Welcome back to “America Jeopardy!”, our annual beach-reading homage to America’s most popular game show and everybody’s favorite Catholic magazine. The game is played like the real “Jeopardy!” except that you’ll have to wait for the answers, er, questions, in the next issue. But if you’re dying to know sooner, you can see the answers/questions here. Good luck. Have a blessed summer!
1. John V. Connorton Sr., a founding America patron, served as deputy mayor to Robert F. Wagner Jr., whose election as mayor of New York in 1953 exacerbated a feud between Eleanor Roosevelt and Carmine DeSapio, boss of this (in)famous New York political machine.
2. The son of this famous Civil War general, who led a “March to the Sea,” entered the Society of Jesus and lived at the America House Jesuit Community in the winter and early spring of 1914.
3. This U.S. president, who sent congratulatory greetings to America on its 50th anniversary in 1959, coached the football team at St. Louis College, a Catholic preparatory school in San Antonio, Tex.
4. At a summit in Geneva in 1985, this Soviet leader surprised President Ronald Reagan by quoting from a column by Mary McGrory, who was America’s Washington, D.C., correspondent and a columnist for The Washington Post.
5. John LaFarge, S.J., sixth editor in chief, was the great-great-great grandson of this man, a founding father of the United States and the first U.S. ambassador to France.
6. Many Jesuits who have served on the editorial staff of America attended the Jesuit novitiate of St. Andrew-on-Hudson in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., which was built on land purchased from the family of this U.S. president.
7. In 1963, the editors marked the passing of this man by printing these words from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” on the cover of the memorial issue: “The cease of majesty/ Dies not alone/ but, like a gulf, doth draw/ What’s near it with it.”
8. In 1989, Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., tenth editor in chief of America, was appointed the first chairman of the New York City Campaign Finance Board by this man, who served as mayor of New York from 1978 to 1989.
9. This author of The Sun Also Rises said that the controversial writer and America contributor Ezra Pound possessed “the temperament of a toro di lidia from the breeding establishments of Don Eduardo Miura.” It was not a compliment.
10. Leo J. O’Donovan, S.J., longtime contributor to America and emeritus president of Georgetown University, attended the wedding of this Georgetown graduate, who succeeded his father as King of Spain in 2014.
11. George W. Hunt, S.J., 11th editor in chief, was an expert on the work of this author, who penned The Wapshot Scandal and was known informally as the Chekhov of the Suburbs.
12. When Wikileaks released hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee in 2016, we learned that this man, who was chairman of the Hillary Clinton campaign and a former White House chief of staff, had been reading America.
13. This Nobel Prize-winning Catholic playwright lived in a hotel near America’s first editorial office in New York City. A nearby tavern inspired the setting for “The Iceman Cometh.”
14. John E. Sexton, a longtime subscriber to America, served as the 15th president of this world-class university, whose campus is near Washington Square.
15. The editors of America opposed this 1919 amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which they understood to be, in part, an anti-Catholic plot.
16. This man, who served as U.S. secretary of state from 1953 to 1959, once wrote a letter to the editor of America. His son would be a frequent contributor to our pages.
17. This famous cardinal archbishop of Boston donated the funds that the editors used to purchase new headquarters for America at 106 West 56th Street in 1962.
18. James Martin, S.J., editor at large of America, once worked with Michael J. Cosgrove, a member of America’s board of directors, at this multinational conglomerate founded by Thomas Edison.
19. Oops. In the late 1970s, America’s editors praised this man, Zimbabwe’s new prime minister, declaring that he was “the very essence of reassurance and conciliation.” As it turned out, he was neither.
20. In June 2018, the 14th editor in chief of America presided at the graveside service at Arlington National Cemetery for this U.S. senator on the 50th anniversary of his death.
