As Americans continue to reel from years of dismisinfoganda, government censorship and government-inspired, if not directed, private censorship, they would do well to recall several previous episodes of government interference with the free flow of facts, including the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the suppression of abolitionist tracts in the antebellum slave South and the Sedition Act of 1918.

One largely forgotten episode of government censorship involved America’s occupation of the Philippines and Edward Atkinson (1827-1905), a wealthy industrialist and insurance company executive from eastern Massachusetts. Much like Elon Musk, Atkinson was an avid inventor, most famously of the Aladdin Oven, an early crock pot fueled by kerosene and insulated with asbestos. It was no spaceship, but it was reusable. Atkinson was also one of the first scientific dieticians and would likely have approved of Musk’s irradiatedand dollar-a-day diets. Also like Musk, Atkinson was quite the droll troll.

Most importantly, Atkinson was a staunch liberal, of the classical variety, and a longtime opponent of slavery, tariffs, national monies and imperialism. Naturally, he joined the American Anti-Imperialist League, which formed in June 1898 to protest the Spanish-American War, as a vice-president.