Milestones: December 5, 2023

December 5, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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RIVALS UNITED IN MISSION — RIVALS FOR TWO DECADES, THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND THE CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS joined forces on Dec. 5, 1955, following 20 years of rivalry, and soon became the nation’s leading advocate for trade unions. Meany, whose father was the president of a plumbers’ local chapter, apprenticed with the union and worked as a plumber. He founded and led the Labor League for Political Education in response to Congress passing the labor-hostile Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. The league, which was the first full-scale federation effort to register, educate and mobilize union members, was successful and helped elect Harry Truman as U.S. president in 1948. Four years later, following the death of his predecessor, William Green, Meany was elected president of the AFL and immediately began work to unify a divided labor sector which resulted in the creation of the AFL-CIO.

Seven decades later, “the AFL-CIO is a democratically-governed federation of 60 unions, each with its own distinct membership and unique voice,” according to the federation’s webpage.

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RECORD FILIBUSTER — [JAMES] STROM THURMOND, BORN ON DEC. 5, 1902, BECAME ONE OF THE LONGEST-SERVING SENATORS, WHO WAGED ARGUABLY THE LONGEST FILIBUSTER IN HISTORY. Known familiarly as Strom Thurmond, he became the first senator ever elected by a write-in vote, and served South Carolina in the U.S. Senate from 1954 to 2002, some 48 years. Originally a Democrat, he switched party affiliation to Republican, in part because of his fierce opposition to civil rights legislation and to school desegregation. Thurmond waged the Senate’s record-breaking filibuster of 24 hours and 18 minutes, from Aug. 28-29, 1957, to protest the proposed civil rights laws. Although Thurmond’s one-man filibuster is considered the longest in Senate history, he may have propelled the vote to approve the civil rights legislation, which passed 60-15, albeit in a diluted state. The vote was a victory for then-Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baynes Johnson.

Sen. Thurmond was a centenarian; however, the record differs among sources as to whether he was still an active Senator on his hundredth birthday. The senate.gov website said he was; but a NY Times obit said that Thurmond’s last day in office was Nov. 19, 2002, some two weeks before he turned 100.

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DUTCH WAS HIS NATIVE TONGUE — MARTIN VAN BUREN, THE EIGHTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, WAS BORN ON DEC. 5, 1782. He was also the first President to be born in the United States after it became a nation and to be of Dutch ancestry rather than a British subject. (His predecessor, Andrew Jackson, had been born in 1767). Ironically, he was also the first U.S. president whose first language was Dutch rather than English. The son of a slave-owning tavern owner in Kinderhook, New York, he read law and later entered politics. He was close with President Andrew Jackson, who nominated him as U.S. minister to Great Britain, according to the White House Historical Association’s website. Jackson and his vice president, John C. Calhoun, had become estranged; when Calhoun delivered the “nay” vote that ended Van Buren’s confirmation to the diplomatic role, Jackson then axed Calhoun as his running mate in the next campaign, and won re-election.

Although Van Buren was the logical candidate to succeed Jackson, and was expected to continue his predecessor’s policies, his administration was plagued with financial mismanagement, bank failures and unemployment, plus his refusal to annex Texas. He became a one-term president.

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APOLOGIZED FOR ERRORS — ULYSSES S. GRANT, A VICTORIOUS UNION GENERAL DURING THE CIVIL WHO THEN BECAME the 18th president of the United States, delivered a speech of apology to Congress on Dec. 5, 1876. During his address, Grant apologized for the mistakes he made as president, calling them “errors of judgment, not intent.” Even though his integrity was not called into question, Grant wound up mired in several government scandals, foremost among them the Jay (Jason) Gould scandal. (Gould was a ruthless and corrupt railroad magnate who held a monopoly over the rails in New York City.) During Grant’s two-term presidency, fraud was also uncovered in the Treasury Department and the Indian Service.

Grant was far from the last president to apologize for his actions or lapse in judgment. President Richard M. Nixon apologized during an interview with talk show host David Frost for his role in the Watergate scandal. President Clinton expressed his regrets over his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. President Barack Obama apologized to Americans who were losing their health care insurance coverage when the Affordable Care Act took effect.

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THE LIQUOR AMENDMENTS — PROHIBITION WAS AT THE CENTER OF THE ONLY U.S. AMENDMENT EVER TO BE REPEALED, on Dec. 5, 1933. The 18th Amendment, which had been ratified in all but two of the states (Connecticut and Rhode Island) after a Congressional supermajority vote, had prohibited “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors, within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof, for beverage purposes…” in large part through the urging of temperance and Christian groups, although the religious use of wine was exempt). However, a growing opposition movement pointed out that Prohibition, and the lack of revenue from liquor sales, hurt the economy. Congress proposed the repeal of the 18th Amendment on Feb. 20, 1933, with the 21st Amendment. The required 36 states had ratified the 21st Amendment by December 5 of that year, and it took effect immediately.

The two in-between Amendments, the 19th and 20th, respectively, gave women the right to vote and changed the Presidential Inauguration date from March 4 to January 20 starting at noon.

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TACKLED TABOO SUBJECTS — MOVIE DIRECTOR OTTO PRMINGER, BORN DEC. 5, 1905,IN A PART OF THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE THAT IS NOW PART OF UKRAINE, started a theater career but then left and found his niche directing more than 35 feature films in a five-decade career. His first movie, the film noir “Laura,” about a murdered woman who is still alive — and being stalked — gained him national attention. He also directed prominent adaptations of popular works. Preminger was not afraid to tackle subjects considered taboo and challenged the Motion Picture Association’s Code of Censorship on this; a prime example was the 1959 film, “Anatomy of a Murder,” starring James Stewart, George C. Scott, Ben Gazzara and sultry heartthrob Lee Remick, who played a woman whose Army husband murders a saloon owner after she says the man raped her.

Playing the judge was real-life attorney Joseph Welch, who had been legal counsel to the U.S. Army during the McCarthy era trials.

See previous milestones, here.