Today -100: July 9, 1917: Of exports, bullets, and reichstags

Pres. Wilson declares that he now has complete control over exports. A large list of products will require an export license. One thing he plans to do with this power is starve neutral countries of food they might sell on to Germany, which is a bit ironic considering that Wilson’s main complaint about Germany that led him to decide on war was their interference with the US sale of goods to one side of the war. And Wilson is joining the Allied policy of trying to starve Germany into submission, without any public debate over the morality of that course.

The Illinois state militia will claim that the reason it failed to stop the East St. Louis race riots was that it didn’t have enough bullets.

Matthias Erzberger, leader of Germany’s (Catholic) Zentrum Party, commits his party to electoral reforms and calls for a peace without annexations. News of the last part hasn’t reached the NYT yet (3 days later), or indeed the German public, thanks to censorship. The government is losing control of the Reichstag.

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Today -100: July 8, 1917: Of emperors, wobblies, and race riots

Chinese Boy-Emperor, or I guess Tween-Emperor now, Hsuan Tung abdicates, again, as the Republican army menaces Peking.

Warrants are issued in Arizona for 15 IWW activists for calling a strike at the Golconda Company copper mine. Gov. Edward Campbell says IWW hq gave the strike order. The IWW denies it. He also hints at dark German influences and says even if there aren’t any, the strike directly benefits Germany.

Rep. William August Rodenberg, whose district includes East St. Louis, says the race riots in that city were not about race but labor conditions. They were about both, dude.

German newspapers have been downplaying the arrival of US troops in France, saying they are few in numbers and lack proper equipment.

Greece broke off diplomatic relations with Turkey, so Turkey will deport all Greeks and confiscate their property.

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Today -100: July 7, 1917: Of apologies for the murder of the helpless, draft cards, wobblies, and naked Russians

The Chicago newspaper The American Socialist is barred from the mails.

At a Carnegie Hall meeting organized by the American Friends of Russian Freedom, Theodore Roosevelt praises the Russian Revolution and denounces the race riot in East St. Louis. He’s followed by Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor, who blames the events in East St. Louis on those “luring” black men from the South, which he says “is on a par with the behavior of the brutal, reactionary, and tyrannous forces that existed in Old Russia,” because the blacks would be used to keep wages down for, you know, regular white workers (while representing a major wage increase for the blacks over what they could earn in the South, but for some reason Gompers doesn’t mention that). This outrages Roosevelt, who waves his fist literally in Gompers’s face, saying “never will I sit motionless while directly or indirectly apology is made for the murder of the helpless.”

Police and military – with bayonets – raid an anti-conscription meeting in Paterson, New Jersey called by the American Union Against Militarism and arrest young men who are unable to show draft registration cards. One of the speakers was Rev. Norman Thomas of the East Harlem Presbyterian Church, the same Norman Thomas who will run for president as a Socialist candidate 6 times (1928 to 1948).

The Army claims that the International Workers of the World have plans to burn crops simultaneously throughout South Dakota.

Peasants in Odessa who have been unable to get clothing are threatening to organize naked processions.

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Today -100: July 6, 1917: Of censorship and race riots

The government rather quickly backs off from censoring cables from France to US newspapers. Or as the New York Times puts it,

The American Federation of Labor denies that unions were responsible for the race riots/pogrom in East St. Louis.

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Today -100: July 5, 1917: Of censorship, deportations, and roughneck pacifists

Although Congress refused to include press censorship in the Espionage Act, the War Office just goes ahead and starts censoring press reports sent to US newspapers from France anyway. Which was a surprise to the AP, which was told that it could pick up its redacted reports from George Creel’s Committee on Public Information. It was also a surprise to the Committee on Public Information, which now has to create an extra-legal censorship system on the fly.

