100 Year Old Lessons

Today’s (P)regressives with their determination to stifle any opposing views have much in common with those living during the “Great War”.

Part of my reading is articles from 100 year old newspapers gathered by various historians. Some examples.

 To make sure there is no hoarding of essential food, all citizens having in their possession more than 100 pounds of wheat flour and/or sugar are required to send a report to the Federal Food Administrator in Sheridan.

John Hammergreen, a Swede claiming to be a personal friend of the kaiser, is in jail at Sheridan and his new gun with which he drunkenly intended “to kill himself a policeman” has been confiscated. 

John Miller, who declared his love and loyalty to the kaiser while at a store in Cody, is in jail for 63 days—an extended sentence after he refused to pay his fine. 

Two foreigners who refused to subscribe to the Liberty Loan drive “because they would be hanged for it when they return to the old country,” were tarred and feathered by the patriotic citizens of Frontier. 

All 200 coal miners at Gebo, 90% of them foreign-born, have entered into an agreement to pay 2% of their wages to the Red Cross and other patriotic organizations. No man is permitted to work at the camp if he does not own a Liberty Bond.

A Bulgarian coal miner working in Erie disparaged the Red Cross to his fellow miners, and they stripped him, painted him yellow and rolled him in straw, which stuck to his body. He was then left at his home. He was not a bad sport about it, made no outcry and said he'd purchased a Red Cross Liberty Bond.

This is a small sampling.

The entry into WWI lead to near mob rule and government agencies blowing by constitutional rights, all with the enthusiastic approval of the MSM of the times, the newspapers.

 If it not for the internet being an unfettered place for opposing views and a means to mobilize resistance, would the same not be true today?