The Japanese Diet passed a law for the Japanese equivalent of corporations.
The United Kingdom and France accepted the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
The Japanese Diet passed a law for the Japanese equivalent of corporations.
The United Kingdom and France accepted the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
President Taft issued an executive order that deaf mutes and deaf persons be allowed to take the civil service examination.
Some of the Tafts went riding.
Helen Taft became a professor of history and college dean.
The third Taft child, Robert, not pictured here, went on to become a U.S. Senator from Ohio.
Last prior edition:
They would learn, upon their return, that Frederick Cook had claimed the prize of reaching the North Pole first already, although his claim could not be substantiated. In 1989 the National Geographic Society determined that Peary had dome within 5 miles of the North Pole, which may or may not be close enough if it really matters.
The claim of who was first led into a bitter contest, in which Peary prevailed. Cook went on to a sad life, going into the oil business in Texas and Wyoming, where he'd be accused of fraud. He was convicted, after which his Texas claims proved to be in one biggest oil pools in the state. He died in 1940, at age 75, after having just been pardoned by Franklin Roosevelt.
As noted, I'm not a fan of Peary's. Ironically, the US flag he hoisted at the presumed pole had been sewn by his wife, whom he was cheating on in the Arctic. Peary quit talking about his trip after he took questions he received to be hostile. He died, leaving an abandoned family in the Arctic, at age 63 in 1920.
As or the first, Cook could well have been first, or not. Same with Peary, depending upon how you determine the pinpoint spot. It seems reasonably to say they were both pretty close to the North Pole, which in the context of the time, may be close enough.
The first undisputed trip to the North Pole was made in 1968.
Last prior edition:
A hoax with long legs started on this day when the Phoenix Gazette published "Explorations in Grand Canyon: Mysteries of Immense Rich Cavern Brought to Light" claiming that S. A. Jordan of the Smithsonian Institute had found a network of interlinking tunnels filled with Egyptian artifacts and mummies. The entire matter was a hoax, but the Internet, amazingly, has kept it alive.
Seemingly all of it, including the names of the discoverer, were simply made up by reporters having some fun.
Last prior edition:
American troops left Cuba where they had been since 1906, due to the Second Intervention in Cuba which saw the US intervene, which it had a treaty right to do, over an attempt to overthrow an elected government.
A law banning the importation of opium into the US went into effect.
In the United Kingdom, the Children Act 1908 went into effect, establishing juvenile courts, registration of foster parents, prohibiting children, under the age of 16 from working in dangerous trades, purchasing cigarettes, entering brothels, or the bars of trading pubs, and prohibiting the consumption of alcohol, for non-medicinal purposes, before the age of five.
As noted earlier, I frankly miss the point of these polar expeditions, and I think Peary was a louse.
The local agricultural newspaper, the Stockgrower and Farmer, was out. I'm only putting up the first two pages, but it was a very well done ag newspaper.
The Kansas State Board of Health banned the "common drinking cup" on trains and in public schools.
Common drinking cups were very common and it would take years to really fully prohibit their use. Their elimination gave rise to the water fountain, which had no cup, and to disposable cups.
Georgian ended its "convict lease system" with 1,200 convicted felons thereby returned from private stockades to county jails.
The Serbian ambassador to Austro Hungaria presented his government's formal acceptance of the Austrian annexation of Bosnia.
Hull No. 401, the keel of the RMS Titanic, was laid at the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast.
The company still exists and still has a shipyard in Belfast. Founded in 1861, it was nationalized in 1977, and then privatized again in 1989.
Last prior edition:
While already articulated in other ways, and the subject of a prior war, German Chancellor Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin, Prince of Bülow announced the doctrine of Nibelungentreue, that being that the German and Austrian empires were united by their common language and heritage.
It really meant more than that.
