MANNERS & MORALS: Americana, Apr. 25, 1949

¶ A total of 6,083,000 U.S. residents (one of every 9.4 wage earners) work for the government (federal, state, local), according to the latest count.

¶ In Salem, Ore., theater owners denounced as un-American a bill to ban pop corn & peanuts from movie houses. In Washington, the C.I.O.'s shirt-sleeved Political Action Committee moved to fancy new quarters formerly occupied by the Dewey-Warren committee.

¶ The National Committee for Education on Alcoholism announced plans to place fund-raising coin boxes in Manhattan saloons. Campaign slogan: "You Can Drink. Help the Sick Alcoholic Who Can't—Al-coholism Is a Disease."

¶ After serving 28 years of a life term for murder, in the Joliet, (Ill.) penitentiary, Calogero Boscio, 65, asked for his freedom. Until he got to prison, he said, he had been under the impression that he was being held only as a witness.

¶ In return for free haircuts, shampoos and massages until 1957, Samuel Bernstein installed a $425 television set in a Brooklyn barber shop.

¶ In a tiny, single-engined Aeronca, Pilots Bill Barris and Dick Riedel, of Fullerton, Calif., broke a ten-year-old flight endurance record (726 hours), vowed to stay aloft until they had passed 1,000. To refuel, they dropped to five feet from the ground, picked up fuel, oil and food from a car speeding down the runway at 70 miles an hour.

¶ Travelers in Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal could count on a baffling summer. The New York Central R.R. will continue to operate on Standard time, while the New York, New Haven & Hartford this week will switch over to Daylight Saving. Sixty-three clocks in Grand Central are being refitted with two hour hands: a black one for Standard, a red one for Daylight.