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Turning Back the Pages
Apr 02, 2025
125 years ago — 1900
A large motor-omnibus will be run next summer between Torrington, Litchfield and Bantam Lake. The ‘bus is to be propelled by a Yale improved two cycle gasoline engine of twelve horse power which is specially constructed for automobiles. It will carry nine passengers and four large trunks. The vehicle is being built for Geo. D. Jones, a livery man of Torrington by the Dennison Electrical Engineering Co. of New Haven who guarantee that it will be able to mount hills of sixteen per cent grade.
The roads are getting settled rapidly and have not been as bad this season as usual, owing to good work by our roadmen and the absence of snow and cold weather this winter. The graveling of Main street has been a good object lesson, for this road has been in excellent condition all winter.
SALISBURY — W.W. Hortie, who burned his arm a few days ago, has taken cold in the wound, and now has a very painful arm.
This week a wealthy New York man came to this office to ascertain if there were any summer cottages in the market which he could rent this coming summer. We did the best we could for him but we fear he did not succeed in finding a place, for there seems to be none. This is only another instance that more houses are needed. How long will it be thus. The village is trying hard to grow and it should be helped. If more houses are needed they should be forthcoming. It would be a good investment all around, for more families bring more business and prosperity.
SHARON — Fred Morehouse moved this week into part of A.M. Card’s house. Mr. Morehouse intends on enlarging his livery business, we understand.
Master James Ellis is now the new boy at the Journal office.
For the benefit of our fishermen we would state that it is a violation of the law to take more than 30 trout in one day.
Edward Beebe, who has been employed as driver at the Wells Hill Farm, goes to-day to take a position as conductor on the trolley road between Winsted and Torrington.
Brother S.C. Beckley of the Canaan News has completed his 17th year as editor of that up to date paper. Mr. Beckley has labored well and as a result the News is prosperous and newsy. Make it continue thus.
100 years ago — 1925
Twin sons were born to Rev. and Mrs. Frank Lambert of Salisbury at the Hartford Hospital, on Monday morning, March 30th. Mrs. Lambert and children are doing very well.
The Act authorizing the Salisbury Savings Society to merge with The Robbins Burrall Trust Company was accepted by more than 2-3 of the corporators of the Savings Society at the meeting held March 30th, and by more than 2-3 of the stock of the Trust Company at the meeting held April 1st, and the merger is now an accomplished fact, and the assets of the Savings Society held in the Savings Department of the Trust Company.
Mrs. Rose Mitchell wishes to say that her cottage on Water Street occupied by Millard Kipp is not for sale or rental at the present time. This statement is made to put an end to rumors and to save needless time and trouble to rent hunters.
Howard Doty has finished his duties at Benjamin’s Store and will help his father in the ice business this summer. Vincent Walsh of Ore Hill takes Howard’s place at Benjamin’s.
50 years ago — 1975
Regional high school teachers offered Tuesday to forego any general salary increase for 1975-76 if 4.4 teaching positions now threatened are retained. The teachers also seek written safeguards and limits on any future staff cutbacks. The next move apparently belongs to the Housatonic Valley Regional High School Board of Education, which meets next Tuesday.
Legal papers calling for a new trial for 20-year-old Peter A. Reilly were filed Wednesday in Litchfield County Superior Court. The papers were submitted by defense attorneys seeking a reversal of Reilly’s 1974 first-degree manslaughter conviction.
Salisbury has the highest percentage of residents over 60 and over 65 of any town in Connecticut, Rev. Frank O. Reed, municipal agent for the aging, reported Tuesday night. He said that 27 per cent of the town’s approximately 3,700 residents are over 60 and 20 per cent are over 65, thus placing Salisbury “at the top of the ratio list.”
The new post office on Kent Green will open its doors to patrons for the first time April 7. Business at the present post office on Main Street will close at noon, Saturday April 5, marking the end of 42 years in the old building.
25 years ago — 2000
Cable modem? DSL? No matter how one frames the question, the answer remains the same: high-speed Internet access at an affordable price won’t be coming to the Northwest Corner any time soon, according to spokesmen for the local phone and cable service providers.
