March time machine

Today the Arizona Daily Star offers a look back at some front pages that appeared in the month of March throughout the newspaper’s history. Some had big national or international news on the cover. Sometimes the big news was local.

News of note on these front pages includes the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, the discovery of Pluto, polio vaccine trials, radiation leak at the Three-Mile Island nuclear facility and a battle with Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas.

A single newspaper page earlier in the 20th century was much wider than they are today. To be able to print the entire page, we have been forced to shrink them so that they are too small for many to read. The center of this section shows a page that is much closer to the original size. On other pages where the reproduction is smaller, we've reprinted at least part of the stories we've highlighted.

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TERRIBLE LOSS OF LIFE IN A NEW YORK FIRE

Girl Employes of Shirtwaist Factory Excitedly Leap from Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Stories to Death.

HUNDRED AND FORTY-EIGHT ARE KNOWN DEAD

Heartrending Scenes Enacted by the Score ─ Owners of Establishment Escape Over Roofs ─ University Students Save 40 Girls.

NEW YORK, March 25. ─ One hundred and forty-eight persons, nine-tenths of them girls of the East Side, were crushed to death on pavements, smothered or burned to a crisp this afternoon in the worst fire since that of the steamer General Slocum in 1904. Nearly all were employed by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors of Nr. 23 Washington place. A corner of the eighth floor was the point of origin of the fire, the cause being unknown. The three upper floors were the only ones swept. There was not an outside fire escape on the building. The partners in the firm, Isaac Harris and Max Blank escaped, carrying over an adjoining roof Blank's two young daughters and their governess. Fifty bodies were found on the ninth floor, sixty-three or more were crushed to death by jumping and over thirty clogged the elevator shafts. The loss of property was under $100,000.

At ten minutes before five wayfarers on the street below saw the windows of the upper floors black with girls crowding to the sills. Then began a rain of human bodies, flattening out on the pavements below. The crowd shouted a vain appeal to them not to jump. Four fire alarms were sounded in fifteen minutes. Five girls came down so heavily that they crushed through the very streets to the vaults below. In a half hour after its start the fire had done its work and in an hour it was extinguished.

Although the building stands on a corner the only ways of escape were two freight elevators, two passenger elevators, two stairways, one interior fire escape and a light shaft. All were almost useless. Those who escaped climbed over roofs or fled before the crush and smoke cut them off.

Seven hundred hands, 500 of them women, employed by the shirtwaist company, sat in by rows of whirring machines and tables piled with flimsy cloth. The lint laden air filled with flames in a moment, catching the operators sitting and searing their lungs as they inhaled the flames. Nets stretched by the first fire company to arrive were soon gorged with bodies, weighted to a bursting point and bodies kept tumbling to the pavement through the broken meshes.

Five minutes before quitting time the first breath of flame curled over the edge of a pile of skirting on the eighth floor. From an office building across the street several men saw a girl throw up a window. Behind her they saw a curtain of yellow flame. She climbed to the sill, stood as a black outline against the light, then went whirling downward through the woven wire and glass of a canopy to the flagging below. Others flashed through the air like rockets. It was 85 feet to the ground from the eighth and 110 from the top floor. The crackle of the flames drowned their cries.

One young girl hung for three minutes by her finger tips and then a tongue of flame licked them. She dropped into the fire net. Two women fell at the same moment, the strand parted and three more were added to the death roll. Six girls crawled to a swinging wire spanning the street and seized it simultaneously, It snapped like a rotted whipcord and they crashed a hundred feet to their deaths. One girl dropped to a tarpaulin held by three men, tore it from their grasp when she struck and every bone was broken in her body. Such instances were numerous. A man and woman embraced and kissed, he hurled her down, then jumped. Both are dead.

A man armed with a club held back frantic girls at one of the elevators. Thirty were admitted at a time and taken down as fast as possible. The tenth floor of an adjoining building is the law department of New York University. Students found ladders and rescued forty girls off the roof. Hyman Mazcher, a cutter, slid down an elevator cable ten stories and was found alive at the bottom up to his armpits in water. A hundred mounted policemen had to charge the crowd of tens of thousands repeatedly.

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FOLLOWING RAID UPON COLUMBUS N.M. AMERICAN SOLDIERS PURSUE VILLA'S BAND INTO MEXICO, SLAUGHTERING 100

16 AMERICANS MURDERED BY INVADING BAND

Outlaws Surprise a Sleeping Town and Shoot Down Residents During Two-Hour Guerilla Attack.

