April 15: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
ON THIS DAY IN 1909, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON — A new income tax bill was presented in the Senate today. It was drafted by Senator [Joseph] Bailey, one of the best constitutional lawyers in that body, and was proposed as an amendment to the Aldrich tariff bill. The action is significant because, in addition to the Democrats who will probably be solidly in favor of the amendment, there are many Republicans who believe in an income tax. Some special taxes will doubtless have to be adopted to make up the big deficit now staring the Treasury in the face, and which the Aldrich bill admittedly does not provide for. An income tax is growing in favor, especially as an inheritance tax is almost out of the question because it would conflict with so many state laws. Senator Bailey’s bill is with two exceptions identical with the income tax law of 1894, which the Supreme Court by a 5 to 4 vote declared was unconstitutional. He raised the limit of exempted incomes from $4,000 to $5,000 and increased the proposed tax from 2 to 3 percent. Then he boldly declared that the court’s ruling was not in accordance with the Constitution, and asserted that another test would establish the correctness of his criticism.”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1912, the Eagle reported, “Wireless dispatches up to noon today showed that the passengers of the monster White Star liner Titanic, which struck an iceberg off the Newfoundland coast last night, were being transferred aboard the steamer Carpathia, a Cunarder, which left New York April 13 for Naples. Already twenty boatloads of the Titanic’s passengers have been transferred aboard the Carpathia, and allowing forty to sixty people as the capacity of each lifeboat, some 800 or 1,200 people already have been transferred from the damaged liner … The latest reports indicate that the transfer of passengers is being carried on successfully and deftly. The sea is smooth and the weather calm. It is probable that all of the passengers of the Titanic are safe.”
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’.