Today -100: September 20, 1915: Because not killing people is soooooo tiring

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Supposedly a German u-boat sneakily disguised as a British submarine is sunk by another u-boat (doubtful).

More Fog of War: The Austrians have supposedly melted down the Cesare Zocchi monument to Dante in Trento to make cannons (no, of course they haven’t).

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: September 19, 1915: You wouldn’t like them when they’re angry or playing ukeleles

Austrian Amb. Konstantin Dumba complains to Secretary of State Robert Lansing that his communications with his home government have been so censored by the US (he has to rely on US-controlled wireless stations, while his Allied counterparts can use the trans-Atlantic cables from Canada) that Vienna is likely to recall him without even knowing that he denies having violated any US laws with his plans to disrupt US munitions production. He continues to assert that his only aim was to protect his countrymen from inadvertently violating Austro-Hungarian law, which would be a good argument if his captured unencyphered letter hadn’t talked about disrupting munitions manufacturing.

Headline Combining the Words “Angry” and “Ukeleles” of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: September 18, 1915: Of explorers and protectorates

Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the Canadian arctic explorer, who has been out of contact for nearly 18 months, turns up at Herschel Island for supplies. He plans to continue mapping out the territories he’s discovered, at least until he runs out of expedition members (13 dead so far). Stefansson provides an account, if you’re interested. I notice the map in one of the NYT stories still includes the fictitious “Crocker Land.”

The US recognizes Haiti’s government – after it signs the treaty to no longer be a real government in control of its own finances and police.

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Today -100: September 17, 1915: Of dumas and toadvines

Tsar Nicholas prorogues the Duma, which has been pushing for reforms, for two months. The leftists in the Duma are not pleased, a deputy named... Kerensky shouting “Down with all traitors!”

Name of the Day -100: Ernest A. Toadvine, who wins the Democratic primary for clerk of the Circuit Court in Wicomico County, Maryland, despite having died the day before.

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Today -100: September 16, 1915: Of medicals, hangings, prisoners, and insulting Germans

One of the people mentioned in Austrian Amb. Dumba’s intercepted letter as a participant in his schemes to disrupt munitions production in the US was Consul-General Alexander Nuber von Pereked. Evidently he’s also been going around Ohio making Austrian and Hungarian nationals take medical exams for military recruitment and charging them $3. Which sounds so much like a scam that a Budapest newspaper denounced it as such, before having to reverse themselves the next day.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Turkey’s less-than-diplomatic response to efforts by US Amb. Henry Morgenthau’s attempts to get them to dial down the genocide.

Germany objects, officially, to the French and British use of non-white troops. African and Indian troops, they say, take ears as souvenirs and kill wounded soldiers. They’re just making this nice, decent war all uncivilized.

The Tsar of Russia orders an amnesty for all political prisoners, maybe 100,000 of them.

The German occupation authority in Belgium makes it illegal to boycott, blacklist or insult Germans or pro-German Belgians, a crime punishable by 2 years’ imprisonment, 5 if done by several people in collusion.

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Today -100: September 15, 1915: Of prohibition, hesperians, crown princes, and idiots & irresponsibles

A South Carolina referendum decides 2 to 1 in favor of prohibition.

Germany is vehemently and officially denying that the Hesperian was sunk by a German sub. Which it was. When they were making that claim a week ago it could have been down to irregular communications with u-boats, but after this much time, they have to just be lying, presumably because the sub that torpedoed the Hesperian was the same one that sunk the Lusitania.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: the German crown prince is said to have gone insane during the Argonne campaign but refuses to give up his command.

The Anglo-French Commission is planning to float a $1 billion loan in the US to pay for munitions and other American war-related exports. The Wilson Administration is quietly looking the other way. German-Americans are threatening to withdraw funds from any banks, for example in heavily German Milwaukee, participating in the loan.

The Detroit Free Press accuses Austria of subsidizing German-, Hungarian-, and Polish-language newspapers in the US.

Henry Morgenthau, the US ambassador to Turkey, wants to raise a fund of $1 to $5 million to save Armenians from the genocide and bring them to the US.

Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor urges organized labor to fight for women’s suffrage. “Women cannot assume equal rights with men in the industrial struggle while classified with idiots and irresponsibles in political affairs.” Donald Trump supporters?

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Today -100: September 14, 1915: A German, even though every kindness be shown to him, remains always a German

Headline of the Day -100: 

Revolution? Unpossible!

It seems there are many who believe that Russia is doing so badly in the war because of German influence in the government. Also, the officials responsible for procuring munitions have prioritized maximizing procuring bribes, often 10% of the value of the contracts, for themselves. It would also help if they checked that the shells they were buying fit Russian cannons rather than German ones, as was the case with those sent to Warsaw right before it fell.

Headline of the Day -100: 

She says as a Dane she’s hated the Germans since they took Schleswig-Holstein, but just had to keep quiet, even when German immigrants were given high positions. “A German, even though every kindness be shown to him, remains always a German.”

Thomas Edison wins a contract to supply the Navy with 365 gun-firing batteries (one for every day of the year, I guess) for battleships. He was the only bidder willing to accept the government terms that if a battery fails within 8 years he has to refund double its price.

The Swedish Socialist Party expels several members who wrote a book advocating that Sweden fight on the side of Germany.

Opening on Broadway: Hit-the-Trail Holliday, by George M. Cohan, starring Fred Niblo (his brother-in-law) as a Billy Sunday-style temperance preacher. The NYT (Alexander Woollcott?) finds it “distinctly second-rate,” largely blaming Niblo and saying the part would have been better performed by Cohan himself (who will take the lead in the now lost 1918 film version) or by Douglas Fairbanks (who Niblo, much better a director than he was an actor, will direct in some of his more famous roles). The play, the review says – oh, it has to be by Woollcott – is “no more than nearly beer.”

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Today -100: September 13, 1915: A singing what now?

Brooklyn and Newark police arrest a “new type of thief,” one of a gang stealing films, after 250,000 feet of film were found to be missing from Mutual offices. Since there are so many movie theatres, it’s easy to market stolen movies.

The NYT praises the work of the state constitutional convention – and really praises Elihu Root, whose name I will never stop finding amusing. The convention has finished rewriting the constitution, extensively reorganizing and simplifying government administration and making a lot of offices no longer elective (the “short ballot”) and moving some decisions, like teacher pay, from the state to the local level (“home rule”). It now just needs to be voted on by the electorate. Which will reject it.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: September 12, 1915: I will not be interviewed

The Evening Sun quotes German Ambassador to the US Count von Bernstorff as saying that if there is a diplomatic breach, U-boats will be ordered to sink every ship they see, which will lead to war. Bernstorff denies saying any such thing and adds that he didn’t give the paper an interview and never gives interviews, and he can’t comment on the purported interview because that would be giving an interview. (No, really, that’s what he says.) The Sun responds that they never said it was an interview, just that they’re in a position to state what Bernstorff’s views are. Bernstorff says he won’t confirm or deny that those are his views, because that would be giving an interview. It’s hard to argue with such logic.

Irish people in the US are raising funds for weapons for an uprising in Ireland. The “Defense of Ireland Fund” says that the British government is buying up riot shrapnel, whatever that is, from the US in order to put down protests in Ireland against conscription (conscription won’t actually be introduced in Ireland until 1918).

The NYT Sunday book review section has an article by Joyce Kilmer on the late war poet Rupert Brooke. “It is true that if it were not for the war he would not now be dead. It is also true that if it were not for the war he would not now be certain of literary immortality.” So, swings and roundabouts, yeh?

Headline of the Day -100: 

Local 41 of the New York Federation of Musicians objects to the use of school, church and other bands composed of children performing at civic events (specifically, they’ve filed a complaint against Mardi Gras celebrations on Coney Island), as being bad for the children and for musicians trying to support their families.

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Today -100: September 11, 1915: Of precedents, menaces to society, and peace terms

Carranza (rather belatedly) rejects the US plan for a conference to settle Mexico’s affairs and pick a president who is not Carranza. He says that accepting such a foreign initiative “would impair profoundly the independence of the republic and would establish the precedent of foreign interference in the determination of [Mexico’s] interior affairs”. He doesn’t add, presumably because he is too modest, that his troops have lately been kicking Pancho Villa’s ass.

