Today -100: February 27, 1912: Down with the fools!

Two near casualties of the turmoil in Mexico: employees of a London phosphate company on Clipperton Island, a French possession (which Mexico also claimed) in the Pacific Ocean 600 miles off Acapulco (today it’s uninhabited). The Mexican government forgot to send a scheduled supply ship.

Charles Maurras, editor of the far-right newspaper L’Action Française, duels (with swords) the editor of L’Autorité, Paul de Cassagnac. When French editors edit, they fucking edit! Maurras is wounded in the arm but sadly is not hurt more seriously. He will duel Cassagnac’s brother Guy next.

Someone leaks the private letter Roosevelt sent Taft a year ago offering to raise and lead a cavalry regiment if the US went to war with Mexico.

A man dressed like a clergyman fires a gun in the lobby of the British Houses of Parliament, shouting “Votes for women! Down with the fools!” Samuel Henry also claimed the government had suppressed his book, “Tolstoy on the Messiah.” At his trial he said that firing a gun in the air is “a simple, straightforward way of drawing attention to a fact.” The magistrate replied, “That is not the proper way to do it.”