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The Grady County Progress.
T, A.. T. MATOBS, ED1TOE.
Leading Weekly Newspaper in Grady Co u nty
Published Weekly, Every Friday, by
THE PROGRESS PUBLISHING COMPANY.
SUBSCRIpiToN RATES.
One year $1.00
Six months GO
Three months - 25
Entered as sicond-clasH mull matter July 22, 1010, at tlu* l’ost-
otBee at Cairo, Gtt., tuuler tile act of Oongre.ss of March II,
1870. , ;
Advertising Rates.—Do ponds on position, ntmdior of insertions
and number of inches—will be given on application.
Obituaries and cards of thanks will be charged for—5c a lino
Not Responsible.—Tlie editor of The PitodlCKHu is not respon
sible for the views of correspondents. Correspondents solic
ited.
“THE SECOND ‘PURF YELPS.”
And now comes forth our daughty warrior,
over across the way—The Cairo Messenger—
with armor on and lance poised, with a challenge
to battle.
Life is too short to be in a continual wran
gle—the people do not relish it. That is not
what they pay their money for.
By way of prelude, Major (?), we will state
that we have never smelled powder, except that
coming from an exploded fire-cracker, and “we
are ‘awfully’ skeered.”
Ah, my dear, brave and truthful patriarch,
you say that we’ve lacked “nerve” to “contro
vert” with you, when you have never offered to
controvert, but instead have resorted to the tac
tics of the “thug,” which you seem to be an
adept in handling. You state that we “are a
scatter gun.”
We have found that when hunting “scatter
ing game” that the best kind of gun to be used
is a gun that scatters. We got the varmints
“gwine and comin.” And in this instance we
got two “purps” instead of 6ne. At least, two
yelped.
You deliberately, Without any- provocation,
whatsoever, pervert the truth when you state
that “we are determined to brook no opposi
tion.” That statement, my valient warrior, is
not in keeping with your other assertions. In
plain English, you give yourself the lie. You
say that we have no “nerve” to controvert; then
you say that we “will not brook opposition and*
permit no man to differ with, or criticize it.” For
the sake of truth we defy you to quote one
word from these columns sustaining your claim.
We also defy you to produce one legitimate crit-
cism from your own columns cast at this pa
per. You mistake misrepresentation and accu
sations as criticism. Not a single accusation
have you brought that bears any resemblance
of truth.
We have, we admit, sat supinely down and
let you frail us to your heart’s content, without
hardly letting a moan escape, and we would not
now utter a protest had you not. in over a col
umn of your last issue, brought one false accu
sation after another against us. Our space is
too valuable to be “killed” by entering a con
troversy with a man who has so far lost his self
respect as to have no regard for the truth what
soever—a man who wilfully places words in
another’s mouth in order to administer a casti
gation, as you have done.
Our money is invested in this property.
What talent we possess we have been trying to
turn it to the benefit of the whole people of
Grady county and not a faction or clique, and
we intend to try and protect it from further
misrepresentations.
You have never had the manliness to dis
cuss or criticize a single article appearing in
The Progress, but have persistently misrepre
sented what we did say or stated that which you
knew to be untrue.
You have accused us of taking bread from
your mouth and those depending upon you. Not
a word of truth in that statement. You have
been your own greatest enemy. In order to
freeze The Progress ov t you have resorted to
the cut price racket. v Taking work at less than
you had been doing it for before The Progress
came into existence, and, too, in the face of the
statement that you could not make a living from
the prices paid you. We have maintained the
rate for work you had established before our com
ing, and in some instances we have increased
that rate. And if you have gone tc bed hungry
it has been your fault, not ours. You could
have secured better prices if you had only de
manded them.
You stated that we censured the last grand
jury for not finding a true bill against Chief
Horton. You wilfully state a falsehood in this
instance. Not a word, pro or con, did we pub
lish. We stated a fact in a news item that an
“attempt was mkde to indict Chief Horton for
perjury by those whom he accused of gambling
in J. Q. Smith’s law office.” We state again
no opinion was expressed. Neither did we com
mend the grand jury in its course for not finding
a true bill. There were twenty-three “upright
and intelligent men” who examined the witnesses
and by not returning a true bill against the
chief we presume they took into consideration
the character of those making the charge.
In the issue of the Messenger of February
10, when you learned that we were going to put
on a contest, you jumped on us with both feet,
stating virtually, that “the people re nembered
the Whigham Journal’s fate and that the people
could not be hoodooed again.” In that state
ment of yours, you, sir, virtually stated that The
Progress would act in the same manner as the
Journal. You did this, not with any intention
of benefiting the people, but in order to injure
The Progress. You knew our contest to be le
gitimate. Again, when you asserted that only
whiskey papers conduct siich campaigns you
knew that you were dodging the truth from the
fact that The Georgian conducts such contests,
also the Fitzgerald Enterprise, the Bainbridge
Search Light, the Dallas New Era, the Madison
Madisonian and Cuthbert Leader, all prohibition
papers. The Thomasville Times-Enterprise and
The, Prjess of t|e sajm ; €jcij|g hay|^ust N concluded
such a contest.' * 'fy'*
Now, sir, if you have any manliness about
you name, in your publication, the stockholders
who are disgusted with our course. Not one of
them have ever entered an objection to us, and,
so far as we personally know, have given sat
isfaction. Name him or admit yourself a liar.
