Today -100: May 31, 1918: America does not want to win this war on points

Theodore Roosevelt’s Memorial Day speech: “America does not want to win this war on points, we want a knockout.”

Lady Randolph Churchill, aka Jennie, aka Winston’s mother, will remarry tomorrow. She is 64 and Montagu Phippen Porch (known as “Porchy,” as though you could possibly improve on Montagu Phippen Porch),  an officer in the colonial government of various African colonies, is 41, younger than Winston by 3 years.

And Margaret Vanderbilt, widow of Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt of the rich-as-fuck Vanderbilts, who died on (or, um, near) the Lusitania, will also remarry, to Raymond Baker, director of the US Mint and former warden of the Nevada State Prison.

In Britain, the Maud Allan libel suit against MP Noel Pemberton Billing for his article about the 47,000 perverts being blackmailed by the German government began in April but now reaches the NYT for the first time. I covered this in February when Pemberton Billing published “The Cult of the Clitoris.” The NYT manages to avoid using the word clitoris, because the NYT is no fun.

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Today -100: May 30, 1918: This great city is unwilling to endure any longer their language

Headline of the Day -100: 

Although I prefer the version in the NYT index:

If the food situation in Germany is bad, it’s even worse in the ethnic-German parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where they blame the Slavic regions of the Empire for not sending food.

The NYC Board of Education votes unanimously to have no more classes in beginning German for the duration of the war. They say that with the “best” American teachers now being so anti-German that they can’t teach the course with enthusiasm, it would be left in the hands of German-born teachers, which would interfere with the teaching of “Americanism” to the pupils [As atrocious as current political language is, I am thankful not to have to hear the word Americanism repeated ad nauseum]. Abolishing the teaching of German will make a dent in the spread of Pan-Germanism “by shaking possibly the morale of the German people as they come to realize that this great city was unwilling to endure any longer their language, and that it desired thus to break off more completely the possibility of intimate relations with them through the medium of language.” Interpretive dance is quite another matter.

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Today -100: May 29, 1918: Insidious German Plot of the Day

William Guggenheim of the American Defense Society (and one of the lesser members of the mining/museum family) says that before the US entered the war, German agents bought up all the black walnut wood necessary to make airplane propellers.

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Today -100: May 28, 1918: Politics is adjourned

Former Congresscritter Charles Lindbergh, grandfather of the Lindbergh Baby, can’t find a hall in Duluth willing to rent him space for a rally for his gubernatorial bid, presumably because of his opposition to the war.

Yesterday there was a story which I didn’t bother passing on about a soldier whose Bible stopped a bullet. But this...

Pres. Wilson shows up unexpectedly at Congress, as was his custom, and gives a speech asking for more war taxes, especially on war profits, incomes & luxuries, to be voted on this session rather than after the November elections. Congress doesn’t want to do that because, you know, DC in summer without air-conditioning, but, says Wilson, “Politics is adjourned.”

One tax the US doesn’t like: Mexico’s new tax on oil, which the Wilson administration claims amounts to confiscating the property of US businesses without due process.

Draft Dodger of the Day -100:

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Today -100: May 27, 1918: Oh the infectious humanity!

Rumor of the Day -100:

This replaces the recent rumor that he is in fact dead.

Headline of the Day -100:  

You had one job!

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Today -100: May 26, 1918: Of insidious German plots and loafing

The British are claiming that the Germans planned an uprising in Ireland, to start around the time the spring offensive succeeded. They’d establish u-boat bases in Ireland and... oh c’mon, who’s falling for this crap?

Secretary of War Newton Baker says the anti-loafing order is not intended to bring all of labor under military control. A likely story. He also says that it’s not supposed to apply to people on strike.

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Today -100: May 25, 1918: Of declarations of war, women’s suffrage, and wheat

Costa Rica declares war on the Central Powers (but won’t actually do any war stuff).  However the current CR government was put in place by a military coup last year and is not recognized by the US, so it won’t be represented at the Versailles peace talks and will technically still be at war until after World War II.

Canada extends the vote in federal elections to women of British or Canadian citizenship over 21, except in Quebec, where women won't have the vote until 1940. Also not included: women banned from voting by the provinces because of race (Chinese in Saskatchewan, all Asians in British Columbia until 1948), Inuits or First Nations women.

