Evening Star Newspaper, December 9, 1934, Page 24

B4 « THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTO ! Personalities of Presidents’ Wives Center E G BELLS TRAL Of Society Gossip Since Martha Washington STARTSTUESDAY Fredericksburg Leader Is Charged With Poison- ing Wife. By the Assoclated Press. FREDERICKSBURG, Va., Decem- ber 8—One of the strangest crlmlnal’ cases in Old Dominion history will be | detailed here next Tuesday, when Ed- ward C. Bell, prominent church man, business man and a leader in social | and political life, goes on trial on| charges of poisoning and attempting | to poison his wife, who apparently has confidence in her husband’s plea of innocence. Bell, a 60-year-old Baptist deacon, formerly Sunday school superintendent and member of a prominent Virginia family, professed innocence when ar- rested October 10 on information given to the authorities by doctors and nurses who attended Mrs. Bell during an illness. Informed of the charges 24 hours later, Mrs. Bell expressed | confidence that her husband would be exonerated. Indicted on Twelve Counts. Bell was released under $5,000 bond, with his brother, former City Council- man William A. Bell, as surety, but this amount was raised to $10,000 after a grand jury had investigated the | charges and indicted him on 12 counts. | For a time after his arrest Bell lived &t his home. A court order after his indictment caused him to take up his residence with his brother, but he has | frequently taken Mrs. Bell and their daughter Irma on automobile rides about the city, accompanied by nurses. | Fredericksburg, one of America's most historic cities, is agog. The de- fendant is one of the best known men in town. Allegedly Poisoned Food. Bell is charged in the indictment with administering poison to his in- valid wife on six occasions between August 1 and October 8. He is alleged to have placed the poison in food, drink and medicine intended for Mrs. Bell. When arrested he asserted he was, ready for immediate trial without ' counsel. but subsequently retained Wil- | liam W. Butzner, W. Marshall King | and A. W. Embry, jr. More recently C. O'Cenor Goolrick, president of the Virginia State Bar Association and former State Senator, has been added to the array of defense counsel. Albert V. Bryan, youthful and ener- getic commonwealth’s attorney of Al- exandria, has been selected to prose- cute the case, since the retirement of ‘W. B. F. Cole, conmonwealth's attor- ney of Fredericksburg. Neither defense nor prosecution has revealed the procedure contemplated and the public knows nothing of the | evidence to be presented, other than that revealed by the indictment. F i\'e.(‘allfll From Richmond. In addition to witnesses summoned from this vicinity, the prosecution has summoned five from Richmond and | the defense has summoned two from ! Suffolk, Bell having business interests | in the latter city. The Richmond witnesses include ‘Thomas A. Balthis, chemist of the State Department of Agriculture, who appeared before the grand jury; Mrs. Ella McMullin, C. Braxton Valentine, W. F. Bynum and Joseph Donly. The defense witnesses from Suffolk are ‘Willis E. Cohoon, an attorney, and C. A. Costen, paying teller in a bank. So far the prosecution has not re- vealed what motive it will contend was responsible for the alleged poison- | g. Mrs. Bell was seriously ill during the period in which the State contends the poison was administered. Dr. John E. Cole, her physician, summoned | specialists from other cities, who ! diagnosed her condition, and the charge of poisoning followed. Speci- mens of alleged poisons found in Mrs. Bell's food and medicine were ex- hibited before the grand jury and are | held as evidence for the trial. Health Has Improved. Since October Mrs. Bell's health has improved. If convicted the defendant could be sentenced to from 3 to 18 years on each of the 12 counts in the indict- ment. Bell has been a political and busi- ness leader for many years. He is a member of the city Democratic Com- | mittee, register for the upper ward and a stockholder in a furniture com- pany founded by his brother and him- self. Some years ago he retired from | active business. FAIRFAX M. E. CHURCHES ELECT NEW OFFICIALS| Special Dispatch to The Star. FAIRFAX, Va., December 8 —Stew- ards and trustees for the Methodist Episcopal Churches South, under the Fairfax charge have been elected as follows: Fairfax Church—John M. Whalen, Thomas I. Piggott and Harry B. Derr, stewards and trustees; E. McCarty Wiley, Warren G. Hull, and Miss Edna R. Jerman. stewards, and Hunter R. Cupp and F. W. Richard- 60N, trustees, Centerville Church—Clarence L. Fleming and C. Bernard Cross, stew- ards and trustees; Mrs. Fannie Har- rison, Henry J. Hoppe and Harry M. Cross, stewards, and Robert Wrenn, Jr.: J. E. Harrison, Paul K. Gentry and Charles Nichols, trustees. Pender Church—F. M. Allder and Alvin A. Birch, stewards and trustees, and Roy B. Allder, steward, and Syl- vester Fox and G. William Craig, trustees. Andrew Chapel Church—R. Edward Berry and George T. Morris, stewards and trustees; William B. Sanders, John K. Berry and Earl D. Sanders, stewards, and J. Marvin Sanders and Mrs. Lula Roller, trustees. 