THIS MONTH IN AMERICAN HISTORY
~ APRIL ~

WAR ON DRUGS 

18 APRIL 1838: A new Massachusetts law attempts to control the use of alcohol. Liquor cannot be sold on a retail basis except in quantities of 15 gallons.

28 APRIL 1890: Still attacking State Sovereignty, the Supreme Court in Leisy v. Hardin rules un-Constitutional State laws which forbid package liquor from entering the State, on grounds that it interferes with gainful profit.

15 APRIL 1903: The International Congress on Alcoholism opens in Bremen, Germany.

30 APRIL 1908: Heralding a national trend, 267 Massachusetts towns and cities vote for local Prohibition. Worcester, with its population of 130,000 is the largest city in the country to go “Dry.”

22 APRIL 1923: In Texas “Dry” agents start air patrol to catch alcohol bootleggers (drug dealers).

 22 APRIL 1924: Washington D.C. report released indicating Volstead Act spurs crime. 

24 APRIL 1926: Washington D.C. “Dry Law” hearings end; “Wets” make final plea for modification.

07 APRIL 1959: In Oklahoma, 51 years of Prohibition draw to a close as a voter margin of 80,000 repeals the ruling that has kept the State “liquor-free” since 1908.

08 APRIL 1968: A Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs will “oversee” narcotics and other drugs.

ARTS/CULTURE

24 APRIL 1704: The first regularly issued newspaper in the American Colonies, the Boston News-Letter, is published by Massachusetts colonist John Campbell. The News-Letter will be issued weekly until the time of the American Revolution.

15 APRIL 1789: In New York City, John Fenno begins publication of the Gazette of the United States. This Federalist newspaper becomes the Washington Administration’s organ. In 1790, it will be moved to Philadelphia, where it will be renamed the United States Gazette.

24 APRIL 1800: The Library of Congress is established by an act of Congress. The 1815 purchase of Thomas Jefferson’s 7000-volume library will form the nucleus of the collection.

06 APRIL 1808: In Philadelphia, James N. Barker’s The Indian Princess, or La Belle Sauvage is performed. This play, the first having a Native American theme to be staged in the United States, portrays incidents from the life of Pocahontas – a story that is to provide subject matter for many subsequent dramatic compositions during the course of the 19th century.

21 APRIL 1828: After more than 20 years’ labor, Noah Webster finally publishes his American Dictionary of the English Language.  This monumental volume contains some 70,000 definitions – 12,000 more than any other English language dictionary.

10 APRIL 1841: Horace Greeley begins to publish the New York Tribune. As editor of this newspaper, Greeley will become one of the most influential people in the country.

04 APRIL 1859: The song Dixie is first sung publicly in Mechanics Hall in New York City.

02 APRIL 1876: National League Baseball plays its first official game. Jim O’Rourke gets the first hit, and Boston beats Philadelphia, 6-5.

23 APRIL 1896: The first public showing of a moving picture is presented in New York City.  A review in the New York Times proclaims it “all wonderfully real and singularly exhilarating.”  Included in the show are scenes of a turbulent coastline surf, two girls dancing, and a comic boxing act.

 17 APRIL 1919: Film pioneers Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks found a film company in California called United Artists Corporation. This alliance stems from necessity: they were in danger of pricing themselves out of the market since their huge salaries squeezed the profit margin from their films.  27 APRIL 1919: National Association of the Motion Picture Industry – a regulatory body created by Hollywood studios – agrees to submit their films to censorship. 21 APRIL 1922: Lee De Forest announces invention of motion picture device containing photoplay and voice on same film. 18 APRIL 1923: In New York City, 74,200 watch as Yankees open new stadium. 16 APRIL 1924: One of the largest mergers in the motion picture industry is consummated by Marcus Lowe, who heads the newly consolidated interests now operating under the name Metro-Goldwyn Corporation, involving Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures and the Louis B. Mayer Company. The production center will be Goldwyn Studios at Culver City, California. The trademark: a roaring lion and the motto “Ars Gratia Artis” – Art for Art’s Sake. 22 APRIL 1924: Einstein-inspired play “Time is a Dream” opens on Broadway. 07 APRIL 1927: Television broadcasts get successful tests in New York City. 

FINANCE

08 APRIL 1789: The first item on the agenda for the House of Representatives is the raising of revenue for the new government.

02 APRIL 1792: Congress passes the Coinage Act, establishing a National Mint in Philadelphia, mandating a decimal system of coinage, and setting the ratio of silver to gold in the U.S. dollar at 15 to 1.

