Sacramento, California –
Attorney General Earl Warren has ruled that a California city performing civilian defense work is engaged in a governmental function and is immune from suit for damages suffered by its employees as a result of such work.
Justice Department asks House committee to approve bill
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Washington –
The House today passed and sent to the Senate legislation directing that farm wages be included in calculation of parity prices for farm products and defining wages as those not only of hired hands, but of “operators and owners.” The bill would increase parity, one basis on which farm product price ceilings are based.
Washington –
Tornadoes struck small towns in North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina Tuesday night, killing nine persons, injuring 135 and leaving at least 100 families homeless, a Red Cross spokesman here said today.
138 remaining in hospitals have developed lung ailments
Boston, Massachusetts (UP) –
The possibility that poisonous fumes emanated from burning decorations and caused many of the 491 deaths in the Cocoanut Grove Nightclub fire was advanced today by medical experts, chemists and pathologists.
The latest victim was Lt. William Langheimer, of Winchester, Massachusetts, Army officer who was one of the 78 persons under treatment for burns and pneumonia.
Indications that gaseous fume swept the club immediate after the first broke out Saturday night developed after it was disclosed that a number of the 138 still in hospitals had developed lung ailments.
Something deadly in smoke
Medical examiners said there was something deadly in the smoke from the fire, possibly fumes from smoldering fireproofing paint that “gassed the victims as soldiers were gassed in the last war.”
Dr. Timothy Leary, medical examiner of Suffolk County, said:
There is no question there was something poisonous in that smoke besides carbon monoxide and flame. It is possible that the cases came from the fireproofing paint or furnishings in the club.
Dr. Leary disclosed that a thorough investigation was being made by medical authorities. Autopsies have already been made on scores of bodies and the evidence is being double-checked, he said.
Jury to get findings
When the evidence is finally completed, it will be submitted to a grand jury together with other information obtained during inquiries in the last two days by state authorities.
One official said that the state investigators had already obtained evidence that “was enough for presentation” to the jury that convened yesterday., State Attorney General Robert R. Bushnell hinted at “indictments for manslaughter” against an undetermined number of persons, possibly some public officials.
One inquiry developed five pertinent factors. Testimony indicated that: The club was of tinderbox construction; some doors were apparently locked; the club was overcrowded; the club’s decorations were last known to have been fireproofed four years ago; some question of whether electric wiring was installed by an expert.
Washington (UP) –
Senator Gerald P. Nye (R-ND), a leading pre-war isolationist, said last night the only way America could dictate peace terms when the Axis has been defeated would be to “turn loose and beat the life out of Russia, China, Britain – the whole world.”
Addressing a meeting of the English-Speaking Union, he said:
We are going to make the kind of peace which our Allies will let us make.
Senator Nye criticized “unadulterated, blown-in-the-bottle American eagles… like Wendell L. Willkie and Henry Luce,” who, he said, have been:
…screaming that the British must quit fighting to preserve the British Empire, and join with us in some not-clearly-defined but “larger” cause if they expect us to stay with them in this fight.
Asserting that from the outset Britain’s “first purpose” in the war was to preserve her empire, Senator Nye said:
There was no right for anyone to assume that our entry into the war would alter that purpose.
U.S. pilots in North Africa praise ‘Lightnings’ as bomber escorts and ground strafers
By John A. Parris, United Press staff writer
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French farmer is host to correspondents close to front
By William H. Stoneman
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Only one U.S. pilot lost in widespread air operations
By Robert P. Martin, United Press staff writer
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