July 1915

In July 1915 the first year of the Great War comes to an end, but the end of the war itself is nowhere in sight.  A German-American plants a bomb in the U.S. Capitol and tries to assassinate a leading American banker; he appears not to have acted alone.  Germany and the United States continue their war of words over submarine attacks on civilian ships.  The Wilson administration tries to steer a course between pacifists and preparedness advocates, leaving neither satisfied.  In the war it's mostly a bad month for the Allies, as Russia abandons Warsaw, Italy suffers major losses for little gain against Austria-Hungary, and the month ends much as it began on the Western Front and in Gallipoli.  Some Allied successes, however, can be found in Africa and Mesopotamia.  In the United States, murder is in the news as New York executes a police lieutenant and an inmate spared the death penalty in Georgia is almost killed by a fellow prisoner.  An excursion steamer capsizes in the Chicago River, killing hundreds.

*****

Bomb Damage in the Capitol

Shortly before midnight on July 2, a bomb exploded in an alcove outside the vice-president's office on the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol.  No one was injured.  The next day, a man forced his way into the mansion of J.P. Morgan, Jr. in Glen Cove, Long Island, and shot Morgan twice before being subdued by Morgan, his butler, and other servants who responded to calls for help.  After his arrest the assailant was identified as Frank Holt, a former instructor of German at Cornell University.  Holt turned out to be the man who had planted the bomb in the Capitol the day before.  Subsequent investigation revealed that he was also the man who had taught at Harvard under the name of Erich Muenter until 1906, when he disappeared after his first wife's suspicious death by arsenic poisoning.  On July 6, Holt/Muenter killed himself in the Mineola jail by climbing to the top of his cell door and plunging head first to the floor some twenty feet below.

Erich Muenter After His Arrest

The perpetrator of the Capitol bombing and the attack on Morgan was a German-American who, in addition to being wanted for many years for his wife's murder, was nursing an intense anger against the United States for its financial support of the Allies in the war.  Using a variety of aliases, he had bought the guns and ammunition he used in the attack on Morgan, the dynamite he used in the Capitol bombing, and a large quantity of additional explosives.  Failure to locate or account for all of the explosives, together with a letter he wrote to his wife in Dallas after his arrest, led authorities to believe that he had put dynamite on a ship  being loaded with war supplies in New York for delivery to the Allies in Europe.  The letter, combined with statements made by Muenter during his interrogation, indicated that the dynamite was set to explode on July 7.  Initial concern was focused on two ships, the Cunard liner Saxonia and the American Line steamship Philadelphia.  Warning messages were sent by wireless to both ships in mid-ocean but a thorough search revealed nothing.  When July 7 arrived, however, the fear of sabotage was confirmed when an explosion aboard another ship, the Atlantic Transport liner Minnehaha, started a fire that threatened its cargo of 1,000 cases of cordite and hundreds of cases of loaded shells, cartridges and high explosives.  The liner was immediately diverted to Halifax, its crew battling the blaze for two days and two nights before reaching port safely on July 9.  Investigators believe it is unlikely under the circumstances that Muenter acted alone.  They are pursuing their investigation in the hope of uncovering what increasingly appears to be an organized terrorist plot.

German Foreign Minister Gottlieb von Jagow

The exchange of diplomatic notes in the wake of the sinking of the Lusitania continued this month.  On July 8, replying to the second American note, Germany argued that submarine attacks on British liners are justified in light of the British policy of intercepting shipments of all goods bound for Germany.  In an attempt to address the American complaints, it said that German submarines would be instructed to give safe passage to American passenger steamers "when made recognizable by special markings and notified a reasonable time in advance," relying on the American government to "guarantee that these vessels have no contraband on board."  It offered to extend the same protection to "a reasonable number of neutral steamers under the American flag" and to "four enemy passenger steamers for passenger traffic between North America and England" as long as they are carrying American passengers and flying the American flag.

On July 21, the United States told Germany that it found its response "very unsatisfactory."  It rejected the claim that the sinking of the Lusitania was a legitimate act of retaliation, saying that because retaliation by definition is invoked to justify acts that are otherwise illegal, it cannot be used to justify acts that injure the lives of neutrals.  Rejecting the German offer of limited safe passage, it said that any such agreement "would, by implication, subject other vessels to illegal attack and would be a curtailment and therefore an abandonment of the principles for which this Government contends and which in times of calmer counsels all nations would concede as of course."  It stopped short of demanding that Germany cease all submarine attacks on civilian vessels, suggesting that compliance with "cruiser rules" would be sufficient, but it used unusually strong language in demanding that the German Government "disavow[ ] the wanton act of its naval commander in sinking the Lusitania," and warning that any future attacks on passenger liners that affect American citizens would be regarded as "deliberately unfriendly" acts.  The next day, Secretary Lansing told the German ambassador that he would not continue writing notes and insisted on receiving explicit assurances.

Harvard President Lowell

Last month at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, a new organization was formed with the avowed intention of linking the nations of the earth together in an organization to ensure universal peace.  The League to Enforce Peace was formed in the midst of a war that has expanded from a Balkan crisis to a global conflict in less than a year, despite the safeguards established by the Hague Tribunals of 1899 and 1907.  The League began with a series of meetings at the Century Club in New York, and is led by over 100 of America's leading citizens, including former president William Howard Taft and Harvard University President A. Lawrence Lowell.  At Independence Hall the League adopted a resolution proposing the abolition of warfare through the enforcement of peace by the armed forces of the signatory nations.  The resolution advocates the establishment of "a working union of sovereign nations to establish peace among themselves and to guarantee it by all known and available sanctions at their command."  It proposes that the United States join a "league of nations" in which disputes arising between member nations "shall be submitted to a Council of Conciliation for hearing, consideration and recommendation," and that "the signatory powers shall jointly use forthwith both their economic and military forces against any one of their number that goes to war, or commits acts of hostility, against another of the signatories."  The proposal was adopted despite opposition from some who oppose the use of "militarism to fight militarism," an objection also voiced by former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan.  Former President Theodore Roosevelt opposes it on other grounds, arguing that  by submitting disputes to a supranational tribunal it would compromise American sovereignty.

