Today -100: June 2, 1914: They do not seem to be aware of the fact that the Constitutionalists are conquerors

The ABC envoys tell the Constitutionalists that they’ll only be allowed to attend the Niagara conference if they have a cease-fire with the federales and agree to everything the negotiators have already decided.

The Constitutionalists respond to the conference’s proposed commission to run Mexico with a resounding, not to say contemptuous, no: “They do not seem to be aware of the fact that the Constitutionalists are conquerors, that they have inaugurated and carried almost to successful completion a revolution, and that this means the establishment of a government entitled to recognition by the rest of the world.”

The goal of the failed military mutiny against Huerta seems to have been to grab the dynamite stored at the Mexico City citadel, which Huerta intends to use to blow up city if it falls into the hands of the rebels. Swell.

Mexican government employees, told that they will be required to take up arms and go to the front, are fleeing Mexico City, hoping to get to Cuba or anywhere.

A private in the 19th Infantry, currently occupying Vera Cruz, marries a local girl. A couple of ensigns are punished for letting the couple use a Navy launch for the ceremony (so they could be married under the American flag).

The Free Speech League, an offshoot of the Wobblies, demands permits to speak in Tarrytown, NY. The village president says he will have none of the IWW’s brand of so-called free speech in Tarrytown. Leonard Abbott, president of the League, says they will fight to the finish. Tarrytown plans to turn firehoses on them, as was the custom. State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Thompkins says that the “guise of free speech” gives no men, “no professional agitators or mischief makers the right to encourage the vicious, idle, and lay to acts of violence. ... It gives no one the right to disturb the peace of the Sabbath day”.

British suffragettes burn a church in Wargrave built in 1538. The vicar, who I swear is named the Rev. Basil Batty, runs into the flames to rescue a few of the church’s ancient ornaments. A note is left: “Stop persecuting women.”

Congress agrees to exempt labor unions and farmers’ cooperatives from the new anti-trust bill, by a vote of 207-0.

Yet another French government resigns. Not for nothin’, but from the start of 1913 through the start of World War I, France had six foreign ministers.

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