Today -100: December 31, 1913: Of divvying up Africa, saloons, starving artists, and monas lisa

Germany and Britain are working out a political agreement “which, optimists believe, will go far toward eradicating the danger of war between the two empires.” Phew. Among other things, they have agreed on dividing up Portugal’s southern African colonies (Germany gets Angola, Britain gets Mozambique), at least in commercial terms.

Headline of the Day -100: “WOMAN TO CLOSE SALOONS.; Gov. West Sends His Secretary, Male Officials Having Failed.” Oregon Gov. Oswald West wants the saloons and gambling houses of the mining town Copperfield shut down.

Futurist artist Wenceslas Pelzynnski, in what I can only assume is a delightful meta-commentary on the future of art, starves to death in a Paris garret.

The Mona Lisa is back in France, and all is right with the world.

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Today -100: December 30, 1913: Of expeditions and tax resistance

Sir Ernest Shackleton plans another polar expedition. He plans to cross the entire continent of Antarctica, 1,700+ miles. This will involve ships at either end, so he won’t have to make a round trip. He plans to use a sledge with an airplane engine to run a propeller.

Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, says that her appeal to women to refuse to pay taxes until they have the vote does not constitute “militancy.” Rather, it is passive resistance. It is the recent establishment of a federal income tax that makes this form of protest possible.

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Today -100: December 29, 1913: Of borders, treason, moral turpitude, and corset raids

Serbia has reportedly invaded Albania, capturing four villages the Powers decided should be part of Albania.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire will begin a treason trial of no fewer than 94 Ruthenians charged with spying for Russia, although they actually seem to just be converts to the Eastern Orthodox church who have been trying to convert Catholics.

Hungarian banker Emil Zerkowitz, arriving in the US, is detained and ordered deported for moral turpitude for having fought a duel in Budapest, although it was one of those duels in which both parties fired in the air. Zerkowitz pointed out to the immigration authorities that it is not illegal to duel in Hungary. (Two days later, the LAT reports that he is admitted to the US, on bond to leave within a month.)

Headline of the Day -100: “Corset Raids by Police.” Mannequins in corsets in shop windows in Berlin.

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Today -100: December 28, 1913: Also not fond of dogs

US Rear Admiral Cowles receives several Constitutionalists on the USS Pittsburgh, anchored at San Blas. The Huertaists are pissed.

The Mormons decide to flee Mexico, abandoning their polygamist colonies’ properties.

Charles H. Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners, who was organizing the copper strike in Calumet, Michigan, is beaten, shot in the back (superficially), and forcibly put on a train for Chicago, along with the union’s auditor. The sheriff claims to know nothing about it, although the two armed men who accompanied Moyer and the other guy claimed to be deputies. This was two hours after Moyer proposed by letter to the owners that the strike be submitted to arbitration by a board picked by Pres. Wilson and the governor of Michigan. There has also been friction because the union prohibited members affected by the fatal stampede at the Italian Hall from accepting money from the public relief fund; the union will look after its own, it says. Moyer also claimed that the man who shouted Fire was from the Citizens’ Alliance.

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “King George [of Britain] Dreads Fire. Lives in Constant Fear That One of Royal Palaces Will Be Burned. Is Also Not Fond of Dogs.”

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Today -100: December 27, 1913: Of firing squads, radium, duels, presidents & fires, and interrupted speeches

Pancho Villa issues an edict that all Federal soldiers are to be executed by firing squad as soon as captured – especially Gen. Orozco.

Rep. Robert Bremner (D-NJ) undergoes an experimental treatment. $100,000 worth of radium is (temporarily) embedded in his shoulder, where he has a cancerous growth. Which sounds painful, so they’re giving him cocaine for the pain, as was the custom. Spoiler alert: well, you can guess how this one turned out, can’t you?

I’ve reported on duels in France and Germany, but not many fatalities, because the rules of dueling, even where firearms rather than swords were involved, were designed to produce non-lethal results. Then there are Solomon Jackson and Tate Souders, two idiots in Kentucky, who shot at each other with guns in their right hands while clasping each other by the left hand. Both died.