IWW organizer Joseph Graber, who has been organizing Pennsylvania coal miners, is arrested on Pres. Wilson’s order, his presence in the district declared a danger to the United States. They can do this because he is an “enemy alien.” He immigrated from Warsaw in 1910, and that part of Poland is
currently under German occupation. That’s an odd definition of “enemy alien,” which would also apply to every Belgian and change with every shift of the front lines. The government is claiming Graber is a German agent, which is of course bullshit.

Theodore Roosevelt, in a Fourth of July speech partly devoted to attacking “roughneck pacifists,” whatever that means, calls for no discrimination against Americans of German background in the military. Doesn’t say a thing about the racial segregation of the military.

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Today -100: July 4, 1917: American citizens are being murdered in East St. Louis

A race riot (black v. white) starts in NYC, when a cop tries to disperse black National Guards who were just hanging out.

While arrests were made during the East St. Louis race riots, almost everyone’s been released. The pogrom is settling down. The secretary of the Freedman Foundation telegrams Woodrow Wilson asking for federal intervention to prevent more bloodshed, saying “American citizens are being murdered in East St. Louis.”

At her trial, Emma Goldman denies the accuracy of the report of her speech by a police stenographer, saying she speaks too quickly to be recorded accurately, which she proves by getting the same cop to attempt to take down her words in court, which he can’t. Witnesses say that neither she nor Berkman have ever advocated violence.

Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg says Germany will win soon. “If we hold our ground against enemy attacks until the submarine warfare has done its work, the war is won for us.”

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Today -100: July 3, 1917: Timber!

Race riots continue in East Saint Louis, Illinois. Blacks are shot and lynched, and their homes burned. No accurate count has ever been made of the deaths, but roughly 150 or so. The militia tamp down the rioting, although it doesn’t sound like they were trying that hard. The police are at best useless, at worst active participants. The NYT account is surprisingly detailed.

Russian Minister of War Alexander Kerensky personally leads troops into battle against Austria in Galicia. The Kerensky Offensive is going very well, they say. Enjoy it while it lasts, Alex, enjoy it while it lasts.

A military coup in China puts boy-emperor Hsuan Tung back on the throne as figurehead.

Thing I discovered about 1917 America today: they called the stuff you make cans out of “aluminium,” like the British still do. Anyway, Sen. James Reed (D-Missouri) attacks the president of the Aluminium Company of America (which is now Alcoa) for using his seat on the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense to raise the price paid for aluminum for army canteens, of which 1 million will be ordered from his company.

Wilson finally issues rules for draft exemptions. Interestingly, while men with dependents can claim exemption, his wife or other dependents can put in a claim on their own.

The National Civil Liberties Bureau, the forerunner of the ACLU, forms to protect free speech and the rights of conscientious objectors.

Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, foremost English actor of his generation, although his acting style is considered rather formal and old-fashioned now, dies at 64. He leaves a bunch of children, legitimate and otherwise. Amongst the latter is Carol Reed, director of The Third Man.

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Today -100: July 2, 1917: Of potato riots, peace parades, race friction, and East St. Louis

Headline of the Day -100:

Great name for a rock band.

Soldiers and sailors attack a peace parade – or as the NYT headline puts it, a “‘Peace’ Parade” – in Boston and attack the Socialist Party hq.

A meeting at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in NYC discusses the negro migration out of the South. There is a consensus that it’s less about higher wages and more about not being treated like shit and lynched and whatnot. Fred Moore, editor of the New York Age says “There is no race friction in the North.”

A race riot/pogrom begins in East Saint Louis, Illinois.

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Today -100: July 1, 1917: Of well-paid amusement, 10,000 planes, beer, and umpires

Charlie Chaplin signs a new contract with First National to make 8 films in 1 year for $1 million, “the largest salary ever paid to a performer in the history of the amusement world,” not that that stops the NYT from spelling his name wrong. First National is a new company, formed by owners of movie theaters.

Headline of the Day -100:

But then he would, wouldn’t he?

Reginald Aldworth Daly, a professor of geology at Harvard, says in a Sunday NYT Magazine article that Germany’s atrocities during this war can be blamed on beer. Since all Germans are a bit sloshed at all times, they’re all bad-tempered all the time.

