The Daily Banner, Greencastle, Putnam County, 9 September 1968 — Page 6
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Page 6
The Daily Banner, Greencastle, Indiana
Monday, September 9, 1968
Jim Bishop Column to be started
EDITOR'S NOTE - The author of “The Day Lincoln Was Shot" and “The Day Christ Died", Jim Bishop will offer a regular column to Daily Banner readers beginning this week. JIM BISHOP Every man has his own timetable. The talents of some blossom early and fade quickly. Others rise gradually to a peak of performance and level off there, before beginning a slow decline. A third breed seems to spend almost two-thirds of his life - almost without being aware of it - getting ready for a sudden and prodigious flowering. Jim Bishop, author of the King Features Syndicate column, “JIM BISHOP: Reporter," is one of these. At the age of 47, Bishop’s microscopic reconstruction of President Lincoln’s last 24 hours cm earth, “The Day Lincoln Was Shot," brought him overnight wealth, fame and the wide horizons that go with them. In swift succession he authored two more books, “The Golden Ham," a frighteningly intimate biography of Jackie Gleason, and “The Day Christ Died," a reverent
minute-by-minute account of the 23 hours of the Passion and the Crucifixion. Interspersed with these were a series of syndicated reporting-in-depth jobs on the court martial of a marine sergeant who led six recruits tc their death in a swamp, and an account of escaped freedom fighters from Hungary. Bishop’s long preparation began in his boyhood in Jersey City. A son of an Irish police lieutenant, he used to watch his father make out his reports. The spare factual style of police accounts made a deep impression. His work of today is done iwth short, hard sentences that hew tightly to the story line. His education came from parochial schools, and Drake College, which he left to take a job as a milkman. His tenure was short. Within three weeks it was apparent that the horse drawing the milk wagon was more familiar with the route than he would ever by. He quit, declaring he “couldn’t stand playing second fiddle to a horse." Never one to begin anywhere except at the bottom. Bishop started his writing career on the New York Daily News. At first there
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was little, if any, writing. He was a copy boy, “fetching sauerkraut juice for reporters with hangovers," at a salary of $12 a week. Eventually he got his chance to try out on an assignment, made good and was promoted to the dizzy heights of cub reporter. Something about him must have impressed Mark Hellinger, then a Broadway columnist on the News. Hellinger was lured to the rival Daily Mirror at a salary of $1,000 a week. He took Bishop with him. Bishop’s salary was $25.00. Under Bellinger’s tutelage, Bishop became a crack rewrite man and later served as his assistant. About this time he decided he would become “the best educated journalist in America." He bran, ched out, learning other jobs on the paper. Before he was through he worked as a feature writer caption writer, Sunday editor, part-time columnist, magazine writer and-leaving the paper — a magazine editor (“Liberty”), literary agent, book publisher and author of three books, one of which, “The Mark Hellinger Story," was bought as movie material. During these years, Bishop filled notebook after notebook with pertinent data on Lincoln’s final hours. “There is no time within conscious memory," he lias said, “when I was not interested in President Lincoln. My interest dates back to the first time I heard him described as a great, sad man with a beard, a man who tried to keep brothers from killing each other and was, himself, killed. This was the story told to the students of the third grade at St. Patrick’s parochial school in Jersey City by Sister Maria Alacoque in 1917'... It made me feel ashamed that ‘we’ had slain a dark Santa." As the years went on he filled in all 28 notebooks. He rounded out his research by reading seven million words in the Library of Congress and the Army Adjutant General’s files, and by checking Booth’s escape route in the family Oldsmobile to a tenth of a mile. “After that," he has said, “it was a simple task—merely checking all that happened in any one hour of the day, writing the word ‘void’ on pages of notes which had no relationship to the real facts, and writing. The last was easy." “JIM BISHOP: Reporter," has been described by King editors
as “more than a column. In his own inimitable style, which has the surprise of O. Henry and the dash and descriptive quality of Damon Runyon, he will write about people, places and events of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Laced with humor and pathos, this three-times-a-week feature will provide off-trail, human and sparkling relief from the heavy news pf the day." After making his home for some years in Sea Bright, N.J., a setting that combined the double appeal of surf and pines, Bishop and his wife, the former Betty Kelly Stone, moved, early in 1964, to Golden Isles, Hallandale, Florida. In recognition of the city’s most-celebrated new resident, the Mayor of Hallandale proclaimed November 19th as “Jim Bishop Day" and the Chamber of Commerce honored the famed writer at its Annual Banquet that day at the Diplomat Country Club. Bishop’s book, “A Day In The Life of President Kennedy,” bore a Hallandale imprint, and he now refers to the Florida city as “myhometown." The Presidential biographer was the last author to be in the White House with John F. Kennedy and the first to be invited to the White House by the Johnsons. Carrying on with his famous, “day in the Life” books, most of which have been national best sellers, Bishop in the Spring of 1967 came out with, “A Day In The Life of President Johnson" (Random House.) The Johnson story is Bishop’s sixteenth book.