Individual nationalism was rising in this era in any event, with Austria struggling against it. Imperial Germany seemingly was a nation state, but only because it had suppressed the numerous nationalities, some large and some small, living within its borders. Unlike the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which acknowledged its polyglot nature while being principally of one faith, Imperial Germany, which included those of Westphalian, Dutch Dane, Swabian, French, and Polish nationalities, was a Prussian Empire which imposed, or tried to impose, its concept of a "German" nationalism upon its distinct regions which varied in faith. Seemingly settled in the Franco Prussian War, as late as 1909 the reluctant acceptance of Prussian dominance still was unsettled.
Nibelungentreue would give rise to militant, and malevolent, German nationalism by 1914, which would have disastrous consequences in the 1930s and 1940s. Germany as a state, however, was already accepted, even though even to this day some regions of Germany would make as much sense in a neighboring country as they do in Germany.
Cordell Hull had something else on his mind, which he discussed in a speech on this day:
I desire in this connection to direct the attention of the House to the best, the fairest, the most equitable system of taxation that has yet been devised—the taxation of incomes. Adam Smith, the father of political economy, laid down this rule of taxation:
The subjects of every State ought to contribute toward the support of the Government as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities—that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the States. . . .
I have no disposition to tax wealth unnecessarily or unjustly, but I do believe that the wealth of the country should bear its just share of the burden of taxation and that it should not be permitted to shirk that duty. Anyone at all familiar with the legislative history of the Nation must admit that the chief burdens of the government have long been borne by those least able to bear them, while accumulated wealth has enjoyed the protection and other blessings of the Government and thus far escaped most of its accompanying burdens. . . .
Heretofore any suggestion from this side of the House that our system of taxation should be so adjusted as to require the aggregated wealth of the country to bear a fair share of the burden of taxation has usually met the disapproval of the other side upon the ground that such course would be socialistic, if not unconstitutional. . . .
I agree that Members of Congress are under oath to support the Constitution, and that it is the duty of the Supreme Court, under proper circumstances, to construe and expound that instrument; but I submit that where, in the judgment of Members of Congress, a palpably erroneous decision has been rendered by the Supreme Court, stripping the coordinate legislative branch of the Government of one of its strong arms of power and duty—a decision overturning a line of decisions extending over a hundred years of the Nation’s history . . . . It is entirely proper that Congress should pass another income-tax act, again raising the important questions deemed to have been erroneously decided by the Supreme Court heretofore, and by this course secure a rehearing upon these controverted questions. . . .
The world has never seen such colossal fortunes as we behold in the present age. Their owners are richly able to pay taxes. Why does the Government, founded as it was upon the doctrine of equality, persist in taxing every article of necessity which the poor widow must buy, while it permits citizens residing in other countries to hold property here of probably $100,000,000 in value on which the Government declines to levy even a single cent of tax? . . . Public sentiment is becoming aroused. The American people are loudly, insistently demanding that this infamous system of class legislation shall cease, and unless this Congress regards their wishes they will soon compel compliance, even if they have to resort to a renovated Congress.
Last prior edition:
The Crazy Snake Rebellion broke out between Creek Indians and Oklahoma deputies over land issues in that state, not too surprisingly given the origin of the state itself. Indeed, land issues related to Oklahoma's origins are still being sorted out.
President Taft, who was a responsible man, together with his Attorney General George Wickersham, gave final approval to the text of a proposed bill creating a permanent Federal Income Tax.
Clyde Chestnut Barrow was born in Ellis County, Texas, southeast of Dallas. He would, of course, go on to ill fame as half of "Bonnie and Clyde".
Last prior edition:
Former President Theodore Roosevelt departed for Africa on the Hamburg, bound for safari.
