From the Nov. 6, 1936 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:
The opening of the Island scallop season took place on Monday, when Lagoon, Anthier’s, Eel and Caleb’s ponds were opened to the scallopers of Edgartown and Tisbury. The Oak Bluffs season, in Lagoon Pond and Vineyard Haven harbor, opened the following day.
The Lagoon scallops ran to a good size, although not as numerous as in some seasons. Anthier’s scallops were smaller. It was doubted if the scallops would bring as good a price as recent shipments of large mainland bivalves, although the scarcity of scallops in many nearby mainland localities is said to indicate a rise in local prices within a short time.
Two buyers at Edgartown, John Correia of Eldridge’s Marley and Capt. St. Clair Brown, operating for Sam Cahoon, offered $2.50 for the opening day’s cull, which amounted to about 200 gallons.
Some got their limit in the early morning, sharing their boats with fishermen who operated later in the day. Many of the fleet either failed to get their limit or did manage to make it only late in the day. It was generally predicted that the second day’s limit catch would be hard to get.
The number of licenses issued as compared with other recent years showed considerable falling-off, indicating that the unemployment situation has changed. Only sixty-seven commercial licenses were issued in Tisbury as against 171 for last year. In Oak Bluffs 144 licenses were issued a year ago and this year about fifty-eight were given out. Edgartown issued 208 for last year and the number this year was 135, although there are not that many men fishing as yet.
The Oak Bluffs scallopers, starting their season in Lagoon Pond on Tuesday, met with very good luck, some of the men getting their daily limit in forty-five minutes. The scallops ran to better than medium size, they said, but the large amount poured into the market on the day previous had the effect of causing the price to drop somewhat. Three dollars was the highest price paid for the largest and best eyes, while most of the catch went for $2.50 a gallon. The Oak Bluffs waters of Anthier’s Pond will bot be opened for a time, nor the waters of Vineyard Haven harbor. This last is said to have a very good set and that scallops are reported as exceptionally large.
Island fishermen quote the Brockton Enterprise as stating that the first scalloper’s license issued to a woman in the state, was taken out by a woman in Orleans. Whether or not the paper was correctly quoted, Vineyard women have been licensed to take scallops for a number of years, licenses having been issued in Chilmark, Tisbury and Oak Bluffs, the last-named three or four last year.
Miss Evelyn Preston, owner of Windy Gates, Chilmark, is one of a group of prominent women arrested recently in Brooklyn in a test case to establish the authority of police in limiting picketing during a strike. With Mrs. Preston were Mrs. Amos Pichot, Mrs. Diana F. Ward and Mrs Ida E. Gugenheimer.
Mrs. Ward and Miss Preston were arrested because the police asserted that only two persons could picket. They were convicted of disorderly conduct, fined $5, and the sentences suspended. A number of labor unions joined them in appeals as “friends of the court,” since the issue involved is important to labor.
Osmond K. Fraenkel, representing the two defendants through the American Civil Liberties Union and the League of Women Shoppers, argued that the action of the police was arbitrary and unlawful. He charged the police with being always on the side of the employers, and said that in the case the attorney for the department store was acting as prosecutor. The four women, he said, did nothing to provoke disorder, and it was police interference that drew crowds.
Jimmy Cagney longs for the day when he can settle down as a country squire on his 200-acre estate on Martha’s Vineyard. He intimated as much last summer when he was on the Island, although the dynamic Jimmy seems to be far from the settling down stage as yet. However, a column of movie comment in the Philadelphia Bulletin, sent to the Gazette by F. A. Child of Swarthmore, Penna., a summer resident, reports this ambition of the movie star who was besieged by autograph hounds during his visit here last summer.
Mr. Cagney, says the Bulletin, has earned the reputation in Hollywood of being one of the most difficult stars to handle. He says the great trouble with the west coast town is that the movie producers have only a “baby’s idea of the picture business.” He is busy now making his first picture for the newly-founded Grand National Pictures Co., after splitting with the powers that be in Hollywood.
“Hollywood’s all right,” he says, “if you like the rich things in life. I don’t — that’s all. I learned a lot about living from a Yale graduate who earns $23 a week as a forester in Martha’s Vineyard. He has a wife and kids to keep, but he’s happier than anyone I’ve seen in Hollywood.”
Compiled by Hilary Wallcox
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