Monday, January 11, 1909. The Boundary Waters Treaty, Electoral College chooses Taft.

The Boundary Waters Treat regulating use of waters shared by the United States and Canada was signed by U.S. Secretary of State Elihu Root and British Ambassador to the United States James Bryce, at Root's home.

It provided:

Treaty relating to Boundary Waters and Questions arising along the Boundary between Canada and the United States, signed at Washington, January 11, 1909

His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Emperor of India, and the United States of America, being equally desirous to prevent disputes regarding the use of boundary waters and to settle all questions which are now pending between the United States and the Dominion of Canada involving the rights, obligations, or interests of either in relation to the other or to the inhabitants of the other, along their common frontier, and to make provision for the adjustment and settlement of all such questions as may hereafter arise, have resolved to conclude a treaty in furtherance of these ends, and for that purpose have appointed as their respective plenipotentiaries:

His Britannic Majesty, the Right Honourable James Bryce, O.M., his Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at Washington; and

The President of the United States of America, Elihu Root, Secretary of State of the United States;

Who, after having communicated to one another their full powers, found in good and due form, have agreed upon the following articles:

Preliminary Article

For the purposes of this treaty boundary waters are defined as the waters from main shore to main shore of the lakes and rivers and connecting waterways, or the portions thereof, along which the international boundary between the United States and the Dominion of Canada passes, including all bays, arms, and inlets thereof, but not including tributary waters which in their natural channels would flow into such lakes, rivers, and waterways, or waters flowing from such lakes, rivers, and waterways, or the waters of rivers flowing across the boundary.

Article I

The High Contracting Parties agree that the navigation of all navigable boundary waters shall forever continue free and open for the purposes of commerce to the inhabitants and to the ships, vessels, and boats of both countries equally, subject, however, to any laws and regulations of either country, within its own territory, not inconsistent with such privilege of free navigation and applying equally and without discrimination to the inhabitants, ships, vessels, and boats of both countries.

It is further agreed that so long as this treaty shall remain in force, this same right of navigation shall extend to the waters of Lake Michigan and to all canals connecting boundary waters, and now existing or which may hereafter be constructed on either side of the line. Either of the High Contracting Parties may adopt rules and regulations governing the use of such canals within its own territory and may charge tolls for the use thereof, but all such rules and regulations and all tolls charged shall apply alike to the subjects or citizens of the High Contracting Parties and the ships, vessels, and boats of both of the High Contracting Parties, and they shall be placed on terms of equality in the use thereof.

Article II

Each of the High Contracting Parties reserves to itself or to the several State Governments on the one side and the Dominion or Provincial Governments on the other as the case may be, subject to any treaty provisions now existing with respect thereto, the exclusive jurisdiction and control over the use and diversion, whether temporary or permanent, of all waters on its own side of the line which in their natural channels would flow across the boundary or into boundary waters; but it is agreed that any interference with or diversion from their natural channel of such waters on either side of the boundary, resulting in any injury on the other side of the boundary, shall give rise to the same rights and entitle the injured parties to the same legal remedies as if such injury took place in the country where such diversion or interference occurs; but this provision shall not apply to cases already existing or to cases expressly covered by special agreement between the parties hereto.

It is understood, however, that neither of the High Contracting Parties intends by the foregoing provision to surrender any right, which it may have, to object to any interference with or diversions of waters on the other side of the boundary the effect of which would be productive of material injury to the navigation interests on its own side of the boundary.

Article III

It is agreed that, in addition to the uses, obstructions, and diversions heretofore permitted or hereafter provided for by special agreement between the Parties hereto, no further or other uses or obstructions or diversions, whether temporary or permanent, of boundary waters on either side of the line, affecting the natural level or flow of boundary waters on the other side of the line, shall be made except by authority of the United States or the Dominion of Canada within their respective jurisdictions and with the approval, as hereinafter provided, of a joint commission, to be known as the International Joint Commission.

The foregoing provisions are not intended to limit or interfere with the existing rights of the Government of the United States on the one side and the Government of the Dominion of Canada on the other, to undertake and carry on governmental works in boundary waters for the deepening of channels, the construction of breakwaters, the improvement of harbors, and other governmental works for the benefit of commerce and navigation, provided that such works are wholly on its own side of the line and do not materially affect the level or flow of the boundary waters on the other, nor are such provisions intended to interfere with the ordinary use of such waters for domestic and sanitary purposes.

Article IV

The High Contracting Parties agree that, except in cases provided for by special agreement between them, they will not permit the construction or maintenance on their respective sides of the boundary of any remedial or protective works or any dams or other obstructions in waters flowing from boundary waters or in waters at a lower level than the boundary in rivers flowing across the boundary, the effect of which is to raise the natural level of waters on the other side of the boundary unless the construction or maintenance thereof is approved by the aforesaid International Joint Commission.

It is further agreed that the waters herein defined as boundary waters and waters flowing across the boundary shall not be polluted on either side to the injury of health or property on the other.

Article V

The High Contracting Parties agree that it is expedient to limit the diversion of waters from the Niagara River so that the level of Lake Erie and the flow of the stream shall not be appreciably affected. It is the desire of both Parties to accomplish this object with the least possible injury to investments which have already been made in the construction of power plants on the United States side of the river under grants of authority from the State of New York, and on the Canadian side of the river under licenses authorized by the Dominion of Canada and the Province of Ontario.

