Today -100: July 14, 1914: Of bread and water, false, infamous prophets, awe, and scary imaginary Arabs

At the penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island, anarchist prisoner Frank Tannenbaum gives up his leadership of the rebellion, which is what 130 hours in solitary with 8 slices of bread to eat will do. The warden is still putting pressure on prisoners to name ringleaders, saying “Isn’t it funny that you have to starve a prisoner to get anything out of him. In the business world you give a man a good meal to get anything out of him. The stomach is the indicator in either case.”

The Mexican government hires 400 people to repair the railroad between Mexico City and Vera Cruz, presumably in order to secure Huerta’s escape route.

Headline of the Day -100: “Favorite of Czar Stabbed by Woman.” Yup, this is one of the assassination attempts on Rasputin. The woman, Khioniya Gusyeva, who will be locked up in an asylum, tells the police, “I wish to remove from this world that false, infamous prophet who has led so many people astray, and who has falsely instructed the Czar on countless questions.” Sounds pretty sane to me. She stabbed Raspy in the abdomen and it is thought he will not survive but, as we know, Rasputin was a bugger to kill.

Other Headline of the Day -100: “Marines Will Awe Island Republics.” With disturbances in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Woodrow Wilson sends 700 marines to Guantanamo to be on hand in case he wants to invade either or both countries. (If that “awe” thing isn’t sufficiently clear in its racism, an editorial tomorrow will say “we must do something for our little brothers” – and that something is to establish a “modified protectorate” over them.

A captain in the French Foreign Legion stationed in Algeria, “hallucinating” that Arabs were torturing his wife and three children, killed them (his family, not the Arabs, there were no Arabs), and then himself.

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