Today -100: August 15, 1910: Of trolleys, cayenne dough balls, popes and ladies with lamps

Violence in Columbus all day related to the trolley strike, with many rocks thrown. Also cayenne dough balls. And attempts to dynamite car sheds. Business groups are demanding the governor remove Mayor George Marshall from office for supposedly instigating the strike. The mayor has called for 2,000 volunteers to join the police force to put down disorder; precisely 0 have done so. The police have decided to stop arresting scabs who carry guns; “In consequence there was much firing by the strikebreakers to-day.”

The pope told a prominent (but unnamed) visitor that the Vatican doesn’t even have to respond to the government of Spain, because loyalty to the Church is such that PM Canalejas, who the pope said betrayed the Spanish nation, is likely to be removed by the Cortes. (Spoiler alert: he won’t be. He will continue in office two more years, until he is assassinated by anarchists).

Florence Nightingale dies. She was 90.