Today -100: January 8, 1916: Of fusiliers, liquor-crazed men, and servants

Major Winston Churchill is given command of a battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers in France.

A strike at the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company and other nearby steel factories leaves much of East Youngstown’s downtown on fire and 3 dead, shot by a posse of citizens organized by the city solicitor, with more expected to die. The arson and looting began after YS&T guards fired on strikers, who shot back. Houses have been dynamited and the bridge to Struthers, Ohio burned, I guess by Strutherites trying to keep the East Youngstownies from crossing it. “According to telephone reports, liquor-crazed men were drinking stolen whiskey from buckets in the fire-lighted streets of East Youngstown.” Gov. Willis sends in the troops.  East Youngstown changed its name in 1922 to Campbell, after James Anson Campbell, YS&T’s head.

War is hell:

In New York. And their wages are increasing accordingly. Housewives used to be able to hire themselves a nice immigrant girl fresh off the boat for $12 a month and now it’s $20. $20! The shortage is worst in the Bronx, because even immigrants don’t want to go to the Bronx.

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Today -100: January 7, 1916: Abandon your abstract theories

In Britain what the NYT calls the “Labor Congress,” which I think is actually the Trades Union Congress (TUC), votes heavily to oppose Asquith’s conscription bill, and to recommend that Labour MPs vote against it, overturning the official proposed resolution allowing them to vote their consciences. 3 Labour MPs including Arthur Henderson respond by withdrawing from the coalition government, obeying their constituents even though they personally are among the 10 out of 35 Labour MPs who support compulsion. Former prime minister and current First Lord of the Admiralty Arthur Balfour calls on Parliament to “show that we are a united people. ... Abandon your abstract theories and remember we are dealing with stern realities which call for great sacrifices.”

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Today -100: January 6, 1916: Of compliments

The British government introduces its compulsion bill, making all single men aged 18 to 41, except in Ireland, eligible for conscription. There is a conscientious objection provision. After Asquith speaks in Parliament, Sir John Simon, who resigned as home secretary over the bill, calls for its rejection: “Voluntarism is a birthright of the nation. ... Do not let us pay Prussian militarism the compliment of imitating the worst of its institutions.”

Although the British gave Franz von Papen safe passage when Germany recalled him from the US, that evidently didn’t extend to his papers, which they’ve seized at Falmouth.

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Today -100: January 5, 1916: Of silver palates, goats, and new czars

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: French newspapers are still pushing that story about Kaiser Wilhelm having throat cancer. There was something about him ordering a silver false palate a couple of days ago, and now Le Matin claims that he can no longer speak.

The Prussian authorities will distribute goat milk to poor children in Berlin.

Theodore Roosevelt instructs those working to put his name on the primary ballot for president (Republican and Progressive parties) to knock it off.

Headline of the Day -100: 

King Ferdinand of Bulgaria intends to proclaim himself Czar of Macedonia.

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Today -100: January 4, 1916: Of persias, peace missions, and justices

Woodrow Wilson is coming back from his honeymoon a day early to deal with the sinking of the Persia.

Although the US State Dept tried to keep Henry Ford’s peace mission out of belligerent countries by putting conditions on the pilgrims’ passports, Germany will allow them to travel through it on the way to The Hague – in a sealed and locked train. And they’re not allowed to bring paper, printed materials, postcards, cameras, opera glasses, or gold coins.

The NYT suggests that Woodrow Wilson replace the late Justice Lamar with... William Howard Taft. After all, Taft, a Republican president, appointed Lamar, a Democrat. Oh sure, there are only 2 Democrats on the Court, and one of them is the egregious James Clark McReynolds, but it’s not like there’s much difference between the parties anyway, the NYT says.

Wilson’s actual choice will be a lot more fun.

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Today -100: January 3, 1916: The people most to blame are the ones who are getting slaughtered

Headline of the Day -100 That Would Be Weird If You Didn’t Know Nancy Is a City in France: 

British Home Secretary Sir John Simon resigns over the proposed introduction of conscription.

