Sept. 30, 1909 (Thursday)

RED SOX FANS WARM UP TO TY COBB: Boston lost two games to the Detroit Tigers yesterday, which puts the Tigers in place as a virtual lock on the American League title. A sportswriter in the Globe noticed a change in attitude that the Red Sox fans showed toward the irascible Tiger star Ty Cobb (left). In the past, Red Sox rooter "have been inclined to roast him at every opportunity, which nettled the southerner." It was different yesterday. Here's how the sportswriter describes it:
The wonderful fielding, batting and base running of Cobb has been noticed by these fans, who know the game if anyone does, and who can tell a ball player when they see one. Yesterday they seemed willing to call off hostility and Ty met them half way. He made several wonderful catches and was hitting up to his best form. The crowd in the bleachers cheered him frequently and he never failed to doff his cap to them. Possibly neither, heretofore, understood the other, and both are now willing to let bygones be bygones.
Until next year?


CREELMAN DESCRIBES WHY EUROPE WON'T STAND UP TO OTTOMAN ATROCITIES: The Globe continues its series of articles by journalist James Creelman in today's paper. Creelman deals with Europe's eagerness to keep relations with the Ottoman Empire smooth -- despite reports of widespread killings of Christians in Turkey and other areas. As an example, he points to a visit Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II made to Damascus in 1898 (shown above), where he made a clear play for the affection of the Ottoman leaders -- just two years after "the sultan had permitted the murder of 6,000 Armenians in the streets of Constantinople, and when his name was a word of horror in Europe," Creelman writes.
Then Creelman describes the "secret" of that visit and his affection for Abdul Hamid. The sultan gave a German syndicate rights to a railway to connect the Bosporus with Baghdad. Here's the reason why that was important, from the point of view of the early 1900s:
"It is estimated that Mesopotamia, Irak[sic], Syria and Anatolia will in time be able to produce more grain than the whole of Russia, and that the vast petroleum lands to be reached by the German line will yield an oil supply 10 times as great as the wells of Baku. This in addition to the immense cotton lands of Cilicia and Mesopotamia, the crying need of German manufacturers.
He spreads the blame but clearly points to the profit-hunger of European commerce as a roadblock to efforts to prevent the killings:
It is this sort of struggle for commercial and political advantage, in which emperor, sultan, statesman and soldier play the cards dealt by millionaire syndicates, that makes it possible for the Moslems of Asia Minor to deliberately murder 30,000 Christians, with every conceivable torture and shame attending the treatment of surviving women and children, without a serious word of protest from the governments of Europe."

HARVARD IS AT 274 YEARS AND COUNTING: Harvard begins its 274th year this week. Freshmen are formally welcomed today. One change that upperclassmen will notice is that the food plan has gone up FIVE PERCENT. A week's worth of "straight American board" will cost $5.25 a week, which is 25 cents more than a year ago. Today's Globe says returning students are shocked by "the dilapidated appearance" of the old elms in Harvard Yard. The trees were cut back severely over the summer in what is expected to be a losing battle to combat the leopard moth. The article says, "The removal of many of the trees is believed to be a matter of only a short time." The inauguration of President Lowell will take place next week.

M.I.T. PRESIDENT EMPHASIZES THE SCHOOL'S MILITARY NATURE: Richard Maclaurin, new president of MIT welcomed the incoming class of more than 300 men in Huntington Hall yesterday. In his message, he stressed the importance of reviving the "military drill" at the school. He said,
The undergraduates have treated it with levity and shirked it wherever possible. Military drill is held at the institute under the act of congress. You come here to be men and no serious, sensible patriotic man would fail to fulfill military duty when called upon.