Evening Star Newspaper, September 15, 1935, Page 27

PRETTYMAN AGAIN ASKS NEW COURTS Repeats Plea in Annual Re- port in Effort to Break Legal Jam. Recommendations for revision of the District judicial system to expedite the great flood of minor cases now taken directly to Police and Traffic Courts are renewed by Corporation Counsel Prettyman in his annual report sub- mitted yesterday to the District Com- missioners. He referred to his previously voiced suggestions of a modified system oH magistrate courts and for changes ml operation of the Traffic Court. Experiences in Traffic Court dunnz‘ the recent campaign ordered by Com- missioner Hazen against reckless and fast drivers, he declared, illustrate pres- ent difficulties. “The effect upon accidents and fatalities,” he said, “was instantaneous end amazing. But the small Traffic Court has been almost unbearably Jammed during this time. Long waits by police officers and witnesses have been necessary. Efforts Cannot Be Sustained. “On the first court day of the drive it was after 6 o'clock when court ad- Jjourned. In my opinion, police efforts cannot be sustained for extended periods under these conditions, and such efforts ought to be a regular routine, persistently followed year in and year out; at least the facilities should be readily available for such policy and practice.” he said. Prettyman has recommended estab- lishment of four or more magistrate courts to be situated in police precinct. stations. These would handle all minor cases. Appeals could be taken to Police or Traffic Courts. During the past year some 54,000 cases have been heard by Police and Traffic Courts. Adoption of magistrate courts, he argued, would drastically cut the figure. He has suggested establishment of & night Traffic Court to facilitate traffic cases, saving time which now must be taken off regular duty by policemen to attend court. This plan met Wwith | disfavor of judges and a committee of District officials pursuaded the Com- missioners to abandon the magistrate court plan until the next session of Congress. New Bill Would Enlarge Power. A new bill to enlarge the powers of | the Commissioners is being prepared | for consideration next session, Pret(y- | man told the Commissioners. The controversial elements of last vear's | bill are being eliminated. Among those were proposals to place the various citizens’ boards, such as the Board of Education, under the direct .and complete control of the Com- | missioners. Enactment of a measure to set up & more modern system of handling lunacy cases will be proposed for the next session, Prettyman said. It was presented to Congress last session but | failed of action. It calls for creation ©of a commissioner on mental health who would decide on commitments to St. Elizabeth’s or Gallinger hospitals, now handled by lunacy juries in Dis- | trict Supreme Court. There would be | provisions for appeals and for court | trials when demanded by mmesmd! parties. One purpose would be to avoid pub- licity for cases. Another would be to | have a group of experts to pass on | commitments instead of a jury of lay- | men. Permanent appointment of a legis- Iative drafting assistant to the cor- | poration counsel also was urged, be- cause of the high percentage of the counsel’s time which now must be de- voted to such work. INSURANCE MANAGER | PLUNGES TO DEATH Wife in Nearby Office, Ignorant of Tragedy, Sees Ambulance Arrive. By the Associated Press. SEATTLE, September 14.—Marion L. Cummings, 52, district manager of s life insurance company, plunged to his death from an office building last night. His body was found on the roof of an adjoining building. Coroner Otto A. Mittelstadt said Cummings apparently fell or leaped from the roof or from a window | high up. Cummings’ bride of a year, the former Miss Helen Savage of La Jolla, Calif, was in his office in another building waiting for him with two of his three sons by a former marriage. Bhe watched & crowd collect in the | street and saw an ambulance arrive, | ignorant of her husband's fate. . Defective Vision Bars 15 Per Cent As Safe Drivers Doctor Cites Tests of Normal Ability in Medical Journal. By the Assoclated Press. ST. LOUIS, September 14.