Today -100: July 13, 1911: Fire!

The NY Assembly passes a bill to allow local referendums on allowing baseball on Sundays. Assemblyman McCue said blue laws against Sunday sports do more to fill the prisons and insane asylums than do saloons.

The NY Senate defeats women’s suffrage by a single vote.

The NY Legislature authorizes the formation in NYC of a wholly negro regiment of the National Guard.

The US Senate abolishes a number of federal positions, including one held by Jefferson Davis’s old negro bodyguard, Jim Jones, who’s been out sick for the last 2 years. His position is restored after a kerfuffle in which Sen. Heyburn (R-Idaho) says he’ll support retention of Jones because of his past service to the Senate, but not for his loyalty to an “infamous cause.” Hilarity ensued.

Thomas Jolliff, a British-born miner in Renton, Washington, is denied US citizenship after saying that in event of a strike, he would obey his union rather than the courts. When the judge told him he would be barred from citizenship, Jolliff said he changed his mind. Will have to wait to September while his case is investigated.

Headline of the Day -100: “Congressman Afire.” In the House of Representatives, a box of matches in the pocket of Rep. Frank Willis (R-Ohio) burst into flame. Several other congresscritters put him out.