Newspaper Page Text
TUESDAY
EDITION
.- VOL. XXVI,
NUMBER 38
B@BM B M i
f i G g W M O A nE L &
+ + % % % % P 3 & * * % * % * .'|' +C® + % + L] + ¢ + +* + + % + + % * + & L 3
“HORROR FARM” l
Motion for Defense for Continu
ance Over Ruled by Judge
ORDER IS MAINTAINED
Defense Tries Show that Negro
Society Is Prosecuting
(By International News Service)
COVINGTON, April s,—With no
sign of disorder the trial of John
Williams, charged with the murder
of Lindey Peterson, negro employee
on Williams’ large plantation, opened
this morning.
The court room was soon SO
crowded that Judge Hutcheson, or
dered that no more spectators be
admitted. Sixteen deputies were
sworn in to keep order, two stationed
at each door, allowing none to leave.
or enter while a witness was on the
stand.
Greene Johnson, counsel for the
defense, claiming inadequate time to
prepare, moved for continuance but
Judge Hutcheson over ruled the
motion.
Johnson questioned . former Con
gressman William Schley Howard
and Assistant Attorney General Gra
ham Wright as to how they became
connected with the case. Howard
said he was employed by Governor
Hugh M. Dorsey, and paid by sub
scriptions, finally stating that Doc
tors C. B. Wilmer and Ashbey Jones
of Atlanta, authorized his employ
ment.
Johnson’s questioning indicated a
belief that the National Secretary for
the Advancement of Colore. People
strongly influenced the employment
of special counsel to prosecute Wil
liams. !
When court recessed from 11:30 to
1 o'clock thirty four jurymen had
been accepted.
Absolute order is being maintained
Williams is a wealthy planter ac
cused by Clyde Manning, a negro
employece, with ordering and aiding
in the murder of eleven of his negro
farmhands. Williams seemed rather
nervous but was warmly greeted
when he arrived in Covington from
Atlanta.
Manning was not in the courtroom
this forenoon.
During an intermission ‘Williams’
wife and daughter entered the court
room, taking seats besides the pris
oner who kissed them. Later one of
his sons entered. :
The jury secured early in the af
ternoon session' of Williams’ trial
was made up of seven farmers, two
merchants, one clerk, one automo
bile dealer and one barber.
During the luncheon intermission
members of the Williams family
conferred with prisoner in anteroom
while Williams’ lawyers met on the
ground floor.
It is expected that Clyde: Manning
will be the star witness for state to
morrow. At 2:45 p. m. court re
cessed to 9 o’cock a. m. Wednesday
morning.
e e o '
iounty Commission
e
. Holds Short Meeting
Mesdames S. M. Whitchard, Lon
Dickey and H. A. Mathis appeared
before the Board of County Commis
sioners in behalf of the Curb Market
and secured resolutions from the!
members fullying endorsing it. ‘
Mrs. Whitchartl. also brought to
the attention of the Board alleged
violations of the gaming laws at the
convict camp and was assured by the
commissioner that if such condition
existed at the Ben Hill county camp,
it was without their knowledge and
would be stopped. :
The usual monthly reports were re.
ceived by the Board, bills were or
dered paid and other minor matters
passed. '
o .
Mexicans Promise To
°
Protect Americans
(By International News Service)
WASHINGTON, April s.—Mexi
co has informed the United States
that the “fullest vigor of the law,”
will be used to safeguard Americans
and punish those guilty of the recent
murder of two Americans in the
Tampico district, says a dispatch
from the American \embassy at Mex
ico City today. ’
THE FITZGERALD LEADER
WEATHER—Generally Fair Tonight
and Wednesday.
. THE SAPIRO PLAN, THE BANKER |
é .
AND THE MERCHANT f
% ‘ %
% iet IRO NSEIOP VHCHOT ' s %
(FOURTH ARTICLE)
This article and the ensuing one, on “The Sapiro Plan and the
Merchant,” may really be taken as one. Everything that is said in
either will be of equal interest to both banker and merchant. In fact,
‘their interests are so closely interwoven the discussion is divided un
der two titles merely as a matter of form.
