Today -100: December 31, 1916: less an offer of peace than a war maneuver

There is some dispute over the results of the Arizona gubernatorial election, and a recount is still going on, so Thomas Campbell (R) takes the oath of office. Aaaaand so does the incumbent governor, George Hunt (D). I foresee hijinks.

The Entente countries respond to Germany’s call for talks, saying that an end to the war at this stage would be to the advantage only of the aggressors (they mean the Germans, because we’re still playing the “But you started it” game). “A mere suggestion, without a statement of terms, that negotiations should be opened, is not an offer of peace. The putting forward by the Imperial government of a sham proposal lacking all substance and precision would appear to be less an offer of peace than a war maneuver.”

There is talk that Germany might disclose its war aims/peace terms in confidence to Woodrow Wilson, who would then act as go-between or something.

The meeting of the psychology section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Columbia, decides not to have a Serb, Prof. Paul Radosavljevich, read his paper on “The Psychology of the German People.” He’s going along with their story that it was cut because of length. (To be fair, it sounds like the sort of intellectual horseshit you’d expect from someone specializing in “race psychology”).

Eduard Strauss, Austrian composer of waltzes and polkas, conductor, and brother of Johann II and Josef, dies.

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Today -100: December 30, 1916: Of mad monks, paper, and mail tubes

It’ll take a few days for the news to get out of Russia (indeed, for the body to be found), but Rasputin is assassinated today by a party of aristocrats at the Yusupov Palace. The official investigation was cut short by the tsar and the stories of the participants varied, but he doesn’t seem to have been as hard to kill as the legends suggest: a few bullets did it.

The Scandinavian countries support Wilson’s peace proposal.

Former French Prime Minister Joseph Caillaux is in Italy, trying to get it to join France in making a separate peace. He’s not getting very far. And the pope refused to see him.

Paper manufacturers refuse to answer questions from the Federal Trade Commission about why newsprint prices are suddenly so high.

NY Mayor Mitchel protests to Congress the plans to end pneumatic mail tubes, which he says would add to traffic congestion by increasing the number of mail trucks, and those things drive crazy, yo.

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Today -100: December 29, 1916: Of conscription, progressives, and toddling

The US War Department claims that in the event of war, state national guards have the power under existing law to conscript any man aged 18 to 45.

In the November election, the Progressive Party failed to get the 10,000 votes required to stay on the New York ballot, so it’s closing up its offices and selling off the furniture.

Headline of the Day -100:

It’s a dance.

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Today -100: December 28, 1916: Of failed negotiations and national registration

Carranza rejects the agreement made between US and Mexican negotiators. The protocols would have had the US expedition leave in 40 days unless something came up. Carranza believes this would just be an incentive for Villa to embarrass him by making something come up. Also, if Mexico agreed to a delay in the US leaving, it would amount to an affirmative agreement to the illegal US occupation. You can see his point.

Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden is proposing a system of national registration but says it’s not intended to lead to conscription, unless it does.

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Today -100: December 27, 1916: Of nations in bondage, leagues of nation, birth control, and mad monks

Headline of the Day -100:

Arthur Henderson arguing against peace to the French socialists, who seem strangely interested. “If we enter into negotiations now we do so when Germany is not repentant for her wrongdoing and is glorifying in the success of her military efforts, in fact, in the victory of German imperialism. In my opinion, if France and ourselves were to enter into negotiations under existing conditions, with such a spirit, we should be nations in bondage. Nothing less than that is the price which our enemy would exact for peace today.”

Germany has responded to Wilson’s note, promising to talk about measures to prevent future wars – after Germany has won this one. It has not responded to his request to spell out its peace terms/war aims.

The White House is denying that Wilson’s idea of a league of nations would entail US involvement in a military force intended to intervene to stop wars & invasions. No, he’s thinking more along the lines of international arbitration and “moral force.” Still, it’s alarming enough to many in Congress that Wilson thinks he can unilaterally commit the US to arbitrating its disagreements with other countries. Why, Rep. John Rogers (R-Mass.) points out, we might even be forced to arbitrate our racist immigration laws.

The Medical Society of the County of New York votes 210 to 72 against calling for birth control to be legalized. There were only six women doctors at the meeting; they all voted in favor of birth control.

Iliodor, the Mad Monk of Russia, well the other Mad Monk of Russia (little-known fact I just made up: the collective term for monk is a “madness of monks”), who fled to the US six months ago, says that his frenemy Rasputin now supports Russia making a separate peace, probably because of German bribery. Iliodor will publish articles next month in The Day, a Yiddish newspaper, and doesn’t seem to mind being bylined as The Mad Monk of Russia.