So long as this treaty shall remain in force, no diversion of the waters of the Niagara River above the Falls from the natural course and stream thereof shall be permitted except for the purposes and to the extent hereinafter provided.

Footnote*The United States may authorize and permit the diversion within the State of New York of the waters of the said river above the Falls of Niagara, for power purposes, not exceeding in the aggregate a daily diversion at the rate of twenty thousand cubic feet of water per second.

Footnote*The United Kingdom, by the Dominion of Canada, or the Province of Ontario, may authorize and permit the diversion within the Province of Ontario of the waters of said river above the Falls of Niagara, for power purposes, not exceeding in the aggregate a daily diversion at the rate of thirty-six thousand cubic feet of water per second.

Footnote*The prohibitions of this article shall not apply to the diversion of water for sanitary or domestic purposes, or for the service of canals for the purposes of navigation.

Return to footnote*[NOTE: Article I of the treaty between Canada and the United States concerning the diversion of the Niagara River, which came into force on October 10, 1950, provides as follows: “This Treaty shall terminate the third, fourth, and fifth paragraphs of Article V of the treaty between Great Britain and the United States of America relating to boundary waters and questions arising between Canada and the United States of America dated January 11, 1909, and the provisions embodied in the notes exchanged between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America at Washington on May 20, 1941, October 27, 1941, November 27, 1941, and December 23, 1948 regarding temporary diversions of water of the Niagara River for power purposes.”]

Article VI

The High Contracting Parties agree that the St. Mary and Milk Rivers and their tributaries (in the State of Montana and the Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan) are to be treated as one stream for the purposes of irrigation and power, and the waters thereof shall be apportioned equally between the two countries, but in making such equal apportionment more than half may be taken from one river and less than half from the other by either country so as to afford a more beneficial use to each. It is further agreed that in the division of such waters during the irrigation season, between the 1st of April and 31st of October, inclusive, annually, the United States is entitled to a prior appropriation of 500 cubic feet per second of the waters of the Milk River, or so much of such amount as constitutes three-fourths of its natural flow, and that Canada is entitled to a prior appropriation of 500 cubic feet per second of the flow of St. Mary River, or so much of such amount as constitutes three-fourths of its natural flow.

The channel of the Milk River in Canada may be used at the convenience of the United States for the conveyance, while passing through Canadian territory, of waters diverted from the St. Mary River. The provisions of Article II of this treaty shall apply to any injury resulting to property in Canada from the conveyance of such waters through the Milk River.

The measurement and apportionment of the water to be used by each country shall from time to time be made jointly by the properly constituted reclamation officers of the United States and the properly constituted irrigation officers of His Majesty under the direction of the International Joint Commission.

Article VII

The High Contracting Parties agree to establish and maintain an International Joint Commission of the United States and Canada composed of six commissioners, three on the part of the United States appointed by the President thereof, and three on the part of the United Kingdom appointed by His Majesty on the recommendation of the Governor in Council of the Dominion of Canada.

Article VIII

This International Joint Commission shall have jurisdiction over and shall pass upon all cases involving the use or obstruction or diversion of the waters with respect to which under Articles III and IV of this treaty the approval of this Commission is required, and in passing upon such cases the Commission shall be governed by the following rules or principles which are adopted by the High Contracting Parties for this purpose:

The High Contracting Parties shall have, each on its own side of the boundary, equal and similar rights in the use of the waters hereinbefore defined as boundary waters.

The following order of precedence shall be observed among the various uses enumerated hereinafter for these waters, and no use shall be permitted which tends materially to conflict with or restrain any other use which is given preference over it in this order of precedence:

(1)  Uses for domestic and sanitary purposes;

(2)  Uses for navigation, including the service of canals for the purposes of navigation;

(3)  Uses for power and for irrigation purposes.

The foregoing provisions shall not apply to or disturb any existing uses of boundary waters on either side of the boundary.

The requirement for an equal division may in the discretion of the Commission be suspended in cases of temporary diversions along boundary waters at points where such equal division can not be made advantageously on account of local conditions, and where such diversion does not diminish elsewhere the amount available for use on the other side.

The Commission in its discretion may make its approval in any case conditional upon the construction of remedial or protective works to compensate so far as possible for the particular use or diversion proposed, and in such cases may require that suitable and adequate provision, approved by the Commission, be made for the protection and indemnity against injury of any interests on either side of the boundary.

In cases involving the elevation of the natural level of waters on either side of the line as a result of the construction or maintenance on the other side of remedial or protective works or dams or other obstructions in boundary waters or in waters flowing therefrom or in waters below the boundary in rivers flowing across the boundary, the Commission shall require, as a condition of its approval thereof, that suitable and adequate provision, approved by it, be made for the protection and indemnity of all interests on the other side of the line which may be injured thereby.

The majority of the Commissioners shall have power to render a decision. In case the Commission is evenly divided upon any question or matter presented to it for decision, separate reports shall be made by the Commissioners on each side to their own Government. The High Contracting Parties shall thereupon endeavor to agree upon an adjustment of the question or matter of difference, and if an agreement is reached between them, it shall be reduced to writing in the form of a protocol and shall be communicated to the Commissioners, who shall take such further proceedings as may be necessary to carry out such agreement.