To begin with, before discussing the advantages of the Sapiro
plan to southern banking and business interests, it is well to remind
hard-headed business men that the Sapiro plan is strictly a business
proposition, and its leading advocates elsewhere than in these col
umns are not merely dreaming wild visions about handling a pro
duct they know nothing about. In this regard it is necessary to re
fute here two crass errors to which expression is occasionally, if rare
iy given.
Error No. 1 tuns about like this: 4 ‘
“These Sapiro plan advocates have no idea of the great number
and variety of cotton growers, and don’t realize that the greatest
part of our cotton, perhaps, is grown under peculiar renting systems
or is covered with liens before ever the seed is planted.”
In other words, the Sapiro plan advocates are lunatics. They
would certainly be nothing less if the errors were not an error. Here
are some simple but interesting facts about the Sapiro plan:
Where cotton is,raised on “shares”, the landlord taking his rent
in cotton, the landlord is considered a grower and his membership is
sought in the association.
Where a farmer raises cotton under a lien, he, likewise, is elegi
ble to membership. The association, at his own option and notifying
him of its decision before his crop is harvested, will handle his cotton
whenever the consent of the lien holder can be obtained. In hand
iing the identical problem wth other crops, that consent has almost
never been ‘withheld. It simply means to the lienor that, instead
of holding an obligation backed by the grower and a bale of cotton,
i he will hold a more negotiable obligation backed by the grower, the
bale of cotton, and the association. As soon as that particular bale
is sold, the lien is paid, or, often, the association pays off the lien on |
taking the cotton.
Of course, the association will comprise mostly the lien-free cot
ton of the state, and needs such cotton for certain financing opera
tions. But a bale of cotton, which is under a lien of safely less
amount than the value of the cotton, and which is given over to the
association for'sale at its own time and in its own way, it is just as
important to the assocaon as lien-free cotton is effecting market con
ditions,
Error No. 2 runs about like this:
“The Sapiro plan advocates think they’ve got a panacea for all
ills__ beleve they could have prevented the recent big drop in cotton,
and fail to realize that cotton had to drop mainly because Europe
hasn’t been able to take our surplus because English banking inter
ests, which annually take and finance our cotton and then retail it
to the spinners, have been unable to undertake their share of the busi
ness this year.”
Holders of that error are again leaping to the conclusion that
Sapiro plan advocates must have completely lost their heads because
they happen to have room inside them for an exceptionally big idea.
Right here it should be said, once and for all, that the chief ob
ject of Sapiro organization is to stabilize the market and secure jus
tice for the grower in normal times, and to alleviate, not always to
prevent crisis.
It has been said again and again that it must operate within the
ultimate law of supply and demand. To a limited extent, it can tem
porarily modify supply, and by deliberately setting ou-, as in un
doubtably will, o upbuild the universal consumption of cotton it can,
cither temporarly at a given time or permanently, create demand.
But that is not its greatest purpose and effect, which is to keep the
market from consantly being manipulated, or its machinery stopped,
to the detrimen of the producer, in temporary DEFIANCE of the
law of supply and demand.
Sapiro plan advocates have no idea that the existence of such a
unit as they propose in cotton could have prevented the recent drop
in cotton prices. What they do maintain is that they could have
prevented the drop from being so unanticipated, so sudden, or so
great as it was, and could alleviated the present burden of that drop
upon the cotton-producing portion of the country.
The present drop in price may be traced to the law of supply and
demand of course, but it is out of all PROPORTION to the repuire
ments of that law, and this is true mainly because there is no effi
cient and sufficient representative sales unit for actual cotton in exis
tenc.
Such a unit would have had leading experts here and in Europe,
studying and knowing (not guessing at) every available fact bearing
upon the economics of the cotton market long before the decline
came, since then, it would have had a central agency in Europe ar
ranging details with governments and private combinations long ago.
lOn this side, would have stood a single gigantic unit capable of de
livering, without endless red tape, any quantity of actual cotton to
tulfil those deals. The War Finance Corporation and two export
banking companies, to say nothing of additional government finan
cing which could have been secured by a more powerful and apparent
representation of growers’ interests than exists at present, would
have stood ready, sooner than they have, to finance those deals. In
short, there is every reason to assume that there would have been
more movement in cotton than there has been as things stand.
