Today -100: May 7, 1912: I am not engaged in going about cutting off the heads of bosses

Roosevelt supporters hold one of those separatist conventions in Washington County, Tennessee, but it is captured by Taft supporters.

Taft expresses support for a plan to allow federal employees to retire at 70 with a pension worth half their salaries.

Roosevelt wins the popular vote in the Maryland primary, but Taft delegates will have the majority in the state convention. By state law, the convention will have to instruct delegates to the national convention to vote for Roosevelt, but only on the first ballot.

Champ Clark won the Democratic primary.

Taft denies Roosevelt’s charge that the political “bosses” all support him, and names several who support TR. However, he also says that he won’t go after the bosses: “I am not engaged in going about cutting off the heads of bosses. I cannot do it. It is not my function. It is the function of the people at home to reform matters. I don’t recollect in the seven years that Theodore Roosevelt was president that his path was strewn with the bodies of dead bosses that he had killed.”

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Turks Repulse Italians.” In Rhodes. Not that that stopped Italy appointing a governor.

NYT headline: “Home Rule Debate Tedious.” Everyone’s a critic.