Post Mortem

Scowling hugely, New York City's Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Charles Norris recently stormed into the "House of Breathless Men," as morgue attendants euphemistically call their nose-stinging structure. On Dr. Norris' mind was an order from Mayor Joseph Vincent ("Holy Joe") McKee--who, to spare taxes and borrow money from bankers, is trying to cut city operating costs--to reduce his department budget by 20%. Before Dr. Norris' eyes was the barren poverty of his morgue office--a small room, cheap furniture, a microscope, reagent bottles. The floor is bare. But in an adjacent laboratory is a dingy blue rug, once blood-stained evidence in a murder case.

Many an industrious officeholder mired in the backwaters of political money-spending sympathized with Dr. Norris' growl: "The whole thing is picayune. It is easier for the large departments to get a million dollars than it is for my small department to get $10. In pursuit of its penny-wise-&-pound-foolish policy, the city threatens to handicap seriously the work the medical examiner's office is supposed to perform."

This work includes investigation of the 3,000 violent or strange deaths which happen in big New York City each year. No policeman dares touch a corpse until Dr. Norris or his chief aides appear. In his career Dr. Norris has performed some 4,000 autopsies himself. Perhaps in war-time some individual performed more post mortems. But Dr. Norris holds the peacetime record.

Last week came another blow. Mayor McKee forbade Dr. Norris' medical assistants the dignity of hiring private cars by the hour. They must use taxicabs, which are more economical. Huffed, Dr. Norris did what many an official anywhere would like to afford doing. He at once resigned.

In 1918 Dr. Norris, able pathologist, director of Bellevue Hospital pathological laboratories, replaced the fee-grabbing coroners of the five boroughs which compose New York City. A few years later Mayor John Francis ("Red Mike'') Hylan slighted one of Dr. Norris' aides. Dr. Norris promptly mailed his resignation. Mayor Hylan tore it up. Last week Mayor McKee, more of a diplomat, accepted Dr. Norris' resignation and then persuaded him to withdraw it.

By his deed Dr. Norris, 64, would have lost a $3,300 yearly pension. But the money has no great meaning to him. He is one of the Pennsylvania Norrises whose American ancestor, Isaac, was a friend of William Penn. Isaac Norris' descendants founded Norristown, Pa., became wealthy bankers, merchants, and landowners in & around Philadelphia.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.