Decatur Daily Democrat, Volume 61, Number 277, Decatur, Adams County, 23 November 1963 — Page 1

Vol. LXI. No. 277.

Final Rites Monday For Pres. Kennedy

rUkVW 4 . ft I |(f fgk - L-U F X |y 1 11 iHRir jf* <V of Is nw< /JP-rii IJBlr^MKsi. 1 < vl JL '/Mt »•.. -C 8> / S« Iw . wHBBMBHEi TARGETS FOR ASSASSIN—Car carrying President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally moves through streets of Dallas just before the assassin struck. Mrs. Kennedy is in back with the President, at left side of car. Gov. Connally is central figure in car, just in front of the President.

Charge Oswald With Murder

DALLAS (UPI) - Lee Harvey Oswald, an avowed Marxist and a Fidel Castro sympathizer, was charged today with the assassination of President Kennedy. Manacled, his face cut and bruised, his. manner sullen, the 24-year-old political misfit and Marine reject was booked on a murder charge and jailed without bond. “This is ridiculous,” Oswald said. The maximum penalty on conviction is death by electrocution. Dist. Atty. Henry Wade said he had 15 witnesses to the assassination. He said investigators had learned from Oswald’s Russian-born wife that he had a rifle of the type used to kill the President and had it with him the night before the assassination. “I believe we have the evidence to convict him,” Wade said. It was the second murder count brought against the exMarine in a hectic 10-1/2 hours after the President was gunned down as he rode in a motorcade along a Dallas street. Admits Owning Gun Oswald also was accused of slaying a pursuing policeman, another charge he denied although he admitted he owned the snub-nosed 38-caliber pistol which felled the veteran officer. When he was arraigned earlier on this murder charge, Oswald responded: “I don’t know what, this is all about.” Police claimed Oswald, who qualified as a sharpshooter while in the Marines, was in the building from which the assassin fired the fatal bullet at Kennedy. But Oswald said it wasn’t so, that he was in a movie theater. There were small conflicts in times and stories as federal and state officials pieced together the details. Mrs. R. C. Roberts who works at the rooming house where Os-

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DECATUR DAILY DEMOCRAT ORLY DAILY NEWSPAPER IN ADAMS COUNTY

wald lives said he dashed in soon after 12:45 CST (1:45 EST). Police said the suspect was seen in the Texas schoolbook depository building, from which the sniper fired at 12:45. The building is 12 blocks from his rpoming house. A policeman asked him what he was doing there and a supervisor, knowing he worked there, said: “He is okay.” Find Murder Weapon Police also found the imported rifle with the telescopic sight which fired the fatal bullet into Kennedy’s brain, but they said there were no fingerprints on it. Oswald was arraigned before Peace Justice David Johnson only a few hours after paraffin tests had been made to his hands to determine if he recently had fired a weapon. Police Chief Jesse Curry said Oswald would be brought before a grand jury next' week. Kennedy was shot at 12:31 p.m., CST. Mrs. Roberts said a friend called her at 12:45 to say the President had been shot. Suddenly, she said, in rushed Oswald, “on the dead run.” “He ran to his room, came running back with a gray zipper jacket and out the door. “I said ‘you sure are in a hurry’ but he didn’t even answer.” He ran toward a bus stop, Mrs. Roberts said. Patrolling in Oak Cliff was Officer J, D. Tippitt, a 38-year-old father of three. He was about five blocks from the Texas Theater where the double feature “Cry Battle” and “War is Hell” was playing. It was near 1 p.m.—the time INDIANA WEATHER Clearing and colder tonight but chance of snow flurries near Lake Michigan early tonight. Sunday fair and not much temperature change.. ~ Low tonight in the 20s. High Sunday upper 30s. Outlook for Monday: Fair and, warmer.

Kennedy was pronounced dead ■—but the exact time is not known. Tippitt fell to the street, shot twice. How he accosted his. slayer is not known. * A witness called police and cars headed for the area. Then Mrs. Julie Postal, cashier at the Texas Theater, called police. A suspicious-looking man was in the theater, she said. Officers M. N. MacDonald, Ray Hawkins, C. T. Walker and Bob Varroll converged on the theater. They charged in.