Dailey, not seeking election, but running
CHICAGO (UPI) -Mayor Richard J. Daley isn’t up for reelection this year, but he’s campaigning as hard as he ever has in his political life. Daley is campaigning for Chicago. A small television group, with
outlets in five of the nation’s largest cities, and a Chicago television station have offered— and Daley has accepted—to run the mayor’s rebuttal to network television coverage of the disorders during last week’s
Democratic National Convention. But Daley still wants one hour of prime network time which all three major networks have refused him. One group has offered to carry the case to the
Where did all the gang money go—
WASHINGTON (UPI) — Thousands of dollars in war on poverty funds intended to go to Chicago gang members for attending special job training schools ended up instead in the pockets of a few street gangleaders, according to testimony before a Senate invest!gating panel. A government handwriting expert charged Thursday that there was evidence of widespread check forging and fraud in the million-dollar antipoverty project funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). Howard C. Doulder of the
gangleaders. He displayed a vast array of documents he said were obviously forged. Subcommittee Chairman John L. McClellan, D-Ark., said it was obvious that a few leaders of the Blackstone Rangers, a tough South Side Chicago street gang, were pocketing money that should have gone to the gang’s underlings. Me Clellan said the collection of forged checks and other documents would be turned over to the Justice Department for its “urgent attention." He temporarily recessed the hear-
ings and said an executive session would be called soon, presumably to hear from acting OEO Director Bertrand M. Harding and other officials of the agency. McClellan claims the entire $927,341 OEO grant was designed to buy peace in the streets between the Rangers and their rival gang, the Disciples. His panel is probing the manpower training program which was designed to provide basic educational skills to the members of the two gangs. It was administered by Chicago’s Woodlawn Organization.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and a senator who has influence with the commission has gone to bat for the mayor. The American Broadcasting Co. made it unanimous among the three networks Thursday when it denied Daley’s request for one free hour of network time to offer the city’s rebuttal “against unfair and biased" TV coverage of the disorders. ABC, like the National Broadcasting Co. earlier this week, offered Daley a chance to appeal on a panel show. The Columbia Broadcasting system said it met its obligations of fair coverage by giving Daley a half-hour with newscaster Walter Cronkite on the air during the convention. Metromedia Television, which has stations in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Kansas City and Washington, said it intends to air the Daley rebuttal despite a charge of “unprofessionalism" voiced by NBC’s news division chief, Reuven Frank. WGN Continental Broadcast-
U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax i n g Co., owned by the Chicago
Division, told the Senate Permanent Investigations subcommittee a five-month study of $25,193 in checks made out to members of the gang showed clearly that much of the money ended up in the hands of a few
Investigation ordered on 17 Catholic teachers
WASHINGTON (UPI)— The Board of Trustees of Catholic University has ordered an investigation to determine whether 17 faculty members who opposed Pope Paul’s ban on artificial birth control “violated their commitment as teachers." Chairman Carroll A. Hochwalt of St. Louis said the board voted unanimously to direct the acting rector of the school, Fr. John P. Whalen, to make the inquiry. Dr. Hochwalt issued a statement late Thursday night following a six-hour closed session of the board. The trustees said the 17 thelogians, some of whom are laymen, may continue to teach
A
% OF INCREASE 50
Percent of Increase in Consumer Prices vs. Indiana Gas Rates (1947-1967) source Consumer Price Index, U.S. Bureau of Labor
0 1947
INDIANA GAS RATES
1952
1957
1962
1967
JUler m fears, we ially M lo ast lor a raise
Gas makes the Big Difference in your way of living!
