The Revolt of 1910

Today - 3 October, 2023 - marked the first time in American history that the Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), was removed from his position. While McCarthy's current situation is somewhat out of the ordinary, it's not unprecedented. 

1910 was a strange time in American history - right between the Age of Imperialism and World War 1, but also in the grip of the Progressive Era and the ideological battle over the government's place to be involved in industry and the economy. It was also the 7th year of George Norris', a progressive Republican (don't forget the parties gradually traded platforms from 1860-1955) from Nebraska, career in the House of Representatives.

Norris liked the idea of the government regulating railroads, and labor unions. Progressive things as determined by the era. But the Republican party - from the top down - wasn't terribly interested in those things, so they could just, you know, ignore it. 

And this is because the Speaker of the House was occasionally referred to as the "czar," a nod to imperialist Russia, given the power that he had, specifically three:

1. The Speaker of the House had the power to appoint the chair of each congressional committee. If you wanted a long, fruitful political career, you needed to be friendly with the Speaker. 

2. The Speaker of the House chaired the Rules Committee, which scheduled the bills that would come to the floor for a vote.

3. The Speaker of the House also had the power to recognize - or not - anyone who wanted to speak, or make a motion. If you answered the question, "For what purpose does the gentleman rise?" incorrectly, or not to the Speaker's satisfaction, he wouldn't let you speak. 

Norris was a representative under the Speakership of Jospeh Gurney ("Uncle Joe") Cannon (R-IL). 

Cannon was powerful enough that his retirement in 1923 was noted by the cover of Time Magazine's debut issue, who referred to Cannon as "The supreme dictator of the Old Guard," going on to say "To Uncle Joe the Speakership was a gift from Heaven, immaculately born into the Constitution by the will of the fathers for the divine purpose of perpetuating the dictatorship of the standpatters in the Republican Party."

But soon Rep. Cannon's power would be challenged by members of his own party. 

Rep. Norris at one time asked Cannon for a seat on the powerful House Judiciary Committee. Cannon told him to come back when he "had a reputation." This was the problem with the House of Representatives, according to Norris: real progress was kept in check by the Olds in Congress. Norris wrote a resolution that he kept in his pocket for years that would strip Cannon of his immense power, which held a lot of appeal for the Progressive faction of the Republican Party as their efforts were often thwarted by Uncle Joe. Norris just needed the right time.

Cannon grew up a Quaker in North Carolina. But given that the Quakers were anti-war and anti-slavery, they moved to Indiana in 1840. Cannon's father died when Joe was 14, leaving him as the head of the household and whose work helped pay off the family house's mortgage within five years. Cannon was fascinated by the law, graduating from the University of Cincinnati and starting a law practice in Tuscola, Illinois (because he ran out of money on a train ride from Terre Haute to Chicago). The 1858  Lincoln-Douglas debates made a Lincoln believer out of Cannon. In 1872, Cannon was elected to the House of Representatives, beginning a 51-year career in the House of Representatives.

Cannon lost two elections for Speaker of the House, but was still able to advance as Chair of the incredibly powerful Appropriations Committee from 1895-1903, when Cannon finally won the Speakership he so desperately wanted. He made himself chair of the House Rules Committee. 

As Cannon ascended to Speaker of the House, Theodore Roosevelt was in his third year as president following the assassination of William McKinley. Both Republicans, they were on opposite ends of the spectrum. As progressive as Roosevelt was, Cannon was fervently not. Cannon grew to resent Roosevelt's style, once remarking that Roosevelt "had no more use for the Constitution than a tomcat has for a marriage license."

While the power of the Speaker of the House was dramatically expanded by his predecessor Thomas Brackett Reed, Cannon used that power as a dictator. He could give - and take away - committee chairmanships, allow - or ignore - debates on the floor, and allow - or ignore - voting on bills themselves. He even influenced the outcome of votes themselves - on a voice vote, Cannon once declared "the ayes make the most noise, but the nays have it."

This was why Progressive Republicans wanted reforms to the system like direct primaries for U.S. Senators instead of the candidates being chosen by State Legislatures - to weaken the power that politicians like Cannon unwaveringly wielded. 

Cannon had his eye on the presidency in 1908 but Roosevelt was able to engineer the Republican Convention to favor his Secretary of War William Howard Taft. When Taft handily emerged victorious over William Jennings Bryan (the "Buffalo Bills of Presidential Candidates," according to...me), he and Roosevelt agreed that they couldn't just remove Cannon from the Speakership, though the first cracks in Cannon's power emerged in the Speaker elections that followed in 1909. 

Twelve "insurgent" Republicans refused to vote for Cannon's re-election as Speaker, led by the aforementioned Rep. Norris. Though Cannon did, in fact, win another term as Speaker, Democrats and the insurgents were able to force some concessions and revise some of the rules, pissing Cannon off to the point where three of the insurgents were removed from their committee chairs and others moved to less prominent roles. Telling the press, "Adam and Eve were insurgents...Judas was an insurgent and sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver. I have no doubt he would have been applauded by the newspapers in Jerusalem had there been any in that day." 

Speaker Cannon's power was inversely proportional to his relationship with President Taft. Taft stayed out of the business of the House of Representatives, but he wanted Cannon out. Cannon wasn't a fan of Taft's nomination of Edward D. White, a (gasp) Catholic Democrat to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Ultimately the beginning of Cannon's downfall came from within the Republican party itself.

The powerful Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA) told Roosevelt that the Republicans risked losing the House if Cannon remained as its Speaker. Having been lambasted by the press in his erstwhile presidential aspirations, Cannon's popularity with the American people took a hit. Still, he remained defiant, telling the press he wouldn't resign until his constituents forced him to. 

On March 16, 1910 the House of Representatives pulled the moderately-unprecedented step of rejecting the Speaker's ruling on a procedural matter. Chair of the Census Committee Rep. Edgar Crumpacker (careful with that spelling, vicar) brought forth a resolution on the upcoming census, despite the resolution not appearing on the order of business. Crumpacker said that the census was required by the Constitution, and Constitutional matters overrode whatever the House of Representatives had planned. Cannon agreed and ruled in favor of the resolution. Then the House of Representatives voted not to sustain Cannon's ruling.

The following day - when most politicians were out celebrating St. Patrick's Day - Rep. Norris was finally able to unleash hell. His resolution was to create a brand new Rules Committee, with all 15 members elected by the House. The Speaker of the house, who had traditionally been the head of the Rules Committee, would be barred from this new iteration, putting the new Committee above the Speaker...who just happened to be Cannon. 

Article I Section 5 Clause 2 of the Constitution says that the House has the ability to determine its own rules, providing the justification Norris needed to bring this new committee to a vote. Cannon couldn't procedure his way out of this one. He simultaneously dismissed the resolution but also tried to whip up the votes to strike it down. 

Delay tactics were used by Cannon's lieutenants to prevent the vote from taking place, but the holiday and the weekend recess meant that Cannon didn't have the votes. On March 19 Cannon ruled that Norris' resolution was out of order and came with the receipts and precedents of previous Speakers. The House vetoed Cannon's ruling on appeal 182 to 163. Immediately the House voted on Norris' resolution, which carried all 149 Democrat votes and 42 Republican votes. A new Rules Committee was formed, without Cannon on board.

