September 27: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

September 27, 2021 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1920, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON — Extra guards have been thrown around the public buildings of Washington since the bomb outrage in Wall St. 10 days ago. Visitors to the various departments are now put through the closest kind of scrutiny before they can gain admission. One department has revived the war-time precaution of not admitting anyone without a photographic pass. Most of the clerks have their old passes, which they now use. The main building of the Treasury Department, the one which contains the big vaults where Uncle Sam banks his gold and silver bullion, is the most closely watched. It is not possible to enter the building without passing several guards. The officials are not satisfied in their own minds whether the bomb placed in Wall St. was intended for the Morgan building or the Sub-Treasury. Some believe the explosion was intended as a means of robbery. Superintendent Elliot Wood of the Capitol has put on additional guards and the beats of the night patrolmen have been changed to keep them closer to the big buildings. During the daytime, all packages larger than a lunchbox must be checked with a guard before their owners can enter the Capitol.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1940, the Eagle reported, “BERLIN — Germany, Italy and Japan welded a new totalitarian bloc today with a one-for-all and all-for-one pledge of aid against any new enemy entering either the European or China war — an implicit warning to the United States. With Adolf Hitler as an onlooker, the Rome-Berlin foreign ministers and the Japanese ambassador to Berlin signed a solemn 18-year military and economic treaty declaring the readiness of the three governments to join their 250,000,000 people as world-scale battle comrades. Advance preparations for such an eventuality were written into the treaty by an immediate undertaking for joint technical consultations by representatives of the three powers. The three powers formally divided spheres of world influence, Japan being recognized as the leader in founding a ‘new order in greater East Asia’ and German and Italy for ‘establishment of a new order in Europe.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1953, the Eagle reported, “Undeterred by the arrest of three of their number yesterday, a band of parents from the Boulevard Housing Project last night carried their vigil for gamma globulin through another night at the Department of Health. Most of the group of about 80 men and women had also spent two previous nights in the department’s office, demanding injections of the anti-polio serum for their children in the 1,441-family project at 816 Ashford St. The demonstration was on behalf of about 90 playmates and classmates of five-year-old Allan Bordow, son of a family in the project, who was stricken with infantile paralysis last Monday. Carrying lipsticked signs declaring, ‘We want GG,’ the parents marched from the Board of Health offices this morning to City Hall. Police arrested three of them when they broke from the picket line … Assemblyman Ben Werbel and Councilman Sam Curtis conferred on behalf of the parents yesterday with Dr. Harold Feurst, the department’s head of preventive medicine, who insisted the small supply of GG must be conserved. The demonstrators said they were not satisfied with the answer and vowed they would not send their children on Monday to P.S. 273, the school attended by the stricken boy and most of the project’s children.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1954, the Eagle reported, “The very people who complain about public officials and criticize city, state and national governments are very often the ones who do not take the trouble to vote, members of the Pace College Alumni Association were told at their regular monthly meeting at the Hotel Bossert. The speaker, Gerard H. Carey, attorney and former law professor at St. John’s University Law School, said political parties are generally presenting better qualified candidates. ‘But the electorate has to meet the challenge at least half-way by going out to register and vote,’ he added. Mr. Carey said all citizens must show an interest in politics since politics is the basic science of government. ‘Commiseration over the neglect or passive actions of lawmakers is not the way to discharge duties as a citizen. We must cast our votes to demonstrate our beliefs in the principles of government,’ he said.”

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Gwyneth Paltrow
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include Oscar-winning actor Claude Jarman Jr., who was born in 1934; World Golf Hall of Famer Kathy Whitworth, who was born in 1939; The Guess Who co-founder Randy Bachman, who was born in 1943; “Star Wars” actor Denis Lawson, who was born in 1947; “Bat Out of Hell” singer Meat Loaf, who was born in 1947; “The Lone Gunmen” star Tom Braidwood, who was born in 1948; Baseball Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt, who was born in 1949; former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, who was born in 1951; Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, who was born in 1965; Space Shuttle astronaut Stephanie Wilson, who was born in 1966; Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who was born in 1972; rapper Lil Wayne, who was born in 1982; “Complicated” singer Avril Lavigne, who was born in 1984; tennis player and Olympic gold medalist Monica Puig, who was born in 1993; and “The Fallout” star Jenna Ortega, who was born in 2002.

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FOUNDER’S DAY: Samuel Adams was born on this day in 1722. The Boston native was a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution. Along with his second cousin, future U.S. President John Adams, he signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He died in 1803.

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GETTING IN TOON: Thomas Nast was born on this day in 1840. The “Father of the American Cartoon” is best known for his scathing criticism of “Boss” William Tweed and the Tammany Hall Democratic political machine in New York. He also created the modern version of Santa Claus. He died in 1902.

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Special thanks to “Chase’s Calendar of Events” and Brooklyn Public Library.

Quotable:

“No people will tamely surrender their liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved.”

— U.S. founding father Samuel Adams, who was born on this day in 1722