Clapper: Foresight
By Raymond Clapper
…
Our ‘stepchild in the Caribbean’ –
Both ward and protector of U.S., Puerto Rico is in a sorry plight
Liability or asset? We wonder
By S. Burton Heath, special to the Pittsburgh Press
…
The Evening Star (December 31, 1942)
Eleven are indicted in probe of Boston fire, killing 489
Charges kept secret, but grand jury hits officials’ ‘laxity’
Boston, Massachusetts (AP) –
A grand jury today returned 11 secret indictments in connection with the Cocoanut Grove Night Club fire Nov. 28, in which 489 panic-stricken persons lost their lives in a horror of flame, smoke and gas.
Simultaneously, the 20-man Suffolk County grand jury issued a series of findings and recommendations, declaring there had been:
…laxity, incompetence, failure to fulfill prescribed duties effectively and also lack of complete knowledge of duties" among members of various departments charged with the protection of public safety.
In a lashing statement, the jury said it intended to record its conclusions:
…even though such evidence may fall short of establishing the willfulness or corruption required to make neglect of duty a criminal offense.
The jury said:
We have found shifting of responsibility and a tendency by various officials in different important departments who relied too much on their subordinates without exercising a sufficient and proper check on such subordinates.
We have found no complete coordination between the buildings department, fire department, police department, and licensing board, with respect to various types of inspection intended to be made to insure public safety in addition to protecting the public health, morals, et cetera.
Socialite RAF pilot, born in U.S., gets honor cross
Cairo, Egypt (AP) –
Air Cdre. Whitney Straight, a socially prominent American-born fighter pilot now with the RAF in the Middle East, was reported today to have been awarded Norway’s War Cross by King Haakon.
Cdre. Straight, who became a British subject, was credited with having saved many planes from a field which the Germans were trying to occupy during the invasion of Norway He was shot down over the English Channel later, but escaped.
Before the war, he was well-known as an auto racing driver.
He was born in 1912, the elder son of Mrs. Leonard K. Elmhurst of New York and London, and the late Maj. Willard D. Straight, banker. He is a grandson of the late William C. Whitney, who was Secretary of the Navy, and a nephew of the late Harry Payne Whitney.
He was married in 1935 to Lady Daphne Finch-Hatton, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Winchelsea.
Dr. Fishbein scoffs at fears for U.S. health
Chicago, Illinois (AP) –
Dr. Morris Fishbein asserted today in a signed editorial in Hygeia Magazine that:
Fears of a breakdown in American medical and public health services are unwarranted by any evidence now available.
The editor of Hygeia and of the Journal of the American Medical Association continued:
Far more serious is the attempt to create such fears as a basis for political intrigues or manipulations for political power. That is a dangerous threat to national morale and public health.
The editorial said the health of the people “is now the best that it has been in our history” and that:
Unless some epidemic, like that of 1918, should sweep the world, these excellent conditions should continue to prevail.
Louisiana to see Army maneuvers in February
Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair, commanding general of the Army Ground Forces, announced today that 1943 Army maneuvers tentatively were scheduled to start Feb. 1 in Louisiana.
A corps of the 3rd Army is slated to stage its battle problems in Louisiana under Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger, 3rd Army commanding general. Tennessee maneuvers under Lt. Gen. Ben Lear, commanding general of the 2nd Army, are scheduled for late in April.
Subsequent maneuvers will be announced later. Aggressive action in a variety of combat circumstances will be stressed and supply in bulk will be emphasized “in so far as practicable,” Gen. McNair declared.
He said infantry, armored force and tank units of the two armies are being assigned to combat practice areas in the two states.
The New York Times (January 1, 1943)
400,000 REVELERS FILL TIMES SQUARE IN DIM NEW YEAR’S
Chill of war felt as vast crowd toots sluggishly on old and second-hand horns; theaters are sold out
Allied fighting men, 40% of crowd, greeted by friendly New Yorkers
By Meyer Berger
New Year’s Eve in Times Square had a weird quality last night. A crowd of some 400,000, swelled by enormous numbers of teenage boys and girls, moved zombie-like through the dimness, blowing in melancholy fashion on old and second-hand horns.
There was a note of sluggishness, an absence of real gayety. The restless thousands lacked zest. War somehow laid its hand on the celebration and tended to mute it.
At midnight, the crowd watched in vain for the glowing white ball to slide down the flagstaff atop the New York Times Tower. Last night was the first New Year’s Eve since 1908 that no ball glowed to signal the death of the old year and the birth of the new.
