New York Times 100 years ago today, August 31, 1912:
The London Nation Declares a British Protest Would Be Serious Blunder.
THINKS OUR RIGHTS CLEAR
Liberal Weekly's Elucidation of the Exact Purpose of Act Is Thought Very Significant.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON. Aug. 30.— Amid the chorus of denunciation of President Taft's action in signing the Panama Canal bill, a different note is struck by the Weekly Nation, which declares that America's case for the Panama act is very clear, in so far as a monopoly of American coastwise trade is concerned.
The Nation argues that while the clause in the Panama Canal bill, virtually exempting American vessels engaged in foreign trade from the dues paid by other vessels passing through the canal, was a plain violation of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, the elimination of this clause from the final draft, which received the President's signature, removes the substance of the grievance. The retention of the clause exempting from dues the American coastwise shipping has only the appearance of discrimination against foreign vessels, it says. The real discrimination exists in the United States navigation laws, which have insured a monopoly of coastwise trade to American vessels. The Nation goes on:
"It cannot be contended with any show of reason that the opening of the Panama Canal requires the Government of the United States to cancel this monopoly. Such a concession was evidently no part of the intention of either party to the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, nor does the coastwise clause impose any new or real discrimination. It merely safeguards or secures the discrimination, already existing, and is founded upon the general principles of a policy, which have no particular references to Panama."
President Taft's contention, according to The Nation, goes beyond the requirements of the case.
"All that President Taft needed to argue," says The Nation, "was that it could not be contended that the Panama act should be made an instrument for the practical abandonment of the navigation policy previously in operation.
"Perhaps it was unnecessary to have inserted in the act any clause, presenting this appearance of discrimination, for the act could hardly have been interpreted by any international court court as designed to remove from the United States the right of regulating purely internal traffic, which belongs to every sovereign power. But fair-minded people must recognize that the clause inflicts no new grievance upon the trade of this or any other country.
"We hope, therefore, there is no truth in the rumor that our Government is entering a protest at Washington against this provision in the Panama act. Such a protest, especially at such a moment, when even the most obliging of Americans is on guard against any show of 'knuckling under' to foreigners, would be a serious blunder. No American Government could concede a point, involving incidentally so grave a disturbance of a deep-rooted policy, and we do not for a moment believe that any international tribunal would decide the matter in our favor."
In conclusion, The Nation thinks that the clause excluding from all use of the canal the ships owned by railroads which are themselves competitors for traffic with the Panama route, may form a fitting subject of discussion between the British and American Governments, for it would appear as if the refusal to the Canadian companies of the use of the canal for the purposes of foreign, that is non-American, commerce, was an infringement of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. It goes on:
"The vehement arraignment by European journals of the claim of America to remit the fees of coasting ves- sols is founded on a complete missapprehension of the governing facts of the situation. Although this misapprehension seems to be shared by not a few leaders of public opinion in the United States, this support is evidently a survival of the strong feeling aroused against the quite unjustifiable claims of the earlier draft of the measure.
"When it comes to be recognized that the act merely confirms the previously existing discrimination in favor of American coastwise trade, there will, we think, be general acquiescence in this provision."
The deduction drawn from this article in the leading Liberal weekly is that the reports published as to the character of the latest representations made by the British Government to Washington are exaggerated.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Canadian Sounds War Note.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 31, 1912:
Manitoba M. P. Declares Germany and England Virtually in Conflict.
LONDON, Aug. 30.— "Germany and England are now in a state of war," according to J. A. M. Aikins, a member of Parliament from Brandon, Manitoba, who has returned from a Continental trip. In an interview to-day he said:
"From my investigations on the Continent and here I am convinced Germany and England are now in a state of war. The overt blow has not yet been struck, but when it is, all may be over in three months or three days. When Canada understands this situation I believe the Dominion's hearty help will be forthcoming."
Robert L. Borden and Louis P. Pelletier left London by train to-day for Liverpool to embark for Montreal. The Dominion Premier and Postmaster General were cheered on their way by a large group of Canadians who had gathered with the Canadian High Commissioner, Lord Strathcona, to wish them farewell.
The conservative newspapers to-day express high hopes of the result of Mr. Borden's mission in enlisting Canadian cooperation for imperial defense.
Manitoba M. P. Declares Germany and England Virtually in Conflict.
LONDON, Aug. 30.— "Germany and England are now in a state of war," according to J. A. M. Aikins, a member of Parliament from Brandon, Manitoba, who has returned from a Continental trip. In an interview to-day he said:
"From my investigations on the Continent and here I am convinced Germany and England are now in a state of war. The overt blow has not yet been struck, but when it is, all may be over in three months or three days. When Canada understands this situation I believe the Dominion's hearty help will be forthcoming."
Robert L. Borden and Louis P. Pelletier left London by train to-day for Liverpool to embark for Montreal. The Dominion Premier and Postmaster General were cheered on their way by a large group of Canadians who had gathered with the Canadian High Commissioner, Lord Strathcona, to wish them farewell.
The conservative newspapers to-day express high hopes of the result of Mr. Borden's mission in enlisting Canadian cooperation for imperial defense.
Abrogating The Panama Treaty.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 31, 1912:
The latest phase of the "American" position on the Panama tolls question is the assertion that the United States can do as it pleases because there never was any Hay-Pauncefote treaty. We are told that it was void from the beginning because it violated the Constitution in that it made a contract which derogated from the National sovereignty. This applies to any and all treaties which bind the Nation to anything, for the Nation cannot bind itself without limiting its freedom to act inconsistently with its obligation. If the position is well taken the United States is the only Nation which cannot make a treaty. It would become a pariah among nations which assume and keep obligations, and take pride in doing so. If we persist in this attitude there is not a nation in the world which will be our friend in times of peace and which will not rejoice in war to give aid and comfort to our enemies, of whom there will he many hereafter, although it has been our honest boast that the United States was the only country in the world which all envied and none hated.
We are to take this position in order to free ourselves from an undertaking which prevents our subsidizing an interest to which we have given a monopoly by law, and whose rates are such as may be imagined from the fact that they are not regulated by law. The inducement seems too small to some, and the consequences are more serious than the ingenious author of the idea may have imagined. If there is no Hay-Pauncefote treaty, then the Clayton-Bulwer treaty is not abrogated, and England is our partner in all transit across the Isthmus. That is to say, we lose our monopoly, after having assumed and spent the entire sum necessary to provide ourselves with it. This, strictly legal view of the matter leaves out of consideration the fact that even if there is no Hay-Pauncefote treaty we have acted as though there were up to this moment. That is to say, we have accepted the goods, and are bound to pay their worth, even though there were no bargain. But the fact is that if there is no bargain there ought to be for reasons of selfish interest which dwarf whatever value there may be in freedom to do the foolish thing for which freedom of action is sought.
The supporters of this proposal seem to think that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty consists entirely of our obligation. The fact is that the consideration for the assumption of our obligation is worth all it cost, on the strictest calculation of self-interest. In consideration of our promising and giving commercial neutrality the rest of the world bound itself to political neutrality. There was no other way in which we could secure political neutrality, for we never could make an entangling political alliance with nations whose primary interests are so different from our own. So long as we do not discriminate commercially against nations using the canal on terms fixed by ourselves, it is provided that the canal never shall be attacked in any war in which we can have no interest because of our geographical detachment, and because we have no allies, and can have none. In other words, the Hay-Pauncefote treaty's great merit is that it gives us a monopoly at Panama on terms which exempt us from the cost and trouble of protecting it in any wars except our own. The only consideration which we pay is the commercial equality of treatment which we ought to give in common decency, and for reasons of self-interest as well as self-respect. Germany builds warships, and England outbuilds Germany, in defense of the sacred right of destroying private commerce in war. If it were possible to place private property at sea beyond attack by, means of a treaty similar to the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, which places our canal beyond attack, the naval rivalry between England and Germany might cease. Those who abrogate the Hay-Pauncefote treaty therefore impose upon the United States a greater naval burden than that assumed by England and Germany. So long as the canal is neutralized we need a navy only for our own purposes. When the canal becomes a prize of war we shall need a navy as big as those of any alliance. England builds against two nations. We should have to build against any three at least, and conceivably against all nations, since we make it an object for all to attack the canal.
Just as the example of England and Germany in preserving freedom to attack private property at sea sets us as example to avoid, so the Hay-Pauncefote treaty shows them a way out of their competition of armaments. And there are gentlemen at Washington who are allowed without reproof to suggest that it is "American" and desirable to fasten upon this continent the burdens f militarism from which the Hay-Pauncefote treaty measurably delivers us. The establishment of the law of maritime brigandage upon this continent is too much to pay for the privilege of subsidizing a monopoly which would be all the better for a little reducing, or at least regulating, of its profits.
The latest phase of the "American" position on the Panama tolls question is the assertion that the United States can do as it pleases because there never was any Hay-Pauncefote treaty. We are told that it was void from the beginning because it violated the Constitution in that it made a contract which derogated from the National sovereignty. This applies to any and all treaties which bind the Nation to anything, for the Nation cannot bind itself without limiting its freedom to act inconsistently with its obligation. If the position is well taken the United States is the only Nation which cannot make a treaty. It would become a pariah among nations which assume and keep obligations, and take pride in doing so. If we persist in this attitude there is not a nation in the world which will be our friend in times of peace and which will not rejoice in war to give aid and comfort to our enemies, of whom there will he many hereafter, although it has been our honest boast that the United States was the only country in the world which all envied and none hated.
We are to take this position in order to free ourselves from an undertaking which prevents our subsidizing an interest to which we have given a monopoly by law, and whose rates are such as may be imagined from the fact that they are not regulated by law. The inducement seems too small to some, and the consequences are more serious than the ingenious author of the idea may have imagined. If there is no Hay-Pauncefote treaty, then the Clayton-Bulwer treaty is not abrogated, and England is our partner in all transit across the Isthmus. That is to say, we lose our monopoly, after having assumed and spent the entire sum necessary to provide ourselves with it. This, strictly legal view of the matter leaves out of consideration the fact that even if there is no Hay-Pauncefote treaty we have acted as though there were up to this moment. That is to say, we have accepted the goods, and are bound to pay their worth, even though there were no bargain. But the fact is that if there is no bargain there ought to be for reasons of selfish interest which dwarf whatever value there may be in freedom to do the foolish thing for which freedom of action is sought.
The supporters of this proposal seem to think that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty consists entirely of our obligation. The fact is that the consideration for the assumption of our obligation is worth all it cost, on the strictest calculation of self-interest. In consideration of our promising and giving commercial neutrality the rest of the world bound itself to political neutrality. There was no other way in which we could secure political neutrality, for we never could make an entangling political alliance with nations whose primary interests are so different from our own. So long as we do not discriminate commercially against nations using the canal on terms fixed by ourselves, it is provided that the canal never shall be attacked in any war in which we can have no interest because of our geographical detachment, and because we have no allies, and can have none. In other words, the Hay-Pauncefote treaty's great merit is that it gives us a monopoly at Panama on terms which exempt us from the cost and trouble of protecting it in any wars except our own. The only consideration which we pay is the commercial equality of treatment which we ought to give in common decency, and for reasons of self-interest as well as self-respect. Germany builds warships, and England outbuilds Germany, in defense of the sacred right of destroying private commerce in war. If it were possible to place private property at sea beyond attack by, means of a treaty similar to the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, which places our canal beyond attack, the naval rivalry between England and Germany might cease. Those who abrogate the Hay-Pauncefote treaty therefore impose upon the United States a greater naval burden than that assumed by England and Germany. So long as the canal is neutralized we need a navy only for our own purposes. When the canal becomes a prize of war we shall need a navy as big as those of any alliance. England builds against two nations. We should have to build against any three at least, and conceivably against all nations, since we make it an object for all to attack the canal.
Just as the example of England and Germany in preserving freedom to attack private property at sea sets us as example to avoid, so the Hay-Pauncefote treaty shows them a way out of their competition of armaments. And there are gentlemen at Washington who are allowed without reproof to suggest that it is "American" and desirable to fasten upon this continent the burdens f militarism from which the Hay-Pauncefote treaty measurably delivers us. The establishment of the law of maritime brigandage upon this continent is too much to pay for the privilege of subsidizing a monopoly which would be all the better for a little reducing, or at least regulating, of its profits.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
No Arbitration On Canal.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 30, 1912:
Believed Administration Will Decline Britain's Request on Tolls Issue.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 20.— Although the State Department will authorise no statement to that effect it is understood here that the Administration will decline to permit the question of the right of the United States to relieve its own shipping from tolls in the Panama Canal to go to arbitration, as proposed by Great Britain.
This position of the Government, it is said, may not be developed fully for some time.
Believed Administration Will Decline Britain's Request on Tolls Issue.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 20.— Although the State Department will authorise no statement to that effect it is understood here that the Administration will decline to permit the question of the right of the United States to relieve its own shipping from tolls in the Panama Canal to go to arbitration, as proposed by Great Britain.
This position of the Government, it is said, may not be developed fully for some time.
Flagship Pennsylvania Renamed.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 30, 1912:
BREMERTON, Wash., Aug. 20.— Pennsylvania having been selected by the Navy Department as the name of the new $15,000,000 battleship authorized by Congress, the armored cruiser Pennsylvania, flagship of the Pacific Reserve Fleet at Bremerton, was Renamed Pittsburgh yesterday on orders from Washington, D.C.
BREMERTON, Wash., Aug. 20.— Pennsylvania having been selected by the Navy Department as the name of the new $15,000,000 battleship authorized by Congress, the armored cruiser Pennsylvania, flagship of the Pacific Reserve Fleet at Bremerton, was Renamed Pittsburgh yesterday on orders from Washington, D.C.
China Cannot Have Tibet, Says Britain.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 30, 1912:
Strong Protest Made Against Proposal to Make the Country a Province.
NEW AGREEMENT DEMANDED
It Is Made a Condition to Great Britain's Recognition of the Chinese Republic.
PEKING, Aug. 29.— The proposed incorporation of Tibet as a province of the Chinese Republic has met with strong opposition from Great Britain. The British Government contends that Tibet should be permitted to manage its affairs without Chinese interference.
Sir John Jordan, the British Minister, presented to the Government here to-day a memorandum in which the Tibetan situation is reviewed. The note suggests that the Chinese Government station a representative at Lhasa who shall advise the Tibetans on questions of foreign policy and shall be protected by a bodyguard of Chinese troops.
The British Government objects to the sending of the Chinese expedition now on the borders of Tibet and also to the maintenance of a large Chinese military force in the country.
The note recommends the drawing up of a new Anglo-Chinese agreement, which it makes a condition to the recognition by Great Britain of the Chinese Republic.
Strong Protest Made Against Proposal to Make the Country a Province.
NEW AGREEMENT DEMANDED
It Is Made a Condition to Great Britain's Recognition of the Chinese Republic.
PEKING, Aug. 29.— The proposed incorporation of Tibet as a province of the Chinese Republic has met with strong opposition from Great Britain. The British Government contends that Tibet should be permitted to manage its affairs without Chinese interference.
Sir John Jordan, the British Minister, presented to the Government here to-day a memorandum in which the Tibetan situation is reviewed. The note suggests that the Chinese Government station a representative at Lhasa who shall advise the Tibetans on questions of foreign policy and shall be protected by a bodyguard of Chinese troops.
The British Government objects to the sending of the Chinese expedition now on the borders of Tibet and also to the maintenance of a large Chinese military force in the country.
The note recommends the drawing up of a new Anglo-Chinese agreement, which it makes a condition to the recognition by Great Britain of the Chinese Republic.
Aids Ships In Fog.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 30, 1912:
English Invention Shows Direction from Which Sounds Are Coming.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON, Aug. 29.— A successful demonstration has been made in Liverpool of an invention for the use of ships, particularly in time of fog, to show the direction of sounds, such as those of sirens of other ships.
The apparatus, which is the invention of two brothers named Hodkinson, consists of a drum to receive the sound waves and an indicator. The drum, which measures 9 feet by 5 feet, is placed aloft, where it cannot he affected by sounds on deck, and is connected electrically with an indicator, which is placed in such a position that it can readily be seen by the ship's officer on duty. The receiver consists of a number of units, each of which receives sound waves from a particular direction. Though sensitive to sound waves, they are not affected by ordinary mechanical vibrations.
By means of the electrical device a sound wave from a particular direction causes an electric lamp in a particular position in the indicator to be lighted. The position of the lighted lamp shows the position the ship whose siren is sounding occupies with regard to the ship which carries the apparatus. The lamp remains alight until it is seen by the officer on duty, who can then switch it off.
If the other vessel is moving, different lamps are lighted in succession, showing the vessel's course. The apparatus indicates the direction in which the vessel blowing her foghorn is traveling— whether she is going ahead, astern, or on either side. If there are several ships in the vicinity, the recording lights from any of them can be shut off until the position of the others has been observed.
English Invention Shows Direction from Which Sounds Are Coming.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON, Aug. 29.— A successful demonstration has been made in Liverpool of an invention for the use of ships, particularly in time of fog, to show the direction of sounds, such as those of sirens of other ships.
