Today -100: March 16, 1920: Of reservations, developments, secretaries of states, and dry killings

The Senate votes in favor of Lodge’s reservation to Article X of the Peace Treaty, specifying that the US military can only be used to defend other countries if Congress votes for it. The vote is 56-26, 14 D’s voting with all the R’s for the reservation, going against Pres. Wilson’s position. The treaty is thus, again, dead. Which also means that the US will not be participating in negotiating Turkey’s peace treaty.

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George tells Parliament that he will “await developments” in Germany. Those developments suggest the Kapp Putsch regime is spreading, with copycat military coups in many towns.

There are rumors that the competing Ebert and Kapp regimes are negotiating. Or at least that Kapp has offered to let Ebert remain in office, with a cabinet of technocrats, until new elections are called in the very near future. Water has been restored in Berlin, but not electricity, gas, or newspapers.

The second Schleswig plebiscite is held, in zone 2, which includes the port of Flensburg.  Zone 2 decides to stay attached to Germany.

The Senate has sat on Wilson’s nomination of Bainbridge Colby to be secretary of state, and the term of the acting secretary has just expired, so there is no longer anyone at the head in State. This means, among other things, that there’s no one authorized to receive a ratified 19th Amendment. Also, new passports can’t be issued. And at the time secretary of state was next in succession to the presidency after Veep Whatsisname.

Stewart McMullin, the federal prohibition agent being held for shooting a cabby during an arrest, refuses to tell prosecutors whether or not he’s the same person as a former prison inmate. In fact, his real name is John Conway, maybe... well it’s certainly one of the names he’s used. He has served time for armed robbery, forgery, and didn’t serve time for involuntary manslaughter (at 14!) (he beat in some guy’s skull with a rock and got a $50 fine). He was recruited by the feds while still in Dannemora because of his helpfulness as a jail-house stool pigeon. Later this year he’ll be acquitted for the murder by a jury that evidently ignored all the evidence, although he is then immediately arrested for breaking parole in Indiana. Not sure what happened to him after that.

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