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FEBRUARY 1949

THOUSANDS MARCH IN JAMAICA, PROTEST TRIAL IN HUNGARY

Get into a conversation with a long time Queens resident and you're likely to discover a subscriber of the Long Island Star- Journal, a daily paper that informed the community about local and world news until it folded in 1968. A banner across the Star Journal masthead reminded readers that the newspaper's name came from the merger of the Long Island Daily Star (1876) and the North Shore Daily Journal - The Flushing Journal (1841).

Welcome to February 1949!

In Queens, a groundhog in Cunningham Park saw his shadow, and so did his cousin in Flushing Meadows Park a couple of miles away. Six more weeks of winter were predicted - or maybe not. It would depend on the weather. Fifty years ago reporters were already complaining about having to cover this unreliable annual weather forecast on a frosty February morning. At least the groundhogs weren't yet nicknamed 'Cunningham Clive' or 'Flushing Freddy.'

The Star-Journal had a more serious story to report on February 13th, when 52,000 marchers in Jamaica protested the imprisonment of Cardinal Josef Mindszenty by the Communist government of Hungary. It was the largest parade Queens had ever seen. Protestants and Jews joined Catholics from all the 88 parishes in Queens, as well as many in Brooklyn and Nassau County. Placards carried by the marchers read "We Protest Kangaroo Trials," "Communists Veto God," and "It CAN Happen Here."

Cardinal Mindszenty was tried and convicted on charges of treason, espionage and black market activities. It was widely believed by Catholics that he was a martyr for the faith, and the demonstration in Queens was impassioned. The Star-Journal reported that an estimated 160,O00 people "lined Hillside Avenue from 161st to 178th Street to watch the parade roll by. Many of the marchers, solemn-faced and some with tears in their eyes, sang hymns. An honor guard of members of the Long Island City Jewish War Veterans post drew loud applause from the crowd."

Below the report of the demonstration, the Star-Journal ran an interesting story about Emery Florian, a refugee from Hungary who had recently resettled in Jackson Heights. He was praying for the safety of his sister and her husband, who had just fled from Hungary into the American Zone of Austria. Hanna and Laszlo Sulner were handwriting experts who had been drawn into the Mindszenty trial.

The Sulners, according to the Star-Journal, had brought with them microfilms of documents from the trial that they claimed would prove this evidence was forged. Hanna and Laszlo Sulner also claimed that the Cardinal's confession had been extracted by the use of mind-altering drugs developed by the Germans during the war. Sadly Laszlo died shortly after the Sulners' flight to freedom, but Emery Florian was eventually reunited with his sister Hanna, who settled in Manhattan and testified as a graphologist in many court cases.

The day after the demonstration, on February 14th, the Star-Journal reported that Pope Pius XII had told an extraordinary consistory of cardinals that the Mindszenty trial was a direct attack on the Vatican and that the cardinal's confession had been forced. Despite the widespread indignation expressed on his behalf, Mindszenty would stay imprisoned until he was freed by Hungarian freedom fighters in 1956. As the tanks of the Soviet Union crushed their brief revolt, Mindzenty took refuge in the American embassy in Budapest, where he remained until 1971.

Ecclesiastical matters were much in the news in February 1949. On February 11, the Star-Journal reported that State Attorney General Nathaniel L. Goldstein was pressing for state regulation of non-profit cemeteries that he claimed were profiteering from bereavement. Among the cemeteries named by Goldstein were three in Queens: Mount Hebron and Cedar Grove in Flushing and Maple Grove Memorial Park in Kew Gardens.

Nine officers of Cedar Grove and Mount Hebron cemeteries were accused of splitting $2,268,000 in illegal profits over seven years. In the case of Mount Hebron, the Star-Journal reported, Goldstein charged that it was a "pseudo real estate corporation," which "cleaned up $1,650,000 in retailing graves by the use of high pressure salesmen."

It must have been a tough job selling in cemetery space in the winter of 1949, when the papers kept running stories about coffins piling up because of the two-month-old strike at Calvary Cemetery. On February 13 the Star-Journal reported that 250 members of Local 239 - gravediggers, gardeners and maintenance men - had voted unanimously to stay on strike until their demands were met. More than 400 caskets were awaiting burial. The work stoppage at the largest cemetery in Queens had been joined by workers at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, N.Y., which, like Calvary, was operated by the trustees of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and some were worried that the strike would spread.

And the workers'demands? They were asking for a 40-hour, five-day week to replace their 48-hour, six-day week at the same pay rate--$59.40 a week. That was at a time when chicken (fresh-killed!) was 35 cents a pound and coal was $20 a ton. A 1949 Buick Sedan cost $3,028, but the subway was still only a dime. A General Electric Wringer Washer was $139, and a Stevens Frigidaire was $214. A 12" RCA television set was $349, quite a lot on a gravedigger's salary.

The movies were cheaper, still less than a dollar, and in February 1949 Westerns were popular. You could see Robert Mitchum in "Blood on the Moon," John Wayne driving cattle in "Red River", and Bob Hope and Jane Russell in "The Paleface." The Center Moviehouse on Queens Boulevard had a double-header revival of Charles Bickford's 1938 film "Gangs of New York" (in which a cop goes undercover to trap a mobster) and Lloyd Nolan's 1940 movie "Gangs of Chicago" (in which a young man whose father was killed by the police becomes a lawyer for the criminal underworld).

And if watching a movie about Chicago made you want to visit there on your next vacation? Well, you could take the train, but cheap air fares were making flying an increasingly popular alternative. In those good old days, flying was considered to be an elegant and luxurious way to go! Men wore suits, women wore hats and high heels, and both could enjoy a cocktail at the upstairs bar before their seven-course dinner. On February 4, Star-Journal staffer Roy Carlton reported on a new user-friendly perk:

"If LaGuardia Field airline flights take on the aspect of Chinatown bus tours, chalk it up to the parade of progress. Air travelers will have a PA system which will broadcast the route, weather ahead, airspeed and main points of interest en route," such as the Empire State Building or the Capitol. "Everyone at LaGuardia Field is now wondering what the rail roads will do to offset this latest move by the airlines, which figures show to be getting a steadily larger share of the transport trade. It's a cinch the iron horse can't duplicate the service. Can you just hear a conductor saying: "On your left you see a hobo camp ... on your right a water tower which is 70 feet high ... in five minutes we'll enter a tunnel and then a freight yard. Be sure to observe the coal piles on your left."

And the Star-Journal was right: in July of that year the first jet plane (the British De Havilland Comet) would make its maiden voyage. In the 1950s the new, faster jet airliner would be become ever more popular and the airports in our borough would be busier than ever before.

That's the way it was in February 1949!

Compiled by Clare Doyle, Librarian, Greater Astoria Historical Society.