Lou Bucceri was honored March 19 as the Outstanding Lion of the Year by the Salisbury Lions Club at the Cornucopia Restaurant in Torrington.
After 27 years, the Kent Market has changed hands. As of Tuesday, residents Caralee and David Rochovansky took over ownership of the former A&P on Main Street. Last month, former owners Peter and Florence Jordhamo of Fairfield decided to retire, just as the Rochovanskys decided to leave their position as caretakers of the Preston Mountain Club after 19 years. The Rochovanskys will be at the market full time.
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...since the inauguration, investors as well as corporations and small businesses have been dealing with a mountain of uncertainty.
On April 2, Donald Trump threatened to levy tariffs on several nations. This is in addition to the tariffs he has already imposed on China, Mexico, Canada and now global auto producers. The question is whether the “if” in tariffs is still possible.
No, it isn’t. The president is making good on his campaign promises to create an even playing field between the U.S. and our trading partners. Steel, aluminum and the global auto tariffs he recently announced are only the beginning.
Unlike his first term, this time around his tariff initiatives will be “extensive, explicit and enforced,” as one hedge fund manager told me. That will be bad news for the financial markets but there may be a silver lining.
I have often said that markets can absorb and adjust to both good news and bad. If the trends are negative, investors and traders can hedge their portfolios, or move to the sidelines. Good news, as we all know, is much easier. Buy what you can and as much as you can. What the markets cannot deal with is uncertainty.
My readers are old enough to remember the presidential elections. The narrative among financial markets was that the country under Trump’s presidency would mean four years of higher corporate profits, rising stock markets, the end of our debt crisis, and the Ukraine conflict.
Sadly, many investors, traders and company managers focused on the positives but ignored the negatives. The financial markets and many voters bought into the campaign promises of the winning candidate lock, stock and barrel. It is understandable. In populist times like this, hope springs eternal once every four years during presidential elections.
However, since the inauguration, investors as well as corporations and small businesses have been dealing with a mountain of uncertainty. Radical and sudden change will do that to you. Few had done the math on what tariffs or downsizing the government would do to the economy and inflation. How exactly would the president reduce the nation’s debt or end the Ukraine/Russian war, and what would the downside be?
Those issues were dismissed as negotiating tactics or, as part of America’s long tradition of campaign promises, were never meant to be kept. Instead, we discovered that Donald Trump was deadly serious in his intentions to radically transform the nation and its political and economic system quickly. “Burn it all down,” was not just a stump speech.
The changes taking place in downsizing government and reducing the workforce are ongoing. No one, not even the Fed, knows how this will turn out. Uncertainty has become a popular word. Fed Chair Jerome Powell used the word ‘uncertain’ 22 times during his March 19 Federal Open Market Committee meeting remarks.
If you throw in the daily threat of tariffs, you have a perfect storm of uncertainty. Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again, tariffs have left investors uncertain and stressed out with their finger on the buy or sell trigger hourly. That is why the S&P 500 Index is off by more than 10% while markets overall are experiencing 1-2% swings in the averages almost every day.
The announcement of tariffs will remove at least one level of uncertainty from the markets. Of course, that won’t resolve the issue in its entirety, but it might help to calm the markets for a little while — until the next shoe falls.
We do not know what our trading partners will do, or what the U.S. response will be to their reactions. They may retaliate or they may negotiate. In addition, we still need to grapple with the rest of Trump’s initiatives and their impact on the economy, inflation and employment. That can take another 3-6 months.
Unfortunately, after two-plus years of great returns, investors are paying for those gains this year. On June 27, 2024, in my column, “What can investors expect from the coming era of populism” I warned readers that in the last populist era between 1964 and 1982, stocks went nowhere — except in election years.
As for the short-term, I expect more of the same in markets. I predicted a dead cat bounce last week and we got that for two days. However, the auto tariff announcement ended those gains. We could see the market test the March lows before another move-up sometime in April, although once again it would be temporary. Alas, we are Trump-dependent, and he is no friend of the stock market nor are many of his voters. Why would that be the case?
Many of his following have little if any savings and none in the stock market.
