Today -100: April 30, 1917: Of non-neutrals, offensives, commissions, and processions

Police in Berlin ordered American citizens to report to police stations every day, not leave the city without permission, and to observe a curfew. But the Foreign Office says Americans are being treated as non-neutrals rather than as enemies because Germany hasn’t recognized the American declaration of war. I didn’t know you could just do that.

Robert Nivelle didn’t last very long as commander-in-chief of the French Army. Following the failure of the Nivelle Offensive, he is replaced by Philippe Pétain, or rather he is left in his post but Pétain is given the newly re-created post of chief of staff so the power can be shifted to him without the government having to admit that Nivelle’s appointment was a mistake. The offensive will be abandoned in a week or so.

Following the British commission’s visit to the US last week, there’s a French one this week, headed by former prime minister René Viviani and Marshal Joseph Joffre, who says he’d like to see US troops sent to the front sooner than the US plans, one unit at a time as they become ready.

Austrian socialists and unions will hold a general strike on May Day.

Carrie Chapman Catt of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association writes to chambers of commerce throughout the US urging that women who replace men at work during the war be paid equal wages. SPOILER ALERT: they won’t be.

In Petrograd, an anti-pacifist, anti-Lenin procession consisting of wounded soldiers (suggesting that they are acting under orders) is addressed by US Ambassador David Francis, who says Americans were thrilled at news of the Russian Revolution. He also rejects Lenin’s idea of a separate peace.

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Today -100: April 29, 1917: Of separate peaces, conscription, and small nationalities

Austria has been putting out peace feelers towards Russia, suggesting that it has given up its plans to carve out Russia’s Polish territories. This is pissing off the German press, because it means that Austria and Germany may no longer have shared war aims.

Conscription (“selective service”) passes the House 397-24 and the Senate 81-8. Both houses vote to double the current pay of enlisted men. The Senate version would draft men aged 21 to 27, the House version 21 to 40. States will be responsible for providing a number of soldiers proportionate to their population. No sign-up bonus will be allowed, no paying for substitutes as in the Civil War.

200 members of Congress cable Prime Minister Lloyd George, asking him to “settle the Irish problem” in accordance with Woodrow Wilson’s principle of waging war “for the world-wide safety of democracy and of small nationalities.” They don’t mention, oh I don’t know, India, which to be fair is a fucking huge nationality.

Guatemala breaks relations with Germany.

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Today -100: April 28, 1917: Of suspicious, surly, dangerous neighbors, conscription, and olde timey pasttimes

British Prime Minister Lloyd George says getting the Irish to support the war is essential to winning it quickly. “We must convert Ireland from a suspicious, surly, dangerous neighbour to a cheerful, loyal comrade.” Well if that doesn’t do it, I don’t know what will.

Congress is still working on conscription. Opposition to it is fading for no obvious reason. The House rejects an amendment authorizing Pres. Wilson to accept Theodore Roosevelt’s request to be allowed to raise a volunteer regiment to be sent immediately (if not sooner) to France. Actually, there’s nothing stopping Wilson doing this now if he wants; this amendment is TR’s attempt to do an end run around the opposition of Wilson and the War Department to his plan.

The New York State Senate passes a bill banning the past-time practiced at your classier recreational resorts of paying to throw baseballs at the heads of negroes.

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Today -100: April 27, 1917: The world cannot exist half democratic and half autocratic

A German newspaper says Woodrow Wilson’s reported support for a Jewish state in Palestine (which if true I’ve missed) is “an English war aim against Turkey,” aimed at creating a land bridge between the British territories of Egypt and India.

Former senator, secretary of state and secretary of war Elihu Root, who will soon leave for Russia as part of a commission to coordinate war efforts, tells the American Society of International Law that the war against Germany is the great peace movement. “The world cannot exist half democratic and half autocratic. It must be all democratic or all Prussian.”

Woodrow Wilson writes the editor of the New York Evening Journal to deny any intention to use the broad powers of the Espionage Bill to suppress criticism. He almost sounds sincere. Well, until he adds a few adjectives, saying he wouldn’t want to lose “the benefit of patriotic and intelligent criticism.” “Unless it’s by that fucker Eugene Debs,” he doesn’t add, it’s just kind of implied, but then Wilson’s tolerance for patriotic and intelligent criticism of himself was never very high and declined steadily during the war.

