prohibition wins in Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, but loses in California and Ohio.  There are now 14 dry states.  Arizona narrowly fails to abolish the death penalty (putting 15 prisoners who had been reprieved pending the vote back on death row), votes to require that 80% of employees at companies employing more than five workers be U.S. citizens, and limits railroad fares to 3¢ per mile.  California bans poll taxes and prize fighting but rejects a proposition allowing only property-owners to vote on bond measures.  Oregon will require voters to be American citizens and abolishes the death penalty by a narrow vote (which will be overturned in 1920).  Washington state votes 79% against foreigners being allowed to own land.

These were the first US Senate elections under the 17th Amendment.  Democrats picked up 3 seats, giving them 56 of the 96 seats.  New senators include Warren G. Harding for Ohio and Charles Curtis (Hoover’s vice president) for Kansas.

The House of Representatives: Democrats also continue to hold a majority in the House, with 230 seats, down from 290.  The R’s have 196.  Former Speaker of the House Joseph “Uncle Joe” Cannon (R), who lost his Illinois seat in 1912, returns, as does Nicholas Longworth (aka Mr. Alice Roosevelt).  Charles Randall, a Prohibition Party member (and formerly a Republican, a Democrat, and a Progressive, not necessarily in that order), wins a congressional seat from California’s 9th district (Los Angeles County) in a tight three-way race, defeating an incumbent Republican 30.9% to 30.3%.  He will serve three terms, the only Prohibition Party congresscritter ever.  Meyer London, a labor attorney, is elected for New York’s 12th district (Manhattan) as a Socialist.  London is a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, and that’s his real name.  He will serve two terms before being defeated by Henry Goldfogle, the Democrat he defeated this time.  He admits he can’t pass any legislation, but he hopes to call Congress’s attention to the study of social problems and labor legislation.  Good luck with that.  “The business of socialism,” he will say at a celebration held in Madison Square Garden, “is to give intelligence to discontent.”  He says he will show Congress “what the east side of New York is and what the east side Jew is.”  Both Randall & London will vote against entry into World War I.  Victor Berger, the former one-term Socialist congresscritter from Milwaukee, loses a bid to return in the district he lost last election.

Charles Whitman is elected governor of New York in a Republican landslide that gives the party both houses of the legislature and all the statewide offices.  Voters were presumably turned off by the intra-Democratic fighting that culminated in last year’s impeachment of Gov. Sulzer and the victory of Tammany corruption.  Sulzer ran this time under the American Party and the Prohibition Party banners, coming a distant third but he calls himself “vindicated” by Glynn’s defeat).  Even New York City didn’t give many votes to Democratic Gov. Glynn.  The anti-Catholic campaign against him didn’t help, but neither did a series of corruption scandals and Tammany appointments.

California re-elects Hiram Johnson as governor.  In 1910 he was elected as a Republican, this time he ran as a Progressive, winning just shy of 50%, with Republican John Fredericks getting 29% and Democrat J.B. Curtin 12.5%.

Supposedly Austria is sounding out Russia about making a peace separate from Germany.

Japanese sailors have requested permission to make a raid on Kaio-Chau to capture the German governor, but they’ve been turned down.  The request was written in the sailors’ own blood; no word on what bodily fluid the rejection was written in.

French newspapers are speculating that Germany, which unlike France is fighting on two fronts, must be running out of munitions.

The Turkish ambassador, about to leave Russia as the two countries start their war, refuses to pay the embassy’s Russian employees the back wages he owes them and makes a smart-ass jibe about paying them in Odessa when Turkey captures it. A clerk clobbers him, as is only fitting and proper.

Headline of the Day -100:  “SUEZ CANAL IS THREATENED.; German Officers with a Camel Corps ;- Agitators Sent to Egypt.”  The canal is threatened by camels, because of course it is.

Woodrow Wilson sends federal troops to Arkansas to see that a federal judge’s orders are enforced – something about bankrupt mines, mines being blown up, and miners rescuing other miners from the cops.  Yes, the troops will have machine guns, as was the custom.

Carranza rejects the convention’s attempt to replace him, claiming that the resignation he sent them was a “telegraphic error.”  Fuckin’ autocorrect, amiright?  So Mexico now has two rival presidents, as was the custom.

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Today -100: November 3, 1914: Did you know one of those could be closed?

Montenegro declares war on Turkey.  No one notices.

Headline of the Day -100:  “North Sea Closed by British Order.”  Supposedly Britain is laying mines in the North Sea purely in retaliation for Germany laying mines off the coast of Ireland along the shipping route between Liverpool and the US, but a naval blockade of Germany is an obvious, indeed inevitable tactic given Britain’s naval superiority.  (Update: This must be a response to the sinking of the super-dreadnought Audacious by a submerged mine a week ago, which the public hasn’t been told about yet).

The Mexican convention accepts Carranza’s resignation and elects Gen. Eulalio Gutiérrez president for a term of... 20 days, but Carranza says he never officially resigned, because his conditions (the retirement of Villa and Zapata as commanders) were not met.

The Turkish government has asked if it’s too late to apologize for starting a war with Russia and blowing all that shit up (some people in government are less intent on war than others, the others being primarily Young Turks).  Russia isn’t really saying, but the minimum conditions would be the removal of all German officers from the Turkish army and navy and the dismantling of two cruisers Germany transferred to Turkey.  The grand vizier has apologized for Turkey’s actions, while blaming the Russian navy for starting it.  I’m not sure what that means – Russian ships fired on the Turkish ships which came to bombard Odessa?

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Some random Englishwoman reports that since the start of the war Kaiser Wilhelm’s hair has turned white.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Pooh-Poohs Invasion Talk.”  Britain does, because what other country would “pooh pooh” something?

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Coercing young people

OK, clearly I’m not writing that long post about the decline of respect for the concept of free speech, but I do want to mention something Obama said at the UN in September: “Their [the Islamic State] propaganda has coerced young people to travel abroad to fight their wars, and turned students – young people full of potential – into suicide bombers.” And Obama wasn’t even talking about person-to-person propaganda in mosques, say, he was talking about the internet. Free speech, even hortative speech, is not “coercion.”

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