Today -100: September 8, 1916: Supplying the ginger

The US Senate ratifies the purchase of the Danish West Indies and its inhabitants.

The Republican Party has asked Theodore Roosevelt to play a bigger role in the Hughes campaign and make more speeches in marginal states to “take off his coat and supply the ginger which is lacking in Candidate Hughes’s speeches,” as one member of the campaign committee put it.

Headline of the Day -100:

Inexperienced elevated operators employed during the strike in New York, not actual green... elevated... men.

The Allen County, Ohio, Grand Jury indicts 16 members of the Lima, Ohio lynch mob that assaulted the sheriff. 

Henry Ford sues the Chicago Tribune for calling him an anarchist for firing his workers in the National Guard deployed to the Mexican border (which, too, also, he didn’t actually do).

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Today -100: September 7, 1916: Of strikes, baffled mosquitos, and blasphemies

Street car/subway strike in New York, so the NYT may be distracted for a while.

The president of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad says it will defy the 8-hour act until the Supreme Court – none of your lesser courts, mind you – orders it to do so. It seems Congress failed to put in enforcement provisions because they didn’t imagine the railroads would outright refuse to obey the law.

Headline of the Day -100:

Don’t click on the link; the imagery the headline invokes is far superior to the dull reality.

The National American Woman’s Suffrage Association convention decides to change none of its policies, you know, the ones that haven’t been working the last few years. It won’t drop its non-partisan stance (which in practice would have meant supporting the Republicans, since the Southern-dominated Democrats are opposed to the federal amendment or any federal interference with their sexist voting laws that might lead to federal interference with their racist voting laws). The convention rejects motions to concentrate solely on federal or solely on state suffrage measures.

Lord Alfred Douglas – yes, Oscar Wilde’s Bosie – applies for a blasphemy summons against Irish novelist George Augustus Moore (or, as Amazon.com deems him, a teacher of automotive technology at Aims Community College in Greeley, Colorado) for his new book The Brook Kerith (about a Jesus who didn’t die on the cross and, um, became a Buddhist). The magistrate refuses to issue a summons, saying that Moore has a perfect right to write based on the assumption that Jesus was merely a man.

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Today -100: September 6, 1916: You are the victim of your natural and human weakness

Although denying that signing the railroad 8-hours bill on a Sunday was unconstitutional, Pres. Wilson signs it again on Monday.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: There are rumors that the German commercial, non-military submarine Bremen has been captured by the British. In fact, the Bremen has disappeared mysteriously, its fate forever unknown.

As the polio epidemic wanes, movie theaters in New York will now be allowed to admit children as young as 12.

At a demonstration in Athens last week, an address to the king was adopted. Written by former Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, it suggests Constantine is the victim of his “natural and human weakness” and his love of all things German. “You hoped that after a German victory you would be able to concentrate in your own hands the whole power of government and sweep aside our system of liberty.” Basically, Venizelos would like the king to either stop meddling in politics or abdicate. Constantine will abdicate next year in favor of his son Alexander, but will return to the throne in 1920 when Alexander dies of a monkey bite, as was the custom.

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Today -100: September 5, 1916: Of fair, candid examinations of the facts, romping children, and intolerance

Charles Evans Hughes castigates Wilson for preventing the railroad strike, siding with the owners’ call for arbitration: “I believe there is no grievance with respect to labor that cannot be settled by a fair, candid examination of the facts.” What a very reasonable-sounding way of denying workers the right to organize and bargain collectively.

Greece gives in to the Allied demands. They’ve handed over control of the mail and telegraphs and are busily rounding up German agents.

Headline of the Day -100:

New York City polio death toll = 2,004.

D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance opens.

Sort of an apology for The Birth of a Nation.

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Today -100: September 4, 1916: All saved; all well

Britain and France, while working at bullying Greece into joining the Entente, in the meanwhile demand control of Greece’s mail service, telegraph, and wireless, claiming that Germany has been hearing details of Allied troop movements through them. They also want German agents expelled from the country and punishment for Greeks who aided them.

Following last month’s clash between Chinese and Japanese troops in Eastern Mongolia, Japan makes several demands on China, including the withdrawal of Chinese troops from the district, indemnities, the granting to Japan of police authority in Inner Mongolia and South Manchuria, Japanese military “advisers” to the Chinese Army and military inspectors in Chinese schools, etc.

