I don't know what I am entitled to for my son's death. All the money in the world would not pay for him, and I would not ask the Government to pay me at all if I were in good health and able to work.

This the 30th day of August 1941.

STEVE HLASS, Afiant.

Sworn to before me on this the 30th day of August 1941. [SEAL]

My commission expires June 18, 1943.

BOB BAILEY, Notary Public.

My name is H. H. Traylor. I am 34 years of age, and I live at Conway, Faulkner County, Ark. I am an undertaker by occupation.

On the 14th day of October 1940, I was working for Gardner-Pate Funeral Home, at Russellville, Ark. We received a call that someone had been seriously injured at Prairie Grove Schoolhouse, about 2 miles east of Russellville. A young man by the name of Humphrey and I immediately started to the scene in the ambulance. We found this young boy to be Bobby Paul Hlass. This boy was 11 years of age and was not dead at the time we arrived, which must have been 25 or 30 minutes after the accident We immediately took him to St. Mary's Hospital, where he died soon after we arrived. I judge that he lived about 1 hour from the time of the accident, and he was apparently conscious all this time. He was severely broken up, severe bruises and lacerations all over his body. He was apparently a well-developed, normal boy. I understand that young Humphrey is now in San Diego, Calif. He knows the same about this accident that I do. Further this affiant saith not.

H. H. TRAYLOR, Affiant.

Sworn to before me on this the 20th day of October 1941. [SEAL]

My commission expires May 18, 1943.

W. H. PRINCE, Notary Public.

STATE OF ARKANSAS,

County of Pope:

AFFIDAVIT

John Minton, being duly sworn, states:

I am 43 years of age and live on Highway No. 64, just east of Russellville corporation limits, on the north side of the road. I own the property there where the Gulf station is. I am a deputy sheriff. On the day that young Robert Hlass was killed near the Prairie Grove School, I was at my place of business. I saw the ambulance go down there and some kids coming west. I asked what the excitement was all about, and they said young Robert Hlass had been hit and they were afraid he had been killed. So I jumped in my car and went down there. I found the blood about 8 feet north of the highway, and I saw signs there as if somebody had laid there. Some of the folks and the boy who drove the truck

were there at the time, and they showed me about where the boy was when he was hit. The boy had been knocked about 15 feet or further from the place it was shown me he had been hit until where I saw the blood on the ground, but the place where the boy was lying was about 8 feet from the highway, as he had been knocked diagonal with the highway. I asked where the boy was who had been driving the truck. This boy said he was the driver. He seemed excited and nervous. The truck was across and down the highway on the south side thereof, all of it off the hard surface and on the shoulder. It was 75 feet or more down the highway in a western direction. I asked the boy how fast he was going, and he said about 35 miles per hour. I put the boy under arrest and took him in my car down to my place. I intended to bring him to town, but I learned from him that he had already phoned his officer at Camp Ozone. He told me that he had been instructed to call the nearest Civilian Conservation Corps camp and then call his own camp. The officers in the local Civilian Conservation Corps camp at Shiloh came down there past my place, going east. I stopped them and told them what happened. They asked me if they could be responsible for him, and I said, "Yes. I followed them to the place where the accident happened. When I got down there at the Right Spot they were taking statements and drawing pictures of the accident. This was being done by the Shiloh commander. The boy at the Right Spot told the Shiloh commander that he was going 35 miles an hour, and the commander looked at him and said, "You say that you were going between 25 and 35 miles an hour?" and the boy said, "Yes." I presumed the commander wrote it down that way. When this commander wrote that down, "between 25 and 35 miles an hour," he looked at the man who was driving him in a knowing way.

This boy driving this truck was a new driver, so he said, and it was his first trip out, and that he would never drive again. The boy driving this truck was

I am not related to Steve Hlass in any way, and I am not interested except to see that both sides, the Government and him, receive fair treatment.

I don't know who saw this accident, but there were two little girls that live west of my place who saw the accident. I don't know their names. Further this affiant saith not.

JOHN MINTON.

Subscribed and sworn to before me on this the 27th day of March 1941. [SEAL]

My commission expires April 16, 1941.

MARJORIE BOBO CARTER,

Notary Public.

