Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 15

WW ins DETROIT FREE PRESS Sunday, July 15. 1951 Sec. ft Ex-Prosecutor's Death, Killer's Plea Revive Memories of Detroit's Murderous Bigots BY KENNETH McCORMICK Frr Vn 8Uff Writer THE BLACK LEGION! Mention of the name 15 years ago terror. Night riders in black hoods and robes were on a crime spree. The skull and crossbones was their emblem.

Power was their objective. The secret cult has long since been disrobed and disbanded. But memories have been jogged by recent events. crca's recent death turned pages back of memories. McCrea was the storm center of the Black Legion investigations.

Another event which dusted off the past was the recent application for a new trial by Dayton Dean, admitted Black Legion executioner. Dean is serving a life sentence in Jackson Prison. He glories in relating blood-tingling tales of brutality he performed for his hooded masters. The Black Legion was a bigoted clan composed mostly, at first, of low-level Southerners. I I I IT PATTERNED its principles after the Ku Klux Klan.

FORMER WAYNE County Prosecutor Duncan Cameron Mc- i 1 I i ilf A It opposed Catholics, Jews and Negroes. This policy they trumpeted as Like the Klan, the Black Legion recruited politicians. McCrea, himself, was accused of applying for membership. As the organization grew, its members became bolder. They took the law into their own hands dealing out floggings and murders at secret sessions.

AT ITS HEIGHT, officials estimated that the vigilantes had 40,000" members in Michigan. Wayne County was credited with more than 10,000 cultists. Rigid secrecy rules, enforced by the death penalty, kept the growth of the organization from leaking out. If it hadn't been for the execution of Charles Poole, WPA worker, the gang may have gone undetected for years. Poole was accused of beating his pregnant wife a charge his wife denied.

He was sentenced to death at a special cult meeting in a West Side hall. HIS BODY, riddled with bullets, was found in a ditch. Lack of a police record eliminated the theory that he was the victim of a gang war. Careful checking brought a clue to homicide detectives. DEAN IN 1936 AND AS HE LOOKS NOW He bragged how he used a Negro for target practice GREAT FOR EMERGENCIES Owners of Mobile Phones Give Thieves Hard Time There were report that Poole had been taken from a tavern by members of a secret organization.

Police arrested Dayton Dean, puffy-faced electrician for the Public Lighting Commission. He confessed and involved 12 other members of the cult. Dean's confession started three grand juries, a State investigation and a Congressional probe. OTHER crimes came to light. Dean told of taking Silas Coleman, Negro war veteran, into a swamp near Pinckney and using him for target practice.

Coleman's body was found. Dean told authorities that the Legion's goal was to overthrow the United States Government. Whether this was true or not, the Legion was organized along military lines. Virgil Effinger, a "generaV was made by the same process, only in reverse," he added. Business men, physicians, law enforcement agencies, ambulances and delivery trucks make the most use of the units.

In addition, he said, there are seven private systems, using about 200 mobile units. BY RAY COURAGE Frr Prr SUff Writer IF YOU PLAN on robbing an auto driver, don't pick one with a mobile telephone unit. Recently two thiefs waited in a garage to rob a man putting hi car away. As they pulled their guns on him they got the surprise of their life. "Drop those the driver said, picking up his mobile phone.

"This phone is connected directly to police headquarters." Scared at the prospect of having the police monitor the holdup they fled. in operation in the city. THESE UNITS can communicate only with other units in the private system. "In outstate areas there are 132 mobile telephone units in operation. They are connected with regular telephone circuits through relay stations at Grand Rapids, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Jackson, Saginaw, Flint, Port Huron, and 80 of these units have a range of 55 miles and the rest have a maximum range of 25 miles.

The mobile units transmit voice by radio to the nearest of a network of six local relay stations. Here the operator routes the voice over regular telephone circuits to the party being called, Conroy explained. named as National commander. He lived at Lima, O. One of the requirements of the cult was ownership of firearms.

Center Line Kids Like It J. I CON'KOV, division superintendent of Michigan Bell Telephone said 5cnoo A .33 CALIBER bullet was a DO "Calls to the mobile unit arejSault Ste. Marie, Conroy said. $IICEM4V THEY SAY, BOSS: ii BY JOHN GRIFFITH Irrr fma Siff Arltrr CENTER LINE SCHOOL children attend class month during the summer. And they like the that mobile telephone units have helped many people out of jams.

Another time, Conroy said, a customer saved his son's life because he was pass to Black Legion meetings. Initiation rituals were stark. Prospective members were told to kneel and kiss the American Flag. Two members hId cocked, loaded pistols against their heads as they repeated their oath of secrecy. Legion members had obtained local level government jobs.

