The U.S. Senate passed the Willis-Campbell Act on this day in 1921 prohibiting physicians from proscribing beer as a medical remedy. They could still prescribe hard alcohol and wine.
On the same day, the British suspended new ship construction in light of progress at the Washington Naval Conference talks. And Roscoe Arbuckle's trial was proceeding.
Marshall Foch visited New York City's statue of Joan d'Arc.
The Soviet Union, which was going to have an economy based on pure ownership by the proletariat of the means of production, figured out that banks were a necessity and crated a state bank. The Soviet economy was collapsing.
November 12, 1920: Man o' War's final run
Read about it at the above, an unfortunately seemingly inactive blog.
On the same day, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was hired as the Commissioner of Major League Baseball, and at the same time the major leagues took on their present organizational form.
This occured, of course, in the wake of the Black Sox Scandal and as part of an effort to address deficiencies in the organization of the sport and clear up its name.
Italy and what would become Yugoslavia entered into the Treaty of Rapallo. The treaty adjusted territorial boundaries between the nations, which had been disputed in the wake of World War One and the creation of the new state. The new South Slav kingdom and Italy shared populations that were of the ethnicities of the other state. While the treaty did leave few Italians in Yugoslavia, about 500,000 South Slavs remained in what became Italian territory.
The border would be readjusted following World War Two.
Former resident of Cheyenne and teenage lover of Charlie Chaplin, actress Mildred Harris, was granted a divorce from Chaplin.
Harris' sad story, as well as her peculiar role in history (she's at least partially responsible for Wallace Simpson meeting King Edward VIII, has been addressed elsewhere on this blog.
President Wilson refused to sign the execution warrant for Sgt. Anthony F. Tamme, who had been convicted of espionage during World War One.
Saudi Arabia cut its oil production by 10% and threatened to halt all of its oil shipments to the United States unless the US halt aid to Israel. The United Arab Emirates completely stopped shipments to the U.S.
Germany defaulted on its reparations payments.
The Casper Daily Tribune ran a cartoon attacking Governor Carey on the front page.
Frankly, even now, I’m shocked.
As can be seen, Casper was expanding in 1922 and the stresses that involved were apparently getting to people.
Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all the territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.The US entry into World War One spurred prohibition on, oddly enough, over concerns about the exposure to alcohol to young men that military service would bring about. Congress had already passed a law prohibiting beverage alcohol within so many miles of military reservations, bringing prohibition to Cheyenne due to the presence of Ft. D. A. Russell there, and banning it on U.S. Territories (such as Hawaii), as opposed to states. The use of grains for distillation had also been banned on the basis that it took valuable grains away from the production of food.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
TO THE HEADS OF THE BELLIGERENT PEOPLES:
From the beginning of Our Pontificate, amidst the horrors of the terrible war unleashed upon Europe, We have kept before Our attention three things above all: to preserve complete impartiality in relation to all the belligerents, as is appropriate to him who is the common father and who loves all his children with equal affection; to endeavor constantly to do all the most possible good, without personal exceptions and without national or religious distinctions, a duty which the universal law of charity, as well as the supreme spiritual charge entrusted to Us by Christ, dictates to Us; finally, as Our peacemaking mission equally demands, to leave nothing undone within Our power, which could assist in hastening the end of this calamity, by trying to lead the peoples and their heads to more moderate frames of mind and to the calm deliberations of peace, of a "just and lasting" peace.
Whoever has followed Our work during the three unhappy years which have just elapsed, has been able to recognize with ease that We have always remained faithful to Our resolution of absolute impartiality and to Our practical policy of well-doing . We have never ceased to urge the belligerent peoples and Governments to become brothers once more, even although publicity has not been given to all which We have done to attain this most noble end....
First of all, the fundamental point should be that for the material force of arms should be substituted the moral force of law; hence a just agreement by all for the simultaneous and reciprocal reduction of armaments, according to rules and guarantees to be established to the degree necessary and sufficient for the maintenance of public order in each State; then, instead of armies, the institution of arbitration, with its lofty peacemaking function, according to the standards to be agreed upon and with sanctions to be decided against the State which might refuse to submit international questions to arbitration or to accept its decisions.
Once the supremacy of law has been established, let every obstacle to the ways of communication between the peoples be removed, by ensuring through rules to be fixed in similar fashion, the true freedom and common use of the seas. This would, on the one hand, remove many reasons for conflict and, on the other, would open new sources of prosperity and progress to all....
With regard to territorial questions, such as those disputed between Italy and Austria, and between Germany and France, there is ground for hope that in consideration of the immense advantages of a lasting peace with disarmament, the conflicting parties will examine them in a conciliatory frame of mind, taking into account so far as it is just and practicable, as We have said previously, the aspirations of the peoples and co-ordinating, according to circumstances, particular interests with the general good of the great human society.
The same spirit of equity and justice should direct the examination of other territorial and political questions, notably those relating to Armenia, the Balkan States, and the territories composing the ancient Kingdom of Poland, for which especially its noble historical traditions and the sufferings which it has undergone, particularly during the present war, ought rightly to enlist the sympathies of the nations. Such are the principal foundations upon which We believe the future reorganization of peoples should rest. They are of a kind which would make impossible the recurrence of such conflicts and would pave the way for a solution of the economic question, so important for the future and the material welfare of all the belligerent States.
