Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 207, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 January 1935 — Page 1

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SOCIAL REFORM TO HEAD PROGRAM OF INDIANA ASSEMBLY Old-Age Pensions, Relief, Re-Employment, Liquor, Penology and Crime Laws to Stir Controversies. ADMINISTRATION AIMS KEPT SECRET Gross Income Levy Likely to Remain for 2 Years; Liquor Assessment Slash Also Believed Probable. BY JAMES DOSS Times Staff Writer With convening of the 1935 Indiana General Assembly only two days away, the state administration’s program remains more or less a secret, although there is every indication of a sharp trend toward social legislation of various kinds. The term “social legislation” admittedly is a broad one and is used advisedly. It can be broken down into such subdivisions as old age pensions, relief and re-employment, liquor, penology and crime. It is not the purpose of this summary to make a forecast of the full scope of the administration’s plans.

The purpose merely is to touch on the high points of the most controversial subjects which will come before the assembly and to outline the probable forms which legislation on these subjects may take. Some of the subjects which might be classed roughly in the broad groupings of social, taxation and governmental reform legislation are allied, such as taxation and liquor. However, the subjects ire so diverse and cover such a wiae area of public interest that they can not well be classified other than in three groups. In the first, taxation, falls the gross income tax and its future. There appears to “be little doubt that the gross income tax is scheduled for at least two more years of life and here is little likelihood of it being supplanted by the 3 per cent sales tax proposed by Indiana retail merchants. Like any tax. the gross income tax is unpopular, but it is the belief of C v. Paul V. McNutt and his legi. V.tive advisors that substitution of a sales tax for the gross income tax would mean a higher sales tax than that proposed. Farmers Back Gross Levy The gross income tax produces approximately $12,000,000 annually. Most of this revenue goes to pay part of the salaries of all public school teachers and admittedly is one of the reasons that Indiana’s schools financing has been so successful in contrast to the chaotic conditions in other States. One element of the organized farmers is said to favor doubling the present gross income tax rate. Organized labor is reported opposed to any sales tax which entails passing the levy on to the consumer by means of a receipt or stamp. The 22-member tax advisory' commission named by Gov, McNutt is scheduled to hold a final meeting today and make its recommendations to the chief executive. Apparently. they have reached an impasse. It appears reasonably safe to predict that the gross income tax will be maintained and that the changes in it will be comparatively minor.

$1.50 Limit Upheld Another tax problem before the commission, and one which is certain to be one of the most controversial of the session, is the $1.50 tax limitation law. There is a strong sentiment, chiefly among the farm and real estate interests, for strict adherence to the limitation and for repeal of the emergency clause by means of which many taxing units evade, perhaps through absolute necessity, the intent of the law. The tax limitation law limits tax, levies to $1.50 in cities and to SI in rural areas on each SIOO of taxable property. The emergency clause permits the declaration of an emergency and for excession of the limits. The word “emergency” never has been defined satisfactorily in relation to the tax limitation law. No one, including the courts, seems to agree. The way out of the $1.50 tax limitation dilemma appears to be through one contemplated reform, an effort at which had only an abortive life in the 1933 session. Exemptions Under Fire This is the raising of additional revenue on the property tax by putting back on the tax duplicate real estate which has been exempted. For years, property owned by religious, fraternal, educational and other nonprofit-making groups has been getting by without paying its share of the tax burden. Much of thi property actually w as revenue-producing, regardless of its ownership, and thus was in competition with property which was without dispensation and which was taxed. It almost is certain that a bill to place such property back on the tax duplicate will be presented and it has more than a fair chance of enactment. The possibility of an increase in the tax on intangibles and the (Turn to Face Three)

The Indianapolis Times Rain tonight and becoming fair tomorrow; colder.

