What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?

Believing it was important to speak to the American people about our forthcoming not-at-all-a-war with Syria at a time when they would be paying maximum attention, President Obama went on tv on the Saturday of a holiday weekend.

In keeping with the Obama administration position that it is “indisputable” that the Syrian government used chemical weapons, he only spent a single sentence on proof, and the level of proof he offered was simply “Our intelligence shows...”

He never spoke about “punishing” Syria, but about “hold[ing] the Assad regime accountable.” He did not explain precisely how bombing a country produces accountability, nor why the Assad regime should be accountable to the United States (and France, I almost forgot about France).

He will ask Congressional authorization, which he totally doesn’t need, because “I’ve long believed that our power is rooted not just in our military might, but in our example as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Also... moxie!

He asked a good question: “What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?” What message, indeed, oh wielder of the flying killer robots?

He asked another good question: “If we won’t enforce accountability in the face of this heinous act, what does it say about our resolve to stand up to others who flout fundamental international rules?” Says the man about to launch unilateral military strikes.

Finally, though, it’s all about the children: “We cannot raise our children in a world where we will not follow through on the things we say, the accords we sign, the values that define us.” So this is, what, a teachable moment? It’s about teaching our children the importance of cleaning up their rooms when they say they’re going to clean up their rooms?

“But I will ask those who care about the writ of the international community to stand publicly behind our action.” Our unilateral action in support of the writ of the international community, without asking for UN endorsement, because only the United States decides what constitutes the writ of the international community.

“And the American people have the good sense to know we cannot resolve the underlying conflict in Syria with our military.” The American people can’t find Syria on a map.

“we’re not contemplating putting our troops in the middle of someone else’s war.” Is he quoting Lyndon Johnson now?

Always end on a joke: “I ask you, members of Congress, to consider that some things are more important than partisan differences or the politics of the moment.”

“And we lead with the belief that right makes might -- not the other way around.” But flying killer robots and cruise missiles help too.

(Incidentally, although he said he’s going to Congress for authorization, he didn’t say that, like Cameron, he’ll be bound by that vote).

And now, all over America, Republican congresscritters are preparing statements linking authorization to the repeal of Obamacare. Oh, you know they are.

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Today -100: August 31, 1913: Of capitals and lockouts

The European Powers have decided that Albania’s capital will be Elbassan, a small crappy town several days’ mule-ride from the coast (that is, it was then; today I’m sure it’s a sophisticated, gleaming metropolis), which “does not contain a single dwelling suitable for a European resident.”

Rioting in Dublin (the NYT surely meant to say a police riot, since it was they who attacked striking tram workers). Well, I say striking, but this is the start of what is known as the Dublin Lockout. Employers in the city collectively decided to crush the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union by firing hundreds of its members (Guinness, a major employer in the city, did not join in the lockout).

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Today -100: August 30, 1913: Of lynchings, gypsies, protecting American women, detestable harridans, splendid cannibals, and letters to the editor

The Jennings, Louisiana, police chief and other town notables are arrested for accessory in the lynching of Joseph Comeaux, who was of course black. Comeaux had responded to a Syrian (probably Lebanese, I’d guess) shopkeeper who had brushed dirt onto his shoes by hitting him with his own broom, inflicting minor injuries. Obviously, he had to die.

A large band of gypsies attack the town of Lunel in France, before being fought off by the army. No idea what this is about, and there will be no follow-up stories.

Texas Gov. Oscar Branch Colquitt at the governors’ conference: “I would send every United States soldier into Mexico to protect American women, if necessary.”

In Britain, of course, it is the politicians who need protection from the women. Prime Minister Asquith is attacked by two suffragettes (or, as the NYT puts it, “detestable... harridans”) on the golf links. Charges against the detestable harridans will be withdrawn to save Asquith having to testify.

NYC Mayor Gaynor has a sore throat, possibly because he was shot in the throat three years ago.

