Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 2 December 1938 — Page 1

EI

FORECAST: Occasional rain tonight and tomorrow; warmer tonight.

FINAL HOME

} SCRIPPS — HOWARD §

| YOUTH KILLED, THREE HURT IN HAMMOND FIRE

Mother of Victim and Two Teachers Injured. in Leaps.

50 FLEE APARTMENTS

Two Dead and One Missing In North Carolina Hospital Blaze.

HAMMOND, Ind., Dec. 2 (U. P.).— Richard Wagner, 18, was burned to death, his mother and two other women were injured and about 50 persons were routed from their honies early today when fire swept

‘a 24-apartment building in down-

town Hammond. Firemen carried several persons down ladders to safety. Mr. Wagner died in a third-floor apartment he shared with his mother, Mrs. Betsy Wagner, 42-year-old widow. She suffered a broken right leg and internal injuries when she jumped to the ground. Kathryn Richmond, teacher at the Edison Grade School, and her sister, Georgia, teaclier at Technical High School, were injured when they leaped from their apartment on the same floor. Katiaryn Richmond suffered a broken leg, her sister possible internal injuries. The fire nad spread throughout a great section of the building when firemen arrived, necessitating a 4-11 alarm. Police said owners of the building had not estimated the amount of damage. ? Mrs. Wagner was taken to St. Margaret's Hospital. She told police she and her son had been awakened by crackling flames. “We were almost choked by the smoke,” she said. “He told me to jump and I did. But he didn’t have time to.”

Third Feared Dead in Collapse of Hospital Wall

WASHINGTON, N. C., Dec. 2 (U. P.) —Fire swept & three-story wing of the Tayloe Hospital today, taking two lives. A third person was missing. The dead were Sue Gorham, Washington, N. C,, and Jesse Coin, Aurora, N. C. Mrs. Maeon Tooley, 26, Pungo, N. C., was missing and hospital officials believed she was killed when walls of the structure collapsed. : Firemen carried eight’ persons from second and third-floor rooms of the burning frame hospital wing. More than 30 other patients, in a fireproof brick wing protected by a thick firewall, were not endangered. Many were panic-stricken when smoke filled their rooms. . Mrs. Elmer Ingalls, patient in the brick section, received ‘minor - injuries when she became frightened and jumped from a second-floor window. : Two other patients were injured, neither seriously. The fire was discovered at 6:30 a. m. by a dairyman delivering milk. Surgical instruments and the surgical library of the hospital were destroyed, along with the X-ray room, the hospital kitchen, doctors’ offices and consulting rooms. Eight patients from the wooden section of the hospital were taken

" . to private homes, since there was no

extra bed space in the brick por-

. tion of the building. Private kitch-

ens were pressed into use in preparing food for the hospital patients and staff.

TERRORISM CHARGED IN CHICAGO STRIKE

CHICAGO; Dec. 2 (U. P.). — The Packing House Workers Organizing Committee of the C. I. O. charged today that the Union Stockyards and Transit Co. is employing terroristic tactics in an attempt to break a handlers’ strike which has tied up the yards for 12 days. Don Harris, director of the P. W.: O. C. local, accused the company

. and police of denying strikers the

right of free speech and assembly. He also charged that C. I. O. members have been intimidated and attacked by members of a handlers’ union affiliated with the A. F. of L. The company and the A. F. L. de- . nied the charges. - Only prize cattle of the livestock show were handled at the yards. A fourth company-union conference is scheduled for Monday.

WHEAT PRICES UP; STOCKS DRIFT OFF

(Market Details, Page 39) CHICAGO, Dec. 2 (U.P,).—Wheat prices rallied today on the Board of Trade,’ reflecting strength at Liver-

pool.

NEW YORK, De Dec. 2 (U. P)— Stocks drifted downward today as trading lightened on the Stock Exchange. Chrysler lost 2 points.

TIMES FEATURES ON INSIDE PAGES

34 21 seen 22 Comics ...... 38 Crossword ... 39 Curious World 38 Editorials ... 22 Financial ... 39 Flynn ....... 2

Autos Books Broun

Movies Mrs. Ferguson Obituaries ... Pegler ...... Pyle ... Questions ... Radio Mrs. Roosevelt 21 Scherrer .... 21 Serial Story.. 38 Society ... 24, 25 Sports .... 30, 31

eocenves

sess

VOLUME 50—NUMBER 228

School Bus Death 7 oll Mounts to 4.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1938

PROBE STARTED AT NEW CASTLE

Jury to Hear Complaints Of Nonunion Men in Alleged Strife.