65 Aged Die In Ohio Fire

NORWALK, Ohio (UPI) — Fire destroyed a home for the aged 10 miles south of here early today and authorities said they believed 65 persons perished. The pre-dawn blaze was the second tragic -rest home fire in the U.S. within the week, 26 elderly persons having perished in a fire at the Surfside Hotel in Atlantic City Monday. The New Jersey fire spread into eight nearby buildings and caused more than $1 million damage. A spokesman for the Golden Age Home here said it had 86 residents, many of them invalids, on its roster Friday afternoon. Only 21 were accounted for after the fire. All residents were 60 years old «or over. The highway patrol said it would be noon before the ashes cooled enough to permit an effort to recover the remains. He said the bodies were burned so badly that about the only method of identification would be through the teeth and dentures that remained in the ashes. The cause of the blaze in the one-story concrete and wood building 10 miles south of this community midway between Cleveland and Toledo was not immediately determined. Clifford French, a student at the Midwestern Baptist semlt. nary at Pontiac, Mich., and two truck drivers who were passing by on U.S. 250 helped lead some of the survivors to safety. Telephone Wires Destroyed The truck drivers left before authorities could get their names but French said the fire fanned by high winds destroyed the telephone wires before help could be summoned. French, on his way to Wooster, Ohio, said saying the fire was “only a trickle of flames” when he arrived. but “it went up like a tinder box.” “I crawled on my hands and knees to stay below the smoke in pulling some of the people out,” French said. Employes, told the pathetic story of some of the elderly persons, led out of the building almost childlike following the ntlrses back into the burning inferno. Sheriff Richard Andress said the building was owned by Robert Pollack of Cleveland. He purchased the 60-year-old struc-

Decatur, Indiana, Satur dayJMovember 23, 1963 .

The house lights flared up. Oswald, in the third row, center section, leaped up and said “This is it.” Some witnesses said he cried: “This is the end!” MacDonald . headed toward him. The 38 snub-nose came up. It misfired. The officers jumped him. Oswald, a wiry 5 foot 8 inches and 160 pounds, lashed out at MacDonald’s face. _* ( Thie policemen smashed him down and dragged him, still fighting, to a police car.

ture about 18 months ago. News Director William Swain of WLEC in Sandusky said two nurses told him the home had 86 residents on its roster Friday afternoon and apparently only 21 were accounted for. Almost Unbelievable Tragedy Swain said when he arrived about 5:30 a.nt. tliescene’was one of almost unbelivable tragedy. “I walked along beside the smouldering building,” Swain said. “The concrete blocks had fallen outward on the lawn. There were the charred bed frames and springs and the remains of what used to be persons." He said that nurses told him that when they led some of the elderly persons from the building, they tottered right back into it following the nurses who were going back in an effort to rescue other residents. The sign bearing the name of the home over its entrance appeared untouched. The white letters on a blue background, “The Age Home,” stood out. unblemished, under the lights of dozens of emergency vehicles at the scene. Sets. Up Morgue The coroner set up a temporary morgue in the New London Elementary School at Fitchville, 10 miles south of Norwalk. The cause of the fire was not determined immediately. Officers said preliminary investigation showed there were no explosions. The one-story building was of concrete block and wood construction. It included several wings. The home was owned and operated by Cleveland interests. A patrolman said the fire apparently spread quickly and the roof soon caved in, burying the patients, many of them invalids, in the burning rubble. The nearest fire -«department was in New London, four miles away. » Fire departments, composed volunteers, from three communities and all available ambulances sped to the scene, a community of about 500 persons just south of U. S. 20 about midway between Cleveland and Toledo. •

Welsh Orders State Mourning for President INDIANAPOLIS (UPI) —Gov. and Mrs. Matthew E. Welsh flew to Washington today to spend three days paying their respects on behalf of the State of Indiana to the assassinated President Kennedy. The Welshes climbed aboard an Indiana National Guard plane in midmorning after the governor had issued orders that all government buildings remain closed through Monday and joined State School Supt. William > E. Wilson in suggesting that all schools be closed Monday. U. S. and state flags were ordered flown at half-staff until sundown Dec. 22 and memorial services were scheduled in the War Memorial Plaza at noon Monday, simultaneous with Kennedy’s funeral in Washington. The memorial will include a 21gun salute with howitzers, 3,000 to 4,000 military troops and color guards from all around the state participating. Welsh suggested that appropriate memorial services be held Monday throughout the state and that commercial activities come to a halt during the funeral hour. The governor cancelled all his appointments and activities through Monday night. He and Mrs. Welsh planned to visit the White House this afternoon, where Kennedy’s body lay in repose, and to remain for the funeral Monday. Earlier, Welsh returned in the early morning hours from a Jgtidwest Governors’ Conference "Th' Omaha, Neb., soberly terming the assassination “a great tragedy for America and the world.’’ ... Washington Reacts To JFK's Death By JOSEPH L. MYLER «' United Press international WASHINGTON (UPI) — “Is it true?” Here in the town, where he lived and worked, the first thing they asked was: “Is it true?" Here where he struggled with the ills of the world, entertained the greats of nations, played with his little boy and his little gfri. and rode ■ on the*-streets in public without fear, his lovely wife beside him as he was today — “Is it true?” they asked. In shock, in despair, in agony they asked the question, knowing in their hearts the answer. At 14th and F streets downtown a young colored woman clutched at a man leaving the National Press Building. Her eyes were wet. No words came. “Yes,” the man said, and hurried on. Word Spreads Quickly Across the town the news had come, first by radio, in homes, cars, stores, office It had spread by telephone. It had spread by word of mouth on the streets—the same streets where thousands of men and women and children scores of bmes had seen, him riding, bareheaded and gay, waving and sfniling. his crisps brown hair tousled by the breeze. A small group huddled at 13th and E streets around an ancient’ news vendor ! who held a transistor radio to his ear. His face worked. He caught the eye of a bystander. He nooded. It was true . > > Miles away the same word came to students in their classes at the Albert Einstein High School in suburban Kensington, Md. The children cried. Brother Receives Word In the. Senate of the . United States, when the Word came, the presiding ofiicer at the moment was Sen. Edward M Kennedy. In the House, which whs not in session, .-one of the first to hear was Democratic leader Carl Albert of Oklahoma, Like the children of Kensington, he wept. So, on a downtown street, did a taxicab driver. “The poor man,” he said. All over town flags were falling to half staff. At the church where he was a communicant, the bell tolled for 15 minutes.’