COLUMBUS, N. M., Mar. 9. ─ Francisco Villa, with 1500 men, raided United States territory today. He attacked Columbus and killed at least sixteen Americans. His men fired many buildings before they were driven back across the border. At least 250 United States cavalrymen followed the Villa band into Mexico.

Reports from Colonel Slocum late today stated that Villa made a stand fifteen miles south of the border, where spirited fighting ensued. An unnamed private was killed and a captain were wounded. A small detachment of troopers under Majors Tompkins and Lindsley, fighting dismounted, made a determined stand against renewed Villa attacks. At last report they were holding their ground.

The raid into American territory proved costly for Villa. Eighteen Mexican bandits, including Pablo Lopez, second in command, were gathered and their bodies burned before noon. Troopers reported that an undetermined number of dead were still lying in the brush.

WOMAN CAPTIVE TELLS OF MARCH UPON VILLAGE

Outlaw Began Forced Marches March 1, driving Men with Swords ─ Tells of Murder of Husband and Youth.

COLUMBUS, N. M., Mar. 9. ─ Mrs. Maud Wright, an American, who said she was held captive by Villa nine days, was released in the midst of the fighting. She said that on March 1, Villa announced his intention to attack Columbus and proceeded north under forced marches. The men had only scanty supplies of water and meat and suffered severely. Villa ruled his men by fear, she said, and his officers beat their men into line with their swords.

The woman said her husband, Edward, formerly of Houston, and Frank Hayden, a youth employed at the La Bocas sawmill, were taken from the Wright ranch March 1 and presumably killed. When forced to ride with them, she said the bandit leader ordered her to give her baby to a Mexican family. Mrs. Wright is being cared for at the home of General Slocum.

…

Four Victims Burned.

American losses on the Mexican side was one corporal killed, when Villa threw out a heavy guard to engage his pursuers. Of the eight American civilians slain here, Charles DeWitt Miller, of Albuquerque, and Dr. H. J. Hart, of El Paso, were burned to death in the Commercial hotel. The body of Walton Walker, of Playas, N. M., who was shot, with W. T. Ritchie, proprietor of the hotel, was also incinerated.

Mrs. M. James was shot and killed in the doorway of another hotel, falling across the body of C. C. Miller, who was driven from his drugstore across the street. Her little sister escaped, but her husband was wounded.

Mrs. Ryan, wife of the captain of Troop E, had a narrow escape when their house was riddled by bullets. It was in the line, with the window facing the ditch, from which Villa opened his attack. Bullets perforated her clothing on a chair.

Officer's Wife Escapes.

Fred Griffen, a private of troop K, on guard at headquarters, opened fire on the Mexicans as they were attacking the quarters of Lieut. Lucas, commanding the machine gun troops of the Thirteenth cavalry. He fell mortally wounded under a volley, but he killed two Mexicans, then crawled to the side of the Ryan home. Mrs. Ryan ran under fire to an adobe garage. She was stopped by a Mexican, who demanded to know where she was going. She said she was going to get a motor car. She sat unmolested during the fight, in an automobile.

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ANOTHER PLANET DISCOVERED BY YOUTH, 23, AT FLAGSTAFF; FORECAST BY LOWELL IN 1905

Discovery Made on February 18 by Extremely Delicate Photographic Telescope at Lowell Observatory

ANNOUNCED BY DIRECTOR V. M. SLIPHER

Ninth Planet in Solar System Is Beyond Neptune; Is Forty Times as Far From Earth As the Sun

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz., March 18. ─ (AP) ─ A twenty-five year search of the skies by astronomers connected with the Lowell observatory here has ended ─ Dr. V. M. Slipher, director, having announced today that a ninth planetary member of the solar system had been discovered ─ the object of the search.

In 1905 the search started under the direction of Dr. Percival Lowell, astronomer. Nine years later he published an article predicting that some day a ninth planet would be found "somewhere beyond Neptune," and today, on the anniversary of Dr. Lowell's birth, Dr. Slipher announced it was on a line with "and far beyond Neptune," the new and nameless body in the skies had been located.

For years, C. W. Tombaugh, photographer for the Lowell observatory has almost nightly taken pictures of the planets and their environs.

Several weeks ago, in looking over a finished picture, he noticed a faint "star-light splotch." Another picture, taken the next night, of the space near Neptune, showed the same hope of a startling discovery.

