The Greenwood Commonwealth from Greenwood, Mississippi • Page 1

GREENWOOD COMMONWEALTH VOLUME 18 NUMBER 240. FIVE CENTS GREENWOOD, LEFLORE COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI, FRIDAY AFTERNOON, JUNE 8, 1934. ii ii Hi JUL Roosevelt Message To Congress Calls For Benefit To Dying Declaration; Evidence Sufficiency Attacked By Defense President Prepares Plan Social Insurance Citizenship Security i i rn JV tNMMNMI People The president struck at critics who say the government should devote itself to recovery first and reform later. "It is childish," he said, "to speak of recovery first and reconstruction afterward. In the very nature of the processes of recovery we must avoid the destructive influences of the past." The remarks about homes were interpreted as a declaration for enactment of the housing bill at this session.

This bill is in tended to encourage repair and building of homes by a partial government guarantee of loans. About the new deal in general, the president said: "We have sought to put forward the rule "of fair play in finance and industry. "It is true that there are few among us who would still go back. These few offer no substitute for the gains already made, nor any hope for making future gains for human happiness. "They loudly assert that individual liberty is being restricted by government, but when they are asked what individual liberties they have lost, they are put to it to answer." This was clearly Mr.

Roosevelt's reply to any opposition his administration encounters in the coming campaign. "You are completing," he told congress, "a work begun in -March, 1933, which will be regarded for a long time as a splendid justification of the vitality of representative government. You and as the respon- sible directors of these policies and actions, may, with good reason, look to the future with confidence, just as we may look to the past fifteen months with reasonable satisfaction. "On the side of relief we have extended material aid to millions of our fellow citizens. "On the side of recovery we have helped to lift agriculture and industry from a condition of utter prostration.

WALLACE SEES PROSPERITY Secretary Wallace Predicts Period of Agricultural Prosperity MINNEAPOLIS (P) Henry A. Wallace, secretary of agriculture, predictad today a period of prosperity beyond the powers of imagination for agriculture and industry in the United States, to ccme as soon as the people of the country "decide in what direction they want to go" and unite in an effort to reach that goal. He was the honor guest and chief speaker at a meeting of fprm organization leaders and business men at the Minneapolis club. The country was "off the hot spot" and it remained only for the best minds, regardless of party, to counsel together on the policy for America to follow, Secretary Wallace said. "We may decide to go on with the AAA and keep or 50,000,000 acres withdrawn from production, with production of some of our great export staples curtailed to a domestic basis," he said.

"We may decide to revive our world trade by removing barriers and restore foreign buying power by accepting foreign goods." Whatever road the people decide on, however, would lead to unexampled prosperity if they stiove with united determination reach that goal, he declared. The country, emerging gradually from depresson, has had two or three years to talk things over and a decision, reached without bitterness and with constructive rather than destructive criticism, would produce far reaching results, he said. JV LEGION BENEFIT SHOW TONIGHT AT PARAMOUNT Drum And Bugle Corps Stage Minstrelg To-night At Paramount Theatre Tonight at 8:30 at the Paramount Theatre the Hinman-Blackstone minstrel show will be held for the benefit of the Greenwood Drum and Bugle Corps. The Hinman-Blackstone min strels will be one of the best ever presented here and assures the patrons that they will give you an enjoyable time. The Drum and Bugle Corps will participate in the admission all through the day.

On the screen all day will be Irene Dunne and Clive Brook in "If I Were Free" and the mir.strel will be at 8:30. Proceeds of the show will go to the Drum and Bugle Corpli to help defray expenses of participation in the state convention to be held in Biloxi. EIGHT KILLED IN HURRICANE $1,500,000 Damage Done By Hurricane In San Salvador Eight lives were lost, 500 persons were made homeless and damage estimated at $1,500,000 done by a hurricane that swept San Salvador yesterday and last night, Pan-American Airways reported today. Martial law was declared today as a result of the complete collapse of communication facil- ities, light and power lines and railroad travel. The reports, wirelessed to Ppn-American Airways via its airport in Salvador which escaped damage, said many large buildings in the capital were partially demolished.

