Today -100: October 30, 1919: Of illegal strikes, prohibition in New York, kidnappings, and enemies of the peoples

Pres. Wilson’s doctors announce that they will stop issuing daily bulletins about his health because it is so improved.

The coal miners’ unions are disregarding Pres. Wilson (or whomever)’s plea to postpone their strike. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer says the strike is illegal under wartime laws.

The federal government’s first effort to enforce in New York City the Wartime National Prohibition Enforcement Act that passed over Wilson (or whomever)’s veto is a raid on a saloon on West 42nd, in which 2 people are shot by revenooers. One of them was a passerby on the street, hit in the leg.

The Cleveland police claim to have uncovered a nationwide bomb plot conspiracy, part of a planned anarchist uprising.

Mexico arrests the lawyer of William Jenkins, the US consular agent who was kidnapped by bandits and released after a ransom of $150,000 was paid. Mexico says the lawyer was complicit in the kidnapping. It also thinks that Jenkins faked the whole thing to create an international incident or just for the money (he was in debt for... just under $150,000).

William Randolph Hearst fails to show up at Carnegie Hall to debate Gov. Al Smith, so Smith makes a speech calling Hearst a “character assassin” and, um, an “enemy of the people.” He accuses the Hearst papers of distorting the truth, but doesn’t use the phrase fake news.

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