06 APRIL 1802: Congress abolishes all excise duties, including the controversial whiskey tax.

29 APRIL 1822: Congress passes the Cumberland Road Tolls Bill. President Monroe will veto the Bill on 04 May, basing his denial on the belief that the federal government lacks jurisdiction over public improvements. Monroe will recommend a Constitutional Amendment that will provide Congress with such authority.

14 APRIL 1874: The Legal Tender Act, the so-called Inflation Bill, passes the House. It adds $18,000,000 of Greenbacks to circulation, and validates $26,000,000 authorized in 1873, bringing the total paper circulation to $400,000,000. President Grant will veto the Bill the following week saying it is too inflationary, but by June, Congress passes the new Bill bringing total notes to $382,000,000.

02 APRIL 1914: The newly created Federal Reserve Board announces plans to divide the nation into 12 Districts.

19 APRIL 1933: By presidential proclamation, FDR takes the U.S. off the Gold Standard for its currency. The dollar inevitably declines sharply in exchanges abroad, while silver, commodities and stocks rise in the American market.

24 APRIL 1953: In a report issued by IRS, government theft in the form of taxes collected by the agency in the previous year reach a high of $68.5 billion.

IDEAS/BELIEFS

24 APRIL 1649: The Toleration Act is passed in Maryland. It provides for religious Freedom for all Christians, including Catholics.

21 APRIL 1668: The Duke’s Laws, a judicial code issued by the Duke of York, is now put into force in Delaware. It includes a plan for municipal government and for Freedom of conscience.

20 APRIL 1670: The Virginia assembly votes to end the English practice of deporting habitual criminals as indentured servants to the Virginia Colony. The English Parliament supports this legislation until they revoke it in 1717.

APRIL 1689: Massachusetts’ governor Andros is forced to barricade himself in the British fort at Boston when he is opposed by a Rebellious group of colonists. Andros eventually surrenders and is jailed along with two other “royal” agents. Upon receiving the news of the Boston Rebellion, the New York counties of Queens, Suffolk and Westchester oust members of their “royal” gub-mnt’ and elect their own colonial representatives to replace them.

APRIL 1690: In New York, as part of Leisler’s Rebellion, a legislative assembly is called by Jacob Leisler and enacts a law banning the trade monopolies of the Colony’s merchants. Leisler represents small shopkeepers, small farmers, sailors, poor traders and artisans against the wealthy establishment class. One year later, Leisler and nine compatriots are tried for treason. Leisler and seven others receive the death sentence. Six Rebels are eventually pardoned.

24 APRIL 1794: The Pennsylvania legislature revises the State Criminal Code, abolishing capital punishment for all offenses except murder.

06 APRIL 1830: Based on his visions and translations of messages on golden tablets, Joseph Smith organizes the Church of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) at Fayette, New York. Smith publishes his Book of Mormon this same year. After early persecution, his religion will become one of the most powerful in America.

13 APRIL 1830: At a dinner on the anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, President Andrew Jackson deliberately challenges the Southerners present by toasting, “Our Federal Union – it must be preserved!”  Vice-President John Calhoun returns the toast with his challenge: “The Union – next to our Liberty, the most dear!”

26 APRIL 1831: The New York legislature finds that poverty is not a crime and abolishes prison terms for debtors.

30 APRIL 1894: Jacob Sechler Coxey leads 400 people from Ohio to Washington D.C. Known as Coxey’s Army, the motley crew marches to protest unemployment; underlying that is their sense that the government refuses to legislate in favor of working people, but feels no such compunction to refrain from legislating in favor of large corporations. Arriving in Washington amid great applause from a waiting crowd, Coxey and his lieutenants are arrested for trespassing on the grass. Coxey’s Army melts away but is only one of many such “armies” that gather to protest.

14 APRIL 1901: In New York City, actors are arrested at Academy of Music for wearing costumes on Sunday.

18 APRIL 1910: Suffragists are getting more numerous and more likely to be heard. Petitioning Congress for the vote, a vociferous group brings 500,000 names to their representatives. Grover Cleveland, writing earlier in the Ladies’ Home Journal, fails to endear himself to the ladies when he states, as if he has a means of knowing: “Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence.”

19 APRIL 1913: California passes Webb Bill, excluding Japanese from owning land.

01 APRIL 1918: On this day, the federal government begins its War on Darkness, instituting daylight savings time.

16 APRIL 1918: The Federal Food Board, a subunit of the Federal Food Administration – created to administer Allied food reserves during WWI – begins prosecuting grocers who refuse to label food.

25 APRIL 1926: College football promotes drinking, dishonesty, neglect of academic work and is a moral menace, according to a report issued by a committee of the American Association of University professors. The panel proposes a limitation of one year’s participation for college football players, among other reforms.