Moreover, the burden of little movement would have been more
comfortably borne; for such a unit would be in a position to use all
American resources, instead of the southern banker alone, for the
purpose of financing all unavoidable holding of the crop. Yes, the
English financiers failed us, and when they did, they left the banks
of the South practically alone to finance all cotton until it reached
the mill.
Cotton is the great golden imperishable among agricultural pro
ducts. With a more stable market system, it would be the gilt-edged
collateral for any sort of financial transaction—a veritable kind of
gold. If the then insignificant Sapiro-type organization of the North
western wheat growers could successfully ¢ell commodity bonds in
the wheat crisis of last year as they did, why wouldn’t the American
vublic take conservative cotton “baby bonds” ten times more readily ?
Why wouldn’t all the banks and banking interests in the United
State help to finance cotton and be mighty glad of the chance, if the
unit existed capable of approaching the whole financial field of the
country at the same time and on even terms with the actual collateral,
correctly graded under bond, in hand?
~ Would or would not the southern banker welcome such a reliev-,
ing machinery at this hour? Would or would not the southern mer
chant welcome a situation in which his banker, whose hands are now
completely tied by cotton, could lend-him a dollar now and then to
help clear the choked channels of ordinary trade?
There is a saying hereabouts,that “Cotton is our money crop.”
(Continued on Page Two)
FITZGERALD, BEN HILL COUNTY, GEORGIA TUESDAY, APRIL sth, 1921
Registration for City Primary
This Month Passes 800
ABOUT 200 WOMEN
Feminine Voters Put Total Reg
istration Over Record
Wth more than 800 men and
‘women registered to vote, interest
‘the city primary April 18th secemed
‘to be growing today. The registra
tion is understood to already be the
largest for any city primary in thel
city’s history. The registration oify
approximately 200 women is under-|
stood to have swelled the number of
registrants to a record breaking total.'
Registration closes at 6 o'clock Fri-I
day evening, April Bh. David L.
Paulk, city clerk, keeps the rcgzistra—!‘
tion books at the clerk’s office on
the second floor of the City Hall. All
white citizens who will be 21 years
of age at the time of the regular elec
tion in October are eligible to regis
ter and vote in the city primary.
Only five formal announcements
for the aldermanic board have been
made up to today, those of W. R.
Paulk, George Kilcrease, Dr. E. ]J.
Dorminey, Clayton Jay, and A. H.
nouncement has been made for the
Thurmond. Only one formal an
school board, that of G. C. Petty from
the Second Ward. Drew W. Paulk
and L. L. Griner have announced for
mayor and it is in this race that in
terest largely centers.
G. P. Mingledorff, for city treas
urer, and Hubert Roush, for water,
light and bond commission to succeed
G. E. Ricker, have no opposition.
Changes Probable On
.
- City School Board
On account of the election to the
superintendency of U. J. Bennett,
present president of the Fitzgerald
Board, of Education, it is generally
understood that Dr. W. D. Dorminy,
member for the Fourth Ward, will be
elected president of the Board for
the next term and the vacancy in the
Fourth ward filled by the election of
some lady in the ward.
For the second ward, G. C. Petty
has announced for the position now
occupied by Scott Walker, who may
also be a candidate. Lon Dickey for
the First Ward and G. S. Jolley for
the Third will probably not have
opposition. Mrs. Frank Ward of the
Fourth Ward is prominently men
tioned as being the probable member
for that ward.
.
Postpene Action
. School Bonds Issue
City Council Favorable to Water
Main Extension and Auditorium
A High School auditorium and
extension of the water mains for fire
protection, received favorable con
sideration at the hands of the Mayor
and Council at the regular meeting
of the Board last night. ‘
On account of the inability to se
cure exact figures of the required
capital needed for the erection of the
school improvements and the require
ments of the Water and Light Com
‘mission, final action of the city coun
cil was postponed until the next reg
‘ular meeting, which will be held
iMrmday April 18th.
i Routine business only came up for
\ disposal.