225,000.000 Years Is Mature Age of New Harvard Egg By the Associated Press. CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Decem- ber 8—A 225,000,000-year-old egg, believed to be the world’s oldest fossil egg, has been found by an expedition of the Harvard University Museum of Compara- tive Zoology in the clay and sandstone “red beds” of North Central Texas. The university announced the find tonight and said the fossil egg was more than double the age of previously known speci- mens, including the famed din- osaur eggs found in the Gobi desert in Asia. Experts of the museum asserted it was un- likely that any “significantly older eggs of terestrial animals will ever be found.” | nude figurines. BY GENEVIEVE FORBES HERRICK. (Copyright. 1934. by North American Newspaper Alliance. Inc.) The next time the crowd’s talking politics, say softly, “And what do you think of Mrs. Roosevelt?” Then sit back and listen to the commotion you've caused. “She talks too much, travels too | much,” shouts one group, including | many women. “She must be a hin- drance to her husband.” “Nonsense. She's a great help to | him,” shouts another group, including | some men. “She keeps her ear to the ground; she knows social condi- tions. Why, she can bring the Presl-; dent news before his cabinet members know what it's all about.” And the battle is on. I suppose more words have been written about Eleanor Roosevelt, more words spoken about her, than about any other First Lady since Martha Washington gave the Nation's first official party. And made the guests all mad by announcing, “the general always retires at 10 o'clock, and I usually precede him by 15 minutes.” Many Semi-Invalids. The spotlight of publicity which turns®on a President’s policies usually focuses on his wife’s personality. In the old days, so many of these wives, worn with the rigors of raising fami- lies, came to the White House semi- invalids. And lived such obscure lives that censure had nothing into which to stick its teeth. Those who did things, whether it was giving tea, or buying a new sofa, were criticized. Usually for purely personal things. For it is only in recent years that a President's wife | dared intimate that she knew or cared anything about her husband's game of politics. Dolly Madison said, “My province begins at the drawing room door.” | But they even criticized her because she spent a thousand dollars a year on her turbans. | Mrs. Polk, for all that she served her husband as secretary, declared primarily: “I never discuss a subject | on which my sex is supposed to be ignorant.” So discreetly silent was his wife, Lucretia, that President Gaefield fre- | quently boasted that he never had to excuse any of his wife's words. Four Criticized Most. Most conspicuously criticized, and for widely different reasons, were the | following four First Ladies: Mrs. Monroe, condemned for her fancy French formality; Mrs. Andrew Jack- son, victim of personal slander; the second Mrs. Tyler, a young girl who went high-hat; the second Mrs. Wil- | son, blamed by her enemies for being president-in-fact during the declining | days of her husband’s ill-health. Where Mrs. Roosevelt's informality is citicized by some, Mrs. Monroe's formality was criticized by many. Mrs. Monroe's first act, on getting to the White House, was to put the servants in livery. “Just like a French court,” sighed the homespun citizens. She even tried to get her husband's cabinet into uniforms, but failed. She shoved up the dinner hour from a simple 4 o'clock to a fashionable 5. “Mrs. Monroe,” her critics said, | “has cosmetics, but no cordiality.” | And when she refused to return calls the neighbors declared they'd | never go to the White House if that’s | the way she felt about it. They stayed away, too, until a Spring day when a | van backed up to the kitchen door of | the mansion and unloaded a lot of | French knick-knacks, collected by the | Monroes during their stay abroad. Ladies Curious About Clocks. Report flew about the town that there were some French clocks deco- rated with—they whispered this— Curiosity got the better of disdain. The ladies all went calling. And found the figurines on the clocks all properly dressed. Poor Mrs. Andrew Jackson thought she was legally divorced from her first husband before she married Jackson. But she wasn't, and there was quite a scandal. It died down, but popped out again when Jackson ran for the presidency. Carefully he kept all news of it from her. After his elec- tion she went shopping for clothes to wear in Washington. Resting in a hotel, she overheard two women in the next room rehashing the sordid story of the campaign, heard the things she had been called. the epi- thets hurled at her husband. She collapsed. And died before in- auguration day. Her husband swore she'd been killed by slander, ‘That was why he sprang to the defense of Peggy O'Neill, who had been a bar-maid in her father’s inn, whose first husband had committed suicide, and who was then wife of Maj. J. H. Eaton, Jackson's Secretary of War. Crisis Precipitated. The cabinet ladies refused to re- ceive her. Jackson made an issue of it; precipitated not only a social but a deep political crisis. In the end, Jackson lost out; Eaton was forced to resign from the