Today -100: May 13, 1912: Of wet corpses, butt missions, duels, and horse thieves

The Titanic’s bodies are still being recovered, four weeks after the sinking.

President Taft thinks “there is a conspiracy for the purpose of arousing religious prejudice against me.” Specifically, anti-Catholic prejudice, with claims that Taft is favoring the Catholic church. Taft himself is a Unitarian, but there were rumors that Major Butt was in Europe on a mission from the president to the Vatican (sub-hed for this story: “‘Butt Mission’ a Falsehood”) and that Taft wired congratulations to the new Apostolic Delegate, both of which he denies. But he did countermand an order by the Indian Commissioner banning nuns wearing their habits when teaching in Indian schools.

Theodore Roosevelt sweeps the Minnesota primaries.

In a duel in Hungary, one of the duelists accidentally chops off the hand of one of the seconds, who didn’t get out of the way fast enough when the duel started.

Italy extends the franchise to illiterates (over the age of 30).

I seem to have missed a story last week where the San Diego police killed Joseph Mikolasek, an IWW member (who came after the cop with an ax, if the LA Times and the SD police are to be believed, which they probably aren’t)(Update: a quick Google search tells me that Mikolasek was either 1) shot by cops in his own home, 2) shot down in front of IWW hq, or 3) died in jail. Thanks a lot, Google). Anyway, the IWW plans a procession (with the body) to protest the death, tomorrow. But today, the grand marshal is arrested as a horse thief.