Today -100: December 13, 1911: Of women mayors, treaties, setting the nation shaking, pensions, peace, and durbars

Mayor Samuel Shank of Indianapolis told the Restricted Equal Suffrage Association (a women’s suffrage group whose name I strongly suspect the NYT got wrong) that, just for the hell of it, he’d appoint one of them to serve in his place the next time he was out of town. So the Association has chosen Dr. Hannah Graham. Only it seems that Shank didn’t really mean it, and is surprised to be taken seriously, and doesn’t intend to leave town, and if he did he’d probably just appoint his wife.

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs supports a resolution to abrogate the 1832 treaty with Russia due to Russia’s exclusion of American Jews, because they hate hate hate racism. Also, they just realized that ethnic Chinese inhabitants of Russia could emigrate to the US and they hate hate hate Chinese immigrants.

A National Protest Committee is formed to send a pilgrimage of 5,000 to 10,000 negroes to Washington to demand the suppression of lynching. The president of the Committee, Rev. Mark Harris, notes that while 12 million negroes have hitherto been unable to stop lynching, a mere handful of Jews have managed to “set the Nation shaking” with their protest about Russia.

The House passes the “Dollar a Day” pension bill, giving veterans of the Mexican-American or Civil Wars pensions of as much as $30 a month. Socialist congresscritter Victor Berger offers an amendment pensions for everyone over 60, saying it was the only way to get the idea before the House.

Headline of the Day -100: “Germans Seize Peace Meeting.” A meeting in Carnegie Hall in support of the arbitration treaties between the US and Britain and France was disrupted and shouted down by a bunch of Germans led by one Alphonse Koelble (with a Germanic turned-up mustache) of the German-American Citizens’ League, who said they were a “lot of dubs” trying to “knife” Germany.

King George V and Queen Mary, crowned emperor and empress of India in Delhi, announce that the capital of the Raj is moving from Calcutta to Delhi. The emperor wore a robe of imperial purple, white satin breaches, and a crown with diamonds studded with emeralds, rubies and sapphires that sounds like it was worth more than the city of Calcutta, so I’m not sure how thankfully the news that the new King-Emperor was graciously donating 50 lakhs of rupees to education was really greeted. Here’s a contemporary newsreel:



And here’s some rather horse-centric footage from the 2002 tv series “The British Empire in Colour.”