So much happened in ’25 it is hard to know where to start in reviewing it. But we’ll give it a shot:
Talk ramped up about someone flying nonstop solo over the Atlantic Ocean. Preposterous, although young barnstorming pilot Charles Lindbergh, a graduate of the U.S. Army Air Service, may be considering it. You’d have to call him “Lucky” if he did.
A new magazine, The New Yorker, debuted. It won’t last long given that we already have so many fine, well-established periodicals, including Collier’s, Saturday Evening Post, McCall’s, Saturday Review and Scribner’s, none of which is likely to disappear while writers keep pounding typewriter keys.
Something fresh, The Grand Ole Opry, began broadcasting country music on the radio. Such tunes may appeal in certain parts of our country but probably won’t nationwide.
Speaking of radio, a presidential inaugural address was broadcast for the first time when Calvin Coolidge delivered his remarks in March. He had assumed office when President Warren Harding unexpectedly died in ’23.
Our nation’s capital witnessed a march of about 30,000- 50,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan with its platform of white supremacy, nativism and religious discrimination. President Coolidge did not review the parade. We hope not to be subject to such gatherings in the future, but we remain concerned.
Louisiana shoemaker Homer Plessy passed away. He was the plaintiff in the historic 1896 Separate but Equal case in which the Supreme Court ruled separate facilities for Black and White folk legal if they were equal, but they are anything but. People of color are subject to inequality in public schools, restrooms, water fountains, railroad cars, hospitals and many other sectors, victims of significantly inferior or non-existing facilities.
Babe Ruth, limited by health issues, hit only 27 home runs, but it was wise of him to give up that wacky notion of being both a hitter and a pitcher. No one will ever be able to succeed simultaneously at both facets of the game.
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote “The Great Gatsby,” a look at this current era of excess for relatively few, a period unlikely to be repeated. How can a nation flourish if it experiences great wealth inequality and sharp class divisions?
Immigrants to the U.S. were not as welcome in ’25 as they had been previously because of restrictions of the Immigration Act of ’24. Their numbers fell to 294,000, compared to 707,000 in ’24. We hope that this downward direction will be reversed. Immigrants are vital to our nation’s growth and its rich diversity.
Walter Camp, “The Father of American Football,” died. Among his contributions, he originated the system of downs and the line of scrimmage, widely wrote about football and yearly published an All-American team. Some college gridders have been paid surreptitiously, but the game should never be tainted by money.
In golf, Bobby Jones retained his U.S. Amateur title and Willie Macfarlane won the U.S. Open.
In a big year for automotive news. Chevrolet’s deliveries increased by 24 percent; Walter Chrysler founded his eponymous firm, absorbing his Maxwell Motor Co., and Ford manufactured 10,000 Model T vehicles daily at its peak and put into production the first factory-built pickup truck.
With the increase of the number of vehicles on the road, the first “motel” – combining the words “hotel” and “motor hotel” – opened at 2223 Monterey Street in San Luis Obispo along the main San Francisco-Los Angeles route. An overnight stay at the first motel cost $1.25 when it opened.
The obituary pages included Amy Lowell, a Massachusetts native who was an Imagist poet. Not allowed to attend college because her family felt it inappropriate for females to pursue advanced education, she became an avid reader, a dedicated student of poetry and a renowned poet. Near the start of this century, Imagism was a movement known for precision of imagery and clear and sharp language. Lowell was also an early advocate of free verse and one of the first women on the cover of Time, a weekly news magazine that began publishing two years ago.
Our relationship with Venezuela in ’25 was basically defined by increasingly heavy investments by American companies in its petroleum industry, with the U.S. becoming Venezuela’s largest customer, and by the unification of power by Juan Vicente Gomez, its dictator. His oil policies resulted in public protests in Venezuela.
Leader, of Carmel Valley, is a former longtime newspaper reporter and editor, including at The Los Angeles Times and The Herald.