Cannon deftly declared the Speakership vacant, which meant an election in the House for a new speaker. Rather than risk the Democrats winning that election Republicans voted to keep Cannon in place, but with vastly limited power thanks to the new Rules Committee, chaired by Rep. John Dalzell (R-PA). So Uncle Joe wasn't stripped of his Speakership, just his immense power. 

Ultimately Henry Cabot Lodge's prediction to Roosevelt rang true: Republicans lost the majority in that fall's midterm elections for the first time since the elections of 1894. The Republican Party split in 1912 into the Republicans and the Progressives, opening the door for a Teddy Roosevelt 3rd-Party presidential bid against his old-friend-turned-bitter-rival William Howard Taft. 

Roosevelt had promised that he would not seek re-election in 1908, despite having already been president since 1901. And he was allowed to do that, because he had only won one election, in 1904. He served out the remainder of William McKinley's term after McKinley was assassinated. Because of that, he was eligible for a second term on his own. He would seek that term in 1912. Taft had saddled up a little too closely - for Roosevelt's comfort - to the conservative faction of the Republican party. Taft went too easy on the big trusts, didn't go after enough reforms, wasn't progressive enough for Roosevelt. 

In that campaign Taft called Roosevelt "the greatest menace to our institutions that we have had in a long time." Roosevelt said Taft was an agent of "the forces of reaction and of political crookedness." Taft called Roosevelt a "honeyfugler." Roosevelt called Taft a "puzzlewit." I don't know what either of those things mean, but it was clearly going great for the Republicans. 

Roosevelt's 3rd Party bid was the most successful 3rd Party campaign in presidential history (In 1992 Ross Perot garnered 19 million votes, but 0 electoral ones), winning 88 electoral votes, but ultimately the election split the Republican vote, allowing Woodrow Wilson to win the 1912 presidential election with 42% of the popular vote.

The Orteig Prize

The former bar porter had come a long way since emigrating to the United States as a 12-year old from southwest France with 13 francs in his pocket. In 1882, Raymond Orteig joined an uncle living in Manhattan and found a job working at a bar in Wengler's Restaurant on William Street. 

Orteig worked his way up through the hospitality ranks, becoming a waiter before joining Jean-Baptiste Martin as the maître d' at the Martin Hotel at 9th Street and University Place, in Greenwich Village. Martin, who had run a hotel in Panama, initially named his hotel the "Hotel de Panama" but, as this was around the same time as the failed French attempt to build the Panama Canal, the Hotel de Panama reminded potential clients of the Canal, who "associated it with fever and Spaniards, and neither were popular." Martin changed the name of the hotel in 1886 and billed it as New York's "only first-class French hotel," offering a café that appealed to the Bohemians of Greenwich Village, entertaining writers and artists such as Jean and Edouard de Reszke 

When Baptiste decided to move to the greener pastures of Uptown Manhattan and open a restaurant in 1902, the 32-year old Orteig was in a financial place to assume the lease of the hotel, which he renamed the Hotel Lafayette, after the Marquis de Lafayette. People still referred to it as "Old Martin's." Visitors to the Lafayette enjoyed the tile floor and marble-topped tables, where they could be entertained by an orchestra, or the foreign newspapers, or even the board games provided by Orteig. He was a subscriber of the Brasserie Universelle - a Parisian weekly newspaper whose recipes Orteig would introduce to his diners on a regular basis. 

World War I happened. American and French airmen alike gathered in the Lafayette to pass the time during the War, and in its aftermath as Europe figured out how to deal (harshly) with Germany, and it was here that Orteig became friendly with a number of them, gaining an interest in aviation. 

American and French diplomacy was on the rocks. As President Woodrow Wilson tried to whip up support for his League of Nations - sort of a peer-mediation group for countries to work out their differences and a forerunner to the United Nations - France was extremely interested in wearing Germany out for killing over 1.3 million of their soldiers and tearing up their countryside. 

Orteig had an idea to try to mend these diplomatic fences: a $25,000 prize to the first (Allied) aviator to fly non-stop from the New York to Paris, or vice versa. Orteig formally introduced this offer in a letter to Alan Ramsay Hawley, one of the early American aviators, Hawley was the first airplane passenger to fly from New York City to Washington, DC. A retired stockbroker, Hawley and his friend Augustus Post flew in a hot air balloon from St. Louis to...180 miles north of Quebec City, landing in the wilderness and hiking for three days until some fur trappers agreed to help them get back to civilization. Their 1,173-mile journey in a free balloon set an American record that stood for 95 years. 

Post is an interesting figure in his own right. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Post bought the first automobile in New York City and subsequently received the first tickets in the city's history, one for driving through Central Park at 5mph and one for driving on the sidewalk while trying to park. Post founded what would become AAA, and was an original member of what would become the Boy Scouts of America. He built New York City's first parking garage (underneath the St. Nicholas Skating Rink at 66th Street and Columbus Circle), and performed on Broadway. It was Post who gave Orteig the idea to put up his prize for the first Transatlantic flight. 

The $25,000 prize (equivalent to about $373,000 today), offered on May 22, 1919, came just a few weeks before British airmen John Alcock and Arthur Brown successfully flew a plane almost 1900 miles from Newfoundland to Ireland, collecting an earlier-awarded prize from the Daily Mail. It wasn't exactly an easy flight. Alcock and Brown almost clipped the trees upon take-off, an electric generator failed (cutting off the intercom through which the two could communicate, their radio communications, and their heating system), an exhaust pipe broke resulting in a terrifying sound so loud that they couldn't even yell at each other. Alcock and Brown flew through dense fog and a snowstorm, their instruments and carburetor iced up, the trim control broke which caused the plane to pitch forward as they used their fuel. Twice Alcock lost control of the plane, one of which resulted in a spiral dive from which Alcock recovered slightly before hitting the ocean nose-first. They landed in a bog near Clifden, Ireland, causing the plane to nose-over, but both men emerged unscathed. Arthur Brown drily noted that with better weather they could have flown to London. King George V knighted both men a few days later.

It would take a few years, however, for another serious attempt to be made at the Orteig Prize. Rene Fonck, by this point in his Age 32 season, was a legendary French fighter pilot who held the title of "the Allied Ace of Aces." The World War 1 veteran won the Legion d'honneur in 1917 before an incredible 1918 campaign when, over a bet of a bottle of champagne, Fonck shot down six German planes in a three-hour span on the afternoon of May 9 and went on to be a member of the French parliament from 1919-1924. To prepare to win the Orteig Prize, Fonck commissioned legendary helicopter and aircraft designer Igor Sikorsky to re-design his Sikorsky S-35 for the flight. On September 26, 1926 Fonck and three assistants took off for New York when the landing gear collapsed on take-off after hitting a sunken road that stretched across the runway. Fonck and his copilot survived, but the two other assistants died in the crash.

Medal of Honor recipient and polar explorer Richard Byrd (descendant of Virginians John Rolfe and Pocahontas) wanted to win the prize. Byrd planned the flight path of the U.S. Navy's historic May 1919 transatlantic flight and volunteered to attempt to win the Orteig Prize in 1921. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. - Secretary of the Navy - nixed the idea and instead assigned Byrd to the ZR-2 dirigible (blimp) which was going from Hull to Norfolk, UK. Byrd missed his train to the airship on the morning of its departure, which was lucky for him since the blimp broke apart in midair, killing 44 of the 49 crew onboard. In 1925 Byrd may or may not have completed the first aerial trip over the North Pole. We do know, however, that an Army Air Service Reserve Corps Lieutenant named Charles Lindbergh applied to be a pilot on Byrd's North Pole expedition, but his application was received too late. 