William Sanger is convicted of giving a copy of his wife Margaret’s birth control pamphlet to a spy sent by Anthony Comstock. Comstock tells the court that he was threatened (he does not say by whom) with being shot if he went forward with this prosecution. The judge calls Sanger a “menace to society” and says women suffragists should instead advocate women having children. Sanger refuses to pay the $150 fine and is sentenced to 30 days.

The British Trades Union Congress votes down a resolution for the Labour Party to formulate and advocate peace terms satisfactory to the working class.

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Today -100: September 10, 1915: Of ambassadors, Arabics, controlling the Pacific, and deadly roller towels

Pres. Wilson politely requests that Austria recall Ambassador Konstantin Dumba, complaining that he “conspire[d] to cripple legitimate industries of the people of the United States and to interrupt their legitimate trade...” you know, selling arms to warring countries, that legitimate trade. And that he used an American citizen as a courier for official dispatches. The US will have to ask Britain and France to allow Dumba to return home without hindrance or, you know, capture. I’m not sure if similar free passage would also have been extended to a new Austrian ambassador, but Austria didn’t try to send one, so Dumba was the last ambassador of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the US. Although only 59, Dumba will retire from the diplomatic service. I guess getting caught trying to sabotage your host country’s industry doesn’t look good on the CV.

Germany explains that the Arabic was sunk because it changed direction and the U-boat commander was a-scared that it intended to ram his boat. So they will not be paying any indemnity, “even if the commander should have been mistaken as to the aggressive intentions of the Arabic.” It’s the Great War equivalent of American cops’ “Yeah, that black guy I shot looked like he was reaching for a weapon.” However, reports from passengers say the Arabic was hit near the stern, which would mean it wasn’t trying to ram the sub. Indeed, the Arabic didn’t even know it was being followed until it saw the torpedo coming at it.

The Daily Mail (London) is getting up a meeting of 3,000 women, each “representing” their male relations in the military, to call for conscription. The Vote, which has some questions about this odd system of representation, also points out that the Daily Mail used to argue against women’s suffrage precisely on the grounds that women might vote to send men to war without being subject to it themselves.

Headline  of the Day -100: 

The US’s Seamen’s Act regulating conditions for sailors has led to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company getting out of the biz. The Japanese worry this will damage US-Japanese trade.

William Howard Taft says he will not be a candidate for president in 1916. Not that anyone was asking.

Headline of the Day -100:

And strangely, it’s not Beyoncé, but Estelle Lawton Lindsey (the NYT misspelled her name), who was elected as the first woman on the LA city council in June. Her first act as acting mayor is to write to the City Council about the need for legislation to require that public restrooms have individual towels rather than the “deadly roller towel” shared by everyone.

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Today -100: September 9, 1915: Finally, someone puts trench warfare methods to a constructive use

Henry Ford increases his endowment for a world peace fund to $10 million. In response, the Packard Motor Company will pay a bonus and give extra vacation days to any of its employees who join the militia or go to military training camps – the president of Packard, Henry Joy, is also vice president of the Navy League.

William Jennings Bryan suggests that instead of preparing for war with ships and guns and Packard workers, we should build 12 coast-to-coast roads. Which is of course roughly what Eisenhower did in the 1950s for similar reasons.

Gustav Stahl, one of Germany’s witnesses who claimed that the Lusitania had cannons, pleads guilty to perjury before a federal grand jury. He will be sentenced to 18 months in the pokey and a $1 fine.

$1?

The British Trades Union Congress votes 600-7 that the war is “completely justified.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

And escape with $2,000.

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Today -100: September 8, 1915: Of modesty, orders, gold, conscription, and wreaths

Woodrow Wilson is protesting the efforts of his friends in New Jersey to nominate him for a second term as president. Something about it looking like he was taking advantage of the current world situation for personal advantage.

