Today -100: November 2, 1915: Of voting men, diverting divorces, fetishes, and sous

Headline of the Day -100: 

The New York women’s suffrage referendum. More voters have registered this year than for last year’s gubernatorial election (evidently New Yorkers had to register every single election, which sounds like a major pain in the ass).

The German military governor of Brussels, Gen. von Sauberzweig, is removed, evidently because of his mishandling of the Nurse Edith Cavell execution.

A British Divorce Court judge rules against a woman trying to divorce her husband, an army officer, saying it’s not in the interests of the nation “for men to have their minds diverted from their duties by such matters.”

The Supreme Court rules Arizona’s anti-alien labor law, a 1914 ballot initiative requiring that 80% of employees at companies employing more than five workers be U.S. citizens, unconstitutional.

Theodore Roosevelt finds Pres. Wilson’s ship-building plans inadequate. He wants to restore the US Navy to the position of the world’s second largest. And a bigger army. And universal (male) military service.

Former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau denounces the Briand government as merely a shuffle of the same old cards, the politicians who have been attempting to bludgeon the public into acquiescence through fetish worship, “which replaces in negro tribes any scientific investigation of facts” (in this analogy, the political leaders are the fetishes).

France is running out of small change. The popular belief is that the Germans are somehow seizing the sous for their copper and spiriting it out of France.

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