County Commission stands by $9 million budget, polio vaccinations urged
Have you ever wondered what life was like in Jacksonville half a century ago? It may have been 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 1960. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• The Duval County Commission stood by its entire $9 million budget for the 1960-61 fiscal year and refused to consider a priority list for separate items.
A unanimous expression of justification for the entire budget was the response to a letter from the Budget Commission asking for a list of priorities. It was presumed the budget group was seeking areas in the proposed budget that could be cut on the basis of being less urgent than others.
In connection with the inquiry regarding priorities in the County’s general budget, the Budget Commission cited several items, including the road and bridge fund, the road right-of-way fund, the cost-of-living pay increase for County employees, the courthouse construction fund, the appropriation for volunteer fire departments “and any other items” deemed more urgent than others.
County Commission Chair C. Ray Greene said all those items and all others in the proposed budget “were given careful consideration before we put them in the budget.”
“They (the Budget Commission) are just trying to put the monkey on our backs. I think all these items are equally important. Answer the letter saying we think they are all important and just ask them to give us what they can,” he said.
• The Florida State Board of Health made a pre-summer appeal for polio immunization of thousands of unprotected children and adults in the state.
Dr. James O. Bond, state epidemiologist, said it was estimated there were still some 800,000 people under the age of 40 in the state who had not received the immunization. He also said 25 cases were on the record for the year, including 17 that were paralytic. That compared with 65 cases in the same period in 1959, 47 of them paralytic.
The oral vaccine, which was being tested in Dade County, would not be available for at least another year, Bond added.
• U.S. Rep. Charles Bennett announced that the National Park Service was considering reconstruction of the entire structure of historic Fort Caroline.
It had been reported that the park service would construct a replica of a section of the former fort on the Fort Caroline Memorial grounds on the St. Johns River between Jacksonville and Mayport.
Reconstruction of the fort had been made possible on the basis of a contemporary sketch of the completed fort in 1591. National Park Service Director Conrad Wirth said the park service did not attempt to reconstruct long-destroyed historic buildings unless there was “an implicit educational value and a high degree of historical accuracy.”
• A pair of ex-convicts who faked a robbery to stage a $518 theft from a restaurant where one of them was employed received prison terms of 2.5 years each. Thomas Jackson Dukes, 24, and Harold J. Fillion Jr., 21, were sentenced by Criminal Court Judge William T. Harvey.
Dukes pleaded guilty to grand larceny of $518.18 from the Dobbs House Snack Bar at 4260 Herschel St. Fillion, the snack bar’s night manager, pleaded not guilty, but waived a jury trial and was convicted by the judge.
Assistant County Solicitor R. Hudson Oliff said the defendants were “old prison acquaintances” and conspired to steal the snack bar’s safe by faking a robbery in the early morning hours of Feb. 18. They hauled the safe containing the money into a car and Dukes drove off after Fillion was trussed up and left in the men’s rest room.
Oliff said a passing police officer noticed suspicious activity around the vehicle and recorded the license plate number. Dukes was arrested a short time later.
In another case, Harvey imposed the maximum six-month jail sentence on Harry Jenkins Jr., 39, of 964 W. Beaver St., for petty larceny of $3 from Thomas Cummings of 627 Franklin St. on Jan. 25.
Jenkins was originally charged with the strong-arm robbery of Cummings but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge. Assistant County Solicitor Edward M. Booth said the charge was amended for lack of sufficient evidence to support the robbery count. He said there was no other evidence to support the victim’s identification of Jenkins made after the theft occurred on a dark street at 11:30 p.m.
• Kaiser Gypsum Company exercised an option to purchase 34 acres of property at Dames Point for a multimillion-dollar gypsum products plant. Claude Harper, president and general manager of the company, said the purchase price was $150,000.
Otho Bruce, vice president of Florida National Bank, who had worked closely with Kaiser Gypsum to make the plant a reality, said, “This project will mark the beginning of great industrial expansion in the Dames Point-Blount Island area.”
He also said that section of the river bank had “remained virtually unchanged, from an industrial point of view, since Jean Ribault sailed into the St. Johns River almost 400 years ago.
“We are confident this forward step by Kaiser Gypsum will contribute to the rapid development of our port and industrial area, which in turn will make Jacksonville one of the great metropolitan centers of the world within a few years.”
• The contract for construction of a new Goodwill Industries plant at 4533 Lenox Ave. was awarded to the A.L. Clayton Co. of Jacksonville, said Goodwill President Leon E. Forbes.
The budget for the project was $112,600 and the new facility would replace the existing Goodwill location at 6 N. Newnan St. Forbes said the Newnan Street plant would be sold to Financial News Corporation for $65,000.
• Florida Gov. LeRoy Collins was asked to investigate alleged attempts by the Duval County solicitor to suppress, by intimidation, the sale of books and magazines which were legally sent through the U.S. Postal Service.
The request was made in a telegram from J.L. White Jr., president of Duval News Co., the principal distributor of such materials in the county. The telegram said that County Solicitor Lacy Mahon Jr. had unjustly charged that local drug stores were selling “hard core pornography” and that 50 percent of the material on 90 percent of Duval newsstands dealt with “sex, perversion and glorification of crime.”
White said Mahon made the charges at a public meeting at the Unitarian Church and denied the allegations on behalf of the county’s 200 drug stores, grocery stores, sundry stores and other “reputable and decent” retail dealers.
Mahon confirmed White had correctly represented his statements at the church and said the telegram was a “frantic attempt” to force his office to stop what Mahon called “our fight against obscene literature and sale of filth and trash to the young people of our community.”
Mahon also said, “In reply to this telegram, I unequivocally state that I intend to continue the lawful efforts of my office to enforce the laws against obscene literature. I also intend to personally exercise my right of freedom of speech to criticize the continued sale of smut.”
Two days later, the governor declined the request to investigate the solicitor’s actions. In what was described as a “carefully worded wire,” Collins told White, “I am solidly behind Mr. Mahon in whatever proper efforts he may be making to enforce the laws of Florida against obscene material. His initiative and courage in doing so is to be commended and not admonished.
“I, of course, would not condone a violation of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press, but neither will I assume that there has been any such infraction. If you feel that there has been such an injury to you, the courts are the proper forum for such a determination and redress.”