Again, the Espionage Act is still in force and it’s the law Obama used to go after leakers. Or, as Glenn Greenwald would point out, to selectively go after only those leakers who damaged the White House politically.

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Today -100: April 26, 1917: Some Americans have at last begun to hit

The US steamship Mongolia sinks a German u-boat. Theodore Roosevelt, on hearing the news: “Thank heaven, some Americans have at last begun to hit.”

In Congress, Speaker of the House “Champ” Clark speaks for an hour against conscription: “So far as Missourians are concerned, there is precious little difference between a conscript and a convict.” And it’s unnecessary because “There is not a scintilla of evidence that we are a race of cowards or mollycoddles.”

The Espionage Bill has been altered in Congress to make it a little less of a threat to the First Amendment. It would now outlaw collecting military information only if done with the intention of injuring the United States.

Russian peasants are seizing land.

Lenin has split from the Social Democrats and formed a Communist party.

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Today -100: April 25, 1917: The disgrace of a draft

Speaker of the House “Champ” Clark says he doesn’t think conscription will pass. “I am for letting the flower and youth of this country volunteer before we fasten the disgrace of a draft upon them.”

The NYC Mayor’s Recruiting Committee asks the police to protect recruiting posters, which are being torn down and defaced.

Earlier this month Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia’s plane was shot down and he was shot and captured as he tried to get back to his lines. The French are claiming that when he was dying he asked for his wife to be allowed to visit him and the French and British authorities gave permission but Germany refused it – in handwriting Freddy recognized as that of his second cousin Kaiser Wilhelm. He raged, the French say, that the kaiser wouldn’t let the princess leave Germany because she would tell the truth about the hunger and discontent in Germany, even in the Imperial court.

Lenin leads a march on the American Embassy in Petrograd in protest at the death of anarchist Thomas Mooney, who is not in fact dead but in prison for the bombing of a preparedness parade in San Francisco last year, which he did not do.

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Today -100: April 24, 1917: Of turkeys, plots, and glass bullets

Turkey breaks diplomatic relations with the United States because the US is now at war with its ally, though it refrains from declaring war at this time (and indeed for the rest of the war). US Ambassador Abram Elkus is too sick (with typhus) to leave Ankara at the moment.

The NYT hears from “sources intimately familiar with Central American men and affairs” that the Germans plotted to start revolutions in Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador and create a united country under Julián Irías of Nicaragua, and maybe get Colombia to join in with the promise of getting Panama back. But the plot was thwarted last December by “countermeasures.” Yeah, no.

Germany is using glass bullets on the Russian front. Yeah, no.

(I made a late addition to yesterday's post: Buster Keaton's first movie).

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Today -100: April 23, 1917: Of commissions and war-mad pastors

A British “commission” headed by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour arrives in the US for consultations.

Headline of the Day -100: 



The Rev. Dr. Robert Berry of the Armour Villa Park Chapel in Yonkers decides that God wants all Prussians killed. Including his wife. Especially his wife.

Now playing: The Fatty Arbuckle movie “The Butcher Boy,” featuring one Joseph Frank “Buster” Keaton in his first role.

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Today -100: April 22, 1917: Of khaki, neutrality, and German food talk

Sen. Frank Kellogg (R-Minnesota) pressures Canada into ending its advertisements in US newspapers for farm laborers which promised high wages (and escape from the US draft) if they came to Canada.

Before the war, Germany led the world in chemical-based industries like dyes. US companies have had to step in, which is just as well now that it’s going to war, as the only pre-war source of khaki dye was German.

Spain has a new government, and it will maintain the country’s neutrality too.

Greece’s King Constantine is cajoling/threatening the Allies: he’ll allow the formation of a pro-Entente government only if they agree to let him keep being king and not invade Greece. If not, he’ll take Greece into the war on the other side.