Article IX

The High Contracting Parties further agree that any other questions or matters of difference arising between them involving the rights, obligations, or interests of either in relation to the other or to the inhabitants of the other, along the common frontier between the United States and the Dominion of Canada, shall be referred from time to time to the International Joint Commission for examination and report, whenever either the Government of the United States or the Government of the Dominion of Canada shall request that such questions or matters of difference be so referred.

The International Joint Commission is authorized in each case so referred to examine into and report upon the facts and circumstances of the particular questions and matters referred, together with such conclusions and recommendations as may be appropriate, subject, however, to any restrictions or exceptions which may be imposed with respect thereto by the terms of the reference.

Such reports of the Commission shall not be regarded as decisions of the questions or matters so submitted either on the facts or the law, and shall in no way have the character of an arbitral award.

The Commission shall make a joint report to both Governments in all cases in which all or a majority of the Commissioners agree, and in case of disagreement the minority may make a joint report to both Governments, or separate reports to their respective Governments.

In case the Commission is evenly divided upon any question or matter referred to it for report, separate reports shall be made by the Commissioners on each side to their own Government.

Article X

Any questions or matters of difference arising between the High Contracting Parties involving the rights, obligations, or interests of the United States or of the Dominion of Canada either in relation to each other or to their respective inhabitants, may be referred for decision to the International Joint Commission by the consent of the two Parties, it being understood that on the part of the United States any such action will be by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and on the part of His Majesty’s Government with the consent of the Governor General in Council. In each case so referred, the said Commission is authorized to examine into and report upon the facts and circumstances of the particular questions and matters referred, together with such conclusions and recommendations as may be appropriate, subject, however, to any restrictions or exceptions which may be imposed with respect thereto by the terms of the reference.

A majority of the said Commission shall have power to render a decision or finding upon any of the questions or matters so referred.

If the said Commission is equally divided or otherwise unable to render a decision or finding as to any questions or matters so referred, it shall be the duty of the Commissioners to make a joint report to both Governments, or separate reports to their respective Governments, showing the different conclusions arrived at with regard to the matters or questions so referred, which questions or matters shall thereupon be referred for decision by the High Contracting Parties to an umpire chosen in accordance with the procedure prescribed in the fourth, fifth, and sixth paragraphs of Article XLV of The Hague Convention for the pacific settlement of international disputes, dated October 18, 1907. Such umpire shall have power to render a final decision with respect to those matters and questions so referred on which the Commission failed to agree.

Article XI

A duplicate original of all decisions rendered and joint reports made by the Commission shall be transmitted to and filed with the Secretary of State of the United States and the Governor General of the Dominion of Canada, and to them shall be addressed all communications of the Commission.

Article XII

The International Joint Commission shall meet and organize at Washington promptly after the members thereof are appointed, and when organized the Commission may fix such times and places for its meetings as may be necessary, subject at all times to special call or direction by the two Governments. Each Commissioner, upon the first joint meeting of the Commission after his appointment, shall, before proceeding with the work of the Commission, make and subscribe a solemn declaration in writing that he will faithfully and impartially perform the duties imposed upon him under this treaty, and such declaration shall be entered on the records of the proceedings of the Commission.

The United States and Canadian sections of the Commission may each appoint a secretary, and these shall act as joint secretaries of the Commission at its joint sessions, and the Commission may employ engineers and clerical assistants from time to time as it may deem advisable. The salaries and personal expenses of the Commission and of the secretaries shall be paid by their respective Governments, and all reasonable and necessary joint expenses of the Commission, incurred by it, shall be paid in equal moieties by the High Contracting Parties.

The Commission shall have power to administer oaths to witnesses, and to take evidence on oath whenever deemed necessary in any proceeding, or inquiry, or matter within its jurisdiction under this treaty, and all parties interested therein shall be given convenient opportunity to be heard, and the High Contracting Parties agree to adopt such legislation as may be appropriate and necessary to give the Commission the powers above mentioned on each side of the boundary, and to provide for the issue of subpoenas and for compelling the attendance of witnesses in proceedings before the Commission. The Commission may adopt such rules of procedure as shall be in accordance with justice and equity, and may make such examination in person and through agents or employees as may be deemed advisable.

Article XIII

In all cases where special agreements between the High Contracting Parties hereto are referred to in the foregoing articles, such agreements are understood and intended to include not only direct agreements between the High Contracting Parties, but also any mutual arrangement between the United States and the Dominion of Canada expressed by concurrent or reciprocal legislation on the part of Congress and the Parliament of the Dominion.

Article XIV

The present treaty shall be ratified by His Britannic Majesty and by the President of the United States of America, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof. The ratifications shall be exchanged at Washington as soon as possible and the treaty shall take effect on the date of the exchange of its ratifications. It shall remain in force for five years, dating from the day of exchange of ratifications, and thereafter until terminated by twelve months’ written notice given by either High Contracting Party to the other.

In faith whereof the respective plenipotentiaries have signed this treaty in duplicate and have hereunto affixed their seals.

Done at Washington, the 11th day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and nine.

[Here follow the signatures of James Bryce and Elihu Root.]