The apparatus, which is the invention of two brothers named Hodkinson, consists of a drum to receive the sound waves and an indicator. The drum, which measures 9 feet by 5 feet, is placed aloft, where it cannot he affected by sounds on deck, and is connected electrically with an indicator, which is placed in such a position that it can readily be seen by the ship's officer on duty. The receiver consists of a number of units, each of which receives sound waves from a particular direction. Though sensitive to sound waves, they are not affected by ordinary mechanical vibrations.
By means of the electrical device a sound wave from a particular direction causes an electric lamp in a particular position in the indicator to be lighted. The position of the lighted lamp shows the position the ship whose siren is sounding occupies with regard to the ship which carries the apparatus. The lamp remains alight until it is seen by the officer on duty, who can then switch it off.
If the other vessel is moving, different lamps are lighted in succession, showing the vessel's course. The apparatus indicates the direction in which the vessel blowing her foghorn is traveling— whether she is going ahead, astern, or on either side. If there are several ships in the vicinity, the recording lights from any of them can be shut off until the position of the others has been observed.
Admiral Controls In Nicaragua War.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 30, 1912:
Southerland Arrives with Reinforcements and Reports Americans Are Now Safe.
TO COMMAND FROM CORINTO
No Further Force Needed to Garrison Towns, He Says — Rebels Are Reported Planning New Attack.
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29.— With the arrival at Corinto of. Rear Admiral W. H. H. Southerland on the California with rein-forcements of marines and bluejackets, and his prompt assumption of full control of the situation, President Taft's decision not to send troops to the troubled country seems to have full justification.
Two dispatches were received to-day from the Rear Admiral. The first, dated yesterday afternoon, announced his arrival, and gave a general view of the situation. He expressed the opinion that no further force was necessary to garrison the towns where Americans needed protection. He said he had sent Commander Terhune with 500 men to open the railroad line to Managua. Everything was quiet at Leon and intermediate towns to the coast. The railroad and telegraph line had been maliciously damaged at many points, so that much work was needed to put it in order. He expressed the view that by keeping the railroad and telegraph line between Managua and Grenada permanently open the lives and property of Americans in the country would be safe.
The California was sent on yesterday to Panama to bring 780 marines, who will land at Colon to-morrow from the Prairie, and they will reach Corinto in a few days. The second dispatch sent back by Admiral Southerland said that he had transferred his flag to the Annapolis and would remain at Corinto, where he was in full communication with Commander Terhune, who was on the way to Managua, repairing the railroad and telegraph line. The cruiser Denver has been stationed at San Juan del Sur to keep order there and protect the telegraph and cable station.
Meanwhile the Tenth Infantry, which was originally ordered to Nicaragua, will be held in readiness at Panama to sail at a moment's notice.
Reopening by the marines of rail and telegraphic communication between Managua and Corinto was followed by the receipt of several cablegrams in the State and Navy Departments from that hotbed of trouble.
A report from Commander Terhune dated Aug. 26 shows that decisive measures were necessary for the American forces to make headway against the rebel leaders.
A committee from the Liberals of Chinandega entered Corinto on the 20th bearing a flag of truce, and in the name of Francisco Baca ordered the local authorities to surrender the town within six hours. The Consul at Corinto reports that the local commandant refused to treat with this committee, stating that he had already turned over the military control of Corinto to the American forces. The committee returned the following day to treat with American officials, and they were informed that no armed force would be allowed to enter Corinto.
On a neck of land running out past the boy about two miles from Corinto Terhune found a bridge, which commanded the entrance to the city.
He tore up part of the bridge and planted two six-pounders on a car at the end. Since then not a Liberal has been seen in the vicinity.
The latest report that had reached Commander Terhune was that Mena had again threatened to bombard Managua. If that programme is carried out Admiral Sutherland will use his forces to protect the city against attack. The defense of Managua is regarded as indispensable to the protection of Americans and American property interests.
Commander Terhune reports that he passed through Leon on Aug. 28 with 200 marines and bluejackets, and, although the mob had quieted down, he had to use threats to clear the railroad for the advance of his men. He understands that most of the important towns. outside of Corinto, Managua and San Juan del Sur, is in possession of the rebels.
It is said the wires between Corinto and Managua will be in operation within forty-eight hours, but it will require eighteen days to repair the railroad.
Southerland Arrives with Reinforcements and Reports Americans Are Now Safe.
TO COMMAND FROM CORINTO
No Further Force Needed to Garrison Towns, He Says — Rebels Are Reported Planning New Attack.
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29.— With the arrival at Corinto of. Rear Admiral W. H. H. Southerland on the California with rein-forcements of marines and bluejackets, and his prompt assumption of full control of the situation, President Taft's decision not to send troops to the troubled country seems to have full justification.
Two dispatches were received to-day from the Rear Admiral. The first, dated yesterday afternoon, announced his arrival, and gave a general view of the situation. He expressed the opinion that no further force was necessary to garrison the towns where Americans needed protection. He said he had sent Commander Terhune with 500 men to open the railroad line to Managua. Everything was quiet at Leon and intermediate towns to the coast. The railroad and telegraph line had been maliciously damaged at many points, so that much work was needed to put it in order. He expressed the view that by keeping the railroad and telegraph line between Managua and Grenada permanently open the lives and property of Americans in the country would be safe.
The California was sent on yesterday to Panama to bring 780 marines, who will land at Colon to-morrow from the Prairie, and they will reach Corinto in a few days. The second dispatch sent back by Admiral Southerland said that he had transferred his flag to the Annapolis and would remain at Corinto, where he was in full communication with Commander Terhune, who was on the way to Managua, repairing the railroad and telegraph line. The cruiser Denver has been stationed at San Juan del Sur to keep order there and protect the telegraph and cable station.
Meanwhile the Tenth Infantry, which was originally ordered to Nicaragua, will be held in readiness at Panama to sail at a moment's notice.
Reopening by the marines of rail and telegraphic communication between Managua and Corinto was followed by the receipt of several cablegrams in the State and Navy Departments from that hotbed of trouble.
A report from Commander Terhune dated Aug. 26 shows that decisive measures were necessary for the American forces to make headway against the rebel leaders.
A committee from the Liberals of Chinandega entered Corinto on the 20th bearing a flag of truce, and in the name of Francisco Baca ordered the local authorities to surrender the town within six hours. The Consul at Corinto reports that the local commandant refused to treat with this committee, stating that he had already turned over the military control of Corinto to the American forces. The committee returned the following day to treat with American officials, and they were informed that no armed force would be allowed to enter Corinto.
On a neck of land running out past the boy about two miles from Corinto Terhune found a bridge, which commanded the entrance to the city.
He tore up part of the bridge and planted two six-pounders on a car at the end. Since then not a Liberal has been seen in the vicinity.
The latest report that had reached Commander Terhune was that Mena had again threatened to bombard Managua. If that programme is carried out Admiral Sutherland will use his forces to protect the city against attack. The defense of Managua is regarded as indispensable to the protection of Americans and American property interests.
Commander Terhune reports that he passed through Leon on Aug. 28 with 200 marines and bluejackets, and, although the mob had quieted down, he had to use threats to clear the railroad for the advance of his men. He understands that most of the important towns. outside of Corinto, Managua and San Juan del Sur, is in possession of the rebels.
It is said the wires between Corinto and Managua will be in operation within forty-eight hours, but it will require eighteen days to repair the railroad.
Another Raid At Hongkong.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 30, 1912:
Bandits Enter British Territory — Bind and Gag Two Europeans.
HONGKONG. Aug. 20.— British territory was again invaded last night by heavily armed Chinese bandits and marauders.
Sixty of these desperadoes attacked and seized the customs station at Lo-Fun, across what is called the New Territory belonging to the British colony. They captured, bound, and gagged two Europeans and some Chinese, and then carried off a stack of rifles and a small sum of money from the Collector's office.
Afterward the bandits left British territory and made a raid on the Chinese town of Sam-Chun, just over the border line. where they looted many of the stores. Sam-Chun is known to be the resort of many outlawed criminals.
Bandits Enter British Territory — Bind and Gag Two Europeans.
HONGKONG. Aug. 20.— British territory was again invaded last night by heavily armed Chinese bandits and marauders.
Sixty of these desperadoes attacked and seized the customs station at Lo-Fun, across what is called the New Territory belonging to the British colony. They captured, bound, and gagged two Europeans and some Chinese, and then carried off a stack of rifles and a small sum of money from the Collector's office.
Afterward the bandits left British territory and made a raid on the Chinese town of Sam-Chun, just over the border line. where they looted many of the stores. Sam-Chun is known to be the resort of many outlawed criminals.
Breaking Treaties.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 30, 1912:
When the violation of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was under discussion in the Senate it was pointed out that we should undoubtedly be summoned to arbitrate our action, with every chance of losing. To which the ready answer of the advocates of violation was that we could decline to arbitrate on the ground that the measure relating to the Panama Canal is purely domestic, is, in fact, "our own business, and not that of any other nation," since we build the canal and shall maintain it. But we got the right to build the canal and control it only by the consent of Great Britain to surrender her rights under the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and this consent was given in return for our pledge that the vessels of all nations should use the canal on equal and fair terms. To decline to arbitrate differences arising from such a transaction is simply to repudiate the vital, essential, efficient principle of all arbitration. It tends directly to the annulment of all treaties of arbitration that we have with the various nations of the world, or, what amounts to the same thing, to the refusal to renew them when they expire.
Now we have in all twenty-five such treaties, a greater number than any other country except Brazil. They are effective in every case for five years from the time of ratification, and will expire by limitation during the years 1913 to 1915. Here is a list of the countries with which these treaties have been made:
In Europe: Switzerland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, Austria-Hungary.
In America: Mexico, Peru, Salvador, Argentina, Haiti, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Chile, Brazil, Paraguay.
In the Orient: Japan, China.
There are besides these the treaties with Great Britain and France, signed last year and amended by the Senate, which would, of course, be abandoned completely if we refused to arbitrate our action regarding the canal. It will be noted that one-half of our treaties of arbitration are with the countries to the south of us, with which it is especially important that we should maintain the most friendly relations, because of the delicate questions constantly likely to arise under our Monroe Doctrine. Fortunately it will be some time before the canal will actually be open and the measure adopted by Congress be operative. Let us hope that that measure will, in time, be modified to redeem the National honor and preserve the peace-making principle of arbitration.
When the violation of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was under discussion in the Senate it was pointed out that we should undoubtedly be summoned to arbitrate our action, with every chance of losing. To which the ready answer of the advocates of violation was that we could decline to arbitrate on the ground that the measure relating to the Panama Canal is purely domestic, is, in fact, "our own business, and not that of any other nation," since we build the canal and shall maintain it. But we got the right to build the canal and control it only by the consent of Great Britain to surrender her rights under the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and this consent was given in return for our pledge that the vessels of all nations should use the canal on equal and fair terms. To decline to arbitrate differences arising from such a transaction is simply to repudiate the vital, essential, efficient principle of all arbitration. It tends directly to the annulment of all treaties of arbitration that we have with the various nations of the world, or, what amounts to the same thing, to the refusal to renew them when they expire.
Now we have in all twenty-five such treaties, a greater number than any other country except Brazil. They are effective in every case for five years from the time of ratification, and will expire by limitation during the years 1913 to 1915. Here is a list of the countries with which these treaties have been made:
In Europe: Switzerland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, Austria-Hungary.
In America: Mexico, Peru, Salvador, Argentina, Haiti, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Chile, Brazil, Paraguay.
In the Orient: Japan, China.
There are besides these the treaties with Great Britain and France, signed last year and amended by the Senate, which would, of course, be abandoned completely if we refused to arbitrate our action regarding the canal. It will be noted that one-half of our treaties of arbitration are with the countries to the south of us, with which it is especially important that we should maintain the most friendly relations, because of the delicate questions constantly likely to arise under our Monroe Doctrine. Fortunately it will be some time before the canal will actually be open and the measure adopted by Congress be operative. Let us hope that that measure will, in time, be modified to redeem the National honor and preserve the peace-making principle of arbitration.
The Nicaragua Incident.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 30, 1912:
The influence of the presence of American marines in Nicaragua is restoring a semblance of order. The revolution goes on, and will continue until it is determined whether President Diaz and his adherents or Gen. Mena and his followers shall control the Custom House and other sources of revenue. If the Senate had not suppressed the treaty with Nicaragua which would have given over to a representative of the United States supervision of the customs receipts Mena would never have headed a revolution against the Government. The object of all Latin-American revolutionists is to get hold of the nation's finances.
Perfectly sound treaties were offered to the Senate by President Taft and Secretary Knox under which both Honduras and Nicaragua would have been enabled to refund their debts, and by which their legally elected Governments would have been strongly protected from insurrections fomented in the United States or elsewhere. The Senate rejected or suppressed the treaties because "Wall Street interests" were supposed to be behind them. But no Senator has suggested a better plan of restoring peace to the afflicted Central American States.
President Taft's sudden withdrawal of his order for the transfer of the Tenth Infantry to Nicaragua is justified by the latest news from the seat of war. The marines serve every purpose at present. If the troops of the regular army had gone there it might have seemed more like "intervention." It may yet be necessary to send them. But what can the President do when American lives and property are endangered in a little country which cannot protect its own people? With the Panama Canal nearly ready for business, a state of disorder and lawlessness exists from our Southern boundary almost to the border of the waterway. We must have, before long, a sane and definite policy in regard to our relations with our nearest Latin-American neighbors.
The influence of the presence of American marines in Nicaragua is restoring a semblance of order. The revolution goes on, and will continue until it is determined whether President Diaz and his adherents or Gen. Mena and his followers shall control the Custom House and other sources of revenue. If the Senate had not suppressed the treaty with Nicaragua which would have given over to a representative of the United States supervision of the customs receipts Mena would never have headed a revolution against the Government. The object of all Latin-American revolutionists is to get hold of the nation's finances.
Perfectly sound treaties were offered to the Senate by President Taft and Secretary Knox under which both Honduras and Nicaragua would have been enabled to refund their debts, and by which their legally elected Governments would have been strongly protected from insurrections fomented in the United States or elsewhere. The Senate rejected or suppressed the treaties because "Wall Street interests" were supposed to be behind them. But no Senator has suggested a better plan of restoring peace to the afflicted Central American States.
President Taft's sudden withdrawal of his order for the transfer of the Tenth Infantry to Nicaragua is justified by the latest news from the seat of war. The marines serve every purpose at present. If the troops of the regular army had gone there it might have seemed more like "intervention." It may yet be necessary to send them. But what can the President do when American lives and property are endangered in a little country which cannot protect its own people? With the Panama Canal nearly ready for business, a state of disorder and lawlessness exists from our Southern boundary almost to the border of the waterway. We must have, before long, a sane and definite policy in regard to our relations with our nearest Latin-American neighbors.
Navy Gets The Arkansas.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 30, 1912:
Shipbuilders Turn Over New Dreadnought to Capt. Grant.
PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 29.— The new dreadnought Arkansas was formally turned over to the Navy Department here to-day, President Samuel Knox of the New York Shipbuilding Company giving the war vessel into the custody of Capt, Grant, Commandant of the Philadelphia Yard.
Officers assigned to the new battleship are R. C. Smith. Captain; Commander William Moffatt, Executive Officer; Arthur M. Keating, Lieutenant Commander, and J. H. Ingram, Lieutenant.
Shipbuilders Turn Over New Dreadnought to Capt. Grant.
PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 29.— The new dreadnought Arkansas was formally turned over to the Navy Department here to-day, President Samuel Knox of the New York Shipbuilding Company giving the war vessel into the custody of Capt, Grant, Commandant of the Philadelphia Yard.
Officers assigned to the new battleship are R. C. Smith. Captain; Commander William Moffatt, Executive Officer; Arthur M. Keating, Lieutenant Commander, and J. H. Ingram, Lieutenant.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Makes Aeroplanes Stable.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 29, 1912:
Great Things Claimed for the Invention of a Belgian Engineer.
BRUSSELS, Aug. 28.— A mechanical appliance which will render aeroplanes so stable that they cannot upset, turn turtle, or plunge to the ground while flying has, it is said, been invented by a Belgian engineer.
It consists of rotary wings which, when put in motion, permit the flying machine to rise directly from the ground, turn in all directions, and plane with perfect security at any height in the air.
Both progression and ascension, the inventor asserts, can be effected by the apparatus without any backward or forward motion of the wings. He promises fuller details in the near future.
Great Things Claimed for the Invention of a Belgian Engineer.
BRUSSELS, Aug. 28.— A mechanical appliance which will render aeroplanes so stable that they cannot upset, turn turtle, or plunge to the ground while flying has, it is said, been invented by a Belgian engineer.
It consists of rotary wings which, when put in motion, permit the flying machine to rise directly from the ground, turn in all directions, and plane with perfect security at any height in the air.
Both progression and ascension, the inventor asserts, can be effected by the apparatus without any backward or forward motion of the wings. He promises fuller details in the near future.
Turkey Defies Powers.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 29, 1912:
Porte Says it Won't Listen to Proposals as to Its Internal Policy.
