Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

The passing news

THERE IS another phase of the bill which I have not mentioned. It is that prohibiting the marriage of whites and blacks, and whites with mulattos and Mongolians. Such unions as these lower the whole standard of marriage, and therefore lower civilization. They are prohibited in all the Southern and in some of the Western States, and they ought to be barred in Rhode Island.

-- Quotes from a Rhode Island state representative in favor of a failed "eugenic-marriage" bill, April 7, 1912

WE ARE absolutely satisfied that if she has been in collision with an iceberg she is in no danger. With her various watertight compartments she is absolutely unsinkable and it makes no difference what she hit. The report should not cause any serious anxiety.

-- Quotes from the president of the International Mercantile Marine, playing down early reports that the ocean liner Titanic had sunk, published April 15, 1912

THE UNITED STATES Government yesterday took over the Sayville wireless station, the only privately operated direct means of communication between the United States and Germany. The closing of this station is a direct outcome of the presentation of certain facts to the President and Secretary of the Navy by the Providence Journal . . . The Providence Journal has been recording for several months every message sent to and from Sayville.

-- Front-page Journal news story, July 9, 1915. The paper claiming credit for government action was common while John R. Rathom was editor.

IN REGARD to the wireless revelations, while it is true that the Providence Journal was enabled to secure direct copies of all messages sent to and from Tuckerton and Sayville from the beginning of the European War, its own wireless station was not utilized in catching these messages.

-- From Rathom's secret 1918 confession to federal authorities, later published in The Evening Bulletin.

AMERICAN SOLDIERS in France are in need of tobacco. In order that these and those who are to follow them, may be supplied, the Providence Journal will begin today a vigorous campaign in the interest of what is to be known as "Our Boys in France Tobacco Fund.". . . Not only are the supplies of tobacco now attainable in France scarce and costly, but the material, such as it is, fails to yield the same flavor that characterized those "old whiffs at home."

-- Aug. 13, 1917

THE SEASON of 1918 moves funereally to its finish. It is a further sobering thought that we may be witnessing the end of an era. It is not beyond the bounds of speculation that baseball will never be the same again "after the war."

-- From an editorial, Sept. 7, 1918, as the Boston Red Sox closed in on their last world championship of the 20th century

WE SHALL stop short of inflicting direct physical suffering upon the German people. But that is a different thing from imposing just and righteous punishment upon them, or from "humiliating" them as they deserve to be humiliated.

-- Editorial, Nov. 15, 1918, urging the Allies to be tough on defeated Germany