Homes in the residential district of Ilopango and Foyopango were washed away by heavy that fell during the storm, the report said, while the highway to La Libertad was rendered impassable. The storm struck Salvador at 1 p.m. yesterday, at which time 50-mile an hour winds were re-j ported. High winds continued throughout the night, accompanied by torrential rains. Damage to the railway system consisted of numerous slides and washouts, while several bridges were carried away.

Pan-American Airways reports said it was believed three weeks would be required to restore rail, communication and power service back to normal, although several more important power lines were reported partially repaired today. The government wireless station was operating today, but lonly for comvmicajtions within the country. Virtually all telephone wires in the capital were reported down. No reports were available as to damage done by the hurricane in the interior. The tropical storm, first disturbance of the kind of this season, formed in the Gulf of Mexico and struck inland at British Honduras, aparently gathering intensity as it moved forward.

The hurricane in early June is considered by weather observers as highly unusual, since rarely do such disturbances form until late in July or early August. THE WEATHER TEMPERATURE Maximum 93 degrees; minimum 70 degrees; rainfall, trace; river gauge, 6.8, rise 1.7. FOR MISSISSIPPI Generally fair tonight; Saturday, partly cloudy, somewhat unsettled in- southeast portions. MEAT HEARING MAY ADJOURN Probe Into Alleged Price Fixing Combine May Quit Soon JACKSON, Miss. (JP) Hearing of U.

S. Department of Agriculture charges that a dozen major meat packing companies engaged in price collusion and discriminatory trade practices to diive small competitors out of business, will be removed to Birmingham, next Wednesday, government counsel announced at noon today. JACKSON, Miss. (P) It was indicated today that the Department of Agriculture's inquiry here into an alleged meat producers price combine by 12 major packing concerns would he adjourned until next Tuesday in order for the government's counsel and accountant to go to another hearing in Chicago. The government was engaged today in introducing invoices into the record seeking to show that fixed prices were maintained by the packers at certain times in violation of the 1921 packers and stockyards act.

The packers attorneys demand ed that they be permitted to identify the invoices introduced by C. E. Miles, chief counsel for the government, but Miles objected on the claim that the packers counsel was "merely attempting to needlessly encumber the record." His position was sustained by Examiner" who is conducting the hearing. The hearing has been under way for three weeks in a sifting of evidence in which the complainants charge unfair practices in Mississippi, and neighboring states. Wounded Trusty Given Suspension PARCHMAN, Miss.

Veto M. Brewer, convict trusty, who was critically wounded in the convict mutiny in Camp Ten Monday, today rallied on news that iGovernor iSennett Conner had granted him a four months suspension of his prison term. Prison physicians said Brewer was sinking when news came of the executive clemency, but it is believed he may recover. Brewer was the hero of the convict escape attempt when eleven of the inmates were captured after the break and one escaped. One convict was killed and two trusty guards and two convicts wounded.

Brewer was shot through the spine while trying to round up the fleeing men. Clemency was recommended by the prison superintendent. Brewer is serving a five year sentence from Leflore county for possession of stolen property. Four months suspenson of sentence for assistance in capturing the convict desperadoes has also been granted by the governor to George Harrison, Lindsey Matthews and Fu-qua Rogers, convicts, who will be released when documents have been completed. POSSE SEEKS Two Men Sought For Attack On Young Girl ANNISTON, Ala.

(P) Two white men today were being pur-siud through mountainous sec-t or.s of northwest Calhoun county by possemen headed by Sheriff A. H. Borders, who sought them on charges of attacking a young white woman. The attack, officers here were informed, took place at the farm home of the young woman, the two men entering the house and after the crime bound her with a rope and left Sheriff Borders with a hastily organized posse left immediately for the section where the crime occurred and took up the trail. Judge Davis at the conclusion of an hour's effort by defense attorneys to get the crowds' actions into the record, "for the reason that there was no objection at the time it occurred, no request for a special bill of exceptions, and," he added when it was suggested by District Attorney Arthur Jordan, "no motion for a new trial." The hearing yesterday afternoon opened with Hon.

A. F. Gardner reading the lengthy as- signment of errors, which was followed by the presentation of affidavits of E. E. Smith and Whitney Smith as to the alleg- ed misconduct of the crowd dur ing the trial of the case.