Ernest Shackleton retrieves the men he left on Elephant Island, Antarctica. “All saved; all well,” he telegraphs.

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Today -100: September 3, 1916: I had rather be a dog and bay at the moon than to submit to such dictation

The Senate passes the railroad 8-hour bill 43-28. The strike is called off. Railroad companies vow to resist. In fact, they may go to court because it’s totally illegal for a president to sign a bill on a Sunday or national holiday, right? Sen. Jacob Gallinger (R-New Hampshire) says Congress is now no better than the Mexican Congress, simply passing bills the president wants without debate. Sen. Wesley Jones (R-Washington) says “This is the worst thing we could do for the working man.” How so, Sen. Jones? “If Congress can force the employers to pay more wages it can force the employes to take less wages. The principle is exactly the same.” Sen. Lawrence Sherman (R-Illinois) cunningly discovers the real victim in this: “It is the Senate that is being put under involuntary servitude” by the threats of union leaders. “I will either serve as a senator free from dictation or I will not serve at all. I had rather be a dog and bay at the moon than to submit to such dictation”. Well, if those are the options, Sen. Sherman...

Republican presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes, by the way, refuses to say anything at all about the railway situation.

There is a riot in St. Thomas, Pennsylvania when health officers, concerned over polio, try to order children under 16 out of an ox roast.

The British authorities ban Bertrand Russell going to... Sussex. Because they (the officer who signed the order is his cousin, by the way) can’t distinguish pacifists from German spies – or pretend they can’t – and think he might, what? signal to u-boats?

By the way, Russell, who is too old to be drafted for this war, will still be doing the pacifist thing 50 years later, marching against nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War.

In the NYT Sunday Magazine, Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, which is about to hold a convention to examine its goals and methods, explains the current state of the suffrage issue. The cause has won over the churches, the two parties, etc., she says. “Moreover, all the leading names in literature, art, philosophy, science, and business are enrolled on our side. But we have not won the reactionaries. We have not won the illiterate. We have not won the powers of evil”. Reminds me of Adlai Stevenson’s famous line: told that he had the vote of “every thinking person,” he replied, “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority.”

Baltimore recently passed an ordinance regulating how and where the Star-Spangled Banner may be sung. It has to be played verbatim, without musical embellishments (and absolutely not in jig time) and not as part of a medley. Musicians and singers should be standing while performing it. Absolutely no dancing to it (people dance to the Star-Spangled Banner?). The city council is denying that anyone who fails to stand while it is played will be fined $100.

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Today -100: September 2, 1916: Of declarations of war, mrogoros, blessings, and servants

Bulgaria declares war on Romania.

British/South African forces seize Mrogoro (aka Morogoro) in German-But-Not-For-Long East Africa. Gen. Jan Smuts issues a statement announcing the fact and informing anyone who hasn’t heard of Mrogoro that it is “a most important town.”

Pres. Wilson’s railroad bill passes the House, with the 8-hour day supported 239 to 56. It moves on to the Senate.

The Vatican denies reports that Pope Benedict sent a telegram congratulating the Austrian emperor on his 86th birthday. There are also reports that at the start of the war Pope Pius refused to bless the Austrian armies.

Headline of the Day -100:

War is hell.

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Today -100: September 1, 1916: All the evils of feeble peace combined with all the evils of feeble war

Lima, Ohio’s county prosecutor asks the governor for troops to head off a race riot after yesterday’s attempted lynching and the torture of the sheriff. All negroes are warned to stay off the streets, although oddly it wasn’t the negroes who were in that lynch mob. The sheriff’s daughter, traumatized when the mob broke into their home, dies of “shock.”

In a speech in Lewiston, Maine, in support of Charles Evans Hughes, Theodore Roosevelt says some less-than-flattering things about Woodrow Wilson, who, re Carranza and Mexico, “did not merely kiss the hand that slapped him in the face, he kissed that hand when it was red with the blood of American men, women, and children”; “This Administration has displayed no more feeling of responsibility for the American women who have been raped, and for the American men, women, and children who have been killed in Mexico, than a farmer shows for the rats killed by his dogs when the hay is taken from a barn.” He denies the claim of Wilson supporters that Wilson “has kept us out of war,” since the capture of Vera Cruz and the Pershing Expedition “were wars, and nothing else; ignoble, pointless, unsuccessful little wars; but wars... his policy in Mexico has combined all the evils of feeble peace with all the evils of feeble war.”