CONSTANTINOPLE, Aug. 28.— With reference to the proposal of Count Berchthold, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, with a view to obtaining a gradual autonomy for the European Provinces of Turkey, the Ottoman Government has notified its representatives abroad that, if they are approached concerning the project, the Porte will not listen to proposals affecting Turkey's internal policy.
Porte Says it Won't Listen to Proposals as to Its Internal Policy.
CONSTANTINOPLE, Aug. 28.— With reference to the proposal of Count Berchthold, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, with a view to obtaining a gradual autonomy for the European Provinces of Turkey, the Ottoman Government has notified its representatives abroad that, if they are approached concerning the project, the Porte will not listen to proposals affecting Turkey's internal policy.
Italo-Turkish Peace Near.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 29, 1912:
Semi-Official Negotiators In Switzerland Reach Agreement.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
PARIS, Thursday, Aug. 29.— Signor Tittoni, the Italian Ambassador to France, had a long conversation with Premier Poincaré yesterday relative to the Italo-Turkish peace negotiations.
The Echo de Paris this morning announces, "on the authority of a well-informed diplomatic personage," that peace is imminent. It is stated that the negotiators, who have been meeting in Switzerland, have arrived at an agreement on several delicate problems. Italy will not insist on including an annexation decree in the peace treaty, and Turkey will renounce her claim to suzerainty in Tripoli, Italy in addition paying a large indemnity to Turkey for the Tripoli territory.
Italy will evacuate the islands that she has occupied in the Aegean Sea.
Semi-Official Negotiators In Switzerland Reach Agreement.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
PARIS, Thursday, Aug. 29.— Signor Tittoni, the Italian Ambassador to France, had a long conversation with Premier Poincaré yesterday relative to the Italo-Turkish peace negotiations.
The Echo de Paris this morning announces, "on the authority of a well-informed diplomatic personage," that peace is imminent. It is stated that the negotiators, who have been meeting in Switzerland, have arrived at an agreement on several delicate problems. Italy will not insist on including an annexation decree in the peace treaty, and Turkey will renounce her claim to suzerainty in Tripoli, Italy in addition paying a large indemnity to Turkey for the Tripoli territory.
Italy will evacuate the islands that she has occupied in the Aegean Sea.
German Paper Flays Us.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 29, 1912:
Speaks of Our "Impudence" in Raising Tariff on Flour and Peas.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
BERLIN, Aug. 28.— The Deutsche Tages-Zeitung, in a first-page article bitterly attacking America and Americans because of the recent increase in the tariff on rye flour, wheat flour, and split peas, introduces the attack by reprinting a paragraph from the Cologne Gazette, which declared that the matter was unimportant, since the value of Germany's exports of these three articles did not exceed $250 annually.
The Tages-Zeitung declares it makes no difference how small these exports are, as the smaller they are the less excuse there is for America's action. The article continues:
"The proposed increase is a breach of the existing covenants between America and Germany. The German Government must not put up with this breach, even if only one mark's worth of flour is exported to America. The impudence of Messieurs, the Americans, must no longer be tolerated."
Speaks of Our "Impudence" in Raising Tariff on Flour and Peas.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
BERLIN, Aug. 28.— The Deutsche Tages-Zeitung, in a first-page article bitterly attacking America and Americans because of the recent increase in the tariff on rye flour, wheat flour, and split peas, introduces the attack by reprinting a paragraph from the Cologne Gazette, which declared that the matter was unimportant, since the value of Germany's exports of these three articles did not exceed $250 annually.
The Tages-Zeitung declares it makes no difference how small these exports are, as the smaller they are the less excuse there is for America's action. The article continues:
"The proposed increase is a breach of the existing covenants between America and Germany. The German Government must not put up with this breach, even if only one mark's worth of flour is exported to America. The impudence of Messieurs, the Americans, must no longer be tolerated."
French Fear Moors Killed Hostages.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 29, 1912:
Great Anxiety Over Fate of Prisoners at Marakesh — Attempt at Ransom Fails.
INDIGNATION TOWARD SPAIN
Report That She Has Been Supplying Arms to the Moorish Pretender-France Making an Inquiry.
PARIS, Aug. 23.— Public anxiety is intensified over the fate of the French officers held as hostages by the Moors at Marakesh. Emissaries have been dispatched to Marakesh by the French Commander, but have obtained no information.
Gen. Lyautey, the French President-Governor, reported to the Foreign office to-day that the volunteers who had undertaken the dangerous duty had returned from El Hiba's headquarters. They in vain tried to effect a ransom and could not ascertain the fate of the prisoners.
The French column, commanded by Col. Mangin, has full liberty of action to proceed to the succor of the hostages if such a step should be thought advisable. The French troops, however, are too occupied to do anything of that kind, as they have their hands full in blocking the progress of the Moorish Pretender's forces toward Fez and Mazagan.
Profound indignation has been aroused throughout France by the report that the Spaniards gave assistance to El Hiba, whom, it is alleged, they supplied with arms. The French Government has demanded official reports on the subject from its representatives in Morocco, and if the allegations should be confirmed, an energetic protest will be made and a demand for the cessation of the traffic will be lodged at Madrid.
Great Anxiety Over Fate of Prisoners at Marakesh — Attempt at Ransom Fails.
INDIGNATION TOWARD SPAIN
Report That She Has Been Supplying Arms to the Moorish Pretender-France Making an Inquiry.
PARIS, Aug. 23.— Public anxiety is intensified over the fate of the French officers held as hostages by the Moors at Marakesh. Emissaries have been dispatched to Marakesh by the French Commander, but have obtained no information.
Gen. Lyautey, the French President-Governor, reported to the Foreign office to-day that the volunteers who had undertaken the dangerous duty had returned from El Hiba's headquarters. They in vain tried to effect a ransom and could not ascertain the fate of the prisoners.
The French column, commanded by Col. Mangin, has full liberty of action to proceed to the succor of the hostages if such a step should be thought advisable. The French troops, however, are too occupied to do anything of that kind, as they have their hands full in blocking the progress of the Moorish Pretender's forces toward Fez and Mazagan.
Profound indignation has been aroused throughout France by the report that the Spaniards gave assistance to El Hiba, whom, it is alleged, they supplied with arms. The French Government has demanded official reports on the subject from its representatives in Morocco, and if the allegations should be confirmed, an energetic protest will be made and a demand for the cessation of the traffic will be lodged at Madrid.
England Renews Her Canal Protest.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 29, 1912:
Notifies Us That She Will Submit Questions at Issue to The Hague.
TREATY INVALID, WE CONTEND
Our Attitude Will Be That the Concessions Accorded Britain by Hay Violated the Constitution.
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON. Aug. 28.— Great Britain for the second time has protested against the step taken by the United States in allowing free passage through the Panama Canal to American vessels. Mitchell Innes, British Chargé d'Affaires, in the absence of Ambassador Bryce, called at the State Department to-day to present a note declaring the unalterable view of Great Britain as to the obligations imposed on the United States by the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, and to suggest that the unavoidable course of his Government will be to submit to The Hague tribunal the questions at issue between the two countries.
No new phase of the difference between the United States and Great Britain was apparent in the incident. The State Department did not give out the text of the note, nor any statement as to its effect on the diplomatic aspect of the recent action of Congress in providing for the free use of the canal by American shipping. There was some surprise at the simple brevity of the note, inasmuch as several weeks ago Mr. Innes advised Secretary Knox that his Government had decided to forward to this Government a supplementary note, in which would be set forth at length the argument by Great Britain as to the rights believed to be conveyed by the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, and that document had been awaited with no small concern in the State Department. It was at first supposed to-day that the extended note would be presented, but such was not the case. The attitude of Great Britain is still friendly to negotiation, and the request to submit all questions arising out of the application of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty to our use and control of the Panama Canal is noticeably conditioned on the failure of the two Governments to arrive at an agreement before the alternative of a trial at The Hague be resorted to by Great Britain. There is interest in the presentation of the note by Mr. Innes from the fact that he has taken part in numerous conferences with Secretary Knox and Mr. Anderson, the counsellor of the State Department, in which the position of each country has been discussed fully. Here it should be said that Great Britain has been placed in possession, through Mr. Innes, of the argument of the United States as to the bearing of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty on the control of the canal by Congress. The position taken by this Government thus far in the informal conferences has been that the concessions made by Mr. Hay in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty were directly in violation of the constitution and therefore void from the beginning.
The constitution declares that "this constitution and the laws of Congress which shall be made in pursuance thereof and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land."
In Article IV., Section 3, it is provided that Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and legislations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States. The Canal Zone having been granted to the United States by the treaty with Panama, and the canal being the property of the United States, it is held that Congress alone can determine what rules shall be made for the control of the canal. This construction of the case, it is true, would seem to brush aside summarily much that has been retained in all the discussions of the rights of the two countries in the canal, but it must be remembered that the conditions at that time when the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was negotiated were practically swept away with the Panama revolution and the subsequent treaty with the United States granting the Canal Zone.
With the Submission of this view of the matter this Government will let the whole question lie until Great Britain takes the further step to put the controversy before The Hague Court.
Notifies Us That She Will Submit Questions at Issue to The Hague.
TREATY INVALID, WE CONTEND
Our Attitude Will Be That the Concessions Accorded Britain by Hay Violated the Constitution.
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON. Aug. 28.— Great Britain for the second time has protested against the step taken by the United States in allowing free passage through the Panama Canal to American vessels. Mitchell Innes, British Chargé d'Affaires, in the absence of Ambassador Bryce, called at the State Department to-day to present a note declaring the unalterable view of Great Britain as to the obligations imposed on the United States by the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, and to suggest that the unavoidable course of his Government will be to submit to The Hague tribunal the questions at issue between the two countries.
No new phase of the difference between the United States and Great Britain was apparent in the incident. The State Department did not give out the text of the note, nor any statement as to its effect on the diplomatic aspect of the recent action of Congress in providing for the free use of the canal by American shipping. There was some surprise at the simple brevity of the note, inasmuch as several weeks ago Mr. Innes advised Secretary Knox that his Government had decided to forward to this Government a supplementary note, in which would be set forth at length the argument by Great Britain as to the rights believed to be conveyed by the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, and that document had been awaited with no small concern in the State Department. It was at first supposed to-day that the extended note would be presented, but such was not the case. The attitude of Great Britain is still friendly to negotiation, and the request to submit all questions arising out of the application of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty to our use and control of the Panama Canal is noticeably conditioned on the failure of the two Governments to arrive at an agreement before the alternative of a trial at The Hague be resorted to by Great Britain. There is interest in the presentation of the note by Mr. Innes from the fact that he has taken part in numerous conferences with Secretary Knox and Mr. Anderson, the counsellor of the State Department, in which the position of each country has been discussed fully. Here it should be said that Great Britain has been placed in possession, through Mr. Innes, of the argument of the United States as to the bearing of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty on the control of the canal by Congress. The position taken by this Government thus far in the informal conferences has been that the concessions made by Mr. Hay in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty were directly in violation of the constitution and therefore void from the beginning.
The constitution declares that "this constitution and the laws of Congress which shall be made in pursuance thereof and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land."
In Article IV., Section 3, it is provided that Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and legislations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States. The Canal Zone having been granted to the United States by the treaty with Panama, and the canal being the property of the United States, it is held that Congress alone can determine what rules shall be made for the control of the canal. This construction of the case, it is true, would seem to brush aside summarily much that has been retained in all the discussions of the rights of the two countries in the canal, but it must be remembered that the conditions at that time when the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was negotiated were practically swept away with the Panama revolution and the subsequent treaty with the United States granting the Canal Zone.
With the Submission of this view of the matter this Government will let the whole question lie until Great Britain takes the further step to put the controversy before The Hague Court.
Sailors Guard Minister.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 29, 1912:
Salvatorean Envoy to Nicaragua Is Rescued with His Daughter.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua, Tuesday, Aug. 27, (Delayed in Transmission.)— One hundred American marines from Managua, under command of Major Smedley D. Butler, and fifty sailors, under Capt Warren J. Terhune of the gunboat Annapolis, returned here from Leon to-day.
The American detachment brought with it the Salvadorean Minister to Nicaragua and his daughter, who had been marooned at Leon. The Minister describes the conditions at Leon during the week following the massacre by Liberals of the Government soldiers comprising the garrison as frightful.
Telegraphic communication with the northern departments still remain uncertain, and the only news reaching here is by couriers. Many rumors are afloat of insurgent victories, but they cannot be confirmed.
The Government dispatched a force of troops to attack Maraya, the headquarters of the insurgents to the south of the capital, on Saturday.
GEN. MENA CAUSE OF TROUBLE.
Dismissal by President Diaz Starts Revolution in Nicaragua.
The present Nicaraguan revolt was directly brought about by the dismissal of the Minister of War, Gen. Luis Mena, by President Adolfo Diaz. This action resulted in the shelling of the capital by Mena and the landing of American marines to protect the property and lives of foreigners,
The President is the nominal ruler of the republic, but Gen. Mena has been in control of the troops. His son and other relatives have commanded the garrison at Granada and the semi-military police force of the capital, Managua, and Gen. Mena himself has lived a stone's throw from the undefended palace of the President in the semi-fortress, where Zelaya, surrounded by bayonets and with machine guns at the angles of the high walls, sent forth his barbarous decrees of confiscation, torture, and death. It required a high degree of courage for President Diaz to send a summons to such a Minister to lay down his power. A former President tried it with Mena and had to leave the country.
For a long time Mena and President Diaz were boon companions. In the restricted social life of the capital they were often seen in the evening driving out together in quest of the same diversions, and sometimes dropping informally into clubs. Diaz is in almost every particular the opposite of Mena, who has a large infusion of negro blood. He stands more than six feet high, is the idol of his soldiers, and possesses a breadth of view and a grace of manner rare in one whose educational advantages have been so limited.
Diaz is of white blood, moderate stature, with the polish acquired by a long career on the East Coast. He is the sort of man who lets others do most of the talking while he does the thinking. Knowing English well, he prefers to conduct an interview through an interpreter, his critics say, because it gives him time to consider his reply while the interpreter is translating. He took part in the war of liberation, but it was chiefly as financier and Commissioner General rather than as a fighter. He has made no attempt to tear the laurels of military success from the brow of Mena or Emiliano Chamorro, the two heroes of the war.
Diaz sits at his desk, thinking, planning, studying the most practicable solutions of his many hard problems. If he decided that he must dismiss Mena from the Ministry of War it was no hasty and immature decision, it is believed, but was turned over in his mind for many months and adopted finally because it was the only escape he saw from a situation growing daily more difficult.
The third chief actor in the drama, Gen. Emiliano Chamorro, now in command of the Government forces, differs essentially from the others. Descended on his father's side from one of the oldest and most aristocratic families of the country, priding itself on the purity of its Spanish blood, he derives from other sources a touch of the Indian — that vigorous strain from which sometimes springs a great creative mind, like President Porfirio Diaz, the former President of Mexico. Chamorro's field of creation, however, is the battlefield. He does not lay claim to be a profound student of economics or statesmanship.
It is between these three men, Emiliano Chamorro, the lion-hearted; Gen. Siena, in command of the revolutionary army and the strong places, and Adolfo Diaz, now in possession of executive authority — that the future of Nicaragua has lain. In the meantime it has been the function of the United States to guard against the return of the old conditions of bloodshed, revolution, and anarchy. The United States had already intervened soon after Zelaya fell. When trouble first threatened between the successful leaders of the revolution, the late Thomas C. Dawson, the special representative of the State Department, persuaded the five principal chieftains to sign an agreement by which they were to be bound by the choice of the five as to the conservative candidate for President as soon as a constitution had been formed and it became possible to hold free elections. The five men concerned in this agreement were President Estrada, Gen. Chamorro, Gen. Mona, Don Fernanda Solorzana, and Don Adolfo Diaz.
In the meantime the new National Assembly of April, 1911, had begun the formation of a Constitution. Into that Constitution was put an article which is the crux of the present difficulties m Nicaragua. This provision is that the decrees of the Constituent Assembly on the appointment of the President and Vice President and of the Magistrates of the courts shall remain in force for the periods respectively set forth. Then the Assembly a few days before the approval of the loan in October, 1913, elected Gen. Mena as President of the republic for the term beginning in 1913 without providing for any popular ratification of this action.
This promised trouble tor the United States, but no definite action was taken until the beginning of the present year, when a request was submitted by the American Chargé d'Affairs that the constitution should not be promulgated until the arrival of the new American Minister. Violent resentment was shown against this request. Secretary Knox visited Nicaragua in March of this year, but he took no decisive action which has been revealed to the public. In the meantime an attempt has been made to bring about a compromise between Chamorro and Mena so that each might hold the Presidency for a part of the term.
American interests in Nicaragua are almost wholly represented by J. & W. Seligman & Co. and Brown Brothers & Co. of New York, who several years ago received a charter to establish in that country a national bank in which the home Government was to be a large stockholder. These bankers also offered to loan Nicaragua $15,000,000 subject to the approval of the Nicaraguan Congress and that of the United States. The latter legislative body withheld its approval, whereupon the bankers made a temporary loan of $1,500,000 to meet Nicaragua's more pressing needs. For this loan the bankers received as part collateral the right to collect customs at all Nicaraguan ports, naming their own representatives.