The above treaty was approved by the United States’ Senate on the 3rd March 1909, with the following Resolutions:

Resolved, — That the Senate advise and consent to the ratification of the treaty between the United States and Great Britain, providing for the settlement of international differences between the United States and Canada, signed on the 11th day of January 1909.

Resolved further (as a part of this ratification), — That the United States approves this treaty with the understanding that nothing in this treaty shall be construed as affecting, or changing, any existing territorial, or riparian rights in the water, or rights of the owners of lands under water, on either side of the international boundary at the rapids of the St. Mary’s River at Sault Ste. Marie, in the use of the waters flowing over such lands, subject to the requirements of navigation in boundary waters and of navigation canals, and without prejudice to the existing right of the United States and Canada, each to use the waters of the St. Mary’s River, within its own territory; and further, that nothing in this treaty shall be construed to interfere with the drainage of wet, swamp, and overflowed lands into streams flowing into boundary waters, and that this interpretation will be mentioned in the ratification of this treaty as conveying the true meaning of the treaty, and will in effect, form part of the treaty.

Protocol of Exchange

On proceeding to the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty signed at Washington on January 11, 1909, between Great Britain and the United States, relating to boundary waters and questions arising along the boundary between the United States and the Dominion of Canada, the undersigned plenipotentiaries, duly authorized thereto by their respective Governments, hereby declare that nothing in this treaty shall be construed as affecting, or changing, any existing territorial, or riparian rights in the water, or rights of the owners of lands under water, on either side of the international boundary at the rapids of St. Mary’s River at Sault Ste. Marie, in the use of the waters flowing over such lands, subject to the requirements of navigation in boundary waters and of navigation canals, and without prejudice to the existing right of the United States and Canada, each to use the waters of the St. Mary’s River, within its own territory; and further, that nothing in this treaty shall be construed to interfere with the drainage of wet, swamp, and overflowed lands into streams flowing into boundary waters, and also that this declaration shall be deemed to have equal force and effect as the treaty itself and to form an integral part thereto.

The exchange of ratifications then took place in the usual form.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, they have signed the present Protocol of Exchange and have affixed their seals thereto.

DONE at Washington this 5th day of May, one thousand nine hundred and ten.

[Here follow the signatures of James Bryce and Philander C. Knox.]

The Electoral Collage officially elected William Howard Taft as President of the United States.

Shoot, both nearly make a person nostalgic for 1909.

Friday, January 9, 1909. Censuring Roosevelt.

The House of Representatives effectively censured outgoing President Theodore Roosevelt by adopting a committee report critical of him.  On the same day, the Senate voted to have the Judiciary Committee investigate him for wrongdoing during the Panic of 1907.

It didn't help that in his annual message to Congress, he'd states that there were "criminals in the legislative branch".

Sometimes it just helps to know that Congress has being doing dumb stuff pretty much the entire time it's existed.

The Aerodrome: Thursday, January 7, 1909. Those early licenses.

The Aerodrome: Thursday, January 7, 1909. Those early licenses.: 

Thursday, January 7, 1909. Those early licenses.

The first pilot's licenses were issued in France on this day in 1909. The issuing entity was the Aero-Club de France and the recipients were Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright, Albert Santos-Dumont, Louis Blériot, Robert Esnault-Pelterie, Léon Delagrange, Henri Farman and Captain Ferdinand Ferber.

John Evershed discovered, on the same day, that gas radiates over the surface of sunspots, from the inner border to the outer edge.

Thursday, August 22, 1901. Glider failure.

The 1901 glider.

Wilbur and Orville Wright departed Kitty Hawk, North Carolina after the failure of gilder experiments.

Front pages were a bit different.

As were papers in general.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 21, 1901. Tough baseball players, Childish games, Forlorn hopes.

Labels: 1900s, 1901, baseball, France, Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Ottoman Empire, Sports, Unions, United Kingdom, William McKinley

Wednesday, August 21, 1901. Tough baseball players, Childish games, Forlorn hopes.

Gus Weyhing, the last major league baseball pitcher who refused to wear a baseball glove while on the mound, pitched his final game. 

He was pitching for the Cincinnati Reds. they lost to the Cubs, 9 to 1.

It was his first, and last, game for the Reds.

Weyhing has an odd connection with Lou Gehrig in that his second wife, Mamie, was Lou's cousin.

509 American school teachers, 368 men and 141 women, arrived in Manila as teachers for the Philippines which included, in keeping with the American view of its mission, Americanization.

France and the Ottoman Empire severed diplomatic relations over the French ambassador's accusation that the Ottoman Sultan had broken his promise to settle disputed French claims.The French cruiser Cussard was dispatched to get Ambassador J.A.E. Constans.

President McKinley issued a proclamation inviting "all the Nations of the Earth" to participate in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, scheduled to be held in St. Louis starting May 1, 1903.

Forlorn hopes.

Representatives from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom met in Copenhagen and founded the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU).

Last edition:

Sunday, August 18, 1901. The United States of Lynchdom.

Labels: 1900s, 1901, 1901. The United States of Lynchdom., August 18, Crime, Mark Twain, Missouri, Nadir of Race Relations, Racism, Sunday

Sunday, August 18, 1901. The United States of Lynchdom.

