Today -100: September 25, 1914: Of common colds and common foes

Theodore Roosevelt is campaigning in New York for the Progressive candidate for US senate, Raymond Robins, a former coalminer, cowboy, union organizer, lawyer and Alaska gold prospector, among other professions.  His sister Elizabeth is an actress, writer and suffrage activist living in England, where she was the first English-language Hedda Gabler.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Kaiser Has a Cold.”  The poor dear caught the sniffles visiting soldiers near Verdun.  (Update: three days later the Times claims he fell into a water-logged trench.  As was the custom).

The Germans are using one of the lesser-mentioned but deadly twentieth-century military innovations: searchlights.

Emmeline Pankhurst gives a recruitment speech, saying that a war to crush militarism has the approval of suffragettes.  I can think of a few suffragettes who don’t approve the war, not least her daughter Sylvia.  Mrs P: “When the proper time comes, we shall resume that fight, but for the present we must all do our best to fight a common foe.”

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