In the last election, Trump captured the vote of lower-income household voters who earned $50,000 or less, while those making $100,000 or more voted for Harris.
It seems a safe bet that the stock market is meaningless to many of his supporters, although not all. I would hazard a guess that the stock market rout to them is simply another example of how the deep state works to undermine the president’s initiatives, at least according to the comments I have read from far-right media figures.
Bill Schmick is the founding partner of Onota Partners, Inc., in the Berkshires.
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A variety of artwork by children and adults will be on display at Hunt Library beginning April 5.
Patrick L. Sullivan
FALLS VILLAGE — There will be a reception for the new art show at the David M. Hunt Library Saturday, April 5, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
The show, “Playing with Art,” is a group show with work from adults and children, including quilts and new work from local artists including Danielle Mailer, Ken Musselman, Erika Crofutand Robert Cronin — among others.
Children’s artwork from a tissue paper collage workshop conducted by Breetel Graves will also be part of the show.
Also part of the show is restored vintage 1970s film animation based on a book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales by Eric Carle.One of the films, The Fisherman and His Wife, was an Academy Award finalist for best animated short in 1979.These animated cartoons will be shown on Friday, April 18 at 3 p.m.
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Beware an unfettered presidency
When America’s Founders wrote the Constitution in 1787, the world had no democracies. Countries across the meridians were led by all-powerful kings and other dictators. An example was George III, the British monarch, who treated the American colonists as mere vassals who could be wantonly taxed despite their lack of representation, in whose homes British troops could be quartered at whim, and who constantly harassed colonial shipping in international waters — among other arbitrary activities backed by military force. This King, as is characteristic of dictators, eventually overplayed his hand and the thirteen colonies rose up in revolt.
The great genius of James Madison and his colleagues was to create the first true democracy in history, going far beyond the semi-democratic practices of ancient Greek cities and Swiss canons. They insisted on the sharing of power across three “departments” of government: the executive, legislative and judicial.
Their novel Constitutional endeavors had an overriding objective: to guard against the dangers of tyranny. Above all else, the Founders were imbued with anti-power values. No more autocratic leaders like King George.
The core philosophy guiding the Founders was to distribute power across three “branches” of government, as a means for limiting its potential abuse by any one branch. As Lord Acton would state in his famous aphorism a hundred years later, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Long before Action, the colonists understood this principle. By establishing separate institutions — executive, legislative and judicial — “ambition would be made to counteract ambition,” as Madison stated the case in Federalist Paper 51. In this manner, no branch would grow so mighty as to dwarf the others or dictate to the American people.
Justice Louis Brandeis eloquently expressed the spirit of the Founders in a case that came before the Supreme Court in 1926 (Myers v. United States). “The doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted by the [Constitutional] Convention of 1787,” he wrote, “not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was not to avoid friction, but by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of governmental powers among three department, to save the people from autocracy” [emphasis added].
In contrast to this wise approach to governance, a more recent school of thought has embraced the concept of a “unitary” presidency. What becomes all-important in this approach is a powerful engine to move the nation forward — an unfettered president free to shape a nation’s destiny as the White House sees fit, without the interference of “checks-and-balances” from lawmakers on Capitol Hill or members of the Supreme Court. In this model, now in place in the United States, the legislative and judicial branches are largely supine to the will of the Oval Office and the president’s minions spread across the agencies of the executive branch.
The greatest achievement of the Founders — their establishment of safeguards against the use of absolute power by a single individual or branch of government — is currently being erased. It is a troubling time in the nation’s history, with liberty hanging in the balance. A starting place to restore our form of democratic restraints on arbitrary power is to support those members of Congress and the judiciary who understand the Constitution. Our fate depends heavily on America’s representatives and judges as independent guardrails in this struggle to continue our long and admirable history of shielding freedom against the forces of tyranny.
Loch K. Johnson taught political science for forty years at the University of Georgia, while also serving intermittently as a senior staff aide in the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, and as a Fellow at Oxford and Yale Universities. He retired to Salisbury in 2019. Professor Johnson is the author of The Third Option: Covert Action and American Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press).