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VOLUME 46—NUMBER 207

POLICE MERIT SYSTEM LIKELY Kern May Urge Step After Morrissey’s Study in Milwaukee. Legislation providing . for the merit system in the appointment and promotion of members of the Indianapolis police force may be recommended to the 1935 General Assembly by Mayor John W. Kern. This became known today when Chief Mike Morrissey and Corporation Counsel James E. Deery left for Milwaukee to make a comprehensive study of the results obtained through adoption of the merit system in that city. If the investigaors find that the Milwaukee system has been successful and can be applied tb the Indianapolis force, their report to Mayor Kern will be used as the basis for the recommendations to the Legislature. which will hold its first session Thursday. Adoption of the civil service system for police forces and in the appointment of penal instituion officials and guards has been advocated for months by The Indianapolis Times as a means of eliminating the “spoils system’’ from law enforcement agencies.

2 ARE FOUND DEAD IN TOURIST CABIN Bodies Believed to Be City Young Couple. The bodies of two. persons belived to be Eugene F. Fulke, 931 Tabor-st. and Miss Mary Bisesi, 4005 S. Keystone-av, were discovered this morning in a cabin which they were said to have rented Sunday night in a tourist camp near McCordsville, Ind. The bodes now are being held in a Greenfield undertaking establishment by the Hancock County sheriff. The sheriff said that he did not know from a brief examination what had caused the deaths, but believed it was carbon monoxide poisoning. Mr. Fulke's brother, Edward Fulke, former newspaper man. said that his brother had not been at home since Sunday night and that he had been attempting to locate him.

Piquette Trial May Bare ‘ReaT Dillinger Story Lawyer Called to Trial in Federal Court on ‘Master . Mind’ Charges. By United Press CHICAGO, Jan. B.—First to be snared in a Federal drive against the Fagins of the underworld, Louis P. Piquette, was called to trial in Federal Court today on charges that he was the “swivel-chair genius” of the John Dillinger gang. The bushy-haired lawyer, known as “Curly” Piquette when he served drinks over the bar of the “Silver Moon” in the Madison-st Tenderloin, has made belligerent denials of the Government's charges.

“I've been framed,” he muttered angrily when he learned two plastic surgeons had confessed to performing facial operations on Dillinger and Homer Van Meter and were ready to testify that Piquette hired them. The Government is determined to make the 50-year-old former city prosecutor a “horrible example” for gangland lawyers. Joseph B. Keenan, assistant attorney general, has come from Washington to assist District Attorney Dwight H. Green in the prosecution. Government attorneys intimated that the ‘‘real story" of the Hoosier outlaw’s “toy pistol” jail break will be revealed. Mrs. Lillian Hollej, petite sheriff

Stolen Joy That’s the Charge Against Young Father Who Turned Santa.

