Today -100: November 30, 1913: Of sabers in Zabern (almost poetical), and socialist senators

More anti-German-military sentiment is expressed in Zabern, Alsace. It started when some schoolboys jeered a group of army officers which included the lieutenant who told his men it was okay to shoot Alsatians. A crowd collected, troops from the barracks appeared, with drums and fixed bayonets and everything, and started arresting anyone they found on the streets, including two judges on their way home from court. These Alsatians were held overnight in the barracks’ basement, then turned over to the civil court, which promptly released them. “A number of young Lieutenants of the Ninety-ninth Infantry were seen to-day pursuing with drawn swords a youth who had shouted an insult to a man who was singing the German national anthem.”

In Flensburg, Schleswig, another part of the German Empire added by conquest, polar explorer Roald Amundsen has been forbidden from giving a lecture in Norwegian (which the Danish residents could presumably follow).

Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel III has been getting along fairly well with the Socialists these days. He gives a cabinet post to a Socialist who in 1900 shouted “Death to the King” in parliament, referring to VE3’s father, who was assassinated three months later. The king has also named Socialists to the Senate for the first time, three of them.

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Today -100: November 29, 1913: Of Mazalan, land swaps, strikes, and ear-boxing

The Mexican Constitutionalist rebels capture Mazatlan. Next stop: Chihuahua.

Not able to tap European money markets, Dictator Huerta may require banks to give him a forced loan.

Huerta also plans to go after every newspaper that reported the fall of Victoria. He hasn’t publicly admitted losing Juarez either.

Gen. Antonio Rábago, the military governor of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, commits suicide after losing the capital, Victoria, to the rebels.

Oh, and now Mexico has yellow fever, because of course it does.

Denmark is proposing a land swap: Germany would give Schleswig-Holstein (captured in the 1864 war) back to it, Denmark would give Greenland to the United States, the US would give Mindanao to Denmark, which would give it to Germany.

Indianapolis Mayor Samuel Shank met with the leaders of various unions and demanded a promise that there would be no more strikes during his period in office. They said no, so he has resigned. That’ll show them. (A detail I’d missed about the strike: the mayor had objected to cops being used to protect scabs. 31 cops refused orders to do so and were prosecuted, but were acquitted.)

The General Electric strike in Schenectady is over. Workers will work part-time rather than be laid off, and the two union organizers who were fired will be re-hired.

A German lawyer boxes the ears of an army lieutenant who he found in the company of his stenographer, and there was a duel, and... But here’s my point: no one boxes anyone’s ears anymore. Or do they? what is boxing someone’s ears, exactly?

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Today -100: November 28, 1913: Of lost turkeys, passive resistance, “clergywomen,” Lewis guns, snuff, and eugenic marriages

Headline of the Day -100: “Shipwrecked Men Lose Their Turkey.” The steamship Christopher arrives in Brooklyn, carrying six seamen rescued from the schooner Brookline, which was wrecked off Barbados. The ones who “lose their turkey” are five whose citizenship papers were lost in the mishap and were not permitted to land and thus went without Thanksgiving dinner.

“Lose their turkey” would be a good euphemism for something. Suggestions in comments.

A league is formed
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FA0B17F7355F13738DDDA10A94D9415B838DF1D3
in China to prevent the adoption of Confucianism as the state religion.

British Prime Minister Asquith has decided not to exclude Northern Ireland from Irish Home Rule after all.

The Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge, comes out in support of the passive resistance campaign of Indians in Natal, South Africa against the pass laws. The violence against Indian protesters in South Africa was beginning to rouse anti-imperial feelings in India. Hardinge took this position without clearing it with London, which was not best pleased.

Mexican government troops retreat from Ciudad Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas. “It is reported here that the rebels carried away trainloads of loot and many women.”

Headline Scare Quotes of the Day -100: “TO ADMIT "CLERGYWOMEN."; Synod of Canton of Neuchatel Decides in Favor of Innovation.”

“Wonderful” Headline of the Day -100: “A Wonderful New Gun.” The Lewis Automatic Machine Gun. It can fire 800 rounds a minute. Swell.

