October 16, 2009
100 Years Ago In the Forward
The general strike of the neckwear makers was going smoothly, and no violence had occurred. The bosses were going to and from their offices, and it looked like the strike was going to be settled. One shop that was holding out, the Star Neckwear Company — eventually refused to accommodate its workers on a number of points, so the union picketed the company. When the pickets arrived, hired goons — male and female — immediately attacked them. The union didn’t take this sitting down; the goons got it as good as they gave it.
75 Years Ago In the Forward
Forward correspondent I.J. Singer writes: “When I heard there lives in Harlem a black man who is treated like a god, i.e., his followers bow down and kneel before him, I didn’t believe it. How could it be that in the middle of New York City, there would be people who believed in a human god, like the Egyptians believed in their pharaohs? I figured he would be considered more of a prophet than an actual god. But I was wrong. Father Divine, as he is known, is considered by his followers to be God, the reboyne-shel-oylem. I decided to go and interview him. He didn’t look much like a god. In fact, he looked more like a storekeeper or an accountant.
50 Years Ago In the Forward
The Jews of Israel have demanded that Nazi mass murderer Adolf Eichmann be extradited to Israel to stand trial. Eichmann, it is said, is currently living in Kuwait, where he is posing as an oil company employee. Credit for finding Eichmann was given to Tuvia Friedman, director of the Institute for the Documentation of Nazi War Crimes. Friedman apparently discovered Eichmann’s presence in the oil-rich British protectorate on the basis of his own research. Eichmann was the architect of Hitler’s death camp system and is responsible for the murder of millions of Jews.
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