Word: virkula
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...Washington. Harried by Prohibition problems, President Hoover made a reply through the Press last week to the City Council of International Falls, Minn., which had cried "For God's sake, help us!" after the killing of Henry Virkula by a U. S. border patrolman (TIME, June 24). Declared the President: "I deeply deplore the killing of any person. The Treasury is making every effort to prevent the misuse of firearms. . . . I hope the communities along the border will do their best to help the Treasury end the systematic war that is being carried on by international criminals against the laws...
This reply was too general to please International Falls, where the late Citizen Virkula was not regarded as an "international criminal." Editorial writers read the President's statement and wrote: "Is that all" . . . "inadequate" . . . "It is not enough for the President to 'deplore' ". . . "the President's answer is as full of holes as Henry Virkula...
...Border Patrolman Emmet J. White, 24, came up to the car. Shrieked Mrs. Virkula: "You've killed him." 'Replied White: "I'm sorry, lady, but I done my duty." No liquor was found in the car. The Virkula children woke up, began...
Patrolman White had fired five rounds from a sawed-off shotgun into the Virkula car. His defense: the machine did not stop when Patrolman Emil Servine held up the stop sign. White was lodged in the International Falls jail, charged first with manslaughter, then with murder. Safe there, he made no great effort to raise his $5,000 bail. The little town's citizenry seethed with indignation against White and "the system" he represented. Banding together they wrote a public protest to President Hoover which concluded: "In our utter helplessness, terror and distraction, we are at last resorting...
...Seymour Lowman, in charge of Prohibition enforcement, asserted that both killings were justified and justifiable. He stoutly promised that the U. S. would stand behind Patrolman White, would transfer his murder case from the Minnesota courts to the U. S. court. He asserted that the newspaper accounts of the Virkula killing were "highly colored, to put it mildly," a statement denounced as "absolutely false" by the Minnesota authorities at International Falls. He rejected the suggestion that the Treasury disarm its border patrolmen, "which in effect would amount to a repeal of the Tariff Law." He insisted that the patrolmen...