Today -100: February 19, 1911: Of Jack London, E.M. Forster, and the bath tub men

The district attorney in New Orleans indicts Manuel Bonilla, the former president of Honduras who is attempting to overthrow its current government, and his American mercenary general Lee Christmas, on a charge of attempting to smuggle weapons from the US.

There’s a report (or possibly just a rumor) that Jack London has been arrested on the Mexican border for violations of the neutrality laws.

The Sunday book review section rather fails to connect with E.M. Forster’s Howards End, and concludes, “Mr. Forster’s métier would seem to be conventional comedy. ... But he evinces neither power nor inclination to come to grips with any vital human problem.”

The anti-trust case against the “Bath Tub Trust” continues to produce amusing headlines: “Bath Tub Men Seek Immunity.” For crimes against rubber duckies, one imagines.

Today -100: February 18, 1911: Of train theft, fine dining, racial covenants, and royal standup

Those Wobblies are forced off the train they hijacked. Only made it as far as Ashland, Ore.

Headline of the Day -100: “Taft to Dine Classmates.” Er, that doesn’t mean Taft will eat his classmates, does it? Does it?

Black people are annoyed at a judge on the District Supreme Court (which I guess is the court with jurisdiction over D.C.) who, when sentencing a black purse-snatcher, said “From the viewpoint of the white women of the National capital, it is not to be tolerated that a colored man should dare to put his hand on one of them, and a man of your color who lays hands on a white woman will not be tolerated if I can help it.”

91 property owners on W 136th Street in NYC, calling themselves the Harlem Real Estate Protective Association, file a covenant in the Hall of Records that none of them will rent or sell to black people (including mulattos, quadroons, or octoroons) for the next 15 years. Tenants will even be restricted from employing more than one servant who is negro, mulatto etc. Somehow this covenant is supposed to be constitutional (and legally binding) because it carefully states that they have nothing against people occupying their premises solely on account of their race, but just want to keep rents up (by keeping blacks out). They claim that colored tenants are being deliberately brought in as part of a real estate speculation/blackmail scheme.

Headline of the Day -100: “LAUGH AT KAISER’S JOKES.; Agricultural Congress Ripples with Merriment as He Talks Farming.” Jokes by Kaiser Wilhelm about farming! Well known as the height of humor -100. Tell us, tell us! Unfortunately... the NYT doesn’t relate a single one of the jokes. I has a sad.

Behind the Curveball

The Guardian: “Colin Powell, the US secretary of state at the time of the Iraq invasion, has called on the CIA and Pentagon to explain why they failed to alert him to the unreliability of a key source behind claims of Saddam Hussein’s bio-weapons capability.”

Because you didn’t ask.

This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.

It all makes sense now

Archeologists prove that ancient Britons were in fact zombies.

Wait. Pale, grayish skin, bad teeth, silly walks, steak and kidney pies, Margaret Thatcher...

Today -100: February 17, 1911: Of reciprocity, bribery, and train theft

Although Secretary of State Knox denied yesterday that the reciprocity treaty with Canada has anything to do with annexing Canada, Rep. William Bennet (R-NY), an opponent of the measure, introduces a spoiling resolution, intended to embarrass the Canadians or something, calling for Taft to begin negotiations with Great Britain on the annexation of Canada by the US.

A former NY state senator turned lobbyist Frank Gardner is being tried for bribing State Sen. Otto Foelker in 1908 to vote against bills banning racetrack gambling (he was brought from his sickbed after an appendectomy and carried in to vote on a stretcher, and the bill was defeated by one vote). Foelker, now a member of Congress, is the chief witness against Gardner and was cross-examined today. His honesty came into question. For example, he took the Regents’ Examination in his late 20s as a prerequisite for being admitted to the bar. The exam was given in the Grand Central Palace. Which entrance did he use? 42nd street. There is no such entrance. “Parlez-vous Français?” Not so much, although he scored 100% in his French exam. He scored 95% in logarithms and 98% in syntax, although on the stand he could not even define either term. In other words, he paid someone to take the test for him, someone currently in jail for taking tests for people. Foelker says the man was just his tutor. Gardner will be acquitted and Foelker’s political career is over.

A bunch of Industrial Workers of the World in Washington state, intending to go to Fresno to “attempt to enforce their alleged right to speak on the streets” (the NYT doesn’t explain what that’s about) steal a train from Southern Pacific. Wobblies were so fucking cool.

Today -100: February 16, 1911: Why English-speaking people are exactly like bees

Mexican Gen. Navarro declares Juarez under martial law, shutting down all businesses, “including saloons and keno games.”

Secretary of State Philander Knox denies that the reciprocity treaty with Canada is a first step towards absorbing Canada into the US: “It is an ethnological fact that political units of the English-speaking people never lose their autonomy. Like bees, they give off their swarms, who set up for themselves independently, but they do not make political combinations among themselves.”

That’s a trick question, right?

At a press conference, his first of 2011, Obama, asked, “If we’re cutting infant formula to poor kids, is that who we are as a people?”

Caption contest

“So it’s just us presidents here – or ‘president’s,’ as the punctuation morons at CNN will probably put it – you can tell me: how many times did you drop Junior on his head as a baby? It had to be at least six, right?”

Today -100: February 15, 1911: Of Juarez and lukewarm water

Mexican federale Gen. Navarro arrives in Juarez with reinforcements (about 1,000 soldiers) from Chihuahua, unopposed by the insurrectos, who seem to be planning to leave Navarro isolated and bottled up in Juarez while they operate freely in the large area of the country he just left undefended. Now, if he tries to move his forces back south, they can easily block him by burning railroad bridges. Nevertheless, the NYT declares for something like the twentieth time that the Mexican Revolution is probably now “a closed incident.”

Johns Hopkins is evidently now using lukewarm water as anaesthesia for most appendectomies.