Newspaper Page Text
PAGE FOUR
A Circular Letter and
An Answer From a
Georgia Preacher
The Letter.
New York, N. Y., Dec. 23, 1914.
Rev. S. G. Woodall,
LaGrange, Ga.
Dear Sir and Brother.
I
icoßSirsi-ssJ*
E beg to send you under
separate cover copies of “Col
lier’s Weekly” of December
19th, and 26th, containing
two articles on the Frank
case. We ask you to read these ar
ticles, because we believe that Frank
has been denied a fair trial, and that
such denial constitutes the gravest
possible infringement on the rights
of an American citizen. The courts
haveing denied him a retrial, his
counsel are about to appeal to the
Governor of Georgia urging clemency
on his behalf. We earnestly trust
that you will, by voice and pen, join
in this appeal, in the hope that some
day such evidence may be brought
forward as will necessitate a new
trial that shall be just and fair.
Fraternally yours,
(Signed) Charles a. Eaton, James
M. Farrar. Frank Oliver Hall, J.
Lewis Harstock, Newell Dwight Hil
lis. John Haynes Holmes, William
Pierson Merrill, Charles H. Park
hurst. Junius B. Remensynder, Wal
ter Laidlaw, Secretary, Room 1232,
20 0 Fifth Avenue'.
The Answer.
LaGrange, Ga., Dec. 26, 1914.
Messrs. Walter Laidlaw, Charles
A. Eaton, James M. Farrar, Frank
Oliver Hall, J. Lew’is Hartsock, Ne
well Dwight Hillis, John Haynes
Holmes, Wiliam Pierson Merrill,
Charles H. Parkhur'st, ’Junius B.
Remensynder & Co.
Gentlemen: Your letter of the
23 inst to hand, calling my attention
to the “Frank case’’ as reviewed by
C. B. Connolly in Collier’s Weekly.
I have read the article, and for
bold effrontry, and barefaced pre
varication I have never seen its
equal.
In the first place, C. P. Connolly
has no standing with the Georgia
Par Association, and his statements
carry with them no weight to the
parties who know him.
I have never known a criminal to
have a fairer trial, or to have been
given more consideration than has
Leo Frank; and his statements to
the public reek with falsehoods,
slander and abuse of the judiciary of
our State and the citizens of Atlanta.
Frank’s own lawyers injected race
prejudice into the case; and it is a
palpable falsehood that “race hatred’’
has ever influenced the people in
• the least.
The people of the State of Geor
gia utterly disgusted with the
methods which have been used by
“Big money’’ to debauch witnesses,
by the big dailies, and besmirch the
fair name of our State, and, when T
see a list of names of leading preach
ers signed to your plea for executive
clemency, I am appalled to know
that such men have so far prosti
tuted their profession as to state
that Leo Frank has not had a fair
or a just trial When have a set of
New York preachers ever taken upon
themselves, before, to intercede for
a justly condemned criminal? What
right have these New York preachers
to send letters to the preachers of
Georgia, asking them to use their
influence in trying to stay the hand
of justice? We know, as well as
you know, that “Big money” is be
hand every move, and every move
which “Big money” has made, only
tends to convince the public that Leo
Frank is guilty.
Leo Frank was not convicted on
Jim Conley s evicTence, but Frank’s
own statement, and his failure to
make clear his whereabouts at the
time of the murder, and his trying
THE JEFFERSONIAN
to fasten the crime on Newt Lee and
others, knowing all the while that
Jim Conley was in the building all
the while, and never intimating for
once, that Conley might have been
the criminal. You do not know any
thing about the evidence, and you
have no right to pass your opinion
as to whteher Leo Frank had justice
or not. The links of evidence, in
the chain which convicted Frank,
were such as you know nothing
about, and jour sickly sentimental
appeal for a justly convicted criminal
will only have the effect of making
the people more determined that
justice shall not miscarry.
Have this letter published in Col
lier’s Weekly, and let the world
know that there are some preachers
in Georgia who will not prostitute
themselves and besmirch the fair
name of the Empire State of the
South.
Yours truly.
(Rev.) S. G. WOODALL.
So-Called Equalization
of Taxes
EAR SIR: I notice with
, pleasure your rebuke to the
boastful people and certain
newspapers, as to the profits
that have come from our so-
D
called tax equalization laws, in the
year 1914. If the expenses of equa
lizers have only been $4,000, and
some cents, including salaries, etc.,
we may be thankful that it cost no
more; but I opine that the final sum
ming up will show that the equalizers
sat out their time, in comfortable
seats in the court house, at a good
daily wage, without knowing a thing
about the lands that they raised or
lowered. Inquiries were made as to
their knowledge of these properties
in my county, and they did reply in
several cases that they had never
seen or visited them, and all they had
to go by. was the tax digests and
what their neighbors said about it.
