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Historians rate 1919 as ‘America’s worst year’
NYP ^ | February 4, 2019 | By Cindy Adams

Posted on 02/04/2019 8:07:02 AM PST by sparklite2

Every mouth I meet opens to complain, “Things’ve changed . . . Nothing’s the same . . . Not like we were . . . The country isn’t what it was . . .” So I checked back — exactly 100 years — to see the America of 1919.

World War I over. The USA needed security. Instead, cities experienced “Red Scare” bombings, race riots, workers striking, vets competing for jobs, May Day demonstrations, armed resistance movements and the deportations of 149 people, including Emma Goldman, to Russia. Historians rate 1919 “America’s worst year.”

Dial telephones, pop-up toasters and shortwave radios made their entrance. Despite that pardon-the-expression “car” named for him, Edsel became head of Ford Motor Co. And — ready? — our Pennsylvania got crowned the world’s most popular hotel. Also, chemist Akira Ogata developed crystal meth. So everybody, shut up.

(Excerpt) Read more at pagesix.com ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: 1919; cindyadams; dialtelephones; newyork; newyorkcity; newyorkcompost; newyorkpost; popuptoasters; shortwaveradios
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To: sparklite2

Technically, Prohibition did not ban alcohol. It did outlaw the production, sale, or transportation of booze. Effectively that was the same, but consumption was perfectly legal. Doctors were allowed to write prescriptions for alcohol, farmers were allowed to produce wine for their own consumption, and wine used for religious rites was also legal.


41 posted on 02/04/2019 9:07:56 AM PST by SoCal Pubbie
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To: SoCal Pubbie

True. You could buy grape bricks to make you own wine.

Similarly, under pressure from dairy farmers, it became illegal to sell margarine that was yellow, like butter.

So margarine manufactures sold you a brick of margarine and a pack of coloring to mix together.


42 posted on 02/04/2019 9:14:15 AM PST by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: RedStateRocker

I know some of those kind of folks in real life.
They’ll vote a country dry, and then move.


43 posted on 02/04/2019 9:17:04 AM PST by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: sparklite2

1919 could be labeled as the year that America’s slow decline started following Wilson shredding the Constitution and an absolutely worthless engagement into WWI. Who could imagine FDR and WWII on the horizon?


44 posted on 02/04/2019 9:19:02 AM PST by shanover (...To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.-S.Adams)
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To: shanover

After America got the golden years of Harding and Coolidge.


45 posted on 02/04/2019 9:24:00 AM PST by Sam Gamgee
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To: sparklite2
From the article:

Apples, 1 pound cost 11 cents; 1 pound of roast beef, 38 cents; 3 pounds of steak, 60 cents; 1 pound of butter, 39 cents; 3 pounds of chicken, 19 cents; bacon, 21 cents; cod, 10 cents; can of salmon, 27 cents; dozen eggs, 61 cents. If you were hot on cabbage, it was 14 cents a pound, and cheese (who knows what kind, and who cares?) was 41 cents.

46 posted on 02/04/2019 9:28:51 AM PST by Chuckster (I need a new tagline)
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To: sparklite2

You could make a good case for 1919. Including the fact that Edith Wilson was the unelected acting POTUS and her husband’s political enemies were languishing in jails.

You can make a good case for 2008 also. The Obamination and resulting bank bailouts, which only served to reinforce our gibmedat culture.


47 posted on 02/04/2019 9:37:04 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: sparklite2

2008


48 posted on 02/04/2019 9:42:02 AM PST by MichiganCheese (The darker the culture, the brighter your light can shine.)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Yup. And yet it’s Harding that gets labeled as the worst president of that era. His family sat on Harding’s correspondences until 2014. Prior to that, Nixon’s tapes were available on line, but Harding wasn’t dead enough.


49 posted on 02/04/2019 9:48:25 AM PST by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: sparklite2
For me, the worst non-war year was 1913.... the 16th and 17th Amendments... Wilson creates that Federal Reserve... The Wheatland Hop Riot and the Indianapolis Streetcar Strike (workers getting violent) and The Italian Hall disaster (striking laborers party gets out of control, 53 children stampeded to death, the reason one "cannot yell "fire!" in a crowded theater") ... The Great Dayton Flood and the Alum Chine explosion in Baltimore... Death Valley hit the 134F global record... and the first amateur to win the US Open (by 5 strokes).
50 posted on 02/04/2019 9:51:10 AM PST by Teacher317 (We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men)
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To: sparklite2
Harding wasn’t dead enough.

His grave is across the street from a shopping mall in Marion, Ohio. Stumbled across it one day, purely by accident.


51 posted on 02/04/2019 9:55:14 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Buckeye McFrog
It's an imposing structure.



52 posted on 02/04/2019 10:11:35 AM PST by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: sparklite2
1919 was a good year:


53 posted on 02/04/2019 10:15:40 AM PST by DCBryan1 (Quit calling them liberals, progs, socialists, or democrats. Call them what they are: COMMUNISTS!!!!)
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To: sparklite2

I remember...
Oh wait.


54 posted on 02/04/2019 11:07:45 AM PST by Big Red Badger (Despised by the Despicable!)
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To: dfwgator

“Well we had two real horrible candidates to pick from that year.”


That we did. But I’d like to think that at least McCain, had he been elected, wouldn’t have been quite so angry at the American public. He’d have been pathetic, compared to Trump’s putting of America and Americans first vs. the rest of the world, but better than the other guy. Hell, my dog would have been better than the other guy - at least my dog has loyalty.


55 posted on 02/04/2019 11:11:47 AM PST by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt, The Weapons Shops of Isher)
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To: sparklite2

Progressive historians rate 2019 as “America’s worst year”.


56 posted on 02/04/2019 11:12:38 AM PST by Blue Collar Christian (Socialism is for losers.)
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To: Blue Collar Christian

Can’t imagine why. I wouldn’t make a prediction on a year that is only one month old. If anything, the year of Trump’s election should be their worst of late.


57 posted on 02/04/2019 11:46:49 AM PST by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: sparklite2

I figure Trump will accomplish even more this year toward making America Great Again than last year. Especially if we get the wall.


58 posted on 02/04/2019 12:03:57 PM PST by Blue Collar Christian (Socialism is for losers.)
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To: Blue Collar Christian

If he doesn’t, he’s accomplished enough already
to deserve a second term. A roaring economy
does not fall off the radar, even if pushed.


59 posted on 02/04/2019 12:09:56 PM PST by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: sparklite2

1968-69, far worse because the people in the streets then hated America and did all they could to destroy it. Their actions laid the foundation for the modern Democratic party and their lunacy on the left.


60 posted on 02/04/2019 12:26:53 PM PST by Midwesterner53
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