September 1901

September 1, 1901 (Sunday)

• The Philippine Commission, composed of Governor William Howard Taft and four other Americans, added its first native Filipino members to have a vote on creating new laws for the American-occupied Philippine Islands. Benito Legarda, Trinidad Pardo de Tavera and Jose du Luzuriaga increased the size of the legislative body to eight people.
• The first section of the Hejaz railway, intended to connect Istanbul to the holy city of Mecca in the Kingdom of Hejaz, was completed, with a short section in Syria, running from Muzayrib to Daraa.
• Four missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints became the first to bring the Mormon religion to Japan. Heber J. Grant, who would later become the 7th President of the Church, was joined by Louis A. Kelsch, Horace S. Ensign and Alma O. Taylor. "However, much like the myriad Western faiths that have attempted to convert the Japanese people to their brand of spirituality," an author would later note, "the LDS Church has found only limited success in Japan."
• Floods in Cleveland caused $500,000 worth of damage, equivalent to $13 million in 2016 dollars.
• Born: Arthur Edward Murphy, American philosopher; in Ithaca, New York

  September 2, 1901 (Monday)

• Lord Curzon, the British Viceroy of India, convened a group of educational officers at Simla to discuss a reform of the higher education system. Those present were members of the Executive Council, the colonial Director of Public Instruction, the Vice-Chancellors of the universities in Bombay and Madras, and the principals of the Deccan College and the Madras School of Arts, all Britons, and not a single Indian. Starting with the premise that university education in India had "suffered... by a too slavish imitation of English models", including an over-reliance on entrance examinations, Curzon oversaw 16 days of meetings and drafted 150 resolutions for reform.
• Dr. William A. Pusey of the University of Illinois began the first experiments with radiation treatment for cancer, using x-rays in an attempt to combat sarcoma in 11 patients. Pusey described the patient as a "man, aged twenty-four" who had had a tumor removed from his neck two weeks earlier and was found to have round-celled sarcoma. "He was given vigorous x-ray exposures and the tumor mass began to subside immediately," Dr. Pusey wrote later, adding "At the end of four weeks... the tumor had entirely disappeared."
• Vice President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt became identified with the words, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" at the Minnesota State Fair in Minneapolis. The phrase was not his own invention, as he told his audience that "A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb, 'Speak softly and carry a big stick— and you will go far.'" He added that "If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power... if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words, his position becomes absolutely contemptible. So it is with the nation. It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and, above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples. Let us make it evident that we intend to do justice. Then let us make it equally evident that we will not tolerate injustice in return." The phrase had been used by Roosevelt in a 1900 newspaper interview, and he attributed it at time to being a motto "taken from the South African people".
• Born:
• * Adolph Rupp, American college basketball coach; in Halstead, Kansas
• * Franz Karmasin, ethnic German native of Austria-Hungary who administered the Slovak State created from the German annexation of Czechoslovakia; in Olmütz

  September 3, 1901 (Tuesday)

