January 6: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
ON THIS DAY IN 1919, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “OYSTER BAY, L.I. — Colonel Theodore Roosevelt died in his sleep early today at his home on Sagamore Hill in this village. The exact time of Colonel Roosevelt’s death was 4:15 a.m., as nearly as can be determined, for there was no person at his bedside at the moment he passed away. A minute or two before, his attendant, James Amos, the young colored man who has been in the employ of the Colonel ever since he left the White House, noticed that the patient was breathing heavily in his sleep and went to call a nurse. When he returned with her, the former President was dead. Mrs. Roosevelt was immediately summoned … The former President came to his home on Sagamore Hill from the Roosevelt Hospital on Christmas Day, but a week later — on New Year’s Day — was stricken with a severe attack of rheumatism and sciatica, from which he had been suffering for some time … Flags were placed at half-mast in Oyster Bay today … The Colonel’s death came as a shock to the people of Oyster Bay, as friends knew that he was about the house the greater part of yesterday, reading and doing some writing. His two sons abroad, Kermit and Theodore, Jr., are, respectively, officers with the American Forces in France and the Army of the Occupation in Germany.”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1937, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON — President [Franklin] Roosevelt appeared before Congress today with a plea to the nation’s judiciary for ‘an increasingly enlightened view’ of the Constitution. In a thinly veiled warning to the U.S. Supreme Court that it, as well as the other branches of the government, must heed changing times and the will of the people, the president came out against constitutional amendments. Obviously referring to the absent members of the nation’s highest court who knocked out many of the New Deal’s foundation stones, the president, in a surprise move, devoted a major portion of his message to the question of advancing toward the more abundant life. Declaring the National Recovery Administration has been outlawed, but the problems it was designed to meet remain, he said: ‘During the past year there has been a growing belief that there is little fault to be found with the Constitution of the United States as it stands today. The vital need is not an alteration of our fundamental law, but an increasingly enlightened view with reference to it. Difficulties have grown out of its interpretation, but rightly considered, it can be used as an instrument of progress, and not as a device for prevention of action.’”
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’.