Life in Massachusetts

The “Case of the Speaker’s Broken Door” will apparently remain a State House mystery. Atty. Gen. Brooke . . . ended his probe following a 15-minute interrogation of Alice Mooney, secretary to House Speaker John F. Thompson.

According to Brooke, Miss Mooney said she heard the crash of a crowbar on the door panel.

“She didn’t turn around, she said, because she was accustomed to hearing crashes from the speaker’s inner office. The boys do play touch football at times,” Brooke related.

Senate Pres. John E. Powers has appointed his brother to a $7100 job as a Senate doorkeeper. . . .

The appointment of Richard J. Powers, 61, South Boston, a New Haven Railroad employee for 21 years, took effect Jan. 1.

The Senate Democratic leader said his brother was soon to be laid off as a safety engineer from the bankrupt railroad in an economy wave and was without any prospect of a new job.

“If I don’t take care of my brother, who will?” asked Powers.

James Murphy and Harry Greenfield. doing business as M & G Beef Co., North Market street, Boston, were fined $250 each in U.S. District Court yesterday for violating the Agricultural Marketing Act.

Greenfield was charged with causing a counterfeit meat grading roller or stamp to be made up, in imitation of the official type used by federal meat graders to stamp meat “USDA Choice.”

Murphy was charged with using the counterfeit device to stamp beef cuts with the quality grading. Both were also charged with illegal possession of the device. The violations occurred late in 1959.

The fines were imposed by Judge George C. Sweeney on recommendation of Asst. U. S. Atty. Thomas P. O’Connor. Murphy, of Irving Street, Somerville, and Greenfield, of Callender Street, Dorchester, had pleaded guilty.

City Councilman James S. Coffey yesterday said he named his son, William J. Coffey, 25, as his secretary because:

“The kid needed the extra money. So I put him on as my secretary temporarily.”

Commissioner of Public Safety Frank S. Giles Wednesday defended State Police gambling raids and sharply criticized a district court judge who called a State Police case “far fetched” and “politically inspired.”

Comr. Giles was referring to Judge Henry F. Duggan’s comments in Peabody District Court earlier this week when he freed the brother of another Peabody judge of bookmaking charges.

Disclosure that a newly-formed Boston garage corporation is receiving the lion’s share of towing business from the police department touched off an investigation Wednesday night by the Boston Finance Commission.

The police department was under heavy fire from several quarters in the aftermath of a report showing that Columbus Garage, Inc., of 321 Columbus av., received almost half the business of towing illegally parked cars in January.

How were three gunmen able to burst into the middle of a police stakeout, kill two persons and walk out the way they entered?

This was a key question being pondered by officials in the wake of the wild gun battle early Saturday morning in a Roxbury apartment.

Capt. Joseph J. Cummings, commander of the Roxbury Crossing District, defended the aclions of the three police officers who emptied their revolvers without result during the furious exchange of gunfire.

“Those guys did one great job considering they were there only to arrest a man who was an escapee from the House of Correction,” declared Cummings. . . .

Capt. Cummings explained that in part their failure to bring down any of the gunmen was because of a shortage of ammunition. “Our policemen just don’t walk around carrying ammunition in every pocket or machine guns on their shoulder,” he said.

“This was a simple case of the good guys getting pinned down — and not having as much ammunition as the bad guys.”

A Chicagoan can buy his air trip insurance for 25 percent less from the same company than can a Bostonian. At Chicago’s O’Hare field, this insurance company competes with another, but at Logan, this same company has a monopoly.

A Special Massachusetts House Committee will take a long hard look today at the state Racing Commission and horse racing at alleged “phantom” state fairs. . . .

Triggering the legislative probe was the recent award of six extra days of racing to the Berkshire County Fair and the Franklin Fair, both in Hancock.

Vehement opposition preceded the awards because the Berkshire Fair had not been licensed previously for racing, and the Franklin Fair was organized in Franklin — 140 miles away from the track.

. . . Carson said, too, that he used $90,000 of this money to buy a $100,000 government bond, which he put under the living room rug in his Springfield home and now cannot find.

Mayor Collins announced Tuesday a $4.5 million pay raise plan for more than 10,000 city and county workers, effective Mar. 6.