Today -100: May 7, 1914: Of disappointing votes, salutes, sawmills, rivers, and fear conferences

The House of Lords votes down the women’s suffrage bill 60-104. The Times of London warns that women would find the vote “profoundly disappointing,” which would lead to further demands – and the same methods. They would demand to sit in Parliament, then to govern the country, then who knows what.

The British Boy Scouts refuse to take part in the Empire Day parade if Girl Guides are included.

The Mexican rebels are attacking Mazatlan.

American war vessels off Vera Cruz fire their guns, scaring everyone in Vera Cruz, but it was just a salute to honor the accession of King George of England, which is totally a thing you’d do in a country you’re at war with.

Theodore Roosevelt has lost 55 pounds on his trek through the Amazon, which just shows the benefits of poor planning, starvation, and tropical diseases.

Facing a British ultimatum, Haiti pays $62,000 to a British subject whose sawmill burned down during one of Haiti’s weekly revolutions.

Leo Frank’s motion for a new trial is rejected. It will now go to the Georgia Supreme Court.

California is about to have its first Hindu naturalized citizen, Sakharen Ganesh Pandit, a lecturer on Hindu philosophy, yoga etc who has gone through several courts, which finally decided he was Caucasian. In the 1920s, the US government began revoking citizenships granted to Indians (invalidating their marriages to American citizens). Pandit, now a lawyer, argued his own case before the Supreme Court, winning in 1927 and ending the denaturalization policy.

English geographers doubt that Theodore Roosevelt really discovered a thousand-mile-long river.

Headline of the Day -100: “Fear Conference Will Fail.” Here is a brief excerpt from the minutes of the Fear Conference:

Mr. Lovecraft, delegate from Rhode Island: “Tentacles! So many tentacles.”

And your Movie of the Day -100: In “A Busy Day” (aka “A Militant Suffragette”), released 100 years ago, Charlie Chaplin dons his familiar... well, okay, he’s in drag, and it’s not all that good slapstick, but there are a couple of seconds of him twerking in front of a band that I liked.

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