The pacifist sentiments of many Americans were captured in a song that has seen increasing popularity this year.  "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be a Soldier" is sung here by the Peerless Quartet (click to play):

*****

Roosevelt Visiting the Pan Pacific Exposition

Former President Roosevelt departed New York for the west coast on July 11, holding informal conferences with political leaders as he traveled through the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states.  He arrived in Portland, Oregon on July 19, and continued to San Francisco, where he was greeted by warships in the harbor with a 21-gun salute.  On July 21 he toured the Pan Pacific Exposition, which declared the day "Theodore Roosevelt Day."  He delivered two speeches, one to a group of soldiers, sailors and marines at the Enlisted Men's Club, and another to an enthusiastic crowd of 60,000 at the Court of the Universe.  In a blunt allusion to the popular song, he told the enlisted men that "a mother who is not willing to raise her boy to be a soldier is not fit for citizenship."  At the larger gathering, where he was introduced by Governor Hiram Johnson, his 1912 running mate, he told the onlookers that he took pride in the Exposition and in the Panama Canal it celebrated.  He said "it was my good fortune to take the action in 1903, failure to take which, in exactly the shape I took it, would have meant that no Panama Canal would have been built for half a century."  Referring to the ongoing dispute with Colombia, he asserted that "in everything we did in connection with the acquiring of the Panama Zone we acted in a way to do absolute justice to all other nations, to benefit all other nations, including especially the adjacent states," and that "if there were the slightest taint upon our title or our conduct it would have been an improper and shameful thing to hold this exposition."  He said the building of the Panama Canal "nearly doubles the potential efficiency of the United States Navy, as long as [the Canal] is fortified and is in our hands, but if left unfortified it would at once become a menace to us."  Repeating his criticism of the Wilson administration on the issue of preparedness, he charged that regarding "pretty much everything not connected with the Isthmus of Panama, . . . we have been culpably, well-nigh criminally, remiss as a nation in not preparing ourselves, and if, with the lessons taught the world by the dreadful tragedies of the last twelve months, we continue with soft complacency to stand helpless and naked before the world, we shall excite only contempt and derision if and when disaster eventually overwhelms us."

The Crater at Hooge

On the Western Front, the Ypres salient continues to be the scene of bitter fighting but little advance.  British sappers dug a tunnel under the German position at Hooge, on the eastern edge of the salient, and on July 19, without any preliminary bombardment or other warning, the mine was exploded, creating a crater and a gap in the German line 120 feet wide and 20 feet deep.  British troops attacked and succeeded in occupying the crater, but on July 30 the Germans mounted a counterattack using a new weapon, the flammenwerfer, or flamethrower, which propelled flaming liquid up to sixty-five feet.  The British were driven from the crater and the German line was reestablished.

The news is no better for the Allies elsewhere in Europe.  On the Eastern Front, the Russians evacuated Warsaw on July 25 in anticipation of a German offensive.  On the new front between Italy and Austria, several Italian attacks in the Dolomites have been turned back, while repeated attacks by Italy along the Isonzo River have resulted in heavy Italian casualties but only minor gains.  Two Italian cruisers have been lost to Austrian submarines in the Adriatic.

SMS Konigsberg

General Louis Botha

Allied military operations in Africa and the Ottoman Empire illustrate the worldwide scope the war has assumed in recent months.  The German light cruiser SMS Konigsberg, stationed off the east coast of Africa, began raiding Allied shipping in the Indian Ocean when the war began.  Pursued by superior Royal Navy forces, Konigsberg retreated into the Rufiji River delta, where she remained until July 11 when her captain, his ship under intense shelling by British cruisers, sent her crew ashore and ordered the ship scuttled.  On the other side of the continent, German forces in Southwest Africa surrendered to British forces led by General Louis Botha on July 9.  Botha is also Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, an office he has held since South Africa achieved dominion status within the British Empire in 1910.

In Mesopotamia, the British advance toward Baghdad continued as a combined Anglo-Indian force attacked the Turkish garrison at Nasiriyah on the Euphrates River.  On July 24, the Turks abandoned Nasiriyah and withdrew upriver to Kut.  On the other side of the Ottoman Empire, the fighting In Gallipoli increasingly resembles the stalemate on the Western Front as British and French attacks at Cape Helles on July 13 have resulted in only minor gains.

Admiral Caperton

As the World War raged elsewhere, the United States was occupied with turmoil in its back yard.  On July 10, Mexico City fell for the third time to the Constitutionalist forces of Emiliano Carranza as General Gonzales, a Carranza ally, entered Mexico City.  Gonzales was forced to withdraw on July 18 when the Villa/Zapata forces cut off the railroad linking Mexico City and Veracruz.  Villa controls the city at month's end, but the railroad remains closed and the city is threatened with starvation.  Elsewhere in the Americas, a revolution in Haiti resulted in the overthrow and assassination of President Guillaume Sam on July 28, immediately following the government's execution of over 160 political prisoners.  President Wilson ordered the United States Navy to intervene, and Navy and Marine forces under the command of Rear Admiral William B. Caperton occupied Port-Au-Prince the next day.

The Prison Ward Where Leo Frank Was Attacked

Last month Governor Slaton of Georgia, in one of his last acts as governor, commuted the death sentence of Leo Frank, the Jewish superintendent of an Atlanta pencil factory, following his conviction for murder in the death of a young female employee, on weak evidence and in an atmosphere of intense antisemitism.  For several days after the governor's action, mobs filled the streets demanding that Frank, or Slaton, or both, be lynched.  Eventually the protests subsided, but on July 18 a fellow prisoner attacked Frank and cut his throat with a butcher knife while he was sleeping in a prison ward at the Georgia State Farm at Milledgeville.  Frank survived the attack, even though his jugular vein was partially severed.

