by Richard van Pelt, WWI Correspondent

As news of the assassination faded, the local headline reported a fire at the Fremont Hotel and Rees & Elgin garage. “Property damage as a result of the fire that gutted the Fremont hotel building, owned by George F. Rodgers, at the corner of Ferry and High streets, early this morning, is estimated this afternoon to approximate $35,000. . . .”The fire damaged a number of shops including the Shaw pressing parlors, the Excelsior motorcycle garage, the Rees & Elgin auto garage, and the Hutchins Paint company.

At the corner of State and Liberty, an auto driven by F. E. Mangus collided with a single buggy driven by Mrs. Branson, “who resides on a farm five miles east of this city.”“The auto had been following the buggy around the corner, and in front of the Barr Jewelry store stood an auto which Mrs. Branson, in driving around, swung her horse and rig in front of the auto and the rear mud guard hit the front wheel of the buggy.”No one was hurt and Mr. Mangu ordered the buggy sent to the shop to be replaced at his expense.

In Mexico, the threat of the overthrow of President Huerta prompted American, British, French and German marines to consider occupying Mexico City until a government is established.

Reports from Serbia as reported from Budapest state that “Austrian troops had gained the upper hand today in the various provinces in which pro-Servian and anti-Servian disorders broke out following the assassination Sunday of Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenburg.”The paper reports Serbians as being in an “ugly temper”and prediction future troubles. The assassin, Gavril Prinzip, was quoted as saying “that we cannot do a greater service to our fellow men than by assassinating rulers.”In Berlin, war between Austria and Serbia seemed likely. The paper reports that Serbia could not resist Austria “for hardly a day”without the support of Russia. Ominously, the paper reported that “Many were saying that fears, expressed when the archduke was killed, of a disturbance of europe’s peace through his death seemed likely to be speedily justified.”

In national politics the Journal reported a speech by Theodore Roosevelt, headlining that while he roasted the Democrats he also failed to hold out any olive branch to Republicans. “In his speech,”the paper reported, “the colonel criticized the Wilson administration severely.”Roosevelt declared Wilson’s foreign policy to be “wretched”at best and said that the administration’s anti-trust program was “economically absurd.”He called the government’s policies to be a continuation of “‘government by convulsion’- a see-sawing between two different sets of policies.”Roosevelt called for tariff revision by a non-partisan commission and a second commission to regulate trusts. His failure to offer any olive branch to Republicans reflected his disenchantment with the party.

Addressing climate change, an editorial quotes the Secretary of Agriculture as saying that “the belief still to be found in all countries that the planets, especially the moon, affect the weather never had any scientific basis whatever.”The editorial went on to point out that “all weather changes depend ultimately on heat and that the moon gives out no heat.”Waxing eloquent, the editor asks “Have not lovers time out of lmimd pledged their vows under the strangely subtle influences of the pale-faced moon, and regretted it perhaps in the broader light of day?”

On Page 5 of the Journal is a report that “Ulster Volunteers Prepare to Resist.”Reports from Belfast state that “armed and uniformed, a detachment of the Ulster volunteers, the organization pledged to resist Irish home rule, paraded here today under Lieutenant General Sir George Richardson.”Ireland and Irish home rule was a major issue in Parliament during June and July of 1914. The force led by General Richardson numbered 90,000 men by mid-1914 and posed a significant problem for the British in terms of their ability to engage in weapons from Germany for its use; 25,000 rifles and 3 million rounds were ‘run in’mainly through Larne, a port north of   This Unionist militancy encouraged Irish nationalists likewise to form the Irish Volunteer Force, which led in the end to the 1916 uprising and war that led to the division of Ireland into an independent Erie and the six northern counties that remained part of the United Kingdom.