LABOR

APRIL 1877: In an ominous move which will have violent repercussions come summer, the four great trunk lines of the East get together and call off their ruinous rate-war. Then, taking advantage of the desperate straits labor is in because of the ongoing depression, the four agree to fix rates among themselves and cut wages by 10 percent.

APRIL 1884: The Hocking Valley coal miners Strike over wages and working conditions. Public sympathy is at first with the badly used miners but subsequent violence by an enraged minority turns this sympathy away. The miners are starved into submission.

22 APRIL 1886: Grover Cleveland, in the first presidential message relating to Labor, suggests government serve as arbitrator in industrial disputes.

07 APRIL 1891: Chalking up one gain at a time, labor gets an eight-hour day law passed in Nebraska.

01 APRIL 1892: Miners in the Coeur D’Alene silver mines in Idaho go on Strike. The Strike will last well into July and will amount to a mini-guerrilla war.

05 APRIL 1894: Fierce riots break out among miners Striking in Connellsville, Pennsylvania.  Eleven men are killed. Riots underline the rotten conditions prevailing in the new mines.

20 APRIL 1894: Almost taking the country to the edge of Civil War, 136,000 desperate coal miners Strike at Columbus, Ohio, over wages. By the end of the year 750,000 workers will have gone on Strike.

24 APRIL 1894: In another tragic mine accident at Franklin, Washington, 37 men die.

24 APRIL 1899: Striking miners at Wardner, Idaho, demand $3.50 per day and the shutdown of company stores. The offer is refused and riots begin.

17 APRIL 1905: In Lochner v. New York, the Supreme Court finds unconstitutional a State law which limits maximum working hours for bakers.

09 APRIL 1923: In Adkins v. Children’s Hospital the Supreme Court finds that the minimum wage law for women and children which has been adopted in the District of Columbia is unconstitutional. Organized Labor is everywhere being weakened at this time and is losing ground gained under the shelter of Theodore Roosevelt.

MEXICO – U.S. REALTIONS

06 APRIL 1830: Mexico passes the Colonization Law to block U.S. citizens from any further colonization of the Texas territories. The law also prohibits U.S. citizens from importing black slaves to that area.

05 APRIL 1831: The U.S. completes final negotiations on a commercial treaty with Mexico.  The Senate approves it a year later.

01-03 APRIL 1833: Meeting at San Felipe de Austin, a group of Americans who live in Texas Territory hold a convention and vote to separate from Mexico.

11 APRIL 1839: The U.S. signs a treaty with Mexico to provide arbitration of claims made by American citizens.

12 APRIL 1844: A treaty agreeing to the American annexation of Texas is signed and President Tyler submits it to Senate on 22 April.

27 April 1844: Martin Van Buren and Henry Clay, who both hope to run for president, publish letters (in separate newspapers) that oppose the annexation of Texas.

12 APRIL 1846: A Mexican general, Pedro de Ampudia, who commands the forces at Matamoros, warns General Taylor to retire his position beyond the Nueces River or, he warns, “Arms alone must decide the question.”

24 APRIL 1846: Despite Mexico’s evident desire to find some face-saving way of negotiating its way out of an armed conflict, President Polk persists in seeking an excuse for war. It comes when a small Mexican cavalry unit inflicts a few casualties on U.S. troops blockading a Mexican town. On 26 April, General Taylor reports to Washington that “hostilities may now be considered as commenced.”

25 APRIL 1846: President Polk plans his war message to Congress, based on Mexico’s refusal to meet with U.S. Envoy John Slidell and her unpaid claims to U.S. nationals.

08 APRIL 1847: General Scott leaves Vera Cruz and heads in the direction of Mexico City. He will defeat Santa Anna’s men at Cerro Gordo on April 18, take Jalapa on April 19 and Puebla on May 15.

09 APRIL 1914: President Wilson has refused to recognize the ruthless General Victoriano Huerta as the rightful President of Mexico on the grounds he has not been elected by The People.  When some sailors and officers from the American barge Dolphin go ashore at Tampico for supplies, they are promptly arrested, and as promptly released. Unable to leave the incident alone, Admiral Henry Mayo demands not only an apology but a humiliating “salute to the American flag” as well. This last, Dictator Huerta refuses to do and on 11 April breaks off diplomatic relations. There is great pressure from European powers for Wilson to recognize Huerta, since he is a strong ruler and may be able to keep peace, which is threatened by Pancho Villa and Venustiano Carranza. Foreigners, including Americans, are heavily invested in Mexico which is as rich in natural resources as any country in the world.