A white mob drove all of the African American residents of Pierce City, Missouri, out of town due to the murder of Gisella Wild, a white woman.  The accused was lynched.

The Pierce City events started a wave of similar events in the region.

The events resulted in Mark Twain's The United States of Lynchdom.

I

And so Missouri has fallen, that great state! Certain of her children have joined the lynchers, and the smirch is upon the rest of us. That handful of her children have given us a character and labeled us with a name, and to the dwellers in the four quarters of the earth we are "lynchers," now, and ever shall be. For the world will not stop and think — it never does, it is not its way; its way is to generalize from a single sample. It will not say, "Those Missourians have been busy eighty years in building an honorable good name for themselves; these hundred lynchers down in the comer of the state are not real Missourians, they are renegades." No, that truth will not enter its mind; it will generalize from the one or two misleading samples and say, "The Missourians are lynchers." It has no reflection, no logic, no sense of proportion. With figures go for nothing; to it, figures reveal nothing, it cannot reason upon them rationally; it would say, for instance, that China is being swiftly and surely Christianized, since nine Chinese Christians are being made every day; and it would fail, with him, to notice that the fact that 33,000 pagans are born there every day, damages the argument. It would say, "There are a hundred lynchers there, therefore the Missourians are lynchers"; the considerable fact that there are two and a half million Missourians who are not lynchers would not affect their verdict.

II

Oh, Missouri!

The tragedy occurred near Pierce City, down in the southwestern corner of the state. On a Sunday afternoon a young white woman who had started alone from church was found murdered. For there are churches there; in my time religion was more general, more pervasive, in the South than it was in the North, and more virile and earnest, too, I think; I have some reason to believe that this is still the case. The young woman was found murdered. Although it was a region of churches and schools the people rose, lynched three negroes—two of them very aged ones—burned out five negro households, and drove thirty negro families into the woods.

I do not dwell upon the provocation which moved the people to these crimes, for that has nothing to do with the matter; the only question is, does the assassin take the law into his own hands? It is very simple, and very just. If the assassin be proved to have usurped the law's prerogative in righting his wrongs, that ends the matter; a thousand provocations are no defense. The Pierce City people had bitter provocation — indeed, as revealed by certain of the particulars, the bitterest of all provocations — but no matter, they took the law into their own hands, when by the terms of their statutes their victim would certainly hang if the law had been allowed to take its course, for there are but few negroes in that region and they are without authority and without influence in overawing juries.

Why has lynching, with various barbaric accompaniments, become a favorite regulator in cases of "the usual crime" in several parts of the country? Is it because men think a lurid and terrible punishment a more forcible object lesson and a more effective deterrent than a sober and colorless hanging done privately in a jail would be? Surely sane men do not think that. Even the average child should know better. It should know that any strange and much-talked-of event is always followed by imitations, the world being so well supplied with excitable people who only need a little stirring up to make them lose what is left of their heads and do things which they would not have thought of ordinarily. It should know that if a man jump off Brooklyn Bridge another will imitate him; that if a person venture down Niagara Whirlpool in a barrel another will imitate him; that if a Jack the Ripper make notoriety by slaughtering women in dark alleys he will be imitated; that if a man attempt a king's life and the newspapers carry the noise of it around the globe, regicides will crop up all around. The child should know that one much-talked-of outrage and murder committed by a negro will upset the disturbed intellects of several other negroes and produce a series of the very tragedies the community would so strenuously wish to prevent; that each of these crimes will produce another series, and year by year steadily increase the tale of these disasters instead of diminishing it; that, in a word, the lynchers are themselves the worst enemies of their women. The child should also know that by a law of our make, communities, as well as individuals, are imitators; and that a much-talked-of lynching will infallibly produce other lynchings here and there and yonder, and that in time these will breed a mania, a fashion; a fashion which will spread wide and wider, year by year, covering state after state, as with an advancing disease. Lynching has reached Colorado, it has reached California, it has reached Indiana—and now Missouri! I may live to see a negro burned in Union Square, New York, with fifty thousand people present, and not a sheriff visible, not a governor, not a constable, not a colonel, not a clergyman, not a law-and-order representative of any sort.

Increase in Lynching. — In 1900 there were eight more cases than in 1899, and probably this year there will be more than there were last year. The year is little more than half gone, and yet there are eighty-eight cases as compared with one hundred and fifteen for all of last year. The four Southern states, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi are the worst offenders. Last year there were eight cases in Alabama, sixteen in Georgia, twenty in Louisiana, and twenty in Mississippi—over one-half the total. This year to date there have been nine in Alabama, twelve in Georgia, eleven in Louisiana, and thirteen in Mississippi--again more than one-half the total nmber in the whole United States.—Chicago Tribune.

It must be that the increase comes of the inborn human instinct to imitate — that and man's commonest weakness, his aversion to being unpleasantly conspicuous, pointed at, shunned, as being on the unpopular side. Its other name is Moral Cowardice, and is the commanding feature of the make-up of 9,999 men in the 10,000. I am not offering this as a discovery; privately the dullest of us knows it to be true. History will not allow us to forget or ignore this supreme trait of our character. It persistently and sardonically reminds us that from the beginning of the world no revolt against a public infamy or oppression has ever been begun but by the one daring man in the 10,000, the rest timidly waiting, and slowly and reluctantly joining, under the influence of that man and his fellows from the other ten thousands. The abolitionists remember. Privately the public feeling was with them early, but each man was afraid to speak out until he got some hint that his neighbor was privately as he privately felt himself. Then the boom followed. It always does. It will occur in New York, some day; and even in Pennsylvania.

