The Morning News from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 1

xmwu 11 City Edition wxm 2 Weather Partly cloudy and moderate temperatures today, partly cloudy tonight. High in upper 40s, low in mid 20s. Details on Page 2 VOL 167 NO. 52 7 Cents WILMINCTON, DELAWARE, TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1965 36 Pages 14 children Montrea 24 at Kb MONTREAL A mighty, HOURS afterward, smoke and steam still spewed from the1 The Quebec Natural Gas Co. cut off fuel to four apartment blocks damaged by the explo roof-lifting explosion and fire de Eighteen of the 24 apartments in the three-story U-shaped brick building vanished in the blast.

The roar was heard and wreckage a ghastly crater: stroyed a sprawling suburban apartment house yesterday, kill ing 24 or more persons and leaving as many as 50 injured. Most of the victims were chil felt a mile away. Windows were blown out for dozens of blocks. Rescuers brought 24 bodies 14 children and ten adults to a makeshift morgue at an in- dren. amid similar buildings of the LaSalle Heights development.

But the cause remained undetermined. One distraught woman told police she had visited her sister and brother-in-law in the building Sunday night and had said to them: "This place smells as though it's full of gas." Wind-whipped flames raged through the debris. The blast was in a housing development hockey rink two miles away. Relatives and friends filed into the building last night i to identify the dead. at LaSalle, 7 miles southwest of Montreal.

Congress debates Viet war GOP leader rips Johnson on all fronts A -t- By Associated Press Praise for President Johnson's "restraint and perseverance" mingled with blunter calls for stronger action as Congress sion. Civil Defense officials said they would provide accommodations for those left in unheated apartments. Residents said the development is heated by natural gas with a space heater in each apartment. IN THE smoke-filled confusion after the blast at 8:15 a.m., parents searched frantically for their youngsters, many of them on the way to school. At one point authorities said about 100 residents were unaccounted for, but later said they assumed these had found shelter.

Richard Burke, 32, a metal worker who lives in a nearby building, hurried to the scene moments after the blast. "All that remained of this great apartment block I knew so well was a giant crater with debris all over the place," he said. "I could hear moaning and babies crying." Many families were at breakfast tables when the blast occurred. One man was buried 15 minutes in the rubble and then pulled out by firemen to rejoin his wife and two children, who also had survived. "I WAS in the bathroom and the next thing I knew there was the sound of a big explosion and the roof fell in on one," he said.

"I was able to see outside and saw that the rest of the building had been wiped right off the ground." School books, satchels and fragments of furniture were strewn across a crater in the middle section of the 8-year-old building. Bricks dotted a children's park behind the building. Flying debris had flattened a car parked nearby. Soaring masonry knocked down a woman in her living room across the street. About 700 families were living in the development.

All the buildings in the area of the Compiled from Dispatches WASHINGTON A Top Republican spokesman said yesterday that President Johnson's foreign policy is a "weapon of wind" that seeks popularity rather than respect. Rep. Melvin R. Laird, in a sort of minority State-of-the-Union Message to the House, also assailed Johnson's "Great Society" plans as a type of security that can be found in prison. He said Johnson's foreign policy was "based upon expediency rather than principle." Laird predicted the Administration eventually would seek a negotiated end to the war in Viet Nam, leading to a Communist takeover.

LAIRD is chairman of the House Republican Conference and principal author of the 1964 Republican national platform. fflaw i-k: jn- debated the war in South Viet Nam yesterday. The President is "trying to keep the lid on a highly dangerous volcano" in Southeast Asia, asserted Democratic Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana in leading off another round of Senate debate. HIS Administration policy is "to try and prevent a great war in Asia" and to keep a commitment to the South Vietnamese government, Mansfield said. But the United States is He said in his prepared speech playing a "cat and mouse game" when "we've got the strength and the power to conclude" the war, argued Sen.

Milward Simpson, R-Wyo. South Viet Nam's will to fight, a United States willingness to take on any and all Communist aggressors there, and the calls Blaze sweeps Dante's building Fire last night swept a three-story building housing Dante's restaurant and cocktail lounge on New Castle Ave. and Rose Lane, south of Wilmington. Firemen from three companies called for gas masks as heavy smoke bellowed from the brick-and-frame structure. Four ambulances stood by.

that Republicans have kept generally quiet in this Congress so that the impact of Johnson's program could be realized by the voters. Now, he said, they plan to speak up. "Talk of efficiency if you will; talk of parliamentary skill and persuasion if you will; talk of noble goals. The truth remains that the great consensus of the Great Society really boils down to a Great Conformity," he said. He said, Republicans must speak "for all who reject the federal extremism" of the Johnson Administration.

