Today -100: June 10, 1911: Of little hatchets, conventions, long falls, and feather beds

Carrie Nation, “saloon smasher” extraordinaire, dies. She made a living off her notoriety by selling souvenir hatchets.

Possibly in Ms Nation’s honor, temperance advocate Tillie McGowan breaks up a picnic in Atchison, Kansas, at which beer was being served, chasing one of the picnickers into the Missouri River with a rifle.

Mexico will soon hold a convention of “the political party which has emanated from the revolution” to select a presidential candidate for the October elections. Since another name for “the political party which has emanated from the revolution” is Maderist, I venture to predict that its candidate will be Francisco Madero Jr.

Meanwhile, Madero refuses to attend a bull fight, objecting to the fact that he had been advertised as one of the spectators.

China demands a $10 million indemnity for the massacre of some of its citizens during the Mexican Revolution and for their property losses.

Possibly breaking new grounds in racism, a Cherokee state senator in Oklahoma is leading a fight against the appointment by Washington of a negro assistant supervisor of Indian schools for the Five Civilized Tribes. (A couple of days later the White House claimed that the announcement of the appointment was mistaken.)

Not breaking new grounds in racism at all, several wealthy white planters in Conecuh County, Alabama are arrested for holding their farm laborers in conditions of peonage.

Literally breaking new ground, a German aviator attempting to set an altitude record with a passenger instead falls 6,650 feet to his death. Which, to be fair, was probably a record.

Headline of the Day -100: “Suicide With Feather Bed.” Just what it sounds like: she suffocated herself to death. With a feather bed.