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Today -100: December 26, 1916: Of infernal devices

Someone tries to blow up Utah Gov. William Spry’s home, but the device is discovered accidentally by a neighbor shoveling snow. Authorities suspect the IWW, as was the custom.

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Today -100: December 25, 1916: Somewhere in France blood is flowing

The French Senate unanimously rejects peace talks as long as there are German soldiers still on French soil.

Opening today: Cecil B. DeMille’s Joan the Woman, the Joan being Joan of Arc, played by opera singer Geraldine Farrar, who is also currently signing Madame Butterfly at the Met. The movie has a framing story set in the trenches of the Great War in which a soldier – an English soldier, curiously – discovers a sword and has a dream about Joan, or something. In this version, Joan has a boyfriend!

Also opening today: Snow White, with Marguerite Clark in the title role. You can watch the rather gorgeously restored version here.


And it’s the Grand Xmas Double Number of the trench newspaper The Wipers Times (now the B.E.F. Times). “Between ourselves I think the least said about ‘Peace on earth, goodwill to man’ the better, when most of the inhabitants of this planet are trying to ‘put it across’ someone or other in the most unpleasant way that lies handy.”

The poem “Gone” commemorates the dead of the 73rd Brigade, the brigadier, transport officer, etc, with the refrain “We ne’er shall forget his cheery face, Tho’ we’ve got another to take his place.”

And here’s the poem “Shattered Illusions”

It may be love that makes the world go round,

Yet with the statement oft I disagree;

It was not love (on that I’ll bet a pound)

That, last night, made the world revolve round me.

I cannot bring my mind to realise

That love inspired friend Fritz, when he propelled

A Minnie* of a most terrific size

In my direction, so, I had him shelled.

*Minnie: trench mortar (Minenwerfer)

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Today -100: December 24, 1916: Of leagues and leagues

Secretary of State Lansing says that Wilson’s peace proposals might lead to the US joining some sort of league of nations to keep the peace.

Opening today: Stuart Paton’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, a special-effects extravaganza, with Allen Holubar as Nemo. The ads say it’s “the ONLY photo drama actually photographed at the bottom of the ocean.” In the Caribbean, the exact same location used by Disney’s 1954 James Mason version.

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Trump’s brain

The problem is that Trump is very clear about how he thinks, and we just didn’t believe him because it’s, you know, crazy. During the campaign he kept talking about how other candidates didn’t look “presidential” of have a “presidential look,” and we just thought it was a looks- or gender-based insult, but Trump actually thought he was making a logical argument, as we now realize when we read that he rejected certain cabinet choices based entirely on appearance – that said, I wouldn’t want to have to stare at John Bolton’s mustache across a conference table either. Many people are subconsciously swayed by appearance, of course, but Trump will just say it out loud like it’s a legitimate category of analysis.

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Today -100: December 23, 1916: Terror and savagery have become the very air we breathe

Rep. W.R. Wood (R-Indiana) wants an investigation into reports that Woodrow Wilson’s letter to the belligerent powers was leaked in advance to stock speculators.

The Germans have been rather pleased with Wilson’s letter, taking it as reinforcing their own call for peace talks, which the White House strenuously denies was the intention.

King George V gives a speech which is seen as a big No to Wilson, saying “The vigorous prosecution of the war must be our single endeavour until we have vindicated the rights so ruthlessly violated by our enemies and established the security of Europe on a sure foundation.”

Bertrand Russell evades British censorship by sending a letter by a mysterious female messenger to the American Neutral Conference Committee, which will pass it on to Pres. Wilson. Russell asks Wilson to intervene to stop the war before it destroys European civilization. He says that the Germans dominate on the mainland, the Allies on sea, and so neither can win a decisive, crushing victory. He says the war has lowered “the whole standard of civilisation. ... Fear has invaded man’s inmost being, and with fear has come the ferocity that always attends it. Hatred has become the rule of life, and injury to others is more desired than benefit to ourselves. ... Terror and savagery have become the very air we breathe. The liberties which our ancestors won by centuries of struggle were sacrificed in a day, and all the nations are regimented to the one ghastly end of mutual destruction.”

Charles Evans Hughes, who resigned from the Supreme Court for his failed run for the presidency, is back before it,  as a lawyer for the Corn Products Company, something about stock dividends. I’m sure it was in no way awkward.

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Today -100: December 22, 1916: Of camels, borahs, POWs, and shylocks

First flight of the Sopwith Camel. After being consistently outflown by German planes, the British finally have a decent fighter, or will have when they’re introduced into battle in a few months (although they are a pain in the ass to learn to fly).

The Allies demand that Greece give them control of its telegraphs, posts and railroads, release all Venizelos prisoners, and ban all meetings of army reservists.

