Early Times Capsule

By Jim Zbick

jzbick@tnonline.com

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," said classical philosopher and poet George Santayana.

A simple paraphrase of this quote is that history often repeats itself.

With the primary elections looming a century ago, an editorial writer for the Tamaqua Courier wrote about several subjects that are remarkably similar to what we're seeing and hearing about in our government during this election year.

The week after the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912, a Tamaqua Courier writer sensed that the story would not only be remembered as a tragic news event, but that we would learn from the lessons the tragedy taught us that night

"Before the Titanic disaster drops out of the bulletin boards and the headlines, let us hope that it will have made some little impression on the American temperament," the writer stated. "The lessons to be learned relate not merely to life boats and wireless (communication) and steamship lanes."

One day in late March of 1912, a small girl walked into the newspaper office in Tamaqua, and asked if she could have a notice posted in the paper in behalf of all the small children in her school.

She handed the reporter a scrap of paper with this brief message: "The scholars of Miss Reif's room are on strike."

It was signed by nine other girls, all between the ages of 8 and 10.

A century ago, Antoine and Julien E. Gaujot, two brothers with Tamaqua family roots, were as competitive a brother tandem in the U.S. military as the Manning brothers Payton and Eli have been in professional football today.

The Gaujot's are two of the eight sets of brothers to receive the Medal of Honor the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government and the only pair to receive the medal for actions in different wars. A total of 3,475 individual medals have been awarded to 3,456 individuals in U.S. history.