Our Man In Arlington 1-22-2026

Front-Page News from January 1947: The front-page news from the first week of January 1947 covered an array of topics: public health; charitable giving; rezonings; school issues. The public health stories reminded me of the continual need to pay attention to infectious diseases. In 2026, the concern might include measles and the flu. (There was a disturbing headline in the news lately: “First Toddler Dies of the Flu.”)  In January of 1947, Arlington was dealing with different infectious diseases, including “one of the worst outbreaks of polio,” with 33 cases reported in the newspaper The Sun.  A Polio Foundation Drive was initiated in January, with a request to help pay for the “two weekly clinics for crippled children each week.”  At the same time, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis started its own fund-raising campaign, known as the March of Dimes. (In 1938 President Roosevelt had established this charity by asking Americans to send in their dimes.) The Arlington campaign started with a radio broadcast from Arlington Hospital, interviewing a woman who had given birth while confined to an iron lung (a large metal tank ventilator used to help people breathe when their respiratory muscles failed). 

And there were worries about tuberculosis. The Christmas Seal Drive for the Arlington Tuberculosis Association had just ended, to finance their plans for 1947. It was reported that this infectious disease (also known as consumption) “kills more young people between the ages of 15 and 35 than any other illness.” When not raising money for diseases, Arlingtonians were also sending clothing and food packages overseas. A church drive made this plea: “Everyone is asked once more to go through closets and give whatever can possibly be spared to help those individuals who lost practically everything to the ravages of war.”  

Meanwhile, in the political world, post-war Arlington was beginning to respond to the amazing growth that had occurred in the 1940s (the population expanded from 57,000 people in 1940 to 135,000 people by 1950). One headline proclaimed there were “Eleven Rezonings On Board Docket.” Rezonings were taking up so much time on the Board’s docket that one board member suggested scheduling an extra meeting each month to handle all the zoning matters. Some things never change – if you look at today’s agendas for Board meetings, most of the docket items are land use matters. 

Dissatisfaction with overcrowded schools and dilapidated school facilities resulted in a strong push by parents for change, with two referendums being championed by the Citizens Committee for School Improvements: (i) the right to elect a school board, and (ii) a school bond issue of over $6 million (an unheard of sum back in those Byrd Machine days). There was some controversy as to whether the poll tax had to be paid by voters as a condition for voting in the referendums that spring. By law, a poll tax had to be paid six months before a vote, which would have disenfranchised many voters who paid their poll tax each spring. The Attorney General ended up issuing an opinion that a referendum was a “special election;” the six-month waiting period was waived. The bonds were approved, and Arlington did achieve the right for a school board election, held in November. Arlington was the first jurisdiction in Virginia to have the right to an elected school board. Ironically, the old school board sued the new school board, alleging that their election was illegal. The elected school board survived that attack, though it was disbanded by the state in 1956, as the Byrd Machine was afraid that Arlington would integrate their schools after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. 

Finally, the editorial page had a remarkable recommendation – suggesting that Arlington County and the City of Alexandria should merge into one large city. Now that would have solved our governance structure debates! My favorite sentence in the editorial stated that Arlington would “…inevitably become a city.” Attempts to convert to city status have been debated for over a century, but I suspect we will always be a “county.”