THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 14, 1996 TAG: 9604130109
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
SEVENTY-EIGHT YEARS ago this week, local barbers were taxed by the number of chairs in their shop, and the Circuit Court issued licenses to businessmen who wanted to dispense soft drinks.
Those little nuggets of Portsmouth life in 1918 are found in The Portsmouth Star, buried amid the plentiful accounts that week of fighting in Europe and the city's war efforts at home.
Each issue of the newspaper that week gave an update on the Third Liberty Loan Campaign.
And everyone was in on the act.
Fanny Capps coordinated the efforts of women from churches and synagogues who took day-long turns manning Liberty Loan booths at the courthouse, the post office and the ferry house.
One editorial writer told readers, ``There can be no excuse for any man's failure . . . to protect his family to some extent against the rainy day, and his government against disaster.
``And, finally, no man ought to forget this: that if we do not come across, the Kaiser will.''
Girl Scouts sold the bonds at the ferry house booth one day and, on another day, the Boy Scouts set up a ``headquarters'' to do so at M.M. Crockin's store.
There was even a Children's Day to drum up sales of the wartime bonds.
Directed by A.J. Lancaster, organist at Monumental United Church and accompanied by the Naval Post Band, about 100 children from the Cook and Ann Street schools gathered at the Court House to sing patriotic songs, according to the newspaper.
And the shipyard employees more than doubled the city's drive.
The city, after all, was bursting at the seams with military men and shipyard workers, and an editorial that week reminded readers:
``Portsmouth owes far more to Uncle Sam than the average town. It has received direct benefits from the government and very especial consideration at its hands - things which have been the basis of the wonderful growth of the city.''
That week, Norman Hamilton, president and treasurer of the Portsmouth Star Corp. and also Collector of Customs, had given a speech to drum up support that drew a ``rousing cheer'' from about 1,000 shipyard employees.
All of the shops of the shipyard were in fierce competition and by the end of the week they had raised more than $230,000, boosting the city's drive over its quota of close to half a million.
An editorial boasted, ``The old town which used to boast that she had more soldiers than voters can now claim, we believe, that she has more people who own government bonds than she has voters.''
The city held its first in a series of Liberty demonstrations with a mile-long parade that drew hundreds of sailors and marines, followed by 3,500 school children, according to a story about the event.
There were four brass bands, including three from the ``battleships now in the waters of this port.''
The military presence attached to the shipyard here was also much evident in the society columns.
Adm. Walter McLean, commander of the shipyard, showed up in several, including a note on the luncheon he and his wife gave in honor of a top aide to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt. The guest list included newspaperman, Hamilton.
The McLeans also held a box party at the The Colonial theater that week for ``The Road to Victory,'' a show put on by the Protestant Hospital and billed as a wartime pageant.
There was no USO then, but Portsmouth like other towns across the nation were very much aware of the young men defending them.
The Port Norfolk Book Club held a chaperoned social that week where young enlisted men could meet the ``young ladies of the community'' and a musical program for servicemen was offered at Court Street Baptist Church.
The interest in the military was even evident in a story on the Portsmouth Public Library that week, which informed readers that the book, ``Over the Top,'' was the most requested, more ``popular than the latest love story.''
The same story reported that classes were being held in the library nightly to help ``enlisted men . . . pass examinations which will admit them to other branches of the service.''
Even the newspaper's account of the Hotel Monroe's dining room and cafe's grand reopening couldn't describe the ``splendid'' new maple dance floor, ``polished to almost mirror effect,'' without also mentioning the ``striking uniforms'' of the men dancing on them. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
This fashion ad appeared in The Portsmouth Star on April 14, 1918.
Trant's Pharmacy was on the corner of High and Court streets in
1919. An ad that ran then called it ``more than a drug store, a
public institution.''
by CNB