As usual, the Colonel attacks hyphenates, although I think it’s new that he now blames them, somehow, on Wilson: “During the last two years we have seen an evil revival in this country of non-American and anti-American division along politico-racial lines, and we owe this primarily to the fact that President Wilson has lacked the courage and the vision to lead this nation in the path of high duty, and by this lack of affirmative leadership has loosened the moral fibre of our people, has weakened our national spirit”.

Moving on to the European War, he seems to think that if Wilson had been firmer, and lead the neutral nations in demanding the war be fought along civilized lines, Germany would not have invaded Belgium, bombarded churches, sunk ships, executed Nurse Edith Cavell etc, and the Turks wouldn’t be massacring Armenians. Wow.

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Today -100: August 31, 1916: God help you; I can’t

When the heads of 8 major railroads told Woodrow Wilson they reject his proposals to prevent a strike, he told them, “God help you; I can’t.”

Actually, he can. A congresscritter helpfully discovers that there’s a law still on the books from the Civil War allowing the president to take over railroads and court-martial workers who fail to cooperate.

Wilson orders 15,000 state national guardsmen transferred from the Mexican border back to their home states to help with the rail emergency.

A Nebraska judge issues a restraining order against any strike on the Union Pacific. Good luck enforcing that.

The Austrian Crown Prince tells the army that while Romania is now at war with them, “Your upright soldiers’ sense will find adequate contempt for this dilatory assault.”

Polio death count, New York City: 1,911. City College and Cornell postpone the start of the new academic year.

A mob in Lima, Ohio beat up and put a noose around the neck of the sheriff to force him to give up the location of a black prisoner they want to lynch. He takes them, in a convoy of 100 cars, to Ottawa, Ohio, and manages to escape before they found out that the Ottawa cops had already moved the prisoner on.

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Today -100: August 30, 1916: Of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, jail breaks, and choo choo trains

Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg is appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff, a staff which is both general and imperial. This puts into place the comedy duo of Hindenburg ‘n Ludendorff, which will run the army and increasingly the country until the end of the war.

German saboteur Robert Fay busts out of the Atlanta federal prison along with an American prisoner in for mail fraud. They pretended to be electricians and a rather trusting guard let them out to repair a wire.

Before a joint session of Congress, Woodrow Wilson presents his proposals to prevent a rail strike: the 8-hour day, a ban on strikes and lockouts while a government board investigates disputes, letting railroads increase their rates to compensate for increased costs, and giving the president the authority to force railroad workers to operate trains transporting troops and military supplies. Congress is dubious, especially about rushing all this legislation through before it adjourns, or indeed before the strike is scheduled to commence. And some Republicans claim the 8-hour day is unconstitutional, because of course they do (the Supreme Court will rule otherwise). This will be the first federal law regulating hours of work in private industry. The unions consider the temporary ban on strikes to amount to slavery, but are mostly okay with the rest of it, you know, the non-slavery bits. Actually, Wilson is talking about giving arbitration decisions the force of law, which seems a little slaveryish, as does literally drafting train crews to run military-related trains.

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Today -100: August 29, 1916: And still more war is declared

Romania declares war on Austria, Germany declares war on Romania, and Austria gets so excited it accidentally declares war on itself. That’s 15 nations/empires at war with each other (don’t forget San Marino!) and 26 or 27 declarations of war.

Romania sets out its reasons: ethnic Romanians in the Habsburg Empire (specifically in Transylvania) are exposed to the hazards of war; Romanian entry will totally shorten the war, possibly by hours; the Entente are best positioned to help Romania realize its national ideal (I think that means annexing Transylvania). Long expected, the declaration seems to have been delayed until the harvest was in.

This (combined with Italy’s declaration of war on Germany) is not good news for the Central Powers, stretching out their forces along an additional 900 miles of front. Also, Romania had been supplying a lot of their oil, as well as wheat and copper. And Germany had been paying them in ammunition, which will now be returned to Germany – at high speed.

The Berliner Tageblatt affects boredom with Italy’s move: “We have waiting for this declaration of war without impatience of unrest, with the same apathy with which one awaits a thunderstorm that is already visible in the sky. Our umbrella has long been raised. In Italy the declaration may be regarded as a great deed, and may be accompanied with the usual demonstration. In Germany it leaves the public ice-cold.”

