Today -100: April 23, 1917: Of commissions and war-mad pastors

A British “commission” headed by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour arrives in the US for consultations.

Headline of the Day -100: 



The Rev. Dr. Robert Berry of the Armour Villa Park Chapel in Yonkers decides that God wants all Prussians killed. Including his wife. Especially his wife.

Now playing: The Fatty Arbuckle movie “The Butcher Boy,” featuring one Joseph Frank “Buster” Keaton in his first role.

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Today -100: April 22, 1917: Of khaki, neutrality, and German food talk

Sen. Frank Kellogg (R-Minnesota) pressures Canada into ending its advertisements in US newspapers for farm laborers which promised high wages (and escape from the US draft) if they came to Canada.

Before the war, Germany led the world in chemical-based industries like dyes. US companies have had to step in, which is just as well now that it’s going to war, as the only pre-war source of khaki dye was German.

Spain has a new government, and it will maintain the country’s neutrality too.

Greece’s King Constantine is cajoling/threatening the Allies: he’ll allow the formation of a pro-Entente government only if they agree to let him keep being king and not invade Greece. If not, he’ll take Greece into the war on the other side.

Argentina threatens that if Germany doesn’t take responsibility for sinking a sailing ship, it will break off relations and arm its ships.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: April 21, 1917: Of reasonable censorship and outrageous monarchies

After days of pissing off every newspaper in the country by persisting with provisions in the Espionage Bill so broad and so vague as to put every reporter covering military matters in jeopardy of prosecution, the White House backs off a bit, and the bill is altered so that the president’s regulations must be “reasonable.” And rules against gathering information or asking questions about national defenses are removed. The bill now specifically says public discussion and criticism of government policies won’t be illegal. So that’s good.

H.G. Wells writes to the London Times suggesting it is time to dump the monarchy and establish a republic to set a good example for other countries, He is especially thinking of Greece, joining the chorus of Allies trying to get rid of King Constantine. “A King has always been an outrage upon the ancient Republican traditions of Athens,” Wells says. The Times does not agree with Wells’s support of republicanism in Britain, nor will it publish George Bernard Shaw’s letter noting that “The fundamental case against monarchy is that it rests on a basis of idolatry that can no longer be maintained.”

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Today -100: April 20, 1917: It is a marvel you were not lynched

Congressional Democrats will block consideration of prohibition (for the duration of the war) in the extra session, unless Wilson declares it a war measure.

Woodrow Wilson explains to Congress the need for selective service: there are all sorts of patriotic service, and the military “was by no means the only part, and perhaps, all things considered, not the most vital part.” If people are allowed to volunteer for the military, they may be taking themselves away from other tasks which the country needs.

Meanwhile, reserve officers and officer candidates are expected to train – for three months – without pay.

Those men who hurriedly got married to avoid the draft will be drafted anyway if they married after the declaration of war, the War Department says.

Since the US declared war, the NYT has been full of stories, possibly true but not very well sourced, about how Germans are all starving and the German army, or at the very least its morale, is close to collapse.

The NYT is now spelling Lenin “Lenine.” In a reprint from the London Daily Chronicle which says Russians are indignant at his accepting passage from Germany (the famous closed carriage) on his trip from Switzerland to Russia. It says he has no supporters, even among Social Democrats.

The New York Yacht Club drops Kaiser Wilhelm and his brother Prince Heinrich of Prussia as honorary members.

This may not be his actual birth-name, but someone who wrote an anti-war pamphlet entitled “War At Any Price - A Sacrifice of Greed” and signs himself “Shiloh the Theocrat – One With Infinite Authority and Power,” is arrested for distributing that pamphlet at a patriotic parade in New York and sentenced to 6 months for disorderly conduct, which conduct seems to consist entirely of handing out his pamphlet. The magistrate tells him “It is a marvel you were not lynched. And if you had been you would have been receiving your just deserts.”

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Today -100: April 19, 1917: Of loyal obedience and patriotic service, selective service, churches, and lenses

NY Mayor John Purroy Mitchel says any teacher who doesn’t sign a pledge to teach children the duty of “loyal obedience and patriotic service” should be fired.

The House Military Committee decides to merely “authorize” the president to implement conscription if he thinks a voluntary system of recruitment won’t work, which is of course Congress’s way of avoiding taking blame for a potentially unpopular decision. They know damned well Wilson has no intention of even trying a voluntary system.

Meanwhile, Theodore Roosevelt, realizing that the War Department has been stalling and evading his request to lead a division to France immediately if not sooner (Rough Riders II: This Time It’s Personal), has been secretly lobbying Congress to end-run the White House veto. TR has also been offered a commission in the New York National Guard. He says he might accept if the other thing falls through.

