Today -100: June 28, 1914: The blood of the murdered is on his head

After a fact-finding visit to Albania, George Fred Williams, the US ambassador to Greece and Montenegro, resigns so he can freely speak out against Prince William of Albania, who “has no more right than I have in Albania, and the blood of the murdered is on his head.” He thinks there is currently no real government in Albania, or rather five of them (the 6 Great Powers, the commission controlling civil government, Dutch soldiers controlling military government, the prince, and the powerless Cabinet). He says the prince’s government “has shown skill and success in one respect only: It has been able to prevail upon the various religious and racial forces of Albania to set upon each other with murderous purpose.” Williams wants Albania to have a decentralized cantonal system, like Switzerland’s. Just remove the foreign warships and withdraw the foreign armies and Albania “will not be a menace to the peace of the Balkans. If they be allowed a trial nobody but themselves can be harmed should they fail in self-government.”

France is selling off some islands near Corsica it isn’t using any more. French newspapers are worried Italy might buy them.

A case of bubonic plague is discovered in New Orleans, as was the custom.

The Russian government has been working with (presumably bribing) the British press to shore up the alliance between the two countries. Which might explain why four London papers recently defended Russia’s anti-Semitic policies in similar terms, explaining that restrictions on Jewish residence are merely to protect Russian peasants from Jewish peddling, liquor dealing and usury.

How They Died 100 Years Ago: A Mrs. A.H. Miller of Woodcliff Heights, New Jersey buys a goose and heads home on her horse-drawn wagon. As they’re crossing a bridge the goose honks, the horse panics and breaks through the guard rail. Mrs. Miller, the horse, the wagon, and the goose all go into the reservoir. Mrs. Miller and the horse drown, the goose is unharmed.... for now.

Theodore Roosevelt is suffering from, ahem, jungle fever.

In November, Arizona voters will face a large number of propositions, including ones to ban employers asking prospective employees about criminal records; ban mines employing more than 20% non-Americans; establish mothers’ and old-peoples’ pensions; and abolish the State Senate.

English suffragist Margaret Stockman of Hampstead has written a will disinheriting her son in favor of her daughter unless there is women’s suffrage when the will goes into effect.

Headline of the Day -100: “Knock King’s Hat Askew.” This time the suffragettes have gone TOO FAR!

You can argue about the effectiveness of those sort of militant tactics, but at least they get noticed. An A.P. report in the LA Times today -100 is entitled “Many Women of English Nobility Have Affiliated With New Women’s Organization in London.” The “new” National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies was in fact founded in 1897, and it united local groups some of which dated back to the 1860s. It’s also the largest suffrage group in Britain, but the A.P. has apparently never heard of it before because its members only holds meetings, petitions, supports Labour candidates, etc and don’t burn anything down.

In the US, suffragists from the 10 women’s suffrage states go to Washington to talk to members of congress and others. Speaker Champ Clark tells them women’s suffrage is as “inevitable as the rising of tomorrow’s sun” (one of the lobbyists is his daughter Genevieve). Vice President Marshall says his wife won’t let him support women’s suffrage. William Jennings Bryan ran into an elevator when he saw the suffragists coming.

Prince Humbert (age 10), starting on his career in the Italian Navy, faints while watching a bullfight (for some reason watching a bullfight is part of his training for the navy). The queen wants him returned home but the king says, “My son must not be a muff.”

The commander of Germany’s 15th Army Corps wants to ban beer evenings paid for out of the canteen surplus. He thinks the soldiers would appreciate much more some non-alcoholic beverages and an excursion to a battlefield.

That theory will be tested soon.

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