Becker's Lawyers Martin Manton and Bourke Cockran (second and third from left)

In another high-profile murder case, New York City Police Lieutenant Charles Becker, under sentence of death for the 1912 murder of informer Herman Rosenthal, appealed for clemency on July 20.  Becker was represented by two of New York's most prominent lawyers, Martin Manton and his partner, former Congressman Bourke Cockran.  (Cockran is a close friend of Lady Randolph Churchill and an early mentor of her son Winston, who later became Great Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty.  Cockran, a renowned orator, gained prominence in the 1890's as a leader of the "Gold Democrats" who opposed William Jennings Bryan's "Free Silver" platform.)  To no one's surprise, Governor Whitman, who prosecuted the case against Becker as district attorney and rode his success in that case to the governorship, denied Becker's appeal.  Cockran then made a last-minute application to the New York Supreme Court for a new trial, in which he accused Whitman of suppressing evidence at trial.  The court denied Cockran's motion on July 28, and on July 30 Becker, still proclaiming his innocence, died in the electric chair.
 

The Eastland After Sinking

On July 24, in the worst maritime disaster in the history of the Great Lakes, the excursion steamer S.S. Eastland sank at its pier in the Chicago River, drowning over 800 passengers and crew.  It had just completed taking on passengers for an excursion to Michigan City, Indiana, for the Western Electric Company's annual picnic.  The Eastland was the first of several ships to be loaded for the cruise.  Long known to be top-heavy, it rolled to its side when hundreds of passengers ran to the port side to observe the other ships that were arriving to take on passengers.  President Wilson has ordered the Department of Commerce to conduct a thorough investigation into the cause of the tragedy.

July 1915 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading

Contemporary Periodicals:

American Review of Reviews, August and September 1915

New York Times, July 1915

Books and Articles:

A. Scott Berg, Wilson
Howard Blum, Dark Invasion 1915: Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America

Britain at War Magazine, The Second Year of the Great War: 1915
Winston S. Churchill, My Early Life
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt

Patrick Devlin, Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson's Neutrality

David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History

Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume III: The Challenge of War, 1914-1916

Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig, Decisions for War, 1914-1917

Peter Hart, Gallipoli

August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography

Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House
John Keegan, The First World War
Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War

Arthur S. Link, Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914-1915

Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917

Robert K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea
Michael McMenamin and Curt Zoller, Becoming Winston Churchill: The Untold Story of Young Winston and His American Mentor
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918

J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War

Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram  

Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts
The West Point Atlas of War: World War I

June 1915

In June 1915, as the world observes the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo and the 700th anniversary of the Magna Carta, it confronts a war of unprecedented destruction and geographic scope.  German submarine warfare threatens a rupture in relations with the United States.  A second note pressing the American case brings about the resignation of Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan.  His successor, Robert Lansing, is the son-in-law of a former secretary of state and the uncle of a future one, John Foster Dulles.  Freed from the constraints of office, Bryan addresses a peace rally in Madison Square Garden.  President Wilson's friend and adviser Colonel House returns from an extended trip to Europe, and in his report to the president predicts war with Germany.  Another British attack fails in Gallipoli.  Great Britain is feeling the financial and personal pain of waging war; she gains, then loses, one of her first war heroes.  The U.S.S. Arizona is launched in Brooklyn.  "The Class the Stars Fell On" graduates from West Point; its members will lead the American Army in another world war.  President Wilson honors the American flag, and is honored at a reunion of Confederate veterans.  Two notorious murder cases, one in Georgia and one in New York, move closer to final resolution. The governor of Georgia commutes Leo Frank's death sentence, but cannot protect either himself or Frank from angry mobs.  In New York, only the governor now stands between Charles Becker and the electric chair, and he is convinced of Becker's guilt.  Becker's lawyer, Martin Manton, faces a roller-coaster future: he will become a federal judge, be on the short list for the Supreme Court, serve as Chief Judge of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and wind up in jail for taking bribes.

*****

An Editorial Comment on the Lusitania Notes

Last month the United States and Germany exchanged diplomatic notes following the attack on the Lusitania that cost the lives of 1,198 passengers and crew, including 128 Americans (see last month's installment of this blog).  On June 9, the United States sent a second note to Germany.  Like the first one, it was drafted principally by President Wilson himself.  It responds to several assertions made by Germany in its reply to the first note "with regard to the character and outfit of [the Lusitania]," telling the German government that "these are matters concerning which the Government of the United States is in a position to give the Imperial German Government official information."  It acknowledges that it was the duty of the United States, as a neutral power, "to see to it that the Lusitania was not armed for offensive action, that she was not serving as a transport, that she did not carry a cargo prohibited by the statutes of the United States, and that, if in fact she was a naval vessel of Great Britain, she should not receive clearance as a merchantman."  The note assures Germany that the United States "performed that duty and enforced its statutes with scrupulous vigilance through its regularly constituted officials" and "is able, therefore, to assure the Imperial German Government that it has been misinformed."  It asks the German Government, if it has "convincing evidence that the officials of the Government of the United States did not perform these duties with thoroughness," to "submit that evidence for consideration."  Referring to the contention that the Lusitania was carrying contraband munitions and that the torpedo caused those munitions to explode, the note says that those contentions are "irrelevant to the question of the legality of the methods used by the German naval authorities in sinking the vessel."  It asserts that "the sinking of passenger ships involves principles of humanity which throw into the background any special circumstances of detail that may be thought to affect the cases," and that, whatever other facts there might be, "the principal fact is that a great steamer, primarily and chiefly a conveyance for passengers, and carrying more than a thousand souls who had no part or lot in the conduct of the war, was torpedoed and sunk without so much as a challenge or a warning, and that men, women, and children were sent to their death in circumstances unparalleled in modern warfare."  The United States therefore "very earnestly and very solemnly renews the representations of [the first] note" and asks for assurances that the German Government will "adopt the measures necessary" for "the safeguarding of American lives and American ships."

