Today -100: January 30, 1913: Of lame ducks, white slaves, memorials, polygamy, and lepers

Three Progressive Republicans voted with the Democrats in the Senate against calling a closed-door lame-duck session to try to force through Taft nominations.

The NYC Aldermen’s Curran Committee, investigating police corruption, is told by a vice expert in the US Justice Dept that there are 26,000 white slaves in the city, “owned” by 6,100 pimps. Lots more freelance prostitutes, of course, because it’s New York. And the cops take money to look the other way, indeed sometimes mediate between prostitutes and pimps, but graft is much worse in Chicago.

Congress finally chooses between two proposed projects: 1) a memorial highway between DC and the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, which real estate speculators want and which Sen. Elihu Root says “would be lined with road houses and used principally by joy-riders”, and 2) the Lincoln Memorial. They’re gonna go with the latter. $2 million is appropriated.

The Colorado Legislature votes to call for a federal law or constitutional amendment banning polygamy. Oh, and another one for direct election of senators.

Headline of the Day -100: “Leper Shoots Leper.” At the leper colony in the Panama Canal Zone. But where do you put a leper convicted of a crime? Right back in the leper colony because there’s nowhere else.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.