“So many beginnings…” (PIP #15)

By Louise Peloquin

I make so many beginnings there never will be an end. 

– Louisa May Alcott

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     2024 has begun and is well under way. Will the new year’s resolutions, expectations, aspirations, ambitions, contentions, dissensions, cooperations, evolutions and all of the other ions positively or negatively charge the atmosphere?

In 1944, topics like health, expenses, taxes and raises interested L’Etoile readers. Eighty years later, they still do.

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L’Etoile November 22, 1944

ONCE AGAIN

     We call upon

          the SMOKER!

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          FOR THE SAKE OF COMFORT PLEASE

          THINK OF YOUR TRAVELLING COMPANIONS

DURING THE BRIEF INTERVAL YOU ARE ABOARD 

AND DO NOT SMOKE IN THE BUS

__________

Only a few passengers, fewer than one percent of our hundreds of thousands of passengers, persist in smoking in the bus. Further to numerous protests, again we call upon you, “the one percent,” to be so kind as to abstain from smoking in the bus, especially today given the enormous increase in public transportation traffic.

Don’t you want to help? 

Contribute to the comfort of your neighbors and workmates. They will appreciate your thoughtfulness. Accept this sacrifice as your contribution to make public transportation more comfortable during this critical period of war.

EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS

STREET RAILWAY COMPANY

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L’Etoile November 22, 1944

War against microbes

     In the war against diseases, there is never any rest. Science has not yet found drugs to cure tuberculosis but the revenues from Christmas Stamps pays for continuous medical research on this disease which took 50,000 lives in the United States last year.

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L’Etoile December 8, 1944

Gasoline is at $1 a Gallon

Boston 8 – Today the price of gasoline on the New England black market varies from 50 cents to a dollar a gallon, says United States deputy prosecutor Joseph-J. Gottlieb.

     Gottlieb quoted the price in response to a question from federal judge Franck J.-W. Ford about confronting six men accused of having illegally obtained gasoline coupons.

     Gottlieb also told Judge Ford that the price had been hiked because the strict enforcement of rationing had limited the quantity of gasoline on the black market.

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L’Etoile June 27, 1944

Taxes would increase by $1.20 in Lowell

     Last night, almost without discussion, the city council voted in favor of granting a supplementary credit order to city manager John-J. Flannery to cover the increased expenses accrued by the department of public assistance to the elderly. This $120,000 credit order will prevent the slight tax reduction promised by manager Flannery for this year and will even hike the tax rate by $1.20 compared to the rate of $47.20.

     While presenting his credit order, the manager said that the office of assistance to the elderly needed this sum in order to terminate the year. At the beginning of the year, $595, 000 had been requested in comparison with the $597, 578.72 expenses in 1943.

     $595, 000 was granted, but it is obvious that the amount needed for the year was wrongly calculated if conforming to the 1943 law increasing the assistance-to-the-elderly charges imposed upon cities.

     The office clerk had calculated that $68,000 were needed. However, the office decreased the budget forecast by $55,000, then subsequently by $30.000. $35,000 would be missing in order to terminate the year. I therefore recommend this credit order. Subsequently, the city must do its part to obtain the right to state and federal funding.

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L’Etoile June 30, 1944

Salary Increase in Haverhill

Haverhill, 30 – Certain shoe factory employees will have a salary increase varying from 53 cents to 63 cents an hour, according to a WLB decree. The increase is retroactive from January 1, 1944.

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All French to English translations above are by Louise Peloquin.