The photographer called C. O. Lampland, assistant director of the observatory. Lampland studied the photographs and then trained a high-powered telescope on the space where the sensitive photographic plate showed there was a light. After several nights he was rewarded ─ for the first time the new planet had actually been seen.

Brother astronomers of Dr. Lampland were called, and they, too, saw the planet through the eye of the telescope that Dr. Lowell, many years before, through mathematical calculations, predicted existed "beyond Neptune" and the ken of man.

Dr. Slipher, in announcing discovery of the new solar body, said it was of the fifteenth magnitude, and that on March 12 its position at three hours Greenwich mean time was seven seconds of time west from Delta Gemnorum, "agreeing with Dr. Lowell's predicted longitude."

The Lowell director said the distance of the new planet beyond Neptune had not been computed, nor had its orbit been calculated.

U.S. Observatory Welcomes Planet

WASHINGTON, Mar. 13. ─ (AP) ─ A welcome for "the new member of our celestial family" issued from the United States naval observatory tonight as astronomers there prepared to try and find the new world for themselves.

Captain C. S. Freeman, in charge of the observatory, said he believed the new orb could be discovered only with the greatest difficulty.

"The planet," he explained, "is on the edge of visibility of the largest of the observatory's telescopes and the slightest haze or over brightness or glare from moonlight may defer the actual picking up of the object here."

He added that the discovery of what was believed to be a new trans-Neptunian planet was a source of considerable satisfaction throughout the astronomical world, since its presence would help explain certain deviations in the calculated motion of Neptune ─ previously the most distant point of the known solar system.

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National Anthem Officially Made Song of America

WASHINGTON, March 4. ─ (AP) ─ Some claimed the high notes were too high and some the low notes too low. Others simply said that for most America voices it was "unsingable."

But anyway, the house and senate approved it. The President affixed his signature today.

Now, The "Star Spangled Banner" is, by act of congress, America's official national anthem.

Marylanders in congress, in recognition of the song's having been written in Baltimore harbor while British shells fell upon Fort McHenry, sought the legislation for years.

Scores of patriotic organizations joined in their plea. Representative Linthicum and Senator Tydings got their shoulders behind the project. The former introduced the bill and saw to it that hearings were held. The house judiciary committee conducted them.

Two sopranos and a band were specially imported to show the committee the anthem could be sung. They did. They sang all the verses ─ several times.

Old attendants at the capitol said the hearing was unique. Unusual not only for its incidental music, they said, but also because the committee members spent most of the time on their feet.

Note to readers: Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics to the Star-Spangled Banner, calling his poem "Defence of Fort M'Henry" during the War of 1812. The tune that some say is hard to sing was written by John Stafford Smith as a drinking song for a men's social club in London and had different lyrics.

"The Star-Spangled Banner" was a popular patriotic song for more than a century before it was made the national anthem in 1931. President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order designating it the national anthem by Congress in 1916.

There are four stanzas to the poem, reproduced here with Francis Scott Key's original spelling and punctuation:

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Lindbergh Baby Kidnaped

POLICE OF TWO STATES COMBINE IN HUNT FOR AMERICA'S BEST KNOWN BABY, TAKEN FROM HIS BED AND TAKEN AWAY IN SEDAN

Green Chrysler Used in Crime at Home in New Jersey

WORE SLEEPING SUIT

Father Unable to Give Information to Officers

HOPEWELL, N. J., March 2. ─ (Wednesday) ─ (AP) ─ A note was found last night on the window sill of the nursery from which Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. was kidnaped. Although police would not divulge the note's contents, it was indicated that it contained a demand for ransom.

NEW YORK, March 1. ─ (AP) ─ Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. was kidnaped tonight from the home of his famous parents in Hopewell, N. J., and spirited away in a dark green Chrysler sedan.

A description of the car was carried in a confidential communication on the police teletype systems of New Jersey and New York.

The police notice gave its license number as "A-1153NJ" and stated that the machine was stolen in Atlantic City.

NEW YORK, Mar. 1. ─ (AP) ─ Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh's 19 months old son, Charles Augustus, Jr., was kidnaped tonight from their home at Hopewell, N. J.

News of the kidnaping, first carried as a report on the police teletype service, was verified to the Associated Press by one of Colonel Lindbergh's closest friends, who asked that his name be not used.

No information was available as to how the kidnapers managed to make away with the child, who was clad in his sleeping suit.

