Today -100: September 16, 1918: Of peace talks, Germany’s hired tools & pressed trousers, flu, and the dangers of gaslessness

Austria invites all belligerent nations to send delegates to hold talks. Behind closed doors and non-binding, you know, just talkin’, on the principle that statements directed by the powers at each other have tended, by their public nature, to “strike a higher tone and stubbornly to adhere to extreme standpoints.” While the formal invitation hasn’t yet wended its way to the US, officially anyway, the reception is already not perhaps what Austria had hoped.

Germany generously proposes to restore Belgium’s independence (after the war), if it will remain neutral until then, restore commercial treaties with Germany, do something about the Flemish, and, astonishingly, lobby for Germany to get its colonies back.

The NYT editorializes on the forged documents it’s been publishing, “proving” that the October Revolution was “a counter-revolution, plotted by Germany and carried out by Germany’s hired tools... Nowhere does it appear that any German officer ever commanded Lenine or Trotzky to press his trousers for him; but the correspondence, as a whole, proves that if any such order had been given they would have regarded it as comprehended within the terms on which they entered the German service.” The Bolshies even supposedly changed the results of elections to the Soviet on the orders of the German General Staff.

British Prime Minister Lloyd George’s Spanish Flu relapses. Traffic is diverted from around the hotel where he’s staying so he can get some sleep.

Point:

Counterpoint: 

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Today -100: September 15, 1918: Could I have my way there would be no soldiers

Camp Devens, Mass. is hit badly by Spanish Flu. Ditto Camp Lee, Virginia, whose commandant has banned any gatherings including religious services but claims the situation is not serious.

Eugene Debs is sentenced to 10 years. He tells the judge, “I believe the soldier has no more sympathetic friend than I am. Could I have my way there would be no soldiers.”

The War Department says it will not accept deaf-mutes as pilots. A rumor’s been going around that deafness gives you special ability to sense motion (don’t know what muteness has to do with anything). The rumor is said to have been started by German agents because reasons.

The NYT prints (and will for days to come) documents handed out by the Committee on Public Information (the Creel Committee) purporting to be communications between Germany and Russian Bolshevik leaders, proving conclusively that Lenin, Trotsky etc are paid German agents. The Creel Committee will publish the documents (known as the Sisson Documents) as a pamphlet, despite doubts about their authenticity. They are forgeries.

In Detroit, 3 arrested Russians confess to a secret Bolshevik plot to enroll 20,000 Russian Bolsheviks in Detroit to impede the war effort and start a revolution.

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Today -100: September 14, 1918: Where do we go from here?

Pres. Wilson sends a letter to the union of striking machinists in Bridgeport, Connecticut who refuse to accept a National War Labor Board ruling. He calls their strike “disloyalty and dishonor” and threatens to revoke their draft exemptions. Simultaneously, to prove his even-handedness between management & labor, Wilson orders the take-over of Smith & Wesson after its refusal to accept the Board’s order that it stop (for the duration of the war) making workers sign contracts not to join a union.

Surgeon General Rupert Blue admits that there was a Spanish flu outbreak at Fort Morgan, Alabama in August. The last influenza pandemic was in 1889-90, so Blue offers information on how to handle it to doctors who have never seen one. He has concluded that quarantines are useless against the disease. The Navy is banning sailors from Boston because of the spread of flu there.

Headline of the Day -100:

And we’re gonna keep printing these rumors in the hope that eventually it might be true.

The public is informed of Lloyd George’s influenza.

Journalist John Reed, in a lecture, says Russia wouldn’t have signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty if the US had promised it food and ammunition, and Lenin & Trotsky had sent Woodrow Wilson a cable to that effect 6 days before signing but received no reply. The anonymous but presumably governmental response to this claim is that that cable was just another sneaky attempt to get the US to recognize the Bolshevik government. Reed also accuses Britain of being behind the attempted assassination of Lenin. He will, of course, be arrested for this speech.

