January 14: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
ON THIS DAY IN 1919, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “A special committee of the American Public Health Association, having made a careful investigation and study of the epidemic of so-called influenza, has made a report to the association. Referring to the nature of the epidemic, the report says, among other things: ‘There is no known laboratory method by which an attack of influenza can be differentiated from an ordinary cold or bronchitis or other inflammations of the mucous membranes of the nose, pharynx or throat. There is no known laboratory method by which it can be determined when a person who has suffered from influenza ceases to be capable of transmitting the disease to others.’ In other words, it is purely a matter of the attending physician’s judgment whether the illness shall be dubbed ‘influenza’ or not. And it is purely a matter of the attending physician’s judgment whether the individual who has recovered from the ‘flu’ may or may not be safely permitted to mingle with susceptible persons.”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1923, Eagle columnist Frederick Boyd Stevenson wrote, “The kings and the presidents and the premiers and the politicians have fallen flat. There is no question as to that. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. That is three years and seven months ago. The world financially, physically and morally is in a worse state today than it was on the day that war was formally declared at an end. The kings and the presidents and the premiers and the politicians have been trying to run the world. To use perfectly good English, they have balled up the whole shooting match. And, as a result of this mismanagement, what confronts the whole of the world today? No man can give the answer. Central Europe, with the exception of England, is on the verge of financial, commercial and industrial collapse. If the final collapse comes, even England and America cannot escape the consequences. For three and a half years the present units of world power have striven in vain to adjust the affairs of the world. Instead of moving the world away from war, they have brought it to the very edge of a war — possibly more terrible than the last. Why not have a new world management? Why not put the business affairs of the world in the hands of businessmen, and run the world on a business basis? Running the nations on a business basis may sound like an anomaly; and yet the whole world has advanced solely on the basis of business.”
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’.