Headline of the Day -100 (New York Globe): “Cannibals Are Splendid People.” Says Dan Crawford, author of “Thinking Black,” a missionary who has been living with the Luban of Central Africa for 23 years. “Their religion is one of sex,” he says, which probably explains why he finds them so splendid.

Uneaten Headline of the Day -100 (LAT): “REFUSED TO EAT HIS WORD.: Oklahoma Editor Killed When He Declined to Masticate Newspaper Criticising Former Treasurer.” Former treasurer of Murray County John Lindsay approached J. Y. Schenck, the editor of the Sulpher Democrat, and demanded that he retract and eat a story. Schenck refused and Lindsay shot him, as was the custom. The LAT doesn’t say what the paper said about Lindsay.

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Today -100: August 29, 1913: Of governors on burros

Headline of the Day -100: “25 Governors Race Down a Mountain.” On burros, yet.

Proquest Typo of the Day -100, for an LA Times story about the reaction in Mexico to Wilson’s speech: “WILSON MASSAGE ANGERS REBELS.” No happy ending?

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Today -100: August 28, 1913: Of dueling governors, strikebreakers, horses, confidential agents, and the settled fortune of the distracted country, and brides of the wind

The lower house of the NY Legislature accepts messages from Acting Gov. Martin Glynn, thus formally recognizing him and not Sulzer as the One True Governor. The state senate will follow suit tomorrow.

Guards at the Pope tin mill in Steubenville, Ohio shoot at strikers, hitting six.

President Wilson’s daughter Jessie (aka “the hot daughter”) is thrown from her horse and is unconscious for more than a half hour.

Mexico makes public its communications with the US government, which include a promise from Woodrow Wilson that if Huerta promises not to run for president, Wilson will ask American bankers to make loans to Mexico. For some reason, people think this sounds like an attempted bribe. Mexican Foreign Minister Federico Gamboa says that Mexico won’t submit its elections to the veto of any president of the United States, because that’s the prerogative of the Mexican military. OK, he didn’t say the last part. Still, if it weren’t for the fact that he was speaking for a murderous coup government, I’d admire his wonderfully sarcastic letters to John Lind, whom he addresses repeatedly as “Mr. Confidential Agent.”

Woodrow Wilson addresses a joint session of Congress about Mexico, where “War and disorder, devastation and confusion, seem to threaten to become the settled fortune of the distracted country.”

He sounds genuinely surprised that Gen. Huerta did not accept his proposal that he step down immediately and not stand in presidential elections, and seems to be casting about for reasons why he didn’t: “I am led to believe that they were rejected partly because the authorities at Mexico City had been grossly misinformed and misled upon two points. They did not realize the spirit of the American people in this matter, their earnest friendliness and yet sober determination that some just solution be found for the Mexican difficulties; and they did not believe that the present administration spoke, through Mr. Lind, for the people of the United States.” But “the steady pressure of moral force will before many days break the barriers of pride and prejudice down...” Why, Mr. Darcy! “...and we shall triumph as Mexico’s friends sooner than we could triumph as her enemies-and how much more handsomely, with how much higher and finer satisfactions of conscience and of honor!”

He does not plan to intervene militarily at this time, or to do much else, really: “We can afford to exercise the self-restraint of a really great nation which realizes its own strength and scorns to misuse it.” Which sounds rather like his explanation for not declaring war on Germany after the sinking of the Lusitania, that there is such a thing as being “too proud to fight.”

He calls for all Americans to leave Mexico (or, as an LAT headline puts it, “‘Run’ is Wilson’s Last Word to Americans in Mexico”), and for a ban on the sale of arms to both sides (arms have been sold to the regime which the US government does not recognize).

Name of the Day -100: Oskar Kokoschka, an Austrian painter I’ll admit to not having heard of, perhaps because Tom Lehrer didn’t sing about him in the song about Alma Mahler, has broken off his engagement with her because he didn’t like her living off the income from her late husband Gustav Mahler’s estate. But c’mon, that name! Wouldn’t you love to be able to say, “Hello, my name is Oskar Kokoschka”? Anyhoo, this is “Bride of the Wind,” a 1913 painting by Oskar, which Wikipedia describes as “a self-portrait expressing his unrequited love for Alma Mahler.”