Many were on public payrolls. Others an extra extended and the fifth year they enjoy the "sabbatical month" when they do as they please while getting paid. Newly employed teachers spend the period in their first year getting acquainted with the community, Prewitt said. THEY VISIT parents, discussing health problems, report cards and lining up kindergarten children for enroll Ike's Candidacy Hinges on Events following year in further their own study to education able to contact I were factory workers. a doctor by mo- ment in the fall, the school official said.

Prewitt said the program was instituted five years ago. A few, mostly Jew-baiters, were bile phone from professional men. isolated Drum- It took a year to break up the'mond Island. night riders. The smashing was The boy had complete.

Nothing was heard of contracted pneumonia on the tele-it after the sensational trials of phoneless island. 1936 until Dean made his unsuc Reds Flop Trying to Stifle Humor BY TOM REEDY BERLIN Humor has gone underground again in East Germany. The Communist think It 1 very unfunny Indeed when the tillage wag cracks wise about them, about Stalin, about the Russian and about the general state of thine. cessful bid for freedom. school year.

They must prefer the three R's to the oP swimming hole because about 250 boyi and girls, or one quarter of fir elementary grade ounssters, trkf part in the "work and play" program. On the whole, teachers like the "five-year" plan which entails an extra month's work, according to William C. Pre-witt, principal of the Center Line Harry Miller school. He conceded, however, that ome mutterings on the wage issue have been heard. Teachers are raid the year 'round although they work 11 or one more than the customary school year.

Anchor Is Used lo Hook Big Fish PORTSMOUTH, N. H. U.R Jim Haigh, fishing alone out of a rowboat, caught a really large Proud, Too A call was placed through the mobile unit to Sault Ste. Marie and then relayed to the family physician in Detroit. The doctor detailed instructions which saved the youth's life, Conroy related.

"INSTALLATION of mobile units in Detroit has increased from about 50 in 1946 to 330 today," Conroy said. "Approximately WASHINGTON (tf) Eight women lived to see their sons become president of the United one and it didn get away. FREE PRESS WASHINGTON BUREAU 1286 National Press Build iug Washington, D. C. DEAR BOSS Whether Gen.

Eisenhower will be nominated for the Presidency a year from now depends very much upon what happens in the unpredictable world picture in which he is so much a central military figure. Some politicians hare been giving the impression that, either after visits to his Paris headquarters or through correspondence, they can speak with authority for him. Actually he has avoided committing himself to anything political. He does not know what that picture will be. He might be in uniform when the national conventions roll around and taking orders from Commander in Chief Truman against whom he refused to run in 194S when he was still in harness.

This much men who think they know how he feels say they are sure of: He is a Republican. He would not accept a Democratic nomination which would mean continuing in political management the same people who, more or less, have been Haigh States the mothers of Washing- It was a sunfish, and jmaae me caicn Dy ramming a. ion. niaaiaon, i'oik, urani, oar-ine police move in fast on the local funnybone and he finds four-pronged grappling anchor field. McKinley, Franklin Roose-himself quickly behind bars or on a concentration camp road into the creature's mouth.

velt and President Truman, gang. CONSIDER LADY MOUNTBATTEN THE DRIVE against earthy 1 humor is one of the Communists' Making an larger errors in psychology, however. Even the Nazs knew better. There is no room for fun in the P.ed "life is real, life la earnest" scheme of onest Dollar Royalty Is Tough for in. i i avu ii.

i a js- of a big New York fur store. RY CYNTHIA IX)WRY AP frlr Writer NEW YORK W) Titled foreigners, no matter how running things nationally since 1933. He will not announce his candidacy and authorize a pre-convention campaign until' that world picture has cleared up as far as his part in it is concerned. They believe he will accept if nominated. Kansas Republican National Committeeman and former Senator Harry Darby has been reported to be the organizer of the Eisenhower campaign, the man who can speak for Eisenhower, and who is about to set up national headquarters.

Darby is so strong for the General that Her sales Job was terminated serious tt-hen the store went into its dull things. To get I witty about Stahn. Lenin, Five -Year m. and the faithful German Communist proponents of the Kremlin, is witless to start with, The Commu-I nists have fail-jed. however, to I legislate the their intentions, find it had to make an honest American buck, American style.

For a prime example, consider a tall, handsome, young blond noblewoman with a peaches-and-cream complexion and the proud name of Mountbatten. V'Vv season. Lady Iris, one of the last hired, was one of the first fired. "Now," she said, "I'm starting all over again. My heart is really in this television thing.