Headline of the Day -100: 

The Thompson Restaurant (one of a chain) says it mostly serves sandwiches and pastries, so, you know, wheat, and it’s following all governmental guidelines.

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Today -100: May 24, 1918: No Government which is for the profiteers can also be for the people

A Mrs. Rose Pastor Stokes is convicted in federal court for writing a letter to the Kansas City Star saying, “No Government which is for the profiteers can also be for the people, and I am for the people, while the Government is for the profiteers.” The judge instructed the jury: “Anything which lowers the morale of our forces, which serves to chill enthusiasm, extinguish confidence, and retard cooperation, may very well cause insubordination, disloyalty, or mutiny.”

The House of Representatives adopts a provision to force the president to ban the production of beer and wine.

The Lord Mayor of Dublin wants to come to the US to see Pres. Wilson but the British government is demanding that he submit any documents he intends to bring with him for their approval or they will refuse him a passport. He may have planned to demand that the future League of Nations deal with the Irish question.

The federal government plans to take the “anti-loafing” laws adopted by several states national, or at least ask all the states to force young men to do useful work or go into the military. Jobs the government considers not useful include race track attendants, clairvoyants, waiters, elevator operators, servants, and sales clerks. Secretary of War Newton Baker refuses to say whether professional baseball players will be spared.

A black man is lynched in Georgia.

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Today -100: May 23, 1918: Stormy waves of imperialistic reaction are broken one against another

Rumors keep cropping up that deposed Russian Prime Minister Kerensky is about to arrive in New York, which keep not being true (although he is in fact in the process of sneaking out of Russia). Rich Russian exiles rent a brownstone for him on Riverside Drive. It sounds nice.

Lenin tells the Central Executive Committee, “The situation is that stormy waves of imperialistic reaction, which seem ready any moment to drown the little island of the Socialist Soviet Republic, are broken one against another.” But he warns that Russia may not remain safe, as the bourgeoisie of Germany, the US, Japan etc “have a common interest in dividing up the globe.” So Russia needs a proper army. This will come when the peasant soldiers return home and realize they now have something to defend.

France, Britain, Italy and the UK reject the German-Romanian peace deal.

Austria will try to divide (and conquer) the Czechs by creating 12 decentralized provinces in Bohemia to “take the first step towards the reestablishment of order in Bohemia.” The plan is to give the ethnic German minority electoral and other power way out of disproportion to its numbers. Austria may also later create a “German Bohemia.” This is not just about subjugating Bohemia, but rigging elections to ensure a German majority in the federal parliament (Reichsrath), where Czechs, Croats, Poles, Ruthenians etc are increasingly working together.

The Federation of Russian Associations of America, a recently formed group, will ask Pres. Wilson for permission to send Russian volunteers into Russia to fight Germany and, too, also, the Bolsheviks.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Enemy cotton is the worst kind of cotton.

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Today -100: May 22, 1918: Of railroads, suppressing all things German, monarchies, and insidious German plots

The Wilson administration fires the presidents of all the railroads. It may rehire them (at a lower salary) as government employees, following government orders only.

Mrs. Oliver Cromwell Field, chair of the American Defense Society's Committee for Suppressing All Things German, fails to persuade NYC Mayor Hylan to ban all German newspapers.

Headline of the Day -100: 

New Finnish dictator Pehr Evind Svinhufvud says what the country really needs is a constitutional monarchy. He does not mean himself.

Austria bans correspondence in Hebrew.

The US government leaks that German agents are inciting Irish people in the US. Also Finns. And Lithuanians. And negroes. The US evidently provided the British with some of the intel they used in the mass arrest of Sinn Feiners this week.

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Today -100: May 21, 1918: Of dictators, air mail, and cops

Headline of the Day -100: 

Pehr Evind Svinhufvud (pronounced exactly like it’s spelled, probably). With German backing. 

Yet another air mail mishap. A plane on the DC-Philly leg snaps a propeller when landing for gas, tries to resume anyway, develops engine trouble, flips upside down and is badly damaged on landing (the pilot is ok).

