The Item from Sumter, South Carolina (2024)

January 5, 1960

Publication:

The Itemi

Location:

Sumter, South Carolina

Issue Date:

Tuesday, January 5, 1960

Page:

1

Extracted Article Text (OCR)

The 'South arolinisna Libry Oniv of 2S9-9160 Columbia THE ITEM Is Served By The Associated Press ter Nevs Service Correspondents A Service fernte Itrea THE SUMTER DAILY ITEM WEATHER SOUTH CAROLINA: Mostly cloudy this afternoon and to- night with chance of a little snow or sprinkles of rain northwest portion Lowest in the 30s Wednesday cloudy with rain likely VOL 66 SUMTER TUESDAY AFTERNOON JAN 5 1960 NO 69 FOUNDED OCT 15 1894 12 PAGES TODAY FIVE CENTS A COPY Italian Commuter Train At Least 25 Die In Wreck for the stretch where the derail- A 27-foot length of rail had knifed ment occurred The train ap-1 through the coach stabbing peared to be going about 45 miles through a catholic priest and two see from one car to the next The overhead electric cables which power the electric locomotives on the line snapped like violin strings Passengers had to pick their way carefully through them to get away from the crawled through windows to get clear The sixth coach was pulled from the rails but remained upright Only the last four coaches stayed on the rails Fog was so thick you couldn't other passengers The fifth coach skidded on its left side for 100 yards Many of its passengers were bruised and some were badly injured They By LUCIANO FERRARI MONZA Italy A jammed 10-car commuter train sped into a curve today and the locomo-and five cars hurtled from the rails into a tangle of wreckage Some five hours later 25 dead had been counted the Transport Ministry announced but it was believed more bodies would be found The ministry said about 100 persons were injured The accident occurred in dense tog about two miles north of the station in this auto-racing capital of Italy Monza is about 10 miles northeast of Milan The Transport Ministry said preliminary investigation indicated the accident was caused by the failure of the engineer to observe an hour The engineer was among those killed and his helper was seriously injured There were about 1000 passengers on the train most of them factory or office workers on their way to jobs or students The second coach filled with workmen turned upside down The third car hurtled into the air and landed on the roof of a two-story factory 100 feet from the tracks A few survivors crawled out Inside there were many injured shouting for help RAIL KNIFES THROUGH The fourth coach flipped on its AP Correspondent Aboard Tells Of Terrifying Crash Editor' Luciano Ferrari a correspondent for The Associated Press in Milan Italy was a passenger on the commuter train which derailed tn Monza today By LUCIANO FERRARI the coach pointing skyward I looked and saw that the rail had pierced and killed three passengers in that coach One was a Roman Catholic priest It was just as though a child had stuck a wire through a thin paper toy I see the third coach (Continued On Pago 11) O-mile-an-hour speed limit setslde and bounced upright again Steel Pact Stirs Political Guessing "ft ft the vice presidential nom- MONZA Italy (AP) I was going to work on the regular Son-drio-Monza-Milan commuter train this morning with hundreds of others who ride it every day Without warning the terrifying crash happened I was in a compartment of the fifth coach with three young girls and two students The girls were chatting The students were reading newspaper accounts of the funeral of Fausto Coppi great bicycle racer who died Saturday Suddenly as the coach inclined on a curve the girls were hurled into our laps Then for what seemed several long seconds there was a violent crashing and grinding sound a gigantic scraping of steel on steel This seemed to continue for several hundred yards Now the coach was on it side and we were all piled together The coach continued to grind along The girls screamed Only one of them had a slight bruise We crawled out of shattered windows on our stomachs along the ground to get clear of the wreckage We had no idea of the extent of the crash Fog was so thick you could scarcely see the coach ahead Then I saw it It had apparently also scraped along on its side and then bounced back on its wheels I could scarcely believe what I saw A railroad rail stuck out of -'V i By STERLING GREEN WASHINGTON The steel labor bought for the next I Mi years at a billion-dollar loosed today a flood of political conjecture and stirred hew misgivings over inflation The stock of Vice President Richard Nixon and Secretary of Labor James Mitchell soared as a possible Republican ticket in the November election Suddenly illuminated by the political spotlight Mitchell told questioners "I know and I whether the wage pact he announced Monday enhanced his chance of becoming V' 1 Aw Ike Ends acation AUGUSTA Ga (AP) President Eisenhower is ending his Dixie vacation today and flying back to Washington to consult with his Cabinet and present his program to an election-year congress Eisenhower will meet with the Cabinet Wednesday morning They will run through the State of the Union message he will deliver to Congress in person Thursday The message will lay down in broad outlines the administration's program and legislative plans for the year The budget to provide the financing a balanced affair calling for record peacetime spending of 81 billion dollars goes to Congress Jan 