The state objected to the introduction of the affidavits and they were not permitted in the record. Attorney J. J. Breland requested the court to be permitted to introduce testimony as to the alleged misconduct, stating to the court that he expected to prove demonstrations by a number of witnesses. This was objected to by the state and the objection sustained.

Pressed by counsel as to his own view of the crowd's actions during the trial Judge Davis said: "Considering its size, I think it about the best crowd I've ever had. There was some levity, but they were reprimanded and positively assured that the next person making a noise would go to jail." District Attorney Jordan ask ea me court, ii ne wouia siaie into the record that the most ojutttanding demonstration was while Dr. Wallace for the de- fense was on the stand, and the court replied that there was no disorderly conduct, and that only twice during the five weeks was the crowd reprimanded. He added again that no bill of exceptions had been asked for. Attorney Breland told the court that hp wnulH liko o-ot into the record a demonstration of applause when Mrs.

A. Weiler was t.Mtifvim fnr t.h Rtt of Mrs Weiler was a demonstra tion in favor of either side," Judge Davis said, "I took it as applause of Mrs. Weiler holding her own with an attorney under sharp cross-examination." Breland inquired if the court recalled that the crowd hissed when counsel for the defense hinted during the cross examination of Henry Kennedy that Henry was trying to get Preston Kennedy's property for himself. At this stage the Miss Pearl McClelland was taking down the various statements of attorneys and the court. Attorney Fred Witty objected to the cross fire of questions and answers between attorneys and the court going into the record, and the court sustained him.

District Attorney Jordan objected to the whole procedure, stating "this seems to be an indirect method of taking a bill of exceptions out of time." Attorney Breland admitted that the procedure was irregular, "We admit that the proper method would have been as the District Attorney suggested, but counsel for the defense at the time expected a verdict for the defendant, but after the jury STEEL STRIKE MAY BE SETTLED VERY SHORTLY Agreement On Proposed Steel Strike Seen Within Short Time WASHINGTON W) Negotiations for an agreement to prevent the threatened steel strike were postponed today until tomorrow afternoon, with every indication that government ef-f( its for settlement were proceeding satisfactorily. WASHINGTON (JP) A possibility of an agreement within an hour for settlement of the threatened steel strike was indicated at the NRA shortly after 1 o'clock (EST) today. I TWO BILLION SUBSCRIBED FOR BONDS Cash Subscriptions For Treasury Bonds Reach Two Billion WASHINGTON (ff) The treasury said today that cash i subscriptions of $2,511,000,000 were received for the June 15 olfering of $300,000,000 3 per jcerit treasury bonds maturing in 1 1946-48. reported we found we were over enthusiastic or over confident. We think it ought to go to the supreme court.

That court can disregard it if it is incompetent. Judge Davis replied, "There is not going to be any evidence introduced that was not a part of the record." That ended the efforts to place any testimony in the record, and Mr. Gardner then began the presentation of the legal argument for the defense on the new trial motion. Mr. Gardner attacked the alleged dying statement as inadmissible for the record.

The statement quoted Dr. Kennedy as saying on his death bed in a Jackson hospital, "Dr. Dean gave mp a drink nf noisonpd wbiskv. it was bich)oride of mer cury. "It is a mere expression of opinion." Gardner said of the declaration.

"Kennedy did not see whisky. He arrived at that con-i elusion in the light of after effects, and such testimony is not admissible." If Kennedy had lived he could not nave come into the court and been Permitted to testify that Dr- Dean Save mm poisoned liquor," Gardner argued. Mr. Gardner charged that! Mrs. Kennedy, the widow, held animosity against the defendant! in her testimony at the trial i when Mrs.

Kennedy accused Dij. 'Etean of' "breaking up" fier home. "The state has shown no motive for the alleged slaying," declared Mr. Gardner. "The letters which Dr.

Kennedy wrote to Dr. Dean reveal that he had loved her and that she loved him. "It is said that she was jealous because Kennedy was going to marry his divorced wife. Here is a letter from Kennedy to Dr. Dean written a few days before his death in which he speaks of the undying affection he had for the defendant.