I am 54 years of age and live in Russellville, Ark. I am a teacher in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades at Prairie Grove. I have been down there for several years. On or about the 14th day of October 1940, at about 3:45 p. m. in the afternoon, a school bus had come in from the west and had driven into the school ground up near the front of the door. It was just arriving and had not yet stopped. Young Robert Hlass had tagged a young man by the name of Bobbie Dee Russell. Bobbie had started to follow him and came very near running into the school bus and turned to the left and ran around behind it. He started across the road directly opposite a beer sign which is located on the north side of Highway No. 64. He ran across the road. Young Bobbie Dee was chasing him. This Civilian Conservation Corps truck was coming from the east, going west on the north side of the road. I did not see the truck coming. I don't know how fast it was going, but when young Hlass had gotten about a foot off the pavement on the north side, according to the people who have told me about it and were there at the time (I was there myself but was not looking in that direction when the truck hit the boy), he drove a little northwest, slowed up a little bit, and then turned across the highway in a southwesterly direction and parked his truck near a sweetgum tree on the south side of the road. I went to the boy, Robert Hlass. He was about 40 feet from my car where I was sitting. He was dead when I got there. The Garner boy, who works at the Right Spot, had him up in his arms. I got a glass of water at the Right Spot and bathed his face and neck in it. I did not feel of his pulse. The Garner boy said his pulse was beating a few times. This second boy. Bobbie Dee Russell, they advised, stopped near the center of the road and went back when

he saw the truck coming. If the driver of the truck had gone straight on the highway and the Hlass boy had kept on north and the Russell boy had not stopped as he did, there would have been no accident.

The driver of the Civilian Conservation Corps truck did not appear to be nervous. He said that he turned slightly to the north to avoid hitting the Russell boy, as he thought he would miss both of them by doing that.

There are school signs both on the east and west of that property; and if this truck was going 25 or 30 miles an hour he was going too fast, especially as school was dismissed at that time and there were lots of children on the grounds, as was the case.

The second school bus which was arriving from the west was about 300 yards down the highway west near the Texaco station.

The young boys who were there and saw this were Bobbie Dee Russell, son of Alvin Russell; Shakape Jamell, son of Salem Jamell; James H. Taylor, son of James Taylor, so I am advised. There was a fourth child there who saw it. A lady by the name of Mrs. Wilford Morgan, who lives across the street, saw this also. She did not see the actual accident, but she said she turned her head to keep from seeing it. Her daughter, who lives next door to her, did the same thing as the mother. She hollered to her husband.

Steve Hlass, the boy's father, went over in the first regiment to France in the World War and was one of the last to come back. He was decorated for bravery. Further this affiant saith 'not.

R. D. CANDLE.

Subscribed and sworn to before me on this the 27th day of March 1941.
[SEAL]
MARJORIE BOBO CARTER,
Notary Public.

My commission expires April 16, 1941.

I am 42 years of age and live in Russellville, Ark., and have been living here all of my life. My family lived here before me.

On the day that young Robert Hlass was killed at Prairie Grove, I did not see the accident, but I got there immediately thereafter. He was near the Texaco station, going east on the left-hand side, about 8 feet off the pavement. I don't know whether he had been carried there or whether he was struck there, but I picked him up and put my arm under his head until the ambulance got there. He was dead when I took hold of him. That was approximately 3:30 in the afternoon. I talked to the driver of the Civilian Conservation Corps truck. He was a young man. I don't know what his name was. He said he was going 25 or 30 miles an hour at the time he hit the boy. I asked him if he didn't see the school-zone signs. He said, "Well, he knew that all right," but did not say any more. He did not say he saw them or did not see them. The truck was on the right-hand side of the road, going east, in the ditch on this side of the schoolyard. All of the truck was off of the hard surface. I saw the blood on the ground where the boy was lying, but I don't know whether he was hit there or on the other side.

I have no interest whatever in this case except as a citizen. I am not related to the Hlass family and am not connected with the Government in any way except as a citizen. The boy who was driving the truck seemed to be greatly excited, the child having just been killed. The school bus was inside of the schoolyard something like 75 or 100 feet from the road. He was fixing to make a lefthand turn in the schoolyard. I have been driving a school bus myself, and we always turn right there near the school steps. I have noticed that the schoo! children as a whole have been very careful about taking any chances at all. I know they are instructed by the school authorities to be careful. This boy that was killed did not ride the bus, as his home is only about half a mile or such a matter to the north.

Further this affiant saith not.

OTTO HENDRIX.

Subscribed and sworn to before me on this the 27th day of March 1941.
[SEAL]
MARJORIE BOBO CARTER,
Notary Public.

My commission expires April 16, 1941.