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What part of indisputable did you not understand?

Jay Carney says it’s “preposterous” to doubt that there were chemical weapons attacks in Syria or that the government was responsible. Biden says there’s “no doubt,” and last week Kerry said it was “indisputable.” So that settles that: evidently the debate on the facts is over without ever having actually, you know, occurred. We seem to have skipped right past that to the part where officials deny the validity of questioning “facts” which are, after all, indisputable, beyond dispute so why are you even still trying to dispute them, you preposterous lackwits?

Shouldn’t Kerry at least go to the UN with a test tube of fake anthrax or something? Isn’t that, like, traditional?

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Today -100: August 27, 1913: I am tired of being a girl

There is a Carnegie Commission investigating atrocities during the Balkan Wars. First I’ve heard of it. Anyway, the Serbs are boycotting it, as is the custom.

Headline of the Day -100: “Girl Wears Male Garb.” The NY police “had been receiving complaints that a girl masquerading as a man was going about his precinct, and had been seen in various saloons.” Naturally a police captain and a detective investigated, tracked her down and arrested her for vagrancy. She told the magistrate, “I am tired of being a girl. I want to work with men and get a man’s pay. I am tired of the worries of a girl who works in factories at a salary that will not keep body and soul together.”

Leo Frank is sentenced to death for the murder of Mary Phagan, which he did not do.

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Today -100: August 26, 1913: Of peons, the kind of government that best suits Mexico, holidays, and Arctic expeditions

Headline of the Day -100: “Two Slain by Peons.” A couple of Europeans in Mexico. Er, the Europeans are the slayees, not the peons. You just don’t hear the word peons that much anymore.

As special envoy Lind’s mission to Mexico comes to an end, having accomplished nothing, the NYT again calls for recognition of Huerta’s junta in Mexico, pooh-poohing the objection that it’s a dictatorship: “Mexico, in the long run, will have the kind of Government that best suits it. If it amounts to a dictatorship, that is Mexico’s affair.”

There seems to be a truce between the British government and militant suffragists. Emmeline Pankhurst is visiting her daughter in Paris and will then go on an American tour, and has advised her followers also to take a holiday. On the other side, the government is failing to re-arrest women out of prison on Cat and Mouse Act licenses. Currently there are 43 militants sentenced to prison, only one of whom is actually in prison.

The HMS Karluk, leading a Canadian Arctic expedition got caught in the ice pack early in the month, expedition leader Vilhjalmur Stefansson (on one of the other ships) reports. It will drift for the next few months before sinking in January 1914, while the ship’s phonograph played Chopin’s Funeral March. The crew of 25 will camp on the ice for a few weeks, then set off looking for land. Two advance parties are lost, the remaining 17 men reach Wrangel Island, and 14 will survive until they are rescued (by the HMS Bear; I was momentarily startled by the June 1914 headline “Bear to Get Karluk’s Men”) in September 1914, when their first words were, I’m guessing, “There’s a WHAT now, a WORLD war? What say you just leave us right here on our cozy ice-island until it’s over.” (Update: wow, I just assumed they were all men. There was an Inuit whose wife and two children came along.)

I have to wonder how many groups from various ill-conceived expeditions were scattered throughout the Arctic Circle. In 1917 the Karluk’s captain, Robert Bartlett, rescued another 1913 expedition, which was searching for Crocker Land, which explorer Robert Peary claimed to have spotted in 1906 but which he hadn’t seen any more than he’d actually reached the North Pole (he named it for the banker who paid for the expedition, and who he hoped would pay for another expedition to explore “Crocker Land”). The expedition (which Peary was not on) had been stranded for four years, with only one vicious murder. And before Bartlett rescued them, another ship tried to reach them, only to get stuck in the ice for two years.

