Today -100: January 17, 1916: Of boxing and profiteering

The New York State Athletic Commission had the NY deputy attorney general investigate whether its rule banning mixed boxing matches between white and black boxers was constitutional. He says it isn’t, so they’ll have to rescind the rule.

Germany plans to impose a special tax on war profits – after the war.

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Today -100: January 16, 1916: Of surrenders, batteries, outlaws, and peaceniks

Montenegro denies having surrendered.

A US Navy submarine explodes at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, killing 4. The Navy thinks it’s the fault of Thomas Edison, or at least of his battery, which emits hydrogen but supposedly not in enough quantity to do this sort of damage when it ignites and explodes. The Edison battery was supposed to be safer than those using chlorine, which have killed quite a few sailors over the years.

Carranza says the men responsible for the slaughter of 17 Americans during a train robbery will be declared outlaws, which means anyone can shoot them on sight and collect a bounty.

Speaking of outlaws, Emmeline Pankhurst arrives in the US and, just like on her last visit in 1913, is stopped at Ellis Island because of her criminal record. In 1913, Pres. Wilson intervened. Immigration officials say that’s not a precedent. They’ll let her in anyway after a bit more harrumphing. She’s here to appeal for relief funds for Serbia and is accompanied by the former Serbian foreign minister. Asked about women’s suffrage, she says British women are now so busy making munitions and bandages and whatnot that there’s no time to think of political problems.

Most of Henry Ford’s peace party is now coming home. They didn’t bring about peace.

A Mormon colony in Chihuahua, where the train massacre occurred, refuses to leave Mexico, “where they still have property.” And multiple wives, but the NYT doesn’t mention that part for some reason.

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Today -100: January 15, 1916: Of check books, memorable instances of sacrifice, usury, and the church very militant indeed

As I mentioned, when military attaché (and future German chancellor) Franz von Papen returned from the US to Germany via the UK under safe passage, the British took the opportunity to seize all his papers. Including, if the British are to be believed, his check book, showing his payments to secret agents for blowing up bridges and the like, because he totally paid them with checks and kept the stubs, even knowing he’d be traveling through an enemy port. The German ambassador, Victor Meldrew Count von Bernstorff, responds: “I don’t believe it.”

“Further than that the Ambassador declined to be quoted for publication.”

Russian Czar Nicholas issues an imperial order to the military. Evidently he wants them to win the war. “The year 1915 has passed, and it was filled with memorable instances of sacrifice by my glorious forces.” If there were any instances of them actually winning any battles in 1915, they’re evidently not so memorable.

Rep. William Howard (D-Georgia) wants Congress to investigate bank interest rates, which he says illegally reach as much as 50% per year, especially in the South and on loans to farmers.

The letters columns of British newspapers have been full of discussions of whether Church of England priests should be allowed to join the military. The Archbishop of Canterbury says no because they’re in God’s service, but of course the British public has been told over and over, including by priests from the pulpit, that this is a holy, righteous war. A thousand London curates have petitioned to be allowed to join up (although not necessarily in a lethal capacity).

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Today -100: January 14, 1916: The evil day will surely come unless our government abandons its attitude of criminal fatuity

Montenegro surrenders to Austria. The country had been hoping for assistance from Italy, which never came.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Nothing says workplace safety like your bosses having to “deny reign of terror.”

The Carranza military has captured the Villa generals supposedly responsible for the train massacre.

Pres. Wilson tells congresscritters that he’s against military intervention in Mexico, and anyway the massacred American mining party had been warned against entering that part of Mexico. They plan to introduce resolutions authorizing him to send the army into Mexico anyway.

Theodore Roosevelt, of course, wants to invade. He adds that thanks to Wilson’s wimpy policies on Mexico and Germany, if the US does not “do our duty in Mexico,” the US’s rep is now so low that one of the European countries will seize Mexico after the European war ends: “Thanks to this administration, our people may have ahead of them a most evil day of reckoning, when the warring powers are again free to turn their attention to us. I believe that the evil day will surely come unless our government abandons its attitude of criminal fatuity as regards both preparedness and international duty.”

Rep. James Slayden of Texas says the border states will only be satisfied when the murderers are put to death. (Indeed, there is some worry that Texas vigilantes will cross into Mexico lookin’ for a little payback, as is the custom).

Ousted Mexican dictator Victoriano Huerta dies in El Paso from “intestinal trouble” (i.e., he drank himself to death).

German Social Democratic Party MPs expel Karl Liebknecht.

A Canadian court convicts a man of sedition for giving a speech in which he called King George a puppet and said that the recruiting slogan “your king and country need you” should be “your king and country bleed you.” Anyway, the man’s name, very pleasingly, is Wilfrid Gribble.

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Today -100: January 13, 1916: Of bandits, conscription, blockades, corfus, Goethe censorship, and explosions

Following that attack on the train in Mexico, many in the US Congress demand military intervention. And Secretary of State Robert Lansing has written a jolly stiff letter to Carranza’s consul. The letter refers to the bandits as “operating under the direction of General Villa,” although I don’t know that that’s been established yet. (Update: the train’s conductor claims to recognize a couple of them). The note also says that they were “murdered because they were Americans, and were killed in accordance with the general policy publicly announced recently by Villa.” Americans on the train were indeed specifically singled out for murder. Lansing demands that those responsible be captured and punished and that (American-owned) mines in Chihuahua be protected by Mexican troops.