Why should she kill him? "There is not a single bit of; pnoof that he was going to remarry his divorced wife other than her own uncorroborated testimony. Not a person testified that he was ever seen with her, and not a single letter from him to his ex-wife was introduced in evidence during trial." Mr. Gardner read at some length from the United States supreme court opinion in the case of Major Charles Shepard, army officer, convicted for the slaying, of his wife. The high court reversed the case in which a dying declaration figured, and said, "No person can be held on suspicion even though it be made by the dying." Throughout his argument, Mr. Gardner insisted that the state had not made a case sufficient to warrant a verdict against the defendant.

He told the court that the dying declaration was a mere suspicion, an opinion arrived at by reasoning and not through the senses, and as such he charged was not admissible in evidence. In concluding his argument Mr. Gardner said: One of our prominent attorneys, Sam Osborne, went to Jackson evidently to get a dying- declaration. He has never appeared in this case, i Why he has not done so we cannot say. We can only surmise that he isn't satisfied.

I submit that he went down there to take an active part and that he didn't do so susceptible of the construction that he believes this prosecution to be unjust," Message Sent Congress Asks For Social Insurance For Security Of Citizenship WASHINGTON President Roosevelt told congress today that he is preparing a vast plan of social insurance for the security "of the citizen and his family." Thi, with another national plan for land and water resources, will be laid before congress next winter. In his longest message to the national legislature, the chief executive said: "Among our objectives I place the security of; the men, women and children of the nation fir3t." "People," he said, "want decent homes to live in; they want to locate them where they can engage in productive work; and they want some safeguard against misfortunes which cannot be wholly eliminated in thjft man-made world of ours." Regarding homes, he said te government has already appro priated millions for housing, and in a housing bill now before the legislators can "stimulate the lending of money." To modernize homes and build new ones. Of the "problem of readjustment of the population," he said "hundreds of thousands of fam ilies live where there is no reasonable prospect of a living in the years to come." "When the next congress convenes," he declared, "I hope to be able to present to it a carefully considered national plan, covering the development and human use of our national resources of land and water over a long period of years." It involves abandoning millions of acres for agricultural use and replacing them with better land. The president disclosed he has begun actuarial studies looking to a unified system of social insurance, including unemployment and old age. "I believe," he said, "there should be a maximum of cooperation between states and the federal government.

I believe that the funds necessary to provide this insurance should be raised by contribution rather than by an increase in general taxation." The states, he said, "should meet at least a large part of the management cost," leaving the federal government the task of investing and safeguarding the reserves. EFHA MUST PAY TAXES TO STATE Immunity From Taxes Does Not Extend To Anything Beyond Governmental Functions JACKSON, Miss. (jP) The federal-owned Electric Farm and Home Authority, organized by the government to finance purchases of farm and home electric equipment, is subject to state of Mississippi taxes and to all state laws governing foreign corporations, the Mississippi legal department held today in an opinion expected to have a far-reaching effect. The opinion, written for Attorney General Greek L. Rice by his assistant, W.

W. Pierce, holds that "immunity from state taxation does not extend to anything lying outside of, or beyond, governmental functions," and that the EFHA is therefore "subject to taxation when engaging in business ift this state." While the Tennessee Valley Authority, which has already contracted to furnish electricity to Tupelo in North Mississippi, was not mentioned in the current opinion, Pierce stated orally that he believed the same ruling would affect the TVA, making it liable for all ad valorem, privileges, sales and other taxes Attorney Breland Continues Argument On New Trial Motion Through Afternoon "I don't believe any dying declaration was ever made at Jackson," Attorney J. J. Breland told Judge S. F.

Davis during the course of his argument on the motion of Dr. Sara Ruth Dean this afternoon. "That is not in the record, but it is an inference from the record. Why should they have sent out the only disinterested parties when Dr. Kennedy was making the statement." "I'm just saying that because it's on my chest," the attorney said to the court.

Breland started his argument on the medical and legal questions involved in the Dean trial this morning at nine o'clock. At three o'clock after a four hour argument, he was still taking up the various points in the long drawn out trial in February which resulted in the conviction of the woman specialist. Arguments were continuing in the motion of Dr. Sara Ruth Dean, convicted at the January term, after a sensational five weeks trial on a charge of mur-, der in connection with the death of Dr. J.

Preston Kennedy, last August. Dr. Dean is at liberty under bond following conviction until the conclusion of the hearing for new trial. When Judge Davis resumed court this morning following an overnight adjournment, Attorney J. J.

