Evening star. [volume], January 05, 1938, Page A-8, Image 8

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Electric Chair Demanded for
Two Girls Held in Killing
of Bus Driver.
By th« Associated Press.
NEWARK, N. J„ Jan. 5.—A dry
eyed widow steeled herself today to face
two girl* held on murder charges In
the $2.10 hold-up slaying of her bus
driver husband.
She demanded the electric chair for
both—mannish Mrs. Ethel Strouse
Sohl, 20-year-old daughter of a New
ark radio policeman and wife of a re
formatory inmate, and movie-struck
Genevieve Owens. 17, Ethel’s chum
since they met in the House of Deten
tion.
"I want to see for myself what kind
of girls could do such a thing,” said
Mrs. Theresa Barhorst of Totowa,
whose husband William was shot to
death and robbed late on the night of
December 21 in Belleville as he neared
the end of his Rutherford-North New
ark bus run.
Joseph Cocozza. acting captain of
prosecutor's detectives who cracked the
case, said the girls, partners in a series
of hold-ups, robbed "for the fun of
"it” and not for the money they took.
Police had been baffled by the slay
ing. A witnesses story that he had
aeen some one—he thought it was a
man, and yet it might be a woman—
leap from the halted bus into a get
away car was the most tangible clue.
A slip of the tongue by Genevieve
as she reported to the probation office
on a vagrancy parole, suspicion by a
woman official there, the girl's inad
vertent stare at the picture of her
chum as she was made to look through
rogues’ gallery for the picture of a
mythical hold-up man she had in
vented—and Cocozza said the case
was solved with complete confessions.
The two Newark girls were held yes
terday on murder charges by Recorder
Everett B. Smith in suburban Belle
ville and the Essex County grand jury
Will consider the case here Friday.
"Terrible Hold on Daughter.”
Prostrated by grief and faced with
eviction along with her truck-driver
husband and six other children, Mrs.
Edward Owens said she and her hus
band, Genevieve’s stepfather, had
atruggled In vain to break up the com
panionship betw-een their daughter
and Mrs. Sohl.
“It was terrible the hold Ethel had
•n my daughter.” she said.
Ethel's parents. Patrolman and Mrs.
Erank Strouse, would talk to no one
about their daughter's arrest.
Cocozza gave the following digest
©f the girls’ purported confessions:
After other hold-ups "for the thrill
©f It,” they stole an auto December 16
and five days later drove in it to
Rutherford, where, bent on a hold-up.
they stopped in front of the bus
Girls Held as' Slayers
Neu-ark police announced yesterday that Genevieve Owens,
17 (left>, and Mrs. Ethel Strouse Sohl, 20, had confessed the rob
bery-slaying of Bus Driver William Barhorst two weeks ago.
The loot was $2.10. With the young women are detectives who
assisted in the arrest.* —Copyright, A. P. Wirephoto.
— “
terminal. Eyed suspiciously by driv
ers. they started back toward Newark
and overtook Barhorst's bus in Belle
ville. There were no passengers in it.
“Gun Went Off."
Grabbing from the rear seat a
sawed-off 32-caliber rifle she had
■borrowed’’ from a hunter, Ethpl
stepped from the ear, hid the weapon
in the folds of her skirt and motioned
to Barhorst to stop.
“This is a stick-up,” she cried as
she boarded the halted bus.
"He grabbed the barrel • • • and
as he did the gun went off.” she told
police. "Then I grabbed the change
carrier.”
Hurrying back to the car, she drove
to Newark, where she took the $2.10
j from the change carrier and tossed the
carrier into & sewer. There had been
more money in it, but she had spilled
the rest in her haste.
“I had a tussle and I think I shot
a man," Ethel told her companion.
The girls also confessed, Cocozza
said, that they robbed George Webb,
attendant at a Rutherfosd gasoline
I station, on November 26 and held up
' a gasoline station in Lyndhurst De
cember 18.
-#
New Undersea Mountains.
A new range of undersea moun
tains has been found between Jan
Mayen and Bear Islands in the North
Atlantic.
WAN REFUGES
Censorship of News Final
Step to Dominance in
Foreign Areas.
