Today -100: November 26, 1911: Of secession, bathtub trust, duels, suffrage babies, unnecessary lynchings, and un-naked savages

Oaxaca state secedes from Mexico, or at any rate its Legislature and governor refuse to recognize the Madero government.

There are great plans to celebrate 100 years of peace between Britain and the US in 1915. I predict that 1915 will be all about peace.

Headline of the Day -100: “Against Bathtub Trust.”

Another duel related to Marie Curie. This time, at last, one of the duellists is the dude alleged to be having the affair with her, Prof. Langevin. Pathetically, both parties fired their pistols into the air. (Headline: “Curie Duel a Fizzle.”)

Members of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association will hold a “suffrage baby show” at the county fair, to show that suffragists can raise pretty babies, or something. There will also be a cooking contest. This must be some definition of feminism with which I am not familiar.

Kaiser Wilhelm II catches a cold driving an open automobile. He likes driving fast. Mrs. Kaiser can’t stop him, but she did stop him going up in a dirigible or down in a submarine, because she never lets him have any fun.

The NYT Sunday magazine section has a lengthy article about Alabama Governor Emmet O’Neal’s views about the current state of the South, under the headline “Lynching Unnecessary, Says Alabama’s Governor.” He says that whites used to be “compelled” to use violence to maintain “law and order” (Define law. Define order.) before the state’s 1901 constitution, whose literacy tests and poll taxes effectively disfranchised most blacks (and a lot of poor whites) in the state, leaving almost no voters at all in the 14 Black Belt counties. O’Neal says that blacks’ failure since then to acquire the education and cash necessary to vote in Alabama shows they really aren’t interested in voting, and indeed their failure to pay the poll tax just proves them “unfit to vote” (or that they know that “literacy tests” administered by racist fucks like yourself will mean it would just be a waste of $1.50.) He bemoans that blacks are leaving agriculture, where they are “more contented and freer from crime” and “most easily controlled.” He says the South went prohibition to keep booze away from blacks, not because blacks are natural alcoholics, but because the quality of the alcohol sold to them was so bad. He says lynching has died out in Alabama because of a provision in the 1901 constitution allowing governors to remove sheriffs who allow lynchings to take place (O’Neal has used this provision once). Mob violence is “no necessity in any Southern state,” he says.

The LAT reports the great news out of our newest colony, the Philippines: “A million naked savages are putting on dresses or pantaloons. Gory head-hunters are washing their hands and going to work.” They’re even wearing shoes and tucking in their shirts now. So conquering them was totally worth it.