Today -100: August 21, 1910: Of Republican in-fighting and castles

Taft’s people have been claiming, truthfully or not I cannot say, that he didn’t even know about the scheme of the New York Old Guard Republicans to defeat Roosevelt as temporary chairman of the party convention in favor of VP Sherman (it should be noted that TR and Sherman were both New Yorkers). Nevertheless, the break between Taft and TR seems to be complete.

Speaking of Sherman, the House committee investigating Indian land contracts in Oklahoma exonerates him of having anything to do with the attempt to bribe Sen. Thomas Gore. It’s not clear how hard they really tried to find out the truth.

At an air meet in New York, a Lt. J.E. Fickel fired a rifle at a target on the ground from aviator Glenn Curtiss’s plane. This was the first time gunfire ever emanated from an airplane (but not the last). Fickel missed by six feet.

Kaiser Wilhelm is opening a big new imperial castle in Posen, Poland, a symbol of German control of Poland. The Polish nobility will be staying away from the dedication ceremony in droves. A new law in German Poland bans public political meetings held in Polish or any other language than German.