• The Board of Judges of the competition to design the new Australian Flag announced in Melbourne that it had selected five finalists from 32,823 proposals. The day before, the Board report noted that the members had concluded that any design should have the British "Union Jack on a blue or red ground", "A six-pointed star, representing the six federated States of Australia, immediately underneath the Union Jack and pointing direct to the centre of the Saint George's Cross, of a size to occupy the major portion of one quarter of the flag"; and the Southern Cross constellation. The finalists were artist Annie Dorrington of Perth; ships officer William Stevens of Auckland, New Zealand; a teenaged optician's apprentice, Leslie Hawkins of Sydney; architect Egbert John Nuttall of Melbourne; and 14-year old schoolboy Ivor Evans of Melbourne.
• The "Miss Stone Affair", sometimes described as "America's first hostage crisis" began when an American missionary, Miss Ellen Stone, was kidnapped by terrorists who demanded a ransom from the Ottoman Empire. Miss Stone and her pregnant Bulgarian colleague, Katerina Stefanova Cilka, were traveling through Bulgaria on horseback with a party of ten other students and teachers. At a point between Bansko and Gorna Dzhumaya, the group was surrounded by about 30 masked men, who took Miss Stone and Mrs. Cilka away while leaving the others unharmed. The United States would eventually agree to pay the ransom on January 13, 1902, and Stone, Cilka, and Mrs. Cilka's child would be freed on February 10.
• Responding to Lord Kitchener's proclamation of August 7 directing that Boer troops surrender by September 15 or be deported from South Africa to other British territory, Boer General Christiaan de Wet issued a proclamation that all British troops found in the Orange River Colony after September 15 would be shot. On the same day, Jan Smuts, the Assistant Commandant General of the Transvaal Army, crossed into the British Cape Colony and prepared for a major invasion to divert British troops.
• Three men, James Outram and his guides, Christian Bohren and Christian Hasler, became the first people to climb to the top of Mount Assiniboine, a peak in the Canadian Rockies. After reaching the top, Outram would write later, "One at a time— the other two securely anchored— we crawled with utmost caution to the actual highest point and peeped over the edge of the huge, overhanging crest, down the sheer wall to a great, shining glacier 6,000 feet or more below."

  September 4, 1901 (Wednesday)

• Kaiser Wilhelm met with Prince Zaifeng, the 18-year-old brother of the Emperor of China, at Potsdam. As demanded by Germany and made one of the 11 conditions of the Boxer Protocol, an imperial prince delivered his message of his nation's atonement for the murder of Germany's ambassador, Baron von Ketteler, in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion. After the Kaiser accepted China's regrets, Zaifeng toured Germany and the rest of Europe for three weeks, and participated in several military reviews as a guest of the German royal family. Earlier in the week, the Kaiser agreed to waive the normal procedure where visitors had to make a deep bow to the German Emperor, a humbling gesture which would have added to the humiliation of China's capitulation to the German.
• U.S. President William McKinley arrived in Buffalo, New York, by train for a three-day visit to the Pan-American Exposition. As the Presidential Special passed the United States Army post at Fort Porter, three cannons fired a 21-gun salute in the President's honor. "Unfortunately the guns had been placed far too close to the tracks," an historian would write later, "and as the train reached the spot, a booming report shattered all seven windows on the right side of the first car." The presidential party was in the second car, however, and the only two people in the damaged coach were a newspaper reporter and an official of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, neither of whom was injured.
• On the morning of McKinley's arrival, Leon Czolgosz made up his mind to shoot President William McKinley, and purchased a.32 caliber revolver. According to the statement he would make to the police days later, he said that the resolution "was in my heart; there was no escape for me. I could not have conquered it had my life been at stake," and said that he was standing "near the railroad gate when the Presidential party arrived" and that the police forced him and everyone else back "so that the great ruler could pass." Czolgosz, who was confused about what day of the week, McKinley arrived and spoke, claimed that when the President made his speech, he "stood right near the President, right under him near the stand from which he spoke."

  September 5, 1901 (Thursday)

• The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues was formed in Chicago by seven minor baseball leagues: the International League, the Western League, the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League, the Pacific Northwest League, the Western Association, the New England League and the New York State League.
• The American yacht Columbia was selected over the Constitution to defend the America's Cup against the British yacht Shamrock II, beginning on September 21.
• On "President's Day" at the Pan-American Exposition, U.S. President William McKinley spoke on the way that modern communications technology had transformed the planet, remarking "After all, how near one to the other is every part of the world! Modern inventions have brought into close relation widely separated peoples and made them better acquainted." Looking toward the future, he commented "God and man have linked the nations together. No nation can longer be indifferent to any other." The speech, which was overshadowed by the events of the following day, "marked significant change in McKinley's policy toward free trade" as the U.S. president suggested an end to America's policy of isolationism in favor of reciprocal trade agreements negotiated by the United States in its new role as a major world power.
• Walter Hampden, who would become one of the most celebrated stage actors of his day, made his professional acting debut, in a production of Henry V at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, delivering three lines in portraying the Duke of Gloucester.