cabinet. But Jackson never backed water. Loyalty to Peggy O'Neill was, he reasoned, loyalty to his dead wife. Julia Gardiner was only 20 years old when the widowed President Tyler, a man of 54, married her. Importance went to her head, the older women said. When they went to the White House to pay their re- spects to the gir! bride, they were herded into a parlor and told to wait. Presently in would sail Julia, grace- ful in a trailing gown of royal pur- ple, with three plumes nodding from her head. She would sweep up to tle dais at the end of the room, permit the women to march by and touch her hand. Which made the women most irritated. Julia Tyler was First Lady for only eight months, but they were tempestuous months. More recently, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson brought down on her good- looking head a storm of averse crit- icism when she established herself in her husband’s sick room as, her foes insisted, a quasi-president. And ex- ercised, they maintained, certain im- portant veto powers in political mat- ters which ought to have been vested in elder statesmen, not a wife. These arc the famous four who met the most cruel censure. Many another did not escape it. Wine Glasses Banned. Lucy Webb (Lemonade Lucy) Hayes, a determined teetotaler, banished wine glasses to the attic. The White House steward was chagrined—how to give a dinner to diplomats and not serve the proper wine. By a subterfuge, so it is said, he served orange cups filled with punch. And the punch was spiked. Mrs. Hayes heard of the story, banished the orange cups. Her hus- band, loyal to her mandate, wrote in his diary: “By my order” the orange punch was discontinued. Which gave rise to the story of the colored employe of the White House, who, questioned about a certain Presi- dent he had worked for, scratched his head and remarked: “I disremember de President’s name, suh. He come after Gineral Grant an’ a right smart while before Gineral Garfield was shot.” “You mean President Hayes,” it was suggested. “Yas suh. Dat it. Gineral Hayes. Mrs. Roosevelt riding mountain trails during a Western tour. De gem-man whose wife done run de White House.” Mrs. Taylor smoked a corncob pipe. And was so ridiculed that she fled | to a back parlor and hid herself away from Washington society. Grover Cleveland was a bacheler when he came to the hite House. His sister, Rose, a literary lady, with a boyish bob, was his hostess. And maybe she wasn't criticized, for both | the bob and the literary aspiration. | She is said to have been so bored with State functions that she'd con- Jugrate a Greek verb behind her fan. Then Mr. Cleveland married young Frances Folsom, said to be second in popularity to Dolly Madison. But like Dolly Madison, she didn't escape censure. They said her wedding veil was too long; the guest list too short. And so, through the year, the First Lady of the Land has been “on a spot.” Perhaps Mrs. Coolidge, of all the crowd, came off the most fortu- nately. The others, from Martha ‘Washington to Eleanor Roosevelt, have been toasted on the gridiron of public gossip. Martha ston, twisted a white fichi arou and made it a Roman to of au- y over social affairs, was y and formal. Eleanor Roosevelt, she twists a white scarf around her head and goes tearing around the country, driving her own roadster, eating hot dogs in mining camps, and sewing Blue Eagles on N. R. A. dresses. because she d her neck CHRISTMAS Suggestions Household Department TWO-TUB WASHER AND DRYER $39.50 $1 Weekly KELVINATOR LEONARD Refrigerators PRIMA D. C, DECEMBER 9 DRIVE T COLLECT OLD TAXES URGED Alexandria Mayor Also Pro- poses Check on Personal Property Returns. BY MARSHALL W. BAGGETT, Staff Correspondent of The Star. ALEXANDRIA, Va., December 8.— With City Council faced with the need of more revenue to operate the city in 1935, Mayor Emmett C. Davison's plans for a more stringent enforce- ment of tax collections and a system of checking on personal property re- turns are seen as means of obtain- ing the additional revenue needed without an increase in tax rates. City books at present show ap- proximately $400,000 owed in de- linquent real estate and personal property taxes. Of this amount $84,325.29 is unpaid for the year 1933 and $48,749.61 is unpaid for 1932. On December 31, 1933, however, the total amount of taxes unpaid for last year was $140,667.46, and on Decem- ber 31, 1932, the total delinquent taxes for that year amounted to $72,546.37, the books of City Auditor Charles Jett show. b Figures of the two years indicate that the average amount of delinquent taxes at the end of each year is ap- proximately $100,000. Mayor Davison briefly explained the result of his plan in this way: If an additional $100,000 is needed to .operate the city (the tentative 1935 budget of Acting City Manager E. C. Dunn calls for an increase of ap- proximately $100,000 over the present year's budget), the collection of an additional $100,000 in taxes from the total delinquency would offset the need {of an increased tax rate. The forcing of tax collections, al- ready started to some extent by City Collector Purvis for 1934 delinquent personal property taxes, entails either levying on rents, bank accounts, etc., or sale of