NEW CASTLE, Dec. 2 (U. P.)— The Henry County Grand Jury was to convene in special session today to investigate alleged union warfare which forced the shutdown yester-

day of the Chrysler Corp. assembly plant, throwing 3600 men out of work. | Prosecutor M. M. Edwards said the jury would investigate complaints that nonunion workers had been thrown bodily from the plant, some over a high. board fence surrounding the building. The United Automobile Workers cf America, a C. I. O. affiliate, which has been making a membership drive at ,the plant, barred factory gates to all but C. I. O. workers.at the start of the workday yesterday, according to officials. Late in the afternoon, unidentified persons shut off the electric power, paralyzing plant machinery, and the management closed the plant. U. A. W. A. leaders charged that the management had shut off the power because it preferred not to operate if non-C. I. O. workers were barred from the plant. Leaders of the Die Sinkers Union, A. F. of L. affiliate, charged that another A. F. of L. group, an electrical workers’ union, had shut off the power. The A. P, of L. unions repeatedly have been at odds over local policies. The U. A. W. A. claims 90 per cent membership of the plant’s employees and has a closed shop contract which expires March 1, 1939. The union has been attempting to increase its membership to 100 per cent. Prosecutor Edwards said he had supenaed 20 persons to appear before the jury. He said violence had been reported in connection with the dispute for two weeks. Monday night, Dewey Burkett, a nonunion employee, allegedly was slugged with lead pipes by two men who had followed him to the steps of his home. He received a broken jaw. Joe Packard, "another monunion worker, reported Tuesday that he had been thrown bodily out of the main door of the plant.

6500 Strike in Flint Body Plant

FLINT, Mich., Dec. 2 (U. P).—A strike of United Automobile Workers closed productipn at Fisher Body Plant 1 here today. Officials of the company, a General Motors division, said that approximately 6500 men left their jobs at noon. The strike was voted early today by Local 581 of the U. A. W,, a C. 1. O. affiliate, in protest against piecework wage scales in the press and metal departments. Fisher Plant 1 supplies bodies for Buick, which is operating at peak production with 13,000 employees. If the Fisher strike continues, officials admitted; Buick may be forced to close.

2000 Out of Work In Nash Strike

KENOSHA, Wis., Dec. 2 (U. P.) — A strike of 300 workers in the final assembly department of the NashKelvinator Corp. plant crippled auto production today, threw 2000 men out of work in Milwaukee and threatened the jobs of 5000 others. Operations in other departments

were curtailed and company officials said the complete shutdown of the plant probably would result if the dispute over the workers’ demands

{State Deaths. 27 22

of the Kenosha plant continued but]

fo higher wages is not settled by

Seize Best

By JOE COLLIER

Starlings Give Pigeons Bird,

Life Goes Around in Circle for Meek Pacifists Who Inherited Monument.

Roosting Places

Dhow Ag ~~

IF may be hard. to convince members of the Works. Board Expeditionary Force Against Pigeons, which apparently now is mustered out, but pigeons really are practicing pacifists—the meek who in-

herited the Monument.

But right now, the keeper of the Monument says, the pigeons are in danger of being disinherited through their own disinclination to do

anything about the starlings. The starlings, thousands of them, swoop down upon the Circle every night at dusk, chattering about their day’s travels, and make right for the Monument. By dusk, pigeons, who lead happy but uneventful lives, have been fed and are settled down for the night, perched on about all the perchable places there are, provided they aren’t too high.

Pigeons get giddy in high places,

another evidence of their passionate conservatism.

J # 3

HEN come the starlings, who have spent the day in faraway parts of the city, picking np crumbs in their quest of a living. The starlings bustle around looking for places to perch for the night and find the pigeons have them all. Instead of accepting this as final, the starlings raise such a chatter that even people in the street stop and look and expect to see an aerial battle.

Whether the pigeons are embarrassed at attracting so much attention, whether they are .unnerved by so much unseemly commotion, or whether they just don’t want to fight, what do they do?. They give up. They leave the Monument and find other places to roost. The starlings

settle down and spend the night.-

Starlings band together in the winter, perhaps for the very reason that they know they will have pigeons to deal with if they. are to capture such warm, protected, choice places as the Circle, .

8 8» =

State Conservation Department says starlings spend the summers scattered, rearing their young and one thing and anothsr,

but always re-assemble’ around Nov. 1. It was later this year. Due to their large numbers they perch on top of: Miss -Indiana’s head, giving her a living new hat every night, each of "a different design, a thoughtful flattery. It’s too late to do anything about it now, but the pigeons might like to know that all of their starling trouble started one day in 1890 when some busy-body in New York, who had .imported 50 pairs’ of them from England, released them in Central Park. Now look at them.

