Today in history

April 13

Passover

1775
The first American society for the abolition of slavery is organized by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.

1919
Socialist, pacifist, and labor leader Eugene Debs was imprisoned for opposing U.S. entry into World War I. While in prison, he received nearly one million votes for President in 1920 (as he had in 1912).

1919
In Amritsar, holiest city of the Sikh religion (in India’s Punjab province), British and Gurkha troops killed at least 379 and wounded 1200 unarmed demonstrators meeting at the Jallianwala Bagh, a city park. Most of those killed were Indian nationalists meeting to protest the British government’s forced conscription and the heavy war tax it imposed upon the Indian people. In the previous three days, two key Sikh leaders had been deported, Ghandi had been barred from entering the Punjab, and a general strike and demonstration had been met with deadly fire from British troops, sparking violent reaction.

1930
Police arrest over 100 Chicano farm workers for their union activities in Imperial Valley, California. Eight will be convicted of so-called “criminal syndicalism.”

1962
Rachel Carson’s book indicting the pesticide industry, “Silent Spring,” was published. The scientist and writer (17 years with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) demonstrated the connection between the excessive and ubiquitous use of DDT and its long-term effect on plants and animals.

The impact of her book proved seminal to a new ecological awareness. But even 30 years later, Carson was denounced for “preservationist hysteria” and “bad science.” But she had said when the book was published: “We do not ask that all chemicals be abandoned. We ask moderation. We ask the use of other methods less harmful to our environment”

Rachel Carson at work c. 1936

1995
Catholic Worker activists arrested in protest at World Bank headquarters, Washington DC.