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Since 1946
Try to imagine a former time, a unique era, the world as it was in the year 1946. Only one year’s respite marked the end of the world’s greatest and most devastating war. Great shifts of power stirred the world, a world in the remaking.
The year 1946 gave birth to numerous great quests pursued individually and collectively. This was an era of big ideas, life and death issues, fervent faiths, and challenging new concepts. Can you imagine what it was like to survive those times? With each passing year, the new generation of peace had to pause and look back in awe. With each passing year, new challenges and trials presented themselves, were confronted and overcome.
A sampling of the prominent headlines is an all-star roster of subjects for debate and discussion.
Post war treaties and new alliances; Communism and The Cold War; The Truman Doctrine; the birth of the nation of Israel; the role of The United Nations; the Korean War; nuclear arms development; the Space Age; the Cuban Crisis; the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; the Great Society; Civil Rights; Vietnam; the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King; women’s liberation; abortion; prayer in school; Watergate; the Mid-East Crisis; Pope John Paul II; Ronald Reagan; the collapse of Communism, the break-up of Soviet Russia and the destruction of the Berlin Wall. These are just some of the great world headlines and the headlines continue to come.
“ What could stop this new generation of hopeful dreams hard won in the endurance of the hardest and most trying hours?”
As the headlines and grand ideas continued to move the world, so too was change effecting the lives of individuals in small communities like Stamford.
Recognized for years as a bedroom city to the great metropolis of New York, Stamford in 1946 was beginning its embryonic growth to become a great city in and of itself. Living in Stamford during the 40’s and 50’s, residents enjoyed the small town experience where it seemed everyone knew one another. Local downtown establishments seemed immutable and fixed in time. The Palace, Avon and Plaza theaters; St. John’s Church and grammar school; City Hall and the Ferguson Library; the Roger Smith Hotel; Bloomingdale’s, Woolworth’s, C.O. Miller’s, Frank Martin & Sons; Greenbergs, Konspores, French Shop; Footform Shoes, Zantow-Ferguson Jewelers and Grunberger’s. Everything had its place. A familiar policeman patrolled his regular beat and familiar faces greeted school kids at the crossing corners at the daily appointed hour. It was a Norman Rockwell kind of town, like many others across the United States, living out the scenes depicted on the cover illustrations of the weekly Saturday Evening Post.
In and around 1946, a small group of men, mostly businessmen employed by Yale and Towne and other firms, would congregate with their friends at the popular Derigibus Restaurant for lunch or after work camaraderie. The Derigibus Restaurant, owned and operated by Thomas and Jane Derigibus was located on State Street, which abutted the then Railroad Center. A large round table in the corner of the restaurant served as the meeting place for regular patrons like Frank Burke, Phil Snyder, Walter Cyr, George Feighery, Jim Morris, Ed Shanley, Flem Ruttledge, Joe Romano and Ed Connell. A passing parade of local politicians, personalities and men of all walks of life would join daily in lively discussion, sharing fine food, drink and good fellowship. The Derigibus Restaurant, and State Street itself, went away with the construction of the I-95 interstate throughway, but not before the official formation of the State Street Debating Society.
Currently, the Society meets formally several times during the year and discusses and debates relevant topics of the day. In addition, it’s Annual “Person of the Year” dinner, as tradition dictates, is held within the octave of St. Patricks Day.
In March 1947, a dinner was held to honor Phil Snyder, one of the original round table personalities, who was being transferred by Yale and Towne to manage a sales territory in Salem, North Carolina. This evening, as it turned out, was the first Man of the Year dinner for the newly constituted State Street Debating Society, Limited, as it came to be formally known. A constitution, by-laws government, and time-honored traditions were born, and the first Chairman, Francis X. Burke, was named, and Edward J. Connell was elected the first President. It was decided that the principle function of the Society would be the business of honoring “a citizen who has done the most for his fellow man and community”. In time, the annual dinner would honor the chosen man of the year and raise funds to sponsor the Francis X. Burke Memorial Award, established in 1967, the James Morris Scholarship Award, and later, the Esther Lotstein Award, given to one student from Stamford High School, Stamford Catholic High School (now Trinity Catholic), and Westhill High School respectively, who manifested an excellence in academic and athletic achievement and a commitment to debate.
State Street continues in the spirit of its founders; debating the issues of the day, honoring leaders in the Stamford community and providing Scholarships to deserving high school students.
The position of Chairman was to be held for life, and the first Chairman, Francis X. Burke, served faithfully for twenty years. “Judge” Burke was a prominent local jurist and by all accounts a strong and forceful character, possessed with an outwardly gruff demeanor yet known for his innate kindness. It is to his credit that the Society grew and stayed together those first most important, formative years.
He and first President Ed Connell loved the art of debate, would take positions on either side of an issue, and their personalities were such that others were drawn to them and enjoyed the frolic of joining in good, intelligent, verbal fisticuffs. With the demise of the Derigibus Restaurant, the group moved their meeting to the All Stamford Club and in time to various restaurants around Stamford.