Supposedly the Austrian authorities in the Chelm District of Poland have banned Jews from traveling. And if Jews keep “spreading for speculative purposes [that is, to affect the prices of goods] alarming rumors” about military conditions, the Jewish community will be fined.

The railroad unions have issued a strike order for September 4th, and Pres. Wilson is not best pleased.

Former President Taft says he walked four city blocks in Chicago and shopped in a store without anyone recognizing him. He says this convinced him that he is through in politics. Evidently he didn’t already know that he is through in politics.

A member of an exclusive London club (which the NYT does not name) breaks  the rule of silence (the Diogenes Club?) to tell a waiter, “Remove that member,” pointing to a member in the next chair who had been dead for three days.

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Today -100: August 28, 1916: More war is declared

Italy declares war on Germany. Given that Italian troops in Greece are already facing German ones and that German troops are reportedly on the Italian borders alongside Austrian ones (which Germany denies), this is just acknowledging a state of war that already exists, and that it was pretty silly to declare war on Austria but not Germany to begin with.

Romania also joins the war on the Allied side, though too late for today’s paper.

The Allies are trying to force Greece to join their side by refusing to do anything about the Bulgarian troops which have invaded Greece. Greece thought playing both sides against each other would make Germany restrain the Bulgarians, but no such luck.

Headline of the Day -100:

Also herring.

Southern tobacco farmers arrive in Washington DC to lobby the State Dept to protest Britain’s embargo of tobacco shipments to the Central Powers. The growers say the British did this just to force down the price of the tobacco they buy from the US.

The Red-Headed League of America is formed. Someone alert Sherlock Holmes.

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Today -100: August 27, 1916: Of sins against the Fatherland, lynchings, Polish relief, nettoyeurs, polio and altar boys, English eyes, and salt

German Food Dictator Adolf Tortilowitz von Batocki-Friebe asks the women of rural Germany to share their agricultural bounty with their urban sisters. “Any one living on the land who consumes even half a liter of milk or a quarter of a pound more of butter or even an egg more than is absolutely necessary sins against the Fatherland.”

A large mob in Vivian, Louisiana, lynch a black man, Jess Hammet, accused by a white woman of attempted rape. Her parents plead with the crowd not to lynch Hammet.

The railroad owners change their position, dropping even the theoretical 8-hour day. It’s almost like they want a strike.

Britain and France are refusing Woodrow Wilson’s request to allow relief supplies to be sent to Poland, unless Germany promises not only to take none of the supplies, but to take none of Poland’s agricultural products for Germany. Which Germany won’t.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Germany claims that the French Army has squads, called “nettoyeurs” (cleaners), whose sole job is to wander around war zones looking for wounded German soldiers to kill.

Deputy sheriffs on Long Island prevent polio victims entering a private isolation hospital in Woodmere, threatening to shoot anyone who tried to bring a patient into the hospital. Crowds of locals are threatening to burn it down.

NY state Supreme Court Justice Carr took over as altar boy at a Catholic Church since the regular altar boys are barred from church because of the polio epidemic.

At an inquiry of some sort in Dublin into the murder of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington during the Easter Rising hears his widow Hannah deny that he was wearing a green uniform (he wasn’t). Her sister Mary Kettle (wife of former MP Tom Kettle, who will shortly die on the Somme) describes Capt. Bowen-Colthurst, who was found guilty but insane, which she obviously doesn’t buy for a minute, as one of the “cold, collected type of Englishman whose eyes showed the cruel, cold look which went with an unimaginative nature.”

A Polish immigrant Benny Niegodowsky, is rescued after 12 days lost in a salt mine in upstate New York. Which is what happens when you decide to take a nap on the job – in a fucking salt mine. He is very thirsty.

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Today -100: August 26, 1916: Is Mr. Wilson a simple vacillator, or is he an old-fashioned political humbug?

New York City polio death toll = 1,785 and they think it’s nearly over and the schools can open in a month.

A national railroad strike is close. The owners are willing to accept an 8-hour day – “in principle” – but not for the same pay, with pay to be determined by the arbitration they love so much. And they want to be allowed to increase freight rates, which would require Congress’s approval, which is unlikely before Congress’s imminent adjournment. Rep. Augustus Gardner (R-Maine) plans to make a speech accusing Wilson of... something: “Is Mr. Wilson a simple vacillator, or is he an old-fashioned political humbug?”