Henry Ford gives his first interviews since arriving back in the US after abandoning his peace mission (which he denies is what he did; it’s totally what he did). He says his five minutes in Europe taught him that it is not the bankers, militarists and munitions manufacturers who are responsible for keeping this war going; rather, “I come back with the firm belief that the people most to blame are the ones who are getting slaughtered. They have neglected to select the proper heads for their Governments” and then “they don’t write enough letters to them and let them know their views.”

It seems the liner Persia, torpedoed by an Austrian sub, was armed with a 4.7-inch gun, which if true would complicate the issue of whether it was legitimate to sink it without warning.

Supreme Court Justice J.R. Lamar dies. Although a Democrat, he was appointed by William Howard Taft.

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Today -100: January 2, 1916: Of murdering the prestige of the white race

Headline of the Day -100: 

According to French President Raymond Poincaré, in his New Year message to the troops.

The P&O passenger liner Persia is torpedoed without warning in the Mediterranean, off Crete, with 343 lost. If this sounds just like what happened to the Ancona, which led to all that fuss between the US and Austria, it might be because the Persia was sunk by the same Austrian u-boat under the command of the same German, Max Valentiner, although of course that’s not yet known in the US, or even whether this sub was German or Austrian. Robert McNeely, on his way to take up his post as US consul at Aden, is among the dead, along with 2 other Americans.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: French newspapers are insisting that Kaiser Wilhelm has throat cancer, based on nothing more than the kaiser being the same age (56) his father was when he died of cancer.

The fifth largest industry in the US, after steel, is motion pictures, with 500 million tickets sold each year.

Bernhard Dernburg, the former German colonial minister who spent the first part of the war doing propaganda work on Germany’s behalf in the US, has an article in the NYT Sunday magazine section accusing Britain of being a traitor to the white race. He says that using colonial troops in Europe undermines colonial rule for every European power, that rule being based as it is “on the native’s belief that the will of the white man is good, unshakable, unconquerable.” The result of Britain (and France’s) actions: “England... murdered the prestige of the white race to which she belongs”.

Al Ringling, the oldest of the Ringling Brothers of circus fame, dies at 63. He was a juggler, among other things.

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Today -100: January 1, 1916: Happy 1916!

The British armored cruiser Natal blows up in harbor in Scotland (Cromarty Firth). The NYT says “The loss is generally attributed to foul play” but in fact it was just an accident with the munitions. Around 400 dead.

There’s a race war in Early County, Georgia. It’s a bit one-sided, as was the custom, with 1 dead white guy and 9 dead black people. Whites are coming in from Alabama because everyone enjoys a good race war.

Henry Ford’s peace pilgrims arrive in Denmark, only to find that any public meetings discussing the war are banned there.

Prohibition goes into effect in Iowa, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Arkansas and South Carolina. There are now 19 dry states.

William Waldorf Astor, the expatriate American social-climbing hotel guy, is made a baron. He is only the second American to enter the British House of Lords, ever. The other is the 12th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who inherited his title as opposing to buying it (as everyone snarks that Astor did). The NYT notes that Astor, despite having twice served in the New York state legislature and as US ambassador to Italy, has become more and more Anglophilic since moving to the UK, going so far as to write a sonnet on the London fog, that “enveloping goddess in opaque raiment.” His son’s wife Nancy Astor (another Yank) will become the first woman MP.

Another new peer: D.A. Thomas, the coal dude who survived the Lusitania sinking, is now Baron Rhondda. This will become more interesting when his daughter inherits his title and tries to enter the House of Lords.

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Today -100: December 31, 1915: Of anconas, golf, and wardens

Austria responds to the US’s last diplomatic note about the sinking of the Ancona by an Austrian u-boat. It says it has punished the boat’s commander (punished in what manner, it does not say) and offers reparations, although the reply denies that the commander (who I notice they’re not mentioning happens to be German) fired on a stopped ship (he totally did), meaning his only crime that they’ll admit to was “miscalculating” how long it would take for the life boats to get away before sinking the Ancona. No one had predicted Austria would comply with all of the US demands like this; it was widely expected that they’d offer to arbitrate the issue and the US would refuse and break off relations.

