September 14: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

September 14, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1924, Brooklyn Daily Eagle columnist Frederick Boyd Stevenson wrote, “There are 200,000 people at large in the City of New York who are on the borderline between sanity and madness. A celebrated medical authority on insanity — Dr. George H. Savage — said: ‘No person is perfectly sane in all his mental faculties, any more than he is perfectly healthy in body.’ According to the views of some alienists, that may be going too far — but when one considers the fads and the fancies, the hobbies and the freak ideas of many men and women, and the ‘tantrums’ of many children, one may realize that Dr. Savage was not so far off the track of truth as one might at first imagine. … The abnormal in the human brain is responsible for a very large proportion of the crimes committed throughout the world. Are we, then, treating crime from the proper angle? Why don’t we get at the root of it, the brain? That is just what some philanthropists and broad-minded men propose to do in New York City. These men, only the other day, took steps to establish a neuropathic hospital, which is to be a ‘Preventorium,’ for the treatment of the ‘near insane’ — that is, to cure in their early and incipient stages diseases of the brain. This institution will be the only one in the country. If it proves a success … it will doubtless lead to the establishment of similar hospitals … and we shall begin to look at insanity and crime from new viewpoints.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1937, the Eagle reported, “BOSTON (U.P.) — Economist Roger W. Babson warned today that ‘the chances are 6 to 4 that we are headed toward a 20-cent dollar.’ ‘Inflation or repudiation’ may be resorted to as means of wiping out huge public debts, he told the Boston Chamber of Commerce. Babson, who predicted the 1929 crash, said, however, that ‘for the next year or two at least, the favorable factors far outweigh the unfavorable factors’ for better business. ‘General business is bound to be better this fall than last fall. Farmers, wage-earners and stockholders will all have more money to spend. I am forecasting no boom; but I do promise business improvement.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1939, the Eagle reported, “LONDON (U.P.) — The Duke of Windsor spent more than an hour at Buckingham Palace this afternoon and then returned by automobile to his duchess at Coleman’s Hatch in Sussex. The duke, who arrived at the palace at 3:55 p.m., remained until shortly after 5 o’clock. In an hour’s conversation with King George, it was learned, the duke discussed what war appointment he should take. They considered also the future residence of the duke. He and the duchess arrived in England two days ago from a self-imposed exile of two years and nine months. Pending arrangements for Windsor to serve his country in a war post, the duke and duchess are the guests of Maj. Edward Dudley Metcalf at Coleman’s Hatch.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1954, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON (U.P.) — American officials said today that Nationalist China’s hard-hitting defense of battered Quemoy seems to have ‘deterred’ Red China from any immediate attempt to take the outpost. They doubted, however, that the Reds have abandoned hope of eventually seizing the tiny island a few miles off the Chinese mainland. State and Defense Department officials, meanwhile, parried all questions on what the United States would be willing to do to help the Nationalist forces hold Quemoy. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles made it clear the United States wants to keep the Chinese Reds guessing. Officials pointed to declining Communist activity opposite Quemoy as a sign that the Reds have been at least temporarily discouraged from launching an invasion. These experts said the Red fleet of junks which had been massed in the area has taken a heavy pounding from the Nationalist forces, thus making it more difficult for the Communists to try a water crossing. From the beginning, these authorities said, the Communists may only have wanted to test Quemoy’s defenses. If so, they have found the island well defended and able to take care of itself, they said.”

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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include “Star Trek” star Walter Koenig, who was born in 1936; Basketball Hall of Famer Larry Brown, who was born in Brooklyn in 1940; actress and singer Joey Heatherton, who was born in 1944; Sha Na Na singer Jon “Bowzer” Bauman, who was born in Brooklyn in 1947; “Jurassic Park” star Sam Neill, who was born in 1947; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks, who was born in 1955; Oscar-winning actress Melissa Leo, who was born in 1960; Wendy’s namesake Wendy Thomas, who was born in 1961; “Murphy Brown” star Faith Ford, who was born in 1964; “The Young and the Restless” star Michelle Stafford, who was born in 1965; “Father of the Bride” star Kimberly Williams-Paisley, who was born in 1971; “The Walking Dead” star Andrew Lincoln, who was born in 1973; and rapper and songwriter Nas, who was born in Brooklyn in 1973.

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AND JUSTICE FOR ALL: Constance Baker Motley was born on this day in 1921. The Connecticut native was one of the top civil rights lawyers of the 1950s and ’60s, presenting arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in seven cases and winning them all. She was New York’s first black woman state senator and federal judge and the first woman elected borough president of Manhattan. She died in 2005.

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FAITH IN AMERICA: Elizabeth Ann Seton became the first American saint when she was canonized by Pope Paul VI on this day in 1975. Seton established the first Catholic girls’ school in the U.S. and the first American congregation of religious sisters, the Sisters of Charity. She was born in 1774 and died in 1821.

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

Quotable:

“Lack of encouragement never deterred me. I was the kind of person who would not be put down.”

— civil rights leader Constance Baker Motley, who was born on this day in 1921