“Pages of history” features excerpts from The News Journal archives including the Wilmington Morning News and the Evening Journal.
Aug. 15, 1914, The Evening Journal
Panama Canal formally open to commerce
Messages of congratulations were exchanged today between President Wilson and Secretary of War Garrison, Secretary of the Navy Daniels and Gov. Goethals of the Panama Canal zone upon the opening to commerce of the world of the “big ditch.”
A War Department vessel, the steamer Cristobal, loaded to the gunwales with Isthmian, war and navy officials, and a hefty cargo of newspapermen, was given the honor of being the first “official” vessel to go through the inter-oceanic waterway.
The formal opening of the canal will not occur until March 4, 1915, when President Wilson, Admiral Dewey, cabinet and congress members will head a gigantic fleet….
Smaller vessels…have been passing through for a couple of months.
Aug. 15, 1935, Wilmington Morning News
Roosevelt signs social security bill into law
President Roosevelt signed into law a social security program yesterday he said would “provide for the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness.”
“This social security measure,” Mr. Roosevelt added, “gives at least some protection to 30 million of our citizens who will reap direct benefits through unemployment compensation, through old age pensions and through increased services for the protection of children and the prevention of ill health.”
The President spoke into sound cameras crowding the White House Cabinet Room after his pen welded to the statute books the security program molded in studies that began more than a year ago. It was seven months going through the House and Senate….
Aug. 15, 1945, Wilmington Morning News
Peace comes to world; MacArthur named to rule over Japan
The Second World War, history’s greatest flood of death and destruction, ended Aug. 14 with Japan’s unconditional surrender.
Formalities still remained – the official signing of surrender terms and a proclamation of V-J Day.
But from the moment President Truman announced at 7 p.m. Eastern War Time that the enemy of the Pacific had agreed to Allied terms, the world put aside for a time woeful thoughts of the cost in dead and dollars and celebrated in wild frenzy….
To reporters crammed into his office, showing now-useless war maps against a marble mantel, the President disclosed that:
Japan, without ever being invaded, had accepted completely and without reservation and Allied declaration of Potsdam dictating unconditional surrender.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur had been designated supreme Allied commander, the man to receive surrender….
Japan’s surrender capped a week packed with some of history’s most stunning news:
The first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Russia’s declaration of war, another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan’s offer to surrender if she could have her emperor and his sovereign prerogative, and an Allied declaration that he would become merely their instrument….
MORE ON WWII:On the 80th anniversary, a 100-year-old Delaware veteran recalls attack on Pearl Harbor
Aug. 16, 1969, Evening Journal
Scores fall ill at Woodstock rock festival
Organizers of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair near White Lake, New York made an emergency appeal today for medical supplies and “hip” doctors to treat scores of young people who have fallen ill, many of them suffering adverse drug reactions.
Dr. Donald Goldecker, medical officer of the fair, said a 40-seat Mohawk Airlines plane had been chartered to bring volunteer doctors and emergency medical supplies to this Catskill community to treat the sick, who were among an estimated 300,000 people who have jammed into a 600-acre farm for the three-day rock festival.
What brought everybody here is something the producers call an Aquarian Exposition, set up with the stage at the foot of an alfalfa field that forms a natural amphitheater.
Goldecker asked for doctors who were familiar with the drug scene, since so many of the sick were suffering from ill effects of drug use. He called for medical supplies used to relieve these effects, such as heavy tranquilizers and anti-spasmodics.
But Goldecker also said general antibiotics were needed as well as tetanus vaccine and antihistamines for asthma sufferers.
CATCH UP ON HISTORY:News Journal archives, week of June 26
Aug. 19, 1920, Wilmington Morning News
Tennessee ratifies suffrage, giving U.S. women vote
Immediate action was taken last night to give Delaware women the opportunity to vote at the coming elections. Deputy Attorney-General Percy Warren Green stated there was no legal obstacle in the state’s Constitution. Lambert J. Foulk, of the Department of Elections, asserted ample opportunity would be given to every female voter to register on the two days still remaining.
Green stated last night: “It is absolutely clear in my opinion that if three-quarters of the states have ratified the 19th amendment that the word ‘male’ is excised or erased by the 19th amendment from the Constitution of the State of Delaware…which in effect means that the women will have the same right to vote as males for all federal and state offices, provided they comply with the same requirements as are now required for the qualification of male voters.”
Suffragists of the city and state were jubilant over the franchisement and declared it to be the greatest piece of work accomplished by a legislature. Republican leaders heralded the news with enthusiasm, declaring it meant a victory for their party in Delaware, the majority of the women having been set down as G.O.P. backers.
Reach reporter Ben Mace at rmace@gannett.com.
