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In This Issue: The School System Reports tif^itrents () THIS ISSUE 13,382 (Subject to Audlt> 11,127 Paid AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATIONS REPORT OF MARCH 31, 1959 103rd Y.or - No. 48 bC* M pßktl *■ ROCKVILLE. MARYLAND - THURSDAY. NOVEMBER S. 1*59 4 SECTIONS-24 NEWS PAGES " T .„ - , ~ Same Wi Rates Urged In Budget A proposed $39.1 million Washington Suburban Sani tary Commission budget for 1960 would if approved— spare water and sewer users any overall tax rate in creases. Still unsettled, WSSC Treas urer Janies T. Lynch said, is the question of whether the $2.25 monthly refuse charge should be Increased next year. The results of a current study of the subject won’t be known until February But the water and sewer rates of 25 cents and 16 cents, respec tively, for each 1000 gallons of water used, should not be hiked, Lynch urged. A public hearing on the budget proposal was set for December 15 at 8 pan. in the WSSC’s meet ing room, 4017 Hamilton at., Hyattsville. Lynch said the budget will probably necessitate selling $lO worth of bonds early next year. This would increase the WSSC’s indebtedness to about $126 mil lion, he said. Included in the budget are major sewerage and water sys tem projects for the coming year. A good portion of the sl2 million first phase of the Com mission's Potomac Water Filtra tion Plant at Watts Branch is expected to be built next year. Most of the $4 millian increase evef the current budget wouid be in four categories: • About $l.B million increase in capital projects—from sl4 million to $15.8 million. • An .increase of $650,000 for interest and redemption of bonds. • An increase in contributions to construction (mainly the WSSC’s cooperative program for sewage treatment and trans mission with the District of Co lumbia) which is increased by $638,250 over the 1959 budget. • A $524,892 Increase in per sonnel costs, resulting princi pally from a boost in regular time of personnel. Major water projects proposed in the capital budget for the 1960 calendar year include: Onley toward Sandy Spring ($37,300); Wise., ave., to Brooke ville rd„ & 10 Mg. Reservoir ($671,500); standpipe at Bradley Hills ($203,000): water storage at Colesville ($289,800). Sewer projects proposed in cluded: Northwest Branch Pressur Relief Sewer, ($450,700); Paint Branch and Hollywood ($541,200); Little Paint Branch ($243,200); Rock Creek to Gaith (Please Turn to Page A-6) rfmoJ|S| sp? Bef ■w am UNBELIEVER Roy R. Torcaso, of Wheaton, declaims his rights as set forth In a copy of the U. S. Constitution, which he holds here. Torcaso appeared in Circuit Court Tuesday In an attempt to force Issuance of a notary public license, although he refuses to swear belief in God, required by Maryland law. The court took the matter under advise ment Sentinel Photo. Hirtinefi Citif SetifW Torcaso Oath Case Is Heard The first step in what may prove to be a long journey up to the U. S. Supreme Court was taken this week by Roy R. Torcaso, self-pro fessed unbeliever in God, who has been denied a notary public’s license. Torcaso, represented by a bat tery of five lawyers, appeared in Montgomery County Circuit Court Tuesday in an effort to force Maryland to grant him a license in spite of his disbelief in God. Judge Ralph G. Shure heard Torcaso’s lawyers claim denial of a license to Torcaso was un constitutional, Federally and at the State level. He also heard Deputy Attorney General Sted man Prescott, jr., defend the State’s denial on legal prece dents. The case was held open 10 more days. Leo Pfeffer, attor ney, represented Torcaso on be half of the American Jewish Congress. Pfeffer is associate general counsel for APC and is regard ed as a leading scholar in the study of separation of church and state. He authored the work, “Church, State and Free dom.’’ Torasco also was represented by brothers Joseph and Carlton Sickles, Sanford H. Bolz (APC), and Laurence Speiser, counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. Prescott stood firm on his be lief that position as a notary in Maryland is a privilege, not a matter of right. Therefore, he said, Torcaso's constitutional rights were not usurped. He also stressed language In Maryland’s Declaration of Rights that says seekers of office and public trust shall not be required to meet a religious test, . other than a decla ration of belief in the existence of God.” Joseph Sickles, however, con tended that since the U.S. Con stitution says no religious test shall be required to any office (Please Turn to Page A-6) nIB 4 * Mg " 1 JH “-cir 1 - ' ■ s m, mfflffim ’ “ ■ B S Jf Hv I & m m Ji JP ■w * ’ m ▼ aWWPi- . SHIVERING l 1 kU.,I fsAU AND COLD after fire burned up her clothes and her parents’ furniture is 7-year-old Barbara Ann