Since 1949, despite a 47.6% increase in the cost of living, Indiana Gas Company rates have remained EXACTLY THE SAME. For 19 years, we’ve been able to hold gas rates level by improving our business methods and technology, by increasing our heating customers, and by investing in huge underground storage areas to save on the cost of natural gas. But now, because of increased cost of taxes, labor, materials, interest rates, and a recent increase in the cost of natural gas, we’ve finally had to ask for a modest increase in rates. While we regret the necessity for increasing the cost of gas to any customer, particularly after 19 years of “holding the line,” we find it unavoidable, if we are to continue providing the high quality of service that has become a proud tradition at Indiana Gas Company. Even with this small adjustment in rates, gas will still make “the big difference in your way of living.” Gas costs far less than other forms of energy for heating, cooling, cooking and water heating.
while the investigation is being made if they agree to abstain from making any pubUc statements in opposition to the Pope’s encycUcal on birth control. The board directed that if any of the teachers refuse to make such an agreement, they will continue to receive their salaries but will be suspended temporarily from their academic duties pending completion of the inquiry. Patrick Cardinal O’Boyle, archbishop of Washington, is a member of the board of trustees. Last Saturday he suspended the Rev. T. Joseph O’Donoghue from duties as a parish priest after O’Donoghue spoke from the pulpit on Pope Paul’s ban on artificial birth control. Fifty-one other Washington area priests supported O’Donoghue in opposing the encyclical and said the decision of whether to use artificial means of birth control should be left to the consciences of married couples. O’Boyle gave the 51 priests 10 days in which to recant their opposition or face disciplinary action. Only taxes can save state from financial debt? BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (UPI) — Unless Indiana raises taxes or curtails sharply its general fund expenditures, the state faces an $82.8 million deficit In the fiscal year 1974-75, an ana. lyst believes. John S. Harris, acting director of the fiscal analysis division of the Indiana Legislative Council, wrote in the current issue of Indiana University’s monthly Indiana Business Review ,11^1 the deficit may be $6.1 million in the 1969-70 fiscal year. Harris said the projection was based cm assumptions that the current rate of increase in population will continue and there will be no change in the tax structure. The conclusion is that the state’s unappropriated general fund surplus will be depleted in fiscal year 1969-70, plus or minus one year, unless the 1969 Indiana General Assembly increases taxes, or the rate of growth of general fund expendltures of the past decade is sharply curtailed.
Harris said in the first target year of the long-range projection, fiscal 1969-70, general fund expenditures will exceed revenues by $6.1 million, and in 1974-75, the deficit will equal $82.8 million.
Military wives oust miniskirt
WETHERSFIELD, England (UPI)—Wives have caused “rationing" in the noncommissioned officers’ and airmen’s clubs at the U.S. Air Force Base here. No longer can a male eye appreciate a miniskirt more than four inches above the knee. The clubs’ board of governors issued an order, following wives’ complaints, that club
managers must turn away any woman whose skirt is too short. “I don’t think any of the men would have complained," said one airman. “I should imagine it was some of the wives who put the pressure on." The new rule presented a problem for his wife. “She hasn’t got a miniskirt which comes within the regulations," he lamented.
Tribune, also offered Daley free air time. Both outlets offered other stations videotapes of the presentation. The Chicago Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police (GOP) Thursday said it will file a complaint with the FCC if it is not given the time to rebut the coverage of the disorders on the three networks. Sen. John O. Pastore, D.R.I., chairman of the Senate subcomm i 11 e e on communications, asked the networks from the Senate floor Thursday “to be a little more condescending to the mayor, so the American people can have all the facts.”
PLAN TO ATTEND THE PARKE COUNTY R.E.M.C. ANNUAL MEETINGTHURSDAY EVENING--
Dote: SEPTEMBER 12th Place: 4-H FAIRGROUNDS One mile north of Rockville on U.S. 41 Registor-6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Business Meeting-8:00 p.m. to 8:50 p.m. Entertainmement by Parke County Band and Georgo Bailey, the Man with the Marvelous Memory
Spodal Entertainment for the boys and girls in the Women’s Building
Free Cokes and Crackerjack, and Attendance Prizes
GRAND PRIZESTW0 PORTABLE TV SETS