"There is a great alternative to the Great Planned Society," Laird said. blast were vacated while fire Staff Atrial Photo by Bill Sncad Pro7e of some progress men fought the flames. WITH temperatures in the 20s, some residents fled into the other P. T. Barnum spectacle" in the foreign affairs arena.

streets in their pajamas. Chil dren huddled blankets, some This became evident, he said, The freeway work to and through Wilmington con- gas storage tanks, then shift abruptly left across the raif- tinues, with some of the curves of its present status shown road tracks to their northbound path between the cleared here. The white bands at the bottom are aluminum grids blocks of Adams and Jackson Streets where the progres- placed in their steel supports to form a floor for the con- sion of concrete supports is still under construction. After crete roadway. The supports curve to the right past the that the course is straight toward the Brandywine.

drying, some bleeding from in for a negotiated settlement all were topics as the President's policy and actions in South Viet Nam were reviewed, argued and scored. In the House, Rep. Melvin R. Laird, said he looks for the Johnson Administration to seek some sort of negotiated settlement to get out of what he called an "impossible situation" in Viet Nam. "THERE is, in my mind, little doubt that the conflict in Viet Nam will end in the not-too-distant future in some sort of compromised settlement that cannot help but lead to an eventual Communist takeover," he asserted.

But Sen. Russell B. Long, the Senate Democratic majority whip, disagreed. "We will do whatever is necessary to win" in South Viet Nam "and if Communist China with the appearance of a story that the United Stataes has ended a three-month freeze on voluntary contributions to the juries. Graham Towers, 17, a student, was one of the first on the scene.

He helped pull two fellow stu "THOUGH we do not win roll-call votes, we can win for America the all-important second look that may save us from blindly accepting a 'Great Society' that United Nations with a pledge of dents and a woman alive from $24.7 million to the Palestine might be just another Great Mis the wreckage. Witnesses said the explosion Great refugee program and $600,000 Great to the U.N. high commissioner take, just another Scheme, just another Jury indicts ex-Laurel town clerk lifted the roof high in the air Debt of refugees. Mrs. Milton Kutz, philanthropist dies Laird said Johnson's an- in intjj0i Caif meanwhile, nounced goals were peace, pros-former President Dwight D.

and it crashed down into the crater left by the blast. A few minutes later, flames shot out from the crater. Jim Vani and his mother, who live one block south of the scene, were sitting down to breakfast. Vani said the blast lifted him penty and justice. These are Eisenhower said Ohio's Ray C.

worthy, he said, but "equally1 Bliss will "rejuvenate interest" attainable in a federal peniten-in the Republican Party when l'iary' he takes over as national com- ai so inmninr intn iha fra i mittee chairman April 1. comes in we will take them on Mrs. Hattie Kutz, 75, of 1401 the Kutz Home, yesterday issued (and a typewriter into the air. Rep. E.

Ross Adair, said; Eisenhower and Bliss, at a A car parked about 20 feet See 24 DIE Page 3, Col. 1 yesterday the people of the coun-! press conference, agreed the try have been "treated to an-'party needs "revitalization." Pennsylvania known throughout the country for her philanthropy, died yesterday in' a Miami, hospital after a' lengthy illness. Her husband, Milton, who was a retired Du Pont Co. official, died in 1953. and if Russia wants to deal herself a hand, we will go ahead, but there will be no sanctuary," Long said.

In Viet Nam, meanwhile, U.S. helicopters and two battalions of government troops killed 10 Viet Cong and captured 10 in a sweep southwestward from the Da Nang Air Base, 380 miles northeast of Saigon. the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati. A youth camp in Orange County, N.Y., to be used by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations as a training place for future rabbis and teachers of the reform Jewish faith. Innumerable gifts and trust funds for projects of the Jewish Federation of Delaware.