Shortly after the present revolution broke out it was discovered that some $20,000,000 of Nicaraguan paper money, representing by reason of its debased standard, perhaps $1,000,000 of United States currency, had been issued, presumably by the revolutionists, without the knowledge or consent of the Government.
There are many claims of various characters pending against Nicaragua, the largest being that of an English banking-syndicate for £3,000,000. Other claims include damages arising from mining, industrial and railroad concessions, most of which are understood to have been revoked by the General now commanding the revolutionary forces.
The New York bankers interested in Nicaragua declined yesterday to comment on the latest turn of affairs in that country beyond asserting their belief that the situation was grave.
Salvatorean Envoy to Nicaragua Is Rescued with His Daughter.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua, Tuesday, Aug. 27, (Delayed in Transmission.)— One hundred American marines from Managua, under command of Major Smedley D. Butler, and fifty sailors, under Capt Warren J. Terhune of the gunboat Annapolis, returned here from Leon to-day.
The American detachment brought with it the Salvadorean Minister to Nicaragua and his daughter, who had been marooned at Leon. The Minister describes the conditions at Leon during the week following the massacre by Liberals of the Government soldiers comprising the garrison as frightful.
Telegraphic communication with the northern departments still remain uncertain, and the only news reaching here is by couriers. Many rumors are afloat of insurgent victories, but they cannot be confirmed.
The Government dispatched a force of troops to attack Maraya, the headquarters of the insurgents to the south of the capital, on Saturday.
GEN. MENA CAUSE OF TROUBLE.
Dismissal by President Diaz Starts Revolution in Nicaragua.
The present Nicaraguan revolt was directly brought about by the dismissal of the Minister of War, Gen. Luis Mena, by President Adolfo Diaz. This action resulted in the shelling of the capital by Mena and the landing of American marines to protect the property and lives of foreigners,
The President is the nominal ruler of the republic, but Gen. Mena has been in control of the troops. His son and other relatives have commanded the garrison at Granada and the semi-military police force of the capital, Managua, and Gen. Mena himself has lived a stone's throw from the undefended palace of the President in the semi-fortress, where Zelaya, surrounded by bayonets and with machine guns at the angles of the high walls, sent forth his barbarous decrees of confiscation, torture, and death. It required a high degree of courage for President Diaz to send a summons to such a Minister to lay down his power. A former President tried it with Mena and had to leave the country.
For a long time Mena and President Diaz were boon companions. In the restricted social life of the capital they were often seen in the evening driving out together in quest of the same diversions, and sometimes dropping informally into clubs. Diaz is in almost every particular the opposite of Mena, who has a large infusion of negro blood. He stands more than six feet high, is the idol of his soldiers, and possesses a breadth of view and a grace of manner rare in one whose educational advantages have been so limited.
Diaz is of white blood, moderate stature, with the polish acquired by a long career on the East Coast. He is the sort of man who lets others do most of the talking while he does the thinking. Knowing English well, he prefers to conduct an interview through an interpreter, his critics say, because it gives him time to consider his reply while the interpreter is translating. He took part in the war of liberation, but it was chiefly as financier and Commissioner General rather than as a fighter. He has made no attempt to tear the laurels of military success from the brow of Mena or Emiliano Chamorro, the two heroes of the war.
Diaz sits at his desk, thinking, planning, studying the most practicable solutions of his many hard problems. If he decided that he must dismiss Mena from the Ministry of War it was no hasty and immature decision, it is believed, but was turned over in his mind for many months and adopted finally because it was the only escape he saw from a situation growing daily more difficult.
The third chief actor in the drama, Gen. Emiliano Chamorro, now in command of the Government forces, differs essentially from the others. Descended on his father's side from one of the oldest and most aristocratic families of the country, priding itself on the purity of its Spanish blood, he derives from other sources a touch of the Indian — that vigorous strain from which sometimes springs a great creative mind, like President Porfirio Diaz, the former President of Mexico. Chamorro's field of creation, however, is the battlefield. He does not lay claim to be a profound student of economics or statesmanship.
It is between these three men, Emiliano Chamorro, the lion-hearted; Gen. Siena, in command of the revolutionary army and the strong places, and Adolfo Diaz, now in possession of executive authority — that the future of Nicaragua has lain. In the meantime it has been the function of the United States to guard against the return of the old conditions of bloodshed, revolution, and anarchy. The United States had already intervened soon after Zelaya fell. When trouble first threatened between the successful leaders of the revolution, the late Thomas C. Dawson, the special representative of the State Department, persuaded the five principal chieftains to sign an agreement by which they were to be bound by the choice of the five as to the conservative candidate for President as soon as a constitution had been formed and it became possible to hold free elections. The five men concerned in this agreement were President Estrada, Gen. Chamorro, Gen. Mona, Don Fernanda Solorzana, and Don Adolfo Diaz.
In the meantime the new National Assembly of April, 1911, had begun the formation of a Constitution. Into that Constitution was put an article which is the crux of the present difficulties m Nicaragua. This provision is that the decrees of the Constituent Assembly on the appointment of the President and Vice President and of the Magistrates of the courts shall remain in force for the periods respectively set forth. Then the Assembly a few days before the approval of the loan in October, 1913, elected Gen. Mena as President of the republic for the term beginning in 1913 without providing for any popular ratification of this action.
This promised trouble tor the United States, but no definite action was taken until the beginning of the present year, when a request was submitted by the American Chargé d'Affairs that the constitution should not be promulgated until the arrival of the new American Minister. Violent resentment was shown against this request. Secretary Knox visited Nicaragua in March of this year, but he took no decisive action which has been revealed to the public. In the meantime an attempt has been made to bring about a compromise between Chamorro and Mena so that each might hold the Presidency for a part of the term.
American interests in Nicaragua are almost wholly represented by J. & W. Seligman & Co. and Brown Brothers & Co. of New York, who several years ago received a charter to establish in that country a national bank in which the home Government was to be a large stockholder. These bankers also offered to loan Nicaragua $15,000,000 subject to the approval of the Nicaraguan Congress and that of the United States. The latter legislative body withheld its approval, whereupon the bankers made a temporary loan of $1,500,000 to meet Nicaragua's more pressing needs. For this loan the bankers received as part collateral the right to collect customs at all Nicaraguan ports, naming their own representatives.
Shortly after the present revolution broke out it was discovered that some $20,000,000 of Nicaraguan paper money, representing by reason of its debased standard, perhaps $1,000,000 of United States currency, had been issued, presumably by the revolutionists, without the knowledge or consent of the Government.
There are many claims of various characters pending against Nicaragua, the largest being that of an English banking-syndicate for £3,000,000. Other claims include damages arising from mining, industrial and railroad concessions, most of which are understood to have been revoked by the General now commanding the revolutionary forces.
The New York bankers interested in Nicaragua declined yesterday to comment on the latest turn of affairs in that country beyond asserting their belief that the situation was grave.
Big Mutiny Near Peking.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 29, 1912:
Eight Thousand Troops Seize Road to Capital and Loot Villages.
LONDON, Thursday, Aug. 29.— The Chinese Government is endeavoring to hush up the mutiny of 8,000 troops at Tung-Chow, twenty miles east of Peking, according to a dispatch from Peking to The Daily Telegraph, and the authorities have taken military precautions to protect all the roads leading to the capital.
The mutineers, the dispatch adds, have defied the imperial troops sent against them. They have seized the road leading from Tung-Chow to Peking and are looting the adjacent villages.
A telegram from Tien-Tsin says that Dr. Sun Yat-Sen proposed yesterday that China borrow nothing from the six-power group of bankers. The ex-Provisional President was present at a meeting of Chinese Ministers at Peking, which was also attended by President Yuan Shi-Kai. He declared it possible for China to obtain funds from other sources without vexatious conditions.
Eight Thousand Troops Seize Road to Capital and Loot Villages.
LONDON, Thursday, Aug. 29.— The Chinese Government is endeavoring to hush up the mutiny of 8,000 troops at Tung-Chow, twenty miles east of Peking, according to a dispatch from Peking to The Daily Telegraph, and the authorities have taken military precautions to protect all the roads leading to the capital.
The mutineers, the dispatch adds, have defied the imperial troops sent against them. They have seized the road leading from Tung-Chow to Peking and are looting the adjacent villages.
A telegram from Tien-Tsin says that Dr. Sun Yat-Sen proposed yesterday that China borrow nothing from the six-power group of bankers. The ex-Provisional President was present at a meeting of Chinese Ministers at Peking, which was also attended by President Yuan Shi-Kai. He declared it possible for China to obtain funds from other sources without vexatious conditions.
Americans Cry For Help.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 29, 1912:
Appeal Contains News of the Killing of a German.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 28.— Grave concern over the situation in Nicaragua was expressed at the State Department to-day following the ordering of the Tenth Infantry to the unsettled Central American republic.
A single direct dispatch from Nicaragua told of a serious situation in Matagalpas. The dispatch was sent by 125 Americans, and told of the killing of a German named Neilson, and appealed to the State Department for immediate protection. Lack of further dispatches from Nicaragua was a source of anxiety to the department.
Prompted by the order sending infantry to Nicaragua, the revolutionary junta here to-day made an effort to open negotiations with the State Department with the object of ending hostilities. Angel Ugarte of the junta sought an interview with William T. S. Doyle, Chief of the Division of Latin-American Affairs in the department, to submit a proposal for the withdrawal of American troops and the submission of the issues of the revolution to an election. Mr. Doyle declined to receive Ugarte officially and advised him to submit any of his proposals through Señor Castrillo, the Nicaraguan Minister.
A general Central American outbreak as a result of the Nicaraguan situation entered into the fears of the department tonight. A belated dispatch from Minister Weitzel refers to an irruption of refugees of the lato Zelayan régime from Honduras into Nicaragua. This was taken by the department to presage a widening of revolutionary operations, which might become general in Central America.
Allegations of conditions bordering on barbarism. and acts even worse than those which took the troops of the united powers into China to quell the boxer rebellion, have been received at the State Department within the last twenty-four hours. The deliberate murder of two Americans, Dodd and Phillips, after they had been wounded and were helpless, following the massacre at Leon on Aug. 19, focused attention on the previous reports of burning soldiers, starvation of political prisoners held in dungeons and other alleged acts of cruelty
Gen. Francisco Altschul, the representative of the revolutionist junta in Washington, denies the charges of barbarity brought against troops fighting the Nicaraguan Government. He alleges that the burning of bodies of soldiers was necessary to proper sanitation, and that it applied alike to the dead of both sides. He contends also that the American interests would not have suffered if no attempt had been made by American forces to prevent the capture and operation by the revolutionists of the railway between Managua and Corinto.
The junta asserts that the railroad is a national institution and should not be classed as American property, except as it is being administered by Americans to obtain a loan by New York bankers.
Reports that women were shot are condemned emphatically by Gen. Altschul, who says that the barbarous methods were employed by the Government forces when women were sent to the lines as ammunition carriers.
Rebels firing upon flags of truce borne by loyal Nicaraguan troops as well as American marines is said to have been frequent within the last few days. New attacks upon women and children and other non-combatants are reported. In the rebel shelling of Managua during the first days of the revolution, American Minister Weitzel reported that the firing had been indiscriminate upon the section of the city occupied by the non-combatants, and that an American Collector of Customs, named Hamm, and several other Americans narrowly escaped injury by bursting shells.
It is said there are fully 100 Americans owning plantations in Nicaragua who must be protected from attack and looting of their properties. Many demands that this Government protect American interests there have been registered at the State Department. A large number of New Orleans merchants, having Central American interests, only a few days ago went so far as to protest to the department against the attitude of Senator Bacon. They declared American prestige in Central America would suffer immeasurably if this Government failed to protect its citizens and their property. They even predicted the spread of the unrest through other Central American States if the situation were not promptly taken in hand.
Senator Bacon virtually charged on the floor of the Senate that this Government's interference in Nicaragua had a connection with the failure of the loan convention by which Nicaragua was to have borrowed several millions from American bankers and under which treaty the Nicaraguan railroads, steamships, Custom Houses and National monopolies were to be administered by representatives of the American financiers.
The Diaz Government, against which the present revolution is being directed, is said to have approved the attitude of the State Department in regard to the loan convention. Senator Bacon broadly intimated, in criticism of the State Department, that American forces were being used in aid of the political party which inclined to the department's views and against the party opposed to them.
Reports from other sources have said that Relaya, the dictator exiled in Europe in 1909 after the murder of the two Americans, Cannon and Groce, was behind Gen. Mena, leader of the revolutionists. This, however, is denied by the prominent Liberals who support the revolution.
Appeal Contains News of the Killing of a German.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 28.— Grave concern over the situation in Nicaragua was expressed at the State Department to-day following the ordering of the Tenth Infantry to the unsettled Central American republic.
A single direct dispatch from Nicaragua told of a serious situation in Matagalpas. The dispatch was sent by 125 Americans, and told of the killing of a German named Neilson, and appealed to the State Department for immediate protection. Lack of further dispatches from Nicaragua was a source of anxiety to the department.
Prompted by the order sending infantry to Nicaragua, the revolutionary junta here to-day made an effort to open negotiations with the State Department with the object of ending hostilities. Angel Ugarte of the junta sought an interview with William T. S. Doyle, Chief of the Division of Latin-American Affairs in the department, to submit a proposal for the withdrawal of American troops and the submission of the issues of the revolution to an election. Mr. Doyle declined to receive Ugarte officially and advised him to submit any of his proposals through Señor Castrillo, the Nicaraguan Minister.
A general Central American outbreak as a result of the Nicaraguan situation entered into the fears of the department tonight. A belated dispatch from Minister Weitzel refers to an irruption of refugees of the lato Zelayan régime from Honduras into Nicaragua. This was taken by the department to presage a widening of revolutionary operations, which might become general in Central America.
Allegations of conditions bordering on barbarism. and acts even worse than those which took the troops of the united powers into China to quell the boxer rebellion, have been received at the State Department within the last twenty-four hours. The deliberate murder of two Americans, Dodd and Phillips, after they had been wounded and were helpless, following the massacre at Leon on Aug. 19, focused attention on the previous reports of burning soldiers, starvation of political prisoners held in dungeons and other alleged acts of cruelty
Gen. Francisco Altschul, the representative of the revolutionist junta in Washington, denies the charges of barbarity brought against troops fighting the Nicaraguan Government. He alleges that the burning of bodies of soldiers was necessary to proper sanitation, and that it applied alike to the dead of both sides. He contends also that the American interests would not have suffered if no attempt had been made by American forces to prevent the capture and operation by the revolutionists of the railway between Managua and Corinto.
The junta asserts that the railroad is a national institution and should not be classed as American property, except as it is being administered by Americans to obtain a loan by New York bankers.
Reports that women were shot are condemned emphatically by Gen. Altschul, who says that the barbarous methods were employed by the Government forces when women were sent to the lines as ammunition carriers.
Rebels firing upon flags of truce borne by loyal Nicaraguan troops as well as American marines is said to have been frequent within the last few days. New attacks upon women and children and other non-combatants are reported. In the rebel shelling of Managua during the first days of the revolution, American Minister Weitzel reported that the firing had been indiscriminate upon the section of the city occupied by the non-combatants, and that an American Collector of Customs, named Hamm, and several other Americans narrowly escaped injury by bursting shells.
It is said there are fully 100 Americans owning plantations in Nicaragua who must be protected from attack and looting of their properties. Many demands that this Government protect American interests there have been registered at the State Department. A large number of New Orleans merchants, having Central American interests, only a few days ago went so far as to protest to the department against the attitude of Senator Bacon. They declared American prestige in Central America would suffer immeasurably if this Government failed to protect its citizens and their property. They even predicted the spread of the unrest through other Central American States if the situation were not promptly taken in hand.
Senator Bacon virtually charged on the floor of the Senate that this Government's interference in Nicaragua had a connection with the failure of the loan convention by which Nicaragua was to have borrowed several millions from American bankers and under which treaty the Nicaraguan railroads, steamships, Custom Houses and National monopolies were to be administered by representatives of the American financiers.
The Diaz Government, against which the present revolution is being directed, is said to have approved the attitude of the State Department in regard to the loan convention. Senator Bacon broadly intimated, in criticism of the State Department, that American forces were being used in aid of the political party which inclined to the department's views and against the party opposed to them.
Reports from other sources have said that Relaya, the dictator exiled in Europe in 1909 after the murder of the two Americans, Cannon and Groce, was behind Gen. Mena, leader of the revolutionists. This, however, is denied by the prominent Liberals who support the revolution.
Marines Patrol Corinto.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 29, 1912:
Defy Rebels and Force Their Way Into the Interior.
CORINTO, Nicaragua, Tuesday, Aug. 27.— Commander Warren J. Terhune and a force of two hundred American sailors and marines from the gunboat Annapolis and the collier Justin, now lying in Corinto Harbor, to-day succeeded in forcing their way through territory controlled by the revolutionaries to Leon, the town midway between the Pacific Coast and Lake Managua, where the Liberals rose in arms Aug. 19, and at night massacred the sleeping soldiers of the garrison.
The American force found the Liberals hostile to their advance, and it became necessary for Commander Terhune to threaten to attack Leon before the insurgents would allow the train bearing the American detachment to enter the town. Rioting had subsided, and the Americans found the city resuming its normal appearance.
