Today -100: June 22, 1910: Of flatties, aged colored women, and rheumatic justices

NYC Mayor William Jay Gaynor orders the plainclothes division of the NYPD abolished, putting 203 cops back into uniform – and reassigning them to different precincts. Gaynor believes the plainclothesmen were corrupt, and that they were used by captains to collect money in protection rackets (especially from saloons).

The city of Annapolis voted on a local bond measure. Eligible voters included all taxpayers, including women and even, the NYT breathlessly reports, an “aged colored woman.”

Congress passes an act to get rid of ailing (rheumatism) Supreme Court Justice William Henry Moody (perhaps best known as a prosecutor on the Lizzie Borden case), by giving him a full pension although he’s only 56 and only served 3½ years (and he hasn’t actually showed up at work in over a year). Normally, a full pension would come only after reaching 70 years of age and serving 10 years.