Irving Shapiro, president of Phoenix Sfeel lays off 110 workers in Claymont Since then, according to her lawyer, H. Albert Young, Mrs. Kutz had distributed almost 2 million in trust funds and outright gifts for educational, welfare, charitable, religious and -W1 recreational projects. Memorial services will be Thursday morning at 10:30 in Temple Beth Emeth, 300 Lea By LARRY VAX GOETHEM Sussex Bureau GEORGETOWN The Sussex County Grand Jury indicted former Laurel Town Clerk James W. Flood on an embezzlement charge yesterday.

The true bill was one of 10 returned for the March term. They involved 13 charges ranging from assault with intent to commit murder to breaking and entering. No major capital crimes were reviewed by the grand jury. Arraignments are scheduled tomorrow for defendants indicted yesterday. Flood is charged with embezzlement of $6,483.52 in town funds.

The period of the embezzlement, according to the charge, was from April 1, 1962, to Dec. 15, 1964. Flood was arrested on Jan. 5 after he resigned from the town clerk post the previous night. A true bill also was returned yesterday charging Corsene Hugo Palmer, 29, Bridgeville, with assault with intent to commit murder last Dec.

31. Palmer is charged with shooting Virginia Walters with a .22 caliber pistol after a scuffle on the porch of her home about four miles east of Seaford. this statement: "Mrs. Milton Kutz, as did her late husband, devoted her entire energies and resources to many different charitable causes. We at the Kutz Home for the Aged benefited greatly from her devotion to the cause of the aged and the home is truly a living tribute to her selfless devotion.

"We share with many others in this community a great sense of loss of a true and good friend who shouldered more than her burden in meeting the needs of our community." Mr. Kutz, who was president of the Jewish Federation of Delaware a number of years, undertook a program of philanthropy and, when he died, his widow carried on his wishes and undertook other projects. Mfs. Kutz lived in Wilmington since 1933 when her husband became an executive of the Du Pont Co. On several occasions, she represented Delaware Jews in Israel and, in 1957, attended the 11th international conference of the World Union for Progressive Judaism at Amsterdam, The Netherlands, as a delegate from Temple Beth Emeth.

Mr. and Mrs. Kutz had no children. where she had endowed the Milton and Hattie Kutz Chapel. Burial will be in Harts-'dale, N.Y., where her husband was interred.

Among Mrs. Kutz' philanthropies have been: THIS was one in a series of! strikes to keep the Red guer-j (See VIET NAM-Page 3, Col. 3 I www. w. vy '-wn v.v.-.-.-.

Today's News Pages Amusements 11 Bill Frank 16 Classified 30 to 35 Comics 14 Daily Record 5 Deaths 30 Earl Wilson 11 Editorials 16 Financial 22 to 25 Obituaries 30 Sports 19 to 21 Television and Radio 12 Today's Events 6 Tom Malone 9 Women's News 27 to 29 Phoenix Steel Corp. has laid off 110 production and maintenance workers at its Claymont plant. The layoff was effective yesterday and will be indefinite. Phoenix employs 1,900 plant and office workers, a plant spokesman said last night. "THE furloughing of the workers Is an effort to strike the most efficient and economic production level in the plant," the spokesman said.

Step-by-step modernization is bringing equipment up to the level of more modern plants in the industry, the spokesman said. He explained that as equipment is renewed or replaced, the industry measurement of tons of steel produced per man employed should move nearer a normal level. This is not true at presant, he said. Furloughing of the workers was described as "strictly an efficiency move" and no indication of the volume of business. DURING the past eight months there have been a number of changes in management and supervisory posts at Phoenix.

Stanley Kirk, president, said the moves are part of a program to overcome losses which recurred over several years but which have been diminishing. Physical assets of the company also have been tightened by disposing of unneeded real estate. Figures for 1964 showed operating profit of $1.1 million compared to a loss of $1.37 million in 1963. Net earnings in 1964 were $1,344,000, or $1.24 per share, including profit of $244,000 realized on the sale of land. Despite the 1963 operating loss, earnings for that year were $2,701,000 due to a nonrecurring profit of $4,704,000.

In his year-end report made early in February, Kirk said sales last year were up 14 per cent to $55,694,000, the highest since 1959. -The Milton and Hattie Kutz Home for Aged Jewish people on River Road, Bellefonte. A student center on the campus of Brandeis University, Waltham, also named in honor of the Kutzes. A private room for patients in the Carpenter Wing of The I Memorial Hospital, Wilmington. Mrs.

Milton Kutz -An endowment of a chair in American Jewish history at dies at 75.