Headline of the Day -100:  

“The battle's done and we kind of won, So we sound our vict’ry cheer...”

Oh all right, here’s the actual song.

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Today -100: September 13, 1918: This must be the last war

Eugene Debs is convicted of violating the Espionage Act, specifically inciting insubordination, mutiny etc in the military, obstructing recruitment, and language intended to incite resistance to the US and promote the cause of the enemy. He is acquitted of “opposition to the cause of the United States.”

NYC Health Commissioner Royal Copeland says that despite passengers arriving on ships with the Spanish flu, there is no danger of it spreading. But anybody to whom it does spread should just lie down for, like, 3 days.

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George gives a speech in Manchester promising (this is essentially the start of his election campaign) promising to improve the health of the nation: “You cannot maintain an A1 Empire with a C3 population.” And then...

Yup, that’s the Spanish flu. He may have to lie down for considerably more than 3 days. With a respirator.

Elsewhere in the speech, LG is quite optimistic about the war, which “must be the last war”: “Nothing but heart failure on the part of the British nation can prevent our achieving a real victory.” He supports a League of Nations – but only after the complete and utter defeat of Germany, otherwise it would be “a league of fox and geese – one fox and many geese. The geese would greatly diminish in numbers.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

That’s a lot of drug fiends.

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Today -100: September 12, 1918: Of dead Romanovs, deserters, flaming cities, slacker raids, and possible kings

The Daily Express (London) says that former Russian Tsarina Alexandra and her daughters are definitely dead. Still no official Russian announcement.

The NYT claims that a couple of weeks ago 25,000 German soldiers on leave in Berlin simply refused to return to the front, so soldiers are now banned from taking leave in Berlin. Also, the Germans are supposedly building a huge trench system along the Dutch-Belgian border to prevent German troops deserting to the Netherlands when/if Belgium is evacuated.

In other rumors, Petrograd is “in flames” and there are indiscriminate massacres (conducted by whom is not clear) on the streets, and Germany is using women pilots in its fighters.

Eugene Debs refuses to present any evidence or argument in his defense beyond pointing out that there is such a thing as the First Amendment. He will find out that there is not. He also points out that Abraham Lincoln opposed the Mexican-American War. The DA says there wasn’t an Espionage Act back then.

US Attorney General Thomas W. Gregory defends the “slacker raids,” the dragnets looking for draft-dodgers, but admits that the use of the military in those raids was contrary to his instructions.

Yet another German princeling, Friedrich Karl of Hesse, says that yes, he’d like to be king of Finland. He’s currently touring the country campaigning for the job. He is married to Kaiser Wilhelm’s sister.

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Today -100: September 11, 1918: Of retaliations, ears, indirection & insinuation, new blows, executions, and hangmen

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda, Fake News, and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Trotsky is said to have threatened, in a cable to White Gen. Mikhail Alekseyev, to shoot one officer for every Bolshevik killed by the White Guard or Czech Legion, to which Alekseyev allegedly responded that if they did that, he would retaliate against Jews. The Jews respond, “Hey, what?”

German soldiers are said to be afraid of US black soldiers because they’ve heard that they cut the ears off prisoners.

The Eugene Debs trial continues. Evidently his crime is not that he directly said bad things, but that he imparted an anti-war message “by indirection and insinuation.”

Headline That Sounds Dirty But Isn’t of the Day -100:

Some of the most recently announced executions in Russia include tsarist ministers of interior and of justice.

Luxembourg is pissed that Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde’s sister Antonia is engaged to Bavarian Crown Prince Rupprecht, who commands the German Sixth Army and is evidently known as “Luxembourg’s Hangman.”

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Today -100: September 10, 1918: Of Jews, red terrors, and trials

Lev Kamenev is named temporary replacement for Lenin. The NYT points out that the 3 now holding the top positions in Russia (Stalin isn’t on their radar yet), Kamenev, Trotsky, and Yakov Sverdlov, the chair of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, are all Jews (well, they all have at least one Jewish parent, if that counts).