Two years later, in 1927, Byrd announced he had the backing of department store magnate and future PGA founding member Rodman Wanamaker's American Trans-Oceanic Company (which unsuccessfully attempted to win the Daily Mail's prize in 1919) and was attempting to win the Orteig Prize. On a practice takeoff with legendary Dutch airplane designer Anthony "The Flying Dutchman" Fokker - who had been commissioned by Wanamaker to design the plane, and whose planes Germany used during World War 1, and whose planes bore his name throughout the 1920s and 1930s - his plane, the America, crashed. Byrd was slightly injured, the plane more so, which was taken in for repairs.

Another serious attempt was taking place backed by the American Legion. Stanton Hall Wooster and Noel Guy Davis, two United States Navy airmen (the US Air Force wouldn't be officially established until 1947) took off on April 26, 1927 with a heavy load of fuel when the American Legion (named after their benefactors) crashed on its nose in Virginia, killing both men. 

On the other side of the Atlantic, Charles Eugene Jules Marie Nungesser - the third-highest ranking French ace pilot in World War 1 - and his navigator, a one-eyed pilot named Francois Coli, known for his long-distance flights pioneered by his 1919 double crossing of the Mediterranean, planned their attempt to win the Orteig Prize. Coli had been planning a transatlantic flight since 1923 but when an accident destroyed his plane and badly burned his flying partner Paul Tarascon. Tarascon lost his foot in a practice flight in 1911 but still went on to serve in both World War 1 and with the French Resistance in World War 2. Coli then joined Nungesser's attempt, both of whom disappeared over the Atlantic in l'Oiseau Blanc ("The White Bird" or "The White Dove") on May 8, 1927. The plane was never recovered. Maybe it crashed in the Atlantic, maybe it crashed in Maine. No one knows. Byrd told his team to suspend operations until their fate was known. 

Meanwhile a 25-year old Minnesota U.S. Air Mail pilot named Charles Lindbergh was preparing his a, attempt, a solo flight backed by St. Louis bankers, in a single-engine plane appropriately called The Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh arrived at Long Island's Roosevelt Field (named after Teddy Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, was killed in air combat on July 14, 1918) in the middle of May. A few days later, at 7:52am on May 20, 1927, he took off. The following day Lindbergh arrived at Le Bourget Airport, just northwest of Paris, completing a solo flight that took 33 hours. The solo flight removed any clashing personality/ideology conflict, the single engine allowed for less weight and more fuel, Lindbergh saying, "I'd rather have extra gasoline than an extra man." He didn't carry a radio or a parachute to save weight. It worked. 

A number of quality checks were required to verify Lindbergh's attempt: a sealed cylinder that measured atmospheric pressure to prove that the flight was one single leg, a measure of the remaining fuel (85 gallons) sealed in the tanks. 13 French officials, US Ambassador to France Myron Herrick (the only American ambassador to have a Parisian street named after him), Belgian Air Attaché Willy Coppens, and Lindbergh himself signed an official document to verify the effort. Lindbergh's 3,605-mile flight was acknowledged and approved as the world record for a non-stop flight. After 63 consecutive hours of being awake, Lindbergh went to bed.

Raymond Orteig was ecstatic. Orteig rushed to Paris from his vacation in Pau, France - about 500 miles in the south of France - as soon as his son telegrammed him of Lindbergh's departure - to congratulate Lindbergh at the American Embassy, eight years to the day after his prize offer to Alan Hawley. Orteig eventually awarded the purse to Lucky Lindy in New York. 

The popularity of aviation sparked a period of innovation around the world. For Orteig, who died in 1939, he held Lindbergh's achievement close to his heart, hanging the American flag Lindbergh carried on his flight on the wall of the Café Lafayette. Two years after Orteig passed, one of Orteig's sons moved it out of the Cafe to a private room, probably because Lindbergh was a Nazi sympathizer. "Too many pros and cons," Orteig's son told the New York Times. "Particularly for a restaurant. The flag hung there since 1927 when Lindbergh was an aviator and everyone was proud of him. But now he's talking politics. And lately when people noticed the flag a discussion began." 

That discussion probably centered around Lindbergh's involvement with the pro-Hitler "America First" movement. Nazis, man.

The Black Tom Munitions Explosion

Black Tom Island - a man-made island named after a "dark-skinned fisherman" who lived there - stood next to Liberty Island in New York City Harbor. It was the site of a rock of the same name which had proved costly to the shipping industry, so engineers used literal New York City trash to build up an island around the rock. By 1880, it was a 25-acre plot of land with a causeway and railroad to turn Black Tom Island into an important piece of New York City's economy. In an 11-year period from 1905 to 1916, the Lehigh Valley Railroad - which ran from Buffalo, through eastern Pennsylvania, then on into New York - used more trash to expand Black Tom Island before it was annexed by Jersey City. There was a mile-long pier with a depot and storage warehouses that also served as a munitions (military weapons and whatnot) depot. 

Tensions between the United States and Germany were rising...over Mexico. When Francisco Madero took power of Mexico in 1911, the United States approved. When Madero was assassinated in 1913, Victoriano Huerta took power. The US opposed Huerta, but Germany supported him basically to get a naval base out of the deal. Things escalated when the United States shelled Veracruz to stop a delivery of German weapons to Huerta, and had just simmered down between Germany and the United States when Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, sparking World War 1. 

Weird things started happening in the United States. A DuPont powder factory exploded in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey in August 1914 - just weeks after Franz Ferdinand's assassination. Two months later a bomb went off at the Detwiller and Street fireworks factory in Jersey City, killing four.  The Roebling Works, an important cable factory in Trenton, burned down in January 1915. Boats were found sabotaged. But who was behind it?

Problematic as it seems now, American munitions companies could sell their stuff to whoever they wanted. However, as World War I erupted across Europe, the United Kingdom ran a blockade across the Atlantic in an attempt to cripple Germany. Despite the United States' official position of neutrality (Germany was the second-largest source of immigrants to the United States) in 1914, the US would only sell munitions to the Allied Powers of the United Kingdom, France, and Russia (it wasn't the Soviet Union until a few years later), mainly because the Allies were willing to pay, and the United States was in debt prior to World War 1 and out of debt by the end of it.

The Germans complained because how you gonna be neutral and then sell tons of weapons and ammunitions to only one side of a war? The United States shrugged their shoulders because cash ruled everything around them. The collective shoulder shrug of the United States was a direct cause of Germany issuing in February 1915 "unrestricted submarine warfare" against any ship - neutrals included - who were sailing to Great Britain. Germany placed a warning in American newspapers telling them that, if they sailed for Great Britain, they were at risk. Around the same time, Germany confirmed its previous authorization for military attaché in Washington - Franz Von Papen - to begin sabotage operations against "every kind of factory supplying munitions of war." Von Papen had served in the German Embassy in Mexico during the revolution, and spent most of his time forging documents for Germans in America to get through the blockade back to Germany. He also spent some time working with activists from India in California to acquire American weapons for a possible revolution. But Von Papen was a trained diplomat, not a spy, and he couldn't get much of anything done. 