The North Dakota Supreme Court upholds the state’s ban on snuff.

Colorado’s Gov. Elias Ammons hosts a meeting of coal mine owners and the leaders of the striking miners. No agreement is reached, and the owners’ seeming willingness to relent on issues relating to company stores, checks on coal weight (miners being paid per pound), etc leaves the governor with the impression that the miners were being unreasonable because the only thing the owners were adamant against considering was recognition of the union. The governor will now tilt increasingly toward the owners, leading inexorably (spoiler alert) to the Ludlow Massacre.

The LAT summarizes states’ eugenics laws. Pennsylvania, for example, requires applicants for marriage licenses to swear that they are not imbeciles. In 3 states a marriage is invalid if one of the parties is drunk. In Delaware the child of a person who was insane before the child was born cannot marry. In Utah, epileptic women may marry only after the age of 45. Marriages of people with VD are illegal in just 5 states.

A Mrs. L. Brackett Bishop of Chicago plans to adopt 15 babies from 15 different races (this is the early-20th-century definition of race, so it includes a German, a Scandinavian, an Irish, and several South American types as well as black, Amerindian, Malay, Chinese and Japanese).

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Today -100: November 27, 1913: Of pardons, plagues, luggage, peace conferences, and breach of promise

South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease pardons and paroles 100 convicts for Thanksgiving, including 56 convicted murderers. Two days later one of them, who had served 3 years for murder, shoots a man. Another of the killers issued a pardon turned out to have already escaped from a chain gang two months ago.

There’s a bubonic plague outbreak in Ecuador’s rural regions, which the government is trying to hush up.

Ousted Nicaraguan president José Zelaya is arrested in a New York hotel. Evidently didn’t flee to Canada after all. And man he sucks as a fugitive: when you flee from one hotel because the cops are on the way, you don’t forward your luggage to another hotel.

The third international Peace Conference might have to be postponed from 1915 until 1916 or 1917. No rush, guys.

Jennie Carter of Wakefield, Massachusetts, sues the estate of Frank Sherburne for breach of promise of marriage. He broke their engagement by committing suicide. Tacky, Jennie, tacky.

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Today -100: November 26, 1913: Of wireless, espionage bureaux, obedient wives, and full and disgraceful retreats

For the first time, train passengers (on the Lackawanna Railroad) are able to read the current news, delivered by wireless radio (or Wi-Choo, as it was called)(well, as it should have been called). “To think we didn’t have it for the World Series,” said one passenger.

Switzerland uncovers “an extensive and cleverly organized international military espionage bureau” in Geneva run by a French ex-army captain, Larguier. Larguier has been ordered to leave the country and now must decide, depending on which of Switzerland’s four borders he exits by, which country will have the privilege of arresting him.

Jessie Woodrow Wilson, the president’s daughter (aka “the hot one”), marries Francis Bowes Sayre, a lawyer, in the White House. She actually insisted on including the word “obedient” in her vows.

The Mexican rebels are besieging Tuxpan, a town important to the oil industry. Rebels are demanding that (foreign) oil companies pay taxes to them and not to the Huerta regime. In Juarez, Pancho Villa says “The Federals are in full and disgraceful retreat.” And they are. Villa’s men are executing captured Federales.

14,000 General Electric employees go on strike in Schenectady after two union organizers are fired. Presumably they wanted to get the strike in while they still had a sympathetic Socialist mayor, George Lunn (his term expires at the end of the year).

NYC has police phone boxes (which are not bigger on the inside) for cops on the beat to call their precinct houses, but precincts have no way of contacting patrolling officers. But now, the 23rd Precinct will experiment with signal boxes on fixed posts, which during the day will ring until a cop answers and at night will flash a green light.

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Today -100: November 25, 1913: Of Juarez, provisional detentions, and missing parks commissioners

The Mexican Army starts a big military operation to retake Juarez. Pancho Villa is trying to capture Gen. José y Salazar alive, so he can execute him.

