Today -100: June 12, 1910: Of homesteads and savages

Taft opens up federal lands in Colorado and Wyoming to homesteading, to prevent Americans emigrating to the Canadian north-west.

Creepy Headline of the Day -100: “Japan To Wipe Out Savages.” The aborigines of Formosa. Okay, headhunters, but when one group of people is announcing plans to “wipe out” another group of people, a little self-reflection might be appropriate before affixing the word savages. Here’s the New York Times’s opinion: “As the Japanese appear unable to enter into any lasting truce with them or induce them to submit to civilization, there seems nothing for it now bu war to the knife, which means extermination of the wretches.” Or they could, you know, stop trying to colonize the Formosans’ land.