18 A few tag ends of the budget message still have to be tucked in The budget will be followed on Jan 20 by annual report to Congress on the economic outlook THE EXCITEMENT? Mark Franz Johnson just get excited about winning the 1960 Baby Derby rather sleep in his arms Mark Franz born at Tuomey Hospital at 2:37 Friday morning was declared official winner of the derby today and will receive a number of merchandise prizes His parents are Mr and Mrs Franz Johnson 12 White Oak Pk (Staff photo bv Ruth Crowson) Dems To Blame Nixon If Inflation Follows Finch Trial By JACK BELL WASHINGTON (AP) Congressional Democrats poised to-day to pounce on any steel price ttcrease as a Nixon-approved contribution to inflation The discordant note of a possible price hike chilled some of the fanfare of jubilant announce carry the Kefauver said PRICE LIFTS Steel magazine said price increases are inevitable It estimated the boost in steel-making costs at $16 a ton over the life of the new contract It predicted increases will be made on a selective basis with the industry avoid- Jurors See Slaying Site ments Monday that the steel dis- ing across the board boosts HALF-HOLIDAY ON WEDNESDAY RESUMED HERE Members stores of the Sumter Merchants Assn begin Wednesday afternoon closing tomorrow General policy is for Wednesday afternoon closings January through August except for the Wednesday before Easter and before school opens with Wednesday a full day September through December However some businesses follow a half-day Wednesday schedule almost year-round and as a rule advertise indi-vidual policy pute had been settled on terms proposed by Vice President Richard Nixon and Secrtary of Labor James Mitchell Mitchell said he sees no need for Blough himself estimated the new contract will cost the industry over one billion Because Nixon and Mitchell Five Escape Hospital For Criminally Insane an Immediate steel price rise made the proposals finally ac-Similariy Chairmen Roger Slough cepted by the steel companies and of US Steel Corp and Joseph the unions Democrats are certain Block of Inland Steel said they plan no general price increase in the immediate future But Blough said competitive and other factors might compel a change later With this possibility in mind Sen Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn) Fsgved notice the Senate Antitrust SPd Monopoly subcommittee he heads will keep a sharp eye on any price rises The group previously has investigated steel pricing practices hope there will be no price increase to force the consumer to mee The stock market spurted and officials issued bolder forecasts of 1960 prosperity as the settlement engineered secretly by the Nixon-Mitchell team erased fears of another economy-crippling stike by the 500000 United Steelworkers NO "IMMEDIATE" BOOSTS Steel Industry leaders forecast no price boosts to crank up the wage-price spiral But Chairman Roger Blough of Steel Corp who put the billion-dollar cost tag on the agreement said it hardly be regarded as There were no such misgivings in the union camp USW President David McDonald told cheering steelworkers in Buffalo Monday night they could know that victory is theirs A band played "Happy Days Are Here as McDonald strode into a rally of 5000 unionists to inform them the contract is a 40 per cent better wage-and benefit package than the last offer We emerge from these negotiations with the greatest contract the best conditions the steelworkers have ever he proclaimed Formal disclosure of he precise contract terms waited on some ratification by individual companies and by the union's wage policy board Secretary Mitchell tiredly describing the pact as the "most feasible and practical solution that is possible at this said there was no question whatsoever that the approvals would be given Unofficially it was learned the 30 month contract package amounts to about 40 cents an hour with fringe benefits effective at once and 7-cent hourly wage boosts taking effect in late 1960 and late 1961 WORK RULES COMPROMISE The industry gave up its demand for the sole right to change work rules McDonald had branded this a union-busting device The issue will be studied by a joint whose findings will not be binding The union won sizable pension improvements and a limited form of cost-of-living wage escalation The companies will pay the whole cost of medical and hospital Insurance previously shared by workers and employers The companies swallowed this package reluctantly Mitchell said he and Nixon in perhaps a dozen meetings over the past month won their assent by painting a realistic picture of the al He listed the alternatives: An other agonizing shutdown the prospect that a later settlement would be a high or action by Congress forcing a set- of them had been working at the hospital two in the laundry and another in maintaining the hospital grounds appears that the men obtained a key from a set of keys in the criminal building that were assigned to a person who had been off Dr Sikes said He added that from the evidence the men broke into the laundry and got a key to the ward where Miss Cook was housed and released her Most of the men had been at the hospital for about 18 months The woman had been sent to the hospital about nine months ago Dr Sikes said and had been adjudged unable to plead to a bill of indictment charging murder RALEIGH Four men in the criminally insane division and a woman escaped