Congress passes a bill allowing Allied countries to recruit their citizens living in the United States. There is some push-back over fears that those countries would use coercion, including from new congresscritter Fiorello La Guardia, who is worried about Italians, pointing out that Italy doesn’t recognize the American naturalizations of Italian citizens.

Anti-German rioting in Brazil, with buildings burned in Porto Alegre.

Emperor Karl of Austria promises God that if He grants Austria an early peace, he will build a really nice church for Him.

Headline of the Day -100: 

“I SAID watch where you step, I dropped my contact lens!”

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Today -100: April 18, 1917: Of selective service, war ag, and dangerous magazines

Pres. Wilson consults with members of Congress about selective service. And by “consult,” I mean demand his own way in every detail, shooting down the idea of trying a volunteer military before implementing conscription.

The Pennsylvania Legislature defeats a women’s suffrage amendment to the state constitution.

White House staff are being encouraged to grow food on a vacant bit of government-owned land opposite the White House (where a new Justice Dept building was supposed to be built, but it’s been delayed) to set an example.

The British government has banned the export of copies of The Nation magazine (the British magazine of that name, not the American one) because of “dangerous” articles that could be used in German propaganda. In Parliament, Bonar Law refuses to explain which articles caused the ban or what the objectionable material was, although it was probably an article in the March 3rd issue which said that the Germans were performing well on the Western Front and in their submarine warfare. Churchill notes that Lloyd George himself has made more pessimistic assessments of the military situation than anything the Nation published.

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Today -100: April 17, 1917: Of allegiance, cadavers, and soviets

Woodrow Wilson issues a proclamation telling people not to commit treason, including aliens who, he says, owe “allegiance” to the United States. Do they, though?

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The Times of London and the Daily Mail report that Germany is producing glycerine by boiling down the corpses of dead soldiers.  British Military Intelligence propagandists are responsible for planting this particular story. The basis for it is that glycerine was generated in Kadaververwertungsanstalt, which the Northcliffe papers choose to translate as Corpse-Exploitation Establishment, pretending that the “kadavers” in question are human rather than horse (the word for human cadavers is leichman).

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies demands that it retain the power of oversight and control over the provisional government because only it can counteract any counter-revolutionary moves.

Raimes & Co., whatever they might be, tries to screw over Fritz Schultz, Jr., Company Inc., whatever that might be, arguing that the latter’s lawsuits demanding payment from the former for goods received be thrown out because it’s an Enemy Corporation now. The judge says Germans can still sue.

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Today -100: April 16, 1917: We must all speak, act, and serve together

Woodrow Wilson issues a proclamation about what he expects everyone to do to win “the grim and terrible war for democracy and human rights” (hey, the war finally has a name!) He continues to portray this as some sort of violent social work: “There is not a single selfish element, so far as I can see, in the cause we are fighting for.” He says “we must devote ourselves to the service without regard to profit or material advantage”. Spoiler Alert: US manufacturing is going to get a buttload of profit and material advantage out of the war.

He issues marching orders to every segment of society: “Upon the farmers of this country, therefore, in large measure rests the fate of the war and the fate of the nations.” “there shall be no unwarranted manipulation of the nation's food supply by those who handle it on its way to the consumer.” He asks middlemen to make no “unusual profits” and “suggests” to merchants the motto “small profits and quick service.” He asks housewives to practice strict economy. “This is the time for America to correct her unpardonable fault of wastefulness and extravagance.”

He concludes, “We must all speak, act, and serve together.”

Carranza, speaking  at the opening of the first Mexican Congress in 3 years, says that Mexico won’t abandon its neutrality.

Ludwig Zamenhof, creator of the alt-language Esperanto, dies. Zamenhof was a Polish Jew who thought a universal language would end war so, um, yeah. Ripozu en paco, Dr. Zamenhof.

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Today -100: April 15, 1917: Wherein is explained what Jesus thought of peace at any price, or something

The House of Representatives unanimously passes the Seven Billion Dollar Bill to finance the war, though Socialist Meyer London only votes “present.” It includes a $3 billion loan to the Allies. The bonds will be tax-free.

Woodrow Wilson creates a Committee on Public Information, i.e. censorship and propaganda. It will be run by George Creel, a journalist, editor, joke writer, etc., who helped run Wilson’s re-election campaign. It’s considered important that censorship be run by (authoritarian) civilians rather than the military.

