Friday, September 03, 2010

Today -100: September 3, 1910: Of Marines, new nationalisms, and lynchings


The American Marines in Nicaragua, having succeeded in preventing the Madriz government taking the port of Bluefields and thereby playing a small-to-medium role in Madriz’s downfall, are being withdrawn.

Taft leaks, or someone leaks on his behalf, that parts of TR’s “new nationalism” sounds unconstitutional to him. In particular, a federal child (and women) labor law and a workmen’s compensation act would infringe, Taft thinks, on the powers of the states.

Taft does not plan to do any campaigning on behalf of Republican candidates this fall. Back then, it just wasn’t done.

A mob in Graceville, Florida lynches a black man and woman believed to have shot a cop trying to arrest the man for stealing a watch. They were seized from the town jail and hanged from a trestle.

A NYT editorial tries to explain the feminist opposition to the city’s new Night Court for women without quite explaining what they object to, which is “to the systematic examination to which women of a certain class are to be subjected to in court, though its object is clearly humane and in the interest of public health and morals.” If I’m reading this correctly, prostitutes are being forced to undergo medical examinations of their naughty bits.

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