The Canadian-Pacific Railroad crosses the St. Croix River at Vanceboro, Maine and St. Croix, New Brunswick. On February 2, 1915 Werner Horn, an officer in the German Reserves was ordered from his job managing a coffee plantation in Guatemala to go to Maine and help sabotage the bridge, which was being used to transport food and supplies to St. John, New Brunswick, bound for the Allied front, and other bridges on the Maine-New Brunswick border. The saboteurs met up in Portland, Maine and decided that due to the cold (30-below temperatures) and wind, the plan should be scrapped. Horn didn't make it to that conspirator meeting and, instead of bailing like everyone else, he checked into a Vanceboro hotel on February 1 before taking a briefcase filled with dynamite to the bridge. He waited for hours in the cold before placing the suitcase on the Canadian side of the bridge and lighting the fuse with his cigar. The bomb did enough damage to blow out windows in both Vanceboro and St. Croix and when the German returned to his hotel, suffering from frostbite, the police had already been called. Horn surrendered in his uniform so as not to be accused of being a spy - a capital offense. The bridge was out of commission for about a day, Horn spent 30 days in jail. A reporter asked Horn how much he was paid, to which he responded in a heavy accent, "I did not blow up the bridge for money. I am a soldier, not a mercenary. I acted for the good of the Fatherland!" Horn snitched on Von Papen real quick.

In May 1915, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sank in 15 minutes off the coast of Ireland (I highly recommend Erik Larsen's "Dead Wake" on this subject). That German attack on the Lusitania, a passenger ship secretly modified to deliver war materials, killed 1,195 people including 128 Americans and re-heightened tensions between Germany and the United States. The United States' government, thanks to diplomatic immunity, could not arrest Von Papen and instead requested that Von Papen be recalled, to which Germany acquiesced. (Von Papen would later go on to naively assume he could hold power and keep the newly-formed Nazi Party in check, thus facilitating the rise of Adolf Hitler).

Germany replaced Von Papen in April 1915 with Capt. Franz Von Rintelen, an English-speaking aristocratic naval captain with a Swiss passport and a ton of dirty tricks up his sleeve, ordered to carry out a coordinated sabotage operation in the United States. He knew about as much about clandestine operations as Von Papen did, but had some creativity about him and decided to go all-in on it because, as a member of the New York Yacht Club, he knew Manhattan society. Dude had five aliases. Von Rintelen got his funding directly from Berlin and operated independently. Before departing for the United States, Von Rintelen told Admiral Alfred Von Tirpitz, "I'll buy what I can and blow up what I can't."

Germany was still trading with the United States, and Von Rintelen used the 80-ish German ships hanging out in New York harbor as a new network of problems for the United States. One of the ships' workrooms became a bomb factory. Von Rintelen convinced a German chemist in New Jersey to build cigar-shaped firebombs and allegedly used Irish dockworkers to place them on ships bound for Europe. The "pencil bombs," as they were known, could be timed to detonate days after their placement on the ships.

At this time the United States didn't have much of a national intelligence service. Though the Secret Service was founded in 1865, they were basically told to just watch the president and...counterfeiters. That changed a bit in 1915. The Secret Service didn't find Von Rintelen, but they did manage to steal a briefcase from a New York City streetcar in July belonging to German Interior Minister Heinrich Albert. In the briefcase, the Secret Service found documents related to the sabotage of American munitions plants, as well as documentation related to what is now known as the Great Phenol Plot.

Phenol is a major precursor compound in organic chemistry that could be used to make the salicylic acid used to make aspirin, as well as picric acid - a highly-explosive compound. Thomas Edison also used phenol to make his "Diamond Disc" phonograph records. By the time World War 1 was underway, Great Britain was using phenol almost exclusively for the war effort, severely reducing the amount available for export. Supply-and-demand rules went into effect and the price of phenol skyrocketed. German manufacturer Bayer had to drastically cut production of aspirin right at the time that the patent for aspirin was expiring. Bayer was undergoing a rebranding in advance of the expectation of expiration, and they were not happy about the supply chain. Counterfeiters, Canadian manufacturers, and smugglers tried to make up the demand for phenol, but it wasn't enough. Thomas Edison built a factory in Pennsylvania to produce it. Hugo Schweitzer, a Bayer employee-turned-agent for the German Interior Ministry, set up a front where he bought as much phenol as he possibly could from Edison to send on to Germany. When Edison found out what was happening, he tried to cover it up, but that only made it worse when the New York World - an anti-German newspaper - ran an explosive (haha) story on the plot. Edison tried to make amends and repair the damage to his reputation when it came out that he had basically supplied the German government with enough phenol to produce 4.5 million pounds of explosives. 

Von Rintelen was recalled to Berlin. A decoded message tipped off the British on his way through the English Channel, and he got detained. The Swiss passport threw them off for a bit, but he was quick to chirp that he was an enemy officer. By late 1915 Von Papen got expelled from the United States. When his ship was detained he claimed diplomatic immunity, which the British interpreted as not extending to his luggage, where they found a whole handful of incriminating documents. The British shared these documents with the United States, hoping to nudge them towards joining the war against Germany. Von Rintelen was arrested and spent three years in a jail in Atlanta.

Next problem: Once the US expelled those "diplomats," they didn't know where to continue the investigation. The NYPD had to take the case and had a hard time working with New Jersey authorities and any other agency tasked with figuring out just what, exactly, was happening. Eventually, they realized that, in order to catch German saboteurs, you needed German-speaking friendlies. After spending countless nights in dockside bars, the ship bombings largely stopped.

There were about 2,000,000 pounds of ammunition - three-quarters of the total American munitions output - stored at Black Tom Island, including 100,000 pounds of TNT and 417 fuses on a barge docked there, all waiting to get shipped to the Allied front. The barge with all the TNT was there so as not to have to pay a $25 fee in New York City. 

Just after midnight on July 30, 1916 guards noticed small fires on Pier 7. Some took off, fearing an explosion, others called the Jersey City Fire Department. At 2:08am, it exploded. Just over 30 minutes later there was a second, smaller explosion. The first explosion was absolutely massive, lifting Jersey City Fire Chief Roger Boyle out of his boots and into the air, the result of a detonation wave that traveled 24,000 feet per second. A police driver told the New York Times:

The things were red-hot when they fell, and we had a lively time keeping out of their way. All at once, everything turned black. The last thing I knew, I was lifted up and thrown away. When I came to, it was raining steel and bricks and shells and shrapnel.

Fragments from the explosion lodged in the Statue of Liberty, shrapnel popping the rivets on the statue's extended right arm, and the torch has been closed to the public ever since. Over a mile away, the clock tower of the Jersey Journal building was hit by debris, stopping its clock at 2:12am. The blast was felt as far  as Philadelphia - 90 miles away. Windows were broken as far as 25 miles away. The stained-glass windows at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Jersey City were shattered. The explosion cracked the wall of the Jersey City City Hall. It shook the Brooklyn Bridge. The blast shook the PATH system under the river connecting Jersey City and lower Manhattan. Cemeteries in Jersey City had tombstones knocked over, and vaults "jolted askew."

People in Maryland woke up thinking it was an earthquake, which is understandable considering that the explosion registered between a 5.0 and a 5.5 on the Richter scale. For comparison, when the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed on 9/11, it registered as a 2.3. Immigrants awaiting processing at Ellis Island had to be evacuated. Debris rained down for two hours. Fort Wood, which was on Liberty Island, had a 4" thick door at its main entrance wrenched off its hinges. The next morning, when the smoke literally cleared, four people were killed (including a 10-week old baby who had been thrown from his crib). Damage was estimated at $20 million, nearly half a billion dollars today. adjusting for inflation.

