March 20: ON THIS DAY in 1934, President Roosevelt asks to halt labor strike

March 20, 2019 Brooklyn Eagle

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ON THIS DAY IN 1851, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “House moving is thought a tedious and troublesome thing, but it is not so in all cases. Last evening the owner of a house at the further end of Van Brunt street wished to remove his dwelling a short distance, and a number of his friends being apprised of his intention, came to his assistance and in a short time, the house was ‘going, going,’ but not by the slow aid of beams and screws, but resting on some light timbers, and carried by a throng of men, amid the shouts of a number of juvenile spectators, delighted at such a novel spectacle.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1882, the Eagle reported, “The Senate Judiciary Committee today directed Senator [Augustus] Garland to notify the Senate that in a week from tomorrow he would call up the bill to appoint nine judges to constitute a new Court of Appeal, to be subordinate to the Supreme Court. The judges are unanimously of the opinion that this would accomplish what is so greatly desired – the reduction of their docket, relieve the Supreme Court from the large accumulation of business and hasten the determination of cases now pending. The nine judges, as provided by the bill, will each have a circuit, with a district and circuit judge composing the court. The committee also unanimously agreed to report Judge [Samuel] Blatchford’s name for confirmation. He will probably be confirmed today.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1931, the Eagle reported, “Carson City, Nev., March 20 (AP) – Virtually all forms of gambling became legal in Nevada today and the path of the divorce seeker will be shortened by May 1 as the result of two bills signed yesterday by Gov. Fred B. Balzar. In championing legalized gambling, Nevada took a step toward the so-called good old days. In the divorce measure she will become the only state in the union in which a person may establish legal qualifications in six weeks to sue for a divorce.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1934, the Eagle reported, “A telegraph from President Roosevelt asking that any strike action in the automobile industry be deferred until Thursday was made public in Detroit this afternoon by William Collins, American Federation of Labor representative, according to the Associated Press. The president’s telegram read: ‘In the public interest I am constrained to request you to withhold strike action called for this afternoon until I can have a conference in Washington in an effort to reconcile existing differences. I suggest Thursday. Will you advise me immediately? Franklin D. Roosevelt.’ Leaders of the industry, in session in Manhattan, in an attempt to avert a threatened strike, announced that they would go to Washington tonight in response to a request from President Roosevelt. In another last minute effort to avert ‘the greatest strike in history,’ six members of the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce conferred secretly for an hour this morning with Gen. Hugh S. Johnson, [National Recovery Act] administrator.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1950, the Eagle reported, “Tarzana, Cal., March 20 (UP) – Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of modern fiction’s fabulous Tarzan the Apeman, died quietly while reading in bed yesterday. The 74-year-old author made Tarzan an international legend which earned him millions of dollars. The jungle hero’s tree-swinging antics were known to millions everywhere and only the Bible exceeded Tarzan stories in sales. Burroughs, a shut-in for the last few years, was reading the Sunday comics as he ate breakfast in bed. Suddenly the newspaper dropped from his hands. His eyes closed. And the famed novelist died almost instantly. Dr. Herman Seal said death was caused by a heart ailment and hardening of the arteries. Burroughs was an unsuccessful salesman for a pencil sharpener manufacturer when he suddenly felt he could succeed as a writer. ‘If people were paid for writing such rot,’ he said referring to pulp magazine stories, ‘I figured I could write stuff just as bad.’”