I've felt for a long time I could really do something good if I could work with children. Television Is fine for me, because it's one place where they employ people without years of experience." Mountbatten, whose Lady Iris with the stern necessity of earning eating money. She wangled a job as salesgirl in the ready-to-wear department LADY IRIS Once, a sales girl cousin Is consort to Princess Elizabeth of Great Britain and whose own great grandmother was Queen Victoria, is one who SINCE teachers are a professional group, we felt that they should te employed throughout the year," Prewitt said. Children attend classes on an optional basis from 9 a.m. to 12 noon, said Tre-witt.

No credit is given for the classes which run from the last week in June to July 27. Children from 6 to 13 years attend the classes. A two-week camping period is included. Besides the three R's, youngsters receive instruction in art work, square dancing, Etory telling, sewing, nature study, the sciences, as well as baseball and movies. "BOYS and girls benefit from this plan because they are kept off the streets through this program of supervised play combined with aome useful work," Prewitt claimed.

Teachers work the extra month on a five-year cycle. Numbering 63 instructors for an enrollment of 1,800. they spend the extra month on succeeding years in different assignments. For instance, one year they I political humor out of the East 'Gorman. Jokes circulate quietly.

Some are aimed especially at East Germany's aging Communist street fighter, Wilhelm Pieck, who now is president of the "German Democratic P.epublic." he dreams about the man. He believes Eisen- Leech hower will be nominated and elected. But as for being the spokesman, this is what he told me on a visit here this last week: "I have no intention of establishing Eisenhower headquarters. I have not discussed a candidacy with him in any way and I will not as long as he is on the European command job. This is simply a case of waiting every day until tomorrow." ALCOHOL HELPS jhas recently but only recently landed on her fecL One tale goes that Stalin gave a new car to Pieck who discov-j ers there is no engine and no AT THE moment she is mistress of ceremonies on a chil Darby Isi't Alone Habit Dope reaKing dren's television show, a job she adores.

Lady Iris learned about America the hard way. Her basic education was not designed to equip her for competi transmission. "Don't worry. Wilhelm. Stalin says.

"You don't need an engine. Everything goes downhill in the Soviet zone anyhow." ON THE EASTERN bloc, a story goes: "WTiat Is the biggest country on earth? a Solet soldier asks a Berliner. "The East Zone, of of Michigan Medical SchooJ reports. A trace of gold was found in one sample of human hair, but that probably was due to medication, said Dr. Goldblum and Stanley K.

Derby, a physics graduate student. tion in the employment marts. The working bee started buzzing during a trip to India and she hit upon an idea of taking some Indian brocades to the IN ADDITION TO DARBY, who thinks and talks Eisenhower constantly, the Eisenhower movement centers around Gov. Dewey, of New York; Senator Duff, of Pennsylvania; Harold Stassen; Herbert Brownell, Dewey's manager in 1948, and Congressman Hugh Scott, of Pennsylvania, former Republican National Chairman, Even had it not been clear when Eisenhower accepted the Truman assignment to head up the NATO forces in Europe to try cooling off the Communists, his speeches over there have shown him definitely on the side of international mutual assistance. This does not jibe with what Senator Taft and especially Taft's backers want.

There is not much difference between what Taft and Eisenhower think on domestic policies-It is obvious that when the pre-convention campaign begins to take hold on the country international policies will provide the dividing line for the two camps. PAUL R. LEECH NEW YORK W) Injection of alcohol, by vein, has helped some patients break addiction to morphine, Dr. George P. Child, Albany, N.

writes In the New Y'ork State Journal of Medicine. The alcohol treatment helped them over the trouble period of trembling. Irritability, vomiting, rise In blood pressure and other symptoms that often come hen use of morphine is stopped. ANN ARBOR, Mich. Human hair, skin and nails contain 19 different kinds of metal, including ftilver, lead, tin, zinc.

Iron, ropper, aluminum, phosphorous and sodium. Dr. Raymond W. Goldblom of the University course, he answers. "It begins at the Elbe and a large number of its Inhabitants live in Siberia." Two People's Policemen meet United States as a representative for a British textile firm.

THAT W4 a fin i.nfill ITHACA, N. Y. A possibility of preventing formation of kidney stones was reported to the American Chemical Society by Prof. Ernest A. Hauser of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The chance lies In injection into the human body of colloid chemicals which will prevent mineral matter In urine from crystallizing. The research Is being done in ro-operation with Dr. Arthur J. Butt of Pensacola, Fla- she arrived in New York and learned she would have to pay duties on rer samples. So Lady Iri arrived In New York without her anticipated means of livelihood and faced and one says: "What do you think of the general situation "The same as you.

"Sorry, then I have to arrest you as an enemy cf the state. work with the children; next they study curriculum and other problems with other teachers; then they work with parents; spend the month the.