Vol. 81/No. 12      March 27, 2017

 

25, 50 and 75 Years Ago

March 27, 1992

The FBI carried out violent attacks in Puerto Rico in 1978 that were blamed on pro-independence groups, an undercover cop admitted in testimony at Puerto Rican Senate hearings.

This was part of a campaign by the federal and colonial governments throughout the 1970s to victimize and smear the independence movement, student activists, and unions in Puerto Rico.

The Senate hearings are investigating the 1978 ambush and murder of two independence activists. The police, FBI, and governor initially claimed the two youths were terrorists caught trying to blow up communication towers at Cerro Maravilla. It was later proven that the police had organized the entire operation, in which an undercover cop entrapped the youths.

March 27,1967

Speedup and long hours in the current production boom, stimulated by the Vietnam war, have brought the 1966 rate of industrial accidents to the highest point since the early 1950s, during the Korean war. The National Safety Council estimates that last year’s factory mishaps took 14,600 lives. More production time was lost from accidents than from all other work stoppages, including strikes.

A prime cause is inexperience, that is, putting workers on dangerous jobs without sufficient training and then pushing them to produce at top speed. Dangers are also increased, for new and seasoned hands alike, by company neglect of safety precautions.

Many accidents are due to workers being tired from toiling overtime or from moonlighting on other jobs to make ends meet.

March 28, 1942

Washington is supposed to be the “headquarters of the democracies.” If you want to know what they mean by democracy in Washington you ought to read the judgment handed down by District Court Justice McDonoghue early this month.

It seems that a colored woman was living in a part of the city where Negroes are not wanted. It also seems that they have some kind of law against this in the nation’s capital. The judged handed down a ruling ordering her to move in 60 days because she is a Negro. He also issued a permanent injunction against the owners of the building to prevent them from selling or leasing the property to Negroes in the future.

In Washington, you see, they don’t need a Ku Klux Klan to segregate the Negroes in housing — the government does it for them!  
 
 
 
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