Newspaper Page Text
PAGE EIGHT
THE JEFFERSONIAN
PUBLISHED BY
THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON
Editors and Proprietors
Temple Court Building, Atlanta, Ga.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: - SI.OO PER TEAR
Advertising Rates Furnished on Application.
Enttrtd at Bttttffitt, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, iqoj, at ttttnd
ilatt mail matttr
Atlanta, Ga., Thursday February 27, 1908
Tlvo Wrongs Make a 'Right.
The Pardon Board of the State of Geor
gia has refused to commute to life im
prisonment the death sentence which
hangs over Rogers, the Savannah wife
killer. Apparently, the Pardon Board
was actuated less by a sense of justice
than by a weak desire to be consistent.
They had done wrong in refusing to
commute the sentence of Glover, and,
therefore, they must not dare to do right
in the case of Rogers.
Glover, in the heat of passion, killed
the paramour who had betrayed him, and
who, when accused of that betrayal, pub
licly and outrageously insulted him.
Glover was notorious for being an un
balanced, crack-brained man, who had in
herited the taint from his mother. His
lack of mental soundness should have
been considered in grading the punish
ment, and he should not have been
hanged. But he was an obnoxious Popu
list; the Augusta Ring wanted him put
to death; and Boykin Wright and Judge
Eve and Judge Hammond railroaded the
poor fellow to the gallows.
Tn the Rogers case, the wife betrayed
the husband, and the husband followed
her to the market, and shot her to death.
Tn each of these two cases, it was a wo
man who was killed. Tn each of these
cases, the killing was murder. Tn each of
these cases the guilty man was mentally
defective. Tn each case, that mental de
fect was a fact which should have been
considered, along with all the other facts,
in grading the punishment.
Tn refusing to commute Glover’s sen
tence, the Pardon Board was guilty of
moral cowardice. Tn refusing to cum
mute the sentence of Rogers, they have
been even more cowardly than they were
in Glover’s case.
Because thev did wrong in the Glove’*
case, they felt that they must do wrong,
again, in the Rogers case —and thus we
have the new rule that two wrongs make
a right. r
The attached letter of poor Glover will
be read with svmnathv by everv man
whose heart is in the right place:
“Richmond County Jail.
“Augusta, Ga., Nov. t, 1906.
“Mv. Dear. Mr. Watson:
“Hoping these few lines will reach you
THE JEFFERSONIAN.
in due time, hoping also they will find
you and your family prosperous and en
joying good health.
“Dear Sir, they have went through the
farce of trying me, and they have rail
roaded me through the courts, and now
they intend to hang me. They did not
even give me the showing of a sheep at
a shooting match. Why, Judge Hammond
and Boykin Wright went after me just
as if they were going after a tiger from
the jungles of Bengal. Dear Sir, you are
my only hope. Will you take my little
boy and go to the Governor of Georgia
and ask him to commute my sentence
from death sentence to life imprisonment
in the penitentiary?
“Mr. Gay will tell you the balance.
“Yours as ever,
“(Signed) A. P. GLOVER.”
R *
Couldn 7 Afford It.
The Atlanta Journal fold us last sum
mer that the State could not afford so
expensive a thing as an extra session of
the Legislature. »
The following clauses in the contract
of the Reformers remained unfulfilled:
(1) We had no anti-lobby law, as we
were promised.
(2) We had no corporation franchise
tax law, as we were assured we would
have.
(3) Nothing had been done to expose
and break up the illegal ownership of the
Central Railroad by competitive lines.
(4) Nothing had been done to save us
a single bale of the 50,000 bales of cotton
which Mr. S. G. McLendon proved that
we were losing, every year, in being made
to pay dividends upon fictitious railroad
capitalization.
Mr. McLendon made his estimate in
cotton ; Hon. Hoke Smith made his in dol
lars and cents. According to Mr. McLen
don, the annual robbery amounted to 50,-
000 bales cotton —which, we assume, were
500 pounds each, class middling. Accord
ing to Mr. Smith the yearly robbery
amounted to $4,000,000.
Both of these gentlemen are able, con
scientious men. They did not make those
charges recklessly. They did not misrep
resent facts in order to win votes. And
they were not talking idly. They were
addressing people who understood them
to mean that if Hoke Smith were elected
Governor he would put a stop to that rob
bery. And the Hon. Hoke Smith meant
that very thing AT THAT TIME.
Why has such a change come over the
spirit of our dream?
Why was the Legislature not convened
to finish the work which the Hon. Hoke
Smith was publicly and solemnly pledged
to do?
Ts a yearly loss of 50,000 bales of cotton
a less serious matter to the people of
Georgia than it was before Mr. S. G. Mc-
Lendon went into office on that cry?
Ts the annual loss of $4,000,000 in the
payment of dividends on fraudulent rail
road stocks and bonds less a hardship and
a crime than when the Hon. Hoke Smith
was riding into office on that cry ?
But as the Journal said, the State could
not afford the expense of an extra session.
Did the Journal say that because it knew
that $200,000 of the State’s money had
been put into the Neal Bank and had been
tied up in a Cuban land deal?
KUH
The Governor Pardoned This One.
A married lady, living in a boarding
house in Atlanta, with her husband, felt
herself insulted by the indecent conduct
of a single man who lived in the room
the narrow hallway, facing her
own room. This single man would leave
his door open while dressing and undres
sing, and while he was lying on his bed
in undress. The married lady felt the
insult and complained to her husband.
The husband went to the single man, re
monstrated with him, and asked him to
keep his room-door closed while he was
undressed.
Had the single man been a gentleman
he would have apologized and mended
his ways.
Instead of this he angrily resented the
husband’s remonstrance and, in the fight
which followed, killed him.
The. case was probably one of murder
in the first degree. The slayer had
brought on the difficulty by his insults
to the other man’s wife.
But the jury very mercifully let the
defendant off with a verdict of voluntary
manslaughter, and he was sentenced to
a term in the penitentiary.
He had served nearly three years of
his time, and his mother, most naturally,
wanted him pardoned. She appealed to
Governor Hoke Smith, and, more for
tunate than poor Glover’s wife, appears
to have got more than twenty minutes to
make her plea.
At all events, the man who killed an
other because that other man was trying
to protect his wife from daily insult, now
goes free, with A FULL PARDON.
Glover did not ask a pardon. His wife,
his little boy, himself, and his friends
only asked that his punishment be re
duced to life imprisonment.
“No; the law must take its course!”
Why wasn’t the law left to take its
course in the other case?
* * n
Hoss Morgan.
J. Pierpont Morgan is roosting in the
Senate gallery, in Washington, while Al
drich is steering the Wall Street currency
bill through the troubled waters. Boss
Morgan is on hand to see the job well
done. Incidentally, he may send for re
luctant Senators, from time to time, and
talk to them in the privacy of Aldrich’s
committee-room. In effect, Boss Morgan
is acting as General-in-chief of th? Wall
Street lobby, for the crisis looks ugly, and