Headline of the Day -100: “President Saves Cottage From Fire.” On vacation in Mississippi, he spots a judge’s house ablaze, has his cars stop and his chauffeurs and secret service agents put it out. Very Cory Booker of him (except for the part where his employees did all the work).

In 1894 “Coxey’s Army” of unemployed people marched on Washington from all over the country, but Jacob Coxey was arrested before he could finish his speech. Now his son-in-law, who was his lieutenant in the unemployed movement, finishes his speech on the “right to work” on the steps of the Capitol. He couldn’t get a permit, so he just said it quickly.

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Today -100: December 26, 1913: Of libraries

A letter to the NYT explains that the reason Montreal has no public library is that the Catholic Church blocked it, forcing the city to turn down Carnegie money. The students of Laval University (a public, not church uni) are prohibited from using any library other than that of the university.

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Today -100: December 25, 1913: His Santa Claus is dead

Headline of the Day -100: “CALLOUS AT GUILLOTINE.; Man Executed at Dunkirk Smokes a Cigar Before He Dies.” The priest tried to stop him making a pre-execution speech (France had public executions until the 1930s), but he insisted that he’d speak if he wanted to. Which he did. And what he wanted to say was: “You Dunkirk people are a lot of cowards!”

Frank Brown, the former governor of Maryland, says the automobile is responsible for the decline of agriculture, with all the joy riding and whatnot.

Festive Headline of the Day -100: “Xmas-Tree Panic Costs 80 Lives.” Including 56 children, trampled when some drunk shouted Fire in a crowded Italian Hall in Calumet, Michigan, in which children of striking copper miners were being given Christmas treats.

No, wait, new Festive Headline of the Day -100, on the front page of the NYT: “SANTA DIES ON XMAS TRIP.” And here’s the first sentence: “Little crippled Wilbur Harris, 8 years old, is to have a merry Christmas, but his Santa Claus is dead.” A philanthropist with tuberculosis went to deliver gifts to a poor family after hearing that the mother told Little Crippled Wilbur that there is no Santa Claus for poor children, but his car couldn’t make it past the snow drifts two blocks away from the poor section of town and he dropped dead walking through the snow with, you know, TB.

Secretary of State Bryan’s latest arbitration treaty has been negotiated with Denmark, and it doesn’t even exclude “questions of national honor” from arbitration.

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Today -100: December 24, 1913: Of currency, bridge-blowing, and secret rooms

The Currency Bill is passed and signed. Yay for the Federal Reserve!

Federal troops in Mexico have adopted tactics previously only used by the rebels, blowing up railroad bridges and telegraph wires, to cut off communications between Pancho Villa in Chihuahua and the rest of the rebels.

Lawyer Melvin Couch, the former district attorney of Sullivan County, NY drops dead at 65 in his office in Monticello, NY. Who else was found in his office? His mistress of 15 years, Adelaide Brance, who had been secretly living in a secret room built into his inner office, never or rarely going out, for three years, except in a desperate search for a doctor when Couch collapsed; as luck wouldn’t have it, the nearest doctor turned out to be Couch’s wife’s brother. Couch also ate and slept in his office, having told his wife that his rheumatism made it impossible for him to climb the hill to their home every day. So he returned home only for Sunday dinners. Brance did all his office work, since he could hardly keep a clerk and secretary. For some reason, his funeral was more sparsely attended than a former DA’s would normally be. Which evidently made one of his friends, a retired jeweler he’d been to school with, so distraught that he committed suicide with a gun Couch gave him, souvenir of one of Couch’s biggest cases as DA, that of Jack Allen, the last man hanged in that county. In fact, the sheriff’s hands were shaking so much that Allen tied the rope himself, saying he wanted to be in Hell in time for supper. Brance was not allowed to go to the funeral, being held in the jail on robbery charges trumped up to hold her in case Couch turned out to have been murdered. Although Brance had almost nothing from Couch (a couple of mortgages worth $650) and he left no will, she will turn down offers of $1,000 for a two-week vaudeville engagement and $3,000 to appear in a film about the affair. The last trace I can find of her was being checked into a sanitarium in January.

