Feinstein rips firefighters union
Here’s a look at the past. Items have been culled from The Chronicle’s archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.
1987
Aug. 21: Mayor Dianne Feinstein has written the president of the union that represents most San Francisco firefighters to express her “disbelief and outrage” over a photograph in the union newspaper that was retouched to remove a black firefighter. Fire Chief Edward Phipps said he was “shocked” by the photo, which appeared in the August issue of the Main Line, official newsletter of Local 798 of the international Union of Firefighters. The photo showed Phipps with 23 firefighters who had been cited for heroism — but when it ran in the union paper, Charles Johnson, the only black in the group, did not appear. His face and upper body had been airbrushed out. Only his legs and shoes remained. Mike Pera, editor of the union paper, said Johnson had been removed because he was not a member of local 798. Pera said that changing the photo was a mistake and that he had written a letter of apology to Johnson for himself and the union. Johnson, who was cited for saving nine people at the big Bayview fire and explosion that killed eight people, said he had not received the union’s apology and was not sure he would accept it. Johnson is a member of the Black Firefighters Association that split from the international Association of Firefighters several years ago. The organizations have been on opposite sides in lawsuits over alleged job discrimination in the Fire Department.
1962
Aug. 21: Joe DiMaggio, still shaken by Marilyn Monroe’s death, spent many a lonely hour in San Francisco last week just driving around. He’s feeling a lot better now and has begun to speak of other things. He believes the Giports
1937
Aug. 20: San Francisco’s Chinatown has gone on a wartime basis. In far-off Shanghai, China is fighting for preservation of a life centuries old. There death rains from the skies. Gray-clad men fall, one by one, like stocky tenpins, dedicating themselves on a sacrificial altar that spreads mile upon mile along the murky Whangpoo. The streets of Chinatown are aflame with war bulletins. Older Chinese unable to read are given oral re-
1912
ants still have a good chance to come storming down the stretch to take the pennant. He is seriously thinking of golf as a major hobby and may apply for membership at the Presidio Club. In the past, Joe, the classic baseball swinger, refused to be seen in any golf celebrity event or tournament because he was embarrassed by his golfing inability. Once when he was forced into showing for a DiMaggio Restaurant tournament, he arranged a 6 a.m. starting time. Now Joe may have come to realize that his golf swing is pretty much his own, so why not live it up? There’s an old philosophy about golf, and it can apply to most things and people: “No one really cares about your swing; everyone cares about his swing.”
He may live here permanently, or at least six months out of the year, which, for Joe, is about as permanent as a guy can get. from their homeland and weep unashamed for those who hourly are falling in the name of China. Chinese actors voluntarily have given up their leisure hours to solicit funds from Chinatown residents and theater managers are presenting benefit performances night after night, the funds sent immediately to China. The largest Chinese economic enterprise in the United States, with branches in every large city west of the Mississippi, yesterday cabled $50,000. A number of Chinese doctors and nurses, all American born, are seeking permission to establish Red Cross hospital units in Shanghai. There is a very strong movement on the part of the Chinese living here to go across. The difficulty being that they are almost all American citizens and may only participate as non-combatants. But the Chinese forces need ambulance drivers and orderlies and the like, and the Chinese here can qualify for these posts. Aug. 19: The Orpheum this week is at its happiest. There isn’t a gloomy spot on the bill — not even an effort to uplift vaudeville through the medium of tabloid tragedy. There is one act, which you will revel in. W.C. Fields, “the silent humorist.” Fields is headlining in the advertising matter, evidencing that the management thinks most of his act among all on the program — and justly so. For Fields is not only the best comedy juggler in the world today, without one lone rival, but he is also a comedian with more of the real spark of comic genius than almost any who styles himself so in the legitimate field. Were he to break an arm so that juggling became impossible, he could go right out as a comedian and finish in the first flight. It isn’t often that one has a chance to enthuse, let alone rave, over a juggling act, but everybody’s doing it — or will before the week is out.
A