Today -100: April 6, 1910: Of Milwaukee reds, Illinois wets, and Rome Methodists

Milwaukee elects not only a socialist as mayor, Emil Seidel, the first socialist mayor of a major American city, but also a socialist majority on the city council (21 Social Democrats, 10 Democrats, 4 Republicans, with an even larger majority on the Board of Supervisors).

In Illinois, 28 towns voted for prohibition, 26 (mostly larger towns and cities) voted wet, several of which had gone dry two years before.

The American Methodist College in Rome issued a nyah nyah statement about Roosevelt’s spat with the pope, applauding Italians who had converted from Catholicism and saying that for the Methodists “To be anathematized by the Roman hierarchy is to be named a friend.” In response, TR canceled the reception he had planned at the American embassy, just in case some of the Methodists showed up.