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Today -100: December 23, 1913: Of holidays, negro supremacy, and splits

Huerta decrees a bank holiday until January 2, because everyone loves a long holiday. Banks won’t be obligated to pay off checks, letters of credit, etc. I assume this will just be putting off the inevitable national bankruptcy.

Sports Headline of the Day -100: “[The] Negro’s Supremacy in Ring Near End.”

There are rumors of strife among the Pankhursts. Sylvia Pankhurst (daughter of Emmeline, sister of Christabel) has been increasingly focused on working with the working class of the East End and on mass tactics, while E & C are focused on coercive individual acts of militancy. Questions of tactics have caused numerous splits in the militant end of the British women’s suffrage movement before, but the latest “split” is intra-familial (other sister Adela, a Sylvia ally, has already been packed off to exile in Australia).

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Today -100: December 22, 1913: Of munitions and volcanoes

Japan is making arms for the Huerta regime, but says it’s just business, not hostility towards the United States.

Mexican Constitutionalists say they’ll fire on any ships bringing in munitions.

500 people are killed by volcano eruptions on the island of Ambrin in the New Hebrides.

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Today -100: December 21, 1913: Of fagging princes, and advisers

Headline of the Day -100: “Prince Henry a ‘Fag.’ No Special Privileges at Eton for the King’s Third Son.” Unless you count, you know, going to Eton. He is fagging for Viscount Gage.

Russia, Britain and France object to Turkey’s using Germans to reconstruct and reorganize its military. Since they also used German advisers before the disastrous First Balkan War, I’m not sure why everyone’s complaining.

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Obama press conference: I adequately discussed my frustrations

Barack Obama had a gift for the Washington press corpse today: a surprise press conference.

On the lapsing of unemployment benefits: “So when Congress comes back to work, their first order of business should be making this right.” When Congress comes back to work. Funny how Congress isn’t working but they still collect pay. And by funny I mean awful.

On the Obamacare website problems: “I think in the last press conference I adequately discussed my frustrations on those.” There is no more Obamalike a phrase than “I adequately discussed my frustrations”.

Ed Henry says Merry Christmas to him and he says Merry Christmas back and nobody tell me what Bill O’Reilly has to say about this.

There’s some discussion of NSA snooping. He continues to say that the NSA has done nothing wrong ever. And while he’s pretending that NSA surveillance will be dialed back in some unspecified way (we need a metric: will they pull back to 3/4 of the way up our asses?), it’s only because of the entirely unwarranted suspicions of the American people (“that trust in how many safeguards exist and how these programs are run has been diminished. .... [I]n light of the disclosures that have taken place, it is clear that whatever benefits the configuration of this particular program may have may be outweighed by the concerns that people have on its potential abuse”).

On debt ceiling chicken games: “But I’ve got to assume folks aren’t crazy enough to start that thing all over again.”

And that’s where I stopped paying attention.

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Today -100: December 20, 1913: By fire and sword

Lt. Gunther Freiherr von Forstner is convicted by a court-martial for assaulting that lame cobbler in Zabern, Alsace with his sabre. Forstner said the lame cobbler looked like he might hit him, and a Prussian officer who allows himself to be struck is irretrievably dishonored.

Mexican Federal troops nearly capture Emiliano Zapata (or so they say). They moved in on his temporary hq and surprised the rebels, the last few of whom “cut their way out” with machetes (the NYT doesn’t quite say that they cut their way through troops rather than through bushes or something, but that’s the gist).

Zapata sends a circular to random addresses in Mexico City warning that he will soon take the capital “by fire and sword.” All members of the Federal Army will be executed without trial, he says, and Huerta will be hanged from the balconies of the National Palace “as a warning” and the other members of the Cabinet shot. After a short trial, of course, because justice.

AT&T is forced by the Department of Justice to reorganize and drop its control over Western Union to avoid anti-trust prosecution.

