January 8: ON THIS DAY in 1918, Woodrow Wilson introduces peace program

January 8, 2019 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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ON THIS DAY IN 1918, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “President [Woodrow] Wilson today announced the American peace program in an address to Congress made on short notice. He declared it to be the world’s peace program, and the only possible program to which the United States can subscribe. The American program, as outlined by the president, is in close accord with that of the English, announced by [Prime Minister David] Lloyd George in his speech to the British Labor Conference. The president enumerated his peace program under fourteen heads, and declared that it was one for which this country would continue to fight until it was achieved.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1925, the Eagle reported, “Women have more than realized their highest political hopes in Texas. Besides having a woman governor-elect, in the person of Mrs. Miriam A. Ferguson, the spectacle was witnessed today of three women lawyers sitting as special judges and chief justice of the State Supreme Court in Austin. They are Miss Nellie Robertson of Granbury, chief justice; Mrs. Edith A. Wilmans of Dallas, and Mrs. Hortense Ward of Houston, associate justices. The opportunity for the appointment of these women to the Supreme bench came to Governor Pat M. Neff when the three regular members of the court certified to him their disqualifications to sit in the case of Johnson vs. Darr, on application for writ of error from El Paso. The suit involved litigation by trustees of the White Mountain Cattle Company to secure reversal of the decision of the Appellate Court at El Paso and the affirmation of the District Court of that city on land held by F.P. Jones, alleged by Jones and others to belong to the Tornillo Camp, Woodmen of the World. Widespread interest among lawyers especially was taken in the innovation of the Supreme Court bench being occupied by women. The courtroom was filled with men and women when the case was called for hearing.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1929, the Eagle reported, “Fighting her way through smoke and flame to an inside fire alarm box, Sister St. Clare, principal of St. Malachy’s Parochial School at Hendrix St. and Atlantic Ave. stood this morning with her black robes ablaze until she had sounded an alarm. Then, beating out with her bare hands the flames that threatened to envelope her, she ran from classroom to classroom, giving the alarm and assisting in getting every one of the 213 pupils of the school to safety. As a result of her courageous action, the police were able to assure hundreds of frantic mothers who hurried to the school that their children were safe. The school building, a two-story frame structure, 40 by 100 feet, with 16 classrooms, and more than 50 years old, was burned to the ground.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1943, the Eagle reported, “Nikola Tesla, 86, the electrical genius who discovered the fundamental principle of modern radio, was found dead in his room at the Hotel New Yorker, Manhattan, last night. Tesla never married. He had always lived alone, and the hotel management did not believe he had any near-relatives. Despite his more than 700 inventions, he was not wealthy. He cared little for money, and so long as he could experiment was happy. He was the first to conceive an effective method of utilizing alternating current, and in 1888 patented the induction motor, which converted electrical energy into mechanical energy more effectively and economically than by direct current. Among his other principal inventions were arc lighting and the Tesla coil. ‘The radio, I know I’m it’s father, but I don’t like it,’ he once said. ‘I just don’t like it. It’s a nuisance. I never listen to it. The radio is a distraction and keeps you from concentrating. There are too many distractions in this life for quality of thought, and it’s quality of thought, not quantity, that counts.’”