Attention turned to the cause of the explosion itself. Was it just an unfortunate accident, or was there something more sinister to suspect? At the scene, there was only confusion. Three Lehigh Valley Railroad Company officials were arrested for manslaughter. Two guards who had lit oil-burning smudge pots to keep mosquitos away were questioned for hours by officials trying to determine if the smudge pots were the cause of the explosions. Figuring that the pots were too far away to have been the cause, the incident was initially designated as an accident. 

But all of these "accidents" started to fit a pattern. Count Johann Von Bernstorff was a longtime German diplomat, and was appointed as German Ambassador to the United States in 1908. Raised in London, Von Bernstorff spoke fluent English and was married to Jeanne Luckemeyer, an American raised in French private schools. Days after Franz Ferdinand was killed, Von Bernstorff was recalled to Berlin and inducted into the German intelligence service. He returned with $150 million from the German government to spend on his disruption/terror campaign. 

Why didn't Wilson raise hell? 1916 was an election year, and his campaign slogan for crying out loud was "He Kept Us Out Of War." You can't go to war if your whole campaign is "He Kept Us Out Of War." In March 1916 a German U-Boat torpedoed the French passenger steamer Sussex in the English Channel, apparently thinking that it was a British ship laying underwater mines, killing 50. On April 19, 1916 Wilson addressed Congress, saying that if Germany didn't immediately stop unrestricted submarine warfare, the United States would sever diplomatic relations. U.S. Ambassador to Germany James W. Gerard spoke to Kaiser Wilhelm on May 1 to complain about Germany's penchant for treating any ship around Great Britain as fair game. Kaiser Wilhelm complained about the United States supplying Germany's enemies with munitions. In the end Kaiser Wilhelm didn't want to risk adding the United States to Germany's list of official enemies and three days later, and six months before the election, the United States and Germany agreed to the Sussex Pledge, in which Germany agreed to stop the unrestricted submarine warfare. War was averted, for now, but Gerard was skeptical that the Germans would hold up their end of the Sussex Pledge, writing a letter to the State Department that Germany would resume unrestricted submarine warfare by Fall 1916 at the earliest, and January/February 1917 at the latest.

In April 1916 the United States indicted Von Papen and Von Rintelen for their involvement in a plot to blow up Canada's Welland Canal, a major shipping lane near Niagara Falls. Assistant US District Attorney Roger B. Wood noted that it was a break in precedent to indict a foreign diplomat but said:

I suppose he was immune so long as he was military attaché, but he is not the military attaché now. We are breaking a precedent, no doubt, for I do not know of any similar instance where a man in Von Papen's position has been indicted in this country. However, I do not see where there is any reason why he should be protected after he ceases to hold the position that made him immune from arrest.

The charges against Von Papen were dropped when he became Chancellor of Germany in 1932. He was forced to resign a year later in favor of Adolf Hitler. 

Out of about 18 million votes cast in the 1916 election, which was basically a referendum on the neutrality of the United States, Wilson won by about 600,000 votes - a 50.01-46.78 popular vote margin. The Electoral College count was 277-254, the 5th-narrowest Electoral College margin in US history. 

Michael Kristoff, a 23-year old Slovak immigrant with relatives in nearby Bayonne, New Jersey was suspected in the Black Tom Island explosion, with documentation that he set the initial fires for $500 along with two Germans - Lothat Witzke and Kurt Jahnke. Kristoff died in a Staten Island hospital in 1928. 

Theodore Wozniak went to work on January 11, 1917 at the Canadian Car & Foundry plant at the edge of the Meadowlands in Kingsland, New Jersey cleaning empty artillery shells using gasoline-soaked rags. This was his job. When a fire broke out among a pile of rags next to Wozniak, he tried to put it out using a clear liquid. Wozniak's boss found this suspicious - company policy was to put out fires with buckets of sand. The fire spread, thanks to the liquid and high winds. Soon the entire plant was engulfed in flames, the home of stockpiles of dynamite, TNT, and about half a million artillery shells. When the factory exploded, the ground shook from Yonkers to Staten Island. You could see the black cloud in midtown Manhattan. Wozniak also had a second job, getting paid $40/week from Frederick Hinsch, a German spymaster with a network of spies and saboteurs along the East Coast. Amazingly, no one out of the 1,400 people working at the plant that day was killed. Many literally slid up the frozen Hackensack River to safety in Secaucus.  

President Wilson's chief aide sent him a memo, warning him of an impending German offensive, "Mr. President, you have to worry that bridges are going to be blown up, skyscrapers are going to be attacked, and the New York City subways are going to be filled with 'germs.'"

German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann sent a telegram to Heinrich Von Eckhardt, Germany's Minister to Mexico. The telegram told Von Eckhardt to offer the territory the United States gained in the Mexican-American War (which was shady as all get out) in exchange for helping Germany in World War 1. The Zimmermann Telegram was intercepted by the British and released on March 1, 1917. Four days later Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated for his 2nd term as president. It would have been three days later, but March 4 - Inauguration Day for presidents prior to the ratification of the 25th Amendment, was on a Sunday, so Wilson was privately sworn in by Chief Justice Edward White and his public inauguration was the day after. When Gerard's prediction proved correct - Germany announced the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare on January 31, 1917 - combined with the emergence of the Zimmermann Telegram, Wilson could no longer justify keeping America out of war. 

Days after the United States declared war on Germany, yet another unexplained fire destroyed the Hercules Powder Company in Eddystone, Pennsylvania, killing over one hundred workers - most of them women and children. Theodore Wozniak, seemingly responsible for the fire in Kingsland, was working as a grocery store clerk in Manhattan's Lower East Side when he was arrested in 1942. The German government never claimed responsibility for any of the reportedly 43 attacks on American factories between 1915-1917. Why did the attacks essentially end in 1917? The U.S. had declared war in April by June Congress passed the Espionage Act, a sweeping "re-adjustment" of civil liberties in wartime, but did give legal basis to deport German agents and agitators. 

In 1921 Werner Horn - the lone ranger of the Vanceboro bridge plot - who had been sentenced to ten years in a New Brunswick prison, was deported to Germany. Classified as "insane," he actually was in the advanced stages of syphilis. That same year the Lehigh Valley Railroad - owners of Black Tom Island - brought charges of sabotage against the German government under the 1921 Treaty of Berlin. In 1939 the German-American Mixed Claims Commission ruled that Germany was, in fact, responsible for the sabotage at Black Tom Island and was ordered to pay $50 million in restitution. Of course, Hitler was just about to invade Poland, so that was the least of his concerns.

Johann Von Bernstorff died in exile in Geneva in 1939. By 1940, Franz Von Rintelen had rescinded his allegiance to the Nazi regime in order to help Great Britain, but admitted in an interview with the New York Times to having a network of 3,000 agents working for him in the United States during World War 1. In 1953 Germany agreed to pay $50 million to the United States and made its last payment in 1979.

Despite a long list of various accidents and explosions, the Black Tom Island explosion is considered to be the first terrorist attack on U.S. soil, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions to have ever occurred.