It has been supposed — and said — that the people at a lynching enjoy the spectacle and are glad of a chance to see it. It cannot be true; all experience is against it. The people in the South are made like the people in the North — the vast majority of whom are right-hearted and compassionate, and would be cruelly pained by such a spectacle — and would attend it, and let on to be pleased with it, if the public approval seemed to require it. We are made like that, and we cannot help it. The other animals are not so, but we cannot help that, either. They lack the Moral Sense; we have no way of trading ours off, for a nickel or some other thing above its value. The Moral Sense teaches us what is right, and how to avoid it — when unpopular.

It is thought, as I have said, that a lynching crowd enjoys a lynching. It certainly is not true; it is impossible of belief. It is freely asserted — you have seen it in print many times of late — that the lynching impulse has been misinterpreted; that it is act the outcome of a spirit of revenge, but of a "mere atrocious hunger to look upon human suffering." If that were so, the crowds that saw the Windsor Hotel burn down would have enjoyed the horrors that fell under their eyes. Did they? No one will think that of them, no one will make that charge. Many risked their lives to save the men and women who were in peril. Why did they do that? Because none would disapprove. There was no restraint; they could follow their natural impulse. Why does a crowd of the same kind of people in Texas, Colorado, Indiana, stand by, smitten to the heart and miserable, and by ostentatious outward signs pretend to enjoy a lynching? Why does it lift no hand or voice in protest? Only because it would be unpopular to do it, I think; each man is afraid of his neighbor's disapproval — a thing which, to the general run of the race, is more dreaded than wounds and death. When there is to be a lynching the people hitch up and come miles to see it, bringing their wives and children. Really to see it? No--they come only because they are afraid to stay at home, lest it be noticed and offensively commented upon. We may believe this, for we all know how we feel about such spectacles — also, how we would act under the like pressure. We are not any better nor any braver than anybody else, and we must not try to creep out of it.

A Savonarola can quell and scatter a mob of lynchers with a mere glance of his eye: so can a Merrill or a Beloat. For no mob has any sand in the presence of a man known to be splendidly brave. Besides, a lynching mob would like to be scattered, for of a certainty there are never ten men in it who would not prefer to be somewhere else — and would be, if they but had the courage to go. When I was a boy I saw a brave gentleman deride and insult a mob and drive it away; and afterward, in Nevada, I saw a noted desperado make two hundred men sit still, with the house burning under them, until he gave them permission to retire. A plucky man can rob a whole passenger train by himself; and the half of a brave man can hold up a stagecoach and strip its occupants.

Then perhaps the remedy for lynchings comes to this: station a brave man in each affected community to encourage, support, and bring to light the deep disapproval of lynching hidden in the secret places of its heart — for it is there, beyond question. Then those communities will find something better to imitate — of course, being human, they must imitate something. Where shall these brave men be found? That is indeed a difficulty; there are not three hundred of them in the earth. If merely physically brave men would do, then it were easy; they could be furnished by the cargo. When Hobson called for seven volunteers to go with him to what promised to be certain death, four thousand men responded — the whole fleet, in fact. Because all the world would approve. They knew that; but if Hobson's project had been charged with the scoffs and jeers of the friends and associates, whose good opinion and approval the sailors valued, he could not have got his seven.

No, upon reflection, the scheme will not work. There are not enough morally brave men in stock. We are out of moral-courage material; we are in a condition of profound poverty. We have those two sheriffs down South who — but never mind, it is not enough to go around; they have to stay and take care of their own communities.

But if we only could have three or four more sheriffs of that great breed! Would it help? I think so. For we are all imitators: other brave sheriffs would follow; to be a dauntless sheriff would come to be recognized as the correct and only the dreaded disapproval would fall to the share of the other kind; courage in this office would become custom, the absence of it a dishonor, just as courage presently replaces the timidity of the new soldier; then the mobs and the lynchings would disappear, and —

However. It can never be done without some starters, and where are we to get the starters? Advertise? Very well, then, let us advertise.

In the meantime, there is another plan. Let us import American missionaries from China, and send them into the lynching field. With 1,500 of them out there converting two Chinamen apiece per annum against an uphill birth rate of 33,000 pagans per day, it will take upward of a million years to make the conversions balance the output and bring the Christianizing of the country in sight to the naked eye; therefore, if we can offer our missionaries as rich a field at home at lighter expense and quite satisfactory in the matter of danger, why shouldn't they find it fair and right to come back and give us a trial? The Chinese are universally conceded to be excellent people, honest, honorable, industrious, trustworthy, kind-hearted, and all that—leave them alone, they are plenty good enough just as they are; and besides, almost every convert runs a risk of catching our civilization. We ought to be careful. We ought to think twice before we encourage a risk like that; for, once civilized, China can never be uncivilized again. We have not been thinking of that. Very well, we ought to think of it now. Our missionaries will find that we have a field for them — and not only for the 1,500, but for 15,011. Let them look at the following telegram and see if they have anything in China that is more appetizing. It is from Texas:

The negro was taken to a tree and swung in the air. Wood and fodder were piled beneath his body and a hot fire was made. Then it was suggested that the man ought not to die too quickly, and he was let down to the ground while a party went to Dexter, about two miles distant, to procure coal oil. This was thrown on the flame and the work completed.