The baby, probably the best known youngster in America, was put to bed at his usual hour, 7:30 p. m. At 10 p. m., someone looked in the nursery and he was gone. That was all the information the flying colonel was able to give the police.

The alarm spread quickly over New Jersey and New York state. Police Commissioner Mulrooney was awakened at his home and notified. He hurried to headquarters.

Special police squad cars were shot out over Jersey highways, and a close watch was placed over the Holland tunnel and the various ferries connecting the two states. Police had blanket orders to stop and search all cars of a suspicious character.

Meanwhile, picked detectives went into the underworld, on the alert for any possible clue.

Within a half hour after the kidnaping, a flood of telephone calls poured in on Hopewell. The Associated Press had the Lindbergh home on the wire for about ten minutes, to be told finally that all inquiries must be made through the Hopewell police chief, who could not be reached.

The Lindbergh baby has been one of the most carefully guarded children in the world.

When his famous parents flew to China last summer, the youngster was taken to the Morrow summer home in Maine, and, even then his mother was quoted frequently in dispatches as being anxious concerning him.

Soon after the child was born, Col. Lindbergh acquiesced in the general demand for pictures of his son. Summoning newpapermen to his office, he personally handed out the photographs.

It was said by close friends of the family tonight that Mrs. Lindbergh is expecting another child within about three months.

The Lindbergh country home, in the Sourland Hills of New Jersey, was built for them while they were in the Orient. It is a new $50,000 structure and the Lindberghs picked the site from the air.

The house is far from regular highways and designed for complete privacy. It can be reached only by winding dirt and gravel roads and is about five miles from Hopewell, and not far from Princeton. It has a private landing field.

The house is backed by dense woods, with open country in the front and on both sides. Lindbergh's only neighbors are farmers.

Princeton police reported that two men in a sedan had stopped there shortly before the kidnaping and asked directions to the nearby Lindbergh home.

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FDR Establishes Relocation Plan

WASHINGTON, March 19. ─ (AP) ─ President Roosevelt established today a "War Relocation Authority," which will have charge of a program for the relocation and employment of those persons being moved out of military areas.

These people will be given an opportunity to enlist for the duration of the war in a "war relocation work corps." They would perform work essential to the war effort, White House officials said, but not of a type which would provide any opportunity for sabotage.

It was suggested they might engage, for instance, in agricultural pursuits and thereby release other workers for jobs more closely linked with direct production of weapons and war supplies.

The director of the new authority, which was created by an executive order, will be Milton S. Eisenhower, a former land use coordinator of the department of agriculture.

Note to readers: This article appeared on Page 18 of the Arizona Daily Star, making it seem less important the news on the front page. However, the significance was probably not realized at the time.

While the purpose of the War Relocation Authority as described in the article appears benign, according to the executive order, the purpose was to "take all people of Japanese descent into custody, surround them with troops, prevent them from buying land and return them to their former homes at the close of the war."

There were authority camps in Arizona. The Catalina Federal Honor Camp was in the Catalina Mountains.

In 1942, Gordon Hirabayashi challenged the forced relocation of Japanese Americans, but the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the relocations. Hirabayashi was convicted of violating a curfew and sentenced to the camp in the Catalinas.

In 1987, his case was overturned and in 1999, the Coronado National Forest renamed the camp the Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Site. A few months after his death on Jan. 22, 2012, Hirabayashi was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Reparations were made to surviving internees and their heirs in 1990.

Source: Arizona Daily Star archives and history.com.

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New Polio Vaccine Found Highly Successful

By Alton L. Blakeslee

AP Science Reporter

NEW YORK, March 26. ─ (AP) ─ The new polio vaccine has passed its first human tests on 90 children and adults with flying colors.

But "there will be no polio vaccine" for general use this summer.

This was announced tonight by Dr. Jonas E. Salk, 38, young virus researcher of the University of Pittsburgh.

The creamy vaccine, homogenized in mineral oil, gave all 90 persons protective antibodies against all three types of virus which can cause human polio, he said. And it is perfectly safe.

More Testing

They've kept this protection so far for six to eight weeks ─ they were vaccinated only that long ago. But in one other experiment, protection has lasted 4½ months so far. This raises hope this vaccine will do the job for months, perhaps years.

But 90 persons is too small a number to say that the vaccine will actually work for everyone, Dr. Salk made clear. He indicated many more careful tests must be made, on hundreds or thousands of people first.