DEMOCRATS HINT AT SEPARATE REGHECK

2 Recount Totals Jibe With Canvassing Board's.

By NOBLE REED As recounting of votes was started today in three County election contest case, it was reported that Democratic candidates plan to finance an independent recount if all Republican . candidates dismiss their recheck petitions. First results in the tabulations were in the case of Wilbur Royse against Joseph Markey, for Superior Court "No. 1 judge. The tabulations in the First Ward balloting showed Mr. Markey with a vote of 2043 and 1845 for Mr.

|Royse, exactly the same count as

announced by the Canvassing Board. Results in a recount of the First Ward in the case of George Jeffrey

against Herbert M. Spencer, for (Continued on Page Five)

Entered as Second-Class Matter at Postoffice, Indianapolis, Ind.

KIDNAPERS SET GIRL FREE ON NO CASH PLEA

Father Says She Convinced Men Ransom Demand Would Be Futile.

POLICE CHECK STORY

Victim Safe and Unharmed; Abandoned Truck Is Only Clue.

(Photos, Page 8)

OXON HILL, Md., Dec. 2 (U. P.). —William B. Brown told reporters today that his daughter, Mary, 18-year-old convent student, was kidnaped for ransom but won her release when she convinced the abductors that her father had no money.

Mr. Brown, talking with reporters on the muddy Oxon Hill road that runs outside his farm home near Washington, declared’ that the girl had not been harmed in any way. Medical examination showed that except for a few minor bruises and

{scratches the girl was not injured.

} [The examination also disclosed that

TimssAsme Telephoto.”

The twisted wrotkage of the school bus in which 24 pupils met death at a Utah crossing.

3 MORE PUPILS LIKELY TO DIE

40 in Vehicle, Check Shows; Two Children Tell How It Happened.

ens ors Dec. 2 (U. 2). —A use-to-house canvass es-

tablished today that 39 children and ore adult had been in a school bus when a freight train, roaring through a blizzard at high speed, smashed into it. Of those 40, 24 were killed, three were injured so severely that they probably will die, and the remaining 13 suffered

{injuries of varying degrees.

‘Not until volunteers had gone from door to door of the school district near here from which the children came, asking, “did your children return from school?” was the exact number of the dead and the exact number of children who

‘had been in the bus established.

Most of the dead were killed outright and some of the bodies had been so mangled, torn, and dissected that it had been impossible to establish how many bodies the parts of bodies represented. " The freight train apparently had been going around 60 miles an hour. The nose of the huge locomotive struck the bus broadside, and, though the engineer had applied the brakes even before the crash, the caboose of the 82-car freight had reached the crossing before it stopped. The bus, caught squarely across the cow-catcher, (Continued on Page Five)

OCCASIONAL RAIN FORECAST FOR CITY

46 10 a. m.... 47 1la.m.... 47 12 Noon .. 48 1p. m....

6 a. m.... 7a m.... 8 a. m.... 9a m...

49 50 50 51

Continued mild temperature, with occasional rain tonight and tomorrow were forecast today by the Weather Bureau for Indianapolis. It will be warmer tonight, the Bureau said.

[nothing of

she had not been attacked. Her only injuries were caused by brambles and briers, suffered during a half-mile walk across country from the spot where she said her abductors released her last night at 10 (9 Indianapolis time) after holding her for about 30 hours.

~ Seek Clue to Identity

While the girl's father talked with newspapermen, Maryland State Police started a careful investigation of the story in an effort to uncover some clue to the identity of the three men the girl said kidnaped her. Maj. Elmer F. Munshower, Superintendent of the State Police, talked with the pretty little student of Notre Dame Academy Business School but was unable to get any lead. Maj. Munshower said they were looking for three men, whom Mary described as having dark complexions. One of th she said, had a little mustache. Maj. Munshower said he was puzzled by one angle of the girl's story. He declared he did not see how she could have made her way across country from the spot where she said ‘she was released without cutting her legs and feet to ribbons. Wearing heavy police boots, Maj.

‘Munshower walked a short distance

into the bramble bushes through which Mary said she walked. He returned showing his boots badly scratched and scarred. The alarm over the girl’s disappearance was given late Wednesday afternoon when Mary’s younger sis(Continued on Page Five)

MOTHER OF 2 GETS PRISON SENTENCE

2-to-14-Year Term Given For Aiding Fugitive.