BACKGROUND—
Japanese have progressively
taken over functions of former
Chinese government in Shanghai
and other . occupied areas. In
North China autonomous regimes
have been established in the con
quered provinces while preparations
get under way for replacing Nan
king Nationalist government with
authorities sympathetic to Japa
nese.
B» tl>c Associated Press.
SHANGHAI, Jan. 5—Japanese au
thorities announced today they had
taken over all Chinese government
functions in the International city of
Shanghai and other territory occupied
by Japanese armies.
A final step in Japan’s drive for
dominance was projected censorship
of new dispatches. Japanese officials
were said to have notified cable com
panies that Japanese censors were
moving in to prevent leakage of mili
tary information to Chinese.
For more than a month, dispatches
had been free from interference.
Chinese had maintained some censor
ship until the fall of Shanghai.
The disclosure that censorship would
be imposed came shortly after Japa
nese officials raised what foreign au
thorities termed a "grave issue” by
threatening action in the Internation
al Settlement itself to halt "anti
Japanese outrages.”
It coincided, also, with new advices
by Japanese armies bent on consoli
dating control of five rich North China
provinces and the lower Yangtze River
valley.
The. Rising Sun flag was raised at
Chufu, .birthplace of China's great
sage. Confucius, by detachments ad
vancing southward through Shantung
Province. Chinese were withdrawing
toward Suchow, vital railway junction
in Kiangsu Province, 180 miles north
of Nanking.
Chinese, however, kept up the swift
raidtng tactics which Generalissimo
Chiang Kai-shek has declared were
the mainspring of resistance.
Chinese advices from mountainous,
frigid Shansi Province said repeated
detachments of the scattered former
Communist Army had forced Japanese
to bolster garrisons along the two main
railways.
From up the Yangtze came Chinese
reports that several planes of Mme.
Chii^ig Kai-shek's airforce—now un
dergoing reorganization—had dropped
bomb6 on Japanese warships at Wuhu
and Tatung.
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French Bishop Guarding Girls
Slapped hy Japanese Soldier
Chinese Women Smear Faces With Mud
to Hide Charms in 9 Days of
Looting at Hangchoiv.
Bt the Associated Press.
HANGCHOW, Jan. 1, by Courier to
Shanghai, Jan. 5.—After nine days of
looting, disorder and fear Japanese
military police today had succeeded
in restoring a measure of peace and
order and reassuring the terrified pop
ulation of this capital of Chekiang
Province.
(The Japanese Army announced
capture of Hangchow Decem
ber 24.)
The American School and residences
of Americans and other foreigners
were among buildings looted in spite
of the display of foreign flags and
notices forbidding entry posted by the
Japanese military.
Japanese soldiers and Chinese both
took part in the looting. This cor
respondent.personally witnessed many
instances and was told of others by
foreign missionaries who had seen
them.
Japanese Cart Away Loot.
Great street, the chief thorough
fare, hardly has a shop that has not
been smashed open and looted. Japa
nese were seen carrying off property
in motor trucks and on horses or
donkeys. Chinese coolies were im
pressed to help.
(Col. Masutara Nakai of the
Japanese Army, who returned to
Shanghai from Hangchow today,
said the Japanese forces were pay
ing for everything they requisi
tioned from Chinese in Hang
chow.)
There were no wholesale executions
here such as marked the Japanese
capture of Nanking. A few looters
were shot. Language difficulties ap
parently figured in a few such cases.
Japanese authorities pasted special
military police after there had been
reports that Japanese had molested
Chinese woman refugees in foreign
sponsored refugee camps. This helped
the situation.
Bishop's Face Slapped.
No foreigners were harmed, but
there were several threatening inci
dents, including one in which a Jap
anese soldier slapped the face of a
French Catholic bishop. Japanese sol
diers entered a Catholic refugee camp
and demanded women. The bishop
stood out against them, and a soldier
hit him in the face with his open!
hand.
Fortunately, Just then a couple of
Japanese officers came in, beat the
soldiers and called in others to take
them to headquarters.
Many Chinese girls seeking safety in
the refugee camps had their faces
smeared with mud in an attempt to
conceal their attractions. Hundreds of
others are known to have been hidden
in churches and the homes of for
eigners.