We want to know and want the public to know
him.
• ■
You state further that the editor of this pa
per is being used as a tool by a “special inter
est” to traduce others, and that we assume the
responsibility of it. Not a member of the com
pany has taken advantage of his holdings to use
these columns to condemn anyone, or commend
any cause they espouse. We are not forced to
apply to others for editorial help.
For the benefit of the public we charge that
you misstate facts, with malice aforethought,
when you state that any member of this com
pany has attempted to boycott you. Money has
been paid to you within the month, by members
of this company, which could have been legally
paid to this paper, but in order to keep
down a wrangle, or rjather abuse from you, they
gave it to you.
You, now, as well as in the past, have tried
to prejudice the people against The Progress by
twisting statements appearing in it. At the be
ginning you tried to make it appear to the fol
lowers of Joe Brown that this was a Hoke Smith
organ on account of our publishing, for pay, ar
ticles favorable to Hoke Smith’s candidacy,
when you were guilty of identically the same
thing that you charged against us. But you
failed to accomplish your purpose then.
When you compared the good Christian
women of the town of Cairo to “bloody zealots”
for passing around a petition to congress to pass
a law to prevent the shipment of whiskey from
a wet to a dry state, we did not seize this
opportunity to try and prejudice the people against you.
With charity for your short comings we overlooked it. But
if The Progress had made such a break what a sweet
morsel it woul J have been for you to have rolled around
under your tongue!
L. H. FOSTER.
Last week L. H. Foster rushed into print in the Cairo
Messenger to give The Progress a “larruping” for pub
lishing a news story to the effect that Chief Horton “flushed
a crowd accused of gambling in J. Q. Smith’s law office.”
He did not wait to see whether The Progress would
supply the two missing words, “accused of,” but in order
to try and create a false impression, makes charges which
he knows to be false.
We have only pity for a person who has fallen so low
in the scale of humanity as has the defender of J. Q.
Smith, who needed no defense at his hands. L. H. Foster
says he was entertaining a few gentlemen friends in the law
office of J. Q. Smith.
Those who know the character of L. H. Foster know
that when he ads as host at a midnight party, in an out-of-
the-way place, his guests generally foot the bills. Ac
cording to the records in the office of the clerk of the su
perior court of Grady county they generally, in these gath
erings, can either be heard making use of such polite ex
pressions as “come seven or eleven,” “fade me,” “my bones,”
“you lose,” or “your ante," “come in, or have you cold
feet,” “I raise you,” “I’ve got two pair,” “a drunkard over
here,” etc, etc.
In other words in a. “crap game or poker game.”
It has only been a few short weeks since L. H. Foster
and several of those he was entertaining in J. Q. Smith’s
law office, plead guilty to gambling in the court house of
Grady county, and it will also be remembered that it was
this same L. H. Foster, who plead guilty before his honor,
Judge Singletar)', and after the judge had dissmissed the
jury for the term took advantage of the law and withdrew
his plea to escape paying the fine for another three months.
It is also a fact that before his fine was paid he came dan
gerously near being locked up in Grady county’s jail for
that fine.
We regret that to defend ourselves from the unjust
and uncalled for attack of L. H. Foster that we are forced
to resort to the records in the court houre. We do so in
order to let the public understand the animus behind the
attack. T he gamblers have been permitted to hold full
sway in this town without molestation—at least so far as
publicity was concerned. They did not fear the courts,
but d|o publicity, hence, they desire to deceive the public
by abusing The Progress and crippling its influence with
the law abiding people.
The charge that we made the publication in order to
injure J. Q. Smith is without foundation oh truth and could
such construction be placed upon the news items only by
a person who had sunk so low in depravity that he must
try and pull some one down to his level. Below we re-pub-
lish the item complained of as originally published:
“An effort was made to indict Chief of Police Hor
ton Monday on the charge of perjury by those who
were recently tried for gambling, and who came clear.
“It will be remembered that Mr. Horton last - No
vember flushed, a crowd gambling in the law office of
J. Q. Smith and acquisitions were sworn out before
Judge Singletary of the City Court of Cairo and the ac
cused were declared not guilty.
“On the convening of the grand jury those accused
of gambling by Mr. Horton made the attempt to indict
Mr. Horton for perjury.”
Is there an attack on any one in the above? We
leave it to an unprejudiced public.
Now for the facts, and which L. H. Foster admits in
his card in The Messenger that “Chief Horton did make
acquisitions of gambling against L. H. Foster and others.”
He stated that they were in the law office of J. Q.
Smith.
We published only what Chief Horton swore to.
L. H. Foster admits that he was entertaining a “party
of friends” on that night in J. Q, Smith’s law office with
out the knowledge of J. Q. Smith.
T he record of L. H. Foster and friends is such as to
create the suspicion that eating cheese and crackers and
smoking cigars was not the only thing indulged in on that
night.
Only
P Three More Weeks
OF
Piano Contest!
GET BUSY