Trenton, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Trenton. The Trenton’s home near Laytonsville caught fire from a defective chimney flue (right rear! last Monday. The parents and their children escaped. Sentinel Photo. Education Week Noted By Schools Sunday through next Saturday will be American Education Week. e Montgomery County schools will observe the week with spe cial invitations to parents to visit their children’s schools. There will also be open houses, P-TA meetings, a county-wide school exhibit at Broome Junior High School In Rockville, and publication of “Report Card,” annual report of the superin tendent of schools. “Report Card” appears in this issue of the Sentinel as an eight page supplement. Theme of Education Week this year is “Praise and Appraise Our Schools.” Object is to increase public understanding and ap preciation of job schools are doing and the problems they face. Many county schools will hold open house all day Wednesday. On Tuesday there will be a regular meeting of the County Board of Education at Broome Junior High School in Rockville, which parent and student repre sentatives will attend as ob servers. Also at Broome there will be a luncheon Tuesday for members of the County Council and the county manager. Police Report No Charges are Due In Dr. Bird Crash Alabama State Police said Tuesday that no charges will be placed as a result of the traffic accident that killed Dr. and Mrs. Jacob W. Bird, of Sandy Spring, October 25. The reason, they said, was that it has been established that one of two Alabama men in the car, who was killed was the driver. The other man, who escaped, was a passenger. The wife of the Alabama man killed, also a passenger, died in the crash. Both Alabama men had been drinking, blood tests made by police showed. And the car in which they were riding swung around a car halted in front of a stop sign before slamming into the side of the Bird car in the middle of dn intersection, near Huntsville. A two year-old grandson of the deceased Alabama couple was critically Injured In the crash. A State Trooper said Tuesday the child has been re moved from the critical list but doctors feu* ha may never walk Fire Ruins Belongings of Family of 8 Fire that apparently start ed in a cracked chimney flue Monday threatened the farm home of Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Trenton and their six chil dren, near Laytonsville, be fore it was brought under control. The two-alarm fire, which broke out at 9:47 a.m. was ex tinguished by members of the Gaithersburg and Laytonsville Volunteer Fire Departments at 11 a.m. There were no Injuries. Mrs. Trenton was making beds on the second story of the frame home when she smelled smoke. She told her husband who ran outside and saw the side of his home smoking. He dashed more than a mile to Fraley’s Garage and report ed the fire. Meanwhile, his wife and four of her six chil dren waited outside the house. The other two children were away from home at the time. Firemen found flames from the overheated flue had ignited combustible material between the Interior and exterior walls at the first floor level and had mushroomed out between the partitions of the second floor. They were able to stop It at the roof, however. again—If he does survive—due to serious brain damage. At its Tuesday meeting, the Montgomery County Council adopted a resolution In which it told of being “stunned and saddened to learn of the un timely passing of Dr. and Mrs. Bird.” Meanwhile, joint funeral serv ices were held Friday for Dr. and Mrs. Bird at St. John's Epis copal Church. Olney. Burial was In the church cemetery. An estimated 800 persons at tended the funeral. Family members, honorary pallbearers and close friends quickly filled the church Itself. Several hun dred others who came to pay final tribute to the. founder of Montgomery General Hospital stood quietly outside the church while services were conducted inside. Then they flocked to the graveside for the final rites. Dr. Bird’s son, J. W. Bird, Jr., of Huntsville, and the latter s wife, both injured in the crash, were allowed by their physicians tc attend the funeral. Both plainly showed the grief and shock ol their experience. A Century of Service Police Say This Man Is in a Rut A man just out of the House of Corrections —for unauthorized use of an auto —was re-arrested in Rockville Sunday—for un authorized use of an auto. Police said they arrested William A. Simms, of Seven Locks rd., Scotland, at 3 o’clock in the morning while he was trying to drive an unlighted cab from Hick man’s Taxi Service lot on North Wasington st. Police said Simms had Just a week previously fin ished serving an 18-month sentence for unauthorized use of a vehicle. UGF Drive Way Under Its Quota The United Givers Fund winds up its Montgomery County campaign today, critically short of its $140,- 