A Few Words about the Battle of Belleau Wood

On September 3, 2020 The Atlantic published a story written by Jeffrey Goldberg in which President Trump claimed that he could not travel to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery outside of Paris because it was raining, and the helicopter wouldn't fly and the Secret Service wouldn't drive him there. Both of these statements, according to Goldberg, were not true. 

In the article, Goldberg quotes sources who said that the president said, "Why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers," before referring to over 1,800 marines who are buried in the cemetery as "suckers," for getting killed fighting the Germans. 

The Aisne-Marne American Cemetery is a 42.5-acre memorial that sits at the foot of Belleau Wood. There are 2,289 graves and over 1,060 soldiers who are still missing, over 100 years later. 

World War I is a complicated story for the United States. The History Teacher in me wants you to know that there are four main reasons for why World War I was even fought: Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Nationalism. Thankfully we don't have to worry about that today [eyes roll completely out of my head]. 

When the United States finally declared war (President Wilson ran for re-election in 1916 under the slogan "He kept us out of war") in April 1917, the military was woefully unprepared. The Germans, and even the US' allies, were doubtful about how actually helpful the United States would be. The United States had never maintained a large standing army, following Thomas Jefferson's belief that a large standing army was a threat to peace. Jefferson helped draft and approve and promote the Military Peace Establishment Act (1802) which reduced the size of the military, yet also established a military academy north of New York City at West Point. In his 6th Annual Message (1806), Jefferson wrote:

Our duty is, therefore, to act upon things as they are, and to make a reasonable provision for whatever they may be. Were armies to be raised whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, we never should have been without them.

As the events of World War I unfolded across Europe, the United States continued to resist building up for the possibility of entering the War. The last major wars the United States were even involved in relied on cavalry, which wasn't going to help in this particular war, what with mustard gas, trench warfare, machine guns, and tanks. 

The Russians bounced from World War I in early 1918, after the Bolsheviks overthrew Czar Nicholas before (probably!) assassinating him and his wife Alexandra and their children. This freed up a not-insignificant number of German troops, who decided to mobilize on the Western Front in April 1918, hoping to win the war before whatever the US could throw at them was fully operational.

At the Third Battle of the Aisne, the Germans (they weren't Nazis yet) launched a massive surprise attack with over 4,000 pieces of artillery on May 27, 1918 at Aisne. French General Auguste Duchene was in charge of the defense, and ordered British soldiers to huddle together in the front trenches, which made them a much-easier target for the German artillery. Then they dropped poison gas on the trenches, and followed that up with an infantry assault. The Germans, under Erich Ludendorff (who would go on to be an early Hitler supporter, gaining notoriety for his completely false "Stab-In-The-Back" theory which blamed Jews, liberals, communists, democrats, and war profiteers for Germany's defeat in World War I), took advantage of a 25-mile gap in defense and advanced to within 35 miles of Paris. The Allies didn't stand a chance. Over 50,000 Allied soldiers and 800 Allied guns were captured.

On June 6, 1918 the German assault was neutralized. 137,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded while the Germans had 130,000 casualties. This was the first major action American soldiers - mainly the US 3rd Division - had seen in World War I, and they impressed their counterparts. 

This is where the battles overlap. Five days earlier the Germans had secured Chateau-Thierry and Vaux, and the Germans moved into Belleau Wood. The Marne River is a little over 300 miles long and runs behind Belleau Wood, which is about 60 miles northeast of Paris. The US 2nd Infantry Division (containing a brigade of Marines), the 9th Infantry, and the 6th Marine regiments all joined to plug the gap in the defense. There were French troops between them and the Germans. General James Harbord overrode an order from the French to dig trenches further back and instead ordered the Marines to "hold where you stand" and use their bayonets to dig a shallow trench that would allow them to fire at the advancing Germans from a prone (laying down, facing-forward) position. On the afternoon of June 3, 1918 the Germans attacked. US troops waited until the Germans were within 100 yards before opening fire, cutting down wave after wave of German soldiers until they retreated into the woods.

The Germans dug in, then they attacked. A French colonel told the US troops to retreat, to which Marine Captain Lloyd W. Williams replied, "Retreat, hell. We just got here." June 6, 1918 (a date that echoes through history) saw the heaviest single-day losses in Marine Corps history. On June 11, 1918 Capt. Williams led an assault on the Germans in which only one in 10 German officers and 16 of 250 German troops survived or escaped injury. Told to withdraw by a French major, Capt. Williams told him to "Go to hell." The next day, after getting gassed and injured by shrapnel, Capt. Williams responded to approaching medics, "Don't bother with me. Take good care of my men." He died on June 12. The building which holds Virginia Tech's Depts of Political Science, History, Geography, Philosophy, and Foreign Language and Literatures is named after him.

1st Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates said during the battle:

I have only two men out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold.

24-year old 1st Lt. Cates wrote his mother:

It has been a living hell. We were shelled all night with shrapnel and gas shells...It was mustard gas and a lot of the men were burned.

Marine Fred W. Stockham died of gas poisoning and was given a posthumous Medal of Honor for giving his own gas mask to a fellow soldier whose mask had been shot off.

44-year old Marine sergeant Dan Daly allegedly yelled at his men, "Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?" Colonel Albertus W. Catlin, who was shot in the chest during The Battle of Belleau Wood, later wrote:

The minute they got into the woods our boys found themselves in a perfect hornets' nest of...gunners, grenadiers, and riflemen. There were machine gun nests everywhere - on every hillock...every ravine...and every gun was trained on the...Marines.

Bayonet and hand-to-hand combat ensued. At the end of it at least 1,600 German soldiers were captured. The Americans had 9,777 casualties and over 1,800 killed. After the Battle of Belleau Wood had ended, the French renamed it "Bois de la Brigade de Marine" or "Wood of the Marine Brigade." General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing said after the Marines' performance, "the deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle." An official German report said, after the battle, that the Marines were "vigorous, self-confident, and remarkable marksmen."

We could really get into some strong military strategy stuff here, but you can click on any of these links to really get into it. Basically, like the rest of World War I, the Battle of Belleau Wood was a bloodbath. Over 10,000 Americans were dead, wounded, or missing in action. Marine Corps Commandant General Charles C. Krulak referred to Belleau Wood as the "Marines' first crucible," and said:

The flower of America's youth fought and bled to wrest this wood from the Germans....I walked toward the tree line through waist-high wheat, just as they did 80 years ago. History books describe that 800-yard advance, but I never fully appreciated it until I walked it myself. The Germans had every square inch of that field covered by machine gun and artillery fire. The Marines paid dearly with every step they took.

Army General James G. Harbord, who was after the fact made an honorary Marine said in 1923:

Now and then, a veteran...will come here to live again the brave days of that distant June. Here will be raised the altars of patriotism; here will be renewed the vows of sacrifice and consecration to country. Hither will come our countrymen in hours of depression, and even of failure, and take new courage from this shrine of great deeds.

In April 2018 French president Emmanuel Macron commemorated the battle by saying at a ceremony, "The blood [of Americans] was spilled to defend France."

The result is the temporary defeat of Germany as a threat to world peace. It's also the rebirth of the Marine Corps, who may or may not have earned the "Devil Dogs" nickname at the Battle of Belleau Wood. Or, you know, "losers," and "suckers," according to the 45th president of the United States.