Body Os Nation's Slain ”: Leader Lies In Repose At White House Today

WASHINGTON (UPD — The' body of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, lay in repose today in the East Room of the White House. A gray Navy ambulance carried the body of the slain Chief Executive from Bethesda Naval Hospital through the streets of the nation’s capital in the dark hours before dawn. Hundreds watched in silence as the amBULLETIN WASHINGTON (UPD — President Kennedy actually was shot twice Friday by an assassin, it was learned today. WASHINGHTON (UPI) - President Johnson left his home at 8:45 a.m. EST, today for his office to . begin his first full day in office. Schurger To Attend Prosecutors' Meet Adams county prosecutor Severin H. Schurger will be in attend dance at the Indiana prosecutors' association's winter conference of the attorney general in Indianapolis next month; The three-day affair will be Held Thursday through Saturday. Dec. 5, 6. and 7, at the Marott Hotel in the state’s capital. The cpnferences. as provided by law of the state, permit prosecutors to join together as the Indiana prosecutors’ association. According to O. H. Roberts, Jr., of Evansville, president of the association, a great part of the meeting will be given over to a discussion of the new Indiana theft act which goes into effect Janaury 1, 1964. Discussion will be on the new law and presentation of proposed affidavits and indictments, together with a discussion of trial application on theft act by a representative of the district attorney’s office of Cook county, Ill. Illinois has a similar law. Discuss New Act The program for Thursday includes discussion of changes in supreme court rules unemployment and welfare cheaters; recent decisions of the state supreme court. Friday morning a discussion and presentation of affidavits and indictments of the new theft act will be given, and discussion on application and ojieration of the new law will be held that afternoon, in addition to a business meeting of the association. The discussion of trial application of the new theft act will be held Saturday morning. The Theft Act, known as the “offenses against property" law, lumps several laws together as one. SUGGEST CLOSING The retail division of the Decatur Chamber of Commerce suggested today that all business houses in the city close from 12 noon until 1 p. m. Monday during the funeral services for Pres. John F. Kennedy. The First State Bank will also close during "the funeral hour. Requiem Mass Today For Pres. Kennedy A memorial requiem mass will be offered for President John F. Kennedy at 5 o’clock this evening at St. Mary's Catholic, church. The Rev. Charles Ueber will read the mass, and the Rt. Rev. Msgr. Simeon Schmitt will lead the congregation in participation, and preach the sermon. The public is invited to attend.

bulance entered the White House gate. Behind closed curtains, with him in death as in life, was his young wife,- Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, heavy laden with the burden of her grief. She was still wearing the pink suit she wore in Dallas Friday. Six Military Pallbearers Accompanied by the President's brother. Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, she walked behind the six military pallbearers who carried the flag-draped coffin into the East Room of the White House. The casket was placed on a catafalque in the center of the room. A military honor-guard took up its position and two priests knelt to pray the night through for Kennedy, the nation’s first Roman Catholic President. It will be in the ornate East Room, the scene of so many memorable events in the history of the United States and of Kennedy’s presidency, that his family and the great of the nation assemble today to pay their last respects; Will Lie In State At 1 p.m. (EST) Sunday the President’s body will be moved from the White House in a for-

