September 20: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
ON THIS DAY IN 1903, a Brooklyn Daily Eagle editorial said, “Paupers from Europe are being dumped in the United States by the Transatlantic steamship lines for the sake of the passage money in such appalling numbers that at last even the authorities at Washington have become alarmed. Figures of so startling a character have been presented recently to the Commissioner General of Immigration that he has ordered a complete statistical report from every county in the nation relating to this phase of the immigration question. The figures that have so frightened the authorities at Washington show that among the 401,057 aliens who landed at the port of New York during the six months ending June 30 of this year, 580 have become public charges, voluntarily applying for relief. Back of this superficial statement is an appalling array of facts — so appalling, indeed, that if similar results are shown in the same ratio throughout those parts of the country where the foreign element find homes, it may be that legislative steps may be taken to throw out barriers of precaution and protection. When it is remembered that more than 25 percent of the immigrants that come to America remain in New York State, and the greater part of these in New York City, one is able to grasp the enormity of the problem with which the nation is confronted … The most significant figures are contained in the report that out of the 66,400 paupers maintained in the city and town almshouses of New York during the fiscal year ending September 30, 1901, 28,976 were native born and 37,424 were foreign born. It cost New York State in 1901 $15,941,622 to support her paupers, and more than $5,000,000 to maintain the inmates of her insane asylums.”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1942, the Eagle reported, “The direct charge that Thomas E. Dewey’s candidacy for governor on the Republican ticket is motivated solely by a desire to promote himself for the presidency in 1944 was aired for the first time in the current Democratic state campaign yesterday as activities in both camps increased. While Edwin F. Jaeckle of Buffalo, Republican state chairman, issued a call for a series of six regional conferences within a week’s time, Roy F. Bush of Rochester, Democratic leader of Monroe County, raised the 1944 issue against Mr. Dewey in a press conference at the Democratic state headquarters in the Hotel Biltmore … Mr. Dewey, whose bid for the Republican presidential nomination was defeated by Wendell L. Willkie in 1940, declared in his acceptance speech at last month’s Saratoga Springs convention he intended to ‘devote the next four years exclusively to the service of the people of New York State.”
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’.