If victims will take the time to in
vestigate they will be apt to find,
that this equalization has been man
aged by the politicians—and the
favoritism as well as the persecution
has been something fearful to re
call. You mentioned the case of the
Baker County widow who had only
an income of 10 bales of cotton from
her place, and she was taxed S4OO, to
keep it from the sheriff’s hammer.
If she sold her cotton at 6 cents (and
many sold below 5 cents,) she will
soon be forced to sell outright. No
body can afford to own real estate
that cannot pay its own taxes. I
will give you a case in the county 1
live in—where a widow had a poor
little farm of 45 acres, on which she
spent S3O Jo build a barn, and house
covering cost thirty-five dollars, and
yet she was taxed at the rate of S2O
per acre—on property that yielded
her exactly one bale of cotton, for
the year’s revenue, 1914.
I have a neighbor, a thrifty poli
tician, and his farm of 240 acres was
taxed on a valuation of $12.50 per
acre. With a chalk line for division
of his farm and another farm, he
gets off with $4.3.50 tax, while land
adjoining must pay on 240 acres,
exactly $69.60. Exactly the same
sort of land, with all the improve
ments in his favor, he saves nearly
$27 by this one shrewd transaction.
His land had been reduced from $4,-
200 to $3,000, and his neighbors
land was raised from $4,600 to $4,-
800—both containing 240 acres.
Because the equalizers said they
rated farms alike that joined—a
friend made a close investigation of
the Tax Digest, with the foregoing
result. It is unquestionable. An
other case that was perhaps more
atrocious. A widow who does not
live on her land ,but rents it for a
few bales of cotton has 160 acres,
surrounding on two sides a neigh
bor’s land, which is veery well im
proved, containing 160 acres. He
valued his land, 160 acres at sl,-
600. She returned her 160 acrese
at $2,400. To equalize—her land,
half of •which is in woods, with no
improvements and small income—
these equalizers anly raised his land
to $1,700, or $lO.lO per acre, and
her land valued at $2,400, they
raised to $3,200, or S2O per acre.
Is not this equalization with a ven
geance? These equalizers declared
they had never seen an acre of either
farm in their lives. Comment is
needless.
There are large farms in the coun
ty where this tyrant was exploited,
that are rated very much lower than
the purchase money. There are
men here supposed to be worth a
quarter milion dollars in lands and
city property that were not raised
over a valuation of fifty or sixty
thousand dollars.
As a rule, it is the poor folks and
w’idows who get it, where the chicken
gets it, in the neeck!
. If the next legislature doe? not re
vise this infamous method of equali
zation the masses will be obliged to
rise up and vote it out.
We had a system of arbitration
that worked very well. Two men,
both familiar with the land, one
chosen by the owneer and the other
by the county, settled the valuation,
and satisfactorily.
I know personally that the widow’s
OfO VOO KNOW -.-"7—■ =r
That in every city in the United States
there are hundreds of children whose
parents are too poor to send them to pub
lic school?
DfD TOU KNOW - ■ ' . =
That the people of the United States lead
the world in sending money to foreign
countries to educate the children of for
eigners?
READ WATSON’S BOOK:
| Foreign
And learn what ws are doing for the FOUEIQniER,
while we ignore the claims of our own children
s Price 30 Cents. '
THE JEFFERSONIAN PUBLISHING CO.
Thomson, &a*
■ Il Ilin Ullin
■
i The Cream of Mr. Watson’s Miscellaneous
i Writings Covering a Period of 30 Years
Altogether apart from his political, economic
I and historical work
They reflect the rare, occasional mood of the man of
ideals, of hopes and dreams, of love and sorrow, of soli
tary reflection, and of glimpses of the inner self.
We call the volume
PROSE MISCELLANIES
We have a beautifully printed and illustrated edition
bound in board covers, and the book is typographically
as pretty as new shoes.
PRICE SI.OO, POSTAGE PAID
THE JEFFERSONIAN PUBLISHING CO.,
THOMSON, GA.
land, where she was so unjustly
treated (in comparison with her
neighbor,) did arbitrate and accepted
the valuation of $15.00 on land (in
ferior to the adjoining lands, which
the new equaliers lowered to $lO
and $12.50 per acre afterwards,)
and yet they had the audacity to
raise her farm land to S2O per acre.
Unless these equaliers make a sur
vey of the farms as they raise or
lower, it will be necessary to abolish
the whole business. It is the shrewd
est scheme for favoritism on one
hand and persecution on the other
that the world ever witnessed.
Ga.. TAX PAYER.
“Huge battleships they build, and
huge guns they mount on these float
ing ramparts, until a file of Dread-
line the coast—for what?
To be ready for perils that may
never come. But I give them a piti
ful little purse; and, in return, they
issue to me the lawful right to un
mask my batteries on every square;
and my guns play upon humanity,
every day and every night, of every
year.”
From “The Song of the Bar-
Room,” in Watson’s Prose Miscella
nies, second edition. Price SI.OO.
THE JEFFS, Thomson, Ga.