Mrs. Arlene Sandlin, 24, mother of two children, was sentenced to from two to 14 years in Women’s Prison today after she had pleaded

guilty in Criminal Court to a charge of assisting a murder suspect in escaping arrest. She was charged with furnishing money for Sam Wilson, who allegedly escaped from Indianapolis to Cincinnati. Wilson was accused in the murder of Edward Mace, a filling station attendant, a year ago. Later he was located. She was sentenced by Judge Frank P. Baker over the protest of her attorney, Miss Jessie Levy, who said Mrs. Sandlin already had spent a year in and that she knew fatal shooting. “The State already has exacted its pound of flesh from this woman in a case she knew nothing about,” Miss Levy declared. Mrs. Sandin

was kept in jail pending trial of]

Wilson.

It’s the Women, You See, Who Feel It Most and Every Child That’ s Clothed Warms a Mother's Heart

(Donors. Story, Page Five). .

HIS mother, you could tell by 1 by the letter, went to school when they taught penmanship and that a line in a letter should

never slope up or down. The line that said,

“The little boy who is 7 needs a coat,

heavy underwear, socks, shoes and almost everything a little boy can,” moved straight from ‘one side of the unruled paper to the

other.

It is no accident that almost always it is the mother of the family who at this time of the year sits down by the .stove and composes a letter to The Indianapolis Times Clothe-A-Child campaign. Mothers are a little neater and a litle more certain about

such things.

And it is no accident that they invariably tell that their husbands are good husbands, but, through rio fault of their own, are out of work. The mothers are desperate, and, at the risk of hurting the feelings of their husbands, they appeal for their children. And so this mother told that the family has no coal and must, for three weeks until her husband can begin to collect on his unemployment compensation, “get beans and potatoes and bread and salt and things like that on credit.”

8 # 2

82 2 ”

GEE told that the 15-year-old boy, who is going to high school, “Is going to have to stay home as he has no shoes, he has only two shirts and they must be washed out all the time, and he needs a sweater, some socks and underwear.”

“The girl who is in the eighth grade,” she wrote, “needs hose

and underclothes and shoes as they are about gone. She needs a

long sleeve sweater and she wears summer dresses. She needs

: something to sleep in..

“My husband and I don’t ask anything for ourselves, but we do for our children as we don’t like to see them come in cold and have no way.to get them Sand warm.” :

irrelevant, about how they wold buy ‘food and pay back rent even when the $10 a week compensation came in. And tucked down at the bottom she said she is a cripple and, until this new economic disaster hit them, got around at her

household duties in a wheelchair,

But the payments on that lapsed and it was reclaimed.

®2 » »

” o 8

== INDIANAPOLIS TIMES Clothe-A-Child campaign, just opened, is a partial solution for this family—the most impor=

tant part in the eyes of the mother and father.

be to others.

And so it can

The Times has set up headquarters at 206 W. Maryland St. with a staff on duty from 9 a. m. to 6 p. m. Here are the ways

you can participate:

1—If you wish to shop with a child personally, call Rlley 5551 and make an appointment to meet a child at Clothe-A-Child

Headquarters.

2—Or if you want The Times to act for you, mail a check

to “Clothe-A-Child, The Indianapolis Times.”

pers will do the rest.

Experienced shop-

3—Or you can join with others in your office, club, church,

sports team, fra ping committees. en let us group desires to clothe.

ity or sorority. Select a treasurer and shop-

know how many children your

Community Fund relief agencies and the Social Service De-

partment of the Public Schools check the lists to determine the

neediest children and to eliminate duplication of clothing gifts. The cost of outfitting a boy or girl depends on individual needs,

The average is from $8 to $12.

Your gift will mean warmth for chilled bodies, an increase in wing and a step hol, a happier: life for the underprivileged

-{ libraries.

PRICE THREE CENTS

NEW

SCHOOLS

FIREPROOF,

UNIONS

Use of Inflammable

CHARG

Materials Claimed

State Administrative Council Takes Petition Under Advisement.

WILDE AND GOOD HAVE ‘NO COMMENT’

Combustible Insulation Allegedly Included in Specifications for New I. U. Medical Center Units.

Charges that several school and other public buildings in Indianapolis and various Indiana cities are being built

with combustible materials w

ere presented by the Marion

County Building Trades Council today at a hearing before the State Administrative Building Council. The hearing was called as the result of a petition submitted to the State Oct. 16 by the Building Trades Council,’ The petition also charged that specifications for proposed new buildings at the Indiana University Medical Center also

call for the same kind of comb

AUTO STICKER FIXING’ DENIED

Morrissey Says Warrants Will Be Issued for Unpaid Tickets.