Argentina threatens that if Germany doesn’t take responsibility for sinking a sailing ship, it will break off relations and arm its ships.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: April 21, 1917: Of reasonable censorship and outrageous monarchies

After days of pissing off every newspaper in the country by persisting with provisions in the Espionage Bill so broad and so vague as to put every reporter covering military matters in jeopardy of prosecution, the White House backs off a bit, and the bill is altered so that the president’s regulations must be “reasonable.” And rules against gathering information or asking questions about national defenses are removed. The bill now specifically says public discussion and criticism of government policies won’t be illegal. So that’s good.

H.G. Wells writes to the London Times suggesting it is time to dump the monarchy and establish a republic to set a good example for other countries, He is especially thinking of Greece, joining the chorus of Allies trying to get rid of King Constantine. “A King has always been an outrage upon the ancient Republican traditions of Athens,” Wells says. The Times does not agree with Wells’s support of republicanism in Britain, nor will it publish George Bernard Shaw’s letter noting that “The fundamental case against monarchy is that it rests on a basis of idolatry that can no longer be maintained.”

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Today -100: April 20, 1917: It is a marvel you were not lynched

Congressional Democrats will block consideration of prohibition (for the duration of the war) in the extra session, unless Wilson declares it a war measure.

Woodrow Wilson explains to Congress the need for selective service: there are all sorts of patriotic service, and the military “was by no means the only part, and perhaps, all things considered, not the most vital part.” If people are allowed to volunteer for the military, they may be taking themselves away from other tasks which the country needs.

Meanwhile, reserve officers and officer candidates are expected to train – for three months – without pay.

Those men who hurriedly got married to avoid the draft will be drafted anyway if they married after the declaration of war, the War Department says.

Since the US declared war, the NYT has been full of stories, possibly true but not very well sourced, about how Germans are all starving and the German army, or at the very least its morale, is close to collapse.

The NYT is now spelling Lenin “Lenine.” In a reprint from the London Daily Chronicle which says Russians are indignant at his accepting passage from Germany (the famous closed carriage) on his trip from Switzerland to Russia. It says he has no supporters, even among Social Democrats.

The New York Yacht Club drops Kaiser Wilhelm and his brother Prince Heinrich of Prussia as honorary members.

This may not be his actual birth-name, but someone who wrote an anti-war pamphlet entitled “War At Any Price - A Sacrifice of Greed” and signs himself “Shiloh the Theocrat – One With Infinite Authority and Power,” is arrested for distributing that pamphlet at a patriotic parade in New York and sentenced to 6 months for disorderly conduct, which conduct seems to consist entirely of handing out his pamphlet. The magistrate tells him “It is a marvel you were not lynched. And if you had been you would have been receiving your just deserts.”

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Today -100: April 19, 1917: Of loyal obedience and patriotic service, selective service, churches, and lenses

NY Mayor John Purroy Mitchel says any teacher who doesn’t sign a pledge to teach children the duty of “loyal obedience and patriotic service” should be fired.

The House Military Committee decides to merely “authorize” the president to implement conscription if he thinks a voluntary system of recruitment won’t work, which is of course Congress’s way of avoiding taking blame for a potentially unpopular decision. They know damned well Wilson has no intention of even trying a voluntary system.

Meanwhile, Theodore Roosevelt, realizing that the War Department has been stalling and evading his request to lead a division to France immediately if not sooner (Rough Riders II: This Time It’s Personal), has been secretly lobbying Congress to end-run the White House veto. TR has also been offered a commission in the New York National Guard. He says he might accept if the other thing falls through.

Congress passes a bill allowing Allied countries to recruit their citizens living in the United States. There is some push-back over fears that those countries would use coercion, including from new congresscritter Fiorello La Guardia, who is worried about Italians, pointing out that Italy doesn’t recognize the American naturalizations of Italian citizens.

Anti-German rioting in Brazil, with buildings burned in Porto Alegre.

Emperor Karl of Austria promises God that if He grants Austria an early peace, he will build a really nice church for Him.

Headline of the Day -100: 

“I SAID watch where you step, I dropped my contact lens!”

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Today -100: April 18, 1917: Of selective service, war ag, and dangerous magazines

Pres. Wilson consults with members of Congress about selective service. And by “consult,” I mean demand his own way in every detail, shooting down the idea of trying a volunteer military before implementing conscription.

The Pennsylvania Legislature defeats a women’s suffrage amendment to the state constitution.

