November 3: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

November 3, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1864, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle said, “The latest dodge of the administration is the new State of Nevada, with three electoral votes; but that won’t save Abraham any more than a small fish would satisfy a hungry man.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1884, the Eagle said, “With less than two days remaining before the final result of the Presidential election shall be made known, the vainglorious boasting of partisans is hushed and the political prophets become more moderate and reserved in their predictions. The extraordinary canvass through which the country has passed has brought into play so many diverse elements, the methods employed have been of such remarkable character and the breaking away from party ties has been so widespread that it is no wonder the average citizen stands upon the pinnacle of perplexity and that the professional politician hesitates in interested attempts to foreshadow the outcome of the struggle. Nevertheless, with the passage of the storm of partisan endeavor, in the calm before the utterance of the popular judgment, the opportunity of an intelligent survey of the prospect is naturally better than at any time in the past four months. In so far as human vision can penetrate the future the shadows of coming events are full of encouragement for every lover of good government, and significant of the redemption of the land from unworthy control. The Eagle believes now as it has believed from the beginning that Grover Cleveland will be the next President of the United States and has abundant reason for entertaining that belief at this final stage of the contest.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1920, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON — President Wilson is bearing up well under the stinging rebuke which the electorate of the country administered to his administration and party yesterday. It was feared by some of the President’s friends that an overwhelming defeat of Gov. [James M.] Cox might affect his present weakened condition. These fears were dispelled as early as 9 o’clock last night. At that time the returns convinced the President that his party was going down into a severe defeat. Yet his spirits remained good and he shortly thereafter went to bed. At 9:30 Dr. Grayson announced that the President was all right and cited as an evidence of this the fact that he was asleep. The President arose this morning at the usual hour and there was no evidence of a breakdown.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1944, the Eagle reported, “PHOENIX, ARIZ. (U.P.) — Gazette columnist Bill Turnbow is certain Dewey will go for Roosevelt and Roosevelt for Dewey in next week’s Presidential election. Dewey was for Roosevelt in the 1940 election and Roosevelt was for Willkie, Turnbow recalled. Dewey and Roosevelt are Arizona towns. The former was named after Admiral Dewey and Roosevelt was named for Theodore Roosevelt.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1948, the Eagle reported, “Harry S. Truman, staging the kind of race he predicted during his campaign, maintained a lead over Governor [Thomas] Dewey today. While the pendulum in several pivotal states swung from Truman to Dewey and back again within a matter of minutes, the President continued to hold a wide margin over the New York Governor in the popular votes column. The final result hinges on 14 states, principally Ohio and California, where the seesawing was most accentuated. The other pivotal states are Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Colorado, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming. Shortly before noon the popular vote was: Truman, 18,762,177; Dewey, 17,612,764; Wallace, 886,561; Thurmond, 754,973. Mr. Dewey was leading in 16 states having 189 electoral votes, Mr. Truman in 28 states having 304 electoral votes, Mr. Thurmond in four states with 38 electoral votes. Necessary to elect, 266. All through last night and the early hours of today, Mr. Truman maintained a popular and electoral vote lead which rose and fell as state after state switched from one candidate to another.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1952, the Eagle reported, “The 1952 Presidential race went down to the wire today with but one sure outcome in sight — a record number of voters. Mr. and Mrs. America will go to the polls stirred by the greatest outpouring of campaign oratory in history. How these voters — some 55,000,000 of them — will act in the voting booth tomorrow cannot be predicted with any degree of certainty. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was a strong favorite when he was nominated four months ago, still is picked by most straw polls to become the first Republican President to be elected in 24 years. But a steady increase in the strength of Adlai E. Stevenson, the Democratic nominee, and the memory of the wrong forecasts of virtually every straw poll in 1948, have both partisan and impartial observers wary of any certain outcome … When Eisenhower and Stevenson were nominated in July, hopes were raised that the campaign would be waged on an unusually high level. Instead it has become one of the bitterest and dirtiest in recent years.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1962, the Eagle reported, “LA PORTE, IND. (UPI) — Election machines will get the go-by Nov. 6. It has turned out they’re tattle tales. Instead, La Porte County voters will be marking paper ballots with X’s in the old-fashioned way. The county’s 99 rented mechanical voting machines were taken out of service with the consent of both Democrats and Republicans because they can’t keep a secret. The machines make a loud clicking sound — three clicks for a Republican vote, six for a Democrat — which can be heard by anyone within 50 feet.”

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Kendall Jenner
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include “Marjorie Prime” star Lois Smith, who was born in 1930; former Democratic presidential nominee Mike Dukakis, who was born in 1933; “Gorky Park” author Martin Cruz Smith, who was born in 1942; “To Sir with Love” singer Lulu, who was born in 1948; former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes, who was born in 1949; Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who was born in 1949; actress and comedian Roseanne Barr, who was born in 1952; former “Saturday Night Live” star Dennis Miller, who was born in 1953; former N.Y. Giants quarterback Phil Simms, who was born in 1955; former N.Y. Mets reliever Armando Benitez, who was born in 1972; and model and TV personality Kendall Jenner, who was born in 1995.

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TROUBLED WATERS: On this day in 1906, the Second International Radio Telegraphic Conference, meeting in Berlin, proposed a new wireless distress signal: SOS. After its use during the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, SOS became the standard distress signal at sea. Though it hasn’t been used as a maritime distress signal since 1999, SOS is still a widely recognized code.

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FAKE NEWS: On this day in 1948, the Chicago Tribune made one of the biggest blunders in newspaper history with its front page headline “Dewey Defeats Truman.” While most straw polls had predicted incumbent Democratic President Harry Truman would lose to his Republican opponent, New York Gov. Thomas Dewey, Truman trumped Dewey in the Electoral College, 303-189.

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

Quotable:

“You know there is a problem with the education system when you realize that out of the 3 R’s only one begins with an R.”

— comedian Dennis Miller, who was born on this day in 1953