Breland began argument of the motion for new trial. Mr. Breland's argument has dealt, with the legal sufficiency of the evidence against Dr. Dean and with the legal phases of the ad-missibility of dying declarations, since the dying declaration of Dr. J.

Preston Kennedy charg-in gthat Dr. Dean gave him a drink of poisoned liquor is one of the strongest links in the chain of circumstances and facts in the case. In beginning his argument ITr. Breland told the court, "We were convinced when the state concluded its te'imony, that it had failed to meet the burden of proof required to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. When the state had "finished we were certain in the light of all the proof that it had failed." Mr.

Breland discussed the requirements of the proof necessary to establish what is known fa the law as the "corpus delicti." corpus delicti" he said "consists of two parts. First, that a man is dead, and we concede that Preston Kennedy is dead. But it must be shown that he met death by a criminal agency as the second part of the corpus delicti. The state met that by falling upon the theorf that Dr. Kennedy came to his death by bichloride of mercury poisoning.

The proof does not show beyond reasonable doubt that Kennedy died of such poisoning." "Circumstantial evidence is good," the attorney continued, "but the elementary rule of the law is that it must establish the guilt of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt, and to a moral certainty, and still further it must exclude every other reasonable hypothesis consistent with the innocence of the defendant. This the state has failed to do." Mr. Breland insisted to the court that the corpus delicti cannot be pnoved by a dying declaration, because first in poison cases the state must show if the declaration is competent that the dead man actually was poisoned. This, he said is to be established by a study of the symptoms, by expert testimony and by the examination of the remains. "I haven't yet read one case." Mr.

Breland said, "where a poison case has stood the test required by the courts unless there had been a chemical analysis establishing the fact that the dead person has been poisoned." He discussed the testimony regarding the autopsy performed by Dr. W. F. Hand, state chemist, and the various analysis made at the Baptist hospital. Mr.

Breland quoted Dr. Hand as saying that he had found only a minute quantity of bicholride in the internal organs of Dr. Kennedy which were sent to him for analysis, and cited that an examination of secretions from Dr. Kennedy's body before death had not shown mercury. "An outstanding fact consistent with the innocence of the defendant," said Mr.

Breland, "is the fact that Dr. Kennedy was sick in Greenwood for five days and that he was not treated for bicholride of mercury poisoning. Doctors, his close friends, treated him for some other form of poisoning." Breland cited the following as showing that Dr. Kennedy did not have bichloride poisoning: 1. That he was able to operate on a patient four days after he was said to have had the poison.

2. The testimony failed to show that he had a fetid breath either while in Greenwood or after being taken to the Jackson hospital. 3. The testimony failed to show that he had salavation. 4.

That the testimony showed he did not have dioirbea. 5. That the testimony failed to show that Dr. Kennedy had normal or sub-normal temperature, but on the other hand had fever. 6.

That the testimony showed there was no albumen cast in the urine early in his sickness. All of these attorneys contended, negativated the idea that Dr. Kennedy was suffering from bichloride poisoning. Breland told the court that the state could not have travelled to the jury without the testimony of the state chemist who said that he found a minute quantity of mercury in the remains, and that chemist's testimony should not have been admitted because it was not shown that the remains were in the same condition when examined as when Dr. Kennedy died.

He read from Page vs State, 151 Miss. 512, when a condition of poisoning a had been reversed on that ground. Mr. Breland again reiterated the charge made by Mr. Gardner yesterday that.

the state had shown no motive for Dr. Dean as the slayer, and that the state had failed to meet the burden imposed by law upon it. The dying declaration was attacked by the attorney as being incompetent, the attorney telling the court that it was an expression of opinion and not of fact. Yesterday afternoon Judge Davis dampened the defense's hopes for a new trial when he ruled several times that the defendant could not be permitted to introduce any testimony regarding the conduct of the crowd during the trial of the case in February. It had been assigned as one ground on which the new trial was sought that the audience had manifested prejudice and feeling against the defendant.

Judge Davis held that the crowd had been orderly except upon two occasions and that each time he had rebuked them and threatened to put somebody in jail. In addition to his statement which came after being pressed by attorneys for state and defense the trial judge held that the defendant had not complained of the "alleged misconduct of the crowd at the time it occurred. "The objection of state to testimony said or done by the audience is sustained," said I MS.