Keep the Labor in Labor Day!

100 Labor Days ago (yeah I know it's not Saturday, but it's a holiday, which is just as good a time for a history lesson) coal miners were on strike in West Virginia.

And then the government decided to bomb them.

Cartoon by Ryan Walker in New York Call, NYC, September 3, 1921

General Billy Mitchell told reporters, “We wouldn’t try to kill these people at first. We’d drop tear gas all over the place. If they refuse to disburse, then we’d open up with artillery and everything.”

"September Morn" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Evening Star, September 1, 1921

Upon their arrival to West Virginia, the chance of aerial bombardment by the Air Service was quickly snuffed out. Fully loaded with bombs and machine guns when they left their home base of Langley, VA, the 88th Squadron’s planes were stripped of all weaponry before flying over Blair Mountain. [Commander of federal forces during the Battle of Blair Mountain, General Harry H.] Bandholdtz’s orders were clear. “You will under no circumstances drop any bombs or fire any machine guns or do anything to unnecessarily excite the invaders,” he wrote in a dispatch. While the 88th Squadron was used to assess the situation on Blair Mountain from above, there would be no demonstration of the Air Service’s armed abilities in West Virginia.

There were, however, a trio of private biplanes rented by Sheriff Chafin that were not under the strict orders of restraint from General Bandholtz. On September 2—the same day as the Squadron’s arrival in West Virginia—Chafin ordered his own small air force to drop gas and makeshift bombs on the miners’ positions on Blair Mountain. Though none of these aerial assaults struck their intended targets, Mitchell’s braggadocious comments to the Charleston press the week before led many to believe that the Army had conducted the bombing runs, a myth that remains today.

(Shades of Tulsa, Oklahoma over the Memorial Day holiday three months earlier!)

You might have thought that Americans would have recoiled in horror at the news of the Americans bombing Americans. But apparently the Chicago Tribune was all in favor of it.

"Show 'Em They Are Not Above the Law" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, September 2, 1921

As luck would have it, no miners were killed in the bombing, although three airmen died in a storm-related crash while returning to Maryland. Which may be why this remains the only time that the U.S. proposed bombing striking American workers into submission.

Now, go on and enjoy your holiday.

Ladies' Home Rule Journal

Splitback Saturday tackles two topics today!

With St. Patrick's Day just around the corner, it's time to check in on events at the Emerald Isle a century ago. I realize that this makes a poor substitute for a cancelled parade, but I'm afraid it will have to do.

"Fer th' Love av Mike" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Association, February, 1920

With the Easter Rising and Irish wartime collaboration with Germany in the rearview mirror, the government of David Lloyd George proposed a Home Rule bill for Ireland. It established Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, which were to be governed by separate parliaments and judicial systems, but a common Lord Lieutenant, Council of Ireland, and High Court of Appeal. Both would still be part of the United Kingdom, with no authority over foreign policy, currency, or defense.

"Cruel to Be Kind" by George White in The Passing Show, February, 1920 or earlier

"Home Rule" was hardly a new idea. It had been the main goal of Irish nationalists since 1870, and proposed by Liberal governments in Great Britain as early as 1886. Parliament had finally passed a Home Rule bill just as World War I broke out, but did so simultaneously with a Suspensory Act preventing Home Rule from going into effect as long as the war lasted.

Which should have been fine and dandy now that the war was over, right?

Detail from "Cartoons of the Day" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, March 17, 1920

Wrong.

To begin with, Ulster Unionists — Ireland's Protestant minority— were dead set against Home Rule and literally up in arms to prevent it. Furthermore, after British execution of Easter Rising leaders, followed by Lloyd George's institution of wartime conscription in Ireland, Irish nationalists decided that "Home Rule" was too little, too late. The more radical Sinn Fein swept Irish elections in 1918 and demanded full independence.

"En ik heb vijf lange jaren naast je gevochten..." in De Notenkraker, Amsterdam, ca. February, 1920

After the war, Woodrow Wilson's idealistic talk of self-determination of small nations was more appealing to the Irish separatists than to the government of the Empire On Which The Sun Never Set.