After conferring with the Liberal leaders, Commander Terhune withdrew his force from the city, 100 marines proceeding to Managua, the capital, and the remainder of the detachment returning to Corinto.
Corinto has been designated as a place of refuge for the foreigners residing in the surrounding country. An armed force, landed from the gunboat Annapolis, is constantly patrolling the streets, and a number of six-pound guns have been taken from the warship and mounted on flat cars for the defense of the city.
The United States gunboat Denver, with reinforcements of marines and bluejackets, numbering about 350, has arrived here. The cruiser California, with a further detachment of marines, is expected to reach this port to-morrow.
The revolutionaries control Chinandega, a city with a population of about 12,000, and the capital of a department of the same name, and it is one of the chief desires of the rebels to capture Corinto, which is Chinandega's port and with which it is connected by rail.
All attempts of the insurgents to capture this seaport so far have been prevented by the armed force from the Annapolis, the officers of which are determined to protect the lives of the women residents.
Managua is the only large city in the northern department with the exception of Corinto, to remain under the control of the Government forces. Advices reaching here from the capital say that all is quiet there.
Defy Rebels and Force Their Way Into the Interior.
CORINTO, Nicaragua, Tuesday, Aug. 27.— Commander Warren J. Terhune and a force of two hundred American sailors and marines from the gunboat Annapolis and the collier Justin, now lying in Corinto Harbor, to-day succeeded in forcing their way through territory controlled by the revolutionaries to Leon, the town midway between the Pacific Coast and Lake Managua, where the Liberals rose in arms Aug. 19, and at night massacred the sleeping soldiers of the garrison.
The American force found the Liberals hostile to their advance, and it became necessary for Commander Terhune to threaten to attack Leon before the insurgents would allow the train bearing the American detachment to enter the town. Rioting had subsided, and the Americans found the city resuming its normal appearance.
After conferring with the Liberal leaders, Commander Terhune withdrew his force from the city, 100 marines proceeding to Managua, the capital, and the remainder of the detachment returning to Corinto.
Corinto has been designated as a place of refuge for the foreigners residing in the surrounding country. An armed force, landed from the gunboat Annapolis, is constantly patrolling the streets, and a number of six-pound guns have been taken from the warship and mounted on flat cars for the defense of the city.
The United States gunboat Denver, with reinforcements of marines and bluejackets, numbering about 350, has arrived here. The cruiser California, with a further detachment of marines, is expected to reach this port to-morrow.
The revolutionaries control Chinandega, a city with a population of about 12,000, and the capital of a department of the same name, and it is one of the chief desires of the rebels to capture Corinto, which is Chinandega's port and with which it is connected by rail.
All attempts of the insurgents to capture this seaport so far have been prevented by the armed force from the Annapolis, the officers of which are determined to protect the lives of the women residents.
Managua is the only large city in the northern department with the exception of Corinto, to remain under the control of the Government forces. Advices reaching here from the capital say that all is quiet there.
President Recalls Move On Nicaragua.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 29, 1912:
Decides on Train Not to Send Tenth Infantry, Now Stationed in Panama.
THINKS THE MARINES WILL DO
Will Have Sufficient Force In Managua by Next Week, He Says, to Protect Americans.
ON BOARD PRESIDENT TAFT'S TRAIN, ROCHESTER, N. Y., Aug. 28.— President Taft to-night rescinded his twelve-hour-old order directing the immediate dispatch from Panama to Nicaragua of the Tenth Infantry.
From his private car in the Rochester yards the President wired to the Acting Secretary of War instructions to recall the order. A sufficient force of marines, the President said to-night, would be in Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, and Corinto, its principal seaport, early next week to insure the safety of American lives and property,
The President's action came at the close of a day spent largely in considering telegrams from State, War, and Navy Department heads in Washington. The President expressed to-night to friends on his car the belief that there would be more than 2,000 United States marines on Nicaraguan soil by Tuesday. A long telegram to-night from the Commander of the United States gunboat Denver, now in Nicaraguan waters, said that the insurgent leaders had given assurances that they would open the lines of communication from Corinto to Managua. The Nicaraguan Government itself asked for assistance from the United States, and it stands ready to aid in opening the railway line to the coast from the capital.
The message to the President said that the rebels possessed five locomotives and the Government five. All ten of these may be put at the disposal of the United States if necessary. The recall of the order for the dispatch of the Tenth Infantry followed the receipt of this telegram from the Denver.
The President did not conceal his anxiety to-night over conditions in the Central American Republic, in Managua, Corinto, and other towns the situation is not now specially dangerous to Americans, but in other parts of the country pillaging of all sorts has been going on.
The people of Nicaragua, the President has been informed, are suffering untold horrors, and Americans are suffering in many instances with them.
To friends to-night Mr. Taft declared that if the Senate had agreed to the proposed treaty with Nicaragua, which he advocated on his long trip last Autumn, the misery existing to-day would never have arisen. Under that treaty the United States, he said, would have administered the customs of Nicaragua, and since the customs are almost the only source of national revenue, there would have been little to attract a revolutionist, who would not care to tackle the United States.
In the course of the day the President received several long telegrams from Acting Secretary of State Huntington Wilson in Washington. His order to the Tenth Infantry to advance on Nicaragua was issued in Beverly just before he started for Columbus, Ohio, where he will speak to-morrow. Messages from Mr. Wilson were received at Albany and at other points east of Rochester, and telegrams from the Navy Department also kept coming to Mr. Taft's private car.
Neither the State nor the Navy Department wished to see United States troops sent into Nicaragua. The custom in similar cases has been to land marines. The President said to-day that, while the sending of a regiment of infantry would not be an act of war, he would prefer to use marines if an available force could be found quickly. His telegrams to Washington evidently were fruitful, for he was of the opinion to-night that the navy had found enough marines to look after every American in Nicaragua and all American property that might be endangered. If he finds the situation critical later, he will not hesitate to use the army, but he is hopeful that the insurgent and Government leaders will see the futility of trying to make it uncomfortable for American citizens.
Decides on Train Not to Send Tenth Infantry, Now Stationed in Panama.
THINKS THE MARINES WILL DO
Will Have Sufficient Force In Managua by Next Week, He Says, to Protect Americans.
ON BOARD PRESIDENT TAFT'S TRAIN, ROCHESTER, N. Y., Aug. 28.— President Taft to-night rescinded his twelve-hour-old order directing the immediate dispatch from Panama to Nicaragua of the Tenth Infantry.
From his private car in the Rochester yards the President wired to the Acting Secretary of War instructions to recall the order. A sufficient force of marines, the President said to-night, would be in Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, and Corinto, its principal seaport, early next week to insure the safety of American lives and property,
The President's action came at the close of a day spent largely in considering telegrams from State, War, and Navy Department heads in Washington. The President expressed to-night to friends on his car the belief that there would be more than 2,000 United States marines on Nicaraguan soil by Tuesday. A long telegram to-night from the Commander of the United States gunboat Denver, now in Nicaraguan waters, said that the insurgent leaders had given assurances that they would open the lines of communication from Corinto to Managua. The Nicaraguan Government itself asked for assistance from the United States, and it stands ready to aid in opening the railway line to the coast from the capital.
The message to the President said that the rebels possessed five locomotives and the Government five. All ten of these may be put at the disposal of the United States if necessary. The recall of the order for the dispatch of the Tenth Infantry followed the receipt of this telegram from the Denver.
The President did not conceal his anxiety to-night over conditions in the Central American Republic, in Managua, Corinto, and other towns the situation is not now specially dangerous to Americans, but in other parts of the country pillaging of all sorts has been going on.
The people of Nicaragua, the President has been informed, are suffering untold horrors, and Americans are suffering in many instances with them.
To friends to-night Mr. Taft declared that if the Senate had agreed to the proposed treaty with Nicaragua, which he advocated on his long trip last Autumn, the misery existing to-day would never have arisen. Under that treaty the United States, he said, would have administered the customs of Nicaragua, and since the customs are almost the only source of national revenue, there would have been little to attract a revolutionist, who would not care to tackle the United States.
In the course of the day the President received several long telegrams from Acting Secretary of State Huntington Wilson in Washington. His order to the Tenth Infantry to advance on Nicaragua was issued in Beverly just before he started for Columbus, Ohio, where he will speak to-morrow. Messages from Mr. Wilson were received at Albany and at other points east of Rochester, and telegrams from the Navy Department also kept coming to Mr. Taft's private car.
Neither the State nor the Navy Department wished to see United States troops sent into Nicaragua. The custom in similar cases has been to land marines. The President said to-day that, while the sending of a regiment of infantry would not be an act of war, he would prefer to use marines if an available force could be found quickly. His telegrams to Washington evidently were fruitful, for he was of the opinion to-night that the navy had found enough marines to look after every American in Nicaragua and all American property that might be endangered. If he finds the situation critical later, he will not hesitate to use the army, but he is hopeful that the insurgent and Government leaders will see the futility of trying to make it uncomfortable for American citizens.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Way To Turkish Peace.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 28, 1912:
Sultan Should Remain the Religious Head of Tripoli.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
Commenting editorially in last Sunday's issue of The Times upon the probable grounds for peace between Turkey and Italy, you emphasized first of all the necessity of Italy's conceding to the Sultan the retention by him in Tripoli of his religious jurisdiction. The opinion thus expressed is apparently based upon the knowledge of the keen jealousy of the Mohammedan for the preservation of his religious institution and his irreconcilable antipathy against the non-Mohammedan conqueror.
In conceding the point in question Italy would not be divesting herself of any right or privilege that she should or would care to retain. It is easier for her to supervise the religious institutions of a Mohammedan community through Mohammedan agencies rather than through an alien agency. In recognizing the said right of the Sultan over Tripoli Italy would be following precisely in the footsteps of Great Britain, France, and Russia in the manner they deal with their Mohammedan subjects. In making this so-called concession she would be following a universal custom, which prescribes that a given community professing a faith other than that of the political sovereign of its allegiance may do so, and submit to the religious jurisdiction of the head of its faith, whose domicile or citizenship may be other than its own.
It is to be admitted that in a treaty such as the one suggested one of the points to be mentioned would be the religious jurisdiction of the Sultan, which is, as I stated, nothing else but a matter of form.
The most difficult point in the premises is to evolve a basis of settlement which would not conflict with the national dignity of the contestants.
Be that as it may, the existing conditions in the territories of the contending parties, as well as the alignment and attitude of the powers interested, should lead one to the reasonable belief that the existing state of warfare between Italy and Turkey will terminate before the second anniversary of its beginning.
VAHAN CARDASHIAN.
New York, Aug. 26, 1912.
Sultan Should Remain the Religious Head of Tripoli.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
Commenting editorially in last Sunday's issue of The Times upon the probable grounds for peace between Turkey and Italy, you emphasized first of all the necessity of Italy's conceding to the Sultan the retention by him in Tripoli of his religious jurisdiction. The opinion thus expressed is apparently based upon the knowledge of the keen jealousy of the Mohammedan for the preservation of his religious institution and his irreconcilable antipathy against the non-Mohammedan conqueror.
In conceding the point in question Italy would not be divesting herself of any right or privilege that she should or would care to retain. It is easier for her to supervise the religious institutions of a Mohammedan community through Mohammedan agencies rather than through an alien agency. In recognizing the said right of the Sultan over Tripoli Italy would be following precisely in the footsteps of Great Britain, France, and Russia in the manner they deal with their Mohammedan subjects. In making this so-called concession she would be following a universal custom, which prescribes that a given community professing a faith other than that of the political sovereign of its allegiance may do so, and submit to the religious jurisdiction of the head of its faith, whose domicile or citizenship may be other than its own.
It is to be admitted that in a treaty such as the one suggested one of the points to be mentioned would be the religious jurisdiction of the Sultan, which is, as I stated, nothing else but a matter of form.
The most difficult point in the premises is to evolve a basis of settlement which would not conflict with the national dignity of the contestants.
Be that as it may, the existing conditions in the territories of the contending parties, as well as the alignment and attitude of the powers interested, should lead one to the reasonable belief that the existing state of warfare between Italy and Turkey will terminate before the second anniversary of its beginning.
VAHAN CARDASHIAN.
New York, Aug. 26, 1912.
Hypocrisy of the Canal Bill.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 28, 1912:
To the Editor of The New York Times:
The men who are responsible for the clauses in the Panama Canal bill which are causing Europe and Canada to question our National probity and sense of honor are placing us in a position by no means enviable, and one which we, as a people, must surely be disgusted with. If the greatest republic the world has yet seen cannot make a "square deal" and abide by a treaty made with another power in all sincerity, however disadvantageous to ourselves the terms of the treaty may be, we cannot hope to retain our position among nations and our fair name as peacemakers and ardent supporters of the principle of arbitration.
Let us make our voices heard through the press and public meetings and demonstrations protesting against the action of our Senators in disregarding what should be a sacred thing, the terms of a treaty with a foreign power.
New York, Aug. 26, 1912.
AMERICAN.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
The men who are responsible for the clauses in the Panama Canal bill which are causing Europe and Canada to question our National probity and sense of honor are placing us in a position by no means enviable, and one which we, as a people, must surely be disgusted with. If the greatest republic the world has yet seen cannot make a "square deal" and abide by a treaty made with another power in all sincerity, however disadvantageous to ourselves the terms of the treaty may be, we cannot hope to retain our position among nations and our fair name as peacemakers and ardent supporters of the principle of arbitration.
Let us make our voices heard through the press and public meetings and demonstrations protesting against the action of our Senators in disregarding what should be a sacred thing, the terms of a treaty with a foreign power.
New York, Aug. 26, 1912.
AMERICAN.
Germany Checking Press Attack On Us.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 28, 1912:
Newspapers' Tone More or Less Restrained in Discussing the Canal Act.
OPINION IS VERY BITTER
But It Is Believed the Anglo-American Dispute Will Benefit Germany — Paris Temps Supports England.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
BERLIN, Aug. 27.— President Taft's signature of the Panama Canal bill has released a flood of German comment, still, however, more or less restrained, on America's disregard of her treaty obligations.
There is no doubt whatever that, if the Kaiser's Government were not itself sitting on the lid, the people and Government of the United States would be treated to some expressions of German opinion which would make British comment a whisper by comparison.
A point on which increasing stress will be laid in Germany is the ludicrous light in which the affair places America's vaunted enthusiasm for the arbitration of international disputes.
The Vossische Zeitung strikes a new note in its editorial article, commenting almost glowingly on the "disruption of Anglo-American friendship." It asks ironically what has now become of Joseph Chamberlain's once cherished dream of an Anglo-Saxon alliance between Great Britain, Germany, and the United States. The Vossische Zeitung thinks the rift in the Anglo-American lute redounds to the benefit of the Fatherland, as the unity between the English-speaking countries has recently on more than one occasion been exploited against the German Empire.
Newspapers' Tone More or Less Restrained in Discussing the Canal Act.
OPINION IS VERY BITTER
But It Is Believed the Anglo-American Dispute Will Benefit Germany — Paris Temps Supports England.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
BERLIN, Aug. 27.— President Taft's signature of the Panama Canal bill has released a flood of German comment, still, however, more or less restrained, on America's disregard of her treaty obligations.
There is no doubt whatever that, if the Kaiser's Government were not itself sitting on the lid, the people and Government of the United States would be treated to some expressions of German opinion which would make British comment a whisper by comparison.
A point on which increasing stress will be laid in Germany is the ludicrous light in which the affair places America's vaunted enthusiasm for the arbitration of international disputes.
The Vossische Zeitung strikes a new note in its editorial article, commenting almost glowingly on the "disruption of Anglo-American friendship." It asks ironically what has now become of Joseph Chamberlain's once cherished dream of an Anglo-Saxon alliance between Great Britain, Germany, and the United States. The Vossische Zeitung thinks the rift in the Anglo-American lute redounds to the benefit of the Fatherland, as the unity between the English-speaking countries has recently on more than one occasion been exploited against the German Empire.
Naval Experts To Report.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 28, 1912:
Known Now That System Is Considered Promising — Low in Cost.
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27.— The Navy department has been trying out a system of submarine telegraphy in which Count Széchényi, who married Miss Gladys Vanderbilt, is interested, together with various members of the Vanderbilt family. The tests were completed last week, and, while the apparatus was not in the most satisfactory condition and results were not wholly satisfactory, the navy experts who conducted them regard them as highly promising. The system does not require the elaborate instrumentation used in other systems of submarine communication, and the cost of installation is very much less than with the system now employed to convey messages between vessels of the Atlantic fleet. The torpedo boat Stringham was ordered from her station at Annapolis to Newport for the purpose of making the tests, which were conducted by the same board that had other similar trials to make for the department.
The system is not as at present developed an electric system, but is mechanical. It should not be confused with the wireless system of telegraphy, which it does not resemble in any particular, as it does not make use of a radío principle, but employs contact vibrations of the medium, which is of course water. In a rudimentary way, the idea is as old as the centuries, but the development is a valuable and important invention. The officers who made the test have made only a preliminary report, which is confidential for the present, so that little more than the barest details are known here.
