Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Duchess Sophie’s funeral is a small affair, presumably because of some combination of security concerns and the emperor being too old and feeble to deal with a larger one. 120 or so pissed-off non-invited nobles decide to march in the funeral procession, whether they were invited or not. Those among them holding court offices threaten to resign if they’re stopped, so it was thought best not to arrest them. Some of them were angry at the way the Habsburgs always treated Sophie on account of her only being Czech nobility. Beyond the whole morganatic marriage thing, she wasn’t allowed to eat at the same table with her husband at state dinners, and other minor slights. Emperor Franz Josef writes to the prime ministers of Austria and Hungary: “the fanaticism of a small band of misguided men cannot shake the sacred ties that bind me to my people. ... For 65 years I have shared with my people joy and sorrow, mindful, even in the gloomiest hours, of my high duties and my responsibility for the destinies of the millions for whom I am answerable to the Almighty.” That comes darn close to the Divine Right of Kings.
The late archduke, in his military role, was behind an ongoing attempt to railroad (so to speak) an American employee of the Canadian Pacific Railway, who is being charged with promoting desertion from the Austro-Hungarian army (that is, emigration by ordinary Austrian men to Canada).
Headline of the Day -100: “Germany Distrusts Russia.”
Futurist Headline of the Day -100: “Futurist Leader Angry. British Public Stupid and Hostile, Marinetti Declares.”
Mexico is holding presidential elections, which everybody knows can’t be held in enough districts to meet the requirements of the constitution. It is thought that Huerta is using it as an excuse to name someone else (Pedro Lascurain) as president, allowing him to step down with some pretense of honor and then leave very quickly for Europe.
Yale Latin-American history professor Hiram Bingham (and was there ever a more Yale-professor-y name than Hiram Bingham? I think not), the guy who recently discovered Machu Picchu, says in his new book, “The Monroe Doctrine, an Obsolete Shibboleth,” that the Doctrine should be dropped in favor of an alliance between the US and the ABC countries, Argentina, Brazil and Chile, to protect (i.e., invade) the weaker countries in the Western Hemisphere, and stop them from being “Orientalized.” He’s horrified that Brazil and Argentina, rather than developing the enlightened racism of California, have been welcoming Japanese farmers. In 1924, Prof. Bingham will be elected governor of Connecticut in November and US senator in December.
A bomb being prepared by some IWW members to kill John D. Rockefeller Jr. explodes prematurely in a NYC tenement building, killing 4 (3 Wobblies and the girlfriend of one of them) and injuring 20.
Striking ice-wagon drivers in St. Louis fight scabs.
The Cherokee nation is legally dissolved.
Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Milwaukee’s Girl-Man.” Following a recent Supreme Court decision defining common law marriage, the creditors of Mamie White are suing Ralph Kerwinelo, saying that by posing as her husband, Ralph assumed the legal liabilities of a husband, even though Ralph is actually a woman whose real name is Cora Anderson. Cora/Ralph is also being sued by the creditors of Dorothy Kleinowski, who she recently married (real, not common law) under Wisconsin’s new eugenic marriage law, which failed to specify gender.
Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan turns down the offer of a famous sculptor to make a life mask of him or, as the LA Times puts it, “Refuses to Allow Mouth to Be Closed By Plaster.”
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