Conscription passes the Second Reading in Parliament 431-39.  Many of the Labour MPs who voted against it in the First Reading changed their minds after being given assurances that it won’t be a stepping-stone to general conscription (it will) or industrial conscription (miners are especially worried about being turned into slaves). Conscription is generally popular with the British public.

Britain is about to step up its naval blockade of Germany. Lord Northcliffe’s papers have been complaining that many Germans aren’t even starving. To the extent that the blockade has been less than total until now, it’s because Britain has been careful not to tread too heavily on the toes of neutrals like the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, not to mention the US. An especial target: Sweden. And the US, really, since a lot of cotton and other American goods transit to Germany through Sweden.

The French occupy Corfu. Yeah, France isn’t at war with Greece, but 1) it’ll be a good place for the evacuated Serbian army, 2) Kaiser Wilhelm has a vacation home (ok, “summer palace”) there, so fuck you Willy. (The palace, Achilleion Castle, also looks like a good place to put the evacuated Serbian army). Greece plans a “vigorous protest” but won’t otherwise do anything about it.

One Don Collins of Garden City, New York is arrested as the head of a gang who posed as United States marshals and extorted bribes from wealthy men not to “arrest” them for violations of the Mann White Slave Act (traveling with their mistresses, some of whom were working for the gang, across state lines). The ring was uncovered because the cops busted them for their sideline: stealing nickels from public phones.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Not Goethe!

Explosions at the Du Pont gunpowder plants in Delaware and New Jersey, making five explosions this week in the company’s factories. The company says they are “unavoidable accidents” caused by the rapid expansion of the company since the start of the European war. “It is also true that some of the operatives have not been at the business long enough to acquire the experience of many of the older men.” One good way to become an older man: not work in an explosives factory.

An Italian newspaper says that Austria and Germany have named a new king of conquered Serbia: the illegitimate son of King Milan. Probably nonsense.

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Today -100: January 12, 1916: Of train massacres, champagne massacres, conscription, and continental armies

Mexican bandits (associated with Pancho Villa, but that isn’t yet known) stop and rob a train in Chihuahua and kill 17 American employees of mining companies operating in Mexico (on properties owned by the estate of the late, alliterative Potter Palmer of Chicago). They were going to reopen mines since the Carranza regime assured the companies that everything is safe now.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Not as slapstick as it sounds.

The Progressive National Committee decides to hold the Bull Moose convention at the same time and in the same city as the Republican convention, to facilitate a possible deal on a joint candidate, even if it’s not Theodore Roosevelt.

In the British Parliament, Irish MPs drop their opposition to the conscription bill, which does not apply to Ireland but they’re still voting on it: “Send the fooking English off to die? Yes, please.” Edward Carson of the Ulster Unionist Party pleads for Ireland to be included in the bill and for the Nationalists to support that. Curiously, he doesn’t make a case for conscription in just the Ulster provinces. Funny, that. Irish Secretary Augustine Birrell says the reason the government didn’t include Ireland was the impossibility of setting up local appeals tribunals there.

One group of people you’d expect to have immunity from conscription but who won’t: members of Parliament.

Rep. James Hay (D-Virginia), chairman of the House Military Committee, says he opposes Wilson’s idea of a Continental Army.

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Today -100: January 11, 1916: Business is booming

Rep. Dorsey Shackleford (D-Missouri), attacks American munitions manufacturer “Tories” who support “preparedness” in order to pad their pockets, noting that Du Pont’s stock is 8 times as high as it was in 1914. Du Pont, by the way, experiences two explosions at its Wilmington plant, following the one in New Jersey yesterday.

Thomas Flynn, an American Federation of Labor organizer, says the East Youngstown strike+riot+arson+looting was actually a scheme by the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, which he says brought in “paid sluggers” and gunmen to kick things off in order to depress its own stock value to facilitate a merger they were pushing.

Woodrow Wilson tells the president of the National Negro Democratic League that he won’t appoint a negro to the post of recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia, a position traditionally held by negroes. “The President said he would like to appoint a negro...” Suuuuure he would. “...but he understood that it would precipitate a discussion of the race question in the Senate.” And we can’t have that.

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Today -100: January 10, 1916: Run away!

The Allies evacuate their last footholds on the Gallipoli Peninsula without the loss of a single life.

Yet another DuPont gunpowder plant explodes, in Carney’s Point, New Jersey, resulting in 5 dead (or 3, tomorrow they’ll report 3) and much hysteria about German saboteurs.

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Today -100: January 9, 1916: Of dishonorable quietude

In November (but just being made public now), Germany promised the US not to sink civilian ships until after their passengers and crew are safely on lifeboats.

The German government invites Herbert Hoover to feed the (remaining) people of Serbia, like he did the Belgians, so they don’t have to. Germany has systematically stripped the parts of Serbia it occupies of hogs and cattle.

Headline of the Day -100: 

That’s Henry B. Joy of the Navy League (and Packard Motors), not the emotion joy. Henry Joy asks if the American people really know “that the honor of Americans is being sold for dishonorable quietude?”

There’s an interesting article on the hiring of actors and extras for the film Her God (aka The Red Woman), for which the requirements are:

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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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