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Today -100: December 19, 1913: Of smallpox and prisons

The battleship Ohio was struck by a smallpox epidemic on the way from Europe to Guantanamo. One dead, 11 definite cases and 12 suspected.

British suffragettes seem to have attempted to blow up Holloway Prison, not very successfully. Presumably as a protest rather than an escape attempt.

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Today -100: December 18, 1913: Of hunger strikes, conventions, and mayors

The British prison authorities succeeded in keeping Emmeline Pankhurst in prison for three full days this time before having to release her. She adopted a hunger, thirst, and sleep strike.

The Republican National Committee proposes (it has to be ratified by state conventions) to reduce the representation at the 1916 National Convention of the Southern states, where there are basically no actual Republican voters. The South would lose about one-third of its current delegation, bringing them down to less than one-sixth of the total delegates, which would still be more than is warranted by its share of the national Republican vote. The NYT article doesn’t mention this, but many of the delegates from the South since the Civil War have been black. At the last convention, they were reliable votes for the party machine that delivered the convention for Taft rather than Roosevelt, and we know how well that went.

(By the way, this is why it helps to edit: I originally wrote “many of the delegates from the South have been black since the Civil War.”)

Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald will not run for re-election. He cites his poor health since he fell down stairs inspecting some buildings that had burned down. Fitzgerald would be JFK’s grandfather.

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Nobody puts Baby Kim in a corner!

Checked in with the North Korean Central News webpage.

We find that North Korea has developed a new soft drink, which is fine news to those of us who remember East Germany’s Commie Cola, or whatever its real name was. The NK version features selenium and is good in promoting metabolism and curing arteriosclerosis, myocardial infraction, cerebral thrombosis and tuberculosis.

(Update: Vita Cola is what it was called. The first Google hit for “Commie Cola” is the Wikipedia page for Vita Cola, even though that page does not use the phrase “Commie Cola.” Google can read our minds now. Evidently there’s been a revival of the atrocious beverage, and it’s now more popular than Pepsi. Most of us tourists drank the vile stuff because East Germany made you buy a certain amount of their humorous currency, and there was nothing else to spend it on.)

Of course what I was actually looking for was the story on the execution of “traitor for all ages,” “despicable human scum,” “despicable political careerist and trickster” Jang Song Thaek (he had a rather long business card), Kim Jong Un’s uncle. He was charged with such offenses as “unwillingly standing up from his seat and half-heartedly clapping” when Kim Jong Un was elected vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea; preventing the Taedonggang Tile Factory from erecting a mosaic depicting Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and a monument to field guidance given by them; being so reckless as to instruct a unit of the Internal Security Forces that wanted to carve a letter Kim Jong Un in granite to put the monument in a shaded corner – IN A SHADED CORNER!

Jang confessed to his crimes. Well, he confessed to undermining the economy and planning a coup, I’m not sure whether he confessed to the monument-in-a-shaded-corner thing.

Other members of this conspiracy included “Ri Ryong Ha, flatterer” (he had a rather short business card).

There was but a single story on the uncle, and now the Central News Agency is back to business as usual, with a 7-month-old report on “Kim Jong Un Gives Field Guidance to Fisheries Station” wherein it is reported that Kim “asked the manager of the station to send him a letter if it netted 4,000 tons of fish so that he might know the happy news.” They have done so, and Kim is pleased. He has sent them a letter. Woe betide anyone who puts the inevitable carved monument to this letter in a shaded corner.

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Today -100: December 17, 1913: Of meneliks, loss of honor, free speech in Paterson, and lynchings

Abyssinia (Ethiopia)’s Emperor Menelik II dies. He unified the country, abolished slavery, and fought off Italy’s attempt to make Abyssinia a colony. Italy actually tried to trick him into protectorate status through an 1889 treaty whose Italian and Amharic versions were not-so-subtly different. There’s sneaky, and then there’s just silly. Upon discovering the deceit, Menelik renounced the treaty and defeated Italy in battle in 1896.

Suffragettes burn St. Anne’s Church in Liverpool.

