Today -100: May 21, 1914: Of prohibition, certified babies, arson, and evil postcards

Supporters of a prohibition amendment to the Constitution give up for this session, unable to overcome states’ rights objections.

Pancho Villa executes a captured general and 31 other officers, as was the custom.

The Chicago Morals Court’s psychopathic laboratory will now “certify” adoptive babies: “Foster parents will receive certificates guaranteeing that the child turned over to them is ‘free from organic disease, insanity, or constitutional weakness.’ A scientific inventory of the infant’s traits and possibilities will accompany the certificate.” They haven’t quite decided what to do with the “sub-normal and degenerate” babies. I’m sure they’ll think of something.

Theodore Roosevelt speaks about everything that’s been going on in the US in his long absence (he especially doesn’t like the idea of compensating Colombia for his role in fomenting the Panama revolt and secession) and about his trip up the Amazon (he really didn’t enjoy having to eat monkeys).

In the German Reichstag, the Social Democratic deputies, instead of following their usual practice of leaving the chamber before the traditional call for cheers for the kaiser, stayed – and remained seated.

A brushfire in Aldershot is believed to have been started by suffragettes as a way to welcome the royal family, who were in residence at the royal pavilion there. Cavalrymen cut down the burning undergrowth with their swords, as was the custom.

Supposedly, Princess Mary, daughter of the king and queen of England, was recently arrested. She was taking a picture at the army airplane base at Aldershot and a sentry decided she must be a militant suffragist planning to burn down the hangars. As he was marching her off, despite her protestations of her royalness, she was recognized and let go. The sentry was told “to keep his mouth shut – and it is said he has rarely opened it since, but to swear at the suffragettes.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Ratify Treaty on Evil Postcards.”

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