"The Great Postponement" by Bernard Partridge in Punch, March, 1920 or earlier

The trick pig was a frequent, and intentionally insulting, representation of Ireland in British cartoons, tracing back to an 1840 cartoon in Punch. History Ireland reports, "The pig represented Ireland’s status as an agricultural, rustic and backward nation, as well as the Irish peasantry’s supposed indifference to filth and muck."

"A Test of Sagacity" by Bernard Partridge in Punch, February 18, 1920

The politicians in the next cartoon are Irish Unionist leader Edward Carson on the left and Prime Minister David Lloyd George on the right. I'm not positive who the fellow in the center is; it can't be Eamon Valera.

"The Pudding That Was to Have Been" by F.C. Gould in Saturday Westminster Gazette, ca. March, 1920

Lloyd George's bill, "The Government of Ireland Act 1920," was presented in parliament on February 26. The bill ultimately did pass, but never took effect in what is now the independent country of Ireland.

✍

Given that we've just passed International Women's Day and are in the middle of Women's History Month, I would be remiss if I didn't take note of a centennial this week.

Detail from "The Tiny Tribune" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1920

100 years ago this past Wednesday, West Virginia became the 34th state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to extend the vote in federal elections to women over the age of 21.

The measure almost failed to pass a special session of the West Virginia State Senate, where ratification came up one vote short. But two senators were absent: one had resigned the previous year; and the other, Jesse Bloch of Wheeling, was golfing in California.

"Now Straight Ahead" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Evening Ledger, March 12, 1920

The Senate leadership kept the vote open until the pro-suffrage Bloch could get back home, arriving by a specially arranged train in the wee hours of March 10.

"The Grand Rush of the Reception Committee" by Jay "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, March 15, 1920

Just two more states were needed to complete the ratification process; as you can see, proponents were very optimistic at the amendment's chances.

Q Toon: Misguidance Counselor

I usually try to avoid addressing the same topic in two syndicated cartoons in a row; but keeping Transgender Awareness Day this coming Sunday in mind, I figured it was worthwhile to point out Senator Joe Manchin's (D-WV) reasoning for coming out as the lone Democrat in the Senate against the Equality Act.

Besides, he's got one of those faces (and haircuts) that just begs for caricature.

As far as Manchin is concerned, it's another case where we're not allowed to have nice things because, you know, public school bathrooms.

I strongly support equality for all people and do not tolerate discrimination of any kind. No one should be afraid of losing their job or losing their housing because of their sexual orientation. After speaking with local education officials in West Virginia, I am not convinced that the Equality Act as written provides sufficient guidance to the local officials who will be responsible for implementing it, particularly with respect to students transitioning between genders in public schools.

Call me a skeptic, but I sincerely doubt that any "guidance to the local officials" that could be amended to the bill wouldn't provide Senator Manchin further reason to withhold his support.

As last week's cartoon illustrated, the Equality Act has virtually no chance of making it through the McConnell-controlled Senate anyway. Still, it does shine a light on who supports LGBTQ rights and who doesn't. Republicans across the nation have instead been pushing "religious liberty" laws to promote discrimination against LGBTQ people.

This is especially important as some states consider laws that would deliberately create a license for businesses, adoption and foster care agencies, health care providers and others to discriminate against LGBT people. Human Rights Watch has documented how these so-called “religious liberty” laws deny LGBT people goods and services, deter them from the marketplace for fear of facing discrimination, and send a signal that they are unwelcome in their state. By clarifying that religious protections cannot be used to discriminate, the Equality Act would better ensure that both religious believers and LGBT people are protected under federal law.
It would also make anti-discrimination laws clear and uniform, which is necessary if these laws are to be effective. LGBT people should not need a law degree to determine whether they are protected from discrimination when they apply for a job, rent an apartment, or eat at a restaurant in the places they happen to live, visit or travel through.

If, as I suspect, the only way to get Senator Manchin on board is to carve out a broad exception for public schools, that would inevitably be followed by a demand that private schools also be exempted. And if private schools, then also landlords, businesses, adoption and foster care agencies, health care providers and — perhaps you see where this is going.

Q Toon: Judging by Its Cover

Caitlyn Jenner is going to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated wearing nothing but an American flag and an Olympic medal.

There's not a whole lot of point getting worked up about that, so let's talk about the West Virginia primary.