—Fifteen per cent of American motorists, a scientific investigation has shown, are not safe drivers because they can't see well enough. Dr. R. E. Mason, in a report in the current issue of the journal of the Mid- souri State Medical Association, re- lated the experiments which led him | to that conclusion. With the aid of a police lieutenant who stood in the road as a target, the ophthalmologist found a driver with normal vision at night can see a dark- clothed pedestrian at 150 feet. A driver with vision 60 per cent of normal cannot see the pedestrian until he is 78 feet away." Traveling at 50 miles an hour, an average driver, according to a chart in the report, cannot stop an auto- mobile in less than 144 feet, a safe margin of 6 feet for the normaliy- visioned motorist. Hypotheticaliy, the driver with 60 per cent vision could not stop in time to avoid striking the pedestrian. These results prompt Dr. Mason to the conclusion that no one should drive an automobile who has a vision of less than 85 per cent of normal in one eye and 50 per cent in the other. About 85 per cent of Americans can meet this requirement. A survey showed that most States have no minimum visual requirements before issuing a license to drive an automobile. Several, including Ohio, Minnesota, Maryland and New York, ! have requirements more severe than “thase suggested. | picked up by a farmer and taken to | had lain there more than two hours. | mond? | me so much. | body was lying in the street. His | coming after London and New York. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON Contrast in Architecture A striking contrast in architecture may be noted in this unique camera view of the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas, Forty-eighth street and Fifth avenue, New York, with Rockefeller Center buildings in back- ground, the tallest of which (on left) is the home of the National Broadcasting Co. Victims N !Cnnnnucd From First Page. that. We had just reached a point | in the road where it suddcnlv nar~ rows from three to two headlights loomed out oI mp mg‘ about 15 or 20 feet away. That was | the last thing I remember. Some time later I regained consciousness. | I was sprawled out in the road. Our car had collided head-on with a | truck loaded with beer. It had rolled over and over for about 40 feet. ‘When I regained consciousness, I saw | it resting on its top. My arm must | have been crushed in one of those revolutions. My elbow was found later in the road. I lay there bleed- | ing. A crowd gathered around. No | one would touch me. They thought | I was dying. By the time I was the infirmary at Fort Humphreys I Mrs. Olga Hartnett, 612 M street, southwest. Reporter—You remember me? Mrs. Hartnett—VYes. Reporter—That was the day your boy— Mrs, Hartnett | R eporter— That's what I want you to tell me about. What you remember. If other people knew what you have suffered— Mrs. Hartnett | —T don't like to | talk about it. R eporter—I| understand. But there’s a chance, Mrs. Hartnett, that what you tell me—some little phrase, some little thing you remember, may prevent some other mother's little | boy from— | Mrs. Hartnett—But what is there | to say? Heaven knows I'd say it. Reporter—How old was little Ray- Mrs. Hartnett. Mrs. Hartnett—He was 3. Reporter—How many other chil- dren have you? Mrs. Hartnett—There are four. Not like Raymond, though. He loved Reporter—That made you think of | something. What was it? Remembers Babyhood. Mrs. Hartnett—Even when he was a baby—I don't know. He wouldn't even let his father give him his bottle. | It had to be me. When he was older —he was always tugging at my skirt | while T was in the kitchen, begging | for bread with butter spread on it. I don't even have a picture of him. Reporter—Did you have much trouble with him running into the | street? Mrs. Hartnett—Every mother does. Reporter—Is that the reason you had the strap put on the gate out there? Mrs. Harnett—Yes. But—but he | must have learned to unfasten it. Reporter—When the truck struck him, Mrs. Hartnett, how long had he been out of your sight? Mrs. Hartnett—Five minutes. I was in the back of the house. He hugged me. He said he was going out to play. Reporter—And then? Body Lying in Street. Mrs. Hartnett—Some one ran in. | They told me Raymond was run over. I ran to the front door. I| couldnt go any farther. His little | head was crushed. There was blood. I fainted. When I came to, they had taken him away. Reporter—When you saw him lying there, didn't you want to pick him up? Mrs. Hartnett—No, he was not my baby—then, I can’t talk of it. Every minute in the day—every time I hear & truck go by— Reporter—Perhaps if there hadn't been cars parked there the truck driver might have seen, him. People drive too fast by parked cars. Mrs. Hartnett—Yes. Reporter—Did any one see little Raymond when he was struck? Mrs. Hartnett—Yes. Mary did. She's only 5. Come here, Mary. 1,000,000 in Hamburg. Hamburg, second largest city in Germany, has a population of over 1,000,000. The oldest city, with its canals, beautiful with