The 24-Year Old From Tennessee Who Changed The Country

Harry Thomas Burn was 22 years old when he was first elected to the Tennessee State Legislature. Harry was the oldest of four born to James & Febb Burn in Mouse Creek - now Niota - Tennessee, between Chattanooga and Knoxville. 

James Burn was the Niota depot stationmaster and opened some businesses around town. His mother, known by pretty much everybody as "Miss Febb," was a teacher after graduating from what is now Tennessee Wesleyan University. 

Women actually had the right to vote in the pre-Revolutionary Colonies. It was in early 1776 that Abigail Adams wrote her husband, and future 2nd President of the United States, John:

I long to hear that you have declared an independency - and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for your to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If [particular] care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.

But by the time the Constitution itself was ratified in 1789, the delegates kicked it to the curb (also see: abolishing Slavery). Every state explicitly denied women the right to vote - except for New Jersey, who allowed female landowners to vote until 1807, when even they backed out and limited voting privileges to white dudes.

1848 saw the Seneca Falls Convention, in which 300 women and men not only advocated for women's suffrage (Suffrage: sounds Bad, is actually Good) but for equality for women in every aspect of societal and political life. The 1830s and 1840s were big decades for the women's suffrage movement. William Lloyd Garrison was the editor of The Liberator - a prominent and influential abolitionist newspaper from 1831 to the end of the Civil War - and became friends with Lucretia Mott, an early feminist and abolitionist who was influential on Garrison, who also became committed to women's rights. There was a definite crossover between the abolitionist and women's suffrage. 

Suffragettes like sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké spoke out:

Are we aliens because we are women? Are we bereft of citizenship because we are the mothers, wives, and daughters of a mighty people?

Women's suffrage kinda sorta took a backseat to the Civil War. But when that [waves hands above head] Whole Thing ended, it was on. As the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were being debated, suffragettes pushed to have women included in the right to vote.  In 1866 Pennsylvania Senator Edgar Cowan introduced an amendment to provide for women's suffrage, and was promptly defeated 37-9.  There were two major women's suffrage camps:

The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, wanted to get to vote by pressuring Congress to add an amendment to the Constitution. The American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Lucy Stone, wanted to slow-play it by pressuring state legislatures on a state-by-state basis. 

The NWSA argued that the 14th Amendment applied to giving women the right to vote - which was passed in 1868 and said that:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States...are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside...No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property...nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

That year, 1868, Kansas Senator Samuel Pomeroy introduced another bill that would provide universal suffrage. It was tabled...indefinitely.

Also, the NWSA argued the 15th Amendment (1869) should also guarantee suffrage for women, which said:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

In the year that the 15th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, Myra Bradwell - a woman of good character - passed the Illinois State Bar exam, giving her "sufficient training to be admitted to the practice of law." That said, the Illinois Supreme Court took a Hard Pass on Those Shenanigans, saying that the "strife" of being a lawyer would destroy her femininity. 

How could they legally justify such a thing? There's a common law doctrine of "coverture" - a holdover from feudal Norman law that essentially said that, prior to marriage, a woman could do normal things, like execute a will, sign a contract, sue or be sued, etc. But once she got married those rights were suspended under a "marital unity" clause in which the husband/wife's were consolidated under one entity: the husband's. Once married, women basically didn't have legal rights anymore. Using an offshoot of the Coverture clause - aka Privileges and Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment, the Illinois Supreme Court batted Myra Bradwell down. She appealed. This eventually became Bradwell v. Illinois, and the Supreme Court (with one exception) said the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to women who happen to have passed the Bar and want to be lawyers. Justice Joseph P. Bradley, who had a history of a narrow interpretation of the 14th Amendment, went so far as to write of the importance of the "respective spheres of man and woman," with the woman's role of wife/mother naturally following the "law of the Creator."

Still, progress towards women's suffrage continued to be made. Wyoming gave women the right to vote in 1869. 

Another challenge came in 1875, and still the Supreme Court used a narrow interpretation of the Privileges and Immunities Clause, this time in the case of Virginia Minor. Minor was a prominent Missouri suffrage leader who tried to register to vote in 1872 and was denied by registrar Reese Happersett, on the grounds that she was a woman. Her husband, Francis, was a lawyer and supported her test case. Minor sued Happersett using the 14th Amendment as a defense, and it went to the Missouri Supreme Court, who ruled that the "almost universal practice of the States" granted voting rights to men, only, saying that the 14th Amendment explicitly gave voting rights to the formerly enslaved, and should not be used as a precedent to change other laws. 

Minor v. Happersett went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1874. The Minors said women's suffrage was implied by the intent of the Founding Fathers. The Supreme Court said that the only thing in question was whether the Constitution specifically gave women the right to vote and that, no, it didn't. The State of Missouri was represented by a three-sentence written objection that was whole-heartedly endorsed by the Supreme Court. But the tide was starting to turn.

Thirty years after the Seneca Falls Convention, five years after Bradwell v. Illinois, four years after Minor v. Happersett, a Constitutional Amendment was proposed in 1878 to give women the right to vote.  California Senator Aaron A. Sargent - whose wife, Ellen Clark Sargent, was a friend of Susan B. Anthony - introduced the bill to the Senate. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others testified before the Senate in support of the bill. Five months later a petition with 30,000 signatures was brought before Congress. The bill failed, 34-16.

In 1888 the House of Representatives voted for limited suffrage for spinsters or widows who owned property. It failed. But progress was being made. Colorado granted partial women's suffrage in 1893, Idaho in 1896. Washington state granted women the right to vote in 1910, California followed in 1911. 

Anti-Suffragists were making their case. In 1897 prominent Anti-Suffragist Helen Kendrick Johnson published Woman and the Republic, in which she said:

Progress is a magic word, and the Suffrage party has been fortunate in its attempt to invoke the sorcery of the thought that it enfolds, and to blend it with the claim of woman to share in the public duty of voting...As I read political history, the facts go to show that the fundamental principles of our Government are more opposed to the exercise of suffrage by women than are those of monarchies. To me it seems that both despotism and anarchy are more friendly to woman's political aspirations than is any form of constitutional government, and that manhood suffrage, and not womanhood suffrage, is the final result of the evolution of democracy.

As we've seen in recent years, there's a lot of notoriety to be had when you look like the people you are trying to oppress.

On April 14, 1910 suffragettes met with President William Howard Taft to lobby for women's suffrage. Taft, who was over 350 pounds, got so mad he exclaimed that if women got the right to vote, "power might be exercised by the least desirable person." He cheered himself up by going to the Washington Senators/Philadelphia Athletics game on Opening Day. Taft threw out the first pitch of the game, and a tradition of president throwing out the first pitch on Opening Day was born. 

The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) was founded in 1911, with membership originally consisting of people from two camps: wealthy Northeastern families who just didn't want to upset the status quo, and wealthy Southerners who were afraid that equal rights for women would naturally lead to equal rights for minorities. It's said that NAOWS membership numbered 350,000. Anya Jabour, a history professor at the University of Montana, explained that: "Many of the women in the anti-suffrage movement felt that the political system was a corrupt space, and if women joined it, they would inevitably become just as corrupt as the men." And, as with pretty much everything else in American society, it sort of came down to race. Broadsides were distributed that said women's suffrage would eventually lead to "Negro domination of our government."

