4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL July 6, 2016
O PINION
Offbeat Oregon History
Did brutal wartime railroad murder end
in cynical “railroad job”?
BY FINN J.D. JOHN
For the Sentinel
scene.
“He kind of turned a little sideways,
so I could just get the side of his face,”
Wilson told investigators later. “It was
pretty full. He had on a brown pin-
point stripe suit. I think he was about
5 feet 10 inches, and he had short hair.
The light was so dim I couldn’t tell
whether he was a light Negro or a dark
white man.”
Hastily pulling on his pants, Wilson
said, he’d jumped down from his berth
to see if she needed help but had quick-
ly realized she was beyond the reach
of aid.
When the train arrived at Eugene,
authorities went through it as careful-
ly as they could. There was a trail of
blood drops that led to the back end of
the train, which suggested that perhaps
the murderer jumped off into the night;
but then again, some or all of that trail
was likely left by Wilson, the too-late
would-be rescuer. Other than that,
the evidence was scant. The victim’s
throat, early reports claimed, had been
slashed with something dull or blunt;
the weapon wasn’t found.
At Eugene, Wilson was taken into
custody as a material witness, along
with an African-American dining-car
waiter who matched the vague physi-
cal description of height, build and
complexion he had given.
As you can imagine, the entire coun-
try found this story riveting. More than
one historian has compared the whole
thing to a story from one of the many
tawdry “true detective” pulp-fi ction
magazines. It had all the elements …
all the elements but one, that is: A vil-
lain. For it soon appeared that the lo-
cal law-enforcement authorities were
stumped on this one.
Tracks were found in the snow near
where the train had been when the
murder took place, and even some
blood. But that trail went cold when
authorities found the tracks came from
and returned to a local farm; the farmer
said he’d suffered a nosebleed from the
cold. Clearly whoever did the killing
remained on the train.
There was that dining-car waiter. But
he was quickly eliminated as a suspect.
He had been asleep in a berth at the
other end of the train, and had several
solid witnesses to back up his alibi.
Then there was Pvt. Wilson, of
course, found standing over the body
with blood all over his hands. But Wil-
son was a U.S. Marine, and one rather
expects Marines to run to the rescue of
women who cry out in the night. No-
body wanted him to turn out to be the
guy who did it; it would be like learn-
ing that a fi refi ghter was a secret se-
rial killer. How would that look to the
citizens of a country at war, its trains
and subways packed with young men
in uniform? How would home-front
logistics be affected if women started
looking at every young man in uniform
as a potential predator? How would
O
n the bitter cold winter night of
Jan. 22, 1943, a beautiful 21-
year-old woman named Martha Brin-
son James was settling into her sleep-
ing berth in a crowded Pullman coach,
headed for San Francisco.
Young Mrs. James would not live to
see the sun come up on Jan. 23. And
the circumstances that led to her death
are, 70 years later, still emerging from
a cloud of mystery not unmixed with
deliberate obfuscation — but one of
the few things we do know, with near
certainty, is that the man sent to the gas
chamber for this crime was innocent.
Here’s the story as it was told the
next day in the Portland Morning Or-
egonian:
Martha Brinson James came of a
blue-blooded Virginia family, her fa-
ther a good friend and neighbor of the
governor of that state. On the night of
her death, she had been married for
just four months, to a dashing young
Navy pilot named Richard James. The
two of them were traveling from Se-
attle to their new home in California,
where Richard had been stationed as
a reserve Naval aviator. Richard, a
lowly Ensign (the lowest rank of com-
missioned Navy offi cer), was sent on
a troop train; his wife followed a few
hours behind on the Southern Pacifi c
West Coast Limited.
