Sept. 29, 1909 (Wednesday)

CREELMAN TRIES TO EXPOSE GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED KILLINGS IN TURKEY:
As promised in yesterday's Globe, an article by James Creelman (left) appears in today's paper -- under the headline "Creelman in Damascus: Moslems Not Punished for Their Crime Against Christianity." Creelman -- in one of his typical "journalism that acts" efforts -- describes in great detail -- but without the helpful stamp of quotes from identified witnesses -- the circumstances surrounding recent mass killings of Christians in the Cilician Plain of Turkey. The details of his writing are chilling. I wish they were more convincing. However, his final paragraph is worth noting -- in light of events of the next decade and the next 100 years:
It may be, and probably is, true -- I am myself convinced of it -- that the new constitutional government aims to establish peace and equality between all races and religions. But, unless a conference of the Christian nations insists upon the punishment of the men who are really responsible for the massacre, and warns Turkey against a repetition of such a crime, the murderous Moslem hordes of Asia Minor will probably continue to regard the theories of the constitutionalists as idle sentimentality; and at the first upset of the government there will be another slaughter of Christians.

HEADLINE WAS CORRECT; THE TOWN IN MAINE DID GET FLOODED:
Today's Globe tells of a disaster that's about to strike Katahdin Iron Works in Maine. The village has basically been cleared out because people are sure the dam at the foot of Silver Lake is about to break. In what is perhaps a great understatement, the paper reports, "The fact that the dam burst seven years ago and caused great damage adds terror to the situation."
The flood did strike, later in the day (the 29th). Today's paper reports that water rose one foot every hour in the afternoon of the 28th.



"YOU'VE GOT MAIL" -- BUT TO GET IT, WOMEN MUST GIVE THEIR REAL NAMES TO THE POST OFFICE IN CHICAGO: The people at the general delivery window at the Chicago post office have convinced 3,000 women to reveal their TRUE NAMES and TRUE ADDRESSES so they can received mail at the window. The women -- many doing so under great protest -- have been forced to sign "cards of identification," which will be kept on file. The policy -- which was enforced Sept. 27 for the first time -- (according to today's Globe) "tears away part of the veil of secrecy under which many a clandestine correspondence has been carried on through the medium of the general delivery window."
In a paraphrase, the Globe says the main postal inspector thinks the plan "will produce a reform for which urgent demand recently has gone up from ministers, reform leagues and others working for THE CITY'S PURIFICATION" [emphasis added].
So much for the use of the equivalent of bogus screen names.