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Today -100: August 25, 1916: It was part of the war and of our courage

The Women’s Social and Political Union, in its newspaper Britannia, says that the possibility of conscientious objectors voting is an insult to women, involving as it does the theory “that men do not vote on account of any service rendered to the state, but simply and solely because they happen to be males.” One can remember a time when the WSPU opposed the idea that men had the vote and women did not because only men could fight wars.

They should be happy that at the next election, women (some women) will vote but conscientious objectors will not.

Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, until recently the head of the Germany Navy, has evidently issued a “manifesto” – issued in what form is not clear because of German censorship – demanding a return to unrestricted submarine warfare.

The upper house of the Danish parliament, the Landsthing, votes to postpone the sale of the Danish West Indies to the United States until after the war or a general election, whichever comes first.

The French Army orders soldiers to shave off their beards. A general claims that the aggregate weight of those beards is 120 tons – “it is natural that the staff should think of relieving the army of this considerable and useless weight.” I suspect the order had more to do with poilu fitting into gas masks. French intellectuals have weighed in, as is the Gallic custom. Edmond Rostand (author of the play Cyrano de Bergerac) says the beard is a symbol of “all the beauty of all of France, a soul, a jewel, a torch, a prod,” whatever the fuck that means. Henri Bergson (philosophe): “the visage is matter, while the beard is mind.” Maurice Barrès (novelist, righty politician) says the beard is “a heritage of long ago in which the dead lived again and which bound us mysteriously to the soil. ... It was part of the war and of our courage.” Henri Bataille (playwright, poet) calls the beard “a nest of souvenirs [and baguette crumbs], dear and tender, somewhat timid, and a little shivery.” I may have added the bit about baguette crumbs – it was implied. Auguste Rodin (sculptor and the only one of these dudes with an actual beard, which I know because research): “Men without beards, women without sex, statues without heads, bodies without arms, humanity without weakness, that is my opinion.”

As it happens, none of the above was true, although the NYT correspondent was thoroughly taken in. It’s from Le Fuse, a trench paper along the lines of the Wipers Times.

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Today -100: August 24, 1916: Of rationing, war treason, polio, and Jews

Germany will extend meat rationing to the entire country. 250 grams per week. Reports in Britain claim that there are hunger riots in Hamburg. In Berlin a woman who stole two loaves of bread because she was hungry is found not guilty of failing to leave behind ration coupons, the court ruling that coupons are only required for legal commerce. She still goes to jail for the theft.

Karl Liebnecht appeals his sentence for “war treason,” so his sentence is increased to 4 years, with deprivation of civil rights for 6 years.

New York department stores are refusing to accept returns of children’s clothes, toys, etc, because of polio.

Russia plans to give Jews equal rights when the Duma reconvenes in November.

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Today -100: August 23, 1916: In the dim distance we can see the end

In Parliament, War Minister Lloyd George says “I think in the dim distance we can see the end” of the war. He says criticisms of the Allied performance at the Battle of the Somme are unjustified because they never really intended to break through German lines (false), they succeeded in drawing German troops away from Verdun and relieving the situation there (true), and German losses are much higher than those of the Allies (false).

Winston Churchill says Britain should prepare for a long war and the government should take over food supplies and prices as well as shipping, which has seen scandalous increases in rates.

Prime Minister Asquith, responding to a parliamentary question about whether he would recall Parliament from its forthcoming adjournment if peace proposals are made, says no.

Headline of the Day -100:

Unless, of course, you consider war to be itself a form of insanity.

The NYT notes that Republicans have stopped referring to their presidential candidate as “Justice Hughes” in favor of “Governor Hughes.” The Times, which seems to have more than a few resentments left over from his period in Albany, castigates Hughes for his support of direct primaries then and the women’s suffrage amendment now, “another instance of the same precipitate and complete absorption in a single unripe idea, the same ignoring of practical facts, the same lack of plain common sense.”

The US will ask Turkey politely not to massacre the Armenian survivors of its previous massacres who are now refugees in Persia, where Turkey is conducting military operations. Spoiler Alert: Turkey will totally massacre Armenian survivors of its previous massacres.

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Today -100: August 22, 1916: Of fines, battle cries, teachers, philanders, and protectorates

German occupation forces rescinds the fine they imposed on Brussels for celebrating the Belgian national holiday.

The British military warns Irish newspapers not to criticize the government. The government has also given itself power to prevent people entering Ireland from overseas (i.e., the United States) and deport those who entered after March 1, even British (including Irish) citizens.