The Countess Treuberg of Germany is found guilty of usury, slander and blackmail, and sentenced to 15 months, a fine, and three years “loss of honor.” I don’t know what “loss of honor” means, but it sounds awesome.

Elihu Root says he would not accept the Republican nomination for president because he is too old (he is 68 and would be 71 in 1916).

Right before an IWW meeting in Paterson, NJ, the police chief (on the mayor’s orders) sees Emma Goldman and forbids her to speak and asks her to leave the city. She agrees to adjourn the meeting and is allowed to go to it. But instead of adjourning it, she began a speech attacking Paterson’s government. Detectives storm the meeting and fight with the anarchists, as was the custom.

The British Cabinet decides that Home Rule will not include transferring control over the Irish Post Office to Dublin. This is evidently a big deal.

Lynchings: two negroes shot in Blanchard, Louisiana. They had confessed to killing Calvin Ballard in revenge. Several months ago Ballard was a trustee in Louisiana Penitentiary (where he was serving 10 years for killing his brother), when he foiled an escape attempt, killing three of the escape-attempters. And in North Dakota, there’s a rare lynching of a white man, Cleve Culbertson, a day after he was sentenced to life for killing three people. (Update: even more uncommonly, the sheriff will be forced to resign over his failure to prevent the lynching.)

Pancho Villa confiscates the property of several ultra-rich men, including Luis Terrazas, Sr., who owns 2/3 of the land of the state of Chihuahua, for ransom. Now how will he pay the ransom for his son, who rebels kidnapped last week?

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Today -100: December 16, 1913: Of gay cats, explorers, sound perceptions, crullers, and the mystery of why the Mexicans hate us is solved

A Chicago police lieutenant claims that a national association of beggars has been formed, the Panhandlers’ Trust, otherwise known as The Gay Cats. It even has a school to teach the tricks of the trade.

Evidently, the government of Ecuador is about to fall to rebels.

Theodore Roosevelt will shortly enter the Brazilian jungles, where he will explore ‘n shit.

The Mexican Congress, having performed its sole function of confirming Huerta in his usurped office, recesses until next April. It’s not like more than a few of its members ever showed up at any one time.

Zapata’s rebels attack Milpa Alta, which is only 17 miles from the National Palace, before falling back.

Headline of the Day -100: “Why Mexicans Hate Us.” The London Times’s Mexico correspondent explains that Americans are just plain rude.

Vice President Marshall, lacking anything else to do, will join William Jennings Bryan on the Chautauqua lecture circuit next fall.

A women’s suffrage leader, Kate Woods Ray, is named president of the Gary, Indiana Safety Board, putting her in charge of the police and fire departments.

Thomas Edison meets Helen Keller. He thinks he can build a device to give her sound perceptions.

Letter to the Editor of the Day -100: “The Etymology of ‘Crullers.’” The NYT has been printing, for what seems like weeks, an ungodly number of letters arguing over the technical differences between donuts and crullers.

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Today -100: December 15, 1913: Of Monas Lisa, poison, chocolate, cretes, conundrums, and buxom jolts

Before returning the Mona Lisa to the Louvre, Florence is exhibiting it in the Uffizi Gallery. Many thousands of Florentines attend, so many that many of the gallery’s busts and statues are removed to prevent them being knocked over.

How They Died 100 Years Ago: Many more New York suicides are accomplished with poison in the 1910s, pushing shootings down to 3rd place. Hangings are still in the lead.

Secretary of War Garrison bans chocolate from Army rations.

Mexican Federal troops drive back rebel forces from Tampico. The rebels had more soldiers, the federales had gunboats and artillery.

Buzzards were protected by Mexican law? Why?

Greece annexes Crete.

Former Prez Taft says Elihu Root would be a great nominee for president. But what, a reporter asks, would Roosevelt do if Root were nominated? “Don’t ask me any conundrums.”

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “SUFFRAGISTS HOPPING MAD.: Have a Buxom Jolt Ready for the Democrats.”

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Caption contest

John McCain is in the Ukraine, which rhymes. Captions, rhyming or otherwise, please.

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