The US attorney general issues a warrant for the former president of Nicaragua, José Zelaya, who was ousted in a coup that the Taft administration and the United Fruit Company supported, for the execution of two American mercenaries caught laying mines to blow up government ships. Zelaya heard the news and quickly vacated his rooms at the Waldorf-Astoria for parts unknown. (Update: the next day, the NYT reported rumors that Zelaya was now in Canada, and it now claimed that the warrant was actually for a “provisional detention” while waiting for an extradition request from Nicaragua for the killing of two entirely different people.)

NYC Parks Commissioner Charles Stover went on vacation well over a month ago and then vanished, although he did send checks covering all his outstanding bills. His friends are claiming it’s probably amnesia caused by a blow to the head or grief over the death of Mayor Gaynor, and they have lobbied Pathé to show his picture in their weekly newsreel, which plays in 10,000 movie houses.

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Today -100: November 24, 1913: Of POWs, rubber horrors, and horse’s heads

Bulgaria claims that Greece is refusing to release prisoners of war from the Balkan Wars.

Headline of the Day -100: “Rubber Horrors Stir British Press.” The treatment of workers on rubber plantations in Brazil.

How They Died 100 Years Ago: Headline: “DIES OF FRIGHT IN AUTO.; Car Hits Wagon and Horse's Head Brushes Mrs. Walker's Face.” Just 34, too.

US Army Chief of Staff Major Gen. Leonard Wood falls off his horse.

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Today -100: November 23, 1913: Banned in Chicago

Just 50 years until my coverage of the Kennedy assassination, in which I will reveal the true extent of the conspiracy.

Pancho Villa dynamites two Federal troop trains on their way to Juarez, as was the custom.

The National Council of Women holds a screening of movies which were banned in Chicago after being passed in NY. For example, there was “The Old Swimming Hole,” which featured black children splashing about in the water without bathing suits, and a film with a woman toe-dancing, whatever that is, and a film of Filipino children eating what’s evidently dog. Others featured criminal acts, and you wouldn’t want to teach youths how to commit crimes.

Impeached-and-ousted NY Gov. Sulzer starts his lecture tour with a talk entitled “The Treason of Tammany,” with a small audience, which doesn’t bode well for his finances (I was never clear what happened to all those campaign donations that made their way into his personal accounts; he couldn’t have gambled it all away on the stock market).

For those keeping score, in the football season just finished there were 14 deaths and 175 injuries. 2 of those killed were college players, one of whom, Edward Morrissey of St. Ambrose, died from blood poisoning after his leg was broken. Football was dangerous, but so was early 20th-century medicine.

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Don’t mess with Texas, it’s already enough of a mess

Wednesday the NYT ran a story on p.A15 on how Dallas’s hate-filled political culture before the Kennedy assassination has changed in 50 years.

Aaaand right next to it is a story about the Supreme Court allowing the Texas abortion law to stand.

Just saying.

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Today -100: November 22, 1913: Of offended multitudes, chalk, and imps

New Year’s Day receptions at the White House were kind of a thing, “the one chance of the year,” the LA Times says, “for all people, irrespective of race, religion or color, to see the inside of the executive mansion, and to shake hands with the President.” Theodore Roosevelt set a record by shaking 8,510 people’s hands. Wilson, however, is calling off this hallowed tradition for 1914, in part because he plans on taking a vacation, in part because he doesn’t want to spend several days afterwards with his hand in a bucket of ice. Or, as the LA Times headline puts it, “Wilson Offends the Multitude.”

Lucy Burns is fined $1 for chalking “Votes for women” on the sidewalks outside the White House. “America’s first militant,” the LA Times calls her.

British suffragettes allegedly burn a lumber yard; in alleged retaliation a suffrage office in Oxford is wrecked and all its furniture and pamphlets and whatnot thrown into the street, as was the custom.

The IWW is trying to start another textiles strike in Paterson, NJ, demanding a nine-hour day.

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Human Body Full of Imps.” According to Dr. James J. Hyslop, “one of the foremost psychic authorities in the world.” Oh, and there are good imps and bad imps.