An NYPD patrolman who was originally born in Germany is suspended for refusing to put Red Cross placards on doorknobs during his patrol.

The NYPD will add 12 women police officers to the current 5. They’ll have guns and badges and everything. I don’t know if this is the first time women cops are given guns.

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Today -100: May 20, 1918: Of regime changes, mass arrests, lynchings, and side deals

A curious NYT article says that certain unnamed people in Washington think Russia can be brought back into the war. Of course it would involve overthrowing the Bolsheviks first.

The Chief Secretary of Ireland, Edward Shortt, tells an American reporter that he didn’t have all those Sinn Fein leaders arrested because of home rule or conscription, it’s just about the German plot that totally exists to start a rebellion and maybe land some soldiers to help.

Four negroes are lynched, in separate incidents, in Valdosta, Georgia, in connection with the home invasion and murder of a white farmer.

The new Entente treaty may (or may not) include the deal made between Italy and the “Jugoslavs” to create a nation of Yugoslavia (yes, I’m going to have to figure out how I want to handle the J/Y thing) combining Serbia with the Croatian and Slovenian bits of the Austrian Empire.

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Today -100: May 19, 1918: I am still optimistic enough to believe we shall have peace this year

German Chancellor Count von Hertling says “I am still optimistic enough to believe we shall have peace this year. I cherish firm confidence that further events in the west will bring us nearer a speedy end of the war.” SPOILER: He’s not wrong.

Germany will seize 3 million suits of clothes from anyone who has more than one, to supply war workers who are presently being supplied with paper clothes, which are proving less than satisfactory. Evening clothes and smoking jackets are exempt. The military will also be inspecting household fittings like doorknobs and sinks for copper, nickel, aluminum, etc that might be seized.

A new treaty has been signed between Italy and the remaining members of the Entente, replacing the secret 1915 treaty the Bolshevik government published, which contained a laundry list of territorial bribes to get Italy into the war. So Italy is giving up those demands, because at this stage that sort of thing just looks bad. Next year when the Treaty of Versailles is being negotiated, Italy will pretend this never happened and demand everything it thinks it has coming to it.

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Today -100: May 18, 1918: Of treasonable communication, effeminization, peace leagues, air mail, and compulsory reproduction

Throughout Ireland, Sinn Fein leaders (De Valera, Markievicz, etc), including all SF’s MPs, are arrested, as was the custom, for “treasonable communication with the German enemy,” and transported to England. This follows the recent capture of a man put ashore by a German u-boat, which I guess is the hook for this particular made-up Insidious German Plot. The proclamation from Lord Lieutenant Viscount John French also talks up voluntary enlistments in the army, suggesting that the British might be backing off trying to enforce conscription in Ireland.

Austria is at risk of losing the war and at risk of losing its autonomy to German dictation, so what are Austrian newspapers worried about? The “effeminization” of the army by the recruitment of women clerks and other auxiliary services.

Unclear on the concept:

For the second time in the 3-day history of US air mail, a plane fails to make its appointed rounds. Since mechanical difficulties forced it down, keeping it from making its connection, the plane doing the Philadelphia-NY leg takes off with just 4½ pounds of mail. Another air mail plane, leaving from DC, is forced to land at the Philadelphia Country Club, scattering people on the field and hitting a fence, because the pilot ran out of fuel after getting really lost (using road maps is turning out to be unsatisfactory).

A German government commission into the declining birth rate recommends punishing people who haven’t married by 21 and couples who haven’t produced children.

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Today -100: May 17, 1918: Phew

Germany finally responds to Uruguay’s repeated requests that it clarify whether the two countries are at war: No, they are not.

Mary Macarthur of the Women’s Trade Union League becomes the first woman adopted as a candidate for the British Parliament by one of the parties – Labour. For Stourbridge. She was a long-time women’s suffrage activist, a champion of working women, and opposes the war. Her husband is a Labour MP. She will not win.

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Today -100: May 16, 1918: Of air mail

The first air mail service anywhere (for a whopping 24¢) begins between New York and Washington via Philadelphia. It takes 200 minutes, despite the first pilot, after being seen off ceremoniously by the president and first lady, getting lost on the way to Philadelphia and having to land and breaking his propeller in the landing, so that his mail had to continue by truck, so only the Philadelphia-DC mail actually made it to its destination by air. Or, as the post office measures such things, close enough.

