Today -100: September 7, 1911: Of blackguardism and hysteria

SC Governor Coleman Blease writes a letter to the NYT, which had rather mildly suggested that he might have better uses for his time than waging a war on the memory of Gen. Sherman. Blease accuses the NYT editor of “blackguardism... much of which is false and comes from a heart which is corrupt and from a head which is willing to lie or abuse in order to carry a point or win a temporary victory”. As evidence of his own high character he cites his election by “nearly 57,000 white voters”. He says that his defense of the Confederate army is not motivated by hatred for “the Yankee or the nigger.” He adds, “The Confederates were right; they fought for the highest of principles”.

The LAT quotes a circular put out by the Anti-Suffrage Association for next month’s Prop. 8 on women’s suffrage: “Women who assume the responsibilities of suffrage must either add it to present duties or lay down those duties to take up this one. The frequent low state of health among American women is a fact as undeniable as it is deplorable. When women generally vote and hold office, nervous prostration, desire for publicity and ‘love of the limelight’ will combine to produce a form of hysteria already increasing in the United States.”

The voice of the feral overclass speaks

British “Justice Minister” Kenneth Clarke blames the riots on a “feral underclass, cut off from the mainstream in everything but its materialism.” So at least they have one redeeming quality, is that what you’re saying, Ken?

A feral underclass is what happens when weak-minded bleeding hearts no longer let you hunt them down like the vermin they are, right Ken?

Today -100: September 6, 1911: Rumors of war

Truman Newberry, who was Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Navy, is charged with murder after running over an 8-year-old girl (or 7 years old, according to the article a week later saying the charges were dropped).

Rumors of impending war with France continue to grow in Germany. There are runs on banks in some places, and a story is running around that the ambassador to France was murdered in Paris. Rumors also arose from the early return of a regiment of German dragoons to their base in upper Alsace from maneuvers, however that was actually due to dysentery (the French army is also conducting maneuvers, which can’t be helping stem the ol’ rumor mill). Socialist unions in Germany have been talking about calling a general strike in the event of war. Non-socialist (which I take to mean Catholic) unions have been calling them traitors.

Today -100: September 5, 1911: Of parades, near-misses, and things that go boom

The mayor of Los Angeles orders the route of the Labor Day parade altered so it doesn’t go past the county jail where the McNamara brothers, accused of blowing up the LA Times building, are currently located.

During a firing exercise the USS Delaware fired its big guns at a repair ship rather than at its target. Well, they looked a lot alike. Fortunately, the Delaware also couldn’t shoot for shit, and missed both times.

In another near miss, a malfunctioning biplane knocks Sen. William Lorimer’s hat off, then crashes into a tree.

Rear Admiral Nathan Twining invents a dirigible aerial torpedo.

Headline of the Day -100: “Woman of 80 Grabs Negro.”

Smokescreen

The worst thing about Obama junking his plans to reverse Bush’s lowering of standards for air pollution is, of course, that people will die because of it, and he knows it. The second worse thing is that he justified it with the argument that protecting the environment and people’s lungs is an optional extra in bad economic times, that profits must always come first. But I want to point out the third worst thing, the craven sneakiness of announcing the decision in a news dump on the Friday before the Labor Day weekend. Obama’s promised transparency has turned out as transparent as the air over Houston.

Oh, and EPA head Lisa Jackson should have resigned in protest. I miss people resigning in protest over matters of principle.

Today -100: September 4, 1911: So that settles that

In Berlin, 200,000 attend a Socialist-organized protest against “the infamous war agitation” which is agitating for a war with France over the Morocco crisis.

Today -100: September 3, 1911: Of land sales, food riots, conspiracies and secessionists

The California congressional delegation is pressuring the State Department to press Mexico to sell the US a strip of the Imperial Valley 50 miles X 20, an area which includes a canal providing the valley with water from the Colorado River. During the Mexican Revolution, rebels demanded (and received) money not to blow up the canal.

There have been food riots in France. The NYT does not approve. It says that people have non-riotous recourse: “To refuse to pay prevailing prices for food is within the rights of all.” Just don’t eat; I don’t know why the French didn’t think of that themselves. Stoopid French people.

The Vatican denies being part of a conspiracy to overthrow the republic in Portugal and re-establish the monarchy.

Southern members of the American Bar Association are threatening to secede after the Association admitted a negro, Assistant United States District Attorney William Lewis.

Today -100: September 2, 1911: A man, a plan, a canal, a cockfight

President Taft bans cock fights, dog fights and bull fights in the Panama Canal Zone.

Headline of the Day -100: “Few Hoboes at Convention.” Hoboes, it turns out, don’t really go to hobo conventions.

This headline is also good: “CROWD GOADS AIRMAN TO FLIGHT AND DEATH; J.J. Frisbie Goes Up in Crippled Machine Because Kansas Spectators Call Him a Faker.” J.J. Frisbie. That name just screams out “man wearing a straw hat,” doesn’t it?

Some days there are no headlines of the day -100, then there are days like this when you get several in a row: “Sultan Receives Women.” “Receives” as in met with a deputation of them complaining about the treatment of women in the Ottoman Empire, not “receives” as in “received a new shipment of dancing girls.”

Rep. Charles Carter (D-OK) beats up four clerks in a store, with his fists and his cane, for allegedly insulting his daughter. The NYT offers an explanation: “Carter’s Blood is Almost Half Indian.”

Double, double, double your fun

Mitt Romney, 2011: I’m only doubling my mansion.

Mitt Romney, 2007: My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo.

Coincidence?

Today -100: September 1, 1911: When blackjacks are outlawed...

