Today -100: June 8, 1911: Of suffrage, horsies, gasping senators, and crude expletives

The lower house of the Connecticut Legislature defeats women’s suffrage for municipal elections 168 to 49. It had passed the state Senate. Evidently it’s a little game in Connecticut: one house passes women’s suffrage, the other defeats it.

NYT: “Henry L. Stimson, the new Secretary of War, is fast acclimating himself to the atmosphere of the army. Accompanied by Gen. Leonard Wood, Chief of Staff, he rode on horseback to-day from Fort Myer, VA., to the drill camp of the Engineer Corps...” In 1911 “acclimating yourself to the atmosphere of the army” still meant riding a horse.

Headline of the Day -100: “Made Old Senators Gasp.” NY state senators were aghast when a young senator questioned a $9,000 earmark for his district that he hadn’t even asked for and which he said wasn’t needed. One senator suggested a monument be erected to the young senator, while another said that not accepting an appropriation was “little short of treason.” The treasonous senator? Franklin D. Roosevelt.

I admit I was a little excited to see in the NYT Index that there was a letter to the paper headlined “Crude expletives.” Imagine my disappointment that the writer was complaining about people who sprinkle conversations with “Is that so?”