Crime-of-the-Week

Edward Ecklund, 50, and Harry Stumm, 48, paymasters, were entering the door of the almost completed new House Office Building at the southern edge of the Capitol Plaza in Washington last week. In Paymaster Stumm's pocket was a $2,000 payroll for the painters on the construction job. Overhead, through the bare twigs of trees, bronze Freedom stood guard on the great white dome of national Authority. Across the street rose the old House Office building, usually well policed. But neither Freedom nor police prevented what happened to Paymaster Ecklund and Paymaster Stumm.

Two Negroes stepped up, demanded the payroll. Met with resistance, they shot the two white men down, vanished in a taxicab whose license number startled spectators in windows across the street failed to note. Paymaster Ecklund died instantly. Paymaster Stumm was rushed to a hospital, a bullet under his heart, the payroll still in his pocket.

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