Have you ever wondered what life was like in Jacksonville half a century ago? It was a different era of history, culture and politics but there are often parallels between the kind of stories that made headlines then and today. As interesting as the differences may be, so are the similarities. These are some of the top stories from this week in 1961. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• Architect William J. Jackson was elected chair of the Jacksonville-Duval County Area Planning Board at an organizational meeting of the group at the Seminole Hotel.
Henry Dew, a retired paper company executive, was elected vice chair and real estate executive Morris Taylor was elected secretary.
The board was created by the 1961 Legislature to serve as a clearinghouse for planning and zoning in Duval County, although its recommendations were not binding on local governments.
The group, which was granted an appropriation of only $1 by the County, was designed as a seven-member body, including representatives designated by the governor and the City and County Commissions.
T. Jeff Davis and Barham Thomson Jr. were Gov. Farris Bryant’s designees. Bob Harris was the County Commission board member.
Taylor was appointed by Jackson to draw up possible bylaws for the organization and to make recommendations at the next meeting.
Pending receipt of possible funds for use by the board – the $1 appropriation would permit transfer of funds from other accounts to the planning board account – members said they would make personal contributions for the purchase of stationery for correspondence.
In its budgetary planning, the board had hoped for $37,000 with which to hire a planning director, secretary and staff planner and to purchase maps, photographs and other materials used for planning functions.
• At the Rotary Club of Jacksonville’s meeting at the Mayflower Hotel, Dr. Edward Annis of Miami, chair of the speaker’s bureau of the American Medical Association, denounced proposed federal legislation that would provide medical care for the elderly under Social Security. He said it was “a step toward socialism that would place an incalculable burden on taxpayers.”
At a news conference after the meeting, Annis said the proposal to extend medical care to those more than 65 years of age was “set up to give help to people whether they need it or not or whether they want it or not.”
He said government’s role should be to take care of people who could not take care of themselves.
“When government takes care of people whether they need it or not, that’s socialism,” said Annis.
The legislation, termed the King-Anderson bill, was not an insurance program as the sponsors called it, said Annis. He also told the Rotarians the program was not actuarially sound, but only financially so because of the government’s power to increase taxes to pay for it.
Annis said the Social Security program was only 20 percent solvent and if no one was added to it, the government would have to pay $360 billion to meet the obligations existing in 1961.
If the measure became law, said Annis, it immediately would take in 12 million people over 65 who would not have contributed to the extended Social Security medical care program. He said 8 million people older than 65 who were carrying their own medical insurance could drop it, adding to the millions of people who would come under the new government health care plan.
Annis also said abuse of hospital and medical insurance in a government-supported plan where the doctor could not control the length of stay of a patient “would make the cost incalculable.”
• Five Dutch seamen decided to cool off with a dip in the St. Johns River, so they dived off the side of their ship.
When they finally managed to get out of the water, they had been swept nearly a mile downstream and to the opposite shore.
County Patrolman J.R Spires said the men leaped from the SS Doris, docked at Wilson & Toomer Fertilizer Co. on Talleyrand Avenue, shortly before noon. They climbed out of the water on the Arlington side of the river near Jacksonville University.
The dripping wet men, who had been spotted by Arlington residents, were returned to their ship by the U.S. Border Patrol.
• Warden Tom Heaney ran the Duval County jail with the help of 54 volunteers, but the unpaid workers weren’t there out of benevolence. They were hand-picked trusties, inmates who acquired certain privileges in exchange for their help operating the facility.
A trusty could keep his personal belongings in his cell and wear his own clothes. He could have an extra visiting day a week and, at times, trusties were entrusted with the keys.
Heaney said he picked trusties as carefully as a business owner would select key personnel. Since the jail was designed to operate with 100 salaried employees but had only 26, Heaney had to rely heavily on the trusties.
The inmates made the first move, submitting an application to jail authorities. Each request was evaluated, including the background of the prisoner, with little weight given to the nature of the crime committed.
If in civil life, the prisoner was a cook, Heaney placed him in the kitchen. If he was a clerk before being incarcerated, he was a clerk behind bars. For qualified women prisoners, there was always a need for trusty labor at the sewing machines or in the jail’s beauty parlor.
Heaney said the trusty system saved a lot of money for the County. Meals were prepared, for example, at a cost of 16 cents per inmate because the single salaried employee in the kitchen supervised a full staff of trusties.
Heaney said the program had benefits that went far beyond saving money. He said the greatest benefit was rehabilitation.