early today from Dorothea Dix (State) Hospital here presumably in a stolen car Dr A Sikes hospital superintendent said the four men obtained a key released themselves from the criminally insane building and then freed the woman from a ward in the main building He identified the group as Dexter Edge 22 Catawba County James Mears 32 Augusta Ga Russell Taylor 26 Cumberland Clarence Penley 22 Caldwell: and Farry Lee Cook 26-year-old Moore County woman Dr Sikes said he did not con- her with the attache case In the vicinity of the garage Mrs Finch drove into the garage and stopped her car one of the defendants stepped into the garage and struck her with a pistol She screamed and resisted There was a This Whichello said was interrupted by the arrival of Mrs Swedish maid Marie Ann Lidholm 19 He said Mrs Finch fled was pursued shot and died on the lawn of a neighboring home The pistol which killed her was never found Dr Finch listened calmly as the prosecution launched its case Miss Tregoff clad in a light blue shirtwaist dress was also calm But her left hand kept clenching and unclenching In a dry college-professor voice Whichello described the contents of the attache case he said would be identified as the doctor's He said it contained an 8-inch carving knife two lengths of clothesline an ampule of seconal (a sleep-inducing drug) a bottle of seconal tablets a flashlight two hypodermic needles and two syringes a rubber sheet and a box of 38 caliber cartridges combination of he said not customarily carried by to try to tag the vice president and the cabinet member with the liability for any resulting rises in the cost of living index Nixon has counted on his chair manship of the Eisenhower Cabin et Committee for Price Stability and Economic Growth as a post from which he could contend that he was effective steps to halt rising living costs Other Democrats contended the administration should have acted as it did much earlier Sen John Kennedy (D-Mass) an announced candidate for his party's presidential nomination said that the President seen fit to use more vigorously the powers of his office at an early date thousands of steelworkers and their families would probably not have lost millions of dollars in wages through the protracted BLAMES ADMINISTRATION Sen Stuart Symington (D-Mo) who is regarded as available for the presidential nomination said if the Republican administration Fuel Oil Price Up By DIAL TORGERSON LOS ANGELES (AP) The Finch murder trial shifts today to the scene of suburban violence that brought it about The jury gets a look at the spot where Barbara Jean Finch 36 died last July 18 her skull fractured thrice and a bullet in her back Her husband Dr Bernard Finch and his mistress auburn-haired Carole Tregoff are accused of conspiracy and murder The prosecution charges they plotted Mrs death because she stood in the way of their and was demanding a big share of community property she estimated at $750-000 Dep Dist Atty Fred Which-ello told the jury in his opening statement that Finch and Miss Tregoff went to his estranged wife's home with a device which would kill and leave the cause undetected: a 50cc hypodermic syringe 50ce hypodermic syringe is adaptable to produce death by an air Whichello stated explaining that an injection of such a quantity of air into the bloodstream bring about death and not be demonstrable as to cause by an Mrs death however was a violent bloody one The needle and syringe unused were found in an attache case near the Finch home in West Covina Whichello charged Monday that the murder was the result of a year-long illicit affair between Dr Finch a handsome 41-year old tennis player and the 23-year-old ex-model who was once his receptionist Whichello said the doctor and Miss Tregoff had shared three different including one in Las Vegas Nev where the doctor was arrested July 19 murder was committed by premeditation and lying in the prosecutor said the time Mrs Finch returned to her home tlje defendants were waiting for sider the group dangerous Three iT)le esc3P pacf about 12:40 am Dr Sikes said a 1951 Chevrolet belonging to one of the hospital employes was missing and presumably stolen by the group The State Highway Patrol immediately broadcast a statewide alarm together with descriptions of the five Miss Cook a tiny woman weighing less than 100 pounds told officers last May she shot her father 70-year -old Robert Lee Cook because he kept her isolated at their dilapidated farmhouse on Rt 1 Aberdeen She said he allowed her no friends and would not let her off the property Her mother was dead Broad St Residents Are Heard Broad Street property owners represented the majority of citizen attendance at the open meeting conducted by the Sumter Planning and Zoning Commission this morning at City Hall Some By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Small increases in fuel oil prices have been reported in the Caro-linas at the most a half-cent on coast and slightly less per Hon inland It depends on whether the oil Legionnaires Hear Adjutant Of Department Reasons for becoming a Legionnaire were outlined by Department Adjutant Page Nelson Keesee (Lt Cmdr Ret) at last meeting of Sumter Post 15 American Legion Commander I Mercer presided at a business meeting which preceeded supper Opening prayer was by Chaplain Holladay Fair Committee Chairman McCracken reported a fairly successful operation last fall considering