Austrian ambassador-for-now to the United States Konstantin Dumba tells Secretary of State Robert Lansing that he was just following orders with his plans to disrupt munitions and steel production in the US, except his letter to the Foreign Office sounded more like he was asking permission to carry out his own ideas (the text at the link is presumably the British government’s translation of the letter, so take that for what it’s worth).

Britain ships another $66 million in gold to the US for safe-keeping.

The British Trades Union Congress, representing 3 million trade union members, votes its opposition to conscription.

Walter Kandulski, who shot down Adolphe Pégoud’s plane, drops a wreath on an Alsatian village inscribed “To Pégoud, who died like a hero, from his adversary.” Isn’t that sweet?

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Today -100: September 7, 1915: Of Filipino politicians of not the highest standing, monarchies, and boxing

William Howard Taft (who was governor of the Philippines before he was president), criticizes the Philippines policies of Pres. Wilson and Gov-Gen. Francis Harrison, who he calls “a Tammany congressman” who knows nothing about the Philippines and who put himself under the control of “a Filipino politician of not the highest standing,” Manuel Quezon (who will certainly become a politician of the highest standing, president in fact). He also objects to American colonial officials being replaced by actual Filipinos. Obviously, you can’t give self-rule to the natives for two generations, when everyone will speak English.

The German newspapers are saying that maybe the Hesperian wasn’t really hit by a torpedo. Hey, maybe it didn’t exist at all, or maybe some  kid is dreaming, and we’re all stuck inside his wacky Broadway nightmare.

China decides that becoming a monarchy would create all sorts of paperwork, including getting foreign nations to recognize their government all over again, so they’ll continue to be a republic, but the president will hold office for life and his sons will inherit the office, which is totally different from a monarchy, somehow.

The sheriff of Allen County, Ohio calls out the Ohio National Guard to prevent a boxing match, which involves them in a brief armed stand-off with the Lima police.

You know who else doesn’t like boxing? Illinois Gov. Edward Dunne, who protests Labor Day being celebrated at Joliet Penitentiary with boxing.

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Today -100: September 6, 1915: Rudyard Kipling, sitting in a tree...

The passenger steamer Hesperian is torpedoed (without warning) off Ireland on its way to Montreal, by the same u-boat that sank the Lusitania. 32 are killed. Most of the passengers were wounded Canadian soldiers returning home or British emigrants to Canada. No American passengers. The British newspapers are crowing that this proves the German ambassador’s assurances to Pres. Wilson were lies. (Actually, the Hesperian had a mounted 4.7 gun, which means the U-20 was under no obligation, I believe, to give a warning, although there’s some question about that). (And will be more so when it’s revealed that it was a 6-inch gun, which the US considers the boundary between defensive and offensive guns). It is suspected that the Hesperian was targeted in the belief that it was carrying one of those shipments of gold Britain has been sending to the US.

James Archibald, an American reporter (he was the first man shot during the Spanish-American War, where he was a war correspondent), was detained a few days ago by the British authorities when his ship made a stop at Falmouth on its way from New York to Rotterdam. He was couriering some letters from the German and Austrian embassies in the US. The British kept the letters and are now gleefully leaking their contents. Konstantin Dumba, the Austrian ambassador to the US, is defending his letter to the foreign minister proposing measures to “disorganize and hold up for months, if not entirely prevent, the manufactures of munitions and in Bethlehem and the Middle West,” such as fomenting strikes. Dumba says this is an entirely legitimate part of his job. He says the steel industry has thousands of workers from the Austro-Hungarian Empire who “are uneducated and who do not understand that they are engaged in a work against their own country” and he just wanted to explain to them that they could be prosecuted if they ever returned home. He is going to Washington to explain his position to Secretary of State Lansing who (Spoiler Alert) will not agree.

Also seized were similar letters from military attaché at the German embassy, Capt. Franz von Papen, who will also be expelled from the US, although not until December. That’s the same Franz von Papen who was chancellor of Germany in 1932 and vice-chancellor under Hitler.