David Morris, 12 years old, son of Percy Morris, Russellville, Route No. 1, goes to school at Prairie Grove:

I was standing at the oak tree about 25 steps from the highway on the south side, and I saw the Hlass boy run across the road. He was being followed by Bobbie Dee Russell. There was a Civilian Conservation Corps truck coming west on the highway. He was going about 30 miles an hour, I guess. The other boy that was chasing the Hlass boy stopped about a foot south of the black line when he saw the truck. The Hlass boy reached about a foot north of the edge of the pavement, and the Civilian Conservation Corps truck hit him when the boy was about a foot off the pavement. It knocked and dragged him and rolled him under the truck about 20 steps. Then the truck went in the same direction the boy did until the boy fell off the truck. When the boy rolled off, then he turned in a southwestern direction until he ran off the black-top, slowed up a little bit near the center, and the wheels stopped on the edge of the ditch. It is 60 steps distance from where the boy came loose from the truck.

I heard him tell another man that he was going 20 or 25 miles an hour. It looked to me like he was going about 30. There is a "slow" sign about 150 yards east of where he hit the Hlass boy, and there is a school sign. There was a sign west about a quarter of a mile. It was between 3:30 and 4, the time all of the children were out. One of the school busses was over there near the front door of the school, and the other school bus was down near the Texaco station. boy that was driving the truck got out and held to the door and was very nervous. Bob was one of the most careful boys we had in school. Further this affiant saith not.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this August 4, 1941. [SEAL]

Argus Garner, being duly sworn, states:

The

DAVID MORRIS.

REUBEN CHENOWITH, County Clerk, Pope County, Ark.

I am 17 years of age. I am working at the Right Spot, and at about 3:45 p. m., on October 14, I was standing in the doorway of the Right Spot night club. The Prairie Grove Schoolhouse is just across the Highway No. 64 from the Right Spot. The schoolhouse front door and our front door are about the same distance. There were two schoolboys on the south side running, and they ran behind the school bus that was in the schoolhouse yard, and the Hlass boy was in front, and Bobbie Dee Russell was chasing him. The Hlass boy had reached the other side of the highway, about the edge, and the Russell boy stopped. The truck missed the Russell boy about 6 inches and swerved to the right and hit the Hlass boy, who was on or about the edge of the pavement. This boy was running angling in the direction the truck was running. It knocked and rolled him about 17 or 18 steps to a point about 8 or 10 feet from the highway. The boy rolled out on the right side of the truck. He apparently had the brakes on all of the time. They were not holding like they should on gravel. Then he put the brakes on, and they turned to the left and threw the truck around, and he went in a southwestern direction. He stopped in the middle of the highway and then pulled on over to the ditch about 45 steps.

I

There was not any school bus parked on the highway. I don't remember whether or not I told the Government people that or not, but the second school bus was down the highway west about a quarter of a mile and in no way could have interfered with the driver of this truck. I don't think either of the wheels ran over the boy. I rushed out and picked up the boy, and he died in my arms. think his heart beat two or three times after I picked him up. I figure he was going about 25 miles an hour. There was a man behind him who said he thought he was going about 25 miles an hour. He began to snub his brakes on and off about 75 to 90 feet after or at the mail box.

I don't know why he snubbed his brakes, but they were going on and off. He could have turned to the right any place he wanted to along there and come out toward the two houses or toward the Falstaff sign or come over the mail boxes. If he had done that he would not have hit one of the boys. This boy who did the chasing stopped just before he got to the black line. The driver could have gone, if he had kept on the main highway, between the boys-one was about the black line in the center and the other just on the edge of the highway-or he could have turned into the right just before he got to the Hlass boy.

"I asked him if the driver recognized that he was going to hit one or both of the boys at about 20 feet away."

It was possible for him to turn in at the right and not wreck the truck, as there is only a very small ditch there near the mail box, or he could have turned in west of the ditch and still not have hit the boy, or he could have turned at the mail boxes.

I heard him say that he had been over to Hot Springs to get the truck.

The boy that got hit seemed to realize that the truck was behind him and that it was bearing down on him from the rear.

Rudolph Shinn was there at the time but did not see the boy injured. Mr. Caudle's car was parked at the west end of our place of business.

I gave the Government men a statement late that afternoon about an hour or two after the accident happened. I gave four or five statements, but the statement I gave first was the main statement.

Further this affiant saith not.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 4th day of August 1941. [SEAL]

My commission expires January 1, 1942.

ARGUS GARner.

MABEL M. JAMISON,

Notary Public.

O