adverse weather conditions Go-Getters were presented pins for obtaining 10 or more members before December 31 They are Thurston Bagnal Creech Wilson Stange George Levy Robert Jenkins Doug Purdy Holladay Werber Bryan Robbie Johnson I Mercer Lang Hogon Jr Oral Cox John Hoar Louis War-mouth John Dawson Herma nEar-gle Edgar Hobbs Robert LeNoir and Colclough Sanders Renewals are now due and the post should get approximately 200 more members Service Relief Committee Chairman Bryan requested Legionnaires to let him know of any job openings which might be filled by veterans looking for work Bryan also reminded that veterans and dependents receiving pensions must make a report to the Veterans Administration this month He said his office will assist in filing these reports He urged all Legionnaires to register and vote Geoge Levy program chairman introduced Keesee who exhorted Post 15 to continue its excellent civic programs in this had heeded the advice ofDemo- crats and stepped into the bar- oiine gaining earlier bil- Esso put the increases in effect ll0ns of doUars in wages- Profits CARMICHAEL CANINE OBEDIENCE SCHOOL and production might have been Similar views were expressed by Sens Mike Mansfield (D-Mont) and A Mike Monroney (D-Okla) Sens Kenneth Keating (R-NY) Alexander Wiley (R-Wis) and Winston Prouty (R-Vt) called in separate statements for a search for better methods of handling wage disputes in basic industries But Sen Barry Goldwater fR- dozen-odd businessmen were present for the meeting which lasted less than an hour Chairman Robert Moses presided and Commission members present were Harry Demosthenes Mrs Nelle Milling Hodge DuRant and DuBose Mr Moses outlined briefly some of the major amendments recommended in the City Zoning Ordinance and David Maney planner explained at some length the changes which have been recommended in the zoning map of the city James Cuttino was the first of the citizens group to speak and he urged that Broad Street be rezoned for business He also contended that the proposed two or more acre shopping center zones would not be feasible and concluded that as matters now stand Broad Street property (residential) in most instances Is practically worthless Mr Moses interjected that only 40 per cent of the area on Broad Street which is zoned for business uses is now so used NEW FUNERAL HOME today in the Carolinas Its Charlotte prices are 157 cents a ballon for kerosene and 145 for fuel oil Cities Service was to raise its prices Thursday in line with levels a Raleigh spokesman indicated Charlotte office described the increases as a seasonal fluctuation affected by aviation fuel demands for jet planes Mobiloil prices were increased tn December Most other major oil companies said no changes were scheduled foe immediate announcement however they are expected to follow with an increase SUMTER SUPPLY SHIPPED In South Carolina the half-cent hike applies to Charleston Florence and served by water terminals Spartanburg also reported some half-cent increases LOUISIANA NAMES Iong successor Saturday Pg No 1 oil going to 16 cents a gal- GOOD FORTUNE reveals true friends Pg 4 Ion Three major firms at Greens- RAMBERT TEA honors bride-elect boro raised fuel oil prices from C(NC inn ATI RULES basketball world 143 to 146 cents a gallon with Ariz) said that "probably the "and in a presidential greatest thing the settlement will i ejection year you can conjure up produce will be no (Continued On Pago II) 8 Mrs Thurmond Seriously 111 WASHINGTON (AP) Doctors describe the condition of Mrs Jean Thurmond wife of Sen Strom Thurmond (D-SC) as serious She has reentered a hospital the National Institutes of Health at Bethesda Md The attractive wife of the senator was operated on in September for a brain tumor and seemed to have recovered Thurmond said Monday Thurmond took a turn for the worse over the weekend and doctors advised that she return to the National Institutes of Health Doctors described her condition as FHA Bids In Myron Manor COLUMBIA The Federal Housing Administration itself has submitted the winning bid on Myron Manor apartments here on which it guaranteed a $1327000 mortgage in 1948 It got the apartments by bidding $510000 just $5000 more than the builders and operators offered A judgment filed in October showed $1078465 due on the mort-gate The FHA said payments had not been made in several months Oh Lucky Them LOS ANGELES Die RC Madlock family was puzzled by the note left at the front door It said: have just won a 19-year supply of Christmas But the big surprise was at the hack door When Mrs Madlock went out to hang up the washing I she found the backyard contained 19 eUffoeiy used Gbrifftmaa treat The Item was informed by a reliable Washington source this morning that a second operation would be performed on Mrs Thurmond at noon today kerosene at two places going up i EISENHOWER TRIP to South American may dramatize from 156 to 159 program for improving relationships Pg 12 In Charleston where pre increase prices were 18 2 cents for kerosene and 174 cents for No 1 fuel oil an oil source said the increase was the third in as many pumths 10 4 WoW UE 'p foP IT WOiiLP Her parents Mr and Mrs Hor-Thomas Dabbs also Spoke brief- jace Crouch of Elko and a saying that he had a specific er who is a Maryland physician (Continued On Pe 11) are with bar.

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785,663

Years Available:

1894-2017