Sen. William Borah (R-Idaho) blocks a Senate vote of support for Wilson’s letter to the belligerents. He says the Senate just hadn’t had enough time to consider it. Evidently they’re just hearing about this whole “war” thing for the first time and don’t have an opinion on it yet.

Germany gets Russia to stop using German POWs to build a railroad under harsh conditions by the simple expedient of reprisals against Russian POWs, as was the custom.

Sarah Bernhardt plays Shylock at the Empire Theatre in NYC.

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Today -100: December 21, 1916: They seem the same on both sides

Woodrow Wilson writes to leaders of the European belligerents asking them to state their peace terms. “The leaders of the several belligerents have, as has been said, stated those objects in general terms. But, stated in general terms, they seem the same on both sides. Never yet have the authoritative spokesmen of either side avowed the precise objects which would, if attained, satisfy them and their people that the war had been fought out. The world has been left to conjecture what definitive results, what actual exchange of guarantees, what political or territorial changes or readjustments, what stage of military success even, would bring the war to an end.” He not so subtly hints that they ask him to mediate.

Chicago psychic Elmira Brockway is in jail in England, the victim of a recent crackdown on fortune-tellers preying on soldiers’ families. Which I only include so I can mention a similar case in 1944, in which Helen Duncan became the last person sent to prison in Britain for witchcraft.

France asks Cuba to see if any part of the island is being used as a secret German submarine base.

Headline of the Day -100:

A NY Supreme Court justice rules that movie theaters can remain open on Sundays because the NY blue law was enacted before the advent of moving pictures and so can’t apply to them.

And a NY magistrate refuses to issue arrest warrants for some actors who danced on Sundays. “What harm is there in a little dancing?” asks Magistrate Murphy. “The women wear abbreviated costumes, which are varicolored,” answers Detective Turk, but to no avail. “This is New York, and not Hohokus [New Jersey]” observes Magistrate Murphy.

A lawyer named Albert Reese sues his West 160th Street apartment building for its rule that babies are only allowed to use the freight elevator and the freight entrance (which is down 3 steps) rather than the main entrance, although dogs may use the main entrance, as is only right and proper.

(Update: Supreme Court Justice Nathan Bijur agrees with Mr. Reese).

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Today -100: December 20, 1916: No one is duped by Germany’s manoeuver

French Prime Minister Aristide Briand says the Allies will offer a united rejection of Germany’s proposal for peace talks. “No one is duped by Germany’s manoeuver,” he says. He rejects the idea that the war was imposed on Germany, insisting that Germany, in fact, decided on this war 40 years ago, it’s on their Google Calendar and everything.

David Lloyd George has been prime minister for a while but he’s been too ill for public appearances. Now makes a speech to Parliament pissing on Germany’s offer of peace talks. “There has been some talk about the proposals of peace. What are those proposals? There are none.” (He’s not wrong). And going to a conference without having seen German proposals in advance would be “putting our heads into a noose with the rope end in the hands of the Germans.” He says Britain’s terms are “restitution, reparation, guarantees against repetition,” which is a B- attempt at alliteration.

Lloyd George will set up a registration for national non-military service under Birmingham mayor Neville Chamberlain, possibly leading to industrial conscription if enough volunteers do not come forward.

Prohibition fails in the Boston elections, by a larger margin than last year. And the Senate deadlocks on whether to hold a referendum on prohibition in Washington DC. Before the measure failed, an amendment was accepted to let women vote in the referendum.

Headline of the Day -100:

French flying ace Louis Robert de Beauchamp, who died a couple of weeks ago, is said to have done this last year.

Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington arrives in New York. She plans to tell the American people all about how the Brits murdered her husband during the Easter Rising in Dublin. The authorities refused her a passport, but she got here anyway. “I used my experience as a suffragette, and as one who has been in jail and knows the stupidity of the English policemen, to elude the spies and come to New York City”.

Australia bans the Industrial Workers of the World.

Stanley Millstein and Charles Kumrow, young men (19 and 20) convicted for murder (separate murders) insisted on being executed early so their funerals could be held before Christmas.

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Today -100: December 19, 1916: Of high treason, press conferences, conscription and prohibition

The Greek king’s government issues an arrest warrant for Eleftherios Venizelos for high treason and libeling the army’s general staff.

Woodrow Wilson will resume his weekly meeting with reporters, which he suspended after the Lusitania sinking. However, reporters will not be allowed to ask about the war.

Wilson celebrates the first anniversary of his second marriage.

