Today -100: September 10, 1913: If you sit through the story about tariffs, there’s one about a zeppelin. No fair skipping.

The Democrats’ Tariff Bill passes the Senate 44-37, nearly along party lines. Many tariffs have been reduced or eliminated altogether (free items include sugar & raw wool, livestock, wheat, gunpowder, pig iron, art antiquities more than 50 years old and books in foreign languages)(but the tariff on modern paintings and statues goes up, because those are considered rich people’s luxuries, or something), an average reduction of 28%. Goods produced largely by child labor don’t get the reduction. There is also an income tax to make up for all that, which will have to be negotiated with the House.

A German marine zeppelin is destroyed by a hurricane and falls into the North Sea, killing 15, including the commander of the Marine Airship Division.

Everyone complained about Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan going off on paid lectures, but just half an hour after he left to give a lecture in Pennsylvania, his office blew up. Gas explosion. “It probably will be necessary to redecorate the room.”

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