200 goal. Mrs. Percy W. Phillips, chair man of the Montgomery County drive, said that as of noon yes terday a total of $77,534 in cash and pledges had been collected. This is only 55 per cent of the quota for the county. Mrs. Phillips said she believed there were two principal reasons for the low total. She said that many Montgomery County resi dents work in Washington and had made their contributions at their jobs. But she also said that the response by many busi nessmen in Montgomery County had been extremely disappoint ing. Miu Philips said that this year,” solicitors had concentrated their efforts on contacting all of the businesses in the county, rather than on a door-to-door canvass of residences. But she said that many of the women doing the soliciting had received only rudeness from some owners and managers of businesses in the county. She pointed out that on the other hand many businessmen had been extremely kind and co-operative. She said that gen erally it was the smaller busi nesses that refused to make any contribution. Mrs. Phillips said that there is actually more money spent in Montgomery County by the UGF than is collected here. She said that this is partly because many county residents make their contributions in Washing ton at their jobs, but also be cause UGF agencies here take care of the “In-betweens,” fam ilies who are not poor enough to qualify for welfare, but not wealthy enough to handle sudden disastrous expenses. For example, a family in the middle-income group could not qualify for admission to a county hospital, but might require med ical care costing several thou sand dollars, more than they could raise. In such circum stances, it is up to private as sistance agencies to see that the family gets the necessary medical care. WL Oi • HIP (aybik. i||p * libu w&Km* INSTEAD OK A BLACKBOARD, a television set is giving these youngsters their science lesson at West Rockville Elementary School. The educational television project is now in Anson St. Foes Win Long Fight TV In Classroom Is Now A Fixture Television is probably in Montgomery County class- rooms to stay. All of the 85 elementary schools in Montgomery County will be using science education lessons broadcast over WTTG TV by the Greater Washington Educational Television Associa tion (GWETA). The program ot Pay: $9516 New Aide For Reese Is Hired County Manager Melvin L. Reese has a new adminis trative assistant: 31-year-old Alan F. Kiepper, now a bureau of the budget spec ialist with the city of Rich mond. Kiepper will report for duty December 1. Now earning $6864 a year, he will start at $9516 for Montgomery County. His pending job is brand-new, one Reese has been trying to fill at least a year. Kiepper is parried and the father of tin e children. He holds a bachelo: of science de gree In government from the University of New Hampshire, attended Wayne University graduate school 1950-51, was a graduate fellow at that institu tion while working as a staff member of the Citizens Re search Council of Michigan, and is due to receive a master’s de gree in public administration in February. He served as an Army Ad jutant and Personnel officer from 1951 until 1953 before joining the Richmond govern ment as an administrative in tern in 1953. He rose to senior budget and budget management officer for Richmond two years later before taking over his current duties. New Burning Tree Arldiion Is Occupied Overcrowded conditions at the Burning Tree Elementary School, on Beech Tree rd., were relieved Tuesday when students and teachers occupied the school's 10 new classrooms, two kindergartens and a library. The addition to the school was completed in 196 days, two weeks ahead of schedule, by contractors Hill & Klmmel. Architects were Duane & Law rence, who designed upper and lower clossrooms on a split-level plan. its second year, and as soon as more sets can be acquired, all elementary schools in the county will participate. Sentinel Photo. science lessons is now in its second year. Albert A. Gibson, principal of West Rockville Elementary School, said that two sixth-grade classes at his school are seeing all of the five weekly TV broad casts. Gibson said that when the program was started last year it was shown to fifth-grade pupils, and is being continued this year with the same pupils now in sixth grade. The lessons are broadcast Monday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. till 12 noon. Tuesday and Thursday are repeats of the Monday and Wednesday science lessons, and on Fridays a special program is presented on more general topics. The Friday program this week will show school children from the metropolitan area demon strating some of the experi ments and projects they have conducted In conjunction with the television lessons. Gibson said that although the program of lessons is