This is as good a time as any to mention the introduction, some time this month, of this poster,

based on Britain’s similarly posed Lord Kitchener posters. It was created by an illustrator named James Montgomery Flagg, if you can believe it. He based Uncle Sam on... himself.

The New England Methodist Conference comes out  in favor of the war: “Peace at any price is as far from our sanction as it is, we believe, from the New Testament of Our Lord.” It also calls for prohibition as a war measure.

Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels rejects an offer from businessmen Benjamin and Anderson Gratz of $5,000 as a reward for the first US merchant ship to sink an enemy sub. Daniels thinks “money rewards for such bravery is not in keeping with the spirit of our day.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

Theodore Roosevelt’s youngest son (19) joins the Canadian Aviation Corps, which will train him as a pilot for service in the US version. But maybe not well enough (spoiler alert). Quentin’s older brother Archie graduates Harvard and gets married.

The NYT mentions Lenin again, chiefly as a supporter of peace.

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Today -100: April 14, 1917: Of internment, less intelligent workers, and rubber men

Bolivia breaks diplomatic relations with Germany, because why not.

Since the US won’t intern all German citizens here, Germany won’t intern US citizens there.

The NYT mentions Lenin. For the first time? In a piece from the London Daily Chronicle, which says the Lenin crowd’s agitation “has had a bad effect on the less intelligent workers”.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Wartime Story of the Day -100: a chauffeur in NYC tries to get out of a speeding ticket by claiming his passenger is an Army lieutenant carrying vital dispatches. (He isn’t).

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Today -100: April 13, 1917: Of women’s suffrage, disaffection, and the simple life

Women get the vote in Nova Scotia.

Congress is working on the Wilson Admin’s Espionage Bill, but some are worried about the vagueness of some of the provisions, in particular the criminalizing of speeches or writings causing “disaffection” in the military, which could criminalize anyone, including reporters, asking questions about the national defense.

It should be noted that this is the law that Obama used to aggressively prosecute leakers.

Pres. Wilson is telling congresscritters who are offering to resign to join the military not to.

First Lady Edith Wilson and the wives of the vice president and Cabinet members start a “simple life” movement to cut down unnecessary spending and entertaining, so their energy and resources can be channeled into killing fucking Germans, or something.

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Today -100: April 12, 1917: Of degenerate brains, conscription, and corn bread

Brazil breaks diplomatic relations with Germany.

Eddystone Ammunition Corp officials are still insisting that the explosion at their explosives plant was not an accident or the result of their negligence, but “the result of a diabolical plot conceived in the degenerate brain of a demon in human guise.”

Men who are married or have parents or children as dependents are ordered to quit the National Guard.

The White House not only wants conscription, it doesn’t want volunteers, even though the machinery of conscription will take months to set up. Rep. Daniel Anthony (R-Kansas) asks Secretary of War Newton Baker if he wouldn’t rather have volunteers beginning training within 30 days rather than wait 6 months for conscripts. Evidently he wouldn’t.

Herbert Hoover is appointed chairman of the new Food Board in the US. His first official act is to ask Americans to eat corn bread, so wheat can be shipped to Europe.

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Today -100: April 11, 1917: Save some carnage and death for us, huh, Europeans?

The US plans to slow-walk its entry into the war, not sending any soldiers over until 1 million are trained. In theory they could send the (not very large) existing army over now, but those soldiers are needed to train the incoming soldiers for like a year or so.

The announced plans to conscript unmarried 19-to-25-year-old men has predictably led  to a sharp increase in marriages among 19-to-25-year-old men.

Theodore Roosevelt meets with Woodrow Wilson and asks permission to raise his own division. Wilson stalls him. TR will try to get Congress to over-ride the War Department.

I’m not sure if “drafted” in this story means actual conscription, but the government plans to “draft” Native Americans in Oklahoma for farm labor to free up farmers to be soldiers, and will pull them out of school to do so.

An explosion in the Eddystone Ammunition Corp shell factory in Chester, Pennsylvania kills 130+ workers, the vast majority of them young women. The company says it’s absolutely not their fault that their high-explosive powder went boom, it must be German saboteurs.

The Russian Provisional Government is confiscating all of Tsar Nicholas’s stuff.

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The First National Registration Society wants everyone in the US fingerprinted. Which is not ominous at all (although many of the Eddystone factory bodies will never be identified, so they may have a point).

The Society for the Suppression of Vice, the late Anthony Comstock’s outfit, seizes the May issue of Pearson’s and orders the editor and publisher into court because of an article, written by the editor, Frank Harris, “calculated to corrupt the morals of youth.” The article is part of the series “The Night Court Inquisition” investigating abuses in the New York City women’s night court, where people can be imprisoned for prostitution and other vice crimes on the word of a single corrupt cop. It will be announced two days from now that the court will be abolished. Journalism works.

