October 26: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

October 26, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1928, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “In an effort to get action from silent Police Commissioner [Joseph] Warren and equally silent Boro President [James] Byrne, the Erie Basin Community and Civic League will sponsor a mass meeting early next month at which adequate police protection for Brooklyn will be demanded. Other civic organizations will be invited to send delegations. This plan was announced today by Hugh J. Hoehn, chairman of the league, who declared that his community is thoroughly aroused over the inactivity of Warren and Byrne in the face of the tremendous increase in crime here. ‘It is bad enough,’ he said, ‘for Brooklyn citizens to be loaded down with the highest burglary holdup insurance rates of any boro in the city. It makes matters much worse when our public officials, whose duty it is to champion our rights, sit back and try to pretend nothing is wrong.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1950, the Eagle reported, “Phil Rizzuto, who covers more ground than a ranch-type Empire State Building, and Jim Konstanty, who would make an honest work-horse ashamed of himself, were named today as the United Press ‘players of the year’ for the way they led the Yankees and Phillies to pennants. Dinky Phil, the tiniest player in the American League, was named on 18 out of 24 ballots for the American League award, while Konstanty, the relief pitcher who set a modern record by appearing in 74 games, was the choice in 15 out of 24 National League votes. The selections were made by a committee of veteran baseball writers.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1954, the Eagle reported, “With the gubernatorial election a week away, the Democrats rolled out their No. 1 gun — Adlai E. Stevenson, titular head of the party — and moved into Brooklyn today to concentrate on getting out a big vote for Averell Harriman. The 1952 presidential candidate will join Senator Herbert H. Lehman, Harriman and the rest of the Democratic state candidates at a rally tonight at Public School 197, Kings Highway and E. 22nd St., in the heart of a Democratic stronghold. Stevenson’s speech will be televised at 9:30 over WABD. Governor [Thomas] Dewey, meanwhile, continued his all-out fight on behalf of Senator Irving M. Ives, Republican nominee to succeed him. At Newburgh, where he sliced the ribbon opening a 183-mile section of the New York Thruway, the governor laced into the Democrats in general and Harriman in particular, charging Harriman with a ‘venomous and false’ smear. ‘I am shocked at the absentee Tammany candidate for governor in his attack on the Thruway last Sunday,’ Dewey said. ‘It was a terrible thing when partisanship led his party to vote against the Thruway and try to wreck it time and time again in the Legislature. It is even worse when he himself joins the enemies of the Thruway and fraudulently misrepresents the facts. I am happy that we have this glorious exhibit to prove the falsity of the charge.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1962, the Eagle reported, “The Brooklyn Civil Defense is on a 24-hour alert during the Cuban crisis and has set up a control center with a radio room. According to Major Paul Rafferty and Joseph Grimes, both of Civil Defense Headquarters in Brooklyn, CD has a list of several hundred trained volunteers who will be called on in case of emergency. Major Rafferty says CD would prefer not to enlist untrained civilians at present. He feels the staff he has now is adequate. One of the brochures released by CD points out that the central area of the ground floor of a heavily constructed apartment building, with concrete floors, is apt to provide more fallout protection than the ordinary basement of a family dwelling. Usually, areas in apartment houses are designated as Shelter Areas. The brochure also says that a below-ground basement in a private home can cut fallout radiation to one-tenth of the outside level. The safest place is the basement corner least exposed to windows and deepest below ground. Leaflets and pamphlets concerning fallout shelters and containing information on radioactivity can be obtained from the local CD information bureau at Grand Army Plaza and the Office of the Director of Civil Defense in the Municipal Building.”

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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include jazz musician Eddie Henderson, who was born in 1940; “Charlie’s Angels” star Jaclyn Smith, who was born in 1945; “Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak, who was born in 1946; former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was born in 1947; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bootsy Collins (Parliament-Funkadelic), who was born in 1951; artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel, who was born in 1951; “Grey’s Anatomy” star James Pickens Jr., who was born in 1954; actress and producer Rita Wilson, who was born in 1956; “The Practice” star Dylan McDermott, who was born in 1961; “The Princess Bride” star Cary Elwes, who was born in 1962; singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant, who was born in 1963; “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane, who was born in 1973; and figure skater and Olympic medalist Sasha Cohen, who was born in 1984.

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OPEN WATER: The Erie Canal opened on this day in 1825. The first major man-made waterway in the U.S. provided a route from Lake Erie to the Hudson River. Construction work on the $7.6 million project began July 4, 1817. Cannons were fired and celebrations were held all along the canal when it opened.

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A GIFT FROM GOD: Mahalia Jackson was born on this day in 1911. The New Orleans native moved to Chicago in 1928 and sang with the Johnson Gospel Singers. Thomas A. Dorsey, the father of gospel music, was her adviser and accompanist from 1937 to 1946. By the 1950s, Jackson could be heard in concert halls around the world. She sang at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy and at the 1963 March on Washington. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described her voice as “one heard once in a millennium.” She died in 1972.

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

Quotable:

“Faith and prayer are the vitamins of the soul; man cannot live in health without them.”

— gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who was born on this day in 1911