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Today -100: November 21, 1913: Long live the defender of our national dignity!

Huerta opens the new Congress, even though the US told him not to. He is greeted by a cheer of “Long live the defender of our national dignity!” The Catholic Party boycotts the opening. Huerta’s staff wore side arms (does that include guns here, or just swords?), which is illegal in the House. Huerta explained that he’s got everything under control and that he had to dissolve the old Congress because they were all traitors.

The two brothers of Mexico’s late Pres. Madero, arrested and then let out on bail, have taken refuge in the American consulate. Gen. Maas demands their return.

Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels says that the US army currently has 17 airplanes, and 24 aviators (spoiler alert: two will die in a crash next week), while the Navy has 4 hydroplanes and 3 flying boats. He wants more. He says aviation will limit the duration and scope of wars.

Rep. Robert Thomas (D-KY) pleads with Congress, which has been in session an unusually long time, to adjourn so he can collect his mileage allowance to pay off his creditors.

In one of her speeches in New York, Emmeline Pankhurst said that white slavery is “more awful” than negro slavery ever was.

While the Kiev ritual murder trial was going on, Jacob Adler was performing a play of the story in New York, which he amended every day as events unfolded.

The Vatican says the tango is an immoral dance, forbidden to Catholics.

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Today -100: November 20, 1913: Of moral suasion, and firing squads

Headline of the Day -100: “Huerta Scoffs at America’s ‘Moral Suasion.’” He thinks Woodrow Wilson’s threats and demands are a bluff. For good reason.

Huerta orders the arrest of a Supreme Court judge for “giving out false information,” evidently information about who did or did not capture some town.

Constitutionalist leader Gen. Venustiano Carranza breaks off talks with Wilson’s envoy, journalist William Bayard Hale, until the US recognizes the rebels as the legitimate government of Mexico. Near as I can tell, Hale came with demands that the Constitutionalists stop fighting the government and submit to an election (during a civil war? organized by whom?) and demanded personal negotiations with Carranza and only with Carranza. Carranza wants US recognition but not a set of high-handed (and unfeasible) demands. Wilson wants to aid the rebels, I think, but also wants to call the shots, and the news about Pancho Villa executing prisoners of war in Juarez isn’t helping anything either. The US will now go back to passively watching events.

The LAT says that Pancho Villa has telegraphed Carranza that only a dozen men were executed in Juarez. So that’s okay then.

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Today -100: November 19, 1913: Of blockades, badgers and towers, and slashing critics

Secretary of State Bryan denies that the US plans to blockade Mexican ports. People are beginning to wonder if the Wilson Administration has any plans to enforce the demands and ultimata it keeps making.

Name of the Day -100: Rear Admiral Badger.

The New Jersey Supreme Court invalidates a law for the sterilization of criminals, the feeble-minded and, in this particular case, epileptics.

Oh, spoke too soon: New Name of the Day -100: Charlemagne Tower III, whose wife is suing his father, Charlemagne Tower II, the former US ambassador to Austria, Russia, and Germany, for $200,000 for alienating III’s affections.

Soldiers are being sent to coerce the Navajos into giving up eight horse-thieves currently hiding out on Beautiful Mountain, New Mexico.

Headline of the Day -100: “Critics Slash Shaw Play.” I’m absolutely not going to read that article, because I prefer to imagine that critics were feverishly churning out Major Barbara/Mrs. Warren slash fic.

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Caption Contest

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Today -100: November 18, 1913: Of racism in Natal, Panama and baseball, heckling, forced loans, and tango teas

Indians in Natal, South Africa, have called a general strike, and are burning sugar plantations. This is a campaign, led in part by a lawyer named Mohandas Gandhi (not the burning sugar plantations part, presumably), against Natal province’s law requiring Indians to register with the government (a precursor to apartheid-era pass laws). The protests have been going on for a while, but the NYT & LAT have just found out about them. Gandhi was arrested for leading a march from Natal into Transvaal, illegally crossing the state border without prior registration. There have also been strikes of Indian coal miners and sugar plantation workers.

