Today -100: October 11, 1916: It is not necessary to swing to the maudlin

Armed striking Standard Oil workers are marching around Bayonne, NJ, closing off entire districts and shooting at cops and scabs.

New York Gov. Charles Whitman, speaking to the American Prison Association’s annual congress, indirectly addresses the resignation of Sing Sing warden Thomas Mott Osborne: “In swinging away from the brutal, it is not necessary to swing to the maudlin.” Superintendent of Prisons James Carter says the practical – he emphasizes the word practical – features of Osborne’s system will be retained.

Theodore Roosevelt blames Woodrow Wilson for the German u-boat attacks off the US’s Atlantic coast, because of course he does. Wilson should have stood up to Germany and done... something... right at the start of the war when it invaded Belgium.

Sarah Bernhardt arrives in New York. She will play Cleopatra, but has promised the French prime minister not to perform in anything partisan, like Edmond Rostand’s anti-German play “Les Cathedrals.” Don’t know what that’s about.

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