One Hundred Years Ago

[Rix Gins]

Dick's Diary entry for July 28, 1916.
http://www.willisfleming.org.uk/dicksdiary/entries/1916/07/friday-28-july-1916.html

[K_Dubb]

Accidentally cut this clipping short.  Here's the full version.

Hahaha that organist had a sense of humor!  Great story.

[Rix Gins]

Hahaha that organist had a sense of humor!  Great story.

omg, K.  Every time I read that clipping I start belly laffin'.

[Rix Gins]

Everett True, July 29, 1916.

[Rix Gins]

The Bismarck Daily Tribune, July 29, 1916.

[Rix Gins]

The Chicago Day Book, July 29, 1916.

[Rix Gins]

Dick's Diary entry for July 29, 1916. 
http://www.willisfleming.org.uk/dicksdiary/entries/1916/07/saturday-29-july-1916.html

[WhiteCrow]

His Grace
the Duke of Devonshire

11th Governor General of Canada

Picture and source from Wikipedia and various web sites

It was announced on July 29 1916 that King George V had approved the recommendation of his British Prime Minister, H.H. Asquith, to appoint Devonshire as his representative in Canada. The appointment caused political problems as Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden had not been consulted on the matter, contrary to practice well established by that time. Borden thus felt insulted, which led to considerable difficulties at the beginning of Devonshire's tenure, officially beginning after he was sworn in on 11 November 1916 during a ceremony held in Halifax.

In that era, there was social unrest in the country. Not only was the women's suffrage movement gaining momentum in Canada and calls were coming out of the prairies for socialist changes to the governmental system
Canada was providing troops and supplies for WWI and shortly after his installation, acting on the advice of Borden, Devonshire introduced conscription, a decision that was particularly divisive between French and English Canadians and sparked the Conscription Crisis of 1917. In the same year, the Governor General also travelled to Nova Scotia to survey the damage caused by the Halifax Explosion on 6 December; there he met with survivors and addressed the women of the Voluntary Aid Detachment.

Jumping ahead to The Halifax Explosion ...
A maritime disaster in Halifax, Nova Scotia, ...  The blast was the largest man-made explosion prior to the development of nuclear weapons. Over 2,000 people died.

https://youtu.be/L4cJBf2ECKk

[WhiteCrow]

Dick's Diary entry for July 29, 1916. 
http://www.willisfleming.org.uk/dicksdiary/entries/1916/07/saturday-29-july-1916.html

Busy day for Dick? No mention of taking a bath.

[Rix Gins]

Busy day for Dick? No mention of taking a bath.

Haha, I think that bathing was out of the question as long as "Johnny Turk" threatened to strike.  Must have been hard for Dick to get by without his daily bath, but like you say, he was probably too busy to grab one anyway.

I'm glad that guy in the comment section wrote about how the phone lines were being broken....camels tromping on them.  Exploding artillery shells  put the phone lines out in the other sectors of the war.   

[Rix Gins]

WhiteCrow mentioned the great Halifax Explosion in a previous post and this set me to wondering when The Black Tom Explosion occurred in New York Harbor.  In a weird coincidence, or twist of fate, I looked it up only to find out that the explosion occurred exactly one hundred years ago.....today!

Black Tom was a New Jersey island in New York Harbor that was named after a Black gent who happened to live there way back when.  It was being used as a storage dump for munitions back in 1915 and 1916.  A fairly big island too, it had been built up over the years with landfill and it had a mile long pier that held a depot and some warehouses.  Black Tom was a neighbor to Liberty Island.

Shortly after midnight on July 30, 1916, some German saboteurs started some fires that eventually reached the ammunition storage area and, well, here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

"After midnight on July 30, a series of small fires were discovered on the pier. Some guards fled, fearing an explosion. Others attempted to fight the fires and eventually called the Jersey City Fire Department.

At 2:08 AM, the first and largest of the explosions took place. Fragments from the explosion traveled long distances, some lodging in the Statue of Liberty and some in the clock tower of The Jersey Journal building in Journal Square, over a mile away, stopping the clock at 2:12 a.m. The explosion was the equivalent of an earthquake measuring between 5.0 and 5.5 on the Richter scale and was felt as far away as Philadelphia. Windows were broken as far as 25 miles (40 km) away, including thousands in lower Manhattan. Some window panes in Times Square were completely shattered. The stained glass windows in St. Patrick's Church were destroyed. The outer wall of Jersey City's City Hall was cracked and the Brooklyn Bridge was shaken. People as far away as Maryland were awakened by what they thought was an earthquake.