Babe Ruth is suspended from baseball for a week after punching an umpire.

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Today -100: June 30, 1917: Of beer and wine, dumas, and activities of a sinister German character

Woodrow Wilson intervenes in the Food Bill to prevent it banning beer and wine along with distilled spirits, although he will have the power to put such a ban in place, which he doesn’t want and won’t use.

The Russian Duma will ignore the polite request of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet that it dissolve itself. It points to its role in getting the tsar to abdicate as proof that it is now independent of its previous position as part of the imperial regime.

The Greek government installed by the Allies breaks relations with Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey. Which is not quite declaring war, but close enough.

Arizona Gov. Thomas Campbell calls the work of IWW union activists organizing copper miners “activities of a sinister German character,” and asks the War Department to investigate.

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Today -100: June 29, 1917: Of premature news, arrests at the White House, and self-determination

Secretary of War Newton Baker is pisssssssed that the news of the arrival in France of US troops was published yesterday.

Suffragists trying to display banners to the president are now being arrested every single day. 25 so far in the last week.

Socialist members of the Austrian Parliament introduce an interpellation in favor of peace negotiations and demanding that Austria finally state its war aims. The socialists (led by Ignacy Daszynski of the Polish Social Democratic Party, who will be prime minister of Poland for a week in 1918) argue for the right of people to determine their own destinies, to which Austrian Minister-President Ernst Seidler takes exception, saying that only the emperor can determine Austrians’ destinies. The Austrian emperor.

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Today -100: June 28, 1917: Over there

The first US troops arrive in France.

The Pan-Russian Congress of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Soviets votes against a separate peace with Germany, but it wants peace now, given that “The present war arose in consequence of aspirations of imperialists, prevailing among the ruling classes of all countries and tending toward the usurpation of markets and submission to their economic and political influence of small and decadent nations.” Decadent? The Congress also opposes a war that ends with the defeat of one side, which would only lead to more wars.

6 suffragists are sentenced to 3 days for picketing the White House. Too short for a hunger strike.

The NYT claims Lenin just attempted a rising against the Russian government, with German money.

Eleftherios Venizelos takes office as Greek prime minister.

The US War Department rejects the offer of some short dude to form “bantam regiments” of men too small to join the army (below 5’4” and 120 pounds).

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Today -100: June 27, 1917: Of air raids

The recent German raids on London by fixed-wing planes have led to demands for reprisals in kind on German towns, but Minister of War Lord Derby tells the House of Lords that Britain should not try to imitate German brutality. Baron Montagu says that the Germans have a perfect right to bomb London.

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Today -100: June 26, 1917: Of pickets and prohibition

The situation in front of the White House is escalating, with 12 suffragists arrested yesterday. Notably, only one of them is married.

Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore opposes the prohibition clause in the food bill.

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Today -100: June 25, 1917: It would be better for you to face ten German bayonets than one tigree mother of Russia and the curse she lays upon you

Headline of the Day -100:

The Russian Women’s Battalions of Death issue an appeal/threat: “And you others, soldiers in name but Judases in fact, who are selling Russia to the foe, know that the time will soon be at hand when it would be better for you to face ten German bayonets than one tigree mother of Russia and the curse she lays upon you.”

Germany orders that all publications discussing questions of public interest be submitted to military censorship.

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Today -100: June 24, 1917: The soviets are getting a little uppity

The Pan-Russian Congress of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Soviets votes to dissolve the Council of the Empire and asks for the Duma to be dissolved as well. Or I guess dissolve itself, since it was the czar who used to do that. The soviets don’t actually have the authority to dissolve anything, but hey.

The House passes the Food Administration Bill 365-5, with the surprise inclusion of an amendment banning the production of liquors during the war and authorizing the president to seize all existing stocks.

The Justice Dept bans pro-German newspapers printed in Mexico from entering Texas.