Wilson’s special envoy John Lind sends a note to Huerta threatening to leave Mexico City if Huerta does not respond favorably to the US’s demand that the newly “elected” Congress not be convened. The only person in the Mexican cabinet favorable to negotiating with the US was Interior Minister Manuel Garza Aldape. I say “was” because Huerta fired him and put him on a ship bound for Europe. (Update: Reporters catch up to Aldape on a stop-over in Havana. He claims there was no quarrel, he’s just going to France as ambassador.)

British suffragettes, who should really learn to pick their fights better, disrupt and heckle a No Conscription meeting in Sheffield being addressed by Philip Snowden, Labour MP and one of the best friends women’s suffrage has in Parliament (his hot wife Ethel is also a prominent suffragist). The meeting has to be abandoned. It says something about working-class culture that the attendees, although unable to hear the speakers they’d come to hear, were annoyed at the chairman for calling in the police.

75 suffragists from New Jersey, who did not have an appointment, force their way into the executive office of the White House to see Pres. Wilson. He agrees to see them and tells them the question of a Constitutional amendment for women’s suffrage was “under consideration” and there may even be a commission. They thank him as if he’d just agreed to something.

Pancho Villa extracts a $100,000 “loan” from banks in Juarez, promising they’ll be paid back if the revolt is successful.

All Chinese-owned businesses in Panama go on strike to protest the racist head-tax.

Kaiser Wilhelm bans military officers dancing the tango whilst in uniform. His dislike of the dance is not shared by German high society; for example, Countess Schwerin recently held a “tango tea.”

A Colored National Baseball League of the United States has been incorporated.

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Today -100: November 17, 1913: Of burning ships and firing squads

The Balmes pulls into port in Bermuda, its cargo still on fire.

Pancho Villa’s forces are merrily executing Federal prisoners in Juarez.

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Today -100: November 16, 1913: Am on fire, require help

The new prefect of the Paris police replaces the képi (those hats, flat on top, you know the ones) with proper helmets, copper in the winter, cork in the summer.

In 1913, 13 new states have passed laws allowing the use of prison labor on roads. So now most states use convicts. In some states, such as West Virginia, even unconvicted prisoners awaiting trial can be so employed; if acquitted, they get 50¢ for each day they worked.

103 passengers are rescued from the Spanish steamship Balmes after a fire broke out in the mid-Atlantic. The Cunard liner Pannonia heard its wireless signal “Am on fire, require help.” The crew of the Balmes stayed on board and continued sailing for port in Bermuda in convoy with the Pannonia – while its cargo was still on fire. I guess we’ll see how that worked for them.

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That's on us

Yesterday, Obama spoke about the ObamaCareTron3000 failures. (And yes, it would help if I actually posted these things after writing them).

But first, he talked about last week’s typhoon in the Philippines:

IN THE REPUBLICAN RESPONSE, TED CRUZ DENIES THAT LIFE IS FRAGILE, SO WHY WOULD ANYONE NEED HEALTH INSURANCE?: “It’s a heartbreaking reminder of how fragile life is, and among the dead are several Americans.” Wait, several Americans? Does that mean we have to pay attention now?

TED CRUZ DENIES THAT THIS IS ONE OF OUR CORE PRINCIPLES: “One of our core principles is, when friends are in trouble, America helps.”

Obama admitted that “the rollout has been rough so far.”

SO WE’RE DOOMED: “Doing more will require work with Congress.”

TOTALLY DOOMED: “We can always make this law work better.”

IF I HAD HUMAN EMOTIONS: “And I understand why folks are frustrated. I would be, too.”

EXCEPT OUR I.T. PEOPLE, OBVIOUSLY: “But we always knew that these marketplaces... that that was going to be complicated and everybody was going to be paying a lot of attention to it.”

He admits that the “If you like your insurance plan you can keep it” thing “ended up not being accurate.” Actually, it pretty much started up not being accurate and then continued not being accurate. If the ACA didn’t include regulation of insurance plans, and if it forced insurance companies to continue offering plans against their wills, and if it didn’t exempt smaller businesses from the obligation to provide insurance for their employees, then it might have been accurate. “We put a grandfather clause into the law, but it was insufficient.” Fucking grandfathers, always letting us down. And being racist.

