Today -100: July 22, 1919: Of blazing blimps, carnivals of inquisitions, race riots, and cows

Headline of the Day -100: 

Extra points for “Blazing Blimp,” NYT headline writer. It’s a Goodyear Blimp, by the way. Most of the dead (which will reach 13) are bank employees; the crew escaped the falling, blazing blimp by parachute, except for a mechanic whose parachute caught fire. $50,000 in government bonds are burned up (or so the bank says). Chicago will bring in new rules about blimps flying over the city.

(from the Chicago Tribune)

The prohibition enforcement bill (the future Volstead Act) continues to steamroller through Congress. One amendment allows people to serve liquor to “bona fide guests” in their house. An amendment that possession of alcohol should be taken as prima facie evidence of intent to distribute fails. Rep. Nicholas Longworth (R-Ohio) notes that the 18th Amendment says nothing about possession and calls proposals such as the one to make people declare how much booze they have at home “a hodge-podge of all sorts of liberty-crushing legislation... it provides regulations which it will take an army to enforce.” Sacramental wine will be permitted (there will be a lot of sacraments performed over the next 14 years). Rep. Thomas Crago (R-PA) says the American people will reject the “carnival of inquisition” the bill will bring in.

Race riots continue in DC with 4 more dead. The local blacks are now organizing retaliation attacks against cops and random white people. The white soldiers and sailors who started all this were today confined to their camps.

The presumably white colonel in command of the negro 10th Cavalry denies that his men started a riot in Bisbee, Arizona earlier this month. He says local officials deliberately provoked the soldiers with various assaults, hoping for an excuse for the cops to shoot them down. He says the IWW has something to do with the plot, which makes no sense at all.

Pres. Wilson asks the Senate to approve an interim appointment of a US rep on the Reparations Committee, so the US can have some say on the committee even before the treaty is ratified, which Wilson is totally sure it will be. Republicans naturally think he’s trying to trick them into recognizing the treaty.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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