A S Christmas Eye approached, a little more than two weeks ago, there were serious doubts in the minds of their parents that Santa Claus would be able to visit Ronald Dills, 2Mr, and his year-old brother, John Dills Jr., at their home, 3045 N. Olney-st. Their father, John Dills Sr., 24-year-old unemployed printer, told the boys Santa Claus had been pretty hard pressed during the depression. Moreover, there was no coal and litt’e food in the house. But the youngsters had faith. Santa Claus always found a way. Christmas morn ng brought happiness to the Di.ls home. In their stockings, Ronald and John Jr., each found a bright red fire truck, a funny doll and a pair of blue overalls that fit. They had been right. Santa Claus always finds a way. a a a t 'T'ODAY, John Dills Sr. stood before Municipal Judge Dewey Myers on a charge of grand larceny. His attorney, Samuel Blum, a friend of the Dills, admitted that his client had taken a box of aluminum bearings from the Highway Truck Parts Corp., 1125 E. Georgia-st, and sold them to a junk dealer to bring Christmas to Ronald and Junior. Detectives had traced John Dills through auto license plates belonging to a West Point (Ind) garageman. They had visited sheds and garages in the Olneyst neighborhood and finally found the ramshackle truck in which Dill had hauled the bearings away from the Georgia-st storage house. Judge Myers and Mrs. Dills listened to Attorney Blum’s story. Dills had been held in SIOOO bail. This Judge Myers reduced to SSOO. He said he regretted he was required by the law to bind Dills over to the grand jury. A representative of the Highway Trucking Parts Corp. protested the court’s action in reducing the bail. He claimed Dills had been responsible for other thefts. a a a POLICE charged that Dills had taken a box of bearings worth $125 and sold them for $55. The proceeds went for the two toy fire trucks, the overalls and the funny dolls. The remainder went for coal and food, and accounted for the triumphant visit of Santa Claus to the Dills home. Mrs. Dills, an expectant mother, was in court when her husband was arraigned. She was shaken with sobs as the story of their Christmas went into the court record. A few' moments later she fainted and was taken home. Police said Dills’ own mother died when he w r as 1 year old. His father died in 19£3. With the aid of friends, he obtained work in a printing shop and learned the trade. He was laid off and, except for relief employment, has had nothing to do. But he brought Santa Claus to Ronald and John Jr. SELECTS PECORA FOR N. Y. SUPREME COURT Gov. Lehman Sends Nomination to State Senate. By United Prens ALBANY. N. Y., Jan. B.—Gov. Herbert Lehman today sent to the Senate for confirmation the nomination of Ferdinand I. Pecora as a justice of the Supreme Court for the First Judicial Ddistrict. ,

7,000,000 to Get Jobs in 1935, New Dealers Say Half to Be Employed by Government, Is Belief, Others by Private Industry. (Copyright. 1935. by United Press) WASHINGTON, Jan. B.—New Dealers are hopeful that President Roosevelt’s $4,000,000,000 recovery and relief program will provide useful employment for at least 7,000,000 individuals this year.

of the Crown Point (Ind.) jail when Dillinger made his comic-opera escape. will be a witness against Piquette. It is charged that Dillinger, through Piquette, paid SIBOO fbr his liberty, a share going to a northern Indiana public official. Piquette, admitting he saw Dillinger several tftnes while the greatest manhunt of the age was under way for the outlaw, insisted his conduct was ‘‘perfectly ethical.” “It is the duty of every lawyer to respect certain confidences of his clients and if the same circumstances arose today I would do the same thing.’*

INDIANAPOLIS, TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1935

NEIGHBOR OF LINDBERGHS PLACES HAUPTMANN AT KIDNAPING SCENE

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So close together that they could almost have touched hands, Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, left circle, and Bruno Richard Hauptmann, right circle, sat in the crowded little Flemington Courthouse during a brief recess in Hauptmann’s trial on a charge of murdering the infant Charles Lindbergh Jr. At the counsel table, in the foreground are (1) Edward J. Reilly, Hauptmann’s chief counsel, and (2) Atty. Gen. David T. Wilentz of New Jersey, chief prosecutor.

■" ■ > NATION TO FALL IN ANOTHER CENTURY, SAYS ALFALFA BILL By United Press OKLAHOMA CITY, Jan. B. William H. (Alfalfa Bill) Murray today predicted in a salty farewell address to the state that the Nation would fall in another century ‘'by the inherent weakness of its own citizenship.” The gaunt, mustached retiring Governor, who has a penchant for probing the future, said that national decay would come through political, social and hygenic deterioration. Sponsor of Oklahoma’s law for sterilization of the insane and habitual criminal, Gov. Murray advocated sterilization by the state of persons afflicted with social diseases. He said this would be an important step toward national salvation. TEMPERATURE DROP IS FORECAST FOR CITY Freezing Weather to Arrive Here Tonight or Tomorrow. The end of the warm, balmy weather in Indianapolis was seen by the United States Weather Bureau today with the prediction that a drop to freezing temperatures or below would reach here tonight or tomorrow. The cold weather probably will come from the north, it was said with a high pressure area at present in Canada and moving southward.

