Month: September 2016
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Why We Still Need New Methods in Our Prisons
The President of the National Committee on Prisons in 1916 made several suggestions for prison reform, including: I hope that gradually the number of children placed in institutions, particularly in correctional institutions, will decrease to a minimum and that those who must be placed in institutions shall be so treated that they will be able…
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Why Are You a Democrat or a Republican?
Columbia Professor Brander Matthews was able to write the following in 1916, of American political parties: Now, it is impossible to declare abstractly that either party is absolutely right… Each can respect the other and respect the other’s point of view. Both can agree to disagree without being moved to hatred or to contempt. And…
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What Is the Matter with the Modern Boy?
In the words of the musical Bye Bye Birdie, “What’s the Matter With Kids Today?” They’ve been asking that question for ages, and in 1916 a boys’ school headmaster named Thomas S. Baker continued that storied tradition. He laid the blame for the modern boy at several primary culprits including the rise in popularity of sports and movies…
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American Sentiment and American Apathy
Then as now (at least to some extent), there was a fear among some that America’s values were going astray, that materialism and societal divisiveness were rampant while patriotism and tolerance were not. Author Agnes Repplier outlines that anxiety in this paragraph: If the United States is a land where hatred dies, why are our industrial disputes settled…
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Minister Who Would Be Governor of Florida
Sidney Catts won the 1916 Democratic primary to become the nominee for Florida governor, but the party leaders were upset that the “outsider” pastor and insurance salesman with no political experience was to become their standard-bearer. The party went to the state Supreme Court and got them to demand a recount, which didn’t include Catts.…
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War Has Taught Our Chemists Many Secrets
War has always been one of the most powerful motivators for scientific advancement. As astrophysicist and science popularizer Neil DeGrasse Tyson noted in his 2013 Rice University commencement address, “No one has ever spent big money just to explore. No one has ever done that. I wish they did, but they don’t. We went to the…
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The Wages of the Locomotive and Its Driver
The men (and they were all men) who works on the railroads wanted pay raises in 1916, in an article that echoes present-day debates. Should the federal minimum wage should be increased from its current $7.25 to $12, as Hillary Clinton endorses? What worker protections are the 327,000+ Uber drivers entitled to? This article also contains the first…
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Edison Tells Why He Will Vote for Wilson
Thomas Edison was one of the most sought-after political endorsements of the day, as the inventor of the light bulb and the phonograph was one of the most popular people in America. Here he throws his hat behind incumbent President Woodrow Wilson’s reelection bid, which he would ultimately win in November. Edison argued, as the…
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Washington’s Letter Vanishes from Baltimore
Shortly after George Washington was elected as president, Bishop John Carroll sent him a letter on behalf of American Catholics congratulating him on the post and stressing the need to maintain religious liberty. Washington wrote back, saying, in part: “As Mankind become more liberal they will be more apt to allow that all those who…
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New Rules of Conduct Needed for Nations
Amidst the horrors of World War I, Bacon suggested that a stronger system of international law was necessary. He listed six “principles of justice, universal and fundamental,” including life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, equality before the law, and the right to property. He proposed more concrete measures to ensure that they were enshrined in international…
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