Today -100: March 29, 1919: It is the unquestionable right of every enlightened people to govern themselves

Headlines of the Day -100: 

Gen. Charles Mangin has been summoned to meet Clemenceau, and rumor says it’s to lead Allied forces against the Bolsheviks. However the US and Britain think the French plan wouldn’t work and would be a bit too much like a, you know, war, to go over well back home.

The peace deal, it turns out, isn’t quite as close as everyone thought. France decides to up its demands, and now wants to annex the Saar Valley. The US and Britain earlier rejected this demand, but France is reformulating it as not an annexation per se but, given the Saar’s many coal mines, part of Germany’s reparations. The US and Britain are not impressed by this logic.

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, pointing out that the Espionage Act will become inoperative when peace is declared (Spoiler Alert: he’s wrong there because the Espionage Act is still in effect), says there will need to be new legislation to deal with “dangerous alien enemies,” 2,000 of whom are currently interned (in a program overseen by J. Edgar Hoover).

The NYT Irish reporter interviews escaped prisoner and Sinn Féin leader Éamon de Valera. “It is the unquestionable right of every enlightened people to govern themselves.” I could really do without that “enlightened.” He’s pretty sure there won’t be any Irish civil war after independence, so that’s okay then.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Sure, why not, whatever.

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