Today -100: November 20, 1912: But the men must be bored

Woodrow Wilson, on vacation in Bermuda, says he’s actually beginning to forget politics. Don’t worry, Tom, politics hasn’t forgotten you.

Peace talks begin in the First Balkan War. However, the allies’ terms call for Turkey to surrender places the allies didn’t succeed in capturing, including Adrianople and Scutari, so we’ll see. Cholera has everyone worried, though the NYT claims that “Mussulman fatalism makes a cholera epidemic a less important factor” to the Ottomans than to the Bulgarians.

Headline of the Day -100 (LAT): “Peace News Hurts Wheat.”

The annual luncheon of the NY anti-women’s suffrage society came to grips with the problem of how to assert themselves politically to argue against asserting themselves politically. Said the president, Mrs. William Putnam, “It is high time there should be no silent women, though that sounds bad for an anti-suffragist.” “Let every man you meet know that you are an anti-suffragist. Never sit at dinner beside a man without letting him know that you are an anti-suffragist. ... I have been afraid of boring people, but the men must be bored. Tell every carpenter and every man who works for you.” Mrs. Martha McCullouch Williams said, “It is a woman’s duty to be delightful, ornamental, and useful, and she could not be more so with the vote. If she had it she would not know what to do with it. Where the ballot is placed in the hands of those unfit to use it there follows ruin, rapine, and terror. ... Woman is no more fit for the ballot than to be a trapeze performer or bareback rider.”

Noted in the LAT: they referred to Thanksgiving as Turkey Day even back then.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.