Lynnwood To Vote:
School Tax Levy
County Board Authorizes Special
Election for Purpose at Meeting
The new school district, comprizing
Lynnwood, Luke and Paulk school
districts, was authorized to hold an
election for the purpose of levying an
extra school tax on the property in
the district, not to exceed 5 mills by
the County Board of Education this
morning,
The date for the election and the
place where it will be held, are to be
decided by Ordinary J. R. Horton,
lwho will shortly make his decision.
Ashton district, including the new
territories now taken in by the Dor
miney and Horton schools, are also
to hold an election, but final action
was not taken by the County Board
today.
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Here are principals in the most
startling divorce suit of recent years,
Oun cne side, james A. Stillman,
'{"'(‘&ldcn! of the National City Bank,
N Y and international banker ; on
the other side, his wife, Mrs. “Fifi”
P Stillman. rich, pampered society
v man, and the French-Canadian In
« iide, Fred Beauvais. In beiween
1 ® . nnnocent little thirty-one
1. old ehild—Baby Guy Stillman,
.whom the hanker claims is illegiti
macc—-naming the Indian guide 29
correspondent, Mrs, Stillman demes‘
all charges. Look at the two men—!
and the child. Which do you think
htele Guy resem'' > The court is
GROWING SERIOUS
United States Sends Sharp Note‘
to Japanese Cabinet
i 1
OBJECT TO DIVISION
United States Said Not Party
| to “Division of Spoils”
i (By International News Service) |
WASHINGTON, April 5. The
‘Unitcd States has addressed a new
‘note to Japan on the Island of Yap
‘controvcrsy and mandates in general,
'which is understood to be - much
sharper than any of its predecessors,
it was learned today.
Copies were sent to Great Britain
and France and it is understood that
the United States positively declines
to admit that this government ever
gave consent to a division of the Is
lands of the Pacific north and south
of the Equator between Great Bri
tain and Japan, in which Japan was
to get all the Islands nerth of the
equator.
The United States declines to re
cognize the justice or validity of this
alleged agrcement and emphasizes
'strongcr than ever that the United
States cannot accept such an ar
' rangement.
[ . .
Savannah Unionists
. .
~ Will Hear Strikers
At the regular meeting of the strik
ing employees of the Atlanta, Bir
mingham and Atlantic railway this
morning, a committec was appointed
to go to Savannah to address a meet
ing of the federated railroad unions
and confer with Savannah union
leaders Friday.
The committee which was named
to go is W. M. Martin, chairman of
[the joint co-operative committee of
, the thirteen striking crafts; Marvin
- Meeks, of the train men, aad Cox of
| the car men. They will motor thru
i the country to Savannah, returning
I‘probably on Sunday.
l. Leader Want Ads Pay!!
COTTON —Good Middling ____lo%
No Receipts No Sales
DETROIT VOTES TO
l CWN STREET CARS
'Soldier Bonus Approved by Pro
, gressive Michigan City
| ——
] CORPORATIONS LOSE
| Municipal Ownership Bill Beats
‘ “Service at Cost” ‘
(By International News Service)
. DETROIT, April 5—A state bonus
for former soldiers providing fifteen
dollars per month for “every Michi
gan soldier in the world war carried
three to one, the returns show today.
' No soldier can receive over $250.
| Indications are that the Municipal
' Purchase Plan, providing for the pur
chase of the lines of the Detroit Unit
ed Railways by the city carried while
‘the city “service at cost” ordinances,
isupportcd by the street car company,
vwas defeated. ;
Harding to Build New Board around‘
- Corporation Head ‘
(By International News Service) |
WASHINGTON, April s—Presi
‘dent Harding has offered the chair
manship of the United States Ship
ping Board to James Farrell, presi
dent of the United States Steel Cor
poration, according to reliable re
ports here today.