The distance through which communication may be established by the new system is not definitely known, but is several miles, and may with the use of more powerful instruments be extended to a much larger distance. The navy is interested in it because it would save many thousands of dollars in cost of installation over the system now in use.
Known Now That System Is Considered Promising — Low in Cost.
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27.— The Navy department has been trying out a system of submarine telegraphy in which Count Széchényi, who married Miss Gladys Vanderbilt, is interested, together with various members of the Vanderbilt family. The tests were completed last week, and, while the apparatus was not in the most satisfactory condition and results were not wholly satisfactory, the navy experts who conducted them regard them as highly promising. The system does not require the elaborate instrumentation used in other systems of submarine communication, and the cost of installation is very much less than with the system now employed to convey messages between vessels of the Atlantic fleet. The torpedo boat Stringham was ordered from her station at Annapolis to Newport for the purpose of making the tests, which were conducted by the same board that had other similar trials to make for the department.
The system is not as at present developed an electric system, but is mechanical. It should not be confused with the wireless system of telegraphy, which it does not resemble in any particular, as it does not make use of a radío principle, but employs contact vibrations of the medium, which is of course water. In a rudimentary way, the idea is as old as the centuries, but the development is a valuable and important invention. The officers who made the test have made only a preliminary report, which is confidential for the present, so that little more than the barest details are known here.
The distance through which communication may be established by the new system is not definitely known, but is several miles, and may with the use of more powerful instruments be extended to a much larger distance. The navy is interested in it because it would save many thousands of dollars in cost of installation over the system now in use.
Széchényi Company Uses His Invention.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 28, 1912:
The Count's Submarine Wireless Tried Out by Torpedo Boat at Newport.
SEC'Y MEYER INTERESTED
Tests, Carried on Secretly with Assistance of Naval Authorities, Gave Much Promise of Success.
Count Laszlo Széchényi, who married Gladys Vanderbilt, is the inventor of the submarine wireless telegraph, which the Submarine Wireless Company was formed to exploit, according to David C. Watts of 123 East Fifty-seventh Street, one of the incorporators.
The company was incorporated on Monday at Albany after a telegram announcing a successful test of the invention had been received from Newport, where experiments have been made.
Count Széchényi tried to arrange several months ago to experiment with his submarine wireless apparatus in New York Harbor, Mr. Watts said last night, but the attempt was given up because a vessel suitable for the tests could not be found. Later Count Széchényi laid his plans before Secretary of the Navy Meyer. Seeing the possibility that the invention might become of value in communication at sea, Secretary Meyer became interested at once and placed a torpedo boat in Newport Harbor at the disposal of the inventor.
A series of experiments was conducted between the torpedo boat and an experiment station which was constructed in Newport Harbor and equipped with the submarine wireless apparatus.
The invention is said to be an application of the principle of the wireless telegraph. The instruments invented by Count Széchényi are for sending and receiving sound-wave vibrations under water.
The tests have been conducted with great secrecy by naval officers and Count Széchényi and his representatives. The knowledge that the experiments were taking place was confined to those interested in the invention and a few members of the Navy Department. The first public announcement of new submarine wireless telegraph came on Monday when the company was incorporated. The trials, it is said, were most thorough, and it was not until the Navy Department was satisfied that the invention was promising that Count Széchényi and his associates decided to take the step of forming a company and making public their work in a new field of communication. The dispatch telling of the success in sending messages through water was received in this city last week.
Count Széchényi left Newport while the series of tests was in progress, laving a representative to keep him informed as to the results. He spent much of his time in Newport before sailing for Liverpool a few weeks ago on his way to his home in Hungary.
John M. Russell and Eugene N. Robinson, law partners at 111 Broadway, who are among the incorporators, both left the city yesterday morning. Mr. Russell went to Newport to be present at a demonstration of the submarine wireless, and Mr. Robinson went to Washington, where, it is said, he will interview the naval authorities who have been following the tests at Newport.
Mr. Watts, the only one of the incorporators in the city last night, was not able to tell the distance that sound waves could be sent under water by the submarine wireless. He said that Count Széchényi had been experimenting with his invention for several years, and was also working on several other electrical devices at the present time,
Count Széchényi is 32 years old. His marriage to Gladys Vanderbilt took place in 1908. His father, Count Emerick Széchényi, was at one time Austrian Minister at the Court of Berlin. His grand-uncle, Istvan Széchényi, was a famous patriot of Hungary. Countess Széchényí did not go to Europe with her husband on his last trip, and is now staying at the home of her mother, in Newport.
The Count's Submarine Wireless Tried Out by Torpedo Boat at Newport.
SEC'Y MEYER INTERESTED
Tests, Carried on Secretly with Assistance of Naval Authorities, Gave Much Promise of Success.
Count Laszlo Széchényi, who married Gladys Vanderbilt, is the inventor of the submarine wireless telegraph, which the Submarine Wireless Company was formed to exploit, according to David C. Watts of 123 East Fifty-seventh Street, one of the incorporators.
The company was incorporated on Monday at Albany after a telegram announcing a successful test of the invention had been received from Newport, where experiments have been made.
Count Széchényi tried to arrange several months ago to experiment with his submarine wireless apparatus in New York Harbor, Mr. Watts said last night, but the attempt was given up because a vessel suitable for the tests could not be found. Later Count Széchényi laid his plans before Secretary of the Navy Meyer. Seeing the possibility that the invention might become of value in communication at sea, Secretary Meyer became interested at once and placed a torpedo boat in Newport Harbor at the disposal of the inventor.
A series of experiments was conducted between the torpedo boat and an experiment station which was constructed in Newport Harbor and equipped with the submarine wireless apparatus.
The invention is said to be an application of the principle of the wireless telegraph. The instruments invented by Count Széchényi are for sending and receiving sound-wave vibrations under water.
The tests have been conducted with great secrecy by naval officers and Count Széchényi and his representatives. The knowledge that the experiments were taking place was confined to those interested in the invention and a few members of the Navy Department. The first public announcement of new submarine wireless telegraph came on Monday when the company was incorporated. The trials, it is said, were most thorough, and it was not until the Navy Department was satisfied that the invention was promising that Count Széchényi and his associates decided to take the step of forming a company and making public their work in a new field of communication. The dispatch telling of the success in sending messages through water was received in this city last week.
Count Széchényi left Newport while the series of tests was in progress, laving a representative to keep him informed as to the results. He spent much of his time in Newport before sailing for Liverpool a few weeks ago on his way to his home in Hungary.
John M. Russell and Eugene N. Robinson, law partners at 111 Broadway, who are among the incorporators, both left the city yesterday morning. Mr. Russell went to Newport to be present at a demonstration of the submarine wireless, and Mr. Robinson went to Washington, where, it is said, he will interview the naval authorities who have been following the tests at Newport.
Mr. Watts, the only one of the incorporators in the city last night, was not able to tell the distance that sound waves could be sent under water by the submarine wireless. He said that Count Széchényi had been experimenting with his invention for several years, and was also working on several other electrical devices at the present time,
Count Széchényi is 32 years old. His marriage to Gladys Vanderbilt took place in 1908. His father, Count Emerick Széchényi, was at one time Austrian Minister at the Court of Berlin. His grand-uncle, Istvan Széchényi, was a famous patriot of Hungary. Countess Széchényí did not go to Europe with her husband on his last trip, and is now staying at the home of her mother, in Newport.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Nicaragua's Plight.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 27, 1912:
Ex-Minister Says Our Interference In Her Affairs Is Obligatory.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
The observation made in your newspaper on various occasions concerning the affairs of my country, Nicaragua, appear to be quite correct. Not only did certain United States citizens lend their aid to the late revolution in Honduras, but they were also active in that of 1906 and 1907 against the Government of Manuel Bonilla. In the present revolution in Nicaragua, an agent of a powerful American fruit company was fomenting rebellion in Managua for the purpose of obtaining in the Atlantic Coast region a fruit monopoly which President Diaz refused to grant. This same company maintains an agent in New Orleans who has been in active correspondence with Gen. Mena and with several Nicaraguan emigrants residing in New Orleans, San Jose de Costa Rica, and in Panama.
So that there are many citizens of the United States who are more or less responsible for these revolutions, and instead of thinking, like Senator Bacon, that the Government at Washington is doing wrong in interfering in our internal affairs, I think, on the contrary, that it is under obligation to do so to repair the evil which North Americans are perpetrating in my country.
The American forces can go there as peacemakers and not as would-be conquerors. If their action should result in directing us into the true path of civil liberty, as was done in Cuba and in Panama, there are numerous patriotic Nicaraguans who are entirely capable of appreciating such service.
I believe that the lives and property of many Americana in Nicaragua, which are now imperiled, are of great value, and, furthermore, I am of the opinion that the lives of Nicaraguan women and children are also worth something.
J. M. MONCADA,
Formerly Minister of the Interior, Nicaragua.
Brooklyn. Aug. 24, 1912.
Ex-Minister Says Our Interference In Her Affairs Is Obligatory.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
The observation made in your newspaper on various occasions concerning the affairs of my country, Nicaragua, appear to be quite correct. Not only did certain United States citizens lend their aid to the late revolution in Honduras, but they were also active in that of 1906 and 1907 against the Government of Manuel Bonilla. In the present revolution in Nicaragua, an agent of a powerful American fruit company was fomenting rebellion in Managua for the purpose of obtaining in the Atlantic Coast region a fruit monopoly which President Diaz refused to grant. This same company maintains an agent in New Orleans who has been in active correspondence with Gen. Mena and with several Nicaraguan emigrants residing in New Orleans, San Jose de Costa Rica, and in Panama.
So that there are many citizens of the United States who are more or less responsible for these revolutions, and instead of thinking, like Senator Bacon, that the Government at Washington is doing wrong in interfering in our internal affairs, I think, on the contrary, that it is under obligation to do so to repair the evil which North Americans are perpetrating in my country.
The American forces can go there as peacemakers and not as would-be conquerors. If their action should result in directing us into the true path of civil liberty, as was done in Cuba and in Panama, there are numerous patriotic Nicaraguans who are entirely capable of appreciating such service.
I believe that the lives and property of many Americana in Nicaragua, which are now imperiled, are of great value, and, furthermore, I am of the opinion that the lives of Nicaraguan women and children are also worth something.
J. M. MONCADA,
Formerly Minister of the Interior, Nicaragua.
Brooklyn. Aug. 24, 1912.
Montenegro Obeys Powers.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 27, 1912:
Says She Won't Provoke War with Turkey, but Defends Attitude.
CETTINJE, Aug. 26.— In response to energetic diplomatic intimations that Montenegro must not provoke war with Turkey, King Nicholas and the Montenegrin Government to-day gave to the representatives of the Great Powers assurances that nothing contrary to the wishes of the leading European nations would be done.
At the same time the King and his Ministers declared that Montenegro had no aggressive intentions, and that she was merely protecting herself against Turkey's attacks on the frontier.
Says She Won't Provoke War with Turkey, but Defends Attitude.
CETTINJE, Aug. 26.— In response to energetic diplomatic intimations that Montenegro must not provoke war with Turkey, King Nicholas and the Montenegrin Government to-day gave to the representatives of the Great Powers assurances that nothing contrary to the wishes of the leading European nations would be done.
At the same time the King and his Ministers declared that Montenegro had no aggressive intentions, and that she was merely protecting herself against Turkey's attacks on the frontier.
Says Our Nation's Credit Is Impugned.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 27, 1912:
London Paper Sees in Canal Act and Police Revelations Signs of a "Generic Evil."
RIGHTS BRITAIN GAVE UP
Seem to Have Been Forgotten Here, Another Paper Reminds Us, in Dealing, with Panama.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON, Aug. 26.— The London papers continue to discuss the signature of the Panama Canal bill by President Taft, the majority referring to The New York Times's characterization of the bill as "disgraceful and flagitious."
The Pall Mall Gazette says:
"It was declared last week in so unemotional an organ as the Journal des Débats that in certain contingencies connected with the Panama Canal bill the world would have a right to think that the probity of the United States Government was on a par with that of the New York police.
"Nothing has yet occurred to provoke a verdict of such sweeping condemnation. We are confident that, in spite of the sinister manipulations in which Mr. Taft and Congress have alike involved themselves, the Panama question will yet be solved in such a fashion as to preserve the honor of the American people.
"But it is noteworthy that the credit of the United States Government and of the New York police are both very seriously impugned by incidents that figure prominently in to-day's news, and the conjunction must impel serious Americans to a searching of heart upon certain features of their public life."
After referring to the mysterious death of Miss Curran, the paper goes on:
"It is one of the most ghastly ironies attendant on progress and democracy that in the greatest city of the New World crime can thus claim a veto upon the administration of order and that the guardians of life and property can be universally credited with connivance at the most villainous outrages and charged even with the actual assassination of those who obstruct their infamous proceedings. No honest-minded American looking at the parallel columns in to-day's newspapers which record these two reproachful histories can avoid a feeling that contempt for National honor in high places, coupled with such grave infamies in the details of administration, point to generic evil in public life that calls for most strenuous and united efforts at reform."
In a leading article headed "Our Panama. What Great Britain Gave Up to America," The Evening News says:
" 'We built our canal and can do with it as we like' is the clamor of the American Jingoes. They forget that the British public could reply: 'We allowed you to build the canal by giving up ours, and have the right that the treaty shall be observed, for without British consent, bought at the price of the abandonment of some of our rights on a Nicaragua canal, the Panama Canal could never have been.'
"There are two parties to every agreement, and in the nature of things both parties give up no more than they are obliged to. If the Americans gave up by the Hay-Pauncefote treaty the right, which .they now claim, to favor American shipping, it was because Great Britain gave up what was equally valuable — her right to finance a rival enterprise."
The Westminster Gazette, after paying a tribute to the magnificent enterprise in the building of the canal and stating that it would be a thousand pities if the rejoicings of the civilized world at its completion were to be blighted by a difference about the terms on which it was to be used, says:
"Surely the right thing for the American Congress to do under the circumstances is to submit the question of treaty interpretation to The Hague Tribunal.
"We admit that if the proposed discrimination were really confined to American coastwise shipping, and the definition 'coastwise shipping' were precisely maintained, the grievance of other countries would be theoretical rather than substantial, as they are equally excluded from this branch of trade by the American navigation laws; but the ground which the President takes clearly applies to all American shipping, and that seriously alters what were supposed to be the substantial gains in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty."
The Evening Standard says in part:
"In spite of the spirited warnings of a majority of his fellow-countrymen, Mr. Taft has signed the bill, and the eyes of the United States are turned to this country. Great Britain can, if she chooses, allow the treaty, which expires next April, to lapse, and in this event it is not unlikely that other nations will follow suit.
"What will happen between now and April it is impossible to say. Mr. Taft resents the fact of his country, having had all the labor and expense of the constructing of the canal, not being allowed to deal with its own commerce in its own way, but he forgets that in exchange for this vanished freedom the United States secured other advantages. When the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was concluded, Great Britain was not the only satisfied party. The United States was satisfied also.
"Mr. Taft must not attempt the difficult feat of eating cake and having it, too, or the canal constructed at the cost of many lives and so much money will be a curse and not a blessing to mankind."
London Paper Sees in Canal Act and Police Revelations Signs of a "Generic Evil."
RIGHTS BRITAIN GAVE UP
Seem to Have Been Forgotten Here, Another Paper Reminds Us, in Dealing, with Panama.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON, Aug. 26.— The London papers continue to discuss the signature of the Panama Canal bill by President Taft, the majority referring to The New York Times's characterization of the bill as "disgraceful and flagitious."
The Pall Mall Gazette says:
"It was declared last week in so unemotional an organ as the Journal des Débats that in certain contingencies connected with the Panama Canal bill the world would have a right to think that the probity of the United States Government was on a par with that of the New York police.
"Nothing has yet occurred to provoke a verdict of such sweeping condemnation. We are confident that, in spite of the sinister manipulations in which Mr. Taft and Congress have alike involved themselves, the Panama question will yet be solved in such a fashion as to preserve the honor of the American people.
"But it is noteworthy that the credit of the United States Government and of the New York police are both very seriously impugned by incidents that figure prominently in to-day's news, and the conjunction must impel serious Americans to a searching of heart upon certain features of their public life."
After referring to the mysterious death of Miss Curran, the paper goes on:
"It is one of the most ghastly ironies attendant on progress and democracy that in the greatest city of the New World crime can thus claim a veto upon the administration of order and that the guardians of life and property can be universally credited with connivance at the most villainous outrages and charged even with the actual assassination of those who obstruct their infamous proceedings. No honest-minded American looking at the parallel columns in to-day's newspapers which record these two reproachful histories can avoid a feeling that contempt for National honor in high places, coupled with such grave infamies in the details of administration, point to generic evil in public life that calls for most strenuous and united efforts at reform."
In a leading article headed "Our Panama. What Great Britain Gave Up to America," The Evening News says:
" 'We built our canal and can do with it as we like' is the clamor of the American Jingoes. They forget that the British public could reply: 'We allowed you to build the canal by giving up ours, and have the right that the treaty shall be observed, for without British consent, bought at the price of the abandonment of some of our rights on a Nicaragua canal, the Panama Canal could never have been.'
