Today -100: May 6, 1914: Of mediation, suffrage, crucifixions, and circuses

A date is set for the ABC mediation of the US-Mexico contretemps:
two weeks from now, at Niagra Falls, Canada. It remains to be seen if the Constitutionalists will be represented. The ABC countries want to settle all issues in Mexico, but may have to settle for mediating between the US and the Huerta Junta, presumably over just how many guns should be fired to salute the American flag, if anyone still remembers that that’s what this is all supposed to be about.

It’s not only in the Huerta camp that there are intrigues. Pancho Villa replaces a Constitutionalist governor of Chihuahua, Mañuel Chao, who was supposedly conspiring against him, although it sounds like the real cause was that Chao expropriated the property of one of Villa’s friends, after Villa asked him not to, and gave it to one of his own friends. After Chao refused to leave office, Villa went to Chihuahua to fire him personally, and by fire I mean punch.

A women’s suffrage bill is introduced in the British House of Lords. It would give the parliamentary vote to women already eligible for the municipal vote (local ratepayers, about 1 million women). Lord Curzon, the former viceroy of India, says it would hurt relations between the sexes and Britain’s prestige in the world. He helpfully adds that non-militant suffragists could stop the militant outrages by merely giving up all suffrage work for six months.

250 Muslims are reportedly crucified in Albania by the Epirotes (Greeks).

Woodrow Wilson goes to the circus.

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