Headline of the Day -100: 

The Bolsheviks are openly using the term Red Terror as a, like, good thing.

Eugene Debs’ trial begins in Cleveland. 7 members of the audience are arrested for applauding his lawyer’s opening speech. 

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Today -100: September 9, 1918: I would much rather be a man in jail than a coward outside of it

Fanya Kaplan, who shot Lenin, is executed.

NYT Index Typo of the Day:

And boy, if you don’t have “delight in war” any more, what can you have delight in?

The NYT complains that German newspapers exaggerate the number of Germans who are lynched in the US.

Police raid the Socialist State Convention in Detroit, ostensibly looking for draft evaders. Addressing the convention, presumably before the raid, Eugene Debs says of his forthcoming trial, “I would much rather be a man in jail than a coward outside of it,” adding “but being a man outside of jail would be even better, ammiright?”

Pennsylvania anthracite coal miners meet and agree to respond to the fuel administrator’s refusal to increase their wages with a general strike. They demand to be drafted, since they can’t support their families through mining.

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Today -100: September 8, 1918: Of Junker trickery, gum, and dead Lenins

Headline of the Day -100: 

Oh no, not moderate ideas!

Novelist Gertrude Atherton writes to the NYT imploring Herbert Hoover to ban chewing gum from being sent to US soldiers in Europe. She fears that the French are already picking up the horrid habit.

“Travelers” arriving in Sweden from Moscow say Lenin is definitely dead.

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Today -100: September 7, 1918: Why does the enemy incite colored people against the German soldiers?

Xu Shichang is elected president of China.  He will spend the next 4 years trying to balance various warlords off against each other.

Columbia, NYU, City College of NY, along with many other colleges, plan to cease to be academic institutions and exist purely for military training.

The Food Administration orders all breweries to shut down on December 1st.

The NYT interviews Maj. Gen. William Luther Sibert, the Director of Chemical Warfare – and wow, you’d think they’d use a euphemism but no, it’s just straight-up Director of Chemical Warfare – bragging about mustard gas and the quality of American gas masks.

Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg issues an address to the German people saying that Entente planes have been dropping pamphlets containing “most insane rumors,” such as that Germany is losing the war. “Why,” asks Mr. von H, “does the enemy incite colored people against the German soldiers? Because he wants to annihilate us.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: September 6, 1918: Of roundups, dead Romanovs, pacifists, Zionists, and daddies

Some senators are pissed at the “slacker roundups,” pointing out that fewer than 1% of those arrested were actual draft dodgers. They’re asking who is responsible for soldiers and sailors being used to seize Americans off the streets of American cities.

Headline of the Day -100:

It’s on page 13, which is what you do when you don’t really believe the rumor but you’re printing it anyway because what the hell.

An Italian military court sentences Giovanni Fassina, a Socialist member of the Milan City Council who refused to be drafted, to be shot – in the back, which is just, like, sarcastic. It sounds like he’s in Switzerland and was tried in absentia.

Pres. Wilson sends a Rosh Hashanah greeting to Rabbi Stephen Wise praising Chaim Weizmann’s Zionist commission. The Rabbis’ National Committee of New York protests, saying Zionism poses a religious and political problem for Jews and would lead to divided allegiances for American Jews.

Now playing: John Hobble’s play “Daddies” at the Belasco Theatre. The NYT reviewer says “The sentimental comedy of the war orphan has arrived.” Evidently it’s sort of a Three Men and a Baby thing about a club of anti-marriage bachelors who find themselves in charge of war orphans through various hilarious mixups, and one of the orphans is twins and one is a 17-year-old French girl one of them eventually marries, I guess? And one agrees to marry, sight unseen, the French mother of the baby he’s been caring for. Sounds kind of terrible, but it will run and run and be made into a movie in 1924.

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Today -100: September 5, 1918: Of censorship, German fear propaganda, places of refuge, and bad headaches and worse grouches

Gen. Pershing evidently got French authorities to suspend the Socialist newspaper L’Heure for some reason.