not “100 per cent compatible” with the school’s curriculum, it is on the whole considered satisfactory and they have ordered another TV receiver for use of the pres ent fifth grade. Gibson said that furnishing the TV receiving set* is a joint project of the Board of Educa tion and the P-TAs. Cost of each set is $319, of which the Board pays one-third and the P-TA pays two-thirds. In addition to paying part of the cost of the set* themselves, Montgomery County Is contrib uting SSOOO this year to GWETA in support of the program. In the first year, participating school systems made no con tributions to the program, ac cording to GWETA. Mrs. Edmund D. Campbell, president of GWETA said the object of the educational TV pro gram is to serve as a supple ment to regular classes con ducted by teachers. She said it !s not intended to replace teachers. Mrs. Campbell said that GWETA provides the program, but does not try to tell the schools how it should be used. All questions of policy are left up to the individual school sys tems. The lessons are conducted by Darrell Drummond, a regular elementary school teacher. For the first year, the Tuesday and Thursday lessons were repeated live, but this year they have been simply copied on video tape and re-run. Mrs. Campbell pointed out that the lessons are broadcast over open-circuit TV, and that a number of adults watch them on their own TV sets because they are so interesting. Weather Outlook Thunder showers today and tonight, again Monday. Cool to morrow and Saturday, warmer Sunday and Monday. Total rain fall will average one-half inch. New Building To Go Up at Sligo & Grove Public pressure apparent ly forced the County Coun cil to select a site it didn’t want for a new county serv ice building this week. New site for the Silver Spring building will be on Sligo ave., East of Fenton st., near Grove st., In “blighted” Southern Silver Spring. The 4.5-acre site and building will replace the building and all the services now located at the old Silver Spring county build ing near Georgia ave., and Coles ville rd. Less than the approximately $700,000 set aside for it will be spent on the new building—de pending on the cost of land, ac cording to Melvin L. Reese, County Manager. The county has holdings on 40,270 square feet of the tract. The rest was ordered to condem nation Tuesday. An architect to design the building will be se lected this week, Reese said. Thus the end came for a per sistent effort by the County to build at a site on Anson st., flanked by First and Second aves. Only last August 11, after two heated public hearings, the Council decided to stick with Anson st., Instead of the Sligo- Grove one mile away. But a last-ditch legal move by Anson st., residents forced the County to readvertise for more public hearings on the issue and set aside their earlier decision. Two more stormy hearings fol lowed, capped by Tuesday’s capitulation. Selection of a site for the building had tough sledding. Other sites considered were behind the newish Silver Spring library on Colesville rd., and Alton pkwy. In each case citizens argued that criminals, sirens, and lowered land values would ruin the respective neighbor hoods. No one said that about Sligo-Grove. But the Council and Reese did say that a location so far South might prove unworkable. They doubted, as the Sliver Spring Board of Trade suggested, that a county building would elevate the surroundings at Sligo-Grove. Tuesday’s vote to go ahead with the latter site was opposed by Councilmen David L. Cahoon and B. Houston McCeney. They argued that the Anson at., area in the future will become com merlcalized as proposed in the Silver Spring master plan while Southern Sliver Spring will be come just another commercial slum. Principal past proponents for the Sligo-Grove site were Coun cilmen William F. Hickey and Jerry T. Williams. Council president Mrs. Stella B. Werner and colleague Stanley B. Frosh could not be pinned down 100 per cent to either site, although Mrs. Werner gave the impression of favoring Anson st. Both voted against Anson st., Tuesday. Grover K. Walker, seventh Councilman, was the real swing man. The August public hear ing on Anson st., was hopelessly deadlocked at 3-3 (Mrs. Werner was absent) until Walker switched in favor of buying the Anson st., tract. Walker sided with Anson st., Tuesday. Ednor Post Office In Closed Down The 70-year-old post of fice In a general store at Ednor was closed last Sat urday. Operations will be shifted two miles South to a new station to be known as Kdnor-Norwood Substation. Closure came over pro tests by the Ednor Citizens Association and a request for postponement by Con gressman John R. Foley (I)., Md.). The Post Office Idepartment contended the tiny facility, operated by Miss Etta Tucker, cost more to run than it brought in In receipts.