The movie company Vitagraph sues Henry Ford for accusing their 1915 film “The Battle Cry of Peace” of being part of a campaign for military preparedness in the interests of munitions manufacturers. Vitagraph demands $1 million in damages. The film itself cost $250,000. And is now lost.

Speaking of lost movies, there were plans for a meeting of the British Cabinet to be filmed, but Parliament put the kibosh on it because the whole idea is vulgar. So very vulgar.

Although New York City will delay the new school year because of polio, teachers will still be paid, but they will have to sit through lectures and conferences.

Remember Philander Knox, Taft’s hilariously named secretary of state? His son is in Reno preparatory to filing for divorce. Philander Knox, Jr.

Woodrow Wilson is trying to turn the Dominican Republic into the sort of protectorate Haiti is, with the US running all its finances for it. The current American general receiver of customs in the DR is threatening to withhold payments to Dominican officials until they cave.

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Today -100: August 21, 1916: Of angells, duffs, snubs, Persia’s fate, and self-appointed amateur censors

Germany spreads a rumor that pacifist author Norman Angell (“The Great Illusion”) has been imprisoned for refusing to be conscripted. Not true; Angell is too old to be conscripted. He is a member of the Union of Democratic Control and at a meeting next January will call conscription “the greatest form of slavery; no slave in a plantation is told to kill.”

Gen. Sir Beauchamp Duff, he of the majestically silly name, is recalled to the UK to testify about the botched Mesopotamia (Iraq) operations, and is relieved of his post as Commander-in-Chief, India. A year and a half from now the disgraced Duff will commit suicide.

Charles Evans Hughes, campaigning in Long Beach, California, is briefly in a hotel at the same time as Gov. Hiram Johnson, but the two do not meet. Hughes will later attribute his snubbing of the Progressive governor as leading to his loss of California and thus the election.

Headline of the Day -100:

The Society for the Suppression of Vice is currently attempting to suppress Theodore Dreiser’s novel The Genius (1915), because sex. The Post Office has temporarily banned it being sent through the mails. Dreiser thinks the US needs to appoint an official censor to “do away with self-appointed amateur censors” (this fuss was stirred up in Cincinnati). “If we established an official censor we would at leave have an opportunity to determine in some degree his education and qualifications.”

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Today -100: August 20, 1916: Let us have done with war now and forever

The 31 heads of railroad companies who Wilson called to the White House all reject his plan to prevent a strike, which has been accepted by the unions.

In San Francisco, Charles Evans Hughes has lunch at the Commercial Club, which is currently fighting unionization attempts by its waiters, so he was served by scabs. He also said he wouldn’t take sides in “local” disputes between the Progressives and Republicans and Gov. Hiram Johnson.

British Minister of War David Lloyd George says “I feel for the first time in two years that the nippers are gripping and before long we will hear the crack. Then we will be able to extract the kernel.” It’s a metaphor of, er, some sort. He says this war means there won’t be another one in our day (he will die in 1945). “[W]e must have an unmistakable and unchallengeable victory that cannot be explained away by German professors to credulous people. ... Let us have done with war now and forever.”

The French public are discussing whether one of the changes brought by the war will be the end of dowries.

There are (false) reports that in Hungary, Austria, Germany and France, substantially more boys are now being born than girls. So worries about sex imbalances after the war are misguided.

Gen. Erich Ludendorff is appointed chief executive officer (Generalquartiermeister) of the German Army.

Columbia University tells landlords who rent apartments to female Columbia students that they should set aside a room for them to receive (male) visitors, as they shouldn’t be allowed to do so in their bedrooms and shouldn’t have to resort to parks. “You should not permit them to do the things you would not let your servants do.”

I was just thinking it had been a while since a lynching was reported, at least in the NYT. Five negroes are lynched in Newberry, Florida for supposedly aiding the escape of one Boisey Long, who killed a constable and shot a pharmacist who came to arrest him for stealing hogs along with the Dennis family (3 of the lynched). Another Dennis is shot dead by deputy sheriffs while “resisting arrest.” Two of the lynched were women, one of them reportedly pregnant. Long will be caught, tried, and hanged. When this Gainesville Sun article about the lynchings was being researched in 2005, members of the Dennis family still feared for their safety if they spoke about the incident.

New York City polio death toll = 1,597.

Belgium may have made no progress in liberating itself from German occupation, but its troops are helping the British conquer German East Africa.

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