April 15 will mark the 109th anniversary of the Titanic‘s sinking, though she sailed from Southampton on April 10. What was going on in America during her voyage? Maybe New York newspaper The Sun can help us.

Ah, today’s newspapers use formatting to better tell the reader which stories are important! I’ll just assume the leftmost top is the one they expect people to read first, even if it is about another state’s news. (Though the tragic story of music teacher Louis C. Parma and his insane sweetheart Clara Conners might be worth a read.)

I hadn’t considered the obvious fact that 1912 was an election year in the United States, so it makes sense that there were primaries going on in April. This was the year that Teddy Roosevelt lost the nomination and therefore ran under the third-party “Bull Moose” party. The Clark referred to is Speaker of the House Champ Clark. Come convention time, he ended up had a plurality of the delegates but Woodrow Wilson got the nomination anyway.

Details about women’s suffrage were relegated to page 3. “The city got its first taste of woman suffrage to-day and before noon it was clamoring for more. From one end of Chicago to the other the presence of women, some handsomely gowned and others plainly or even shabbily dressed, pleading with the crowds of workers to remember the women gave a picturesque touch to the scenes.” But, earlier in the article, it was noted “The defeat of suffrage was one of the surprises of the campaign. When the polls closed the women workers appeared to be confident that they had won an overwhelming victory. Mrs. McCulloch characterized the opposition as ‘negligible’. When the returns began to come in, however, it was seen that a heavy vote had been cast against suffrage and it grew heavier as precinct after precinct sent in its results.”

The article references a polling place being set up in an automobile showroom. “Men who couldn’t find room in the automobiles used stepladders, sat in window sills, stood on upturned water buckets or any old place where they could find a square foot or two of available space.”

There were also issues with the voting machines causing problems and delays, being difficult to use, etc. “The voting machines, over the purchase of which scandal has been stirring for a long time, did not make the hit that was expected of it on the occasion of its first use at to-day’s primary. The general verdict seemed to be that as an entertainer it might do, but as an article of use it was a failure.”

Through the years, Arizona has had its share of election complaints, but apparently similar complaints have been going on since the dawn of democracy. Or at least for the past 109 years.