19 APRIL 1914: In an uncharacteristically belligerent move, Wilson asks and receives from Congress the authority to use armed force to make Huerta comply to his wishes.

21 APRIL 1914: The U.S. Navy is dispatched to Vera Cruz, Mexico and Marines take control of the city. Through this port Germany has been funneling arms for Huerta. Americans lose four men and 20 are wounded. Only the timely intervention of the “ABC Powers,” – the governments of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile – as mediators, saves America from getting involved in war.  However, stopping supplies for Huerta dries up a strong source of foreign aid and will be a factor in pressuring Huerta to resign and leave the country.

NATIONAL

18-19 APRIL 1775: THE SHOT HEARD ‘ROUND THE WORLD. Brit general Gage orders Lt. Col Smith to lead 700 British soldiers to Concord, Massachusetts, to destroy the colonial arms depot there. The Boston Committee of Safety sends Paul Revere and William Dawes to warn of the coming attack and they warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams in Lexington, and then ride on toward Concord. They encounter a Brit patrol which captures Revere, who is later released. When Brit Lt. Col Smith’s forces reach Lexington, a standoff occurs between the British and some 70 armed Yankee Rebels. An unordered shot leads to the killing of eight Americans and the wounding of eight others. On the return to Boston, the British are beset by ever-increasing numbers of Colonial Militia, who begin a siege of Boston that lasts until March 1776, when the British evacuate the city.

30 APRIL 1789: On the balcony of New York’s Federal Hall, George Washington is inaugurated as the first president. Washington’s oration urges the “preservation of the sacred fire of Liberty.”

04 APRIL 1818: Congress limits the number of stripes on the American flag to 13 again, and orders only new stars to be added for each new State.

14 APRIL 1834: The name “Whig” is formally adopted for a new U.S. political party after Henry Clay mentions it approvingly in a Senate speech. Among those forces who come together to form the party are anti-Jackson forces, former members of the National Republican Party, Southern planters and Northern industrialists. After 1836, members of the Anti-Masonic Party will join as well. Clay and Daniel Webster are prominent leaders.

04 APRIL 1841: The rigors of the presidential campaign and the cold he caught while outdoors for his inauguration prove too stressful for 68-year-old William Henry Harrison. After only one month in office, he dies of pneumonia. Vice-President John Tyler becomes the first American to succeed to the presidency. 

03 APRIL 1860: The Pony Express mail service begins and thrives before the transcontinental telegraph line is in operation in 1861. Riders cover the route between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, in about 8 days.

07 APRIL 1871: In the Illinois Railroad Act, a commission is set up with powers to fix maximum rates on railroad and warehouse use; it also forbids all discrimination that favors giant corporations over small businesses. These early attempts to regulate the giant interstate corporations now spreading like octopi across the nation will in 1886 be thwarted by an odd interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court will rule that a corporation is a person under the meaning of the Amendment and therefore cannot be deprived of property, meaning in this case profits, except by due process. This decision will be applied against States, curtailing their regulatory powers.

20 APRIL 1871: The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 is pushed through an inactive Congress by the indefatigable Massachusetts Representative Ben Butler. Its purpose is to provide appropriate legislation to support and enforce the Fourteenth Amendment. The Act authorizes the president to suspend Habeas Corpus and to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment by use of federal troops.  By 1877, when the last federal troops are removed from Southern soil, the Fourteenth Amendment will become virtually inoperative.

08 APRIL 1924: Washington D.C. investigatory commission charges Du Pont family with war profiteering.

03 APRIL 1944: In Smith v. Allwright, the Supreme Court rules that a person cannot be denied the vote in the Democratic Party primary in Texas because of his color - namely, being black.

12 APRIL 1963: The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., is arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, after his participation in a Civil Rights march.

29 APRIL 1965: Francis Keppel, the U.S. Commissioner of Education, announces that all public school districts are to desegregate their schools by the fall of 1967. The announcement is based on the 1964 Civil Rights Act barring federal aid to schools practicing racial discrimination.

04 APRIL 1968: At Memphis, Tennessee, Civil Rights leader and former Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated.

07 APRIL 1969: In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court rules unconstitutional laws that try to prohibit the reading or viewing of obscene material in the privacy of one’s home. “Our whole constitutional heritage,” Justice Thurgood Marshall insists, “rebels at the thought of giving the government the power to control men’s minds.”

26 APRIL 1976: The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities ends a 15-month investigation into the various intelligence agencies of the federal government. Its report details a wide assortment of questionable activities by the FBI, CIA and IRS, which seriously infringed on the Civil Rights of American citizens.

