Today -100: March 28, 1919: Of covenants, vital policies, brightened Germans, and assassinations

The draft of the League of Nations covenant is finished. They finally figured out that they can’t come back to it after the peace treaty is signed, since the treaty will require Germany to turn over its colonies to become League of Nations mandates, so there has to be a League of Nations, that’s just science.

The US delegation is still sounding everyone out about possibly proposing an amendment in support of the Monroe Doctrine, which many back home are demanding, though the people demanding it are mostly just trying to torpedo the US joining the League.

And the Japanese are still pressing their anti-racial-discrimination amendment. Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes comes out strongly in favor of racial discrimination, which he calls “a policy vital to the existence and ideals of Australia.” Points for racist honesty, I guess. “If the League is able to compel a State to amend its immigration, naturalization, and franchise laws, there remains to the State only the shadow of sovereignty.” He says the people of the US Pacific Coast probably feel the same way (i.e., support the Asian immigration ban).

Headline of the Day -100:

Same.

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. asks a group of parents of soldiers and sailors to stop their campaign to nominate him for vice president in 1920 (for some reason he doesn’t just remind them that he’s 31, too young to run).

Albanian Provisional Vice President Prênk Bib Doda, a long-time fighter for Albanian independence, who the NYT says is “on friendly terms with Italy,” is ambushed and killed on the highway by what the Times thinks is a band loyal to Provisional President Essad Pasha, but which was actually paid by Italy.

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