Today -100: June 21, 1910: Of legislation, universal peace, revolution averted, and impure blood

The Congressional session is nearing its end. Taft has moved much of his agenda through a Republican Congress with considerable success, having passed his Railroad Bill (substantially rewritten by the Republican “insurgents”), statehood for New Mexico and Arizona (he thinks they will vote Republican in gratitude), and is on course with his Conservation Bill, though having some trouble with his Postal Savings Bank Bill.

The House passed a bill creating a Peace Commission, appointed by the president, to “consider the expediency of utilizing existing international agencies for the purpose of limiting the armaments of the nations of the world by international agreement, and of constituting the combined navies of the world an international force for the preservation of universal peace”. Taft never actually appointed the commission. In his next State of the Union Address in December, Taft explained that that was because he was waiting to hear back from foreign governments. And waiting...

The Mexican government has seized a cache of arms, arrested opposition leaders and declared martial law on the border regions with the US, thus averting any chance of a revolution. This “revolution” was evidently to take the form of going to the polls on election day (June 26) and demanding to be allowed to vote.

A NYT editorial explains why all those reports and rumors about Kaiser Wilhelm’s knee are actually important: “the reputed impurity of the Hohenzollern blood.”