He says that sure some insurance companies are hiking rates by 30% or dropping prescription drug coverage, “But that’s in the nature of the market that existed earlier.” Ah, so you’re saying the ACA hasn’t failed, it was simply never intended to deal with the ways insurance companies find to screw us over. I for one feel much better about Obamacare now.

But just in case you think Obama can’t do anything right, there’s one area where he crows that he’s completely crushing it: the quality of life of Iranians. “Iran’s economy has been crippled. They had a minus 5 percent growth rate last year. Their currency plummeted. They’re having significant problems in just the day-to-day economy on the ground in Iran.” And we as a nation can all be proud of that.

FAIR TO SAY: “And I think it’s fair to say that we have a pretty good track record of working with folks on technology and IT from our campaign where, both in 2008 and 2012, we did a pretty darn good job on that.” So... you’re saying... if it’s important to you, you get it right?

At one point, he went on about the decision to require seatbelts in new cars. “Well, the problem with the grandfather clause that we put in place is it’s almost like we said to folks, you got to buy a new car, even if you can’t afford it right now. And sooner or later, folks are going to start trading in their old cars. But we don’t need -- if their life circumstance is such where, for now at least, they want to keep the old car, even if the new car is better, we should be able to give them that option.” So we’re waiting for the transmission to go out on crappy insurance plans? What becomes clear about his announced “fix” of grandfathering in more policies is that he thinks people are utter idiots for keeping those policies and that he’s only letting them because he over-promised/lied when he was selling ACA. He may well be right, but that tone of contempt will not go over well.

On immigration reform: “But my working assumption is people should want to do the right thing.” So he’s learned nothing.

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Today -100: November 15, 1913: In the jungle, the mighty jungle...

One of the Mexicans who tried to assassinate Felix Díaz in Havana is trying to have him charged with attempted homicide, i.e., shooting at the guy who tried to stab him.

At the British Tory party’s annual conference, a motion for women’s suffrage is wrecked by the acceptance of an amendment making it conditional on a referendum. The conference also committed Tory MPs to repeal the recent adoption of payment for MPs.

Questionable Headline of the Day -100: “Moros Want Our Rule.” Mindanao chiefs tell the US governor-general of the Philippines that they’d rather have an American provincial governor than a Filipino (note: Moros are not ethnic Filipinos).

Benjamin Fowler, who works on the D.C. street cars, is fined $5 for blowing past a cop who was signaling him to stop. Nearly hit President Wilson’s automobile. With President Wilson in it. Oops.

Headline of the Day -100: “$17,000 FOR SONG TO LIONS.” Emmy Destinn, a soprano with the Met, gets $12,000 to sing in a lion cage for a movie, plus $5,000 for a life insurance policy. The article fails to say what exactly they wanted her to sing to lions in a silent movie, but I’m sure it was totally worth it.

(I’ve been listening to Destinn sing Il Travotore while writing this, and she didn’t suck.)

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Today -100: November 14, 1913: Of hide and seek and petulant schoolmasters

Headline of the Day -100: “Huerta Spent Day in Hiding.” Leading to hopeful rumors that he had gotten out while the gettin’ was good, but it actually sounds like he was just trying to avoid taking receipt of a message from the US government that special envoy Lind was trying to deliver (he finally leaves it with Huerta’s secretary).

The LA Times, under the headline “Mexico May Declare War,” editorializes that if Woodrow Wilson wanted to force Mexico to do such a thing, he would, as he is in fact doing, meddle with its government, interfere with its attempts to establish order, and encourage the rebels. “President Wilson evidently needs some one to inform him that he was not elected to be ruler of Mexico, or to dictate to that country.” (Of course the last person who was actually elected to be ruler of Mexico was murdered presumably on Huerta’s orders). They go on to call Wilson “a petulant schoolmaster”.

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