Today -100: June 27, 1919: Nobody can keep the inevitable from happening

Wartime prohibition (as opposed to 18th Amendment prohibition) will go into effect on the 30th (because the war isn’t officially over), but Congress hasn’t passed enforcement legislation. So they’re thinking of writing legislation that will provide enforcement for it and the 18th when it goes into effect. This is being spearheaded by chair of the House Judiciary Committee Andrew Volstead (R-Minn.). Fun fact about Volstead: he sat in Congress 20 years and is also famous for... no, there’s only one thing he’s famous for.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Supposedly Communists & Spartacists use food riots as cover to seize City Hall. Also, a crowd invade a preserved meat factory and discover the remains of dogs, cats, and rats. The owner & foreman are then forced to eat their own repulsive product.

John Hartfield, a black man, is lynched in Ellisville, Mississippi for an alleged sexual assault. A posse chased him for days, during which time Gov. Theodore Gilmore Bilbo, a huuuuge racist, declared himself “utterly powerless” to intervene because the state has no troops and “excitement is at such a high pitch throughout South Mississippi that any armed attempt to interfere would doubtless result in the deaths of hundreds of persons. The negro has confessed, says he is ready to die, and nobody can keep the inevitable from happening.” Well not with that attitude, mister. Hartfield is hanged from a gum tree, shot while he strangles, and his body burned.

Germany has finally found people willing to sign the peace treaty: Foreign Minister Hermann Müller and Colonial Minister Johannes Bell.

Turkey’s position at the peace talks seems to be that Turkey has no responsibility for the war and was actually entered into the war against its will by a German admiral and any massacres of Armenians are the responsibility of the previous government and anyway lots of Muslims were also slaughtered, so Turkey should be allowed to keep all its territory. The Allies’ reply displays some slight scepticism about this viewpoint and says that peoples should be held responsible for the actions of their government, even ones that installed themselves by a coup. It “wishes well to the Turkish people and admires their excellent qualities. But it cannot admit that among those qualities are to be counted capacity to rule over alien races.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.