Instead, silent bands of lights, from plane-spotter stations around the edge of the city, laid their beams across the cold and starry sky. This happened at the stroke of midnight.
The crowd stared in silence. It was a full three minutes before the import of the beams broke on the crowd’s consciousness. Then the din arose. The horns blew louder and the cowbells sent up their clatter.
From the great silver WNYC sound truck at Duffy Square, a deep-voiced announcer made himself heard above the din. He asked for ten seconds of silence as a token of respect for Americans serving overseas.
In the upper Square, where this message was distinct, the response was immediate. Men removed their hats and left off their horn-tooting. Women’s laughter suddenly stopped and quiet fell in the area.
Farther south though, where the crowds had overrun the streets despite the best efforts of mounted men, foot patrol and civilian defense auxiliaries, the message was not heard. The horns kept up their incessant blowing, the bells their clangor.
Soldiers and their women locked in embrace at street corners and in store doorways and held the pose for minutes with the crowd applauding. Some of these couples were caught in the beams of handlamps but didn’t seem to mind.
They left off when Lucy Monroe’s clear voice broke over the Square. She sang “The Star-Spangled Banner" and the crowd joined. The whole scene was a study in darkness with occasional flashlight bulbs piercing the gloom, though only briefly.
Veteran policemen remarked on the changed nature of the crowd. In previous years, celebrants were preponderantly persons in their late 20s and persons of middle age. Last night, there were many more youngsters, particularly groups of unescorted girls.
There was less drunkenness than in other years. The police handled the throngs without strain or extra effort.
Subway kiosks jammed
By 8 o’clock, the subway kiosks were literally locked with humanity from Brooklyn, Queens and the upper reaches of the city, struggling to get into the crowds on Broadway and on 7th Avenue.
They came equipped with horns and with cowbells that should have been on the scrap heap these many months. Those who expected to buy noise machines were disappointed. There were no bells or horns for sale; no rubber “blurpers.”
There were virtually no private motorcars, because of gasoline rationing, but taxicabs brought additional thousands from distant city points to the Square. Cabs from Brooklyn carried four and five passengers, picking up additional fares along the way because of the cab shortage.
Theaters reported extraordinary business. Fourteen of the 34 houses in and around Times Square were sold out before 6:30 p.m. and by 7 o’clock the larger motion picture theaters had long queues waiting.
The police kept a particularly sharp eye on jaywalkers and on alcoholics. With the steady stream of cab traffic north and south, attempts at broken-field running in the dimout were highly dangerous. The police acted as tackles.
‘Grand fun’ for Royal Navy
Three young Royal Navy men – the throng incidentally was at least 40% servicemen of all Allied nations – stood in front of the Astor goggle-eyed at the scene. They said they had never seen its like.
The youngest, with his cap wrong side front, kept saying:
Oh, it’s grand fun. It is grand fun.
New Yorkers, laughing and boisterous, shook the sailors’ hands and the sailors pumped the strangers’ arms. Up the avenues and across the side streets, sailors and soldiers, off to an early start, tacked and deployed in little groups, singing and shouting.
In the crisp air, horse cries and laughter carried far. It reached the ears like the sound of heavy surf, especially as you came toward it from 8th or 6th Avenue.
The police horses, ordinarily philosophical and calm, seemed restive. They pegged at the pavement with their forefeet and danced as their riders backed them into the surging crowd.
Around Father Duffy’s statue and by the police booth in the lower Square, police emergency trucks, ambulances, squad cars, fire apparatus and tow trucks huddled in the dark, prepared for any trouble.
Patrolmen in radio cars had been warned to proceed on their lights and not to use their sirens. The same order applied to ambulances and fire apparatus. City officials were afraid that indiscriminate use of sirens might start rumors of an air-raid and create panic.
This was the first year that there was no white-lighted globe on the flagpole of the New York Times Building in the Square to drop at midnight. Signal of the year’s passing was assigned to one of the city’s sound trucks.
Despite the dimout, the crowd was in extremely high spirits. There was more cause for cheering this year than there was on New Year’s Eve in 1941. The crowd that night came to the Square with news of fresh disasters in the Pacific ringing in its ears, with bulletins of fresh German advances in Europe.
Last night, the crowd’s mood reflected high hope, the result of good news from Russia, from Africa and from the Pacific. There were more young men of draft age, out for a fling and they want the decibel register high.
This year though, the Police Department placed a curfew on places of entertainment. Theaters, nightclubs and dance halls had orders to clear their floors at 4 a.m. Last year, the revelers stayed until dawn.
