[Deadly Fires Legacy (in 1904), Forgotten Respect for Radicals
(1939), Big Money in Lies (1954), So Long, Subway Tokens (1994),
Racism wins, then loses (1959), Innocent man freed after 22 years
(1939), FBI Finds "Right Kind" of Black Leader (1964)]
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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, JAN 2 – 8  
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_ Deadly Fire's Legacy (in 1904), Forgotten Respect for Radicals
(1939), Big Money in Lies (1954), So Long, Subway Tokens (1994),
Racism wins, then loses (1959), Innocent man freed after 22 years
(1939), FBI Finds "Right Kind" of Black Leader (1964) _

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_A DEADLY FIRE'S MIXED LEGACY_

120 YEARS AGO, on January 2, 1904, the mayor of Chicago ordered the
immediate closure of all theaters in the city and decreed they could
only reopen after proving they were in compliance with all applicable
safety-related regulations. He took that dramatic action three days
after at least 602 people died in a fire in the Iroquois Theater,
which remained the deadliest U.S. single-building fire until 9/11.
 
The investigation of the circumstances that resulted in so many
fatalities revealed numerous acts of incompetence, negligence and
outright corruption as having been causal factors. More than a dozen
prominent men, including the mayor, were arrested.  All were released
on bail and none was convicted.  

The enduring legacy of the Iroquois theater fire was the
almost-universal requirement that exit doors in places of public
assembly open outward and be equipped with panic bars so they can be
opened even when locked. Many cities, including New York and Chicago,
adopted major revisions of their fire-safety codes in the months
following the catastrophe.
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_LOST  RESPECT FOR RADICALISM_

85 YEARS AGO, on January 3, 1939, the New York State Committee of the
Communist Party published a 19-point program to "urge upon the
Legislature at the current session." How do I know? Anyone could have
read it in a 5-paragraph item on page 11 in the next day's New York
Times.

The story's headline was "COMMUNISTS OFFER LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM: State
Wages and Hours Act Among the Measures Sought". The article briefly
described all the planks in the CP's program, including money for the
enforcement of the state's housing law "financed by taxes on those
best able to pay." It seems there was once a time when the Times could
write honestly about what the CP advocated.

It is interesting to reflect on when and why the major media's
reporting concerning the Communist Party ceased to make a pretense of
objectivity.
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_THERE'S BIG MONEY IN DISINFORMATION_

70 YEARS AGO, on January 4, 1954, the U.S. tobacco industry unveiled a
well-funded disinformation campaign about the health effects of
smoking. Full-page ads in newspapers from coast to coast announced the
creation of the "Tobacco Industry Research Committee" under the
headline "A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers".

The so-called research committee "manufactured uncertainty by
questioning every study, dissecting every method, and disputing every
conclusion" as David Michaels reported in his excellent "Doubt Is Our
Product," exposing the details of a campaign that "successfully
delayed regulation and victim compensation for decades.
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_GOOD-BYE TO SUBWAY TOKENS_

30 YEARS AGO, on January 5, 1994, New York City transit riders were
introduced to the Metrocard, a new-fangled device designed to replace
subway tokens. Slightly more than nine years later, the MTA gave up
the use of tokens altogether.
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_A SHORT-TERM WIN FOR RACISM LOSES IN THE END _

65 YEARS AGO, on January 6, 1959, Richard and Mildred Loving, a
married couple living in Central Point, Virginia, pled guilty to
violating the Virginia Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which made
interracial marriage illegal. In order to avoid serving a year in
prison, the Lovings agreed to 25 years exile from Virginia. Five years
later they filed suit in order to return to Virginia. In 1967 the U.S.
Supreme Court found that the Racial Integrity Act was
unconstitutional, making it possible for the couple to return to their
Virginia home. [link removed]

_INNOCENT MAN FREED AFTER 22 YEARS_

85 YEARS AGO, on January 7, 1939, the newly elected Governor of
California pardoned charismatic Socialist organizer and frame-up
victim Tom Mooney, who had spent 22 years in prison for a crime he did
not commit.  

Mooney had been sentenced to die after a brazenly unfair trial in San
Francisco. Of all the leftists who had ever been railroaded to jail or
the executioner, Mooney stood out, because almost as soon as his trial
ended, the "evidence" used to convict him was revealed unequivocally
to have been such a tissue of lies that no unbiased person could have
considered him to be anything but the victim of a kangaroo court.

The outrageousness of Mooney's conviction and sentence provoked an
outcry for justice that even had the support of President Woodrow
Wilson and his Attorney General and many others like them who  were
certainly no leftists. Mooney's death sentence was commuted, but he
remained a prisoner despite having been convicted by infamously
perjured testimony and doctored evidence.  After he was released
after 22 years in prison, he was a free man for only three years
before dying
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_FBI HONCHO FINDS THE "RIGHT KIND" OF BLACK LEADER_

60 YEARS AGO, on January 8, 1964, William Sullivan, the FBI's
assistant director, wrote a long memo for FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
about the FBI's need to undermine the increasing influence of Martin
Luther King, Jr., "to take him off his pedestal and to reduce him
completely in influence." "When this is done," Sullivan wrote, "the
Negroes will be left without a national leader of sufficiently
compelling personality to stee r them in the proper direction," but
"the right kind on national Negro leader could at this time be
gradually developed . . . to assume the role of the leadership of the
Negro people when King has been completely discredited." Sullivan went
on to report he had identified "a Negro of outstanding intelligence
and ability" with "all the qualifications of the kind of Negro I have
in mind." The name of the person Sullivan had chosen has been redacted
from the memo that has been publicly released. Sullivan continues, "if
this thing can be set up properly without the [Federal] Bureau [of
Investigation] in any way becoming directly involved, I think it would
be not only a great help to the FBI, but would be a fine thing for the
country at large." Sullivan's memo was endorsed by the FBI Director
with his handwritten "o.k."
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* U.S. history
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* Anti-Communistm
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* Big Tobacco
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* MTA
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* jim crow
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* COINTELPRO
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