There's not much point in getting worked up about that, either. It's late in the primary process; the Republican contest has already been decided, and the state's Democrats have a history of voting against the front-runner.

Or do they?

Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton 51% to 36%; it's hard to imagine that coal mining enthusiasts who disagree with Hillary Clinton that there's little future in coal mining found much more in Sanders's position on mining to agree with. (On guns, maybe. Mining, no.) Indeed, an additional 9% of the vote went to a protest candidate, Paul Farrell, upset with the two candidates' attitude against coal mining, and 2% went to Keith Judd. In 2012, Judd, a felon who filed from a Texas prison to be on the Democratic primary ballot, garnered 41% of the vote against President Obama. And in 2008, Democrats there were just fine with Hillary Clinton, voting overwhelmingly for her over the presumptive nominee, The Black Guy.

44% of Sanders voters in West Virginia's open primary plan to vote for Donald Trump in November, even if Sanders somehow seizes the nomination from Clinton. There might very well have been down-ballot races of interest to genuine Democrats, but I suspect that a significant chunk of Sanders's so-called support could be chalked up to Trump voters making mischief in the Democratic race. (Trump himself told his supporters there not to bother to voting for him.)

I confidently predict that West Virginia will vote against the Democratic nominee in May and November of 2020. And 2024. And 2028. Even if any of those nominees are Donald Berzilius Trump.

The problem here isn't with West Virginia; it's with the presidential primary and caucus system. Come May, one or both parties have no contest remaining, leaving the voters in the late states — including the largest one in the nation — no voice in deciding who will be on the ballot in November. Who is more likely to bother to vote at this point: someone who is fine with the choice made by the early state voters, or someone who thinks that choice is full of crap?

Candidates spend a full year campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire, two of the whitest states in the union. Those states are followed by South Carolina, then "Super Tuesday" throughout the South, so moderate candidates tend to be out of the race by February. Any candidate running third in March is viewed as a joke no matter how serious his or her issues are. By April, at least one of the contests is usually in the bag, which is why the New York primary forces voters to declare way back in October which race they plan to vote in.

In a country the size of the U.S.A., I don't know what system would work better. A national primary would put lesser-funded candidates at an even greater disadvantage than U.S. v. Citizens United already has, and regional primaries would tilt the race in favor of the predominant biases of whoever comes first.

Maybe states should vote by month the same way voters do in line at the polls: states A through D in February, E through L in March, M through R in April, and S through Z in May. Four years later, rotate the order just to be fair.

Okay, fine, Iowa and New Hampshire can get to be first all the time. But at the conventions, their delegations don't get to cast their votes until after the balloons have dropped for the winner.

Q Toon: Dogpatch, Arkansas

Q Syndicate✒Feb 26, 2015

Last week, the Arkansas legislature passed SB202, a bill by State Senator Bart Hester (R-Benton Co.) nullifying any local anti-discrimination ordinances which include LGBT Arkansans.

Arkansas on Monday banned local governments from expanding anti-discrimination protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity, becoming the second state to adopt a measure opponents call a thinly-veiled move to discriminate against gays and lesbians. ... The measure was introduced in reaction to a Fayetteville ordinance that voters repealed in December expanding the city's anti-discrimination protections. Eureka Springs in northwest Arkansas enacted a similar measure earlier this month, and Little Rock elected officials are weighing expanding that city's discrimination protections.

Sen. Hester is one of those Big Government Conservatives; he previously co-authored a bill requiring houses of worship to admit handguns into their sanctuaries. He claimed that SB202 was needed to prevent a patchwork quilt of anti-discrimination laws hindering business and industry, in spite of the thundering silence on that count from business and industry.

The Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce told ThinkProgress last week, “We have no position on that piece of legislation.” Walmart, which is based in Arkansas and has corporate LGBT protections, only spoke out on the bill Monday evening, mere hours before it was to become law without Hutchinson’s signature. Tyson Foods, another prominent Arkansas business that protects its gay employees, remained silent on the legislation.

Governor Asa Hutchinson (R-Of Course) expressed "concerns about the loss of local control," but allowed the bill to go into effect without his signature anyway.

Meanwhile, a similar pro-discrimination law is already on the books in Tennessee, and another has been proposed in West Virginia.