The New Secretary of State

Although the second Lusitania note added little of substance to the earlier one, it had the important result of bringing about the resignation of the Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan.  He was known to have been unhappy with the position taken in the first note, preferring a warning to Americans not to travel on belligerent ships combined with a protest to Great Britain for its blockade policy.  When the second note restated and reenforced the position of the first, Bryan decided that he could no longer be identified with the government's position.  A broader and more important factor may have been his conviction that he had never been President Wilson's principal or most trusted adviser on foreign policy.  When Bryan met with the president on Monday, June 7, and told him of his intention to resign, among the reasons he gave was that "Colonel House has been your Secretary of State, not I, and I have never had your full confidence."  Bryan's letter of resignation was submitted the next day.  The president, in his reply, accepted it "with much more than deep regret -- with a feeling of personal sorrow,"  and said "We shall continue to work for the same causes even when we do not work in the same way."  The note to Germany, signed by State Department Counselor Robert Lansing as Acting Secretary, was delivered on June 9.  On June 23 the president appointed Lansing Secretary of State; the Senate confirmed his appointment the next day.  Lansing's father-in-law is John Foster, who was Secretary of State under President Benjamin Harrison.

Colonel House with President Wilson

After sending Lansing's name to the Senate, President Wilson left for a vacation in Cornish, New Hampshire, where he is staying again at novelist Winston Churchill's Harlakenden House.  On his way north, he stopped in New York to confer with Colonel House, who returned to the United States June 13 after four months in Europe.  In a report sent three days after his return, House told the president "I think we shall find ourselves drifting into war with Germany."  The two men met on June 24 at the Colonel's home at Roslyn, Long Island, where they discussed House's report and the details of his meetings with high-level officials of the British, French and German governments.  House told the president that, because the public in each of the warring countries is insistent that any peace agreement must justify the terrible losses already suffered, there is no possibility that any terms acceptable to one side would be acceptable to the other even as a basis for discussion. 

 Madison Square Garden

That evening in Manhattan, a huge peace rally was held at Madison Square Garden.  William Jennings Bryan, the recently resigned Secretary of State, addressed a capacity crowd that included the Austro-Hungarian and Turkish ambassadors and the German military and naval attaches.  Henry Weismann, president of the New York branch of the German-American Alliance, told the friendly crowd that "the pulse of America does not beat in the gilded halls of Washington.  The president is surrounded by sycophants on the one hand and by skilled, shrewd, paid agents of our enemies on the other."  He welcomed Bryan as "the new leader of the American people that stand for peace."  When Bryan took the podium, he tried to downplay his rift with the president, telling the crowd that he and President Wilson had "found it impossible to share responsibility together.  He could not do otherwise than he did, believing as he did, and I could not do otherwise than I did, believing as I did.  There was no concealment.  We separated as two friends should separate."  He said that "if war comes, we will stand as one man behind the Government, but until Congress declares war each citizen is at liberty to express his opinion as to whether or not there should be war."  He appealed to "the national honor of a peace-loving nation, not the false pride of a bully or a braggart," and concluded by asking "if others desire that our flag be feared, let us prefer that it be loved.  If others would have the world tremble in awe at the sight of it, let us pray that the plain people everywhere may turn their faces toward it and thank God that it is the emblem of justice and the hope of peace."

Outside, thousands more filled Madison Square Park and Madison Avenue from 23rd to 27th Street, listening to speakers who addressed the crowds from six outdoor stages, many speaking in German and all delivering essentially the same message in opposition to American involvement in the World War.

British Troops on the Attack

As if in mockery of the sentiments being expressed in Madison Square, war continued this month around the world.  On June 4 British and French forces on the Gallipoli peninsula mounted another attack in an attempt to secure the commanding heights of Achi Baba overlooking the Dardanelles, the original objective of the landing at Cape Helles.  Once again they fell short, and a Turkish counterattack on June 6 drove the Allies back to their original positions but failed to drive the Allies off the peninsula.  In eastern Europe, the Austro-German offensive in the Carpathians resulted in the capture of Przemysl on June 3 and of Lemberg on June 22.  On the Western Front, French attacks in Artois and on the Meuse-Argonne front resulted in thousands of casualties but no significant gains.  On the new front at the head of the Adriatic, Italian forces attacked Austro-Hungarian positions along the Isonzo River, but were turned back with heavy losses.  Nor has North America been peaceful: while there is no declared war, battles between competing factions in Mexico have been raging for over two years.  On June 2, President Wilson issued a statement to the warring parties warning them to come together and set up a government that other nations can deal with or risk American intervention.

Prime Minister Asquith

Great Britain may be the wealthiest nation in the world, but the strain of global war is beginning to be felt, financially and otherwise.  On June 15, Prime Minister Asquith told Parliament the war is costing Great Britain $13,000,000 a day, and the House of Commons voted an additional $1,250,000,000 in war appropriations, bringing the total so far to $4,310,000,000.  On June 19, the Prime Minister reported that British casualties in the war in Europe and the Mediterranean from the beginning of the war through the end of May have been 50,342 killed, 153,980 wounded, and 53,747 missing.  The Munitions for War Act became law on June 23.  It prohibits strikes in businesses supplying the armed forces and gives the newly created Ministry of Munitions, headed by David Lloyd George, power to regulate wages, hours and working conditions.

Lieutenant Warneford

For the British public, Zeppelin raids on English cities have added a new and frightening dimension to the war.  On June 7 aviator Lt. Reginald A. J. Warneford became a national hero when he attacked and destroyed a Zeppelin near Ghent as it was returning from a failed raid on London.  He is the first, and so far the only, aviator in history to bring down an airship.  Ten days later Warneford lost control of his aeroplane during a demonstration flight near Paris.  He and his passenger, an American journalist, were ejected and killed.

 Arizona Ready for Launch

The new American superdreadnought U.S.S. Arizona (BB-39) was launched at the New York Navy Yard on June 19 before some 75,000 spectators.  Arizona Governor George W. Hunt, New York City Mayor John Purroy Mitchel, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels and Admiral Frank F. Fletcher, Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet, were among the dignitaries in attendance.  In recognition of Arizona's recent vote to become a dry state, a bottle of Arizona water as well as the traditional bottle of champagne was broken over the bow in the christening ceremony.  As she slid down the ways into the East River, she was greeted by whistles from the other warships present in the shipyard, including the battleships U.S.S. Wyoming, New York, Utah, Arkansas, Florida and Texas, and two flotillas of destroyers.  Tugboats took her in tow under the Williamsburg Bridge, and before long had her moored securely alongside her dock, where she will receive her guns, engines and other equipment.  When commissioned, Arizona and her sister ship U.S.S. Pennsylvania (BB-38), launched in March at Newport News, Virginia, will be the largest warships in the world, each displacing over 31,000 tons.

