The Book Club will meet in two weeks to discuss Unreasonable Men by Michael Wolraich on Friday, February 7th at 10:00 am.
If you have not already done so, please let me know whether or not you plan to attend.
1. President Roosevelt waited until after the election to order the dishonorable discharges (Page 85).
From Wikipedia: The Brownsville affair...was an incident of racial injustice that occurred in 1906 in the southwestern United States due to resentment by white residents of Brownsville, Texas, of the Buffalo Soldiers, black soldiers in a segregated unit stationed at nearby Fort Brown. When a white bartender was killed and a white police officer wounded by gunshots one night, townspeople accused the members of the African-American 25th Infantry Regiment. Although their commanders said the soldiers had been in the barracks all night, evidence was planted against the men.
As a result of a United States Army Inspector General's investigation, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the discharge without honor of 167 soldiers of the 25th Infantry Regiment, costing them pensions and preventing them from ever serving in federal civil service jobs. The case aroused national outrage in both black and white communities. After more investigation, several of the men were allowed to re-enlist.
Following publication of a history of the affair in the early 1970s, a renewed military investigation exonerated the discharged black troops. President Nixon pardoned the men in 1972 and restored their records to show honorable discharges, but it did not provide retroactive compensation to them or their descendants. Only one man had survived to that time; Congress passed an act to provide him with a tax-free pension. The other soldiers who had been expelled all received posthumous honorable discharges.
One of the most significant events during the time period of the book (May 18, 1904 through March 4, 1913) was the Panic of 1907. The following links help explain the economic activity during this period.
2. Trading in the Curb (Page 94).
3. Moore & Schley brokerage house (Page 102).
4. What is money?
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