Massacre

Massacre (pronounced mas-uh-ker)

(1) The unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings or animals, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder.

(2) A general slaughter, as of persons or animals:

(3) In informal use, a crushing defeat, especially in sports.

(4) In the slang of political discourse, referring to the sudden dismissal of a number of people from office or a large electoral defeat.

1575–1585: From the Middle French massacre, noun derivative of massacrer, from the Old French maçacrer & macecler (slaughterhouse; butchery, slaughter), probably from the unattested Vulgar Latin matteūcculāre, a verbal derivative of the unattested matteūca (mallet) from the Middle French massacrer.  The Latin link is better described as speculative, the ultimate origin possible macellum (provisions store, butcher shop), probably related to mactāre (to kill, slaughter).  Confusingly, there’s also the Latin mazacrium (massacre, slaughter, killing), used also to describe “the head of a newly killed stag”.  The Middle Low German was matskelen (to massacre), the German is metzeln, (massacre), frequentative of matsken & matzgen (to cut, hew), from the Proto-West Germanic maitan, from the Proto-Germanic maitaną (to cut), from the Primitive Indo-European mei- (small).  It was akin to the Old High German meizan (to cut) and in the Arabic مَجْزَرَة‎ (majzara) was originally a “spot where animals are slaughtered” which now means also “massacre” and in Maghrebi Arabic “slaughterhouse”.   The source for both was جَزَرَ‎ (jazara) (to cut, slaughter).  The familiar meaning "to kill many indiscriminately” dates from the 1580s, commonly in reference to those who are not in a condition to defend themselves but by the mid-seventeenth century, it was used also to suggest "to murder cruelly" even if there was but a single victim.  Both uses persist to this day.  Massacre is both noun & verb, massacrer a now rare noun and massacred is an adjective.

The Saturday Night Massacre, 20 October 1973

The Saturday Night Massacre is a term coined to describe the events of 20 October 1973 when US President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) ordered the sacking of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox (1912-2004), then investigating the Watergate scandal.  In addition to Cox, that evening saw also the departure of Attorney General Elliot Richardson (1920-1999) and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus (1932-2019).  Richardson had appointed Cox in May, fulfilling an undertaking to the House Judiciary Committee that a special prosecutor would investigate the events surrounding the break-in of the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) offices at the Watergate Hotel in 1972.  The appointment was made under the ex-officio authority of the attorney general who could remove the special prosecutor only for extraordinary and reprehensible conduct.  Cox soon issued a demand that Nixon hand over copies of taped conversations recorded in the Oval Office; the president refused to comply and by Friday, a stalemate existed between White House and Department of Justice and all Washington assumed there would be a break in the legal maneuvering while the town closed-down for the weekend.

Before the massacre.  Attorney-General Elliot Richardson, President Richard Nixon and FBI Director-Designate Clarence Kelly (1911-1997).

However, on Saturday, Nixon ordered Richardson to fire Cox.  Richardson refused and resigned in protest. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox.  Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned.  Nixon then ordered Solicitor General Robert Bork (1927-2012), as acting head of the Justice Department, to fire Cox; while both Richardson and Ruckelshaus had given personal assurances to congressional committees they would not interfere, Bork had not.  Brought to the White House in a black Cadillac limousine and sworn in as acting attorney-general, Bork wrote the letter firing Cox; thus ended the Saturday Night Massacre.  Perhaps the most memorable coda to the affair was Richardson’s memorable post-resignation address to staff at the Department of Justice, delivered the Monday morning following the "massacre".  Richardson had often been spoken of as a potential Republican nominee for the presidency and some nineteen years later, he would tell the Washington Post: “If I had any demagogic impulse... there was a crowd... but I deliberately throttled back.” His former employees responded with “an enthusiastic and sustained ovation.”  Within a week of the Saturday Night Massacre, resolutions of impeachment against the president were introduced in Congress although the House Judiciary Committee did not approve its first article of impeachment until 27 July the following year when it charged Nixon with obstruction of justice.  Nixon resigned less than two weeks later, on 8 August 1974.

Massacres figurative and not

Even in the age of trigger warnings, “massacre” remains a word headline writers find hard to resist and it is luring enough click-bait to have survived into the world of the internet.  The most popular event to which to allude is the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, an ambush on Saint Valentine's Day 1929 by Chicago gangsters during which seven competitors in the business of running bootleg liquor (prohibition applied in the US between 1920-1933) were murdered by being put up against a wall and shot.  Later though came the Saint Patrick’s Day massacre which, although not without violence, was, like Richard Nixon’s attempt to solve the Watergate “problem”, a figurative use.  On 17 March 1991, the National Hockey League (the NHL, the premier ice hockey competition) teams the Chicago Blackhawks and the St Louis Blues played a match still unmatched for its injury count and mayhem, the official statistics (which commentators at the time suggested understated things) recording 278 penalty minutes, 12 major penalties, 17 misconducts and 12 ejections.  Remarkably, only three players were later suspended for their actions but in 1991 there was more tolerance for on-rink violence.  The Blackhawks won the game 6-4.

The Murdoch tabloid the New York Post certainly couldn’t resist “Saint Patrick’s Day massacre” as the headline for a review of a film (Irish Wish (2024)) set in Ireland and rated (grudgingly it would seem) with a miserable one-star.  Really, considering how many newsstand sales the Post gained from Lindsay Lohan’s misspent youth early in the century, their movie reviewer should return the favour and wear some rose-tinted spectacles when watching her films.