Secretary Garrison, General Scott and Colonel Townsley Reviewing the Corps of Cadets

On June 12 the United States Military Academy at West Point graduated 164 cadets, the largest class in its history.  Secretary of War Lindley Garrison, Army Chief of Staff Major General Hugh Scott and Academy Superintendent Colonel Clarence Townsley reviewed the cadets on parade, after which Secretary Garrison addressed the graduating class.  He told them that they might be called upon at any time to demonstrate their worth, and that upon their conduct "may depend issues of vital moment" to their country.  Each graduate was cheered as he received his diploma.  Judging from the volume and duration of the cheers as observed by the New York Times reporter, the most popular members of the graduating class were the athletic standouts, including Cadets James Van Fleet, Omar Bradley, and Dwight Eisenhower.  After the ceremony, the new second lieutenants went to New York for dinner and a Broadway play.

President Wilson Delivering his Flag Day Address

The Stars and Stripes was adopted as the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777.  In recent years the anniversary of that date has been unofficially observed as Flag Day.  On June 14 this year, President Wilson delivered an address from the south portico of the Treasury Department Building, next door to the White House.  He began by telling the assembled crowd that "for me the flag of the United States does not express a mere body of vague sentiment.  The flag of the United States has not been created by rhetorical sentences in declarations of independence and in bills of rights.  It has been created by the experience of a great people, and nothing is written upon it that has not been written by their life."  He closed by saying that he would like to see them "wear a little flag of the Union every day" but that "if you lose the physical emblem, be sure that you wear it in your heart, and the heart of America shall interpret the heart of the world."

Congressman Heflin (center) with Senators Vardaman (D., Miss.) and James (D., Ky.)

The United Confederate Veterans held their twenty-fifth annual reunion June 1-3 in Richmond, Virginia.  On June 2 they adopted a resolution "as soldiers, who know only too well the horrors of war, and as citizens of a reunited country."  The resolution praised President Wilson as one "who, strictly neutral between warring nations, will, with wisdom and courage, stand for all regard and respect for the honor of the American flag and a proper observance of the full rights of the humblest American citizen."  Congressman J. Thomas Heflin (D., Ala.) also praised the president, telling the veterans they had survived the Civil War "to see a man, born in the Southland, the son of a Confederate soldier, the President of the United States."

Chief Justice White

The Fifteenth Amendment, which became part of the United States Constitution in 1870, forbids states to deny the vote to citizens "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."  As Reconstruction ended and the Democratic Party regained control of the governments in the southern states, many of them adopted literacy and property ownership requirements for voting that were designed to deny the franchise to Negro citizens.  Those requirements passed constitutional muster, but they threatened to disenfranchise poor and illiterate whites as well as blacks, so many states added "grandfather clauses," exempting from the property and literacy requirements anyone who had been eligible to vote, or whose ancestors had been eligible to vote, prior to a given date (typically a date before the abolition of slavery).  On June 21 of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court held such "grandfather clauses" unconstitutional.  The vote was 8-0, with Mr. Justice McReynolds not voting.  The opinion was written by Chief Justice Edward White, a Democrat who grew up on a Louisiana plantation before the Civil War.  Property and literacy requirements for voting, where they exist, now apply to all citizens, but they are administered at the discretion of local officials, leaving much room for discrimination in their actual implementation.

Governor and Mrs. Slaton

On June 21, as his term was drawing to a close, Georgia Governor John Slaton commuted the death sentence of Leo Frank, the Atlanta pencil factory superintendent convicted of the murder two years ago of Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old female factory employee, to life imprisonment.  Frank's trial was conducted in an atmosphere of intense hostility, fueled by antisemitism and marked by unruly mobs outside the courthouse demanding a guilty verdict.  (For further background, see the March 1914 and April 1915 installments of this blog.)  In considering the clemency petition the governor reviewed the evidence and heard arguments of counsel, following which he concluded that there was substantial doubt as to Frank's guilt.  He announced the commutation a day before Frank's scheduled execution, triggering mass protests at the Atlanta City Hall and at the courthouse where Frank had been tried.  Similar demonstrations took place elsewhere in the state.  In Marietta, Mary Phagan's home town, a life-size dummy bearing a sign that read "John M. Slaton, King of the Jews and Georgia's traitor forever" was strung to a telephone pole   In Newnan, not far from Atlanta, effigies of Slaton and Frank were hung to a giant oak tree in a park, then set on fire and dragged through the streets.  A few days later Governor Slaton attended his successor's inauguration, after which an armed escort was necessary to get him safely from the capitol building to his car and out of town.  At month's end, Slaton and his wife were visiting friends in New York prior to a tour of Canada.  He told reporters that "after a careful and long study of the great mass of evidence in the case it would have been simply impossible for me to have taken any other action than the one I did."

Martin Manton (right) at the Becker-Rosenthal Trial

In another high-profile murder case, former New York Police Lieutenant Charles Becker has lost his last appeal and faces the electric chair for ordering the 1912 murder of Herman Rosenthal to prevent him from giving evidence to District Attorney Charles Whitman.  (For further background, see the August and October 1912, March and April 1914, and May 1915 installments of this blog.)  Becker's motion for reconsideration of the Court of Appeals ruling was denied on June 18; his attorney Martin Manton has applied for clemency to Whitman, who is now the governor.  Manton has said he might ask Whitman, because of his prior involvement in the case, to step aside and let the clemency petition be considered by Lieutenant Governor Edward Schoeneck.