The West Coast Limited was packed
on that chilly day. It was still early in
the Second World War, and the tide of
war was only just starting to turn in
favor of the U.S. Military personnel
and their families were being shuttled
all over the country, and trains, like
all bits of home-front infrastructure,
were being run as Spartanly as pos-
sible; traveling was not fun. They were
crowded and cramped. In one car, a
family of fi ve was packed into two
twin-bed-size berths. The windows
were blacked out under wartime rules,
making the train car into a coffi n-like
box hurtling through the night. Inside
that box, people sweated, swore, emit-
ted noxious gases, feuded, got carsick
… and, after midnight or so, tried des-
perately to sleep.
At about 4 a.m., the passengers on
Car D were startled awake by a scream
— a woman shouting, “Oh my God,
he’s killing me!” They rushed to pull
aside their curtains and saw the form
of a woman who had obviously fallen
out of her berth, lying on her back in
the middle of the aisle. Standing over
her was a uniformed Marine Corps pri-
vate, apparently the fi rst on the scene.
He was covered in the blood that was
still spurting from her throat, which
had been savagely slashed.
The Marine, Pvt. Harold Wilson,
said he’d been in the bunk just above
hers when he heard her scream; he’d
pulled aside the curtains in time to see
her falling out of her berth, and to see a
dark, heavy-set man running from the
Please see OFFBEAT, Page 5A
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Thanks from the
bank
Lane Blood Bank thanks the public
for its support, partnership and power-
ful service to our community. June is
our highest requested month for blood
from our hospitals. On Monday, June
27, we collected 27 lifesaving units
from a presenting 36 Cottage Grove
community blood donors and regis-
tered three of them for the very fi rst
time too! Each unit of donated blood
is broken, separated, componentized
and saves three lives. This means that
over 78 patients will benefi t and be
impacted by blood donations made
just on that one particular Monday
at Cottage Grove Community blood
drive at Cottage Grove Community
Center. When we give blood, lives
are saved, helped, and enriched in the
community. We look forward to next
month’s return for a BBQ blood drive
in the reception hall/patio area at the
Community Center on Friday, July
15 from 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
Raena Wood
Lane Blood Bank Acct. Rep.
Commissioners' anti-initiative effort
is unconstitutional
L
ast Wednesday’s Register
Guard exposes a wholly uncon-
stitutional effort by the Lane County
Commission to seize control over
Lane voters’ initiative rights. The le-
gitimacy of this attack on direct de-
mocracy has already been soundly
rejected by Lane County Circuit
Court Judge Charles Carlson in a re-
cent case, Bowers v. Betschart. In this
case, corporate interests sought to gut
an initiative effort of local residents
by asserting that the residents’ initia-
tive was not a “matter of county con-
cern” before it had even been passed
by the voters – thereby eliminating
voter participation in the initiative
process.
On June 3, 2016, Judge Carlson
wrote in a letter opinion: “That the
subject matter of the initiative peti-
tion only addresses ‘matters of county
concern’ is not one of the constitu-
tional requirements for the initiative
process. Just as, on the state level, a
statute’s constitutionality is evalu-
ated after its enactment, so too, on the
county level, an initiative measure’s
constitutionality is evaluated only af-
ter it has been adopted.” Nevertheless,
at County taxpayer’s expense, the
Commission works hard to erode the
constitutional rights of Lane County
voters in precisely the same manner
that Judge Carlson found unlawful.
Pete Sorenson, the only lawyer on the
Commission, is notably the lone dis-
senting vote against this assault on the
people’s democratic rights.
While the complicit Commission-
ers allege concern about the County
budget, they lose sight of the fact
that they themselves do not have the
authority to act against the people’s
rights secured by the Oregon and U.S.
constitutions. Under the initiative and
referendum powers, but for ministe-
rial requirements, the people of Or-
egon can write and pass laws with-
out limitation. “The people’s right
to circulate, discuss and pass laws
is constitutionally protected.” says
Ann Kneeland, attorney for initiative
activists, Community Rights Lane
County, “Oregon law is extremely
clear that no one – including elected
offi cials – can interfere with proposed
legislation based on its legality, valid-
ity, or constitutionality before it has
been passed into law.” Ironically, the
Community Rights initiatives that
have sounded an alarm in the halls of
the County Commission are efforts
by Lane County residents to shore up
the people’s right of local community
self-government and their authority
to write laws to protect their health,
safety, and welfare, including one that
would ban on the aerial spraying of
herbicides. The growing Community
Rights Movement seeks to expose
the ways in which corporate interests
work with government offi cials to
shut out the will of the people.