The movement marched forward. In 1912 Oregon, Arizona, and Kansas all passed a suffrage bill. Note how all of these are western states, which tended to be more progressive than their eastern counterparts. A year later, in 1913, a petition was delivered to the Senate with over 75,000 signatures and followed with a parade in what was called "The Siege of the Senate." According to the New York Evening Journal:

Women were jeered, tripped, grabbed, shoved, and many heard "indecent epithets" and "barnyard conversation." Instead of protecting the parade, the police "seemed to enjoy all the ribald jokes and laughter, and part participated (sic) in them." One policeman remarked that the women should stay home where they belonged. The men in the procession heard shouts of "Henpecko" and "Where are your skirts?" As one witness explained, "There was a sort of spirit of levity connected with the crowd. They did not regard the affair very seriously."

The New York Times ran an editorial that year which stated:

The benefits of woman suffrage are almost wholly imaginary. Its penalties will be real and hard to bear.

On March 19, 1914 the Senate - eight months after the Siege - which required a 2/3 super-majority to support it - failed to pass giving women the right to vote by 11 votes, 35-34. World War 1 happened. As it does. By 1918, after the House of Representatives had passed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, President Woodrow Wilson, now a converted suffragette (because he needed it for the war effort), spoke in favor of giving women the right to vote. This time it failed in the Senate by two votes. 

1918 featured a mid-term election in the middle of a - wait for it - GLOBAL PANDEMIC. President Wilson was fighting for his 14 Points and League of Nations, but also trying to garner support for universal suffrage. After getting blasted by Helen H. Gardener and Carrie Chapman Catt, Woodrow Wilson advocated for universal suffrage in his 1919 State of the Union. The Senate fell one vote short on February 10, 1919 - mainly opposed by Southern congressmen. Less than four months later, the Senate - 41 years after Aaron Sargent formally proposed women's suffrage, and 71 years after the Seneca Falls Convention - suffragettes had the votes. Needing a 2/3 super-majority, the Senate passed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment 56-25. Two votes made the difference.

The stage was set. See, The Rules say that 75% of the states have to approve an Amendment before it actually becomes A Thing. In 1920 there were 48 states, so you need 36 state legislatures to approve it before it can be an Amendment. But November 1920 was a full-on election. By June 1920 - with a presidential and congressional election coming five months later - anti-suffragists were saying that anything that happened that Summer would be undone with the election. At this point, 35 states had approved women's suffrage, eight had voted against it. There were five states yet to hold a vote, but four of those states refused to call a special session to consider giving women the right to vote. One more state voting for the Amendment would seal it. Tennessee agreed to hold a special session. The Tennessee State Senate passed the measure easily, the fight stalled in the Tennessee State House of Representatives. This brings us back to the youngest state legislator in Tennessee, 24-year old Harry Burn. 

The fight descended on Nashville, setting up camp in The Hermitage Hotel, half a mile from the Tennessee State Capitol building. The vote was set for August 1920. Tennessee state legislators were paired off - those opposed to women's suffrage, wearing a red rose on the lapel of their suit, and those in favor of giving women the right to vote, wearing a yellow rose. Allegations of corruption ran deep as anti-suffrage forces tried to bribe or coerce State Representatives. Industrialists didn't want women to have the right to vote, as women might end up voting for tougher labor laws. The Alcohol lobby wasn't interested in women having the right to vote because of Prohibition, so they set up the Jack Daniel's Suite at The Hermitage Hotel, ready to lube up the legislators.

Friday, August 18, 1920 saw impassioned speeches from both sides in the Tennessee State Legislature. House Speaker Seth L. Walker hollered:

The hour has come. The battle has been fought and won, and I move...that the motion to concur in the Senate action goes where it belongs - to the table.

Basically, Walker was asking for the vote to be tabled until after the November elections. Harry Burn wore a red rose on his lapel, signifying his intention to vote for the right for women not to vote. Burn was facing re-election in a few months, and McMinn County was pretty divided. Burn voted twice to table the vote until the next legislature, hoping that he could stay in the good graces of party leadership and his constituents, get re-elected, and then do it all again. But the vote was 48-48, which led to Speaker Walker calling for an immediate re-vote, calling on the legislators to consider the issue of women's suffrage "on its merits." It would be decided in the special session, not by kicking the can down the road until after November.

Rep. Burn had two items on or near his lapel: the red rose pin, and a letter from his mother, "Miss Febb." The seven-page letter updated Harry on the goings-on around town and the farm, but also:

Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt. I notice some the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet....Be a good boy and help Mrs. [Carrie Chapman] Catt put the 'rat' in ratification.

Armed with the letter from his mother, when it was time for the roll call, Burn's name appeared fairly early in the proceedings. He gave a soft-spoken "Aye," voting for ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. It took a little while for everyone who had gathered to watch the vote to realize what had just happened. When all legislators had cast their ballot, the result was 49-47 in favor. 24-year old Harry Burn's vote was the deciding one. Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, and women had the right to vote. Yellow roses rained down on the floor of the House from Suffragists in the gallery.

Immediately Speaker Walker called for a motion to reconsider. It failed. Burn inserted a statement into the Journal of the Tennessee State House of Representatives, saying:

I knew that a mother's advice is always safest for a boy to follow, and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification. I appreciated the fact that an opportunity such as seldom comes to a mortal man to free 17 million women from political slavery was mine.

The Knoxville Sentinel published a limerick:

There is a young man from Niota

Who for precedent cares no iota

He sprung a surprise

When he flopped to the 'Ayes,'

And enraptured the feminine voter!

But the fight wasn't over just yet. 37 Anti-Suffragist Tennessee legislators quickly boarded a train bound for Decatur, Alabama in an effort to prevent a quorum for any further action. That failed, too. Two Anti-Suffragists swore in an affidavit that Burn had been bribed, leading to a grand jury investigation into his actions. He was cleared. 

Miss Febb registered to vote on October 9, 1920 and was eligible to vote in the 1920 mid-term elections. Her voter registration card still had masculine pronouns because they didn't have time to reprint new cards. Now faced with a grueling re-election campaign in McMinn County as That Guy What Let Women Vote, his campaign attracted nationwide attention, and not necessarily positive:

People from all over the country went into my county. They held indignation meetings, passed resolutions...When I went home for a weekend I would generally keep a bodyguard around so that no one would attack me.

Burn narrowly won re-election to another two-year term. 

In 1923, Burn was admitted to practice law in Tennessee and did so for the rest of his life, also serving in the State Senate from 1948 to 1952, and becoming the president of a bank. He died at his home in Niota in 1977. Before his death, but years after that fateful vote, Burn recalled:

I had always believed that women had an inherent right to vote. It was a logical attitude from my standpoint. My mother was a college woman, a student of national and international affairs who took an interest in all public issues. She could not vote. Yet the tenant farmers on our farm, some of whom were illiterate, could vote. On that roll call, confronted with the fact that I was going to go on record for time and eternity on the merits of the question, I had to vote for ratification.

And people really say that one vote doesn't matter.

Less than a month after the official ratification of the 19th Amendment, Connecticut became the 37th state legislature to ratify it. Vermont followed in February 1921. Maryland didn't ratify the Amendment until 1941. Virginia? 1952. Alabama: 1953. Florida was the 43rd state to do so...in 1969. South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, and North Carolina all followed suit by the end of 1971. Mississippi had the distinction of being the last of the original 48 states to officially give women the right to vote...in 1984.