A paparazzo with a movie camera is stopped by the Secret Service trying to film Woodrow Wilson playing golf.

Sing Sing’s reformist warden Thomas Mott Osborne is suspended forever after being indicted for perjury (failing to report confessions by prisoners) and neglect of duty and fucking the prisoners. The whole investigation was sleazy and an obvious political hit job – no one likes a prison warden who tries to treat prisoners humanely – and Osborne will be acquitted of all charges but won’t return as warden. Not at Sing Sing, anyway.

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Today -100: December 30, 1915: Of boils, conscription, and emperors

The French socialist party congress votes to continue the war until victory, including getting Alsace & Lorraine back.

Front Page Headline of the Day -100: 

(Update: OK, a few days later it becomes clear that Berlin issued that boil announcement to counter French lies about him having throat cancer.)

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The Allies claim that Germany is shipping u-boats to Manila, in pieces. Hope they remembered to pack the Allen wrench.

The Indian National Congress asks Britain to admit Indians to military commissions on equal terms.

Prime Minister H.H. Asquith has finally come out in favor of conscription, so it’s definitely coming, and the Cabinet is currently battling out the details, with frequent leaks to the press. They’ll stick to conscripting unmarried men to start with, and leave Ireland out.

China’s Pres. Yuan, facing a rebellion caused in part by his attempt to become emperor – just like everyone told him would happen – is having difficulty putting it down because so much of China’s infrastructure is owned by foreigners. France, for example, won’t allow him to move troops over railroads they own.

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Today -100: December 29, 1915: We Germans do not understand what you call your free press

A federal grand jury issues indictments on charges of conspiracy to prevent the manufacture and shipment of arms to the Allies for officials of Labor’s National Peace Council, including its president, Congressman Frank Buchanan (D-Illinois); H. Robert Fowler, a former congressman; former Attorney General of Ohio Frank Monnette; and German Navy captain Franz Rintelen, who was captured by the British when he sailed from the US to Germany under a false name. Oddly, they are being charged under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, I guess for conspiracy in restraint of trade. Ironic, because Monnette had a lot to do with the breakup of Standard Oil. That said, several of the charges amount to trying to persuade workers in munitions factories to strike or quit, which sounds like just free speech to me.

The Indian National Congress’s annual, er, congress, pledges support for the British war effort. Congress President Sir Satyendra Sinha says he hopes “the spontaneous outburst of loyalty had dispelled forever all distrust and suspicion between the Indians and their rulers.”

Secretary of State Lansing asks Britain and France for permission for the Red Cross to ship milk to Germany and Austria. For the children. For the children.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The German Overseas News Agency is claiming that King Vittorio Emanuele of Italy has been wounded by an Austrian grenade.

German Naval Attaché Karl Boy-Ed, recalled after US insistence because of his links to spying and sabotage – so much spying! so much sabotage! – leaves. On the dock he hands out a statement, mostly blaming the Providence Journal: “This paper, with its British-born Mr. Rathom [Australian, actually], has done its utmost to create an almost hysterical suspicion of spies throughout the country in order to prejudice public opinion against Germany.” Boy-Ed is not wrong there. “We Germans do not understand what you call your free press.” Boy-Ed is not wrong there.

The NYT notes that “When Captain von Papen sailed on the Noordam, his friends in New York sent him coffee, cream, candy, fruit, champagne, and a keg of sauerkraut, but for some reason no presents found their way to Captain Boy-Ed’s cabin, and there was no friend at the pier to see him away.” How Boy-Ed will survive the voyage without a keg of sauerkraut, I just do not know.

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Today -100: December 28, 1915: We are now asked to permit the militarists to have their way

With the British cabinet reportedly screaming at each other over conscription, Ernest Bevin, organizer for the Dockers’ Union, who is on a visit to New York, denounces Lloyd George’s call for conscription: “We are now asked to permit the militarists to have their way. But I tell you the trade unionists are against this. We stand foursquare against the militarism of Germany, but in the same sense we are opposed to militarism in Great Britain.” Bevin will be the British foreign secretary under Attlee. I just checked to see if this is his first mention in the NYT, but it’s his 3rd. It is, however, the first time they’ve gotten his first name right.