“We can thank the Lane County
Commission for shining a spotlight
exposing how the rigging of the sys-
tem happens on the ground in Lane
County,” said Michelle Holman of
Community Rights Lane County.
“This is a call to action – not only to
defend the people’s initiative right
from the undemocratic efforts by the
majority of our Lane County Com-
missioners on behalf of moneyed in-
terests but to proactively secure the
people’s right of local community
self-government where we live.”
Community Rights Lane County
meets on the fi rst Monday of each
month, from 6 – 8 p.m., at the First
United Methodist Church, 1376 Ol-
ive Street. More information about
CRLC can be found at Community-
RightsLaneCounty.org.
Exercise has signifi cant anti-aging effects
BY JOEL FUHRMAN, MD
For the Sentinel
N
ew research indicates
there is a no-cost simple
way to wage war on the aging
process. And you can do it any
time, most anywhere. All you
have to do is exert your body. In
addition to the many well-known
$ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM
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benefi ts of
exercise
for reduc-
ing the risk
of chronic
disease, ev-
idence has
emerged in
the past few
years sug-
gesting that exercise may slow
the aging process at the DNA
level.
One fascinating area of re-
search on biological aging cen-
ters on regions of DNA called
telomeres, non-coding sequenc-
es located on the ends chromo-
somes. Telomeres are shortened
with each cell division until
eventually the telomeres be-
comes too short, preventing the
cell from dividing any further
(called “senescence”).
As more and more cells in
a tissue become senescent, its
function can become impaired
— the tissue ages. Therefore,
telomere length is used as an
indicator of cellular aging, and
many studies have investigated
potential factors that may con-
tribute to changes in telomere
length.
In human studies, shorter
telomere length has been associ-
ated with hypertension, cardio-
vascular disease, insulin resis-
tance, type 2 diabetes, oxidative
stress (toxic effects of free radi-
cals) and obesity. A low level
of physical activity contributes
to these conditions, and there-
fore maintenance of telomere
length may be one link between
exercise, disease prevention and
longevity.
Regular exercise is associ-
ated with a longer lifespan,
and a number of studies have
now documented links between
physical activity and longer telo-
mere length in white blood cells
or skeletal muscle cells. Many
of these studies have found that
those who exercise regularly
have “younger” DNA than those
who are sedentary.
In fact, one study in particular
showed that older individuals
(ages 55-72) who regularly en-
gaged in endurance training not
only had longer telomeres than
sedentary people their own age,
but also similar telomere length
to younger (ages 18-32) endur-
ance-trained individuals. This
is promising data that suggests
that exercise helps to maintain
a longer telomere length over
time, contributing to slower cel-
lular aging.
The pathways by which exer-
cise may affect telomere length
are still under study and may
be due to alleviating oxidative
stress and/or infl ammation.
Oxidative stress and infl amma-
tion are factors that affect telo-
mere length and also contribute
to diabetes, heart disease and
cancer.
Combining exercising regu-
larly with a diet based on nu-
trient dense plant rich foods (a
nutritarian diet) can achieve
substantial protection against
cellular aging and chronic dis-
ease.
Dr. Fuhrman is a #1 New York
Times best-selling author and a
board certifi ed family physician
specializing in lifestyle and nu-
tritional medicine. His newest
book, The End of Heart Disease,
offers a detailed plan to prevent
and reverse heart disease using
a nutrient-dense, plant-rich eat-
ing style. Visit his informative
website at DrFuhrman.com.
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