The pace of progress is fast, he said, but must continue step by step to make sure of this vaccine, first disclosed last January.

Unanswered questions include this: Might some people react unfavorably, just like some people get allergies to eggs or penicillin? And 90 is a small number because statistics show that only one child of every 150 ever develops paralytic polio, throughout their lifetimes.

Twenty years ago a vaccine was released prematurely, he said. But there were kickbacks, some cases of paralysis and deaths after vaccinations, because not enough was then known about the tricky polio virus.

Tonight's announcement is one of great drama, about the most promising vaccine yet to appear. It represents one culmination of years of work by hundreds of scientists, and $18 million in March of Dimes funds.

Dr. Salk told of testing 161 persons, 4 to 40 years old, with several forms of vaccine.

The best-bet vaccine is a creamy one made out of all three types of polio virus, grown in test-tube farms, and then killed or inactivated with formaldehyde.

Use Mineral Oil

Disarmed this way, the viruses can't cause polio, but still can stimulate the human body to produce antibodies, the agents to fight off invading live viruses.

The deadened viruses are mixed in mineral oil and an emulsifier, making an oily vaccine like homogenized milk. The oil greatly steps up the power of the vaccine to stimulate antibodies.

Two weeks after this creamy vaccine was injected into muscles, 90 persons all had antibodies against all three types of virus which can cause human polio, Dr. Salk reported. They developed as much, or more, antibodies as if they had actually been invaded by live viruses.

By everything known now about polio, they should be well protected. So far, these 90 have been studied for only six weeks, but still had lots of antibodies.

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LBJ Asks Congress For Rights 'Action'

Waiting Time Over, Says President

WASHINGTON (AP) ─ President Johnson told Congress and the nation Monday night that the time for waiting is gone and the time for action has come to assure every American the right to vote, regardless of race or color.

There must be "no delay, no hesitation, no compromise," he said.

Johnson declared that the time has come to answer "the cries of pain, the hymns and protests of oppressed people. . ."

In solemn, measured tones, the President called for broad, new legislation, and paid tribute to the Negro demonstrators he said have awakened America's conscience.

Johnson said he will put his proposals into the hands of Congress in legislative form Wednesday, and he awarded them No. 1 priority.

Before a joint session of House and Senate ─ a forum normally summoned for a presidential State of the Union address or in time of grave national crisis ─ Johnson declared:

". . . It is wrong, morally wrong, to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country."

Johnson was applauded time and again as he declared "the dignity of man and the destiny of Democracy" are the real issues at stake.

Selma, Ala. ─ the troubled scene of Negro voter registration demands ─ was clearly on Johnson's mind as he talked of the legislation he wants.

Johnson added that men of all races have shown "impressive responsibility" there in recent days. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a column of nearly 4,000 people on a twilight memorial march for the slain Rev. James J. Reeb. A federal judge forbade police interference. There was none.

Johnson said the battle for Negro rights should be fought in the courts and the Congress and "in the hearts of men."

But Johnson was careful not to aim his remarks solely at the South.

"There is no Negro problem," he said. "There is no Southern problem or Northern problem. There is only an American problem.

"Let no one, in any section, look with prideful righteousness on the troubles of his neighbors. There is no part of America where the promise of equality has been fully kept. In Buffalo as well as Birmingham, in Philadelphia as well as Selma, Americans are struggling for the fruits of freedom."

Vote Bill At-A-Glance

WASHINGTON (AP) ─ President Johnson says he will send to Congress Wednesday a voting rights bill.

The bill will be designed to strike down restrictions to voting in all elections ─ federal, state and local.

Enactment of the bill is needed, he says, because no law now on the books can ensure the right to vote "when local officials are determined to deny it."

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President Johnson Deploys Army Of 4,000 To Guard Selma-Montgomery March

Unwelcome Job Shouldered By Chief Executive

By Fendall W. Yerxa

© 1965 New York Times News Service

JOHNSON CITY, Tex. ─ President Johnson moved swiftly Saturday in the pre-dawn hours traditionally reserved for military strokes, and called up nearly 4,000 troops for security duty in Alabama's racial strife.

The President followed his muster of National Guard and regular forces at a news conference here with a tongue lashing of Alabama's Gov. George C. Wallace. He read a message he sent to the governor, which was almost without parallel in its harshness between a President and the chief executive of a state.

He pointed out that responsibility for law and order properly rests with state and local governments.