Pancho Villa’s family is now in Cuba, but his wife says that he’s going to stay in Mexico, despite rumors to the contrary. She brought her “Indian servants” with her to Havana.

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Today -100: December 27, 1915: We are not out for friendly understandings with the enemy this Christmas tide

Oh, good, another day of the NYT Index being out of whack. The story “British Troops Feast While Shells Shriek,” for example, can helpfully be found if you just look up “Big Profits in Hosiery,” while clicking on the former headline in the index will give you the story of a Mrs Spofford Wyckoff of Stamford, Connecticut who has left her husband and taken their infant son in defiance of a court order.

The former story, if you can bloody find it, is reprinted from the Daily Chronicle (London), which says “We are not out for friendly understandings with the enemy this Christmas tide. For twelve months British soldiers have suffered too much to forget and forgive, and out beyond the trenches there are dead bodies across which our men cannot treat the enemy in the spirit of charity.” In other words, the generals on both sides ordered continual shelling in order to prevent another embarrassing Christmas truce.

Tory newspapers in Britain are attacking Prime Minister Asquith, chiefly over the failed Dardanelles campaign. There is a bit of a campaign to replace him with Lloyd George, which will happen, but not for a year.

A large mob which went to the Muskogee County (Oklahoma) jail to lynch two black men is tricked when they’re snuck out the back door dressed in militia uniforms.

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Today -100: December 26, 1915: You cannot haggle with an earthquake

The NYT Index for this date is totally fucked up.

(Updated: and for the rest of the year. Grr.)

British Minister of Munitions David Lloyd George meets with trade union officials and shop stewards in Glasgow to guilt-trip them into diluting the rules on skilled labor that they fought so long and hard for: “Either we must tell the soldiers that we are sorry that we cannot get the guns to enable them to win throughout 1916, owing to the trade-union regulations... Another alternative is that we might tell the Kaiser frankly that we cannot go on. He might let us off with the annexation of Belgium, with the payment of indemnity, and with a British colony or two, but he certainly would demand that Great Britain surrender her command of the sea, and Great Britain then would be as completely at the mercy of Prussian despotism as Belgium is today.” He tells them, “All this chattering about relaxing a rule and suspending a custom is out of place. You cannot haggle with an earthquake.”

Henry Ford’s peace mission crumbles some more. Famous suffragist Inez Milholland Boissevain quits, saying the expedition is “a confused mass of amiably intentioned persons of vague thinking and no collective planning.” And Swedish peace groups aren’t interested in working with them on their vanishingly vague plans. They’ll be moving on to Denmark.

Sen. George Chamberlain (D-Oregon), chair of the Sen. Military Affairs Committee, will introduce a bill for compulsory military training for every male aged 12 to 23. But they don’t get to play with guns until they’re 14.

New automobile accessories are being sold, such as cigar shields, to prevent your cigar going out, and “baby holders,” which are not so much baby seats as hammocks.

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Today -100: December 25, 1915: Of Christmas pudding and champagne

I guess Henry Ford didn’t get the troops home by Christmas. But he is leaving Europe and going back home himself, “on the advice of a physician,” according to his Peace Ship business manager – our Name of the Day -100 – Gaston Plantiff. The rest of the expedition, who were not told Ford was abandoning them, are expected to carry on.

Paris will be “silent and stern,” not exuberantly celebrating Christmas. “Even the victory in Champagne had no official celebration”. They probably just couldn’t think of an appropriate way to celebrate a victory in Champagne.

Every British soldier gets a Christmas pudding.

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Today -100: December 24, 1915: Of sermons, beaten nations, and wills

Headline of the Day -100: 

Henry Ford is rumored to have already given up on his peace mission. Or he’s ill. Or both.