"There are two parties to every agreement, and in the nature of things both parties give up no more than they are obliged to. If the Americans gave up by the Hay-Pauncefote treaty the right, which .they now claim, to favor American shipping, it was because Great Britain gave up what was equally valuable — her right to finance a rival enterprise."
The Westminster Gazette, after paying a tribute to the magnificent enterprise in the building of the canal and stating that it would be a thousand pities if the rejoicings of the civilized world at its completion were to be blighted by a difference about the terms on which it was to be used, says:
"Surely the right thing for the American Congress to do under the circumstances is to submit the question of treaty interpretation to The Hague Tribunal.
"We admit that if the proposed discrimination were really confined to American coastwise shipping, and the definition 'coastwise shipping' were precisely maintained, the grievance of other countries would be theoretical rather than substantial, as they are equally excluded from this branch of trade by the American navigation laws; but the ground which the President takes clearly applies to all American shipping, and that seriously alters what were supposed to be the substantial gains in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty."
The Evening Standard says in part:
"In spite of the spirited warnings of a majority of his fellow-countrymen, Mr. Taft has signed the bill, and the eyes of the United States are turned to this country. Great Britain can, if she chooses, allow the treaty, which expires next April, to lapse, and in this event it is not unlikely that other nations will follow suit.
"What will happen between now and April it is impossible to say. Mr. Taft resents the fact of his country, having had all the labor and expense of the constructing of the canal, not being allowed to deal with its own commerce in its own way, but he forgets that in exchange for this vanished freedom the United States secured other advantages. When the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was concluded, Great Britain was not the only satisfied party. The United States was satisfied also.
"Mr. Taft must not attempt the difficult feat of eating cake and having it, too, or the canal constructed at the cost of many lives and so much money will be a curse and not a blessing to mankind."
Sunday, August 26, 2012
May End German Monopoly.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 26, 1912:
Big Interests to Develop the Potash Beds of Utah — Government Seeks More.
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Aug. 25.— Beds of alunite have been discovered near Marysvale, Utah. Eastern capitalists have taken an interest in these deposits, and will exploit them on a large scale. Some of the capital will be furnished by the Armours.
Agents of the Federal Government have investigated the Utah discoveries, and have reported from time to time that they were important. In recent months more beds have been found. Plans for the expenditure of several hundred thousand dollars for plants and the employment of thousands of men have been approved, and immediate work is expected.
In Wyoming are big fields of rock containing a large percentage of potash. It is the opinion of Government and State investigators that this, rock need only he crushed fine in order, to make it fit for use as fertilizer. Should this be true a great part of the demand for this salt could be met at small expense of manufacture.
Big Interests to Develop the Potash Beds of Utah — Government Seeks More.
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Aug. 25.— Beds of alunite have been discovered near Marysvale, Utah. Eastern capitalists have taken an interest in these deposits, and will exploit them on a large scale. Some of the capital will be furnished by the Armours.
Agents of the Federal Government have investigated the Utah discoveries, and have reported from time to time that they were important. In recent months more beds have been found. Plans for the expenditure of several hundred thousand dollars for plants and the employment of thousands of men have been approved, and immediate work is expected.
In Wyoming are big fields of rock containing a large percentage of potash. It is the opinion of Government and State investigators that this, rock need only he crushed fine in order, to make it fit for use as fertilizer. Should this be true a great part of the demand for this salt could be met at small expense of manufacture.
Rebel Troops Burn And Loot Tung-Chow.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 26, 1912:
Twelve Persons Slain in a Sudden Outbreak in Which the Town Is Destroyed.
CAUSED BY ANTI-QUEUE EDICT
President Yuan and Dr. Sun Reach Political Agreement After a Long Conference in Pekín.
PEKING, Aug. 25.— A large part of Tung-chow, twelve miles from Peking, was looted and burned to-day by great numbers of discontented "old style" Chinese troops, who suddenly appeared in the streets, bent on pillage and bloodshed. Twelve persons were slain and the town, in great part, was practically destroyed.
Several thousand men participated in the work of pillage. As there was only one foreigner in the town — L. C. Porter, head of the Tung-chow College, an American Mission Board institution — the plunderers showed no respect for life and property, and accomplished their work of ruin without fear of molestation. The property of the college and the life of Mr. Porter were at no time in danger.
It is believed that the recent edict ordering the soldiers to cut off their queues was responsible for the outlawry.
The Government in Peking is dispatching troops to quell the looters, and a clash with the outlaw soldiers seems inevitable.
A detachment of Red Cross workers has gone to the scene.
There are no signs that the affair had any political significance, and the trouble is apparently local in Tung-chow. All is quiet in Peking.
President Yuan Shi-Kai and Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the former Provisional President, took dinner together last evening, and later held a conference of several hours, during which the political situation was thoroughly discussed.
After the conference the two gave out a statement asserting that they were in perfect accord on all important questions. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen said he believed that the execution of Gen. Chang Chen-wu, who was put to death for alleged complicity in a plot at Hankow against the Government, would not lead to trouble, and that the north and the south would work together harmoniously in the future.
Dr. Sun believes that Yuan Shi-Kai is eminently fitted for the Presidency. On leaving the palace he said:
"Yuan is a great man and is worthy of support."
The Chinamen of the north are showing Dr. Sun Yat-Sen many attentions during his stay at the capital.
Twelve Persons Slain in a Sudden Outbreak in Which the Town Is Destroyed.
CAUSED BY ANTI-QUEUE EDICT
President Yuan and Dr. Sun Reach Political Agreement After a Long Conference in Pekín.
PEKING, Aug. 25.— A large part of Tung-chow, twelve miles from Peking, was looted and burned to-day by great numbers of discontented "old style" Chinese troops, who suddenly appeared in the streets, bent on pillage and bloodshed. Twelve persons were slain and the town, in great part, was practically destroyed.
Several thousand men participated in the work of pillage. As there was only one foreigner in the town — L. C. Porter, head of the Tung-chow College, an American Mission Board institution — the plunderers showed no respect for life and property, and accomplished their work of ruin without fear of molestation. The property of the college and the life of Mr. Porter were at no time in danger.
It is believed that the recent edict ordering the soldiers to cut off their queues was responsible for the outlawry.
The Government in Peking is dispatching troops to quell the looters, and a clash with the outlaw soldiers seems inevitable.
A detachment of Red Cross workers has gone to the scene.
There are no signs that the affair had any political significance, and the trouble is apparently local in Tung-chow. All is quiet in Peking.
President Yuan Shi-Kai and Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the former Provisional President, took dinner together last evening, and later held a conference of several hours, during which the political situation was thoroughly discussed.
After the conference the two gave out a statement asserting that they were in perfect accord on all important questions. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen said he believed that the execution of Gen. Chang Chen-wu, who was put to death for alleged complicity in a plot at Hankow against the Government, would not lead to trouble, and that the north and the south would work together harmoniously in the future.
Dr. Sun believes that Yuan Shi-Kai is eminently fitted for the Presidency. On leaving the palace he said:
"Yuan is a great man and is worthy of support."
The Chinamen of the north are showing Dr. Sun Yat-Sen many attentions during his stay at the capital.
Massacre By Turks Inflames Servia.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 26, 1912:
Many Slain at Frontier Town of Sienitza, and Belgrade Demands War.
MOB PARADES THE STREETS
Slayers of Bulgarians at Kotschana to be Severely Punished — Montenegrins Held In Check.
BELGRADE, Aug. 25.— Telegrams received last night from Sienitza on the southern frontier of Servia say that Turks attacked the town yesterday and massacred many of the inhabitants.
The news of the massacre caused great excitement in the capital, and the newspapers issued special editions containing editorial demands that the Servian Government protest vigorously to the Porte.
At a mass meeting held this afternoon to protest against the butchery speakers violently denounced the Turkish Government. Subsequently 5,000 persons marched to the palace and to the Officers' Club, where they shouted their demand that war be declared against Turkey.
The Servian Cabinet met to-day to discuss the situation, and a report was drawn up for presentation to King Peter, who returned to Belgrade yesterday from his Summer holiday.
Later advices from Sienitza say that the Mussulman inhabitants of the town opened the arm stores, and after seizing weapons attacked the Christian population.
M. Popovitch, the Servian Prefect of Barana, was assassinated in front of the courts of justice.
The Servian populace fled into Montenegro and Servia. The refugees tell horrible tales of Turkish cruelty.
Many Slain at Frontier Town of Sienitza, and Belgrade Demands War.
MOB PARADES THE STREETS
Slayers of Bulgarians at Kotschana to be Severely Punished — Montenegrins Held In Check.
BELGRADE, Aug. 25.— Telegrams received last night from Sienitza on the southern frontier of Servia say that Turks attacked the town yesterday and massacred many of the inhabitants.
The news of the massacre caused great excitement in the capital, and the newspapers issued special editions containing editorial demands that the Servian Government protest vigorously to the Porte.
At a mass meeting held this afternoon to protest against the butchery speakers violently denounced the Turkish Government. Subsequently 5,000 persons marched to the palace and to the Officers' Club, where they shouted their demand that war be declared against Turkey.
The Servian Cabinet met to-day to discuss the situation, and a report was drawn up for presentation to King Peter, who returned to Belgrade yesterday from his Summer holiday.
Later advices from Sienitza say that the Mussulman inhabitants of the town opened the arm stores, and after seizing weapons attacked the Christian population.
M. Popovitch, the Servian Prefect of Barana, was assassinated in front of the courts of justice.
The Servian populace fled into Montenegro and Servia. The refugees tell horrible tales of Turkish cruelty.
Frenchmen In Moors' Hands.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 26, 1912:
Pretender Guards Nine Captives from His Fanatical Troops.
CASABLANCA. Morocco, Aug. 25.— The nine Frenchmen beleaguered at Marakesh have fallen into the hands of the Moroccan pretender, El Hiba.
After the evacuation of Marakesh by the French forces. El Hiba entered the city and proclaimed himself Sultan. Then despite promises to the French, with whom he is said to be friendly, Kald El Glawi handed the nine Frenchmen, including the Vice Consul, Jacques R. Maigret, over to the pretender, who now holds them as hostages. The Frenchmen are said to be protected by a special guard against El Hiba's more fanatical followers, who would gladly massacre the Christian prisoners.
Col. Mangin, commander of a French column, is fighting his way in the direction of Marakesh, and has made a junction with Col. Joseph's force to the westward of Cum-el-Rebia. It is doubtful, however, if he will push on to Marakesh, as it is thought such action would increase the peril of the hostages, whose release Gen. Lyautey, the French Resident Governor, is trying to obtain.
Pretender Guards Nine Captives from His Fanatical Troops.
CASABLANCA. Morocco, Aug. 25.— The nine Frenchmen beleaguered at Marakesh have fallen into the hands of the Moroccan pretender, El Hiba.
After the evacuation of Marakesh by the French forces. El Hiba entered the city and proclaimed himself Sultan. Then despite promises to the French, with whom he is said to be friendly, Kald El Glawi handed the nine Frenchmen, including the Vice Consul, Jacques R. Maigret, over to the pretender, who now holds them as hostages. The Frenchmen are said to be protected by a special guard against El Hiba's more fanatical followers, who would gladly massacre the Christian prisoners.
Col. Mangin, commander of a French column, is fighting his way in the direction of Marakesh, and has made a junction with Col. Joseph's force to the westward of Cum-el-Rebia. It is doubtful, however, if he will push on to Marakesh, as it is thought such action would increase the peril of the hostages, whose release Gen. Lyautey, the French Resident Governor, is trying to obtain.
To Guard Against Airships.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 26, 1912:
New British Battleships Will Have Special Protection.
LONDON, Monday, Aug. 20.— The battleships provided for by the current year's estimates, The Times says, will be longer than the Iron Duke class now building.
They will be armed with fourteen-inch guns, and will be provided with a curved, armored upper deck and funnel protection to resist attacks from air craft.
New British Battleships Will Have Special Protection.
LONDON, Monday, Aug. 20.— The battleships provided for by the current year's estimates, The Times says, will be longer than the Iron Duke class now building.
They will be armed with fourteen-inch guns, and will be provided with a curved, armored upper deck and funnel protection to resist attacks from air craft.
Canal Bill Signing Incenses England.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 26, 1912:
London Newspapers Sharply Impugn Our Good Faith and Call for Arbitration.
PROMPT ACTION IS LIKELY
Another Protest to Washington and Then a Demand for Reference to The Hague Is the Programme.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON, Aug. 25.— The signing of the Panama Canal bill by President Taft was the signal for editorial comment in most of the principal London newspapers.
The Times says:
"We understand and make full allowance for the exceptional conditions which dominate American politics in a Presidential year, but considerations of that kind, it need hardly be said, cannot be allowed to affect our attitude on a subject of this deep consequence to the interests of our trade and the trade of the whole empire.
"Should the text of the law bear out upon examination the view that it does in fact gravely violate our clear rights in the matter of first-rate importance, we shall, of course, renew the representations to the Government at Washington, and should these unhappily fail to bring about a satisfactory settlement, we shall appeal to the arbitration treaty of 1908 and request that the whole controversy and the proper construction, scope, and bearing of the canal treaty be referred to The Hague for decision.
"Suggestions have been freely made in certain quarters that the United States is not likely to entertain a request of that kind. That, as we have said before, is a blow to the whole principle of arbitration which we absolutely refuse to contemplate, unless and until it is delivered.
"No Government or nation has more loudly preached resort to arbitration than the Government and people of the United States. It is hardly credible, after so preaching it to others, they should cynically decline to adopt it where it concerns themselves.
"A refusal of this kind would inevitably create a certain indisposition on the part of all self-respecting nations to enter into contractual arrangements with a State which reserved to itself the exclusive right of interpreting the measure of its own obligations."
Under the caption of "President Taft's Failure," The Daily Mail says:
"If President Taft had done nothing more than attach his signature to the Panama Canal bill, it might have been possible to find some excuse for his action. At any rate, he might have pleaded the urgency of legislation in order to put the canal in a state of defense.
"But he has not been content with signing the bill. He has not scrupled to give it his benediction in a memorandum, which might have been written by a pettifogging solicitor instead of by the chief of a great republic.
"The memorandum contains not a single reference to an appeal, either to arbitration or to the law courts. President Taft accepts defeat on that issue, though it is certain to be raised by Great Britain, and possibly by other Countries.
"It is a little more than twelve months since President Taft moved the whole world to admiration by proposing an arbitration treaty for the settlement of all disputes, even those involving questions of national honor. What is the world to think of this proposal now?
"President Taft's memorandum on the Panama Canal bill must be the despair of all who seek the millennium in arbitration and delight those who prophesied the failure of his great scheme for the regeneration of mankind."
In an editorial headed "Dishonored," The Daily Express says:
"In spite of the unanimous protest of the responsible American press, President Taft has signed the Panama Canal bill. That protest has been a splendid vindication of the honor of the American people. The signature will remain a blot on the Republic's reputation.
"It is lamentable that President Taft has not been strong enough to resist the politicians and to act in accord with the call of the National conscience.
"In times when there is continual prating on the highway of the end of war, international friendship and arbitration, the United States has given the world a new and barefaced reminder of the value of treaties."
London Newspapers Sharply Impugn Our Good Faith and Call for Arbitration.
PROMPT ACTION IS LIKELY
Another Protest to Washington and Then a Demand for Reference to The Hague Is the Programme.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON, Aug. 25.— The signing of the Panama Canal bill by President Taft was the signal for editorial comment in most of the principal London newspapers.
The Times says:
"We understand and make full allowance for the exceptional conditions which dominate American politics in a Presidential year, but considerations of that kind, it need hardly be said, cannot be allowed to affect our attitude on a subject of this deep consequence to the interests of our trade and the trade of the whole empire.
"Should the text of the law bear out upon examination the view that it does in fact gravely violate our clear rights in the matter of first-rate importance, we shall, of course, renew the representations to the Government at Washington, and should these unhappily fail to bring about a satisfactory settlement, we shall appeal to the arbitration treaty of 1908 and request that the whole controversy and the proper construction, scope, and bearing of the canal treaty be referred to The Hague for decision.
"Suggestions have been freely made in certain quarters that the United States is not likely to entertain a request of that kind. That, as we have said before, is a blow to the whole principle of arbitration which we absolutely refuse to contemplate, unless and until it is delivered.
"No Government or nation has more loudly preached resort to arbitration than the Government and people of the United States. It is hardly credible, after so preaching it to others, they should cynically decline to adopt it where it concerns themselves.
"A refusal of this kind would inevitably create a certain indisposition on the part of all self-respecting nations to enter into contractual arrangements with a State which reserved to itself the exclusive right of interpreting the measure of its own obligations."
Under the caption of "President Taft's Failure," The Daily Mail says:
"If President Taft had done nothing more than attach his signature to the Panama Canal bill, it might have been possible to find some excuse for his action. At any rate, he might have pleaded the urgency of legislation in order to put the canal in a state of defense.
"But he has not been content with signing the bill. He has not scrupled to give it his benediction in a memorandum, which might have been written by a pettifogging solicitor instead of by the chief of a great republic.