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Today -100: August 25, 1913: Slow news day

Nothing of interest to report. Sorry readers. And sorry, websites & Facebook pages that copy off this feature. Don’t know how you’ll fill your space today; might I suggest doing so by thanking your sources and linking back to them?

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Today -100: August 24, 1913: Of Tammany muscle-flexing, birth strikes, and ray guns

Evidently not satisfied with ousting a Democratic governor, Tammany Hall decides to replace the Democratic mayor of New York City, William Jay Gaynor, at the end of his current term, nominating Edward McCall. But Gaynor isn’t ready to go and may run as an independent (if something doesn’t intervene...).

Sulzer’s enemies are also trying to have him investigated for allegedly favoring his business interests in Nicaragua when he was a member of Congress.

Headline
of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Socialists Are Divided On Declaring Birth Strike.” German socialists. As a way of raising the status of the working class.

The British War Office has been having talks with a man who claims to have invented a device which can send a wireless beam that can stop the engines of enemy airplanes at a distance of up to 100 miles. The secretary of war even drove out for a field-test of the apparatus. Which didn’t work. The device, when opened up, turned out to be a box of sand with some buttons on the outside.

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Today -100: August 23, 1913: Of emigration, and x-ray skirts

The Governor of the Austrian province of Galicia orders that all males under 36 attempting to emigrate be arrested and returned to their homes.

The US sends threatening messages to government and Constitutionalist commanders in Chihuahua, saying it will hold them personally responsible for any violence against American citizens in Mexico.


The latest scandalous fashion: the x-ray skirt, whatever that is.

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Today -100: August 22, 1913: Of fighting guvs

Avignon Albany: Since Sulzer won’t give up the Executive Chamber, Glynn has another one built on the floor above. Everyone in government is ignoring the attorney general’s decision that Glynn is the One True Governor, and doing nothing while trying to ignore both presumptive governors, who in turn are both trying to avoid direct confrontation by doing no actual work. Sulzer asks the postmaster in Albany to deliver all mail addressed to the governor to him (that is, he’s trying to get the federal government to recognize him), and is told that all mail will continue to be sent to the governor’s PO box, to which Sulzer has the key. Glynn plans to demand that mail.

Speaking of embattled governors, America’s governor of Jolo Province in the Philippines, Vernon Whitney, kills two Moros who tried to assassinate him. He shot one and killed the other, the NYT says, with a barong. I’m not sure what the NYT thinks a barong is.

In the Senate, Boies Penrose (R-Penn.) introduces a resolution calling for troops to be stationed in Mexico to protect American lives and property, but not to aid either side in the civil war.

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Today -100: August 21, 1913: Mud, mud, glorious mud

The governor of Missouri claims that at least 250,000 men (including himself and, for some reason, the governor of Kansas) worked for free on the roads in the first day of his Good Roads campaign (Slogan: “Pull Missouri out of the mud”). He plans to do it again next year and says every state should.

Hungarian Prime Minister Stephan Tisza fights his third duel of the year.

Mexican dictator Huerta has met with Wilson’s special envoy, who presented him with Wilson’s proposals (Huerta resigns, elections held in which Huerta didn’t participate, cease-fire, etc) and, surprisingly, Huerta said no. Actually, he said he’d ignore Lind’s offers to mediate peace unless the US officially recognized his regime. He insists that Woodrow Wilson doesn’t have the support of the American people in non-recognition, which is an odd criticism coming from someone who overthrew and murdered a democratically elected president.

Romania promised full citizenship to Jews who entered the military for the Second Balkan War. Now, it tells the volunteers that they were mustered in illegally, so no citizenship for you.

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Today -100: August 20, 1913: What is the use of us going out to a demonstration for freedom and going unarmed?

The NY attorney general issues an opinion that Glynn is governor. State employees will be informed that they must report to Glynn rather than Sulzer or they won’t be paid. Sulzer has the combination of the safe in the Executive Chamber changed.

Huerta did not send an ultimatum to the US after all. The theory about what’s going on is that the regime leaked the story to the press for domestic consumption.

British suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst advises her East End supporters to learn ju-jitsu and to practice with sticks. She asks, “What is the use of us going out to a demonstration for freedom and going unarmed?” What use, indeed.

Escaped lunatic murderer Harry Thaw is captured in Canada. His lawyers will argue that he has done nothing illegal for which he can be extradited (breaking out of an asylum for the criminally insane is evidently not illegal in NY), but he will probably be deported, since it is illegal for insane foreigners to enter Canada.

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Today -100: August 19, 1913: Too lazy to read

Mexican dictator Huerta gives the US until midnight to recognize his regime.

French aviator Adolphe Pégoud bails out of his airplane at 900 feet, parachuting safely to earth. Although a few people had parachuted from planes (and lived) since 1911, I believe this was the first successful use of a parachute in an airplane emergency situation, although balloonists had been using parachutes since 1785.

Robert Donald, editor of the Daily Chronicle (London) and president of the Institute of Journalists, predicts the future of journalism: fewer newspapers, which will be distributed in the major cities by pneumatic tubes; reporters will carry wireless telephones; news will be delivered directly via “the cinematograph and the gramophone or some other more agreeable instrument of mechanical speech.” “People may become too lazy to read, and news will be laid on to house or office just as gas and water are now.”

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Today -100: August 18, 1913: Thawed out

Harry Thaw, murderer of architect Stanford White in the 1906 Crime of the Century, escapes from the booby hatch after his family bribes attendants at the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and takes off in a car that was waiting for him. Since he was committed rather than convicted of a crime, he can’t be extradited (he is believed – wrongly – to have fled to Connecticut, as was the custom).

The governor of New York swings into action to find Thaw. As does the other governor of New York.

The NAACP protests the Wilson administration’s segregation of government departments by race, noting that this has never been done before (except in the military). But now, the federal government “has set the colored people apart as if mere contact with them were contamination.”

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Today -100: August 17, 1913: Game of Thrones: Albany

Martin Glynn, one of the contending governors of New York, signs several pay checks for members of the adjutant general’s staff, but the First National Bank refuses to cash them, given the confusion in Albany. The NYT notes that former Gov. Dix is on the bank’s board. Avignon Gov. Sulzer is still getting all mail addressed simply to the governor. State employees are taking advantage of the situation to take a day off.

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Today -100: August 16, 1913: You must give us the vote or you must kill us

William Sulzer spends the day busily pretending he’s still governor of New York, transacting important business, although he refuses to tell anyone just what important business he was transacting. His secretary explains that this policy of “invisible government” is intended to prevent his enemies knowing what he’s doing. He has had quite a few new locks installed and hired private guards. Alt-Gov. Glynn sends Sulzer a demand for the privy seal, the Executive Chamber, all the state’s account books and papers and so on, and rejects Sulzer’s suggestion that they let some court settle the issue of who is governor. Anyway, in their exchange of letters, both insist that they are the One True Governor. Glynn will have another privy seal made. Every dept is having to pick sides: the post office is delivering mail addressed to “the Governor” to Sulzer, while the controller’s office won’t pay Sulzer’s salary unless Glynn signs off.

And those poor cops from West Virginia still don’t have their prisoner, not being able to find anyone in the police or DA’s office willing to decide whether extradition papers signed by Sulzer are legitimate or not.

The NYT interviews Emmeline Pankhurst, British suffragette leader. She says that suffragettes hunger-strike in prison because “We will not submit to the Government until we have a voice in it.” She believes that this resistance has broken down the efficacy of the Cat and Mouse Act and imprisonment generally, leaving the government having to choose between 1) punishing window-breaking, obstruction of the police, etc with death through self-starvation or 2) giving women the vote. “You must give us the vote or you must kill us.”

There is a drought in the Southwest, but Kansas Gov. George Hartshorn Hodges refuses to call for a day of public prayer, saying, “I believe in the efficacy of prayer, but not in the case of flood or drought.” I assume he’ll be burned at the stake as a heretic, but that may just be me applying 2013 assumptions to the more enlightened Kansas of 1913.

