April 9: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

April 9, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1868, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “In the Senate yesterday [Charles] Sumner introduced a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution providing that no person elected as President or Vice President who has once served as President shall afterwards be eligible to either office.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1938, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON (AP) — The House sent to a stunning defeat last night the Administration’s Government reorganization bill — the measure that prompted President Roosevelt to say he did not want to be a dictator. Ignoring fervent pleas of party leaders not to proclaim to the nation a ‘lack of confidence’ in the Chief Executive, 108 Democrats revolted and joined Republicans to bury the measure in a committee pigeonhole, 204 to 196. The death blow to the measure, which some foes asserted would make a dictator of the President, came as a surprise and a shock to Democratic chieftains. Before the vote, Speaker [William] Bankhead (D., Ala.) told members of his party that rejection of the measure would be interpreted ‘in blazing headiness’ as House ‘repudiation of the President of the United States.’ The 204-to-196 vote returned the bill to the House Committee on Reorganization … The rebuff to the President was comparable only to that of the Senate’s rejection of his court reorganization bill last year.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1944, the Eagle reported, “Some 300,000 die-hard Wisconsin Republicans last week quietly dropped the first political bombshell of the ’44 Presidential campaign. They gave 17 of the Badger State’s 24 convention delegates to Gov. Thomas E. Dewey of New York, who said he wasn’t a candidate; divided the remaining seven between Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Lt. Comm. Harold E. Stassen, neither of whom had campaigned; and turned thumbs down on Wendell Willkie, the 1940 standard-bearer, who had stumped over 1,500 miles in the State and made 40 fighting speeches. The results in, Willkie stepped down — as he had promised. He had publicly staked his chances of the nomination on the will of Wisconsin and, like a good loser, he took his medicine. His withdrawal left Dewey in clear command of the field and spurred an immediate rush to the ‘draft Dewey’ bandwagon among many Republicans who had heretofore been undecided. It did not, however, smoke out the New York Governor from his previously reiterated position that ‘I am not and shall not become a candidate.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1957, the Bay Ridge Home Reporter said, “The first effective roadblock local opponents to the Narrows Bridge have been able to muster was thrown up in the path of the bridge builders last week with the passage of legislation in Albany calling for an alternate approach route to the bridge. The measure forced the Port of New York and Triboro Bridge and Tunnel Authorities to cry ‘uncle,’ with the admission that the span could not be built under the terms of the new bill. Furthermore, the two bodies — chief agencies in the plans to construct the bridge — said jointly that the new route, even if it could be used, would devastate Shore Road. At least 20 major apartment houses and 120 smaller dwelling units along the Narrows waterfront would have to be torn down to relocate Shore Road and build the alternate approaches, they maintained. Meanwhile, on the Bay Ridge front, local opposition, fanned by new hope of success, rallied Bay Ridge homeowners in an attempt to flood Governor Harriman with letters asking that he sign the bill into law ordering the new route be used. The bill was sponsored in Albany by Bay Ridge’s three Republican legislators, Sen. William T. Conklin and Assemblymen Luigi R. Marano and Frank J. McMullen. Sources close to the Governor indicated, however, that he looks with disfavor on the bill and they predicted he would probably fall in line with Mayor Wagner’s suggestion that he veto the legislation, leaving Seventh Avenue hopelessly in the path of the bridge. The Governor has approximately 3 weeks to make up his mind.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1963, the Eagle reported, “A pledge virtually to wipe out red measles within four years was made today by Lawrence Fabrikant, a representative of Merck Sharp & Dohme. For the past three years more than 25,000 have been immunized with live virus vaccine in an overall clinical evaluation, Fabrikant said. For the past two weeks in Brooklyn, since Merck Sharp & Dohme began distribution of its live vaccine to drug stores, between 15,000 and 20,000 Brooklyn children have received immunization. Another vaccine, this one a ‘killed’ vaccine, will soon be made available by Charles Pfizer and Company. Fabrikant said this type, however, will require more than one visit to the doctor’s office. The live virus vaccine is said to give the same immunity as if the child had been stricken with measles. Contrary to the average layman’s idea of measles as a trivial matter, part of growing up, it is in fact a serious health problem. All too often it is a killer or the cause of mental crippling so severe that the victim survives only as a mental defective.”

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Keshia Knight Pulliam
Charles Sykes/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include “The Waltons” star Michael Learned, who was born in 1939; former baseball umpire Joe Brinkman, who was born in 1944; sportswriter Peter Gammons, who was born in 1945; “The Rookie” star Dennis Quaid, who was born in 1954; fashion designer Marc Jacobs, who was born in 1963; model and actress Paulina Porizkova, who was born in 1965; “Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon, who was born in 1966; My Chemical Romance founder Gerard Way, who was born in 1977; “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne” star Keshia Knight Pulliam, who was born in 1979; former N.Y. Mets and Yankees pitcher David Robertson, who was born in 1985; “Gossip Girl” star Leighton Meester, who was born in 1986; “Twilight” star Kristen Stewart, who was born in 1990; “The Great” star Elle Fanning, who was born in 1998; and singer Jackie Evancho, who was born in 2000.