Today -100: November 7, 1914: We cannot see beyond the range of our guns

As the Turko-Russian war heats up, Russian newspapers have started calling Constantinople “Tzargrad.”

Woodrow Wilson declares the US neutral in the war between Britain and Turkey.  Jeez, we get it, you’re neutral already.

Germany surrenders the port of Tsing-tau to Japan after a 65-day siege.

Turkey’s chief religious leader, the Sheik-ul-Islam, decrees that it is the religious duty of all Muslims to fight Russia, France and Britain.  Yup, jihad.

Headline of the Day -100:  “English Eat Grapefruit.”

Britain is intercepting shipments of copper from the United States to Italian ports but intended, Britain says, for the German war machine.  All ships bound for Italy are being diverted to Gibraltar and copper removed.  American copper magnates say it’s just an excuse for Britain to create a monopoly in copper manufacturing.

George Bernard Shaw writes an open letter to Woodrow Wilson, asking him to request Britain, France and Germany all withdraw from Belgium and fight their war (which he calls “the quaint absurdity of a war waged formally between the German Kaiser, the German Czar, the German King of the Belgians, the German King of England, the German Emperor of Austria, and a gentleman who shares with you the distinction of not being related to any of them and is therefore describable monarchically as one Poincaré, Frenchman”) on their own territories.  He is appealing to the US because “We cannot be just.  We cannot see beyond the range of our guns.  The roar of the shrapnel deafens us; the black smoke of the howitzer blinds us.  And what these do to our bodily senses our passions do to our imaginations.  For justice we must do as the mediaeval cities did – call in a stranger.”

Montana suffragists are concerned that the delay in election returns from Anaconda might be part of a dirty trick to defeat the women’s suffrage referendum.  Evidently the poll workers just... forgot to count votes on the propositions. I mostly mention this because it’s the first time I’ve seen the name of future Congresscritter Jeanette Rankin, now the president of the Montana Equal Suffrage Association, in a newspaper (the LA Times).

Although on the same page they mis-spell the name of Frances Munds, an Arizona suffrage activist just elected to the state Legislature from Yavapai County, the first woman legislator in Arizona.

The NYT reports on a women’s suffrage meeting in Carnegie Hall, and for once doesn’t describe what a single one of the women speakers was wearing.  Is that even legal?

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