"On the basis of your public statements and your discussions with me," the President told the governor, "I thought that you felt strongly about this and had indicated you would take all necessary action in this regard. I was surprised therefore when in your telegram of Thursday you requested federal assistance in the performance of such fundamental duties. Even more surprising was your telegram of yesterday stating that both you and the Alabama Legislature, because of monetary considerations, believed that the state is unable to protect American citizens and to maintain peace and order in a responsible manner without federal forces."

Subdued Wallace Offers No Comment, Only Refreshments

By Ben A. Franklin

© 1965 New York Times News Service

MONTGOMERY, Ala. ─ Gov. George C. Wallace, in an unusually subdued mood, declined to comment on President Johnson's implied criticism of the segregationist governor's refusal to use his state powers to police Sunday's Selma-to-Montgomery freedom march.

Apparently chastened by the President's words, the governor, long an ardent spokesman for states' rights and state responsibility for local police protection and other services, emerged from his office in the Capitol here Saturday about an hour after Johnson's televised news conference in Texas.

Smiling wanly, he fielded a flurry of newsmen's questions with one reply. His answers ─ and they were really non-answers ─ were variations of "we're mighty glad you-all are here."

A newsman asked the governor:

"Governor, President Johnson has suggested that we should ask you what were your real motives in refusing to call out the Alabama National Guard. Is the State of Alabama really too poor to pay the Guardsmen, or what was the real reason?"

"You folks can say I'm mighty glad you are here," the governor repeated, chewing on the burnt stub of a cigar. "We'll even feed you if you stick around."

Finally, after persistent questioning, the governor said: "We don't have anything more to say at this time." He hesitated at least half a minute before acknowledging that he had viewed President Johnson's news conference on television in his office. Then he vanished from the anteroom into an inner office.

The governor's aides have said, in advance of the scheduled arrival outside the Capitol on Thursday of the Freedom Marchers, that Wallace "probably will be in Michigan, or somewhere, delivering a speech, or something" when the marchers reach Montgomery.

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Pa. reactor leaks radiation

Public not believed periled by accident

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) ─ An accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant forced radioactive steam into the air at levels that could be measured 16 miles away but caused no damage to the reactor core, government investigators said late yesterday.

Charles Gallina, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigator who spent all day at the plant site, said radiation was being emitted from nuclear-charged water in an auxiliary building.

"We have a serious contamination problem on site. You might say from the breadth of the problem it's one of the more serious. The extent makes it serious, not the breadth," Gallina said at a news briefing.

"Nothing critical failed, but it's a dirty problem. It's going to take some time to clean up."

Officials said their readings indicated there was no immediate danger to the public, and there were no plans to evacuate the 15,000 people living within a mile of the plant.

Bob Fries, a member of the Department of Energy's emergency response team, said a specially equipped helicopter monitored small amounts of radiation 16 miles from the site.

The highest concentration of radiation was registered at the plant, where officials measured 70 millirems of radioactivity.

Americans are exposed to between 100 and 120 millirems per year from such things as the sun and X-rays. A chest X-ray could give a person up to 30 millirems.

"They are high but not yet critical . . . . It was not close to a catastrophe," said James Higgins, an NRC reactor inspector. He said the reactor was safe.

Higgins said radiation was still coming from an auxiliary building, which contains nuclear-charged water diverted there after the accident. The building was being ventilated last night. Other radiation was released earlier when plant officials intentionally sent steam into the air ─ not knowing it was contaminated, he said.

"It's fairly highly contaminated water that is releasing some gases," he said.

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4 U.S. agents, 2 cultists die in Texas gunfire

15 federal officers are wounded in shoot-outs at Waco compound

By Charles Richards

The Associated Press

WACO, Texas ─ Fierce gunbattles erupted yesterday as more than 100 law officers tried to arrest the leader of a heavily armed religious cult. At least four federal agents and two cult members were reported killed.

At least 15 agents were wounded in a 45-minute shoot-out at the isolated compound of the Branch Davidians' sect about 10 miles east of Waco, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms reported. Several sect members were also wounded, officials said.

Sect leader Vernon Howell, who also is known as David Koresh, said in an interview with Cable News Network that a 2-year-old child was among those killed, but the bureau didn't immediately confirm that. Howell, who sounded as though he were in pain, said he was among the wounded.

Meanwhile, four children were released from the compound late yesterday, the bureau said.

The gunbattles began when federal agents hidden in livestock trailers stormed the main home of the sect yesterday morning, witnesses said.