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The year was 1940.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was president of the United States and was about to seek an unprecedented third term. The nation’s senior citizens were being issued their very first social security checks.
It was nearly two years before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and many of Lambertville’s young people who would take part in that second world war were still in high school.
A.S. Holcombe, local Frigidaire appliance dealer, was advertising the latest in refrigerators with a new "window-top" vegetable bin and the Quickcube ice tray with ice cube release. Lambertville’s "newest and most modern food center," the Acme supermarket, was getting ready to open in the Mackler building at 14-16 N. Union St.
Mayor George R. Kline was wrestling with Lambertville’s parking problem. One-way streets and hourly parking were two of the remedies being considered, particularly in the area of Church and Coryell streets and on Union street between Coryell and Bridge streets.
Another annoying problem was the excessive car horn blowing (especially by wedding parties). The City Commission promised the practice would be stopped even if it would take "arrests to make the proper impression." The commission also ruled all traffic lights be set at "caution" between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. to facilitate the flow of traffic through the city.
In 1940, the Lilly mansion, now the home of the Lambertville Public Library, had a lush green lawn in front of it. The lawn was enclosed in a fence that ran along Main and Bridge streets and the present highway. Built by Dr. John Lilly in the early 1800s and owned by the Lambertville Moose lodge for nearly 20 years, now in 1940 it was to be sold again. It would no longer be a showplace. A gas station was destined to be built on that lush green lawn.
Americans in 1940 were involved in raising money for the Finnish victims of the Russian invasion, in collecting clothing for European victims of the German occupation and in finding homes for war refugee children. The Strand movie theater on Coryell Street featured a movie about a rescue from a Nazi concentration camp. The movie starred Norma Shearer and Robert Taylor.
In October 1940, Hunterdon County began registration of male citizens between the ages of 21 and 38 years . America’s new peace-time army would contain a large number of draftees. The Beacon published a list of those registered from Lambertville and surrounding rural areas and their draft numbers, causing the paper’s circulation that week to double.
When the 17-hour drawing of what The Beacon called "the first peace time draft America has ever known" took place in Washington, D.C., in October 1940, Harold F. Holcombe of Lambertville was the 41st number to be drawn, and Louis A. Welsh was the 46th.
The Beacon promised to send its newspaper to all servicemen who asked for it and soon was receiving thanks from local boys all over the country. This and That columnist and Beacon Editor John C. Hazen noted: "Nothing like a weekly letter from home to cheer a fellow."
The election for president of the United States became heated as do most elections. Mr. Roosevelt was being opposed by Republican Wendell R. Wilkie.
Someone threw a stone at the Wilkie sign in Smith’s drugstore window at the corner of Union and Coryell streets. The aim was a little off, and the stone cracked the window. Not like in the old days, commented editor Hazen, when tomatoes were tossed at political paraders.
"This sort of thing shows a bad trend," he said.
He was so right. Today, some 60 years later, when a person gets mad at something or someone, the object thrown could very well be a bomb.