1 Like
Ten are indicted in nightclub fire
Four Boston officials named by jury with Cocoanut Grove operators and employees
Boston, Massachusetts – (Dec. 31, 1942)
Eleven indictments against 10 Boston men, including the City Building Commissioner James H. Mooney, and Captain Joseph A. Buccigross, a veteran police official, were returned by a Suffolk County Grand Jury late today after a 10-day investigation of the Cocoanut Grove fire on Nov. 28, which took the lives of 489 persons.
Charged with manslaughter in 32 counts of two indictments were Barney and James Welansky, operators of the nightclub, and Jacob Goldfine, its steward.
The charges against the others were:
- Commissioner Mooney – neglect of duty in enforcement of the building laws.
- Captain Buccigross – neglect of duty by a public officer and corruptly failing to enforce fire laws.
- Fire Lieutenant Frank J. Linney – willful neglect of duty and three charges of accessory after the fact of manslaughter.
- Barnett and James Welansky – besides manslaughter, accused of conspiracy to violate the building laws.
- David Gilbert, contractor’s helper – conspiracy to violate the building laws.
- Samuel Rudnick, contractor – conspiracy to violate the building laws.
- Theodore Eldracher, city building inspector – neglect of duty in failing to report violations of the building laws.
- Reuben Bodenhorn, decorator and designer – conspiracy to violate the building laws.
Placing the blame for the tragedy on police, fire and building officials, besides the management of the nightclub and the contractors and his aide, the grand jury, in addition to the 121 indictments, handed a presentment to the court in which it said:
We have found among members of various departments charged with the protection of public safety, laxity, incompetence, failure to fulfill prescribed duties effectively, and also lack of complete knowledge of duties.
We have found shifting of responsibility and a tendency by various officials in different important departments to rely too much on their subordinates without exercising sufficient and proper check on such subordinates. Officials in each department seemed to attempt to shift responsibility to some other department and vice versa.
We have found no complete coordination between Building Department, Fire Department, Police Department and Licensing Board with respect to various types of inspection intended to be made to insure public safety in addition to protecting the public health, morals, etc.
The grand jury went on record with its conclusions:
…even though such evidence may fall short of establishing the willfulness or corruption required to make neglect of duty a criminal offense.
Chief Justice John P. Higgins of the Superior Court, thanking the jurors, accepted their report as:
…the honest expressions of 20-odd honest, decent sort of fellows trying to give their expressyion to the court as to their belief in this important matter.
With the exception of Eldracher, who made arrangements to surrender himself at 10 a.m. tomorrow, all defendants had been booked at State Police Headquarters and bailed tonight in sums ranging from $1,000 to $10,000.
Godwin reports illicit liquor
Washington (Blue Network) – (Dec. 31, 1942)
In commenting over the radio tonight on the indictments handed down today on the Boston Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, Earl Godwin, Washington news commentator of the Blue Network, told of:
…reports to me that there was a lowdown political connection somewhere which permitted someone to have on hand large stores of liquor without federal revenue stamps.
Order restricts use of newsprint
WPB reduces consumption to net paid circulation of 1941, a cut of about 10%
By Frederick R. Barkley
…
Allies in Tunisia spar with enemy
Patrols make contact, while French gain and planes pound Axis bases
…
Rationing changes diets for soldiers
Washington – (Dec. 31, 1942)
The necessary rationing of foods by the government will also cause changes in the diet of soldiers but it will not interfere with the provision of a balanced and adequate diet for them, Secretary Stimson said today.
Mr. Stimson said:
Any issue ration, at home or abroad, will be maintained as a balanced diet. Each component has an acceptable substitute. As shortages occur, these substitutes will be used, although there probably will not be as sharp as change as may be experience by civilians.
Mr. Stimson pointed out that use of coffee and sugar in the Army has already bee changed in accordance with the lowering of supplies.
TRIBUTE TO DARLAN IS PAID BY STIMSON
War Secretary says reports impress him with late chief’s ‘wisdom and loyalty’
Also hails ‘cooperation’
Hopes French will release full story when inquiry on slaying is ended
By Harold Callender
…
How to write letters to captives of Japan
Washington – (Dec. 31)
Letters to U.S. prisoners of war held by the Japanese should be typewritten or printed in block capitals and held down to the shortest possible length, the American Red Cross announced today.
The recommendation was made by the Japanese and received by the American Red Cross Committee in Geneva, with the suggestion that it is a necessity in order to facilitate censorship and speedy transmission of mail.
Information on how to address war prisoners is forwarded with the official notification of capture sent to the next of kin by the Provost Marshal General but can also be obtained from the nearest post office or Red Cross chapter.