Today -100: April 5, 1919: Almost independent

A delegation arrives in Washington from the Philippines headed by Manuel Quezon, president of the Philippines Senate, demanding complete independence. Pres. Wilson sends a note agreeing with that goal and says “The Philippine Islands are almost independent”.

Woodrow Wilson has influenza. Or just a bad cold. Or a stroke.

The Daily Mail (UK) says Trotsky has ordered the Russian Baltic fleet to attack the Allies.

Hungarian “dictator” Béla Kun arrives in Munich, obviously to convert Bavaria into a soviet republic.

The federal government abandons its indictments against John Reed and other socialist leaders & editors under the Espionage Act. The Justice Dept is now reviewing many other ongoing Espionage Act prosecutions with an eye to seeing if there’s any point in pursuing them.

Lt. Surugue musters out of the French army. He’s 80. And yes, they did send him to the front.

The NYT claims that in January Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg signed a “formal secret treaty of alliance” between the Spartacists and the Russian Bolsheviks. It must be true: an “absolutely reliable source” told them so.

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