Saturday, April 10, 1909 Finnish, Métis Tragedy, and Arctic Tragedy.

Czar Nicholas II approved a recommendation that "laws of general Imperial interest concerning Finland" be enacted by the Duma, in which Finland had a single representative, rather than its own legislative assemble.  It was part of the process of Russification of the country which had commenced in 1899, reversing the original imperial policy put in place in 1808 when Sweden had lost Finland to Russia.

The Finn's have inhabited Finland since at least 9,000 BC, and probably longer.  The first references to it as an entity come from Catholic sources in the 12th Century as the Church began to Christianize the country, but it had no real political organization.  It came under the control of Sweden the following century, with Sweden losing it to Russia in the Finnish War of 1808-1809.  The Russification policy, something the Russians have exhibited ever since the 19th Century wherever it has control, and which effectively continues to the present day, would result in the Finnish independence movement.

Canada opened up the Métis lands in Alberta to homesteaders.  250 claims by French Canadians were registered on the first day.

Professor Ross G. Marvin of Cornell became Admiral Peary's Eighth Arctic Expedition's only fatality when he drowned, maybe.

His body was found floating and appeared to have gone through thin ice, as reported by Inuit guide Kudlookto.  However, in 1926 Kudlookto claimed he had shot and killed Marvin, either because Marvin had started acting irrationally, or because Marvin refused to let Kudlookto's cousin, another member of the expedition, rest.  Peary's daughter (as you'll recall his sons were by his native mistress and were left up in the Arctic in the abandoned care of their mother), discounted the story, although how she would know what happened in reality is another matter. Presumably from information supplied by her father.

It's hard to imagine why Kudlookto would make the story of killing Marvin up, although people do odd things.

Peary's account.

He had been on a prior expedition.  He was 29 years old at the time of his death.

Cipriano Castoro, the former President of Venezuela, was forcibly ejected from Martinique by the French.

Jonesboro, Tenn, April 10, 1909.

Last prior edition:

Friday, April 9, 1909. Establishing Mother's Day.

Location: South Dakota, USA

Tuesday, April 6, 1909. Peary claims the North Pole.

Adm. Robert E. Peary, Matthew Henson, Ootah, Ooqueah, Egingwah, and Seegloo, reached the northernmost point of their expedition, which Peary believed to be the North Pole.  They would remain there for thirty hours.

They would learn, upon their return, that Frederick Cook had claimed the prize of reaching the North Pole first already, although his claim could not be substantiated.  In 1989 the National Geographic Society determined that Peary had dome within 5 miles of the North Pole, which may or may not be close enough if it really matters.

The claim of who was first led into a bitter contest, in which Peary prevailed.  Cook went on to a sad life, going into the oil business in Texas and Wyoming, where he'd be accused of fraud.  He was convicted, after which his Texas claims proved to be in one biggest oil pools in the state.  He died in 1940, at age 75, after having just been pardoned by Franklin Roosevelt.

As noted, I'm not a fan of Peary's.  Ironically, the US flag he hoisted at the presumed pole had been sewn by his wife, whom he was cheating on in the Arctic. Peary quit talking about his trip after he took questions he received to be hostile.  He died, leaving an abandoned family in the Arctic, at age 63 in 1920.

As or the first, Cook could well have been first, or not. Same with Peary, depending upon how you determine the pinpoint spot.  It seems reasonably to say they were both pretty close to the North Pole, which in the context of the time, may be close enough.

The first undisputed trip to the North Pole was made in 1968.  

Last prior edition:

Monday, April 5, 1909. Sensational news.

1900s, 1909, Libya, Spring Creek Raid, War, Washakie County Wyoming, Wyoming

Thursday, April 1, 1909. Leaving Cuba.

American troops left Cuba where they had been since 1906, due to the Second Intervention in Cuba which saw the US intervene, which it had a treaty right to do, over an attempt to overthrow an elected government.

A law banning the importation of opium into the US went into effect.

In the United Kingdom, the Children Act 1908 went into effect, establishing juvenile courts, registration of foster parents, prohibiting children, under the age of 16 from working in dangerous trades, purchasing cigarettes, entering brothels, or the bars of trading pubs, and prohibiting the consumption of alcohol, for non-medicinal purposes, before the age of five.

The US polar expedition saw Robert Peary, Matthew Henson, Ootah, Ooqueah, Egingwah, and Seegloo, set off from a point 153 miles from the North Pole as their last supply team turned back.

As noted earlier, I frankly miss the point of these polar expeditions, and I think Peary was a louse.

The local agricultural newspaper, the Stockgrower and Farmer, was out.  I'm only putting up the first two pages, but it was a very well done ag newspaper.

Note that tourism was already being boosted.

I think I likely missed it, but this noted the February 15, 1909, formation of Park County, Wyoming.  It would take until 1911 to organize the county.  The county's formation and that it was noted in the journal may explain the number of Cody lawyers advertising in it.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, March 31, 1909. Common Cup.

1900s, 1909, Austro Hungaria, Belfast Northern Ireland, boats and ships, Bosnia, Disease, Georgia, Health, Kansas, Serbia

Sunday, February 28, 1909. National Woman's Day.

National Woman's Day was celebrated in New York, having been organized by activist Theresa Malkiel of the Socialist Party of America.  It was the precursor to International Women's Day.

Theresa Serber Malkiel was a Jewish Russian immigrant who had come to the US from Imperial Russia at age 17 with her family, after which she went to work in the garment industry.  She was involved in labor union and Socialist politics fairly early on, and was an opponent of US entry into World War One.  She was also an opponent of Socialists practicing racial segregation in the South, which they did.  She passed away in 1949 in Yonkers at age 75.

International Women's Day is celebrated on March 8.

President Roosevelt had lunch with the Austrian Ambassador at the Austrian Embassy, breaking a 120-year-old tradition of American Presidents not trodding on foreign soil while in office.

Peary's expedition to the North Pole set off from Ellesmere Island.  It was Peary's Eighth Arctic Expedition.

The expeditions became famous, of course, for their heroic efforts, if extreme efforts in the Arctic were heroic.  Peary and his African American aid Matthew Henson did face extreme conditions and privations, but as became known largely after their deaths, they took some comfort with alternative native paramours, Peary's being only 14 years old at the time of its initiation.  These unions outside of marriage produced children, predictably, who were left with their native mothers, which in Henson's case were his only offspring.

If this seems pretty judgmental, well it is.  Peary's taking a 14-year-old for sex is appalling.  Abandoning the children to fatherless lives was as well.  The native women involved doubtless didn't know what they were getting into, at least at first, and in the case of a 14-year-old, probably not at all.