Canada is building giant military airplanes capable of speeds of nearly 100 mph.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Rudyard turns his hand to war reporting. The officers he quotes sound suspiciously like Rudyard Kipling.Rudyard turns his hand to war reporting. The officers he quotes sound suspiciously like Rudyard Kipling.

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Today -100: September 5, 1915: Of skirmishes, lynchings, martial law, and Comstockery

Running gun-battles across the Texas-Mexican border with some combination of Mexican bandits and Carranza soldiers.

A negro is lynched near Dresden, Tennessee for a “crime against a white woman.”

The Vatican denies that Cardinal Gibbons passed on a message from the pope to Woodrow Wilson.

US Rear Admiral William Capterton declares martial law in Port au Prince.

William Sanger, husband of Margaret, on trial (and denied a jury) for giving a copy of one of her birth control pamphlets to an agent of Anthony Comstock who passed himself off as a friend of hers, says that he was offered a suspended sentence if he’d say where his wife is.

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Today -100: September 4, 1915: Resolved to win!

Pointless Headline of the Day -100:

The NYT grants anonymity to “a [British] high Government official” to say that Britain wants to... wait for it... win the war. This is actually a push-back against an anticipated move by Germany to negotiate a peace now that it’s winning, especially in the east.

Mexicans have been shooting across the border at US Army airplanes.

Standard Oil of New Jersey agrees to the 8-hour day for all its employees.

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Today -100: September 3, 1915: Of gigantic plots, bee farm locations, readiness, lynchings and grand juries

US District Attorney Charles Clyne of Chicago says he has uncovered “gigantic plots in violation of American neutrality” attempts by foreign nations to recruit soldiers in the US and using operatives to blow up arms factories. The countries he mentions as employing the recruiting agents are Britain and... Montenegro.

Another US district attorney, John Neely in Florida, has to release, due to insufficient evidence, a suspected spy for Germany, the magnificently named August Orbolph, who made sketches of lighthouses and military installations for two years while “on the pretense of hunting a location for a bee farm.”

The White House makes public letters Wilson sent his secretaries of war and the navy asking them to develop plans to strengthen the military. Republicans, not least Teddy R, are looking to make military readiness a major issue in 1916.

Cardinal Gibbons meets Woodrow Wilson, evidently bearing a message from the pope asking him to mediate between the warring powers. But Wilson won’t do that until he’s asked, and asked nicely.

The Cobb County, Georgia grand jury somehow fails to ascertain the identity of even a single member of the mob which lynched Leo Frank, although by golly they tried their very best.

In good lynching news, Speaker of the House Champ Clark talks an outraged mob out of lynching a negro in Missouri. Harry Rose is lucky the mob assembled near Clark’s house, sparing a grand jury the task of a pantomime investigation.

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Today -100: September 2, 1915: Mmmm, horse

Germany gives the US the assurances it demanded, saying in future it will refrain from sinking liners without warning and will try its darnedest not to kill civilians (unless the liners resist or try to escape).

The New York Constitutional Convention rejects a proposal to increase the term of office for governor from 2 to 4 years.

Austria, following Germany, says that its citizens resident in, say, the US, who work in munitions factories are subject to imprisonment or execution.

The influx of Belgian refugees to Britain has brought Belgian cuisine to delight the palates of Londoners and Glaswegians. Well, horse meat, anyway. It is legal in Britain for any butcher to sell whinny steaks, but there must be a permanent sign advertising the fact, and no one gets horse who didn’t explicitly ask for it.

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Today -100: September 1, 1915: Is it YOU?

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The German sub U-24, which sank the SS Arabic, is reported sunk. Which would conveniently release Germany from the dilemma of whether to punish its commander for disobeying directives in torpedoing the British ship or admit that Adm. Tipitz sabotaged the move by failing to pass on the directives to U-boat captains. Or it would have released Germany from its dilemma if the U-24 has actually been sunk, which it has not. Is this German disinformation? A genuine mistake? The NYT doesn’t say where its information came from.

Adolphe Célestin Pégoud, widely but wrongly credited as the first aviator to fly a loop-the-loop, is shot down and killed. By one of his old (German) students, Walter Kandulski.

Two British recruiting posters issued this month:

Punch:

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