Hearst’s New York American and New York Evening Journal get an injunction against the town of Mount Vernon, NY’s plan to ban the Hearst press. It’s unclear (to me) whether German-language papers, also banned, are protected by the injunction.

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Today -100: May 15, 1918: Of Mitteleuropa, rationing, shared war burdens, and censorship

The Austrian and German kaisers met recently, and everyone thinks the purpose was to subordinate Austria to German, not just in the war (Germany wants Austria to send more troops against Italy), but in internal matters, and tie the countries together forever (“Mitteleuropa”). Also, it looks like Germany intends to keep parts of Poland it had promised to Austria.

Meat rationing begins in Paris. It’s going slowly because butchers are having difficulty cutting precisely the 200g of meat allowed per person.

The Germans have captured Rostov, cutting off northern Russia from the Caucasus. It’s almost like the Peace of Brest-Litovsk wasn’t a real peace. German control over Ukraine is tightening.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: This particular rumor, sent to Secretary of State Robert Lansing from the ambassador to Sweden, who got it from who knows where, says that Germany has demanded that Russia let it occupy Moscow and other major Russian cities.

Kaiser Wilhelm recognizes an independent Lithuania, if a Lithuania “allied to the German Empire by an eternal, steadfast alliance” can be called independent, which it cannot. Willy expects Lithuania to “participate in the war burdens of Germany, which secured her liberation.”

The city of Mount Vernon, New York, bans all German-language newspapers and also, just for the hell of it, the Hearst press, for the duration of the war.

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Today -100: May 14, 1918: Oh the huma... no, I guess not

German POWs are saying that Field Marshal Hindenburg is dead. He isn’t.

New York now has an “anti-loafing” law, requiring men aged 18 to 50 to have a job. Loitering in the streets, pool halls, saloons, etc will be considered prima facie evidence of loafing. Students and men out on strike are ok. Gov. Whitman admits that the law is of questionable constitutionality, but since New Jersey enacted its own anti-loafing law, “undesirable persons” have been coming to NY to escape it.

The US citizenship of Frederick Wusterbarth, the former postmaster of Clifton, New Jersey, is revoked because he said he wants Germany to win the war. The grounds are that he obtained citizenship fraudulently 36 years ago, swearing allegiance to his new country while retaining a superior allegiance to his old one. This involves the court taking his current feelings as proof of his state of mind 36 years ago (the court says that attachment to the US always grows over time, so he must have been even more disloyal back then), which is bad logic and even worse lawyering. There’s a lot of crappy lawyering aimed at dissent in 1918.

Jewish peddlers on the East Side of New York City, you know, the old-timey ones with the push-carts selling fish and whatnot, are now selling Thrift Stamps (the cheap version of War Stamps).

Infantry sergeant Ernst Flentje is court-martialed for saying that Woodrow Wilson is incompetent and that the US shouldn’t have entered the war. He is sentenced to 30 years.

Czech members of the Austrian House of Lords (Herrenhaus) demand an independent Czech state.

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Today -100: May 13, 1918: Of secret treaties and over there

A Swiss newspaper publishes what it claims is a secret treaty in which Russia “gives” Poland to Germany, promising, for example, to support Germany’s view at any peace conference that the Polish question is not an international one but one for Germany alone.

The Entente decides not to use the US army until it’s, you know, ready. In the meantime, they will use the minimal force necessary to hold off the Germans, as they use up their reserves.

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Today -100: May 12, 1918: Of huskies, meat, and insubordination

Headline of the Day -100: 

Fat shaming is NOT okay.

Headline of the Day -100. I do not know what is up with race-horse names. I passed a couple of days ago on naming “Cudgel Beats Omar Khayyam” as a headline of the day, but this....

“Bondage was intrusted to the apprentice rider, Rodriguez, and it looked as though the rider had him in difficulties in the early part of the race. While Mary Maud was racing the fleet Nutcracker into submission Bondage was in seventh place and in tight quarters.”

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Germany is telling its people that US military training camps are so rife with insubordination that after a wave of execution they’ve had to stop because they’d just be killing all the soldiers.

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