Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 3

Free Press Telephones Jo Place Want Ads 222-6800 For Home Delivery 222-6500 City News Desk 222-6600 Insurance Dept. 222-6470 All Other Calls 222-6400 Today's Chuckle A husband who asks his wife for an opinion on anything just hasn't been paying attention. THE SECOND FRONT PAGE Page 3, Section A Sunday, May 14, 1972 arns ot More (Lity Lay oils IBB Voters Will Decide State Lottery Issue a rF7 rMK 1 'mil 1 i WKvvv 'vj fir' V9tosmsf C- I vx I I I ''iWiy The proposal would amend the State Constitution to allow the Legislature to authorize lotteries and to permit the sale of lottery tickets. The Legislature is prepared to set up a lottery if voters kill the prohibition. If you want a lottery in Michigan, vote yes on the proposal.

If you do not want a lottery in Michigan, vote no. Lotteries have been prohib- BY ROGER LANE Press Lansing Staff LAPSING Voter approval of Proposal A on the state ballot intthe presidential primary Tuesday would wipe out a 137-year-old constitutional ban on lotteries in Michigan. It jwould almost certainly lead to a state lottery modpied on tht of New Jersey where you jan win $50,000 on a 50-cent ticket. DSR Nears Its Golden Anniversary i w.m iz. v.w-i.

ff'K. BY MICHAEL MAIDENBERG Free Press Staff writer At 9:28 a.m. on a soft spring morning, Thomas Woodhull nosed his bus onto Sears Ave. in Highland Park and began another run. A cheerful man with an obvious zest for people, Woodhull has driven a bus fo 32 years- Friday's run was not untypical; Wood-hull greeted regular riders and aided new ones, celebrated the weather and reminisced over a lifetime with the Department of Street Railways.

i ited in Michigan under all four State Constitutions 1835, 1850, 1908 and 1963. The lottery question was a major issue in the Constitutional Convention of 1961-62 and various proposals were made at that time to permit one. All the proposals were rejected and tho convention voted to keep the ban. Despite the convention decision, interest in the lottery failed to die. In the last eight years there have been 29 attempts made in the Legislature to kill the lottery ban.

THE CONTINUING interest in lotteries in. Michigan has been stimulated in large part by the fact that six other states have adopted them. The most successful has been New Jersey. And it is to that state that Michigan legislators most probably will look if voters give them the authority to set up a lottery. In the New Jersey lottery, tickets are sold from vending machines in a variety of places, including supermarkets and drugstores.

Tickets cost 50 cents each and drawings are held weekly. For every million tickets sold there are 1,000 cash prizes with a first prize of $50,000. Usually there are several $50,000 prizes each week because a first prize is won for every $1 million in ticket sales, and sales have averaged $2 million to $4 million each week. Last year the New Jersey lottery brought $69 million in new revenue to the state. Most of it went back to the state school system.

Ticket holders won $66 million in prizes. IT IS THAT kind of revenue that sped the lottery amendment through the Michigan Legislature which has been strapped for money to balance an ever growing state budget and has been shy about increasing taxes in an election year. Although v. Milliken steadfastly has warned against anticipating lottery profits in gauging spending levels, House Speaker William A. Ryan and many other legislators are counting on lottery income.

Estimates of how much a lottery would bring in Michigan range as high as $60 mil-linn a year. Voter approval Tuesday could mean a lottery drawing Please turn to Page 11 Col. 1 Send Help, He Wires Congress BY JOHN OPPEDAHL Free Press staff Writer Mayor Gribbs warned Satur- day that unless the U.S. Con- gress approves some federal money to Detroit soon, thou- sands of city employes could be laid off. Gribbs said this would mean a drastic cut in city services "and a very real danger of fiscal and, thus, social chaos." The mayor issued the warnings in a telegram to the 15 members of the Rules Committee of the U.S.

House of Representatives. Patrick Nugent, the city's lobbyist in Washington, said in a telephone interview Saturday that over the past few weeks, prospects for revenue sharing direct federal grants to cities such as Detroit had dimmed considerably. He said there was a "real possibility" that revenue sharing could die this year in Congress. That would mean an instant $148 million deficit for Detroit's city budget, according to Gribbs. The House Rules Committee, which decides when and how all money bills get to the floor of the House, is considering a revenue sharing bill that, would give Detroit about million for the city's next fis-! cal year starting July 1.

"I think we're going to make it," Nugent said. But he noted gloomily that there is' now apparently only an 8-7 majority in the Rules Committee to send revenue sharing to the House floor with no strings attached. "That's a little too close," Nugent said. "We didn't expect this much trouble It's really very touch and go." The committee meets again Tuesday. IN PROPOSING his $671 million city budget for 1972-73 on April 10, Gribbs said he was counting on getting $84 million in revenue from a combination of federal and state revenue sharing, land sales, a small property tax "in- crease, and the imposition oj' fees at city institutions.