Decatur Shocked At mm ' g | . g BA . I President s Murder

There was no talk of basketball games, political affairs, etc., in Decatur this morning, as only talk of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was on the lips of local residents. Hie news pf the fatal shooting of the president quickly spread throughout the city Friday afternoon, and all business slowed to a halt as clerks and merchants rushed to radios in their stores and shoppers scurried home to flip on the television set. In many sch<x>ts in the city, announcements were made to the : student» ■ couceinjnjjr the- murder v of the president while he was rid-i. ing in a motorcade in Dallas, Tex.t All schools in Decatur and~ more than likely in the county and state will close Monday in observance of the funeral r rites of the late president. h Schools Close Monday > Gail M. Grabill, North Adams' school superintendent, contacted beard member Herb Banning this morning to notify him that all schools in the North Adams district will be closed Monday. Grabill is in Indianapolis today attending a school board meeting. A short time later, an official statement from Governor Matthew E. Welsh was released, suggesting closing of all schools throughout the,, state Monday. The proclamation- from Gov. Welsh did not order all schools _ to close, but the governor Joined ■ with state school superintendents William E. Wilson in suggesting? that "all schools close in observ-5 ance.of the funeral of the late; President Kennedy. Grabill said classes in the North Adams district will open at their usual time Tuesday. Both the Cathadic and Lutheran schools in the city will close, according to Sr. Julienne, principal of the Catholic schools, and Smith- Snively, principal of the Zion Lutheran school, Mayor Donald F. Gage said this morning that all city offices will be closed Monday, and the Adams county' commissioners met tn a brief session this morning and announced that all county offices would also be closed. The weekly commissioner meeting will be held Tuesday, instead of Monday. Post Office Unknown Postmaster John Boch said that at 10 o’clock this morning no word had yet been received on whether or not the post office would be closed Monday. How many business establishments in Decatur will be closed Monday is not known At 10 a. m. today, Herman H. Kruckeberg, assistant cashier jit the

SEVEN CENTS

mal funeral cortege to the great Rotunda of the Capitol, more than a mile "down Pennsylvania Avenue, there to lie in state until 10 a.m. EST Monday. At 11 am. Monday,'the President’s body will be removed to St. Matthew’s Cathedral for a pontifical requiem mass at noon. Richard Cardinal Cushing,’ Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston, will be the celebrant. The President is expected to be buried near his infant son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. in the family plot in Brookline, Mass., his birthplace. The late President's family was hj spend an hour alone in the East Room today before receiving mourners, President Johnson; former President Dwight D. Eisenhower; Speaker John W. McCormack, D-Mass., next in line of succession to the presidency, and Chief Justice Earl Warren were to pay their respects first. Truman Arriving Sunday Former President Herbert Hoover, who has been ill in recent months, will not be able to attend, but former President Harry S. Truman plans to arrive in Washington Sunday.

First State Bank, said the bank will be closed from hoon to 1 p.m. The library will be closed all day, Monday. A. solemn requiem high mass will be observed at the Catholic church in Decatur at 5 o’clock this evening for the deceased president, Rev. Charles Ueber u ill read the jnass and Msgr, Simeon Schmitt will give the sermon. This city, like others throughout the nation, became a “ghost town" Friday afternoon as the news of the president’s assassination quickly spread throughout the t-it.v. - Some merchants reported business as “good” Friday morning, but after the news of the preside nt’s death, business went into a stand-still.” Business houses that .o <-,o|>cn on Saturdays were open today, as the flag of the courthouse yard stood at half-mast. ’Hiree Accidents Three accidents occurred <mi city streets even though nearly all residents were in back rooms tuned-in on the news on their radios or watching it on television sets. At 4 15 p. m., a car driven by Carl Henry Conrad, 32, of 903 N. 11th St, struck a Teeple Truck Lines truck in the rear at 258 N. Second St. The trux-k, operated’by Edward Anthony Teeple, 45. route 4, Decatur, had stopped in the street to unload, and Conrad attempted to go around the vehicle but the right front fender of his auto caught the rear of the truck Damages were estimated at $45 to the car. while the truck was not damaged. _ A short time later, a similar mishap happened at 266 N. Sec- , end St., when a car driven by Theodore Henry Eyanson, 42, 203 - - Park Place stopped'in the street to discharge a passenger. “A car operated by Waldo Charles Marbach, 41, of 210 S. Tenth St., also northbound on Second St., struck the Eyanson auto in the rear. Damages were listed at $100 to the Marbach vehicle and $50 to the Eyanson car. A hit and run accident also occurred sometime Friday afternoon or evening, as a parked car owned by Leota B. Connell, Madison St., was struck on the left front door by a vehicle that fled the scene. The Connell car was parked on the west side of Third St., just south of the Madison St. intersection. Damages to the car were listed at $30. Adams county sheriff Roger Singleton reported a "quiet” evening—as did the entire nation.