Looking Back on April 14

100 years ago, 1917
Dispatches say that the marriage license bureaus of the big cities are flooded with young men who prefer marriage to military service. It has become almost a national scandal, but, according to City Clerk Landry, there isn’t anything of the kind in Lewiston. “No,” said he to the Journal this morning. “There are no more marriage applications now than there have ever been. We always make out more licenses around Easter, you know, but conditions are wholly normal.” “Good. But do any of the applicants say anything about escaping war service?” “Not one. Lewiston’s patriotic, I guess.”

50 years ago, 1967
What do pop songs and Radio Moscow have in common? They both utilize the speaker system of the stereo record player belonging to Lewiston Patrolman and Mrs. Ronald Bates of 60 Mower Ave., Lewiston. That’s right, the record player. The Bates children were listening to their favorite pop records when the voice of the female newscaster of Radio Moscow intruded. They called their mother who was at first dubious but soon became convinced. Mrs. Bates said that she and her family were able to pick up Radio Moscow intermittently, from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and again at 9:45 p.m. Thursday. She said that the female newscaster frequently identified the station as Radio Moscow and that her newscasts dealt primarily with the war in Vietnam, Communist style. Music also was frequently played.

25 years ago, 1992
Following a statewide trend, the number of students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunches is rapidly increasing in Lewiston and Auburn, while older students who qualify are often too ashamed of their poverty to take advantage of the meals, according to school officials. “It’s not because the older kids are no longer hungry, but at that age they really care what their peers think about them,” Hood said. Maine is in the third year of a pilot program in which parents who receive welfare or Aid to Families with Dependent Children also get letters informing them that their children are automatically eligible for free meals.

The material in Looking Back is reproduced exactly as it originally appeared, although misspellings and errors made at that time may be edited.