The chief of staff of the US Army, Maj. Gen. Hugh Scott, and Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood tell a Senate sub-committee that there should be a universal (male) draft and universal (still male) military training. They say that the mobilization of the national guards on the Mexican border was a shambles and shows that any program of national defense can’t rely on state militias. Walter Fisher, who was Taft’s interior secretary, says military recruit problems could be solved by paying soldiers more, but Scott and Wood dismiss that as crazy talk: forced labor is so much cheaper. In fact, Wood objects to paying anything at all, because that just destroys the feeling of national obligation. He also thinks universal suffrage would cut the murder rate to one-tenth its current level, I think by integrating immigrants.

New York Governor Charles Whitman (R) comes out in favor of prohibition. Democrats are expected to respond by demanding an audit of the expenses of Whitman’s junket to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco on a train said to have seen its fair share of drinking (at public expense).

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Today -100: December 18, 1916: Of peace talks, scabs, and police stations

The Frankfurter Zeitung says that the Central Powers’ proposal is simply for a conference at which all sides state their peace proposals. This is something everyone’s been notably unwilling to do.

Cuba is deporting scabs who were hired in Chicago to work on the Cuban railroad. They were evidently not told they were to be strikebreakers, and many are now stranded in Cuba.

A Boston police station is dynamited, possibly in retaliation for police actions against labor meetings.

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Today -100: December 17, 1916: Of Christmas candy and ivy offspring

Italy bans the making of candy or cake for two weeks and the sending of candy or cake through the mails or by rail, because they don’t want people sending them to soldiers for Christmas, because they’re mean.

The birth rate among Harvard and Yale male graduates (which are the only kind they have, of course) is declining.

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Today -100: December 16, 1916: Of adjustment by peaceful means

The Russian Duma votes unanimously to reject Germany’s offer for peace talks (not that the Duma has any say about that).

Former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan asks Lloyd George to agree to the talks. “All international disputes are capable of adjustment by peaceful means,” he says.

Britain bans the manufacturing of hairpins. The metal is needed for war stuff.

The Mexican Constitutional Assembly votes to re-legalize clergy teaching (in private schools only). (This will be reversed in a couple of days, or maybe this story is just wrong).

Pancho Villa offers to leave foreigners in Mexico alone in exchange for the US Army leaving him alone.

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Today -100: December 15, 1916: Of virgin islands

The Danish people vote almost 2 to 1 to support the sale of the Danish West Indies to the United States.

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Today -100: December 14, 1916: Of regents and picture brides

The Teutonic states have picked Austrian Archduke Karl Stephan as regent for their Polish puppet state (PPS) and presumably its eventual king. He speaks Polish, so he’s totally qualified.

An amendment to the Senate’s immigration bill banning “picture brides” is defeated  (that’s a Japanese mail-order, arranged marriage thing, with the actual marriage conducted in Japan before they’ve met, which is a legal form of marriage in Japan but not in the US, but the picture brides have been sliding past immigration, then very quickly doing a second wedding ceremony here).

An amendment to ban people who intend to work here temporarily and then return home passes.

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Today -100: December 13, 1916: The empire is not a besieged fortress

German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg announces proposals for peace talks. And, er, that’s it. No proposed date, no proposed truce, no proposed peace terms. Germany is making a big deal of this. The Central Powers believe this is a good time for it, what with the conquest of Romania upsetting the Entente’s strategy on the eastern front. B-H says, “The spectre of famine, which our enemies intended to appear before us, now pursues them without mercy” thanks to the u-boat campaign. This is what the war has come to: bragging about starving out civilian populations. “The empire is not a besieged fortress, as our adversaries imagined, but one gigantic and firmly disciplined camp with inexhaustible resources.”

No one thinks this is much more than a PR stunt aimed at neutral nations, or that anything will come of it. One theory: when it’s rejected by the Entente, Germany will pretend to be justified in removing all restrictions on submarine warfare. Another theory: Austria’s new emperor is behind this.

Headline of the Day -100:

Well, there’s nothing Germans enjoy more than a good death grapple. Except maybe a Snapple.

France names a war council, consisting of Prime Minister Aristide Briand, Finance Minister Alexandre Ribot, War Minister Hubert Lyautey (former governor of Morocco - he’ll have to get to France by submarine – and born in the Lost Province of Lorraine), Marine Minister Rear Admiral  Marie-Jean-Lucien Lacaze, and Minister of Armaments Albert Thomas (a socialist).

The US Senate alters the wording of the immigration bill to ban Japanese and Indians without mentioning race or nationality, only geographic origin, in order not to insult Japan and provoke it into ending the “gentlemen’s agreement” whereby Japan prevents emigration to the US. Sen. James Reed (D-Missouri)’s amendment to ban African negroes loses 37-32.

The Postmaster General wants to discontinue the use of mail tubes in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and St Louis. Those cities object because “mail tubes are fucking awesome, dude!”

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