White House staff are being encouraged to grow food on a vacant bit of government-owned land opposite the White House (where a new Justice Dept building was supposed to be built, but it’s been delayed) to set an example.

The British government has banned the export of copies of The Nation magazine (the British magazine of that name, not the American one) because of “dangerous” articles that could be used in German propaganda. In Parliament, Bonar Law refuses to explain which articles caused the ban or what the objectionable material was, although it was probably an article in the March 3rd issue which said that the Germans were performing well on the Western Front and in their submarine warfare. Churchill notes that Lloyd George himself has made more pessimistic assessments of the military situation than anything the Nation published.

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Today -100: April 17, 1917: Of allegiance, cadavers, and soviets

Woodrow Wilson issues a proclamation telling people not to commit treason, including aliens who, he says, owe “allegiance” to the United States. Do they, though?

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The Times of London and the Daily Mail report that Germany is producing glycerine by boiling down the corpses of dead soldiers.  British Military Intelligence propagandists are responsible for planting this particular story. The basis for it is that glycerine was generated in Kadaververwertungsanstalt, which the Northcliffe papers choose to translate as Corpse-Exploitation Establishment, pretending that the “kadavers” in question are human rather than horse (the word for human cadavers is leichman).

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies demands that it retain the power of oversight and control over the provisional government because only it can counteract any counter-revolutionary moves.

Raimes & Co., whatever they might be, tries to screw over Fritz Schultz, Jr., Company Inc., whatever that might be, arguing that the latter’s lawsuits demanding payment from the former for goods received be thrown out because it’s an Enemy Corporation now. The judge says Germans can still sue.

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Today -100: April 16, 1917: We must all speak, act, and serve together

Woodrow Wilson issues a proclamation about what he expects everyone to do to win “the grim and terrible war for democracy and human rights” (hey, the war finally has a name!) He continues to portray this as some sort of violent social work: “There is not a single selfish element, so far as I can see, in the cause we are fighting for.” He says “we must devote ourselves to the service without regard to profit or material advantage”. Spoiler Alert: US manufacturing is going to get a buttload of profit and material advantage out of the war.

He issues marching orders to every segment of society: “Upon the farmers of this country, therefore, in large measure rests the fate of the war and the fate of the nations.” “there shall be no unwarranted manipulation of the nation's food supply by those who handle it on its way to the consumer.” He asks middlemen to make no “unusual profits” and “suggests” to merchants the motto “small profits and quick service.” He asks housewives to practice strict economy. “This is the time for America to correct her unpardonable fault of wastefulness and extravagance.”

He concludes, “We must all speak, act, and serve together.”

Carranza, speaking  at the opening of the first Mexican Congress in 3 years, says that Mexico won’t abandon its neutrality.

Ludwig Zamenhof, creator of the alt-language Esperanto, dies. Zamenhof was a Polish Jew who thought a universal language would end war so, um, yeah. Ripozu en paco, Dr. Zamenhof.

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Today -100: April 15, 1917: Wherein is explained what Jesus thought of peace at any price, or something

The House of Representatives unanimously passes the Seven Billion Dollar Bill to finance the war, though Socialist Meyer London only votes “present.” It includes a $3 billion loan to the Allies. The bonds will be tax-free.

Woodrow Wilson creates a Committee on Public Information, i.e. censorship and propaganda. It will be run by George Creel, a journalist, editor, joke writer, etc., who helped run Wilson’s re-election campaign. It’s considered important that censorship be run by (authoritarian) civilians rather than the military.

This is as good a time as any to mention the introduction, some time this month, of this poster,

based on Britain’s similarly posed Lord Kitchener posters. It was created by an illustrator named James Montgomery Flagg, if you can believe it. He based Uncle Sam on... himself.

The New England Methodist Conference comes out  in favor of the war: “Peace at any price is as far from our sanction as it is, we believe, from the New Testament of Our Lord.” It also calls for prohibition as a war measure.

Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels rejects an offer from businessmen Benjamin and Anderson Gratz of $5,000 as a reward for the first US merchant ship to sink an enemy sub. Daniels thinks “money rewards for such bravery is not in keeping with the spirit of our day.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

Theodore Roosevelt’s youngest son (19) joins the Canadian Aviation Corps, which will train him as a pilot for service in the US version. But maybe not well enough (spoiler alert). Quentin’s older brother Archie graduates Harvard and gets married.