That appears to be the minimum expectation from the public works plan if it operates in practice as well as it looks on paper. The employment aggregate would be made up of: 1. 3,500,000 persons shifted from the dole to public works. 2. From 3,500,000 up re-employed privately. The private jobs estimate is tentative. But it is based on the expectation that every individual directly employed with Treasury money on public works projects will require the private employment of at least one other individual to supply him with materials for the public job. Os greatest concern as this unprecedented program is launched is the possibility that local relief may not be able to absorb the 1,500,000 dole recipients which are to be stricken from Federal relief rolls. There appears to be less official anxiety over the Government’s ability to provide work for *1500,000 or so employable persons now receiving the dole. Mr. Roosevelt’s two messages to the 74th Congress avoided any estimate of the number of employable Americans now jobless. He estimated, merely, that 4,000,000 persons had been re-employed'since Hoover left the White House on March 4, 1933. The American Federation of Labor estimates in excess of 11,000,000 persons are without jobs. >

LINDBERGH CAN ALMOST TOUCH HAUPTMANN IN COURTROOM

Fire Destroys Tack Cos. Plant; Loss at $15,000 Valuable Machinery Badly Damaged, Official of Firm Reports After Two-Alarm Blaze. Mixing thousands of pounds of wfr# tacks into disordered pfies, as flames and water pressure broke open shipping boxes, today caused $15,000 damage in a raging two-alarm fire which swept the Baur Tack Cos. plant, 1419 Standard-av, and threatened an entire factory block. Robert Smith, plant manager, said tons of tacks had been prepared for shipment and were stored in the section of the factory swept by flames. The fire-swept boxes were broken and the assorted sizes of tacks

were swept into piles under water pressure from fire department hose. Valuable machinery also was badly damaged, Mr. 'Smith said. The plant was a seething inferno of flames when men from Engine House 19, Harding and Morris-sts, arrived shortly before 5 a. m„ called by Patrolman Frank Zunk, who discovered the conflagration. Fire Chief Fred Kennedy took personal control and, realizing that the frame building could not be saved, ordered his men to keep the flames from the adjoining buildings. The tempering plant caved in from the terrific heat and, until late in the morning, still were at the scene pouring water on the smoldering remains. Capt. Guy Lewis, Engine House 19, had difficulty in discovering the fire because three alarms had been turned in at points several blocks from the fire. Smoke so covered the neighborhood that it took the firemen several minutes to locate the actual scene of the fire. When Chief Kennedy arrived, he immediately turned in the second alarm. Apparatus from the downtown districts and from other West Side houses responded. The adjoining buildings were brick. The first building from Standard-av was the brick machinery building; the second, the tempering plant, and the third, the brick storage plant. This was the third second-alarm fire this year, the others being in a garage at 13th-st and Illinois-st and a factory at 621 S. Alabama-st. Fire Damages Home The home of Stuart Dean, wealthy manufacturer, at 4190 Central-av, was damaged to the extent of SIOOO early today by a fire which ruined a library and the bedroom of Mr. Dean’s cousin, Arthur Loftin, a reporter for The Indianapolis News. Firemen from three engine houses responded and had difficulty in entering the house and laying the hose because of the fierce heat of the flames. Mr. Loftin discovered the fire. He and Mr. Dean were the only ones at home at the time of the fire. Furnishings of the Dean home include many valuable antiques and paintings. TODAY’S WEATHER 6a. m 52 10*a. m 53 7a. m 53 11 a. m 54 Ba. m 52 12 (noon).. 55 9 a. m 53 1 p. m 56 Tomorrow’s sunrise, 7:07 a. m.; sunset, 4:38 p. m. In the Air Weather conditions at 9 a. m.: Southeast wind, seven miles an hour; barometric pressure, 39.81 at sea level; tfcmperature, 51; general conditions, overcast, light rain, light fog, field soft, use runway; ceiling, estimated at 700 feet; visibility, one mil&

Entered as Second-Clasa Matter 1 at Posto&ice, Indianapolis, Ind.