*****

June 1915 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading

Contemporary Periodicals:

American Review of Reviews, July and August 1915

New York Times, June 1915

Books and Articles:

A. Scott Berg, Wilson
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt

Patrick Devlin, Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson's Neutrality

David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History

Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume III: The Challenge of War, 1914-1916

Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig, Decisions for War, 1914-1917

August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography

Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House
John Keegan, The First World War
Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War
Erik Larson, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

Arthur S. Link, Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914-1915

Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917

Robert K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918

J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War

Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram 
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts
Stanley Weintraub, Young Mr. Roosevelt: FDR's Introduction to War, Politics, and Life

May 1915

It's May 1915.  As the month begins, the Lusitania sets sail from the west side of Manhattan on its regular transatlantic voyage to Liverpool.  Six days later, as it passes along the south coast of Ireland, it is torpedoed by a German submarine.  It sinks in minutes, killing over a thousand passengers and crew, including 128 Americans.  In President Wilson's first public statement after the sinking, he suggests America might be "too proud to fight," but a rupture in diplomatic relations seems possible.  Former President Theodore Roosevelt, in the midst of defending himself in a libel suit, tells reporters the United States must take action in defense of "humanity" and "our own national self-respect."  Meanwhile the war goes on.  On the Eastern Front a combined Austrian-German offensive pushes the Russians back in the Carpathians, while on the Western Front coordinated British and French offensives in the vicinity of Artois fail to achieve any measurable success.  Stalemate also threatens the armies on the Gallipoli Peninsula, as Turkish and German naval forces demonstrate the vulnerability of the Allied fleet offshore.  A political crisis in Great Britain brings a new coalition government and the demotion of First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill.  Italy joins the war and invades Austria-Hungary.  The Allies serve notice that members of the Ottoman government will be held "personally responsible" for the ongoing massacre of Armenians.  John McCrae writes a poem about the poppies growing "In Flanders Fields."  In the United States a new speed record is set at the Indianapolis 500, Thomas Edison invents a machine for recording telephone conversations, and a New York City Police Lieutenant's fate appears sealed when his murder conviction is affirmed on appeal.

*****

Adjacent Newspaper Notices by Cunard and the German Embassy

On Saturday, May 1, the British luxury liner RMS Lusitania left the Cunard Line's Pier 54 on the west side of Manhattan bound for Liverpool on its regular transatlantic run.  That morning an advertisement placed by the German embassy appeared in the New York newspapers.  It reminded travelers that a state of war existed between Great Britain and Germany and that Germany had given formal notice that vessels entering waters adjacent to the British Isles were liable to destruction.  It advised that those who chose to travel on such ships would do so at their own risk.  The last-minute warning caused only two passengers, a Boston shoe dealer and his wife, to cancel their voyage.  Taxicabs delivered passengers and their luggage to the pier Saturday morning, and that afternoon, after a short delay to board passengers from another ship requisitioned for war service, Lusitania cast off and proceeded down the Hudson toward the open sea (click to play):

Lusitania's Departure from New York, May 1, 1915

*****

Lusitania Victims in Queenstown

On the afternoon of Friday, May 7, the Lusitania was in the Western Approaches, a few miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, near Queenstown on the south coast of Ireland.  She was due to arrive in Liverpool the following morning.  Captain William Turner was maneuvering the ship to take navigational bearings on coastal landmarks.  The German submarine U-20, commanded by Kptlt. Walther Schwieger, was headed for home, nearing the end of a cruise that had taken her from Emden through the North Sea and around the British Isles.  The Western Approaches had been blanketed by fog all morning, but the fog had lifted, and when Schwieger raised his periscope he saw Lusitania as she turned to starboard, presenting a perfect target.  He fired a single torpedo, which penetrated the Lusitania's hull under water and exploded directly beneath the bridge.  There was a second explosion, likely caused by the rupture of high pressure steam lines.  A longitudinal coal bunker, empty as the voyage was nearing its end, flooded quickly, causing a pronounced list to starboard.  Unlike the Titanic three years ago, the Lusitania carried plenty of lifeboats, but the list made most of them unusable.  The liner sank in a little over seventeen minutes.  Almost 1,200 passengers and crew, including 128 Americans, died.  Among the Americans lost were Broadway producer Charles Frohman and businessman Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, heir to the Vanderbilt fortune.  Three years ago, Vanderbilt had decided at the last minute to cancel his plans to take the Titanic home from England.

"Too Proud to Fight" -- A British View

In Washington, President Wilson learned of the sinking of the Lusitania Friday afternoon.  He cancelled his planned golf outing, and as reports of heavy loss of life came in that evening he left the White House and walked alone through the streets of Washington.  Over the weekend he continued to keep his own counsel, not issuing a statement and not conferring with his Secretary of State or any other administration official.  When Senator Stone, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called at the White House, the president declined to see him.  On Monday, he fulfilled a previous commitment by traveling to Philadelphia to address an audience at Convention Hall that included some four thousand newly naturalized citizens.  Without mentioning the Lusitania, he told the group, echoing his speech to the Associated Press last month, that "the example of America must be the example not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because it is the elevating and healing influence of the world, and strife is not.  There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight.  There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right."  The president's suggestion that the United States is "too proud to fight" has elicited strong reactions, ranging from scornful disgust (especially in Great Britain) to enthusiastic approval (including from his audience in Philadelphia, many of whom were German-Americans).  The next day, he felt compelled to explain his statement, telling reporters at a news conference that he was "expressing a personal attitude, that was all. . . . I did not regard that as a proper occasion to give any intimation of policy on any special matter."  Reflecting the division in American opinion, Colonel House, Secretary of War Garrison and Ambassador Walter Hines Page have advised the president to take a firm stand against Germany, while Secretary of State Bryan has told the president that Americans should be advised not to travel on Allied ships.

Edith Bolling Galt

More than the Lusitania was on the president's mind that weekend.  Lonely since the death of his wife Ellen last August, he had met a 42-year old Washington widow named Edith Bolling Galt in March and fallen in love.  On Tuesday evening, May 4, after dinner at the White House, he proposed marriage.  Mrs. Galt neither accepted nor declined, sending the president into a period of amorous longing and ardent pursuit, punctuated by dinners and frequent letters (several a day) exchanged through his cousin and her friend Helen Bones.  As he received the Lusitania news and struggled to formulate a response, Mrs. Galt remained foremost in his thoughts.  As the month of May came to an end she had still not given him an answer.