We implore them to come back and help us in our need. Patriotism imposes this duty on them. Our country is worse off than China; they are our countrymen, their motherland supplicates their aid in this her hour of deep distress. They are competent; our people are not. They are used to scoffs, sneers, revilings, danger; our people are not. They have the martyr spirit; nothing but the martyr spirit can brave a lynching mob, and cow it and scatter it. They can save their country, we beseech them to come home and do it. We ask them to read that telegram again, and yet again, and picture the scene in their minds, and soberly ponder it; then multiply it by 115, add 88; place the 203 in a row, allowing 600 feet of space for each human torch, so that there be viewing room around it for 5,000 Christian American men, women, and children, youths and maidens; make it night for grim effect; have the show in a gradually rising plain, and let the course of the stakes be uphill; the eye can then take in the whole line of twenty-four miles of blood-and-flesh bonfires unbroken, whereas if it occupied level ground the ends of the line would bend down and be hidden from view by the curvature of the earth. All being ready, now, and the darkness opaque, the stillness impressive — for there should be no sound but the soft moaning of the night wind and the muffled sobbing of the sacrifices — let all the far stretch of kerosened pyres be touched off simultaneously and the glare and the shrieks and the agonies burst heavenward to the Throne.

There are more than a million persons present; the light from the fires flushes into vague outline against the night the spires of five thousand churches. O kind missionary, O compassionate missionary, leave China! come home and convert these Christians!

I believe that if anything can stop this epidemic of bloody insanities it is martial personalities that can face mobs without flinching; and as such personalities are developed only by familiarity with danger and by the training and seasoning which come of resisting it, the likeliest place to find them must be among the missionaries who have been under tuition in China during the past year or two. We have abundance of work for them, and for hundreds and thousands more, and the field is daily growing and spreading. Shall we find them? We can try. In 75,000,000 there must be other Merrills and Beloats; and it is the law of our make that each example shall wake up drowsing chevaliers of the same great knighthood and bring them to the front.

The town's population today, under 2,000, is almost 1,000 people lower than it was in 1901.

Last edition:

Monday, August 12, 1901. Driving up Pikes Peak.

Labels: 1890s, 1899, 1900s, 1901, 1902s, 1922, 1929, Automobiles, Colorado (Pikes Peak), Transportation

Monday, August 12, 1901. Driving up Pikes Peak.

Driver William B. Felker, Jr. and mechanic Charles A. Yont drove a steam-powered Locomobile along a treacherous road used for horse-drawn carriages, up Pikes Peak, the first people to do so by automobile.

1900 model Locomobile.

No one would attempt this again for the following decade.

Locomobiles were introduced as steam powered cars in 1899.  In 1903 production was switched to internal combustion engines.  The company was purchased by Durant motors in 1922, and production ceased in 1929.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 10, 1901. France out of China.

Labels: 1900s, 1901, Boxer Rebellion, China, France, Qing Dynasty

Saturday, August 10, 1901. France out of China.

France withdrew its troops from China.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 7, 1901. White Australia.

Labels: 1900s, 1901, 1940s, 1949, 1970s, 1973, Australia, boats and ships, Boer War, Colombia, Ethnicities, Horatio Herbert Kitchener, National Conservatism, Panama, Populism, Racism, South Africa, U.S. Navy

Wednesday, August 7, 1901. White Australia.

Australian Prime Minister Edmund Barton introduced the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 into the Australian House of Representatives as the Federation's first legislation to further the "White Australia policy", the policy that came into being to preclude people of non-European ethnic origins, Asians and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia.  The goal was to create a  "White/British" country.

The concept had obviously been around for awhile, but this was the first legislative effort at it.

The policy remained in effect until well after World War Two, although in the post war period, starting in 1949, it began to be dismantled.  By 1973 it had been completely.

On this date, Barton stated: "We are guarding the last part of the world in which the higher races can live and increase freely for the higher civilization. I place before the House a measure of definite and high policy."

World War One anti conscription poster.  It was feared by backers of the White Australia concept that conscripting Australians would necessitate the importation of foreign labor from other cultures.

This obviously racist  policy is, frankly, pretty much what National Conservatives and MAGA imagine to be ideal now, for the United States.  National Conservatives would imagine it ideal for Australia as well as the US, whereas MAGA can't spell Australia.  The racist nature of it, in contemporary National Conservative circles, would be thought of in cultural terms, which is why they tend to lecture Europeans on that continents immigration policies.  The more racist ones are why MAGA freaks out about things like Moroccans crossing into a Spanish North African city.

Often missed by NatCons on things such as this, many cultures other than European ones have claims on the Christian virtues they imagine themselves to be protecting, and in fact many of the darker cultures that Stephen Miller fears are actually, in 2026, every bit as European and Christian, if not more so, than Europeans and Americans are.  Central Africa is, for example, deeply Christian in many locations.  Central and South Americans, who MAGA fears, is uniformly Christian.

