Today -100: July 28, 1923: Of territories and opium

Pres. Harding is in Seattle after his ship rams a destroyer in Puget Sound in a heavy fog. His trip through Alaska has impelled him towards a more conservationist position on the territory. He thinks part of the territory can be a state in a few years, but he doesn’t say what should happen to the rest of it (is this division based on “where da white folks at?” Of course it is).

The US is upset that the Lausanne Treaty did not include the Hague Opium Convention (there ain’t no convention like an opium convention), given that most of the US’s smuggled opium comes from Turkey via, of all places, Switzerland.

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