ancient mem- ories of Bismarck, Heine, Lessing and Brahms, its native composer, is the third greatest seaport of the world, —Wide World Photo. NEW WAYS SOUGKT = 10 AID BACKWARD Child Welfare Head Would Change Schoo! Methods, Help Pupils. Improvement of public school meth- ods in handling cases of backward or problem children is needed, Miss| Patricia Morss, chief of the Child Wel- | fare Division of the District, yester- day informed the Commissioners in her annual report. “Our school system has made it practically impossible to obtain voca- tional work unless the fifth or sixth grades have been completed,” she said. “Many retarded children become dis- couraged before this is possible for | them. In the commitments of truants of this type, the child frequently re- mains on in institutional care for the special purpose of obtaining that which is closed to him in the school system.” Miss Morss cited cases intended.to show that pupils who have got into trouble after retarded progress in school would have been benefited by vocational training instead of being kept In regular curriculum classes. New Arrangement Satisfactory. Adoption of & new arrangement be- tween her office and Juvenile Court in making social service investiga- tions of delinquency cases is produc- ing desirable results, she said. This had reference to a plan for making such studies after the court has made | adjudication, but before disposition is ortlered. “The Division of Child Welfare now more optimistic than at any | other time in the history of the rela- tionship of the court and the Board of Public Welfare about the procedure to be used for sound treatment of these cases,” Miss Morss said Revision of the plan of licensing | commercial boarding homes for ch‘lfl wards was urged by Miss Morss in | criticizing the Health Department re- | garding housing standards. She said her division often was in open dis- | agreement with the health office. Wants Authority In Board. “The insistence on definite stand- i ards in the construction and equip- ment of the home is often without regard to the other needs of the chil- dren and may cut them off from spe- cial opportunities * * * In view of the fact that many children in commercial boarding house homes are not under | the supervision of children’s agencies and therefore only protected on the physical side of their needs, early at tention should be given to placing the licensing authority in the Board of Public Welfare, which is equipped to use more inclusive bases for deter- mining fitness,” she said. ‘There were 1,187 children under the care of the division at the end of the | past fiscal year, compared with 1337 at the end of tie previous fiscal year, she said. sl ATeee PRt ‘High Motor Road. Austria’s highest motor road, the Grossglockner Alpine Highway, which at 9,000 feet altitude has a tunnel 1,000 feet long, has had many travelers since its recent opening. The New Orgatron Can Be Seen and Heard Daily " at the Kitt Studios of Musie 1330 G St. This wonderful new instrument with the tonal aspects of a pipe organ, although it has no pipes, has won the highest acclaim from listeners everywhere and we predict that it will very shortty be found in a great many schools, homes, and churches where cost has heretofore prevented the enjoyment of this splendid type of musie. cost the Orgatron requires no specialized service, is easily mastered by anyone familiar occupies less space than a gran Homer L. 1330 G Street HOME OF THE V.F. W.TO DEMAND HURRICANE PROBE Van Zandt Charges Veter- ans Were Sent to Keys to Halt Bonus March. By the Associated Press. NEW ORLEANS, September 14.— Comdr. James E. Van Zandt of the Veterans of Forelgn Wars charged here tonight that scores of veterans who lost their lives in the Florida keys hurricane last Labor day had been sent to the key camps from ‘Washington to forestall another bonus demonstration in the National Capital. Van Zandt and other early arriving delegates predicted the disaster in the | veteran camps would have a major place in floor discussions during the thirty-sixth annual convention, open- ing here tomorrow, taking rank with the always-featured bonus question. The Florida delegation will present resolutions for a further broad investi- gation of the hurricane deaths, coupled | with specific recommendations to pre- vent a recurrence. Made Certificates Payable. | The commander said he considered it “ironic” that veterans who had gone to Washington in behalf of the bonus had, by their deaths in the hur- ricane, made their own bonus certifi- | cates immediately payable. | “It is a well-known fact,” said Van | Zandt, “that a