September 14: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

September 14, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1919, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published the following statement by the U.S. Public Health Service: “Probably, but by no means certainly, there will be a recurrence of the influenza epidemic this year. Indications are that should it occur it will not be as severe as the pandemic of the previous winter. City officials, State and city boards of health, should be prepared in the event of a recurrence. The fact that a previous attack brings immunity in a certain percentage of cases should allay fear on the part of those afflicted in the previous epidemic. Influenza is spread by direct and indirect contact. It is not yet certain that the germ has been isolated or discovered, and as a consequence there is yet no positive preventive, except the enforcement of rigid rules of sanitation and the avoidance of personal contact. A close relation between the influenza pandemic and the constantly increasing pneumonia mortality rate for the fall of 1918 is recognized. It is now believed that the disease was pretty widely disseminated throughout the country before it was recognized in its epidemic state. This failure to recognize the early cases appears to have largely been due to the fact that every interest was then centered on the war.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1940, the Eagle reported, “With the greatest array of talent in their 15-year history, the 1940 edition of the football Dodgers pries off the National Football League lid in Washington tomorrow against the Redskins. It will also be the debut in the professional ranks of Dodger coach Jock Sutherland, the most famous football tutor since Knute Rockne. And tougher opposition couldn’t have been picked for a debut. The Redskins, plenty troublesome last year, figure to be even better now that Sammy Baugh is back pitching strikes. Baugh completed three touchdown passes in the Redskin rout of an All-Star aggregation in Boston Tuesday night. Leading the Dodger talent parade are four of the greatest ball-carriers ever to pull on moleskins — Banks McFadden of Clemson, picked on everybody’s All-America last year and the best Dixie ball-carrier of the last ten years; Pug Manders, the finest all-around ground-gainer in the National League; Ace Parker, who hasn’t been off the All-League team since his debut in pro football in 1937, and George (Bad News) Cafego, All-American spearhead of unbeaten Tennessee for the past two years.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1947, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON, SEPT. 13 (U.P.) — A Congressional report tonight blamed high food prices on higher U.S. incomes rather than on food exports to hungry countries abroad. In so doing it took issue with some Republican members of Congress who have contended that foreign aid policies were a major factor in high domestic food prices. The report also said that Americans are eating an average of 18 percent more food now than before the war, but that the average consumer pays out twice as much ($240 a year) for the same food as he did before the war ($118). The report likewise noted that from 1940 to 1946 non-farm income has doubled, farm income has trebled, profits of food processors have increased anywhere from three to five-fold as compared with a two to four-fold increase in profits of some manufacturing industries, and that net profits of food distributors have more than doubled. The report was prepared for use by a joint Congressional economic committee in its forthcoming investigation of high prices. It was emphasized that the report, prepared by assistant committee staff director F.E. Berquist, ‘does not necessarily reflect the views or conclusions of the committee.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1950, the Eagle reported, “(U.P.) — The United Auto Workers, C.I.O., and two big strikebound farm equipment firms broke off negotiations today. Meanwhile, members of the U.A.W.’s huge Local 600 at Detroit ratified a new five-year contract with the Ford Motor Company. The U.A.W. broke off negotiations with International Harvester Company, paralyzed for nearly three weeks by twin strikes of 22,000 U.A.W. members and 32,000 members of the Independent Farm Equipment Workers Union. Anthony Connole, U.A.W. international representative, flatly rejected Harvester’s offer of a 10-cent-per-hour pay boost. He said the company ‘thought it could buy a contract with counterfeit money and an offer to give it a bargaining concession over a rival union.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1954, the Eagle reported, “A confessed former conspirator takes the witness stand in Manhattan Federal Court again today to describe in detail a Puerto Rican Nationalist plan to assassinate President Eisenhower. Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, a prosecution witness at the seditious conspiracy trial of 13 fellow Nationalists, testified yesterday that Mr. Eisenhower was slated to be killed last October with the same guns later used to shoot up the House of Representatives. Lebron said the fact that the President was on a fishing trip in Colorado at the time of the scheduled assassination foiled the plan. Lebron, who pleaded guilty to the seditious conspiracy charge and turned State’s evidence, said Julio Pinto Gandia, Nationalist leader here and one of the 13 defendants, issued orders to party members in New York and Chicago to keep tabs on movements of the President and several Congressmen. It was under these orders, he said, that a small band of Puerto Ricans shot up Congress last March 1, wounding five Representatives. Lebron’s sister, Lolita Lebron, is one of the defendants at the trial. She was one of the Nationalists who carried out the shooting in Congress.”

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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; restaurateur 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; rapper and songwriter Nas, who was born in Brooklyn in 1973; and “Shameless” star Emma Kenney, who was born in 1999.