May 14: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
ON THIS DAY IN 1937, a Brooklyn Daily Eagle editorial said, “It is difficult to understand the arrest in Philadelphia of Owen Wister, the novelist, and two national officers of the Defenders, Inc., on charges of violating the State Solicitation Act. Coming as they did on the eve of the mass meeting there under the sponsorship of the Defenders at which four Democratic United States senators attacked President Roosevelt’s Supreme Court enlargement plan, the whole incident has a distinctly political tinge. Those at the meeting openly charged that it was an attempt of state officials sympathetic with the Roosevelt administration to try to block the gathering. A young assistant in the State Attorney General’s office was quick to absolve his chief of any blame in the incident and to accept full responsibility, saying he acted on the complaint of another organization of similar name. At any rate the meeting went on and later the charges against the prisoners, based on their trying to raise money to pay the expenses of the rally, have been dropped. If this was an attempt to suppress free speech, those responsible for it should have learned a lesson. There is no place for this sort of thing in the United States.”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1942, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON (U.P.) — Petroleum Coordinator Harold L. Ickes said today that so far as the oil supply problem is concerned it will not be necessary to extend the gasoline sales curtailment area to other sections of the country. However, Ickes told a press conference that action to extend rationing areas conceivably could be ordered by other government agencies to conserve rubber or curtail unnecessary travel. The curtailment area now includes 17 eastern states (with the exception of certain counties) and the states of Oregon and Washington. Individual rationing will begin in the east tomorrow and in Oregon and Washington on June 1 … Prior to Ickes’ statements, Price Administrator Leon Henderson announced that motorists on trips when gasoline rationing starts tomorrow could obtain supplementary supplies to carry them home. He also said additional gasoline would be made available for persons who take small children to school.”
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.