February 19: ON THIS DAY in 1943, pope urged to leave Vatican

February 19, 2019 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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ON THIS DAY IN 1872, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “The international copyright question seems to be taking an unusually wide range, and the fundamental principle involved is under vigorous review, even so far as it applies to the rights of native authors. In other words, it is now insisted in some quarters that there ought to be no property whatever in brain work, and that everybody should be at liberty to reproduce an author’s book. Why not go a step further and make it lawful to steal the book itself?”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1943, the Eagle reported, “It is the thesis of what follows that the main mission of Archbishop [Francis] Spellman in war-torn Europe is for him to act as chief liaison agent between Pope Pius XII and the governments of certain nations that would be interested in the outcome of his conversations with the head of the Catholic Church, concerning a plan already well grounded in principle, but not yet in operation, to carry out safely, and as speedily as possible, the evacuation of Pope Pius XII from the Vatican and his protected removal to safe though temporary headquarters to be established in Latin America. The hegira of the sovereign Pontiff of the world-wide Catholic Church, together with the chief heads of both his temporal state government and of the purely ecclesiastical departments of the spiritual government, would probably be accomplished by airplanes or submarines, under command and operation of Latin-American sailors. Lisbon, in Portugal — or, more likely, some more secluded place in that neutral and friendly country — is clearly indicated for the first step in the actual operation of the plan. The second step would be both longer and more perilous, because of the swarms of Nazi submarines in the Atlantic.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1945, the Eagle reported, “Admiral Nimitz’ Headquarters, Guam, Feb. 19 (UP) — Two divisions of U.S. marines — 30,000 — stormed Iwo Island from an 800-ship armada today and in two hours of bitter fighting established a 2 1/2-mile beachhead, extending to the edge of Suribachi Yama Airfield. Casualties were moderate and the operation was proceeding satisfactorily, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz said in his latest communique. Resistance from the trapped enemy forces was increasing as the veteran marines pushed inland on the tiny eight-square-mile island 750 miles from Tokyo, the communique said. Two hours after the initial landing was made, the marine veterans had pushed inland on an average of 500 yards and the defenses of Suribachi Yama airstrip were penetrated east of the field, the communique added. The marine beachhead extended northward along the southeastern coast from the 546-foot-high volcano that forms the southern tip of the island. Radio Tokyo conceded the Americans had won footholds on the southwest, south and east coasts … ‘There is a whale of a scrap going on back there at Iwo,’ said a radio correspondent who flew over the embattled island as the invasion got under way.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1950, the Eagle reported, “State and federal authorities, along with the Long Island Rail Road itself, prepared yesterday to launch joint investigations into the head-on rail collision at Rockville Centre Friday night, which resulted in the ghastly toll of 29 dead and 115 injured.” It was also reported, “There was to have been a wedding last night at the Johnson home in Amityville. The florist early yesterday had already begun decorating the room in the house … where Mary Johnson, 18, was to be married to Jefferson Allen, 24 … There was no wedding. In the midst of the happy arranging came the stunning blow: Jeff, a glassblower who worked in New York, was dead. So was his father, Charles, also a glassblower. Both had been killed instantly while returning from their jobs last night on the ill-fated Long Island Rail Road train.”