Today -100: March 4, 1915: We will fight, but we must have potatoes

Gen. Obregon threatens to take his troops and leave Mexico City at the first sign of rioting, rather than be forced to fire on “the hungry multitude” in order to protect merchants who he says refused his “invitation” to assist the people. Others point out that it is his army which commandeered the food supply of Mexico City, shut down the railroads, etc.

British warships are still destroying Turkish forts at the Dardanelles, firing from beyond the range of the forts’ guns.

Potato shortage in Berlin. Socialists to SPD Reichstag deputy Eduard Bernstein says, “We will fight, but we must have potatoes.”

Germany reduces the bread/flour ration from 225 grammes per person to 200.

The Ship Purchase bill is killed in the Senate by a Republican filibuster on the last day of the session.

Retiring Sen. Elihu Root (R-NY) complains about the Senate eliminating the Navy Department’s Plucking Board, which chose candidates for forcible retirement, without replacing it with anything, “leaving a lot of men in command whom a former president of the United States once described to me as a lot of wheezy, onion-eyed, old stuffed puddings.” I’m gonna take a wild case that the unnamed former president then said “Bully!”

Headline of the Day -100:  “Greatest Mountain Battle. Snow in Carpathians So Deep the Dead Remain Standing.”

Headline of the Day -100:  “For Permissive Widows’ Pensions.” Permissive widows are the best kind.

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