Same News, Different Decade II

Library of Congress

New York newsboys take a break before peddling their papers.

Here’s another post featuring news stories from the past that could be featured in today’s media and those that I found interesting.

All items appear exactly as they were published all those years ago, except for bracket passages I inserted for additional information or clarification. My scintillating commentary appears in italics.

Brisbane Today

Here are some short opinion items by Arthur Brisbane, who worked at Joseph Pulitzer's New York World before defecting to William Randolph Hearst. Eventually, Hearst made him editor of the New York Journal.

Brisbane’s column, syndicated to Hearst papers, including the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, was said to have been read by 20 million people daily. The column, titled “Today,” appeared in the far left column on Page 1, which is prime newspaper real estate.

Published Monday, April 24, 1932

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT and [British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald] will discuss war against depression "on a world wide basis," seeking a plan that will help everybody, everywhere. A beautiful idea, all success to it.

But unfortunately we learned, while ladling out billions in loans, that foreign borrowers are too tired to repay, that things may be good for the outside world without being good for the United States.

It is to be hoped that somebody will concentrate on a fight against depression with an eye strictly to better conditions here in American.

We need better conditions HERE, not in Timbuctoo, and we pay the government several  billions a year to keep its mind on that.

SOLEMN REPUBLICANS in the Senate object violently to using the power plant at Muscle Shoals for the benefit of the people of the United States who paid for the plant in good, fat, heavy taxation.

Those Republicans say that permitting the people that own Muscle Shoals to operate the plant for their own benefit, with no rake-off for private grafters, would be "the entering wedge to socialistic government."

Republicans may be surprised to know how many such socialistic steps the people of the community would approve and MAY TAKE.

Published Wednesday, April 26, 1932

Brisbane’s crystal ball certainly got clear reception when he made the following prediction:

DON'T FAIL to cross your continent while railroad trains still run. Airplanes will drive out passenger trains and then you will cross without seeing the country. You can't really see it from the clouds. It is seeing giant mountains towering above you and little things close by that makes your country beautiful and worth while.

Flying will be a great convenience, but we belong on the earth, close enough to see the flowers, the young grass, the children coming from school, the men working hard.

The following were published Monday, April 24, 1932, in the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph

London Crowd Riots;
Urges Nazi Boycott

LONDON (INS) -- Despite police precautions, violence broke out today in the vicinity of the German embassy following renewed agitation for an anti-German boycott in protest against alleged mistreatment of Jews.

William Dunlee, a 32-year-old seaman, was remanded to Bow Street Police Court charged with throwing a bottle through the window of the embassy. Police said the bottle contained this message:

"Hitler, the butcher, you have gone too far."

It seems our “honorable” congress folks always have had a hard time controlling themselves

Congressman Faces
Court in Radio Row

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Representative F.H. Shoemaker of Minnesota waived immunity today, and appeared in Police Court to face an information charging assault on Theodore Cohen, a neighbor, whom he hit in the eye, "because his radio was too loud." He pleaded not guilty and demanded a jury trial.

Pittsburgh might be getting a new professional football team.

DiMeolo May Coach Pros

Luby DiMeolo, a former captain and star lineman of the University of Pittsburgh football team and now head line coach at New York University, likely will be appointed coach of the Pittsburgh Professional League football team.

Art Rooney [left], Milt Jaffe and Charley Nowe are the local men behind the movement to give Pittsburgh a professional eleven.

Whether or not the team will become a reality depends on the passing of the Sunday blue laws.

The blue laws prohibited almost every form of work and entertainment on Sunday. Here is a 2001 Post-Gazette story about them and how some are still in effect. However, the story contains an error. The reporter wrote, “Technically, the old blue laws remain on the books. They were not repealed.”

While that was the case with the majority of them, the state legislature did approve baseball and football games between 2 and 6 p.m. on Sundays.

This change allowed for the birth of what would become the Steelers in 1933.