Ambassador James Gerard

On May 13, the Department of State instructed Ambassador James Gerard in Berlin to deliver a note from Secretary of State Bryan to the German Minister of Foreign Affairs protesting the sinking of the Lusitania as well as three other recent attacks on American ships and American citizens.  Signed by Secretary of State Bryan but written by President Wilson himself, the note reminds Germany of the earlier warning that the United States would hold the German government to "strict accountability" for infringement of the right of American citizens to travel on the high seas in "the well-justified confidence that their lives will not be endangered by acts done in clear violation of universally acknowledged international obligations."  It diplomatically pretends that the German embassy's May 1 notice may have been published without the knowledge of the German government, saying that the Secretary of State "regrets to inform the Imperial German Government" of its appearance in American newspapers.  Putting aside "the surprising irregularity of a communication from the Imperial German Embassy at Washington addressed to the people of the United States through the newspapers," the note categorically insists that "no warning that an unlawful and inhumane act will be committed can possibly be accepted as an excuse or palliation for that act or as an abatement of the responsibility for its commission."  Assuming that "the commanders of the vessels which committed these acts of lawlessness" did so "under a misapprehension of the orders issued by the Imperial German naval authorities," the note demands that Germany promptly "disavow" those acts, that it "make reparation so far as reparation is possible," and that it "take immediate steps to prevent [their] recurrence."

Ambassador von Bernstorff

Germany's reply to the Lusitania note, signed by Foreign Minister Gottlieb von Jagow, was delivered to the State Department by Ambassador Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff on May 28.  It says that the recent attacks on American ships are under investigation, that "the German Government has no intention of subjecting neutral ships in the war zone, which are guilty of no hostile acts, to attacks by a submarine or submarines or aviators," and that "German forces have repeatedly been instructed most specifically to avoid attacks on such ships."  In the case of the Lusitania, the note repeats earlier expressions of "keen regret" that citizens of neutral nations lost their lives.  It points out, however, that the British Admiralty recently authorized merchant ships not only to fly neutral flags but also to resist capture by force, and that the Lusitania itself "was one of the largest and fastest British merchant ships, built with Government funds as an auxiliary cruiser and carried expressly as such in the 'navy list' issued by the British Admiralty."  It argues that "German commanders consequently are no longer able to observe the customary regulations of the prize law, which they before always followed."  The note also states that Germany acted in justified self-defense because the Lusitania on its previous trip had carried Canadian troops and war material, "including no less than 5,400 cases of ammunition intended for the destruction of the brave German soldiers who are fulfilling their duty with self-sacrifice and devotion in the fatherland's service."  Finally, it says the Cunard Line "is wantonly guilty of the death of so many passengers" because it "used the lives of American citizens as protection for the ammunition aboard . . . against the clear provisions of the American law" and because "the quick sinking of the Lusitania is primarily attributable to the explosion of the ammunition shipment."

The American reaction to the German note is one of keen disappointment, particularly regarding the failure of the note to address the subject either of reparations or of guarantees for the future protection of American vessels and lives.  It is expected that a second note will be sent without delay, and that it will dispute the contention that the Lusitania was carrying munitions in violation of American law.  President Wilson is said to be determined to obtain reparation for Lusitania victims and assurances of respect for American rights in the future, failing which he is likely to sever diplomatic relations with Germany.  Secretary Bryan is more concerned with keeping the United States clear of international disputes that might lead to American involvement in the war.

Roosevelt in Syracuse with his Cousin, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt (right)

"What a Pity Theodore Roosevelt is Not President" read a banner headline in the New York Herald the day after the Lusitania's sinking.  Roosevelt, who is known to regard German submarine attacks on civilian ships as "piracy, pure and simple," was in Syracuse, New York, defending a libel suit brought against him by Republican Party boss William Barnes (see last month's installment of this blog).  When news of the sinking was brought to him in the courtroom, his lawyer reminded him that two of the jurors were German-Americans and urged him not to comment.  At the next recess, he told reporters what his lawyer had advised but said he could not remain silent.  "It seems inconceivable," he said, "that we can refrain from taking action in this matter, for we owe it not only to humanity but to our own national self-respect."  Two weeks later, to Roosevelt's immense relief, the jury returned a verdict in his favor.  Afterward, he assembled the jurors in an adjoining room and thanked them individually.  In a celebration resembling an election night rally, he told the jurors the latch-key would always be out for them at Sagamore Hill, and that he would always try "to act in public and private affairs so that no one of you will have cause to regret the verdict you have given this morning."  The outcome of the trial is seen by many as representing a major step toward bringing Roosevelt back into the Republican Party and mending the 1912 split between its regular and progressive wings.

HMS Majestic Sinking off Gallipoli

As the Lusitania crossed the Atlantic on its last voyage, and as diplomats dealt with the aftermath of its sinking, the clash of armies continued on several fronts.  In the Carpathian Mountains, nine months of Russian victories came to an end when a major offensive by Austro-Hungarian and German armies, begun May 1 with a massive artillery bombardment, drove the Russians from the Galician towns of Gorlice and Tornow.  By month's end, the Russians were in danger of being forced to abandon the fortress of Przemysl, which they have occupied since capturing it in March after a siege of several months.  On the Western Front, coordinated attacks by British and French forces in the vicinity of Artois (the British on Aubers Ridge and the French on Vimy Ridge) have failed to make sustainable gains against strong defensive positions.  On the Gallipoli Peninsula the fighting has been similarly inconclusive, as British troops at Cape Helles and Anzac troops several miles to the north have been unable to make appreciable progress in their attempts to occupy the high ground commanding the Straits.  Meanwhile, the Allied fleet supporting the landed troops has itself proved vulnerable.  On May 12, a Turkish destroyer slipped down the European side of the Dardanelles and fired three torpedoes into HMS Goliath, which sank with the loss of 570 British sailors.  Later in the month two other British battleships were lost to a single submarine when U-21 torpedoed and sank HMS Triumph on May 25 off the Anzac beach and HMS Majestic the next day off Cape Helles.