NATIVE AMERICANS

APRIL 1578: Acting Spanish governor Pedro Menendez Marques burns the large “Indian” village at Copocay, Florida, and also takes many prisoners. This method of dealing with Native Americans is a prototype of the methods pursued in the centuries that follow.

APRIL 1613: Pocahontas is seized by “sir” Samuel Argall and held hostage by Jamestown colonists to force the release of settlers imprisoned by Native Americans. Pocahontas is converted to Christianity by Puritan clergyman Alexander Whitaker. In April 1614, Pocahontas marries Virginia planter John Rolfe.

10 APRIL 1671: Following a series of raids by Native Americans defending their land against the encroaching Massachusetts Colonists, Plymouth leaders force King Philip, Chief of the Wampanoag, to disarm. The Chief complies, in part, surrendering only a part of his arsenal.

15 APRIL 1715: Defending their lands against further invasion, the Yamassee massacre several hundred Carolina settlers. The subsequent establishment of the Georgia Colony in 1732 is designed to push southern Native Americans farther away from Carolina.

26 APRIL 1791: In the Treaty of Holston River, the Cherokee cede most of their land holdings in the upper Tennessee River Valley to the U.S. government, in return for the promise that the rest of the Cherokee lands will remain the sole property of Cherokee, free from further demands by the federal government.

APRIL 1812: In the northwest region, the peace between Native Americans and settlers following the Battle of Tippecanoe ends, as the Native Americans begin another series of raids on the frontier settlements, while Tecumseh himself remains on the defensive.

07 APRIL 1818: In his first Seminole War campaign, General Andrew Jackson seizes St. Marks, Florida, where he has Scottish trader Alexander Arbuthnot and English trader Robert Armbrister arrested for inciting the Seminole. Both men are court-martialed and executed on 29 April.  Jackson’s actions in this affair will excite public outcry and provoke a congressional call for Jackson’s censure, but will result in no action by the government.

06 APRIL – 02 AUGUST 1832: The Black Hawk War begins when Black Hawk leads a group of Sauk across the Mississippi River into northern Illinois. They take one village and hope to regain their ceded lands throughout that area and in the Wisconsin territory. Fighting continues until 2 August when the Sauk are clearly defeated. Among the soldiers who serve in this war are Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis.

APRIL 1868: The Treaty of Fort Laramie brings to an end the First Sioux War.

10 APRIL 1869: The Board of Indian Commissioners is created by an Act of Congress. Although it is supposed to supervise all federal spending for tribes, the Board will be just another link in the long chain of official betrayal of Native Americans.

22 APRIL 1889: Responding to public pressure, land in Oklahoma formally ceded to Native Americans is opened to white settlers by government decree. When the signal is given, some 50,000 people rush in to claim their lots. The government has paid $4,000,000 for about 2,000,000 acres of the Native’s “Beautiful Land.” This famous “Oklahoma Land Rush” is only the first of several such organized land settlements arranged by the government.

19 APRIL 1892: President Harrison opens another 3,000,000 acres of Oklahoma land to white settlers. The land belongs to Cheyenne and Arapaho forced into Oklahoma Territory at the end of tragic battles in the 1870s and 1880s.

SLAVERY

APRIL 1688: Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania, issue a formal protest against the institution of slavery in the American Colonies.

APRIL 1712: A slave Rebellion takes place in New York City and the militia is called out. Twenty-one slaves are executed.

14 APRIL 1775: The first Abolition Society in the American colonies, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, is established in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Benjamin Rush.

APRIL 1792: At the Kentucky Constitutional Convention, Presbyterian clergyman David Rice, unsuccessfully tries to exclude slavery from Kentucky. A second attempt in 1799 also fails.

01 APRIL 1840: The abolitionist Liberty Party holds its first national convention in Albany, New York. By now the membership in various abolitionist and anti-slavery societies in the U.S. is over 150,000.

04 APRIL 1841: When President Tyler declares a Sunday as a “Day of National Prayer” for the recently-deceased President Harrison, various speakers use the occasion to speak out on the issue of slavery. One Southern minister is reported as taking the occasion to preach on “current wild notions of Equality.”

25 APRIL 1854: Eli Thay organizes the Emigrant Aid Society in Worcester, Massachusetts, to encourage anti-slavery supporters to settle Kansas and thus “save” it as a Free State. Relatively soon, about 2,000 people go under the auspices of this project. In 1855 the Society is renamed the New England Emigrant Aid Company and has founded many communities, but its activities also lead to the forming of secret societies aimed at establishing slavery in Kansas.

24 APRIL 1953: In a report issued by IRS, government theft in the form of taxes collected by the agency in the previous year reach a high of $68.5 billion.

15 April 2013: Deadline to file a federal income tax return.