Today -100: February 8, 1912: No hurry indeed

President Taft drops 8th Circuit judge William Cather Hook from consideration for the vacant Supreme Court seat. He had pretty much made up his mind for Hook but opposition arose because of his upholding of Jim Crow laws in Oklahoma.

Kaiser Wilhelm gave the traditional opening speech to the newly elected Reichstag. Unlike in Britain, they have to come to him in his palace to hear it. But the Socialists, one-fourth of the MPs, didn’t. Willy demanded a bigger army and a bigger navy.

It is reported that Germany’s war contingency plans call for sending all 50 military airplanes on a bombing raid on Paris the minute war is declared.

Headline of the Day -100: “No Hurry to Talk Peace.” The 3rd Peace Conference has been re-scheduled for 1915.

Turkey orders the closing of all Italian institutions in Turkey, including banks, insurance companies and an orphanage.

The Russian Duma asks the minister of interior why he illegally ordered newspapers not to write anything about Rasputin and why he seized those two newspapers for doing so. Also, a bishop and an abbot who Rasputin doesn’t like were ordered into exile.

Condescending Racist Headline of the Day -100: “Chinaman a Journalist Now. Anyway, He Has a Degree from the University of Missouri That Says So.” And a job as a, you know, journalist. Hin Wong, raised in Hawaii, plans to move to China (where he will indeed be a journalist until his death in Hong Kong in 1939).