Today -100: February 16, 1916: We have been brave in words and irresolute in action

Elihu Root gives a speech to the unofficial NY Republican state convention which marks the opening move in his attempt to win the nomination for president. He attacks Woodrow Wilson for, I don’t know, not going to war with Germany when it invaded Belgium 18 months ago, or after it sank the Lusitania. “Our diplomacy has lost its authority and influence because we have been brave in words and irresolute in action.”

Headline of the Day -100:

According to an unnamed French Army surgeon, “They have become hardened and developed indifference to danger and insensibility to pain without losing civilized feelings of gratitude and obedience.” He may be thinking of dogs. 

As is New York Commissioner of Health Dr. Haven Emerson, who would like to ban all dogs from the city. Cats are okay, though. “Dogs are not necessary to a cultured existence,” says the asshole. He says there were 3,000 dog fights in the city in 1915, and I’d really like to know how he came up with that figure.

British bans the importing of paper, periodicals, tobacco, furniture woods, and stone.

Austria orders restaurants, cafes, and other public food-providing establishments to turn over all kitchen utensils made of bronze, copper, brass, nickel or aluminum.

Headline of the Day -100:  

The Senate Health Committee is told that only 1/3 of lepers in the US are locked up, while the rest, including 50 in New York City and 80 in Chicago, are running loose, threatening an epidemic. Witnesses declare that a national leprosarium is needed.

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