majority of the men | on the Florida keys were veterans who assembled in Washington with the hope their presence might stimulate | favorable action in Congress on the bonus bill. “It is also well known that admmxs- tration authorities were anxious to| avoid a repetition of the 1932 bonus army situation and the congregation | of perhaps thousands of veterans in | the Capital. | “As a result, veterans who arrived in Washington were given the oppor- tunity of food, clothing and lodging in veterans' camps in Florida oper- ated under F. E. R. A. control under | policies similar to the C. C. C. camps. | cts Payment Demand. Expe | Van Zandt said he expected his | organization to again unanimously go on remrd for immediate cash bonus 'ment. Referring to {riction be- meen bonus advocates, the com- mander added “I will tell the true story of the | bonus fight on the convention floor. | We will be more than glad to co- operate with the Legion or any other organization in support of any bonus legislation which has a chance to pass Congress.” | The streets of New Orleans resound- | ed to the notes of martial music as | thousands of veterans arrived for the | thirty-sixth annual encampment of | the organization. | While the program’ does not open officially until tomorrow, when the Japanese delegation will be welcomed on their arrival by train. hotel lobbies were crowded with veterans and their wives as preliminary meetings got under way. A militant demand for world’ peace and strict neutrality for the United | States in the event of a foreign war will be the keynote of the convention, Van Zandt said. Senator Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota, chairman of the Senate Com- |mittee on Munitions Investgations |and co-author of the neutrality bill, will speak on Monday. | —_— Tug Worker Killed. NORFOLK, Va., September 14 (#). —Clarence Joseph Crosby, 36, of Nor- folk died today while at work in the | botler room of the tug Stillwell at the Norfolk Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. Dr. C. D. J. MacDonald, city coroner, . said he believed Crosby, who was em- | ployed on the Stillwell, was accident- | ally electrocuted by & light cable. An inquest will be held Tuesday. | FALL SPECIAL Ringlets Ringlets | GUARANTEED | PERMANENT TONIC OIL WAVE & $2 INCLUDING ® Shampoo Before © Shampoo After ® Tonie Oil Wave Hair Trim ¢ Finger Wave BEAUTY BOX (Opp. Garfinekel's—Over Velati's) 609 14th Street N.W. PHONE MET. 7225 Open Every Evening. Not s School. In addition to it’s low initial with the plano keyboard and d piano. Kitt Co. KNABE PIANO D. C, SEPTEMBER 15, 1935—PART ONE. We Are Having Our Own Home Improvement Plan Big things are taking place here in our Golden Anniversary Year. Fifty years old in experi- ence—but fifty years young in ideas and ideals. A wonderful transformation is taking place under the Gold Dome. expansmn of store service—to keep the Home of “Furniture of Merit”’ attractive store in which to shop. Improvcments in store facility; what it should be—the most You won't mind the noise and hub-bub which is unavoidable during this extensive rejuvenation. There's no interruption to business—and we are compensating with extraordinary values at interesting prices that you will appreciate—and of which you will want to take advantage in putting your own house in order, Wonderful Living Room Group —and more wonderful still when you contrast its pleasing design and superior quality with the very low price. effective patterns Sofa and armchair of the London club type, covered in genuine mohair frieze, in a choice of $ I 2 9 Another outstanding value 4.Piece Bed Room Suite 379 Pleasing design, exceptionally good con- struction. Suite you'll live with happily Park your car on the parking lot opposite the Store on Eye St. Four-piece Bedroom Suite A combination of mahog- any veneers and crotch ma- hogany panels—brought to that beautiful egg-shell fin- ish so expressive of refine- ment and quality. Note the perfectly proportioned pieces. A touch of the modern 4.Piece Bed Room Suite The better type of modern—that is tak- ing its place among the sterling standards. Butt walnut veneers . —ccooaceccacicaaa 139 Imposing 9-piece Dining Suite You want to be careful to select a design in Dining Suites that will hold your fa- vor—and this one will— whether you want to furnish a large or small dining room. Selected woods, beautifully carved—and built to our standards—even if the price is only— 5139 Our Costless Credit Plan is based on real accom- modation—to make buying easy and paying easier Housk & HERRMANN “Furniture of Merit” Seventh and Eye Streets 8433-35 Ga. Ave.