A couple of Post Office workers, a sailor and a random woman are killed by a bomb presumably planted by member(s) of the IWW in the Chicago Post Office Building where the trial of the Wobbly leaders was held last week. Big Bill Haywood says it must have been “German fear propaganda” because no Wobbly would do such a thing.

The British embassy in Petrograd is attacked by Soviet troops. A British soldier, the alliterative Captain Cromie, is killed, but only after himself shooting down 3 Russian soldiers, according to the story the Brits will be putting out. Embassy staff are arrested on suspicion of plotting with counter-revolutionaries, which they are totally doing. Britain demands satisfaction – satisfaction, I say! – or it will ensure that members of the Soviet government are treated as international outlaws and “no place of refuge shall be left to them.”

Another ship arrives in NY from Europe after a mid-Atlantic outbreak of Spanish Flu. 2 dead, both Italian steerage passengers, 23 other cases, including one non-steerage passenger, a Claude Almyr, Wales of the Locomobile Company of Bridgeport, CT, who says this version of influenza is much worse than other diseases: “It gives its victims a bad headache and a worse grouch.”

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Today -100: September 4, 1918: Of round-ups domestic and foreign, primaries, and governments clothed with proper authority

Another mass roundup of suspected “slackers” inconveniences 20,000 young men in New York City, 12,000 in New Jersey, 27,000 in Chicago, etc. This will, as usual, be a colossal waste of time and manpower, yielding just a handful of actual draft evaders, while men who didn’t happen to have their documents on them (some because they’re too old to be eligible for the draft and thus have no documents) are held overnight while trying to get someone to bring documents.

In response to the assassination attempt on Lenin, thousands of arrests are made, focusing on the Social Revolutionary (SR) Party, and an order is issued that everyone found with a gun will be instantly executed and every active opponent of the Soviet government will be placed in a concentration camp and their property seized. Non-residents of Moscow and Petrograd are ordered to leave those cities.

New York gubernatorial primaries: it’ll be Charles Whitman, going for a 3rd term, for the R’s, and Al Smith for the D’s.

The US recognizes Czechoslovakia as a nation, and Tomáš Masaryk’s Czechoslovak National Council as its de facto government, “clothed with proper authority to direct the political and military affairs of the Czechoslovaks.” It does not explain who it was who so clothed them. Masaryk is currently in the US, and his wife is American.

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Today -100: September 3, 1918: Nature abhors anarchy

Evidently Lenin’s not dead after all. The NYT editorializes, dickishly: “The shooting of Nikolai Lenine, like the shooting of Nikolai Romanoff, was a thing that was bound to come. If he is not dead of his wounds, as reported, it is probable that he will be shot again. ... Nature abhors anarchy, and has its own way of curing it”.

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Today -100: September 2, 1918: Of horses and carriages and paid agents, political tools/plain fanatics

Important Correction: Pres. and Mrs. Wilson did not walk to church to observe Motorless Sunday, they rode in a horse-drawn carriage.

Headline of the Day -100: 

His premature obit begins, “Nickolai Lenine, the man who brought Russia to the verge of ruin, and then delivered her to the Germans in the treaty of Brest-Litovsk... Paid agent, political tool or plain fanatic there is no doubt of the man’s ability or the strong impression he made upon those with whom he came in contact.”

The assassin, Fanya Kaplan, “a young girl belonging to the intellectual class,” has been arrested.

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Today -100: September 1, 1918: Of assassinations, fruit pits, and some of the best men in the community

Lenin is shot twice by Fanya Kaplan (sometimes called Dora Kaplan), a Jewish member of the banned Social Revolutionary (SR) Party and former prisoner for her part as a 16-year-old in a plot to assassinate a Tsarist official. Lenin is pretty badly injured and will never fully recover.

Also assassinated: Moisei Uritsky, the head of the Cheka in Petrograd, by a former military cadet.