The! fee plan depends on approval of city voters in Tuesday's election. If any of these sources revenue fails, the city would-face deficit, Gribbs In an April 14 briefing ijK Detroit, Nugent said he ex-' pected the bill out of the Rules Committee by the end April. The committee's holdup the bill since then, Nugent said. Saturday, indicated the biL was in more trouble than was' previously expected, He noted that the committee is loaded with fiscal conservatives and small-town representatives who oppose federal aid to big cities. In his telegram, with the strongest language the mayor has yet used about revenue sharing, Gribbs said: "Detroit is in desperate financial straits.

We are taxing at maximum rates available to us. Program activity has remained constant or been reduced. State already helping." Gribbs noted in his telegram that he has had to lay off more than 2,000 city employes over the past 18 months. (ail (Irfl) ami (alhv tackle llie nnstcrics of internal combustion 2 Nice Girls Find Happiness In a High School Auto Shop (- 4 BY JAMES HARPER Free Press Staff Writer Nine weeks in disassembly and reassembly; nine weeks in transmission; nine weeks in electrical and fuel systems; nine weeks in diagnosis and tune-up. Wrenches and pliers and screwdrivers; gears and ratios and torque; tubes and volts and octanes.

It all sounds like curriculum in some training school for boys, or maybe the routine they put you through after Army basic But for nice girls like these? Yes, because they asked for it. They asked for it back in the fall when the automotive courses started at Grosse Pointe South High School. Gail Haddad and Cathy Welch signed up with six other girls in the class of 100 seniors. And they really asked for it when they entered the local auto trouble-shooting contest. This week they're going to be up to their pinafores in electrical circuitsroutes and disconnections, studying firing order and emission controls on the Plymouth Slant-Six Duster.

Then, on Thursday, they will compete in the state championship and a chance for the Plymouth Trouble Shooting Contest finals in Los Angeles in June. THEY MAY NOT BE the only all-girl team among the 7fi finalists at the Oakland Mall tune-up contest, but they'll be the first female team that South High instructor David Basehore ever sent and one of the best. After the local elimination contest, Basehore said: "There was no question in my mind they had it." The two girls won by finding nine "hugs" in a driver education car in W2 hours the same task they'll be asked to perform Thursday. "We have a starting point," Cathy said. "We just divide the car up.

Gail jumps in and tries to start it, then she gets out and looks at the timing. She's never taken out a sparkplug, but I've never taken out a condenser and put it back in." "My sister took the course last year," Cathy said, "and that got me interested. I decided to take it mostly out of curiosity. I want to be able to take care of my own car, cause they rip you off at some of the places where they do auto work. "I'm going to college at Oakland Community.

I don't plan to do this for a living. I want to major in veterinary medicine." Gail said: "I remember taking rff a water pump in a GTO in the 10th grade." She was explaining how she got interested in automotives. "And it's just great to take something off and put it back on. "From that I decided to be in automotives." Just like that. Anyway, this week they are going to work out their plan of attack on the bugged Plymouth Slant-Six Duster with emission controls, and they are going to practice.

"Don't tell what we're going to do," said Cathy. Gail replied. "We might as well talk about it and give those other teams a chance." Said Cathy: "No! Let's not give anybody a chance." Free Press dvRiChaROlE earlier this year uncovered new evidence that lends credibility to Walker's claim of innocence. One supporter enclosed an ink-smeared sheet of yellow paper with 41 signatures under a handwritten heading: "We, Tlease turn to Page 4A, Col. 2 The DSR itself turns 50 on Monday, and Mayor Grihbs has May 15 "DSR Golden Anniversary Day." THE DSR began in 1922 with the purchase by the city of the lines and equipment of the private Detroit Urban Railways.

Then-Mayor James Couzens ihad waged a hitter struggle to get municipal ownership of the pity's transportation system. DSR started out with 1.457 Birney trolleys, with re- verstble wooden seats and 'Speeds up to 25 m.p.h. Other 'trfjlleys, the sturdy Peter Witt model and the smooth PCC ((residential Conference Car), wfjre brought onto the line and i some of them still clack along thfc rails in Mexico City, where they were sent when they were phased out of Detroit in 1956. ijy the end of World War II, thf DSR was carrying 500 million riders a year, and clearing a $2 million annual profit. It was a high point.

He DSR now carries 103 mDlion passengers annually anjl is losing about $7 million a There were anout in riders on Woodhull's bus Friday as it heeded west out Schoolcraft. 1 hy were mostly very young artjl very old, with a scattering of. persons on their way to wok and a few unemployed mn on their way to make job applications. fyoodhull carefully instructed a woman how to find a ood stamp center, praised th outfit of a model who is a regular rider, suggested a vacation trip to a waitress and congratulated another woman THOMAS Woodhull: "Patience if the fecrct." who allowed that she was get-, ting married Sunday. "Patience is the secret," he observed.

"You can't be short-tempered and work on a Please turn to Page 6A, Col. Convict Wins for New Trial Support He will find out Monday whether he gets the trial when Recorder's Court Judge Roh-ert. Evans rules on the notion. Walker has always claimed he is innocent of the killing and his steadfastness has left an impact on some unlikely people, like the muttering deputy. trial for armed robbery.