Property damage from the attack was estimated at $20 million. The damage to the Statue of Liberty was estimated to be $100,000 and included damage to the skirt and torch.


Immigrants being processed at Ellis Island had to be evacuated to lower Manhattan. Seven people died in the attack, including a Jersey City policeman, a Lehigh Valley Railroad Chief Of Police, a ten-week-old infant, and the barge captain. Injuries numbered in the hundreds. Smaller explosions continued to occur for hours after the initial blast."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tom_explosion

PS, Black Tom is not an island anymore.  It got filled in to the point where it became connected to the mainland.  Here is a video and some pics....

https://youtu.be/otGPyDf2RWc

[K_Dubb]

Wow, that's a new one on me!  Thanks, Rix.

[Rix Gins]

Wow, that's a new one on me!  Thanks, Rix.

My pleasure, K.  I wouldn't have known about it either but I bought this book on the subject, oh, like twenty plus years ago, haha.
https://www.amazon.com/Sabotage-Black-Tom-Imperial-1914-1917/dp/0912697989/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469912565&sr=1-2&keywords=black+tom+explosion

[Rix Gins]

Dick's Diary entry for July 30, 1916.
http://www.willisfleming.org.uk/dicksdiary/entries/1916/07/sunday-30-july-1916.html

[Rix Gins]

Everett True, July 31, 1916.

[Rix Gins]

The Chicago Day Book, July 31, 1916.

[Rix Gins]

The Doped Auto

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1916-07-31/ed-1/seq-18/

[Rix Gins]

The Tonopah Daily Bonanza, July 31, 1916.

[Rix Gins]

Dick's Diary entry for July 31, 1916.
http://www.willisfleming.org.uk/dicksdiary/entries/1916/07/monday-31-july-1916.html

Also a letter to Betty.
http://www.willisfleming.org.uk/dicksdiary/entries/1916/07/letter-to-betty-31-july-1916.html

[K_Dubb]

The Tonopah Daily Bonanza, July 31, 1916.

No mention of suspected sabotage!  The papers aren't otherwise shy about reporting on German spies, real or imagined.  I wonder if the incompetence of the guards was just too obvious.

[K_Dubb]

Dick's Diary entry for July 31, 1916.
http://www.willisfleming.org.uk/dicksdiary/entries/1916/07/monday-31-july-1916.html

Also a letter to Betty.
http://www.willisfleming.org.uk/dicksdiary/entries/1916/07/letter-to-betty-31-july-1916.html

Per the letter home I take it that bathing to Dick is more akin to what we call swimming.  Also nice to see the old custom where women would wear their hair long but "up" past a certain age -- one of my grandmas still did that until she was in her 80s.  I wish the fashion would come back.  There's a certain becoming dignity to it that I miss seeing.

[Rix Gins]

No mention of suspected sabotage!  The papers aren't otherwise shy about reporting on German spies, real or imagined.  I wonder if the incompetence of the guards was just too obvious.

You are right, K.  I couldn't find a single paper that even entertained the thought of spies or saboteurs doing the dastardly deed.  Though New York's Sun had the best coverage of the explosion itself...  http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030431/1916-07-31/ed-1/seq-1/  I wonder if President Wilson truly had the power to put the kibosh on putting the blame on Germany.  It's possible, I guess, especially if he personally knew the dudes that owned or were running the projects at Black Tom.  (I'm only surmising here.) 

If I remember that book right, two or three German spies placed some special glass tubes in storage areas at the pier.  There were two segments of the tubes filled with two liquids that would burn like fire when mixed together.  The two liquids were separated at the center of the tube by a penny.  Acids from the liquids would slowly eat away at the penny until the liquids came together, usually after an hour or two.  The Germans got pretty good at doing this and even got the tubes to explode like a week later, after having put them aboard departing cargo ships, etc.   

[Rix Gins]

Per the letter home I take it that bathing to Dick is more akin to what we call swimming.  Also nice to see the old custom where women would wear their hair long but "up" past a certain age -- one of my grandmas still did that until she was in her 80s.  I wish the fashion would come back.  There's a certain becoming dignity to it that I miss seeing.

