Today -100: June 22, 1917: Of former kings, women’s battalions of death, pickets, and who owns the news

From exile, former Greek King Constantine I says he’s still the king.

The NYT has an AP article on the Russian Women’s Battalion of Death, a source of endless interest to the Western press, although not enough interest that they don’t mangle the name of its “girl commander,” “twice wounded girl officer” (she’s in her late 20s) Yashka Boshkareva. Boshkareva points out that the battalion still uses the disciplinary system of the tsarist army, with none of that soldier self-government stuff. And yes, they shave their heads.

The Associated Press wins a lawsuit against Hearst’s International News Service, which was stealing its news stories. It’s an interesting legal decision, by the 2nd Circuit Court, in that news is held to be property. News is evidently something distinct from facts.

Suffragist pickets outside the White House are again attacked by angry mobs.

The Maryland House of Delegates votes down women’s suffrage 56-41.

The FTC recommended that the railroads, coal mines and coke producers be run by the government. Big Business is not best pleased, nor by the administration’s attempts to keep prices on raw and manufactured goods down or the president’s new powers to embargo the export of any products he likes.

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