"He has been to hell and back. It takes a certain kind of man to keep his sanity when he's really innocent." The Free Press has received more than 50 letters and many more phone calls in support of Walker after an investigation to weasle out," he mattered. He was talking about Lee Dell Walker, 59, who was being booked into the Wayne County Jail Feb. 2 after 18 years In Jackson Prison for a 1954 Detroit murder. Walker was back In the county jail to appeal for a new trial.

BY HOWRD KOHN Free Press Staff Writer A surly Wayne County deputy paused to scribble "Trans fer from Jackson No. 86921" on a jail file card. "I wish these old cons would stay up there where they belong instead of always trying prand Circus Park Now Left To 'Ghost Sitters, 9 Pigeons in Bid LAST WEEK, the deputy smiled amiably and asked: "Hey, when's the judge going to let Old Man Walker go? All the guys are plugging for him." "You got to admire a man like Walker," said a 22-year-old cell mate awaiting MUTT BY TOM NUGENT Free Press Staff Writer The day breaks to a fire of pigeons: Jabbery, gun-metal Diras luupillg IHC Ufiiiidiii nil, laiviiig iiic uciuic Jthem. Pigeons dive-bombing the fountain at Grand Circus Free Press Culs Gap in Circulation1 Special le the Free Press CHICAGO Led by record-setting increases in Sunday newspaper sales, the Detroit Free Press has reduced the circulation gap between Detroit's metropolitan newspapers to its narrowest margin in 12 years. Official figures compiled here by the independent Audit Ru-reau of Circulation showed that the Frpe Press gained 25,941 Sunday newspaper customers between September 30, 1971, and March 31, 1972, the official ABC audit period.

In the same period of time, the Detroit News lost 817 in Sunday circulation. The Free Press increase marked the third consecutive ABC period in which Free Press Sunday circulation set a new record. 1 I Free Press daily circulation in the same period outgainpd i that of the Detroit News by a margin of almost three to one, with the Free Press showing a daily increase of 9,077 against 3,518 for the News. THE OFFICIAL FIGURES, which measure average daily and Sunday circulation for each day in the preceding six-month period, showed total Free Press daily sales at 583,508 and Free Press Sunday sales at 683,917, the highest ever. The News daily circulation was reported at and Sim-day circulation at 847,461.

The total daily and Sunday margin between the two newspapers is the narrowest since Iftwl, when the Detroit News bought and closed its afternoon competitor, the Detroit Times. i Since the closing of the Times, the margin between the two metro dailies has steadily decreased. Since 1965, the Detrott News has lost more than 15,000 in daily circulation and more 1 than 60,000 in Sunday circulation while the Free Press has gained 114,000 daily and 148,144 Sunday. canvas, and they'd lay the canvas down on the grass and eat lunch off it. Rut they don't come anymore.

A lot of 'em moved out to the suburbs. And I guess the rest of 'em are scared to sit in the park." THE SECRETARIES are gone, Irving says, and so are the young families who used to bring their children to the park Saturday. Their place has been taken by the people he describes as the "ghost sitters" the elderly retirees who live in the aging hotels along the north side of the park and who emerge each day from their rented rooms at the Royal Palm, Victoria, Rex, Majestic and a dozen others to wander the city's downtown. Many of them wind up on a Grand Circus bench reading a newspaper, talking quietly to a neighbor, or just dreaming off into space which is fine, and that's just what a park is meant for, except Irving feels a little sorry for them: "The ghost sitters got nowhere else to go. So they come and sit around the park all day.

You stick around, you'll see 'em!" AND YOU DO. The Ghost Sitters begin arriving about 9 as the blowzy spring sunshine filters through the linden and crabapple as traffic tires begin their mid-morning drumbeat along Woodward as this 4.5-acre park at the heart of Detroit pulses to life. Please turn to Page 17A, Col. 1 jjPark. At this early hour, Grand Circus belongs to the pigeons, to the statue of bearded, four-time mayor Hazen Pingree, and to a man named Irving Smith.

"I ain't got time to sleep!" yelps Irving Smith. He's been up since 4 a.m., lugging newspapers, all kinds of newspapers, from the downtown post office to his newsstand at JWoodward and Adams. Now he scutters along the sidewalk, "peddling Times! and Tribune! and hawking to-Sday's news faster than the Associated Press. Irving Smith is big in Grand Circus Park. He's been selling newspapers there for more than a decade, and he can tell you anything you want to know about the place.

About the ghost sitters. About the opera singer, and his loyal fans. About the mysterious lady with the suitcase. Lunging In and out of traffic, crab-stepping sideways, Irving Smith, historian of Grand Circus Park, says the old place has been changing. "Secretaries," Irving says, "we used to have all kinds of secretaries in this park' They worked in the office buildings around here.

They'd come down at noon with a piece of Free Press Photo bv JIMMY TAFOYA "(Jhosl sitters" in (Jrantl Circus Park v..