Today -100: March 30, 1912: Of lynchings, buying colonies, wobblies, and hats

After the lynching of two black men who supposedly got a white man drunk for the purposes of robbing him, posses of the white population of the ironically named town of Blacksburg, SC are now patrolling because of rumors of an impending invasion of revenge-seeking blacks.

Secretary of State Philander Knox’s Latin America tour has taken him unexpectedly to St. Thomas, raising rumors that the US plans to buy the island (and its residents) from Denmark (a plan along these lines was rejected by the Danish parliament in 1902, but will be accepted in 1917).

Nearly 50 Wobblies are arrested in San Diego for plotting to overthrow the US government.

British suffragette Charlotte Despard, leader of the militant (but not as militant as the WSPU) suffrage group the Women’s Freedom League, calls for a boycott on buying hats (among other things, but that’s the one that’s fun to put in headlines, so everyone does).