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Today -100: August 15, 1913: They told us New York had two governors, but the fact is it hasn’t any

Game of Thrones: Albany. The first day of the Dueling Governors in New York. William Sulzer fitted a new lock on his inner office and ate a sandwich at his desk, as he was unwilling to go home for lunch because someone might seize his office while he was out. Martin Glynn did nothing all day. The only piece of official business seems to have been an extradition request from West Virginia for a check-kiter; some poor deputy sheriff and a former sheriff up from West VA had to decide which of the two governors should sign his papers, and they wandered from office to office asking everyone they met whether Sulzer or Glynn was the actual governor. They got a signature from Sulzer before realizing he probably wasn’t governor anymore, then Glynn refused to sign papers that were already signed. Finally the West Virginians decided, “They told us New York had two governors, but the fact is it hasn’t any.”

Sulzer’s people are talking about indicting Boss Murphy as well as Assembly Speaker Alfred E. Smith, Sen. Frawley (the head of the committee which investigated Sulzer), and others for treason, that is, using this impeachment to seize control of the state government for Tammany Hall.

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There can only be a political solution by bringing people together with a political solution

John Kerry also has a statement about Egypt.

First, he wants it known that “The United States strongly condemns today’s violence and bloodshed across Egypt.” Although as he goes on, it’s clear that he’s unwilling to ascribe that violence and bloodshed to the police and military. Indeed, he only admonishes “demonstrators [to] avoid violence and incitement.”

“In the past week, at every occasion, perhaps even more than the past week, we and others have urged the government to respect the rights of free assembly and of free expression”. He evidently can’t remember exactly how long the US has been concerned with the rights of free assembly and free expression in Egypt, but he’s pretty sure it’s a week or so.

“We also strongly oppose a return to a state of emergency law and we call on the government to respect basic human rights including freedom of peaceful assembly and due process under the law.” See, here’s the thing about a coup/crapfest: it abrogates “due process under the law.” There is no “law” and certainly no due process when they are enforced by people who have no legitimate, legal right to do so.

WHENEVER THAT MIGHT BE: “And we believe that the state of emergency should end as soon as possible.”

“Violence is simply not a solution in Egypt or anywhere else.” I’ll just let that sentence sit there for a minute, like a giant turd that the US has shat on the Middle East for lo these many years.

WHAT VIOLENCE WON’T DO: “Violence will not create a roadmap for Egypt’s future. Violence only impedes the transition to an inclusive civilian government... And violence and continued political polarization will only further tear the Egyptian economy apart and prevent it from growing and providing the jobs and the future that the people of Egypt want so badly.” Who is responsible for this violence? He won’t say.

HE HAD TO USE THE WORD “TOLERANT” SO THAT NO ONE THOUGHT HE WAS CALLING FOR THE RESTORATION OF THE ELECTED CIVILIAN-LED DEMOCRACY: “The United States strongly supports the Egyptian people’s hope for a prompt and sustainable transition to an inclusive, tolerant, civilian-led democracy.”

I spoke too soon when I said that Kerry won’t assign any responsibility: “The interim government and the military, which together possess the preponderance of power in this confrontation, have a unique responsibility to prevent further violence and to offer constructive options for an inclusive, peaceful process across the entire political spectrum.” You know how they could exercise their unique responsibility to prevent further violence? STOP FUCKING SHOOTING PEOPLE!

HE HAS A BACHELOR’S DEGREE IN POLI SCI, YOU KNOW. FROM YALE AND EVERYTHING. “There will not be a solution through further polarization. There can only be a political solution by bringing people together with a political solution.”

WELL, EXCEPT THE ONES THE EGYPTIAN MILITARY HAS LOCKED AWAY IN SECRET DUNGEONS, OF COURSE: “The United States remains at the ready to work with all of the parties”.

At no point does he use the word coup, or allude to the coup in any way, much less suggest that it is responsible in any way for the violence which is totally not a solution. It’s more like a precipitate.

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