Other disasters struck far from the battlefields.  German Zeppelins conducted bombing raids on Ramsgate on May 17 and London on May 31.  On May 22, a troop train carrying Scottish soldiers to Liverpool to board a transport bound for Gallipoli collided with a local train that had been mistakenly shunted onto the express track, causing wreckage to spread across both the northbound and southbound tracks.  Less than a minute later an express train bound for Glasgow collided with the wreckage and ignited a raging fire.  It was the deadliest railroad crash in British history, killing over 200 soldiers and several other passengers and railroad workers.  Less than a week later, HMS Princess Irene, an ocean liner converted to a minelayer, was being loaded with mines in the Thames Estuary when it suddenly exploded, killing over 300 British sailors, dockyard workers and other civilians.

 Arthur Balfour

The unsatisfactory progress of the war has led to a political crisis in Great Britain.  Sir John French blames the recent failure of the British Expeditionary Force at Aubers Ridge on a shortage of artillery shells caused by the diversion of munitions and other military supplies to the Gallipoli campaign.  The First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir John Fisher, also became a fierce critic of the Dardanelles campaign, insisting on the withdrawal of the superdreadnought HMS Queen Elizabeth to home waters.  By May 15 his relationship with First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill had deteriorated to the point that he finally insisted that his resignation, previously threatened, tendered and withdrawn, be accepted.  Churchill himself was among the next casualties.  On May 25, Prime Minister Asquith formed a new coalition government.  He remains Prime Minister and Sir Edward Grey and Lord Kitchener remain Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Secretary of State for War, respectively.  Home Secretary Reginald McKenna becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer, replacing David Lloyd George, who has been named to the new post of Minister of Munitions, created in response to the shell shortage.  John Simon is the new Home Secretary.  Among the Unionists (Conservatives) brought into the cabinet are Andrew Bonar Law (Secretary of State for the Colonies), Lord Curzon (Lord Privy Seal), and Austen Chamberlain (Secretary of State for India).  The most prominent of the Unionist additions is former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, who replaces Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty.  Churchill remains in the cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Italian Troops Marching to War

Last month the Italian government signed the Treaty of London, promising to declare war against Germany and Austria-Hungary within thirty days.  On May 23 Italy partially fulfilled that promise by declaring war on Austria-Hungary, an act that led Kaiser Wilhelm to recall the German ambassador from Rome.  On May 27 Italian troops crossed the Isonzo River into the Slovene lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where they encountered strong Austrian defenses.  Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary denounced the action of his former ally as "a breach of trust, the like of which has not been seen before."  With Italy's entry, eleven nations are now at war on at least seven fronts.

American State Department Telegram Relaying the Allies' Declaration to the Ottoman Government

The killing and forced deportation of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire continued this month.  On May 24, The Russian, French and British governments issued a joint declaration stating that "the Kurd and Turkish populations of Armenia have been massacring Armenians with the connivance and often assistance of Ottoman authorities," and that the Allied governments will "hold personally responsible [for] these crimes all members of the Ottoman government and those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres."   On May 29, at the request of the French Foreign Office, the American State Department relayed the Allies' declaration to the Turkish government (the "Sublime Porte").

John McCrae

Major John McCrae is a medical doctor and pathologist assigned to the Canadian Field Artillery in Flanders, engaged in the defense of the Ypres salient   On May 3, after an attack in which two young officers in his unit were killed by an artillery shell, he looked out across no-man's land, covered with a blanket of spring poppies, and wrote a poem.  After finishing it, he threw it away, but his commanding officer retrieved it.  It reads as follows:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; And in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead.  Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

*****

Ralph DePalma and His Riding Mechanic Louis Fontaine Under the Checkered Flag

The fifth International 500-mile Sweepstakes Race was held May 31 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  The winning driver was Ralph DePalma, who drove his Mercedes automobile at an average speed of 89.8 miles per hour, more than seven miles per hour faster than the previous record.

Edison and His Telescribe

The inventor Thomas A. Edison announced on May 23 that he had perfected an instrument he calls the telescribe, a combination of the telephone and phonograph designed to record telephone conversations.  A second receiver is connected to each telephone and makes a record of what is said on a wax cylinder.  A stenographer plays back the recording, writes it out, and copies are exchanged for confirmation, facilitating a process that at present might require many weeks and multiple exchanges of correspondence.  By giving both parties to a telephone conversation a phonographic record of what has been said, Mr. Edison believes his invention will eliminate the necessity for millions of letters that are now required every year for making and recording business agreements.  Another potential use of the telescribe is that, if the person being called is not available, it can be used to leave messages to be listened to later.

Governor Whitman

In July 1912, mobster Herman Rosenthal was on his way to meet with Manhattan District Attorney Charles Whitman when he was gunned down in front of the Hotel Metropole.  The trigger men were arrested, convicted and sent to the electric chair.  Charles Becker, a corrupt police lieutenant accused of having ordered the killing to keep Rosenthal from informing, was also arrested, convicted and sentenced to death, but his conviction was overturned when the appellate court found the trial judge guilty of bias and numerous trial errors.  District Attorney Whitman, convinced of Becker's guilt, pursued the case to a second trial and again succeeded in obtaining a conviction.  (For more background on the Rosenthal murder case, see the August and October 1912 and the March and April 1914 installments of this blog.)  On May 25 the New York Court of Appeals (New York's highest court) affirmed Becker's conviction and death sentence.  His only hope now is a reprieve from the governor.  Unfortunately for Becker, the new governor is Charles Whitman.

May 1915 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading

Contemporary Periodicals:

American Review of Reviews, June and July 1915

New York Herald, May 1915
New York Times, May 1915

Books and Articles:

A. Scott Berg, Wilson
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt

Patrick Devlin, Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson's Neutrality

David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History

Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume III: The Challenge of War, 1914-1916

Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig, Decisions for War, 1914-1917

August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography

Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House
John Keegan, The First World War
Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War
Erik Larson, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

Arthur S. Link, Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914-1915

Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917

Robert K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918

J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War

Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram 

Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts
Stanley Weintraub, Young Mr. Roosevelt: FDR's Introduction to War, Politics, and Life