FEAR TANKER LOST IN PACIFIC STORM All Hands Believed Lost in Typhoon. By United Press SAN PEDRO, Cal., Jan. B.—A major marine disaster in which the British tanker La Crescenta sank with all hands lost was feared today after receipt of a wireless message by tbe Radio Marine Corp., from the skipper of the freighter Athelbeech. The message: ‘‘Advised passed large patches of oil, longitude 35.02, north; latitude 1.64 west. Possibly from British tanker La Crescenta. Her last known position in this vicinity. Signed, Athelbeech, captain.” Shipping men here feared the tanker may have gone down with its crew of 25 or 30 men in a typhoon two weeks ago. Nothing has been heard of the vessel since then, when its position was 900 miles northeast of Hawaii, the approximate position of the Athelbeech when it passed the oil patches.

Oil Control Section Held Invalid by High Court Supreme Bench Finds ‘Hot Shipments’ Provision of Code Unconstitutional. By United Press WASHINGTON, Jan. B.—Faced with an adverse decision of the Supreme Court in the East Texas oil cases, Administration officials today sought a way to maintain order in the once chaotic oil industry and to analyze the possible affect of the court’s ruling on other recovery legislation. The court found unconstitutional section 9-C of the NIRA and the executive orders of President Roosevelt carrying the section into effect. It also held invalid the orders of Oil Administrator Harold L. Ickes making the section effective.

Section 9-C gives the President authority to prohibit interstate shipments of “hot oil,” which is oil produced in excess of state quotas. A cursory examination of the court’s exhaustive opinion already has led to these conclusions. 1. Control of e>cessive oil production for the time being must be attempted under the petroleum code, since the court made no attempt to pass on the code itself. 2. Attempts may be made to have petroleum production declared a public utility in order to justify new and clearer congressional regulation of the field. 3. The court’s decision will be valuable as a practicable, though partial, guide for the formation of future emergency or permanent legislation for the control of production. 4. The opinion can not be interpreted as a blow to the general principles being followed in the formulation and promulgation of codes of fair competition.

NAVAL AGREEMENT LIKELY, DAVIS SAYS IN FORMAL REPORT By United Press WASHINGTON, Jan. B.—An optimistic vi£w of the possibility of an eventual naval agreement among the United States, Great Britain and Japan, was presented today by Norman H. Davis, chief American delegate returning from the London naval conversations. Mr. Davis said that despite apparent failure of the naval conversations in London, he believed the meeting there had prepared the ground for an eventual agreement, which might even be reached during the present year. In his report, Mr. Davis reflected a conciliatory attitude toward Japan’s naval ambitions. He said he believed it would be possible, eventually, to conclude anew navy limitation agreement on the basis of building programs in progress. j Blind Man Killed by Auto By United Press COLUMBUS, Ind., Jan. B.—James Bryant, 66, blind, was killed when struck by a truck on U. S. Road 31 while bei/'g led to church by his wife. She was uninjured. Times Index Page Bridge 5 Broun .’ 11 Business News 8 Comics 17 Crossword Puzzle 17 Curious World 17 Editorial 12 Financial 13 Hickman, Theaters 15 Pegler 11 Radio 9 Sports 14,15 State ews 8 Woman’s Pages 4, 5

Blackwell Smith, acting general counsel of the NRA, hailed the opinion as a partial guidepost and said that nothing in it indicated Congress can not constitutional!)) treat the industrial problem by “the only practical means.” The court’s opinion was written and delivered by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. An outstanding point of the decision was an all but unanimous decision based on an interpretation of constitutional law. Justice Benjamin N. Cordozo wrote a lengthy dissent. He noted there was only a narrow margin of doubtful ground which separated his opinion from that of the majority, but a margin that left him no doubt that the section should have been upheld as within the Constitutional delegation of authority. It was on tiffs point that the court felt itself constrained to hold the section invalid.

