[Strikers win big (in 1913). Strikebreakings deadly cost (1918).
No way to win an election (1968). Reign of terror in Georgia (1868).
Better late than never (1988). FBI at its worst (1968). Public health
catastrophe (1918).]
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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, OCT. 31-NOV.6  
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_ Strikers win big (in 1913). Strikebreaking's deadly cost (1918). No
way to win an election (1968). Reign of terror in Georgia (1868).
Better late than never (1988). FBI at its worst (1968). Public health
catastrophe (1918). _

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_Indianapolis Streetcar Workers Strike to Win_
October 31, 1913 (110 years ago). In Indianapolis, the Amalgamated
Street Railway Employees of America strike the Indianapolis Traction &
Terminal Company. After eight violent and chaotic days, during which,
among other things, the police refuse to act against the strikers, the
strike is settled when the company agrees to a wage increase and the
installation of safety equipment. In addition the city government
agrees to establish Indiana's first minimum wage law and to begin
projects to improve conditions in the city's slums.
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_Strikebreaking's Deadly Cost_
November 1, 1918 (105 years ago). At least 93 Brooklyn commuters are
killed by the owners and managers of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit
company, who are so determined to break a strike by engineers that
they put a totally inexperienced and untrained scab train operator at
the controls of a train crowded with homeward-bound passengers. The
novice operator/strikebreaker takes a curve at 35 mph, which is 29 mph
faster than the speed limit. The result is the deadliest rapid-transit
wreck in U.S. history. The exact number of people killed (possibly as
many as 102) is not known because the Transit Company and the police
never make it clear. Not a single one of the powerful men who caused
the wreck is ever punished or fined.
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_No Way to Win an Election_
November 2, 1968 (55 years ago). Three days before U.S. voters need to
choose between Democrat Hubert Humphrey, whose candidacy is saddled by
Humphrey's connection with the bloody and unpopular Vietnam War, and
Republican Richard Nixon, who claims to have a plan to stop the war,
Humphrey's election prospects are dramatically set back.
    The culprit is South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn
Thiệu, who on this day torpedoes any hope for the ongoing Paris
peace talks by suddenly declaring he will no longer participate in
them. Thiệu does so at the very moment that it seemed the talks were
poised to make progress, because the Johnson administration had just
agreed to comply with the demand that the U.S. halt all air, naval and
artillery bombardment of North Vietnam.
    Thiệu had always been opposed to  the talks, but for more
than five months he had been an unwilling participant because his
regime was completely dependent on the U.S. government, which was
desperate to get the albatross of the war off its neck. Thiệu's
new-found willingness to bite the hand that fed him was inspired by a
message from Richard Nixon who wanted Thiệu to stall until after the
election and thereby reduce Humphrey's support among anti-war voters.
Nixon's bold stratagem, which remained secret until 2017, was
successful, giving him the opportunity to continue the bloodletting in
Vietnam until he was forced to resign in 1974. 
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_A Glimpse of the Effect of a Reign of Terror_
November 3, 1868 (155 years ago). Ulysses S. Grant is elected
President in the first post-Civil War election. The results of the
election provide insight into what has been going on in Dixie since
the end of the war. After the formerly enslaved had been liberated
in 1865, they naturally assumed the rights of citizens, including the
right to vote as they chose. In April 1868 they had exercised that
right, with the result that an anti-racist candidate for governor won
election by a wide margin. Soon after that election, a racist reign of
terror swept across Georgia, with the result that less than seven
months later the vast majority of formerly enslaved people know that
casting a vote could cost them their lives, so they stayed away from
the poll and Grant lost to racist presidential candidate by the 64-36
margin.  [link removed]

_Better Late Than Never?_
November 4, 1988 (35 years ago). Almost 40 years after the United
Nations adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide, the U.S. ratified it. It was the 98th UN member to
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_The FBI at its Worst_
November 5, 1968 (55 years ago). FBI headquarters circulates a 3-page
memo to all FBI offices under the heading COINTELPRO -- DISRUPTION OF
THE NEW LEFT. The memo (which is top secret at the time) orders all
offices to carry out 12-point program: (1) anonymously prepare
leaflets for college campuses attacking SDS and SDS leadership on each
campus; (2) instigate or exploit personal conflicts among New Left;
(3) create "impressions that certain New Left leaders are informants;"
(4) distribute to "university officials, major donors, members of the
legislature" and students' parents genuine news clips concerning drugs
and sex from student and New Left newspapers "to show the depravity of
New Left leaders and members;" (5) alert local law enforcement
concerning any drug possession or use by leaders and members of the
New Left; (6) send scurrilous anonymous letters concerning New Left
activists to their parents, neighbors, and parents' employers; (7)
send similar anonymous letters concerning pro-New Left faculty and
grad students to university officials and the press; (8) encourage
friendly media contacts to focus on the New Left's minority status on
campus; (9) exploit hostility among SDS and other New Left groups;
(10) call the attention of friendly media the existence of New Left
coffee houses near military bases and calling local law enforcement's
attention to related drug use; (11) create and circulate anonymous
leaflets ridiculing the New Left; and (12) use every opportunity to
confuse and disrupt the New Left with anonymous misinformation
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_A Public Health Catastrophe_
November 6, 1918 (105 years ago). The United States is in the grip of
an unprecedented public health crisis caused by pandemic influenza.
Six-year-old Mary McCarthy, who will grow up to be a renowned and
influential novelist and political activist, arrives in Minneapolis by
train, along with her parents and her three brothers, all of whom are
under five. All six McCarthys have been infected with influenza during
their journey from Seattle. The children's cases have been mild, but
as soon as the train arrives, Mary's parents Roy and Martha McCarthy
are rushed to the hospital, while Mary and her siblings are taken by
their grandmother to her nearby home. Roy McCarthy dies in the
hospital on November 6; a day later Martha succumbs. It is one of many
similar catastrophes resulting from what remains one of the nation's
most disruptive outbreaks of infectious disease.
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* U.S. history
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* Labor Unions
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* strikebreakers
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* Paris Peace Accords
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* Ku Klux Klan
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* Genocide
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* COINTELPRO
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* Pandemic of 1918
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