FWIW, this same sort of view was common in other regions of the British Empire.  Perhaps the ultimately expression of it was Rhodesia.

At any rate, the old racism is much like the new racism.

Higher civilization in the form of the British Army, through Field Marshal Kitchener, issued a proclamation giving all Boer soldiers until September 15 to surrender, or to be exiled permanently from South Africa if captured and to have their property confiscated at war's end.

It had no effect.

The RMS Oceanic rammed and sank the Irish vessel Kincor off of Tuskar Rock.

The U.S. Navy gunboat Machias was dispatched to Colon, Panama, Colombia to be on standby during the war between Colombia and Venezuela..

Last edition:

Tuesday, August 6, 1901. Lawton, Oklahoma.

Location: Lawton, OK, USA

Tuesday, August 6, 1901. Lawton, Oklahoma.

Lawton, Oklahoma, August 16, 1901

Lawton Oklahoma came into existence when the United States Land Office began auctioning lots divided from a 320-acre townsite located near Fort Sill. The auction "drew an overnight population of ten thousand of men", with their families, who had failed to secure homesteads in the lottery of August 1 and came to the townsite in the hope of bidding successfully at the sale of lots. By this date it already had a newspaper.

Ft. Sill is a location I spent a memorable, if brief, part of  my 18th and 19th year in.

Ft. Sill was founded in 1869, so there must have been some nearby community before that to service the post and its soldiers.  To my surprise, it comprises of only 94,000 acres.  It seemed so much bigger to me then.  

FWIW, as I found out several years ago (probably a decade or more) I can recognize it from the air.

Lawton, as a city, didn't impress me all that much, but I never saw that much of it. A good friend of mine retired near there, something fairly common for people with a career association with the military.

Captain Robert Falcon Scott of the Royal Navy and the research ship RRS Discovery, set sail from the port of Cowes, Isle of Wight, to start the British National Antarctic Expedition.

Prince Albert of Monaco's yacht Princess Alice II, loaned for scientific exploration, set a record for the greatest depth at which bottom trawling had taken place, collecting plankton and other undersea life at a depth of 6,035 meters (19,800 ft), southwest of the Cape Verde Islands.  The record would hold until 1947.  

Last edition:

Saturday, August 3, 1901. Muscular Christianity and Manly Men.

Labels: 1900s, 1901, boats and ships, Canada, Christianity, Men, Mountain Climbing, Mountaineering, Muscular Christianity, Protestant, religion, Royal Navy, Work

Saturday, August 3, 1901. Muscular Christianity and Manly Men.

The first ascent of  Canada's 11,870-foot Mount Assiniboine,"one of the classic mountaineering peaks of the world", occurred. It was accomplished by James Outram, Christian Bohren and Christian Hasler.

By Edna Winti - https://www.flickr.com/photos/ednawinti/7987475098/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=95018554

No one living today shall know the joy of such an achievement, and all achievements today, except personal ones in accordance with nature and the Natural Law, shal equate to it. Compared to our own era, the achievements of the rich and powerful, Gates, Musk, etc., are utter worthless dirt. What's more, they know it.

James Outram was a clergyman of the Church of England. While I'm of the view that the high church, in the Church of England, has no excuse for not becoming Catholic, I'll note that some of its members were really remarkable at the time. Christian pastors with the bark on.

The HMS Viper, the first  major steam powered Royal Navy ship was wrecked beyond repair during Royal Navy maneuvers near the Channel Island when it struck a reef near the island of Alderney, ripping out the bottom of its hull.  

It was a fairly modern ship.

It was, of course, a Saturday.

In this era of labor strife, it's interesting how often working men were depicted as very manly men.

I know that we shouldn't , but I can't help but note that things were perhaps existentially more genuine then.

Last edition:

Friday, August 2, 1901. New colonies.

Labels: 1900s, 1901, Boer War, British Empire, Orange Free State, Orange River Colony, South Africa, South African Republic (Transvaal), The Boer Republics, Transvaal Colony, War Crimes

Friday, August 2, 1901. New colonies.

The British government established colonial governments for Boer territory captured from the Orange Free State and the South African Republic, creating, respectively the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal Colony.

Flag of the Orange Free Colony.

Both are now part of South Africa.

On the same day, Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies for the United Kingdom, stated in the House of Commons that the British concentration camps in South Africa were "the only humane alternative to leaving the women and general on the 'desert veld', which in fact is where they lived in the first place and where they would have been better left.

Last edition:

Thursday, August 1, 1901. Racist Maryland.

Labels: 1900s, 1901, Maryland, Nadir of Race Relations, Nebraska, Racism, Science, Weather

Thursday, August 1, 1901. Racist Maryland.

Maryland adopted a constitutional amendment disenfranchising mot African Americans from voting.

Farmer N.F. Wright claimed responsibility for rainfall and temperatures dropping following a mortar based cloud seeding experiment at his far ner Lincoln, Nebraska.

Last edition:

Wednesday, July 31, 1901. Ascending.

Labels: 1860s, 1862, 1900s, 1901, boats and ships, Boer War, British National Antarctic Expedition, Exploration, Lighter than air aircraft, United Kingdom