HOME EDITION PRICE TWO CENTS Outside Marion County, 3 Cents

Bewhiskered Witness Puts Finger on Bruno in Testimony. STATE SCORES SURPRISE Defense Fails to Shake Aged Mountaineer’s Story of Seeing Suspect. BY SIDNEY B. WHIPPLE United Press Staff Correspondent (Copyright. 1935. by United Press) FLEMINGTON, N. J., Jan. 8. Eighty-seven-year-old Mandus Hochmuth placed a palsied finger on Bruno Richard Hauptmann today and identified him as the man with a ladder he saw near the Lindbergh estate a few hours before Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. was kidnaped and murdered on March 1, 1932. The aged and bewhiskered resident of the Sourland countryside hobbled across the tense and silent courtroom where Hauptmann is on trial for his life and laid a gnarled finger on the defendant’s left knee. “That is the man,” he said in a cracked voice. His attitude carried all the conviction that he could muster. “I saw his face like a mail who had seen a ghost. He was in a dirty green car. I saw a part of a ladder. Thus the state of New Jersey struck its first smashing surprise blow at the trial of the German carpenter who is charged w r ith the murder of the infant son of Col. and Mrs. Charles A. Lindbergh But the words of Hochmuth, who contended his eyes were good, failed to shake the prisoner. His stonelike face remained unchanged. Slowly he moved his head from side to side in denial of the charge. Otherwise, he did not move a muscle. The all cient Hochmuth’s testimony dropped two bombshells for the prosecution: 1. It was designed to place Hauptmann at the scene of the crime on the day of the crime, whereas he has denied steadfastly he was ini New Jersey at any time approximate to March 1, 1932.

Denies Testimony “Framed” 2. It was designed to link him with the kidnap ladder. Hochmuth’s dramatic identification of Hauptmann was made during his direct examination by Atty. Gen. David Wilentz. After he had stepped down from the witness chair—you could almost hear his rheumatic bones creak as he walked—and put what the state hoped would be the finger of doom on the prisoner, he was turned over to Edw’ard J. Reilly, head lawyer for Hauptmann. Reilly pounded at his testimony in every conceivable form of question to test his reliability, his sight, his powers of observation. But Hochmuth, standing firmly by his guns, refused to give way on any point. When Reilly implied that a State Trooper had brought him to the door of the courthouse yesterday and pointed Hauptmann out to him, Hoclimuth’s chin whiskers snapped as he answ'ered, “No, sir!” He had seen Hauptmann in a lane near Col. Lindbergh’s manor and he meant to stick to it. Tells Story of Ladder The state then turned to Capt. John J. Lamb of the New Jersey state police, an officer who for 30 months has devoted his investigations almost entirely to the Lindbergh case. Capt. Lamb was called as a supporting witness to the state’s theory that the three-section ladder found on the Lindbergh grounds, 70 feet from the house, was the one by which the kidnaper gained access to the child’s nursery—and that it was Hauptmann that made and used the ladder. Justice Thomas W. Trenchard had ruled yesterday that the ladder could not be introduced in evidence—although it was marked for identification —uiftil the state had proved in what hands it had been since it was found. Government experts have examined it and analyzed its wood. Sections of it have been removed and compared with wood found in Hauptmann’s garage in the Bronx. It has been taken apart so that its nails could be compared with nails found in one of Hauptmann’s boxes. Defense Wages Bitter Fight Capt. Lamb proceeded, therefore, to tell the jury that he himself had had custody of the ladder, but outlined the various hinds into which it had been committed for experimental purposes, since 1932. At the noon recess, Hauptmann’s lawyers were fighting desperately to exclude the ladder from evidence. Lieut. John J. Sweeney of the Newark Police Department made a dramatic witness. A breathless au-\ dience heard him describe experiments made both with the alleged .(Tara to Page Three),