Walter Runciman, President of the Board of Trade in Britain, tells Parliament that “So far as commerce is concerned, Germany is a beaten nation, and it is for us to see that she does not recover” after the war.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The German press prints more reports of revolts in India, saying that native troops are refusing to put down the insurgents and are defecting in large numbers. Nope.

Publisher Mrs Frank Leslie, widower of publisher Frank Leslie (her real first name was Miriam, but for some reason after his death she legally changed her name to Frank Leslie, possibly because one of the periodicals she inherited from him was called Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper), died last year and her will, which left $1 million to Carrie Chapman Catt for the women’s suffrage cause, has been contested ever since by relatives of her long-dead husband. The surrogate deciding the case tossed out objections by the relatives, who have been claiming that she is a negro, the illegitimate daughter of a slave, which they contend was relevant for complicated inheritance law reasons that make no sense to me, even if it was true which it almost certainly is not. Ms Leslie, whose love life seems to have been turbulent to say the least, was also married to Oscar Wilde’s brother, briefly.

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Today -100: December 23, 1915: Memphis?

The British colonial government in Egypt bans women from entering the country, for no obvious reason.

There were 8,000 murders in the US in 1914. Memphis had the highest murder rate (72 per 100,000; Detroit, the murderiest city in 2013, only managed 45 per 100,000), followed by Charleston and 6 more Southern cities – the article blames “negro fights.” 60% are committed with firearms.

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Today -100: December 22, 1915: Every fit man

Henry Ford’s Peace Ship campaign fails to interest Norwegian peace activists in working with him. They cite the presence of Rosika Schwimmer as Ford’s lieutenant. Because she’s Hungarian, not because she’s difficult to work with. Which she is.

Prime Minister Henry Asquith tells Parliament he needs a million more men for the army, because he’s kind of broken a lot of the ones they already gave him. The army needs “every fit man,” he says. He still hasn’t come out in favor of conscription, but Irish Nationalist leader John Redmond takes the opportunity to inform him that the Nats will fight conscription by every means they have.

The NYC Board of Health will allow the sale of horse meat in the city. It will also now ban people with typhoid fever from handling food, which you’d have thought they would already have done, Typhoid Mary and all.

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Today -100: December 21, 1915: Of collections, exiles, and shaken by vice

The Carranza government of Mexico bans churches from taking up collections.

It is also negotiating a peace with Pancho Villa’s followers that would see the latter given amnesty and brought into the Carranza army to fight Zapata. Villa would go into exile in the US.

Oh, elsewhere the paper says Villa is not going into exile after all, but he has split with his generals who are negotiating with Carranza, calling them thieves, traitors, and quitters.

Headline of the Day -100: 

The 1915 version of binge-watching The Wire.

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Today -100: December 20, 1915: Of peace ships, grafters in collusion with crooks, and cudgeling and falling down stairs

Henry Ford’s Peace Ship arrives at Christiana (Oslo), in some turmoil. The hastily assembled bunch have been squabbling for most of the voyage, with bitter fights over whether to issue a statement opposing the military increases called for by Pres. Wilson in his State of the Union address and over details of how peace is going to be achieved, and some plain-old power struggles, from which Ford himself is largely absent, having retreated to his stateroom for most of the journey. They’ve also debated whether to expel several reporters.

Chicago Mayor “Big Bill” Thompson begins a campaign against corruption in the Chicago Police Department, which he says is “rotten and honeycombed with grafters in collusion with crooks.” He says some cops have been murdered by other cops. “Ish the Chicago way,” he adds, confusing onlookers with his impression of Sean Connery, who wouldn’t be born for another 15 years.

The NYT reviewer of the new film Don Quixote, played by DeWolf Hopper (husband of Hedda and father of William Hopper, who played Paul Drake in Perry Mason), finds the movie faithful to the original but a failure because “the nature of cinema precludes the transmission of anything so subtle as satire, which is the essence of the book.” Still, for better or worse, “There is much cudgeling and falling down stairs and rubbing of injured parts, after the familiar movie manner.”

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