Last Prior Edition:
March 20, 1909
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Whereas, a number of prehistoric cliff dwellings and pueblo ruins, situated within the Navajo Indian Reservation, Arizona, and which are new to science and wholly unexplored, and because of their isolation and size are of the very greatest ethnological, scientific and educational interest, and it appears that the public interest would be promoted by reserving these extraordinary ruins of an unknown people, with as much land as may be necessary for the proper protection thereof:
Now, Therefore, I, William H. Taft, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the power in me vested by Section two of the Act of Congress approved June 8, 1906, entitled, "An Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities," do hereby set aside as the Navajo National Monument all prehistoric cliff dwellings, pueblo and other ruins and relics of prehistoric peoples, situated upon the Navajo Indian Reservation, Arizona, between the parallels of latitude thirty-six degrees thirty minutes North, and thirty-seven degrees North, and between longitude one hundred and ten degrees West and one hundred and ten degrees forty-five minutes West from Greenwich, more particularly located along the arroyas, canyons and their tributaries, near the sources of and draining into Laguna Creek, embracing the Bubbling Spring group, along Navajo Creek and along Moonlight and Tsagt-at-sosa canyons, together with forty acres of land upon which each ruin is located, in square form, the side lines running north and south and east and west, equidistant from the respective centers of said ruins. The diagram hereto attached and made a part of this proclamation shows the approximate location of these ruins only.
Warning is hereby expressly given to all unauthorized persons not to appropriate, excavate, injure or destroy any of the ruins or relics hereby declared to be a National Monument, or to locate or settle upon any of the lands reserved and made a part of said Monument by this proclamation.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this 20th day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and nine, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and thirty-third.
Signature of William Howard Taft
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT
By the President:
P C KNOX
Secretary of State.
Last Prior Edition:
Colorado had a substantial Irish and Irish American population, both of which were represented by my father's grandparents, who at that time lived in Victor, near Leadville. Redmond was a major Irish figure who was working diligently towards Irish self rule, something that would come flying apart due to World War One.
Last prior edition:
Taft wrote Congress regarding tariff reduction.
To The Senate and House of Representatives:
I have convened Congress in this extra session in order to enable it to give immediate consideration to the revision of the Dingley tariff act. Conditions affecting production, manufacture, and business generally have so changed in the last twelve years as to require a readjustment and revision of the import duties imposed by that act. More than this, the present tariff act, with the other sources of government revenue, does not furnish income enough to pay the authorized expenditures. By July 1 next the excess of expenses over receipts for the current fiscal year will equal $100,000,000.
The successful party in the late lection is pledged to a revision of the tariff. The country, and the business community especially, expect it. The prospect of a change in the rates of import duties always causes a suspension or halt in business because of the uncertainty as to the changes to be made and their effect. It is therefore of the highest importance that the new bill should be agreed upon and passed with as much speed as possible consistent with its due and thorough consideration. For these reasons, I have deemed the present to be an extraordinary occasion within the meaning of the Constitution, justifying and requiring the calling of an extra session. In my inaugural address I stated in a summary way the principles upon which, in my judgment, the revision of the tariff should proceed, and indicated at least one new source of revenue that might be properly resorted to in order to avoid a future deficit It is not necessary for me to repeat what I then said.
I venture to suggest that the vital business interests of the country require that the attention of the Congress in this session be chiefly devoted to the consideration of the new tariff bill, and that the less time given to other subjects of legislation in this session, the better for the country.
The Bureau of Investigation, now the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was created.
Lubbock, Texas was incorporated.
Henry Timken, inventor of the Timken roller bearing, died at age 76.
Last prior edition:
Edward Payson Weston, age 71, let the New York Post Office bound for San Francisco on foot, seeking to become the first person to do so.
Weston was a major figure in the rise of pedestrianism, something that was very much in vogue at the time. After his last major walk in 1913, he warned that automobiles were making people lazy and sedentary, something he was really correct about. He urged people to talk up waking for exercise and competition.
Not without some irony, he was rendered unable to walk after being hit by a car in 1927, and he passed away in 1929 at age 90.
Congress was called into a special session to consider the Payne Tariff act.
Last prior:
Related threads: