MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1993
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to bar daily recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools. The justices, without comment, left standing a lower court ruling which rejected an atheist’s complaint that the “under God” phrase added to the pledge by Congress in 1954 violates the separation of church and state provisions of the First Amendment.
50 years ago — 1968
FT. RILEY, Kan. — It took less than half an hour Saturday to bury nearly two centuries of tradition and glory that was the United States Army Cavalry. It came in the form of a memorial service for Chief, last cavalry horse on Army rolls. The bay gelding died here May 24 at the age of 36 — the equivalent of 108 for a human — after 18 years of tender care in semi-retirement. About 500 soldiers and civilians assembled at the fort’s tree-lined old cavalry parade ground to pay respects to the symbol of a passing era.
75 years ago — 1943
A walkout by 500,000 miners paralyzed the nation’s coal industry last night while a stormy word battle raged in Washington over negotiations in the wage controversy. Secretary Ickes, as fuel administrator, called the work stoppage a “strike against the government” and asked John L. Lewis, United Mine Workers chief, to order the men back to work.
100 years ago — 1918
It has come to light that, years before the war, Germany was over-buying American cotton and storing it in this country. Berlin presumed that the war would be short, that the United States would never become involved in it, and that the reserve cotton stock would give German manufacturers the advantage of at least a year over competitors in the post-war market. When the war began to drag on, Germany tried frantically to get the cotton out of the United States by having it shipped to neutral ports. Much of it was seized by the British government.
125 years ago — 1893
Deputy Sheriff J.J. Murphy, Shelby County license inspector, Tuesday took into custody a mule which he claimed was pulling a wagon without a license. The mule’s owner appeared before Magistrate M. Garvin and swore out requisition papers for the recovery of his mule, alleging that he has the proper license. Murphy claims that the owner is using the same mule to pull two different wagons and that he needs a second license. The case will be heard this afternoon.