"The memorandum contains not a single reference to an appeal, either to arbitration or to the law courts. President Taft accepts defeat on that issue, though it is certain to be raised by Great Britain, and possibly by other Countries.
"It is a little more than twelve months since President Taft moved the whole world to admiration by proposing an arbitration treaty for the settlement of all disputes, even those involving questions of national honor. What is the world to think of this proposal now?
"President Taft's memorandum on the Panama Canal bill must be the despair of all who seek the millennium in arbitration and delight those who prophesied the failure of his great scheme for the regeneration of mankind."
In an editorial headed "Dishonored," The Daily Express says:
"In spite of the unanimous protest of the responsible American press, President Taft has signed the Panama Canal bill. That protest has been a splendid vindication of the honor of the American people. The signature will remain a blot on the Republic's reputation.
"It is lamentable that President Taft has not been strong enough to resist the politicians and to act in accord with the call of the National conscience.
"In times when there is continual prating on the highway of the end of war, international friendship and arbitration, the United States has given the world a new and barefaced reminder of the value of treaties."
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Albanians Seize A Town.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 25, 1912:
Insurgents Said to be Marching Now to Capture an Adriatic Port.
ATHENS. Aug. 24.— Albanian insurgents have captured and occupied Berat and are now marching on Avlona on the Adriatic coast, according to semi-official information received here.
The Turkish officials deny the reported successes of the Albanians, but it is known here that the situation in Albania is extremely critical.
Insurgents Said to be Marching Now to Capture an Adriatic Port.
ATHENS. Aug. 24.— Albanian insurgents have captured and occupied Berat and are now marching on Avlona on the Adriatic coast, according to semi-official information received here.
The Turkish officials deny the reported successes of the Albanians, but it is known here that the situation in Albania is extremely critical.
French make Hero Of Mulai Hafid.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 25, 1912:
Ex-Sultan of Morocco Is the Centre of Daily Attraction at Vichy.
DOINGS CAUSE AMUSEMENT
Frightened in a Tunnel, Wonders at Women's Dress, Very Polite In Answering Letters.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
PARIS, Aug. 24.— Mulai Hafid, the ex-Sultan of Morocco, is the hero of the moment here. The atrocities which were committed in his name and which attracted the attention of the world appear to be entirely forgotten, and long tales of his doings and sayings at Vichy, where he is taking the cure, receive the place of honor in the dally press.
One of the most terrifying sensations of Hafid's life is said to have been his passage through the long tunnel in the train journey from Marseilles to Vichy. While in the tunnel the ex-Sultan remained huddled in a corner, muttering texts from the Koran and clutching a talisman in one hand and dagger in the other. Afterward he said that he would even sooner fly in an aeroplane than brave another tunnel.
Every morning he takes the waters regularly, surrounded by an inquisitive crowd and attended by Dr. Verdon, his Australian physician, who lived in Morocco for fifteen years and wears a magnificent purple robe of office.
At the hotel where the ex-Sultan is staying he insists on taking his meals in the general dining room, where he gazes curiously at the toilettes of the ladies round him.
French women, in fact, afford Mulai Hafid a good deal of material for reflection. Their enormous hats particularly puzzle him.
"Their hair," he said a day or two ago, "is too pretty for them to hide it under those big affairs, which even mask their charming faces most of the time. They ought to wear no hats, or very small ones. How is it that here only men wear small hats?"
Every day he receives hundreds of letters from all parts of France, asking help of various kinds or autographs. All these the ex-Sultan insists on having answered, and he carefully signs all desired autographs.
Among his mail yesterday was a small bouquet bearing the label, "From the midinettes of Montmartre."
After it had been explained to the ex-Sultan what a "midinette" was he announced his intention of thanking them in person during the incognito trip to Paris which he intends to make soon.
Ex-Sultan of Morocco Is the Centre of Daily Attraction at Vichy.
DOINGS CAUSE AMUSEMENT
Frightened in a Tunnel, Wonders at Women's Dress, Very Polite In Answering Letters.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
PARIS, Aug. 24.— Mulai Hafid, the ex-Sultan of Morocco, is the hero of the moment here. The atrocities which were committed in his name and which attracted the attention of the world appear to be entirely forgotten, and long tales of his doings and sayings at Vichy, where he is taking the cure, receive the place of honor in the dally press.
One of the most terrifying sensations of Hafid's life is said to have been his passage through the long tunnel in the train journey from Marseilles to Vichy. While in the tunnel the ex-Sultan remained huddled in a corner, muttering texts from the Koran and clutching a talisman in one hand and dagger in the other. Afterward he said that he would even sooner fly in an aeroplane than brave another tunnel.
Every morning he takes the waters regularly, surrounded by an inquisitive crowd and attended by Dr. Verdon, his Australian physician, who lived in Morocco for fifteen years and wears a magnificent purple robe of office.
At the hotel where the ex-Sultan is staying he insists on taking his meals in the general dining room, where he gazes curiously at the toilettes of the ladies round him.
French women, in fact, afford Mulai Hafid a good deal of material for reflection. Their enormous hats particularly puzzle him.
"Their hair," he said a day or two ago, "is too pretty for them to hide it under those big affairs, which even mask their charming faces most of the time. They ought to wear no hats, or very small ones. How is it that here only men wear small hats?"
Every day he receives hundreds of letters from all parts of France, asking help of various kinds or autographs. All these the ex-Sultan insists on having answered, and he carefully signs all desired autographs.
Among his mail yesterday was a small bouquet bearing the label, "From the midinettes of Montmartre."
After it had been explained to the ex-Sultan what a "midinette" was he announced his intention of thanking them in person during the incognito trip to Paris which he intends to make soon.
Turkey And Peace.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 25, 1912:
Two lines of speculation are opened by the latest dispatches regarding Turkish affairs. One is the possibility of peace with Italy; the other the future of the European provinces over which the Porte retains an undefined and very unstable authority.
At last, after a year of desultory and undecisive military operations, there is substantial reason to expect that Turkey and Italy may at least enter upon a pathway that will lead to a settlement. The matter has long been under consideration, of course, in the councils of Europe, and of late there have been reports of frank discussion. The immediate object of this discussion is an armistice. As an armistice involves the maintenance, for a time at least, of the status at the time it is agreed upon, it would, in practice, place Italy in possession of the portions of Tripoli she has occupied, and also of the Aegean islands. There would arise the question upon what terms and in what way Turkey could withdraw. These terms would necessarily cover:
1. The permanent recognition of the religious headship of the Sultan.
2. The payment of an indemnity by Italy.
3. The disposition of the Aegean islands in accord with the views of the European Powers.
4. (Probably) Provision for the autonomy of the European provinces of Turkey. As to this last point formal negotiations are reported to be in progress between Austria-Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, and the Government at Constantinople.
It is now generally conceded that permanent occupation of Tripoli and Cyrenaica by Italy must result from the war. As direct surrender of territory once possessed by the Sultan is contrary to the injunctions of the Koran, it has been suggested that the Sultan can appoint a non-Mussulman regent for Tripoli who can yield to the inevitable without involving his sovereign. The great body of Mussulmans, while devoutly obedient to the letter of religious law, have a certain respect for the requirements of a "force majeure" as the practical expression of the will of Allah.
Two lines of speculation are opened by the latest dispatches regarding Turkish affairs. One is the possibility of peace with Italy; the other the future of the European provinces over which the Porte retains an undefined and very unstable authority.
At last, after a year of desultory and undecisive military operations, there is substantial reason to expect that Turkey and Italy may at least enter upon a pathway that will lead to a settlement. The matter has long been under consideration, of course, in the councils of Europe, and of late there have been reports of frank discussion. The immediate object of this discussion is an armistice. As an armistice involves the maintenance, for a time at least, of the status at the time it is agreed upon, it would, in practice, place Italy in possession of the portions of Tripoli she has occupied, and also of the Aegean islands. There would arise the question upon what terms and in what way Turkey could withdraw. These terms would necessarily cover:
1. The permanent recognition of the religious headship of the Sultan.
2. The payment of an indemnity by Italy.
3. The disposition of the Aegean islands in accord with the views of the European Powers.
4. (Probably) Provision for the autonomy of the European provinces of Turkey. As to this last point formal negotiations are reported to be in progress between Austria-Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, and the Government at Constantinople.
It is now generally conceded that permanent occupation of Tripoli and Cyrenaica by Italy must result from the war. As direct surrender of territory once possessed by the Sultan is contrary to the injunctions of the Koran, it has been suggested that the Sultan can appoint a non-Mussulman regent for Tripoli who can yield to the inevitable without involving his sovereign. The great body of Mussulmans, while devoutly obedient to the letter of religious law, have a certain respect for the requirements of a "force majeure" as the practical expression of the will of Allah.
Canal Bill Signed; Taft Defends It.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 25, 1912:
And Asks Congress to Affirm That We Don't Consider It Violates the Treaty.
WASHINGTON,. Aug. 24.— President Taft signed the Panama Canal bill at 7:10 o'clock to-night, afterward sending to Congress a memorandum suggesting the advisability of the passage of a resolution, which would declare that this measure was not considered by this Government a violation of the treaty provisions regarding the canal.
In discussing, the British protest against the exemption of American shipping from the payment or tolls for the use of the canal, Mr. Taft says the irresistible conclusion to be drawn from it is that although the United States owns, controls, and has paid for the canal, it is restricted by treaty from aiding its own commerce in the way that all other nations of the world may freely do.
"In view of the fact," Mr. Taft continues, "that the Panama Canal is being constructed by the United States wholly at its own cost, upon territory ceded to it by the Republic of Panama for that purpose, and that, unless it has restricted itself, the United States enjoys absolute rights of ownership and control, including the right to allow its own commerce the use of the canal upon such terms as it sees fit, the sole question is: Has the United States (by the terms of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty) deprived itself of the exercise of the right to pass its own commerce free or to remit tolls collected for the use of the canal?"
The President points out that the rules specified in the article of the treaty which is made the basis for the British protest were adopted by the United States as the basis of the neutralizing of the canal and for no other, purpose. This article, he further says, "is a declaration of policy by the United States that the canal shall be neutral; that the attitude of this Government toward the commerce of the world is that all nations will be treated alike, and that no discrimination would be made by the United States against any one of them observing the rules adopted by the United States.
"In other words, it was a conditional favored-nation treatment, the measure of which, in the absence of express stipulation to that effect, is not what the country gives to its own Nationals, but the treatment it extends to other nations.
"Thus, it is seen that the rules are but the basis of neutralization intended to effect the neutrality which the United States was willing should be the character of the canal and not intended to limit or hamper the United States in the exercise of its sovereign power to deal with its own commerce using its own canal in whatsoever manner it saw fit."
The President argues that if there is nothing in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty preventing Great Britain and the other nations from extending favors to their shipping using the canal, and if there is nothing that gives the United States any supervision over or right to complain of such action, then the British protest leads to the absurd conclusion that this Government, in constructing the canal maintaining the canal, and defending the canal, finds itself shorn of its right to deal with its own commerce in its own way, while all other nations using the canal in competition with American commerce enjoy that right and power unimpaired.
"The British protest, therefore, is a proposal to read into the treaty a surrender by the United States of its right to regulate its own commerce in its own way and by its own method, a right which neither Great Britain herself nor any other nation that may use the canal has surrendered or proposes to surrender."
In his memorandum the President dissents from the view that permission to register foreign built vessels as vessels of the United States for foreign trade and the admission without duty of ships materials will interfere with the shipbuilding interests of the United States. He approves the amendment of the Inter-State Commerce act. whereby railroad companies are forbidden to own or control ships operated through the canal.
He also approves the provision which prevents the owner of any steamship who is guilty of violating the anti-trust law from using the canal.
The President presented the pen with which he signed the Canal bill to William D. Wheeler of San Francisco.
After notification to the House to-night that President Taft had signed the Panama bill, Representative Sims of Tennessee, ranking member of the House Inter-State Commerce Committee, introduced a bill repealing the provision of the law providing for free tolls of American ships engaged in the coastwise trade.
Mr. Sims explained that the bill had the indorsement of the majority of the committee and was intended to avoid threatening international complications over the free tolls proposition. It will be acted upon among the first bills taken up when Congress reconvenes in December.
And Asks Congress to Affirm That We Don't Consider It Violates the Treaty.
WASHINGTON,. Aug. 24.— President Taft signed the Panama Canal bill at 7:10 o'clock to-night, afterward sending to Congress a memorandum suggesting the advisability of the passage of a resolution, which would declare that this measure was not considered by this Government a violation of the treaty provisions regarding the canal.
In discussing, the British protest against the exemption of American shipping from the payment or tolls for the use of the canal, Mr. Taft says the irresistible conclusion to be drawn from it is that although the United States owns, controls, and has paid for the canal, it is restricted by treaty from aiding its own commerce in the way that all other nations of the world may freely do.
"In view of the fact," Mr. Taft continues, "that the Panama Canal is being constructed by the United States wholly at its own cost, upon territory ceded to it by the Republic of Panama for that purpose, and that, unless it has restricted itself, the United States enjoys absolute rights of ownership and control, including the right to allow its own commerce the use of the canal upon such terms as it sees fit, the sole question is: Has the United States (by the terms of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty) deprived itself of the exercise of the right to pass its own commerce free or to remit tolls collected for the use of the canal?"
The President points out that the rules specified in the article of the treaty which is made the basis for the British protest were adopted by the United States as the basis of the neutralizing of the canal and for no other, purpose. This article, he further says, "is a declaration of policy by the United States that the canal shall be neutral; that the attitude of this Government toward the commerce of the world is that all nations will be treated alike, and that no discrimination would be made by the United States against any one of them observing the rules adopted by the United States.
"In other words, it was a conditional favored-nation treatment, the measure of which, in the absence of express stipulation to that effect, is not what the country gives to its own Nationals, but the treatment it extends to other nations.
"Thus, it is seen that the rules are but the basis of neutralization intended to effect the neutrality which the United States was willing should be the character of the canal and not intended to limit or hamper the United States in the exercise of its sovereign power to deal with its own commerce using its own canal in whatsoever manner it saw fit."
The President argues that if there is nothing in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty preventing Great Britain and the other nations from extending favors to their shipping using the canal, and if there is nothing that gives the United States any supervision over or right to complain of such action, then the British protest leads to the absurd conclusion that this Government, in constructing the canal maintaining the canal, and defending the canal, finds itself shorn of its right to deal with its own commerce in its own way, while all other nations using the canal in competition with American commerce enjoy that right and power unimpaired.
"The British protest, therefore, is a proposal to read into the treaty a surrender by the United States of its right to regulate its own commerce in its own way and by its own method, a right which neither Great Britain herself nor any other nation that may use the canal has surrendered or proposes to surrender."
In his memorandum the President dissents from the view that permission to register foreign built vessels as vessels of the United States for foreign trade and the admission without duty of ships materials will interfere with the shipbuilding interests of the United States. He approves the amendment of the Inter-State Commerce act. whereby railroad companies are forbidden to own or control ships operated through the canal.
He also approves the provision which prevents the owner of any steamship who is guilty of violating the anti-trust law from using the canal.
The President presented the pen with which he signed the Canal bill to William D. Wheeler of San Francisco.
After notification to the House to-night that President Taft had signed the Panama bill, Representative Sims of Tennessee, ranking member of the House Inter-State Commerce Committee, introduced a bill repealing the provision of the law providing for free tolls of American ships engaged in the coastwise trade.
Mr. Sims explained that the bill had the indorsement of the majority of the committee and was intended to avoid threatening international complications over the free tolls proposition. It will be acted upon among the first bills taken up when Congress reconvenes in December.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Children Hurt By Bomb.
New York Times 100 years ago today, August 24, 1912:
Thrown from Their Cribs by Explosion Aimed at Father.
A dynamite bomb placed in the hallway of the tenement house at 214 Chrystie Street, and designed to wipe out the home and family of Pietro Bellon, an Italian grocer, exploded at 12:30 this morning, and blew Pietro's three youngest children out of their crib. Giuseppe, 7 years; Rosie, 8 years, and Lena, an 18-month-old baby, were cast upon the floor of the room and their crib was reduced to matchwood.
The doctor who hurried from Gouverneur Hospital found the children no more than bruised and frightened, and little damage was done to the building. Bellon denied that any threatening letters had heralded the bomb, but the police do not believe him. Twice before, when he lived further up Chrystie Street, similar attempts were made. Bellon came out of both of them alive, and always declared philosophically that they could not have been meant for him.
Thrown from Their Cribs by Explosion Aimed at Father.
A dynamite bomb placed in the hallway of the tenement house at 214 Chrystie Street, and designed to wipe out the home and family of Pietro Bellon, an Italian grocer, exploded at 12:30 this morning, and blew Pietro's three youngest children out of their crib. Giuseppe, 7 years; Rosie, 8 years, and Lena, an 18-month-old baby, were cast upon the floor of the room and their crib was reduced to matchwood.
The doctor who hurried from Gouverneur Hospital found the children no more than bruised and frightened, and little damage was done to the building. Bellon denied that any threatening letters had heralded the bomb, but the police do not believe him. Twice before, when he lived further up Chrystie Street, similar attempts were made. Bellon came out of both of them alive, and always declared philosophically that they could not have been meant for him.
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