(another Story, Page 5; Editorial Page 22 22)

City Clerk Daniel O'Neill today said his records showed that 14,058 traffic stickers had been issued since March 25, 1938. Of these, 8560 have been paid and 2839 affidavits have: been issued, he declared. The clerk’s office explained that, of the 2659 defendants unaccounted for, approximately 500 cannot be located, approximately the same number are out-of-town. residents for whom no affidavits can be issued, 300 are against dealer cars and 800 more are against persons for whom the time limit to report to headquarters had not yet expired.

BERNE, Ind., Dec. 2 (U. P.). -—Mrs. Barbara Soldner Lehman, 80, today became the first traffic victim in Berne in the last 10 years. She was injured fatally when a car struck her as she crossed a street,

The clerk’s report was issued after Chief Morrissey denied reports that some 880 traffic violation stickers had been “fixed.” The reports had been based apparently on figures released by the Safety Board showing that, of 1651 stickers issued last month, only 687 were paid for. “There is no such thing as a fixed sticker,” the chief declared. “The figures concerning arrests and convictions for traffic violations released by the Board of ' Public Safety are correct,” Chief Morrissey said. “A total of 1651 persons received stickers last month for traffic violations, 687 paid their stickers, and 84 were tried in Municipal Court. That leave a total of 880 apparently unaccounted for,” the Chief said. “But that doesn’t mean that these people have ‘fixed’ their stickers, for those 880 persons have failed to follow the orders on the sticker, and warrants will be issued for their arrest as soon as the City Prosecutor is ready. : “When the warrants are issued by the City Prosecutor, they will be returned to the Police Department. The Department will serve them on the owners. n

STATEP.-T. A, SKS BAN ON FIREWORKS

Program Drafted by Legislative Committee.

The Indiana Congress of Parents and Teachers will ask th islature to ban the sale o fireworks in the state, it was announced toay. This proposal will be the first legislative action originated by the organization, according to Mrs. James L. Murray, irman of the Congress legislative’ committee, The proposed bill would ban all fireworks except those used for public displays, Mrs. Murray said. The Legislative committee, which met at the Severin Hotel today, announced that additional points: in its 1939 program will include: schools | 1

1. State \_support of through a taxes 2. School a ndance and child labor laws. 3. Increased financial support for Floyd I. ¥:Murray, State Superintendent ¢ _‘ublic Instruction, was present at the session and urged the committee i aprove an amendment to the State Constitution which

1939 Leg- |.

ustible materials. : The petition, signed by Carl Vestal, Building Trades Council president, and. Robert Wilcox, secretary, said that Council representatives ins formed Governor Townsend of their charges last September and that he suggested that the Council make a formal request for an investigation and hearing. The hearing was concluded shortly after noon and the matter taken under advises’ ment by the State agency.

president of the Indianapolis School Board, and A. B. Good, the schools business director; both said they had “no comment” to make on the charges. Used for Insulation Members of the Building Trades Council said the combustible ma terial referred to in the petition is wallboard used for insulation and acoustical purposes and goes under various trade names. They said that some types of the material are firee proof while others are not. R. P. Irrgang, secretary and. busie ness agent of the Operative Plastere ers International Association 486, who said he had called the attention of the trades council to the material being used, named the fol= lowing buildings as containing the combustible materials: Additions to Crispus Attucks and Washington High Schools, Grade Schools 68 and 26, the administrative building and the Fowler Hall dormitory at Purdue University, a ward building at the Logansport State Hospital, a recent addition ta City Hospital, two additions to a Pt. Wayne high school, a public school at West Point, Ind., a wing at the Indiana University Medical Center and the new State Health Board building now under construce tion at the Medical Center. Claim Cédes Violated Mr. Irrgang said prior to the hearing he would ask that 13 buildings now insulated with the alleged combustible materials be closed until the investigation has been completed or the situation remedied. Officials of the Building

statement. 3 Walter Myers, attorney for the Building Trades Council, declared that some of the buildings were built in violation of existing builde ing codes. : The executive committee of the State agency investigating the charges is composed of Dr. Verne K. Harvey, State Health director; Donald PF. Stiver, State Safety di= (Continued on Page Five)

AMERICAN COMPOSER DIES ENGLEWOOD, N. J., Dec. 3 (U. P.).—~Funeral services will be held in Manhattan Sunday for William Frederick Peters, composer and violin teacher of Maude Adams, who died here yesterday of heart disease. He was 67. i

1 9 Shopping Days Till Christmas.

OOKING back to Christmas 19 years ago—Ohioans were boost= ing their Senator Warren G. ing for President. . . . With cos famine threatening cold yule Kansas Governor called for 1000 volunteers to dig coal. . . . Country in grip of crime wave, with 300 murders In year for: ‘Chicago or

would make Ris « office appointive

in- |i

Prior to the hearing, Carl Wilde,

Trades Council supported this = | y