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Today -100: April 10, 1917: Who ya gonna call? Divorce lawyers!

The US takes advantage of Austria breaking off relations to seize its interned merchant ships.

Woodrow Wilson is facing opposition in Congress to conscription. Many congresscritters think a volunteer military would be perfectly adequate. The administration’s argument is for “selective service,” a newly coined term meaning that every adult male is liable for service, but the government gets to select who it wants. In an all-volunteer service, as Britain found out early in the war, you get a lot of farmers, miners, factory workers etc joining up who would be more useful staying in their jobs.

The NYT thinks the US entering the war will not take the form of a formal alliance with the Entente nations, just a “gentleman’s agreement” on coordination. One obstacle to alliance: despite Wilson having constantly asked the Allies to spell out their war aims, they have failed so far to do so.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Philipp Scheidemann, head of the German Social Democratic Party, is rumored to be on a secret mission to Russia to convince his fellow socialists there to make a separate peace.

Josephine Cahane applies for her marriage to Benjamin Cahane to be annulled because her husband is afraid of ghosts and hid the fact until the day of their wedding when he insisted on going to a cemetery (as you do). Afraid of his (unspecified) cruelty, she took an apartment overlooking a graveyard: “When he tried to abuse me I told him to look into the cemetery and see the ghosts. It had the desired effect.”

A new issue of the Wipers Times, aka the B.E.F. Times, is out.

Excerpt from “–th Infantry Brigade Intelligence Summary. No. 30”

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Today -100: April 9, 1917: Of sticking to Germany, vexing workmen, sedition, and Prussian reform

Austria breaks diplomatic relations with the United States.

Two suspected Germans are arrested in Corona, Alabama for attempting to induce negro miners to quit their jobs and come to Mexico. Two black men are also arrested for treason in Ashford, Alabama for urging blacks to revolt and “stick to Germany.”

Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, promises that unions won’t strike or press any demands of any kind during the war. He does not explain why union members should continue paying dues.

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The Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet is functioning as an alternative source of authority in Petrograd, which is very vexing to the administration. And the workers are not producing supplies for the soldiers because they’re so busy attending meetings.

Francis Widmar, the editor of the anarchist newspaper New Era, is arrested in Paterson, New Jersey, along with his printer, for sedition for putting out a pamphlet calling for a general strike against war.

Under pressure from Socialists at home and the example of the Russian Revolution abroad, Kaiser Wilhelm promises some constitutional reforms in Germany and Prussia – after the war is won. He commits to ending the three-tier franchise system and introducing the secret ballot in Prussia, but fails to mention universal suffrage or equal suffrage, leaving the way for some people to have more than one vote.

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Today -100: April 8, 1917: Rise up! rise up, crusaders, to meet the hosts of Hell!

Orders are issued to militia sentries to shoot anyone who ignores orders to halt. Two men are indeed shot by the New Jersey National Guard, and a marine guarding a lighting plant on Long Island shoots up an automobile, killing a 12-year-old Boy Scout.

The crews of seized German ships, being held as prisoners of war on Ellis Island, discover to their horror that there is no booze.

Cuba declares war on Germany.

And so, I guess, do the Boy Scouts:

The Secret Service is investigating German-language and other anti-war newspapers.

Aleksandr Kerensky suggests Germans overthrow the Hohenzollerns if they want peace.

With the one-year anniversary of the Easter Rising coming up, the British ban all meetings and processions in Dublin.

Atrocious Doggerel of the Day -100:

Etcetera.

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Today -100: April 7, 1917: It’s War!!

Woodrow Wilson signs the war declaration, and it’s away we go. (Yes, Congress alone has the authority to declare war, but they wanted to do it in a form he’d also have to sign). The only actual acts of war seem to be the seizure of 91 German-owned ships, many of whose crews sabotaged them as soon as they heard about the declaration of war, and an order to arrest 60+ alleged spies. This is done without a court order under the president’s powers derived from the Alien Enemy Act of 1798, one of the Alien and Sedition Acts. FDR used it to intern Japanese-Americans.

The war proclamation warns non-naturalized Germans in the US to preserve the peace and says that if they do they won’t be rounded up. Oh, and they can’t have guns or radios or aircraft or ciphers or invisible writing materials or come within a half-mile of any fort, navy ship, munitions factory etc etc or write anything attacking the government or any of its policies. It will be pointed out that this half-mile radius includes the heart of Manhattan surrounding the state arsenal on 35th.

William Jennings Bryan, 57, asks Wilson to enroll him as a private.

