Chron’s Delaplane wins Pulitzer
Here is a look at the past. Items have been culled from The Chronicle’s archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.
1992
May 1: Capping a day of protest that closed the San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridge and turned to wanton destruction, looting and arson downtown, Mayor Frank Jordan declared a state of emergency in the city last night and imposed a 9 p.m.to-6 a.m. curfew. It was believed to be the first curfew in San Francisco since the looting that followed the 1906 earthquake and fire and came as multiracial bands of youths and young adults roamed downtown streets, engaging in guerilla-style confrontations with police, burning police motorcycles, setting fires and looting businesses, shops and department stores. Looters, mingling with terrified tourists and anxious office workers trying to get home, broke windows and carted off goods from stores like The Gap, Banana Republic and Rochester Big and Tall. Windows at the Fairmont Hotel and Macy’s were smashed ...
In one incident, demonstrators stormed Copeland’s Sporting Goods, where they stole baseball bats that they then used to break windows at other stores. By the time Jordan declared the emergency shortly after 9 p.m., 340 people had been arrested in San Francisco. Earlier in the day, Highway Patrol officers cornered demonstrators on the Bay Bridge and arrested 380 of them. Downtown BART stations closed for several hours, forcing thousands to find alternative transportation. These incidents did not remotely resemble those that occurred in Los Angeles in reaction to the not-guilty verdicts in the Rodney King beating trial. Yet their intensity appeared to take authorities by surprise. — Rick Delvecchio, Clarence Johnson,
Louis Freedberg
1967
May 2: The Board of Supervisors yesterday delayed hanging out a “Hippies Unwelcome in San Francisco” sign for at least another week. The Board voted 8-1 to delay on a resolution that looks askance at the rumored summer invasion of “indigent” and “vagrant” young people from elsewhere in the nation to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. Police Chief Thomas Cahill had testified before the Board’s Police Committee that more hippies would mean more problems. Thus buttressed Supervisor Joseph Casey and Kevin O’Shea recommended that the Board block the hippie hegira. Supervisor Jack Morrison questioned the constitutionality of such a move. “During the depression,” Morrison said, “Los Angeles tried to bar indigents entering the county. They found they were violating the Constitution of the United States. These young people are our sons and daughters. They have the same right to move freely anywhere in the nation as any other citizen.”
— Mel Wax
1942
May 5: Chronicle reporter Stanton Delaplane yesterday was awarded the 1941 Pulitzer Prize. The $500 went to Delaplane for his coverage of the story of five Northern California counties, which threatened to secede and form the forty-ninth state of Jefferson. Delaplane is the second Chronicle staff member to win the Pulitzer award. Royce Brier, Chronicle columnist received it in 1934 for his 1933 coverage of the San Jose lynchings. May 6: The Mazzini Society of San Francisco yesterday threatened to withdraw from Sunday’s “Americans All” parade unless other Italian-American societies would parade their anti-fascist feelings up Market Street. “The Mazzini Society is anti-fascist and we challenge the other groups to proclaim their hatred for Mussolini and all he stands for,” declared Charles H. Tutt, a Canadian-American, but secretary of the Mazzini Society here. While Tutt and his group hurled charges of “Fascist!” at the other North Beach organizations, they in turn, cried out “Red!” at the Mazzini Society. Referring to a recent meeting called by John B. Molinari, chairman of the committee organizing Italian-American participation in Sunday’s parade, Tutt said in a letter that the Mazzini Society was dismayed that so many notorious Fascists were included in the parade’s committee.
1917
May 2: Thirty thousand children, with almost as many grown-ups attending them, formed themselves into a May Day pageant in Golden Gate park. The parade began at Haight and Stanyan streets and made a winding line to the great circle in front of the Children’s Playground. Two of the largest poles ever erected on a May Day were in evidence, towering more than forty feet and requiring the services of the Fire Department to put them in place. May Queen, Viola Carlsen, sat in a chariot lavishly decorated with hawthorn and which had the unusual distinction of being drawn by fifty little girls. A smaller pole, more than thirty feet high, was set in place according to an old English custom, being brought in on the shoulders of ten girls. The three poles were in active use all through the programme, presenting one of the most spectacular sights of the day. An additional feature of the day was the giving away of 5000 boxes of candy to the children. Such children as had not been provided with a picnic feast by parents were generously provided for.