Press Release, Veto Message from President Harry S. Truman to the House of Representatives

295 #1247 HOLD FOR RELESSE HOLD FOR RLLEASE HOLD FOR ULEASE July 24, 1947 delles n.s. CONT Tó be heldlir STRICT CONHIDENCE and no portion, synopsis, or intimation to be iven out or published until the VI REALING of the President's Message has begun in the House of Respresentatives. Extreme care must therefore be exercised to avoid prema ture publication CHARLES G. ROSS Secretary to the President TO THE HOUSL OF you I return herewith, without my approval, H.R. 2306, "An Act For the relief of Myrtle Huth Osborne, Marion Vialts, and Jessie A. Walts. The purpose of this bill is to pay to Myrtle Ruth Osbourne the sum of $7,000 for the death of her husband, Levi Osborne, and for personal injuries sustained by herself; to pay to Marion Walts and Jessie A. walts the sum of 02,000 for the death of their infant daughter, Beverly Gale Walts; and to pay to Marion Walts and Jessie A. Walts each the sum of $1,000 for personal injuries sustained by them; all as the result of an accident involving an Army vehicle. NARA It appears that on November 6, 1943, at about 7 p.m., an offical convoy of 12 Army vehicles was proceeding in an easterly direction on U. S. Highway No. 60 between Brandenburg and Fort Knox, Kentucky, spaced at intervals of about 75 yards, with headlights lighted. The seventh unit in the convoy, a personnel carrier (half-track), was traveling downhill at a speed of between 18 and 20 miles an hour approaching a curve to the left at the foot of the hill. An automobile owned and operated by Marion D. Walts, in which Jessie A. Walts, Beverly Gale walts, Myrtle Ruth Osborne, and Levi Osborne were riding as passengers, was proceeding in the opposite direction, with headlights lighted, approaching the same curve, at a speed stated by Mr. Vial: as about 20 miles an hour and estimated by military personnel as between 40 and 50 miles an hour. At a point about half-way around the curve the two vehicles collided head-on. The civilian vehicle was damaged beyond repair, Beverly Gale Walts and Levi Osborne were killed, and the other occupants of the car sustained serious personal injuries. While Mr. and Mrs. Walts and Mrs. Osborne stated that they saw no lights on the Army vehicles, the driver and two of the passengers in the Army vehicle involved in this accident stated that the headlights of that vehicle were lighted, and the officer in charge of the convoy stated that the convoy was traveling with headlights turned on. The statements made by the driver of the Army vehicle involved in the accident and three soldiers who were riding therein and those made by Mr. and Mrs. Walts and Mrs. Osborne are sharply conflicting as to the relative positions of the two vehicles on the road at the time of the collision. The four soldiers staved that the Army vehicle at the moment of impact was on its proper side of the road and the civilian automobile to its left of the center line. Mr. and Mrs. Walts and Mrs. Osborne contended that their car was traveling in its proper lane and that the Army vehicle was on the wrong side of the road. Four photographs, however, were taken of the two vehicles immediately after the accident occurred and before the vehicles had been moved. These photographs clearly show the Army vehicle standing to its right of the center line of the road and the civilian vehicle in head-on contact with the Army car and entirely on its wrong side of the road. Regardless, therefore, of the statements made by the interested parties, the pictorial evidence would appear to show conclusively that at the moment of impact the civilian automobile was traveling on the wrong side of the road and that the negligence of the civilian driver in so operating such vehicle was the sole proximate cause of the accident and the resulting deaths and injuries. In the light of this seemingly incontrovertible evidence as to the manner in which the accident took place, there is no justifiable basis for OVER