Immediately after entry of the first
Japanese detachments, Chinese en
gaged in widespread looting of shops,
especially seeking food. Japanese .sol
diers made no apparent effort to stop
them. Some looting continues, but
appears confined mostly to new ar
rivals seeking plunder in already
thoroughly plucked premises.
Government Buildings Looted.
Every government building and
school in the city has been broken into
and looted.
Retreating Chinese soldiers demol
ished the Hangchow electric plant, the
airdrome, piers of the river ferry serv
ice, the telephone and telegraph serv
ices.
The food situation is extremely seri
ous, but since the main Japanese force
is passing through the city to push on
into the interior, is is hoped there will
be improvement.
GEN. BUTLER GETS EAGLE
Bird Guaranteed “Militant’’ Giv
en by Nebraskan.
SCOTTSBLUFF, Nebr., Jan. 5 iTPi.
—A young bald eagle with a wing
spread of 7 feet 2 inches, and guar
anteed to be "militant,” was en route
today to Gen. Smedley D. Butler, re
tired commander of the United States
Marines, at Newton Square, Pa.
E. N. Fogleman, junior vice com
mander of the Nebraska Veterans of
Foreign Wars, promised three years
ago to send Butler a young bald eagle
on condition Butler would take it to
all V. F. W. conventions. The eagle
was named Abe for the Union Army's
Old Abe, a bald eagle mascot during
the Civil War.
Bolshevism Is Seen End of
Anti-Christian Drive
by Nazis.
By WALLACE R. DEUEL,
Chicago Daily Neva Correspondent.
BERLIN, Jan. S.—The campaign by
certain elements In the Nazi party
against Christianity ‘‘can only end in
bolshevism,” Dr. Martin Niemoeller,
fighting parson of the Berlin suburb
of Dahlem and former submarine
commander, declares in the open let
ter he has just written to his congre
gation from his cell at Moabit Prison
here.
Dr. Niemoeller has also submitted
the text of his letter to the prosecut
ing authorities as part of his defense
against the charges of “malicious at
tacks against the people and state.”
which are now pending against him.
‘‘Christian Wav of Life Attacked.”
“Open enmity against the Christian
faith as such and, above all, against
the preaching of Christianity • * *
showed itself at first in the form of
'German Christian’ falsification of the
message of Christ," Dr. Niemoeller
writes. “But today open attack on \
much of our German faith has been
framed up along the whole line against j
Christian teaching and against the
Christian way of life.
Men of public importance and in
high state offices are taking part in
this attack in increasing measure, he
adds.
“If it ever comes to the point where
the laws of the state conflict with the !
obligation of a Christian pastor to
preach the word of God and combat
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it* enemies then the pastor will have
to put hi* obligation to hi* falt^i abova
thoae laws," Dr. Niemoeller lays.
Cites Right as Citizen.
"According to the Nazis themselves,
however," he goes on, “the state offi
cially believes in Christianity and pro
tects lt. If this is the case, then he has
not only a duty as a Christian pastor,
but a right as a citizen, to preach th#
word of God and fight it* enemies, Mr.
Niemoeller argued. "In fact, it is these
enemies of the Christian belief and
not he who should be In Jail, he sug
gests.
"According to the text of the party
program, according to the utterances
of Der Fuehrer, and according to the
laws of our people, the struggle on th#
issue of whether the German people
is to remain—or again become—a
Christian people is no forbidden, he
writes.
• Copyright, Iflns. by Chic.go Dally
N*wa. Inc.i
-•
ARMY FLYERS KILLED
BARSTOV.’, Calif., Jan. 5 iTPt—Two
Army flyers were killed when their
airplane struck a power line near
here yesterday, crashed and burned
They were Second Lt. Charles Al
fred Clancy, 25. pilot, of Riverside,
and Victor L. Jost, 27, mechanic, In
glewood.
Two farmers, W. J. Smithson and
Ray Phipps, said three planes from
the Army air base at March Field were
"hedge-hopping'’ over the desert and
dived beneath the power line, but the
rudder of Lt. Clancy's ship caught on
a wire.
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