property in the case of back real estate taxes, and the obtaining. of civil court judgments or levys for back personal property taxes. City Council is expected to instruct City Attorney Carl Budwesky and Collector Taylor to proceed with en- | forcement of delinquent tax collec- tions at its meeting Tuesday night. Mayor Davison also proposes a sys- tem of checking on personal property | returns that would prevent citizens from valuating their personal prop- | erty effects under the true value. The | system would result in more revenue for the city, it is believed. % from our SPIN-DRY IRONER ROTARY TYPE 3 THE NEW SCOT-FLAT PLATE You sit comfortably at ease when operating the Scot-Iromer. smoothly sliding ironing beard is in the position you like and the garment or piece to be ironed is in place, a touch of the knee contrel brings the irdher face into complete pressure and contact. To release H—a straisht ovement of the hand lever of only seven inches is all that's downward required. $50.50 $10 Extra When the Pay $1 Weekly With Top ARTHUR JORDAN PIANO COMPANY 1239.6 Street ~ Cor.13% NW. 1934—PART O Trial Starts CHARGED WITH PLANNING HUSBAND’S MURDER. MRS. NEOMA SAUNDERS, Charged with paying $10 for the murder of her husband, the Rev. Gaylord V. Saunders, watched with interest the selection of a jury at her trial in Lebanon, Ind. Defense attorneys indicated they would plead temporary insanity. —A. P. Photo. Smoke More U. S. Tobacco. People of Sweden are smoking more American tobacco than at any time since 1924. WEDDING PAIR Both Rings for 197 The engagement ring is modern in every detail. beautiful in an _exquisite 14-kt. d(('Ald mount- ing and a beautiful 3-diamond weddiny band to match. No Money Down—S50c A 8.Cup Urn Sets 597.5 Large, beautiful electric percolator with wooden teardrop handles and faucet for pouring, gener- ous sized sugar and creamer on & gorgeous serving tray. 50c A WEEK quisite. tiful Diamond Solitaire $ Beautiful sentiment—appro- priately expressed in this ex- mounting. ever No Money Down— 50c a Week STREET RENAMING PROGRAM BROAD Arlington County Scheme Also Will Involve Renum- bering of Structures. By a Staff Correspondent of The Star, ARLINGTON COURT HOUSE, Va., December 8.—Uniform numbering of all houses and places of business in Arlington County will accompany the new street renaming program, to get | under way within the month, County Manager Roy 8. Braden said today. Heretofore the names have been given the streets by real estate devel- opers and the numbers, in many cases, served to locate homes or stores only in their small subdivision. The new plan, however, calls for county-wide “identification” of build- ings by their numbers and the names of the streets on which they are lo- cated. Style Here Is Followed. ‘When completed, the naming and numbering system will resemble that now in use in Washington, with num- bered streets running east and west through the county, and streets with names whose initial letters are in alphabetical rotation running north and south. | The new Lee Boulevard is to be the dividing line through the county. Streets paralleling it—that is, running | east and west—on the north will be | known as First Strect North, Second | Street North, and so on. Similar pro- | cedure will be followed in locating First Street South, and so fourth. Starting in the southeastern part of | the county, streets running north and south will be given their names alpha- betically, such as Ames, Birch, etc., with only one syllable. In the next alphabet, as the naming of streets pro- ceeds westward, names of two syllables will be used; in the next, three, and 50 on. Division Point Fixed. North of Lee Boulevard the streets will be known as North Adams street, North Bryan street, and below the boulevard the prefix will be changed to “South.” In the numbering of houses, a num- ber is to be allotted to each 25-foot lot, and in business sections to every 1213~ foot lot. ‘Well known highways, such as Glebe road, Columbia Pike and Lee Highway will retain the names by which they have become known. LONG TOLD HIS PLACE IS AMONG COMMUNISTS By the Associated Press. LAKE CHARLES, La., December 8. —T. Arthur Edwards, Lake Charles attorney and former chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, | today told Senator Huey Long his “proper place is among the Com- munists.” He warned Long that under his dic- tatorship of party affairs in Louisiana there was a threat of the rise of Re- publican rule in the Democratic State. Asserting that Long was “not a legally constituted” member of the Democratic State Central Committee, Edwards advocated court action to oust him from the committee chair- manship which Long assumed Thurs- day after deposing his enemy, Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley of New Orleans. Edwards said that elections which Long calls for Democratic candidates might be attacked by the Republicans as illegal. . Jobless Problem Eases. Registered unemployed in the United Kingdom number less than at any time in four years. 10-Piece DRESSER SET - *8 Other Dresser Sets Up to $33 PAY 50c WEEKLY! gL SN SR L7 Ladies’ Fitted OVERNIGHT CASE fitted case eling requisite. 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