It is reported that Farrell has
promised to answer by April 9th. The
President has stated that he intends
to build a new board around the
chairman. g
Two members of the board are |
known to have been selected, former
Senator Chamberlain, of Oregon and .
former Brigadier General Frnnk,’
Hines. Tt is believed that place willi
also be found for Admiral Benson,
present chairman, a Georgian,
. .
Davis To Mediate
Tug Boat Walkout
~ (By International News Service)
WASHINGTON, April s—Seccre
‘mry of Labor Davis today announced
‘that he will personally attempt med
iation in the labor controversy on
ocean going tugs and tow boats on
the Atlantic coast.
Secretary Davis will meet tomor
row with tugboat owners and em
ployees’ representatives.
Negro Helpers Are
o » .
Given Strike Relief
Negro helpers who are now on
strike against the wage reductions
limposcd by the Atlanta, Birmingham
and Atlantic railway have been
awarded strike benefits from the fla
tional organization of the shop help
ers union, according to information
at local union headquarters today
| from national headquarters of the
i/\mcric:m Federation of Labor.
( The first benefits will be paid on
| April Bth, according to this informa
' tion.
eorgia Belong’
Did you know that King George granted the territory
that is now the State of Georgia to James Oglethorpe “in
trust for the poor?”
THE STORY OF OUR STATES
Written by Jonathan Brace, famous American histor
ian, in forty-eight brief and quickly read installments has
been purchased by the Leader and will begin running in
its columns soon.
SEALS OF THE STATES— :
The first complete collection of the official ‘'seals of the
states of the union will be published with the series of
short histories. ‘
SHORT AND SNAPPY
NEWS OF THE WORLD
BY TELEGRAPH
Official Organ
City of Fitzgerald
Routed Greeks Summon New
Warriors to Depleted Ranks
RUSSIA CANCELS LOAN
Turkish Obligations Remitted
in Exchange for Help
(By International News Service)
PARIS, April s—Following severe
defeat at the hands of the Turkish
Inationalists, the Greek army is re
treating toward Broussa, advices to
the French foreign office stated today.
The Greek casualties are said to be
two hundred officers and eight thou
sand men, killed, wounded, missing
and captured.
I The Greek high command is call
ing up three new classes of recruits
lfor a new offensive against the Turks.
RUSSIA PLEDGES {
AID FOR TURKEY
- (By International News Service)
WASHINGTON, April s—Soviet
Russia pledges military support to
Turkey in the event the latter gov
ernment is attacked by the allied
powers or by Greece, according to a
comprehensive summary of the treaty
concluded March 16 between the two
governments which was received in
official circles here today.
Turkey on the other hand promised
to refrain from propaganda among
the Mohammedans in the territory
under bolsheviki control and each
country agrees to forbid the passage
of any forces hostile to the other
‘through its territory.
| In recognizing the abrogation of all
former agreements between Russia
and Turkey, Russia further agrees to
remit the Turkish debt to Russia and
both parties promise to abstain from
alliances against the government of
the other. !
| SR
(By International News Service)
PARIS, April s—~The Soviet gov
ernment, according to advices from
Moscow to the French Foreign office
today, has decided to denationalize
all factories.
They are beginning with those in
the Moscow district. The Russian
economic failure is given as the
| reason. :
' The factories are being turned back
to their former foreign owners for
exploitation, according to the French
Foreign Office statement.
PEACE RESOLUTION
MAY BE DELAYED
(By International News Service)
WASHINGTON, April 5, <« -Als
though the resolution declaring a sep
arate peace with Germany is to be
reintroduced at the coming special
session of congress, the present plans
of republican leaders as they shape up
after a long succession of conference
include no provision for hurrying the
measure to a roll call.
In some quarters it was believed
tonight that the peace declaration,
passed by the preceeding republican
congress and vetoed by President
Wilson, might rest on the calendar of
deferred business for a period of 90
days or more while President Hard
ing tries out his preliminary ideas
|fnr establishment of an association of
nations.