I like your observations on the hair.  Your grandma reminded me of my beloved great-aunt who did just that.  She had Crystal Gale length hair and kept it up during the day but at night she would let it back down.  I have vivid recollections of seeing her standing before a mirror, brushing her voluminous hair at night. 

[K_Dubb]

I like your observations on the hair.  Your grandma reminded me of my beloved great-aunt who did just that.  She had Crystal Gale length hair and kept it up during the day but at night she would let it back down.  I have vivid recollections of seeing her standing before a mirror, brushing her voluminous hair at night.

Ha do you remember all the pins and things they used to use?  Grandma used all kinds, from standard metal to combs to tooled-leather hippie-looking ones -- she didn't care.  But they kept those magnificent s-shaped waves in place.

[K_Dubb]

You are right, K.  I couldn't find a single paper that even entertained the thought of spies or saboteurs doing the dastardly deed.  Though New York's Sun had the best coverage of the explosion itself...  http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030431/1916-07-31/ed-1/seq-1/  I wonder if President Wilson truly had the power to put the kibosh on putting the blame on Germany.  It's possible, I guess, especially if he personally knew the dudes that owned or were running the projects at Black Tom.  (I'm only surmising here.) 

If I remember that book right, two or three German spies placed some special glass tubes in storage areas at the pier.  There were two segments of the tubes filled with two liquids that would burn like fire when mixed together.  The two liquids were separated at the center of the tube by a penny.  Acids from the liquids would slowly eat away at the penny until the liquids came together, usually after an hour or two.  The Germans got pretty good at doing this and even got the tubes to explode like a week later, after having put them aboard departing cargo ships, etc.   

Very clever!  I can imagine the crazy scientists standing around timing the rate at which acid ate through a penny.

That was an excellent article, thank you!  A couple references under the federal investigation headline to the possibility of a plot and a violation of neutrality, but it sure looks like the official conclusion was already reached the next day by a feat of athletics.

[albrecht]

Very clever!  I can imagine the crazy scientists standing around timing the rate at which acid ate through a penny.

That was an excellent article, thank you!  A couple references under the federal investigation headline to the possibility of a plot and a violation of neutrality, but it sure looks like the official conclusion was already reached the next day by a feat of athletics.

Funny how things don't change. Terrorism and laws that, at least in many heads, going against civil rights. And also odd groupings of actors (DNI report said some connections to Clan na Gael (precursor to the Fenian terrorists,) communists, and a 'free' India party (Ghadar Party) being directed by/funded by a foreign government enemy (like the Soviets later supporting various groups for their purposes.)
https://fas.org/sgp/library/moynihan/appa2.html

[albrecht]

I like your observations on the hair.  Your grandma reminded me of my beloved great-aunt who did just that.  She had Crystal Gale length hair and kept it up during the day but at night she would let it back down.  I have vivid recollections of seeing her standing before a mirror, brushing her voluminous hair at night.

Yeah, why it was so funny/shocking to see them if there was some event that made them get up at night in the their nightgown and long hair. Ha.

[Rix Gins]

Ha do you remember all the pins and things they used to use?  Grandma used all kinds, from standard metal to combs to tooled-leather hippie-looking ones -- she didn't care.  But they kept those magnificent s-shaped waves in place.

I think those big, glossy, black metal pins, though I'm not quite sure.  I do remember seeing a photo of her late husband, though.  He vaguely resembled Clark Gable.  Haha.

[Rix Gins]

Yeah, why it was so funny/shocking to see them if there was some event that made them get up at night in the their nightgown and long hair. Ha.

Ha, very true!

[K_Dubb]

Funny how things don't change. Terrorism and laws that, at least in many heads, going against civil rights. And also odd groupings of actors (DNI report said some connections to Clan na Gael (precursor to the Fenian terrorists,) communists, and a 'free' India party (Ghadar Party) being directed by/funded by a foreign government enemy (like the Soviets later supporting various groups for their purposes.)
https://fas.org/sgp/library/moynihan/appa2.html

The video Rix posted characterized it as terrorism, too, which treats the term too loosely.  In all fairness I'd have to concede it was a pretty focused and surgical (though accidentally so, it seems) bit of sabotage.