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Today -100: June 23, 1917: Loud and boisterous talking is the worst kind

The Chicago City Council begins moves to impeach Mayor Big Bill Thompson. He is considered pro-German, won’t help raise the Liberty Loan, and wasn’t nice to Balfour when he came to town. Thompson tries to adjourn the Council, but it refuses to go.

Two of the White House women’s suffrage picketers, Lucy Burns and Katherine Morey, are arrested with a banner displaying only Woodrow Wilson’s words about democracy and people having a voice in their own government (who thought there would be ironic protest banners in 1917?). They are charged with obstructing traffic, unlawful assemblage, and “loud and boisterous talking.”

Germany officially divides Belgium into two bits, Flemish and Walloon.

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Today -100: June 22, 1917: Of former kings, women’s battalions of death, pickets, and who owns the news

From exile, former Greek King Constantine I says he’s still the king.

The NYT has an AP article on the Russian Women’s Battalion of Death, a source of endless interest to the Western press, although not enough interest that they don’t mangle the name of its “girl commander,” “twice wounded girl officer” (she’s in her late 20s) Yashka Boshkareva. Boshkareva points out that the battalion still uses the disciplinary system of the tsarist army, with none of that soldier self-government stuff. And yes, they shave their heads.

The Associated Press wins a lawsuit against Hearst’s International News Service, which was stealing its news stories. It’s an interesting legal decision, by the 2nd Circuit Court, in that news is held to be property. News is evidently something distinct from facts.

Suffragist pickets outside the White House are again attacked by angry mobs.

The Maryland House of Delegates votes down women’s suffrage 56-41.

The FTC recommended that the railroads, coal mines and coke producers be run by the government. Big Business is not best pleased, nor by the administration’s attempts to keep prices on raw and manufactured goods down or the president’s new powers to embargo the export of any products he likes.

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Today -100: June 21, 1917: America Is Not A Democracy

Headline of the Day -100:

As a delegation from Russia visits the White House, a suffrage banner hoisted by the National Woman’s Party’s White House picketers informs them (in English), “President Wilson and Envoy Root are deceiving Russia. They say, ‘We are a democracy. Help us win a world war, so that democracies may survive.’ We, the women of America, tell you that America is not a democracy. ... Help us make this nation really free. Tell our Government it must liberate people before it can claim free Russia as an ally.” Reporters are on hand, having been told this was coming. Crowds tear the banner apart, because freedom, to the annoyance of police who wanted it as evidence. No arrests are made, though police warn the suffragists there will be if they do it again. They will do it again. A lot of Washingtonians are quoted disapproving of the banner, none in favor. Rep. Jeanette Rankin, a former suffrage activist herself, expresses no opinion either way, which is disappointing.

Russia indicts government officials from the Czarist era, including former Prime Minister Boris Stürmer and various cabinet ministers and governors. The most interesting charge is against former Interior Minister Alexander Protopopov for stealing the original telegraph dispatches between Rasputin and the czar and czarina. 

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Today -100: June 20, 1917: Of women’s suffrage, fecking rioting, and German titles

The British House of Commons votes 214 to 17 for women’s suffrage, on an unequal basis. Even former Prime Minister Asquith votes for it. Efforts to expand the provision to women below the age of 30 are turned down.

The release of Irish political prisoners is celebrated in Dublin by rioting, as is the custom. Actually, the article calls it rioting, but it sounds much more like ordinary or garden-variety demonstrating. The Sinn Fein flag is hung on the wreckage of the Central Post Office. The police don’t intervene until 2 in the morning, which does seem to be the time to tell the marching bands to go the feck home.

Did I do that right? Feck?

King George is forcing all the princes and princesses of his large family who are English subjects to drop any Germany titles (lookin’ at you, Prince Louis of Battenberg).

The Austrian Cabinet resigns because the Polish deputies in the Reichsrath are now joining other Slavs in refusing to vote for the war budget.

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