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Vol. 78/No. 47      December 29, 2014

 
25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

December 22, 1989

December 8 was “Stand Up to Lorenzo Day” for Eastern Airlines strikers and their supporters. Activities were held in several cities to show that after more than nine months, the Machinists’ walkout at Eastern remains solid, despite recent decisions by the officials of the pilots’ association and flight attendants’ union to end the sympathy strikes at the carrier. The International Association of Machinists and the AFL-CIO called the activities.

In New York some 700 strikers and supporters gathered at Washington Irving High School for a labor solidarity benefit to back the Eastern strikers, miners on strike at Pittston Coal Group, and workers at NYNEX phone company who recently returned to work after a successful four-month walkout.

December 28, 1964

Anger and indignation among Negroes, civil-rights activists and among those who simply believe murder should be punished is mounting over the situation in Mississippi. The FBI’s highly publicized arrests of 21 people involved in the murders of the three civil-rights workers last summer in Philadelphia, Miss., apparently is not even going to result in indictments — let alone convictions.

This follows the failure to bring Medgar Evers’ assassin to justice, the release of the McComb bombers, and countless other unpunished racist crimes. There is little indication that the Johnson administration will take any decisive steps against the officially-encouraged killing of civil-rights workers in Mississippi.

December 29, 1939

During the first month of the new year the crisis in Japanese-American relations will enter an acute phase. The trade treaty of 1911 denounced by President Roosevelt six months ago will expire on Jan. 26. The negotiations for replacing it involve not merely trade questions but the broader and graver issues of Japan’s position in East Asia, its relations with the Soviet Union, and its role in the war.

Under the pressure of threats of an embargo, supplemented by ostentatious additions to U.S. naval and air strength in the Far East, Japan has made a token gesture of conciliation. It has promised to re-open to American and other foreign shipping the lower Yangtze River, which it closed after conquering Shanghai and Nanking two years ago.  
 
 
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