A New York state law goes into effect requiring the registration of all firearms and banning the carrying of blackjacks. Another new law makes it illegal for hotels and theaters to refuse admission to soldiers and sailors in uniform (unless they’re drunk).

Today -100: August 31, 1911: Of neutrality, fans, and gala picnics

Belgium is preparing for war, creating a military council to determine how to keep France, Germany and/or Britain from violating its borders if they go to war with each other over Morocco. Shells and ammunition has been sent to frontier forts, and artillery and machine guns to posts on the German border. Good luck with the whole neutrality thing, Belgium, you’ll need it.

General Electric has just finished making the most expensive electric fan ever, gold-mounted with an ebony switch. It’s for Queen Mary.

Mississippi has its first public hanging in 35 years (the NYT says that in the South, “executions are universally private and as far removed from the public gaze as possible”. Suuuuure they are.). You’ll be surprised and amazed to hear it’s a black man, who killed his wife. Stands were set up around the scaffold to sell the crowd sandwiches, coffee, lemonade, peanuts and everything else you need to make a day of it. “It was more like a gala picnic than the dispatching of a soul to eternity.”

This can’t possibly go horribly, horribly wrong

Indy: “Israeli Military to Equip Jewish Settlers with Gas and Grenades.”

Every single one

Today, Obama spoke to the American Legion’s annual conference. He found something good to say about every war every member of the Legion might have fought in. Here are his remarks about Vietnam:

When communist forces in Vietnam unleashed the Tet Offensive, it fueled the debate here at home that raged over that war. You, our Vietnam veterans, did not always receive the respect that you deserved —- which was a national shame. But let it be remembered that you won every major battle of that war. Every single one.

So yay for our triumph in Vietnam.

Still Dick

On the Today show, Dick Cheney explains the continuing benefits of having invaded Iraq: “What would’ve happened this week if Moammar Gadhafi had still been in power with a nuclear weapon in Libya? Would he have fled? I doubt it.” The logic is impeccable. The logic also gives the credit for Qaddafi’s ouster to Bush ‘n Cheney rather than Obama or the Libyan people.

Invading Iraq was “sound policy” because Saddam Hussein was “a major source of proliferation” [of weapons to terrorists]. He still offers no proof of that. And the war did not damage the US’s reputation.

Asked whether the US, having waterboarded people, could complain when another nation waterboarded an American citizen it suspected of being a spy, Cheney said, “We probably would object to it on the ground that we have obligations to our citizens and we do everything we can to protect our citizens. I think we would object because we wouldn’t expect an American citizen to be operating that way.” This is not a double standard, he explained, because the people we tortured, well, “These are not American citizens.” Not sure why he thinks other countries would accept the proposition that Americans, and only Americans, are too good for waterboarding.

He added, “I would argue that it’s important for us not to get caught up in the notion that you can only have popular methods of interrogation if you want to run an effective counterterrorism program.” Yes, that’s the problem with waterboarding: it’s not “popular.”

Today -100: August 30, 1911: The hope of the negro

In a speech in Virginia, Taft says that “those of us who study the question at all know that the hope of the negro is in his white neighbor in the South. ... the negro ought to come, and is coming, more and more under the guardianship of the South.”

Las Vegas, “a town hitherto devoid of large fame,” is thinking about setting up a divorce colony to rival Reno’s.

Chip chip chip

The British government is following the lead of American anti-abortion states like South Dakota by stripping the funding for abortion counseling conducted by groups that also provide abortions and shifting the funding to counseling conducted by Catholic and other anti-abortion groups. Because the Tories are all about offering women “independent” advice and information. And eroding their rights incrementally.

Today -100: August 29, 1911: Of trusts and ’roos behaving badly

Headline of the Day -100: “BATHTUB TRUST KILLED.; Government Also Reaches an Agreement with the Electrical Trust.” I hope they didn’t fiddle with the electrical trust while they were in the bathtub trust, because that would just be dangerous.

The battleship Wisconsin has fired its mascot, a kangaroo named Murphy, for “bad behavior.”

Today -100: August 28, 1911: Of Huckleberries and Hamburgers

Headline of the Day -100: “Huckleberries’ Pow-Wow.” There’s a Native American tribe called Huckleberries?

Mmm, Hamburgers: Headline: “Kaiser for More Navy. To Keep for Germany Her Due Place, He Tells Hamburgers.” In fact, the phrase he used is “the place in the sun that is our due.” We may be hearing more of that phrase from Germany in the future.

Today -100: August 27, 1911: Of real fires, fake fires, and non-existent canals

William Van Schaick, captain of the paddle steamer General Slocum when it caught fire in the East River in 1904, killing over 1,000 people on their way to a church picnic, is paroled after serving 2½ years for criminal negligence.

It really is a bad idea to shout fire in a crowded theatre. Some drunk does so in a movie theatre in Canonsburg, PA, and 28 people die in the stampede. There was no fire.

Interplanetary News of the Day -100: “Martians Build Two Immense Canals in Two Years.” According to astronomer Percival Lowell, who should know. Each of the canals is 1,000 miles long and 20 miles wide. Which certainly puts the Panama Canal into perspective.

Today -100: August 26, 1911: Of beards & bridges

When he was 21, Jonas Pendleton of Saybrook, CT, vowed never to shave his beard until there was a bridge over the Connecticut River linking Saybrook and Lyme. Now just such a bridge has opened, so Pendleton, now 81, marched off to the barber shop, but it was closed because everyone in town was watching the bridge-opening ceremonies. The next day, however, everyone in town was on hand to witness him being shaved.

The people of Saybrook, Connecticut really needed to get a life, is what I’m saying.