Death of Diana, food prices soar, desegregation: News Journal archives, week of Sept. 1

“Pages of history” features excerpts from The News Journal archives including the Wilmington Morning News and the Evening Journal.

Sept. 1, 1997, The News Journal

Death of a princess: World mourns loss of Diana

LONDON – Prince Charles brought Princess Diana home for the last time Sunday [Aug. 31], escorting the body of his “English rose” back to the land where their storybook romance ended in sorrow and scandal, a nation now plunged into grief and outrage over a stunning final tragedy.

A jet carrying the somber prince and the coffin bearing his ex-wife’s remains landed outside London 16 hours after Diana died from injuries suffered when her automobile, chased by photographers, crashed in a Paris traffic tunnel. ...

Sept. 3, 2005, The News Journal

A walk through hell in aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

NEW ORLEANS – With a cigar-chomping general in front, a camouflaged-green canopy of at least three dozen troop vehicles and supply trucks rolled through floodwaters Friday into a desperate city where some Hurricane Katrina survivors had died waiting for food, water and medicine. ...

Some people threw their arms toward heaven and others nearly fainted with joy as the trucks and hundreds of soldiers arrived in the punishing midday heat in a scene that looked like a relief mission to a Third World country.

But there was also anger and profane jeers from many in the crowd of nearly 20,000 who questioned why they had to wait four days and threaten to riot before they could get anything to eat or drink. ...

In the world-renowned French Quarter, armed residents hide behind ornate iron gates like prisoners in a frilly jail. Historic markers on Napoleonic-era houses share billing with signs that warn: “You loot, we shoot!”

At the convention center, where thousands have camped in the streets since Monday awaiting buses out of the city, the despair feeds on itself like a voracious beast.

When National Guard helicopters attempt to land with supplies in the parking lot, waiter Bob Vineyard joins a self-appointed crew to set up a safe perimeter. The crowd surges past them with an almost feral intensity, and the chopper can’t land. The soldiers drop cases of water and meals from 10 feet in the air. Many of the bottles burst on impact, the precious water left to evaporate in the hot sun.

“We would have had a whole helicopter full of food if you had stayed back!” Vineyard shouts. ...

Houston Mayor Bill White estimated more than 100,000 evacuees have fled to his city, more than the Astrodome and other makeshift shelters could accommodate. ...

Recent storm news: Delaware tornado delivered peak wind at 95 mph, damage in its 1-mile path. How big was it?

Sept. 5, 1957, Wilmington Morning News

Arkansas governor fears arrest after blocking school integration

This archival story uses language that was common at the time.

LITTLE ROCK, ARK. – Gov. Orval Faubus sent a telegram last night to President Eisenhower saying, “I am reliably informed that federal authorities in Little Rock have this day been discussing plans to take into custody by force the head of a sovereign state.”

At Newport, R.I., where the President is vacationing, White House press secretary James C. Hagerty said he has not been informed about Gov. Faubus’ telegram, or knows if such a message was received by Eisenhower. ...

The governor’s announcement came on the heels of other developments in the explosive situation, which threatened to burgeon into a clash of federal versus state powers of historic proportions.

At Washington, Attorney General Brownell announced that the “investigative facilities of the FBI” have been assigned to gather facts on Faubus blocking Negro pupils from admittance to Central High School here by the use of National Guardsmen. The FBI agents will report to Federal Judge Ronald N. Davies, who ordered compliance with a school board plan for admitting some Negroes to the previously all-white school.

Little Rock Mayor Woodrow Mann issued a statement blasting the governor for using the troops to enforce school segregation. Mann accused Faubus, whose Guardsmen barred nine Negro students from enrolling at Central High, of creating tensions where none existed before. ...

Sept. 6, 1947, Wilmington Morning News

$1 per pound butter looms as commodity prices soar

Butter at a dollar a pound in retail stores loomed today as food commodities again surged upward in the nation’s primary markets….

Advancing along with butter were such essential food items as eggs, lard, hogs and grains. Several commodities soared to prices never before attained.

Aside from heavy consumer demand, chief responsibility for the current upturn was placed mainly on the mid-summer drought in the Midwest and its damaging of the corn crop, used to feed livestock and poultry.

Inflation fighters: Which fast-food meal deal is the best overall value? The answer may surprise you

Butter, selling at 83 cents a pound wholesale for best grades, has advanced 25 cents since the low on April 22. Dealers said the hot summer has diverted milk away from butter and into ice cream. ...

Another outcome of the heat wave was ruined pastures, which took away one source of food supplies for cows.

Eggs, which brought 44 cents a dozen wholesale June 17, sold here today at 59 cents. Consumers, shying away from high meat prices, are creating a terrific demand for eggs. ...

Reporter Ben Mace is a former editor at the Smyrna/Clayton Sun-Times, Dover Post and Middletown Transcript with 33 years of journalism experience. He now primarily covers real estate, development and business news in central Delaware for The News Journal and Delaware Online. Reach him at rmace@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Death of Diana, food prices soar, desegregation: News Journal archives, week of Sept. 1