The NYT mentions Lenin again, chiefly as a supporter of peace.

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Today -100: April 14, 1917: Of internment, less intelligent workers, and rubber men

Bolivia breaks diplomatic relations with Germany, because why not.

Since the US won’t intern all German citizens here, Germany won’t intern US citizens there.

The NYT mentions Lenin. For the first time? In a piece from the London Daily Chronicle, which says the Lenin crowd’s agitation “has had a bad effect on the less intelligent workers”.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Wartime Story of the Day -100: a chauffeur in NYC tries to get out of a speeding ticket by claiming his passenger is an Army lieutenant carrying vital dispatches. (He isn’t).

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Today -100: April 13, 1917: Of women’s suffrage, disaffection, and the simple life

Women get the vote in Nova Scotia.

Congress is working on the Wilson Admin’s Espionage Bill, but some are worried about the vagueness of some of the provisions, in particular the criminalizing of speeches or writings causing “disaffection” in the military, which could criminalize anyone, including reporters, asking questions about the national defense.

It should be noted that this is the law that Obama used to aggressively prosecute leakers.

Pres. Wilson is telling congresscritters who are offering to resign to join the military not to.

First Lady Edith Wilson and the wives of the vice president and Cabinet members start a “simple life” movement to cut down unnecessary spending and entertaining, so their energy and resources can be channeled into killing fucking Germans, or something.

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Today -100: April 12, 1917: Of degenerate brains, conscription, and corn bread

Brazil breaks diplomatic relations with Germany.

Eddystone Ammunition Corp officials are still insisting that the explosion at their explosives plant was not an accident or the result of their negligence, but “the result of a diabolical plot conceived in the degenerate brain of a demon in human guise.”

Men who are married or have parents or children as dependents are ordered to quit the National Guard.

The White House not only wants conscription, it doesn’t want volunteers, even though the machinery of conscription will take months to set up. Rep. Daniel Anthony (R-Kansas) asks Secretary of War Newton Baker if he wouldn’t rather have volunteers beginning training within 30 days rather than wait 6 months for conscripts. Evidently he wouldn’t.

Herbert Hoover is appointed chairman of the new Food Board in the US. His first official act is to ask Americans to eat corn bread, so wheat can be shipped to Europe.

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Today -100: April 11, 1917: Save some carnage and death for us, huh, Europeans?

The US plans to slow-walk its entry into the war, not sending any soldiers over until 1 million are trained. In theory they could send the (not very large) existing army over now, but those soldiers are needed to train the incoming soldiers for like a year or so.

The announced plans to conscript unmarried 19-to-25-year-old men has predictably led  to a sharp increase in marriages among 19-to-25-year-old men.

Theodore Roosevelt meets with Woodrow Wilson and asks permission to raise his own division. Wilson stalls him. TR will try to get Congress to over-ride the War Department.

I’m not sure if “drafted” in this story means actual conscription, but the government plans to “draft” Native Americans in Oklahoma for farm labor to free up farmers to be soldiers, and will pull them out of school to do so.

An explosion in the Eddystone Ammunition Corp shell factory in Chester, Pennsylvania kills 130+ workers, the vast majority of them young women. The company says it’s absolutely not their fault that their high-explosive powder went boom, it must be German saboteurs.

The Russian Provisional Government is confiscating all of Tsar Nicholas’s stuff.

Headline of the Day -100: 

The First National Registration Society wants everyone in the US fingerprinted. Which is not ominous at all (although many of the Eddystone factory bodies will never be identified, so they may have a point).

The Society for the Suppression of Vice, the late Anthony Comstock’s outfit, seizes the May issue of Pearson’s and orders the editor and publisher into court because of an article, written by the editor, Frank Harris, “calculated to corrupt the morals of youth.” The article is part of the series “The Night Court Inquisition” investigating abuses in the New York City women’s night court, where people can be imprisoned for prostitution and other vice crimes on the word of a single corrupt cop. It will be announced two days from now that the court will be abolished. Journalism works.

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