Pro-war suffragist leaders forgive Jeanette Rankin for voting against the war. There is some debate about whether she cried after or while announcing her vote.

The Tobacco Merchants’ Association objects to a provision in the Chamberlain Military Bill banning the sale of tobacco at army and navy training facilities, contrasting it with the benevolent policy of European nations which “encourage” and even supply tobacco to their soldiers.

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Today -100: April 6, 1917: It’s War!

At 3:12 a.m. today, Congress voted 373 to 50 to declare war on Germany (“that a state of war between the United States and the Imperial German Government which has been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared”). The war formally begins at the more civilized hour of noon. (Update: wait, no, it only goes to the Senate at noon.)

Jeanette Rankin (R-Montana) utters the first words spoken in Congress by a female member: “I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war. I vote no.”

The no votes largely came from the Midwest, with its many ethnic Germans. 9 of the 50 are from Wisconsin. And 4 from Mississippi for some reason. 32 were Republican, 16 Democrat, 1 Socialist and 1 independent.

Clarence Miller (R-Minnesota), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, claims during the debate that there is a paragraph of the Zimmermann Telegram, not previously made public, in which Germany offers to establish a submarine base in Mexico, and supply Mexico with unlimited weaponry and German reservists from the US. He even reads it out, ending with “Arrange to attack all along the border.” This is a lie, and is immediately contradicted by Secretary of State Lansing. Miller refuses to accept that, saying he “got it from a man who is in a position to know.”

Headline of the Day -100:

Headline of the Day -100:

Funny thing is, that headline is not wrong.

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Today -100: April 5, 1917: Freedom is the messiah

Headline of the Day -100: 

Count Michael Borzatovsky, recently arrived from Russia, in his room in Baltimore. Was he shot by a German spy? Did he accidentally shoot himself getting undressed?

The latter.

Russia repeals all laws that discriminate on the basis of religion. Rabbi David Philipson of Cincinnati says this solves the Jewish problem and eliminates the need for Zionism. “Freedom is the messiah,” he says.

The US Senate continues to debate going to war, increasingly testily. George Norris (R-Nebraska) says declaring war would “put the dollar mark on the American flag.”  Sen. James Reed (D-Missouri) accuses him of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Sen. James Vardaman (D-Mississippi), who opposes entry, complains about the atmosphere in the Capitol, “supercharged with the spirit of prejudice, hate and love. ... Self-assumed superiority of mind, intolerance and bigotry are attributes of little minds”. That’s James Fucking Vardaman, possibly the biggest racist in the Senate.

The New York Legislature creates a state police force. Its purpose seems to be to break strikes so the National Guard doesn’t have to and more people will be willing to join the Guard.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The Morning Post (London) reports that it’s heard from German bankers that Kaiser Wilhelm is sick and will totally die soon.

Two countries with very different approaches to rationing:

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Today -100: April 4, 1917: International nuisances are the worst kind

Former President Taft says if the US is invaded, it will be through Mexico. He considers Carranza “not the most reliable person imaginable” and Mexico “an international nuisance.”

The US is not at war with Germany yet, because Robert La Follette is filibustering it. The NYT says “There is, of course, but one explanation of Mr. La Follette’s conduct; which one it is we have not the least idea.”

The NY State Senate is holding contempt hearings into New York City Mayor John Purroy Mitchel, for accusing Minority Leader Robert Wagner of “working in the interest of Germany”. Mitchel, who denies their jurisdiction over him but attending the hearing out of, um, politeness, says he never meant to accuse Wagner of treason.

Municipal elections in Chicago are won decisively by the Democrats, reversing the results of 1915. And Springfield votes itself dry, along with five other Illinois towns; one dry town goes wet.

The Kaiserin (Mrs. The Kaiser Wilhelm) will sell some of her jewels in the Netherlands to give the cash to charity. The fate of the Romanovs is having a salubrious influence on the other royals of Europe.

Frederick Pethick-Lawrence runs for Parliament in the South Aberdeen by-election on behalf of the anti-war Union of Democratic Control on a platform of peace by negotiation. He loses 10 to 1. P-L, who went to jail for the suffragist cause before the war, will eventually be elected as a Labour MP, rising to the Cabinet under Attlee and before that official leader of the opposition during World War II, meaning he was head of the few Labour MPs who didn’t join the Coalition and was the guy who stood across from Churchill at Prime Minister’s Questions.

100,000 political prisoners are leaving Siberia. By sledge, mostly. Blacksmiths have been busy removing people’s shackles.

There is a record demand for flags. Flag companies can’t keep up.

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