The London police strike ends swiftly with a nice raise and sort-of recognition of their union.

Since the administration asked the American people not to drive on Sundays, Pres. Wilson has to walk to church.

The War Dept asks people to save their fruit pits and nut shells to make into charcoal for gas masks.

The Ku Klux Klan revived in 1915. I believe this is the first time the NYT has mentioned it. Some Kluxers grab a strike organizer in Mobile, Alabama from the police. He hasn’t been seen since. They also seem to have kidnapped another unionist in Birmingham, Alabama. The article’s tone is supportive of these activities: “Wherever it is organized it is made up of some of the best men in the community.” (Voiceover: It isn’t.)

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Today -100: August 31, 1918: When once war is declared that right ceases

In Chicago, Big Bill Haywood and 14 other IWW leaders are sentenced to 20 years in prison, with 5- and 10-year sentences for other Wobblies. Plus fines. Judge Landis: “When the country is at peace it is a legal right of free speech to oppose going to war and to oppose even preparation for war. But when once war is declared that right ceases.”

War is Hell: Germany has run out of tobacco leaf, so its cigar factories will have to close.

London cops go on strike. An unnamed “high Scotland Yard official” accuses them of mutinying in the face of the enemy.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Sounds smelly.

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Today -100: August 30, 1918: May she prosper and grow conservative

Another day, another self-declared Russian “government,” this one formed by members of the old Constituent Assembly at Samara and consisting of three Tsarist-era generals led by Mikhail Alekseyev, acting as a Directorate.

Rep. Jeanette Rankin fails in the Montana Republican primary for US Senate and the NYT dances on her political grave, accusing her of “kootooing to or consorting with Sinn Feiners, the Non-Partisan League, the I.W.W.” “Miss Rankin should never have gone into politics. Her judgment is feebly developed in comparison with her sentimentality. May she prosper and grow conservative!”

British suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, touring the US, says American women should be employed making planes and poisoning themselves in munitions factories like their British counterparts, because #feminism.

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Today -100: August 29, 1918: If you can’t trust a certain Erbs, conductor of a Swedish band, who can you trust?

The Horvath Dictatorship in Eastern Siberia collapses after, like, an hour when the Entente tells him no.

Where is the (dead) former tsarina Alexandra now? According to the Daily Mail, citing a pseudonymous source in Sweden, who in turn cites “the authority of a certain Erbs, conductor of a Swedish band,” Alexandra and her daughters are alive and well and living in Crimea and were in fact never in Siberia, that was just a Bolshevik lie. Also, A. Certain Erbs thinks Tsar Nicholas is not reallly dead.

In yet another example of the NYT quoting pretty much anyone, James Keeley, the former owner of The Chicago Herald, says Germany is even now picking out a new tsar for Russia.

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Today -100: August 28, 1918: Of essential work, dictators, border skirmishes, and Sunday drives

The Senate unanimously passes the bill expanding the draft to ages 18-45 years (it was 21-31), and includes a “work or fight” amendment drafting anyone not employed in “essential” work. Strikers who obey arbitration decisions of the War Labor Board are exempted.

Speaking of essential work, the LAPD decide that movie extras are not performing it, and raid the movie studios to arrest extras.

Henry Ford wins the Democratic nomination for US Senate from Michigan, but not (at least in the early results) the Republican nomination. He says if he does get both he’ll flip a coin.

Former South Carolina governor Coleman Blease (remember him?) loses the primary for US Senate.

Gen. Dimitri Horvath declares himself dictator in Siberia.

A bunch of US soldiers are killed, and a lot more Mexicans on the border at Nogales, Arizona after a Mexican customs official tried to smuggle someone across the border. No idea what this is all about or who the Mexicans might be. (Update: it seems the shooting was started by a US private firing across the border and hitting a Mexican soldier. He claims the Mexicans were about to shoot).

The Fuel Administration asks everyone to stop driving or motor-boating on Sundays.

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