The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-12-16
G0WEN HIS OWN SLAYER
A MURDER THEORY DISPRovED
BY A sALEsMAN's STORY.

The Latter Identifies the Pistol Found
With the Deceased as One Sold Him
a Few Hours Before the Suicide.
What Probably Prompted the Fatal
Shot
WASHINGTON, Dec. 15.-Late this even
ing the superintendent of police was notified
by E. Smoot, clerk in the sporting goods
shop of D. n. Walford, at No. Az Pennsyl-
vania avenue. near the National hotel.
mile from Wormley's, that on Friday he
sold pistol like that described as having
been found with GOwen's body to an elderly
gentleman answering to the published
description of MIR. Gowen. The police think
this was the pistol Mr.. Gowen used.
THE sALEsMANS STORY.
Smoot, the young man who sold Mr..
Gowen the pistol and cartridges, himself
said he paid no especial attention to his Gus
toner or TO his purchase. 1t was common
occurrence, and he wouldnever have given
it a second thought if he had not read in
the papers about Mr.. Gowen's using the
same sort of pistol to kill himself. Then
1t occurred to him that it might be the very
pistol he himself had sold, and he notified
the police about the occurrence. He identi-
fies the pistol in their possession brought
from Mr.. Governs room by Policeman
Cross as the one he sold ON Friday to the
elderly gentleman answering to the descrip-
tion of Gowen.
TINE OF THE SUICIDE.
Shoots statement is important, not only
as establishing the fact that Mr.. Gowen
committed suicide beyond peradventure,
but as giving the time of the suicide as
early Saturday morning and not late Fri
day afternoon, for Smoot states that the
transaction which he describes took place
between and o'clock on Friday evening.
AS the gas was not lighted and the bed had
been lain in, while Mr.. Gowen was COM
pletely dressed and evidently took aim be-
fore the mirror, it seems certain that Mr..
Gowen shot himself early on Saturday
morning
DETECTIVE SUSPECTED MURDER.
Supt. Linden of the Philadelphia branch
of the Pinkerton system, who came down
last evening with F. l. Gowen, possessed
with the idea that Franklin b. Gowen was
murdered, because, having been closely
associated with Mr.. Gowen all through the
Mollie Mcclure troubles. he could not be-
lieVe that he would commit suicide, finally
came to the conclusion, after talking with
Mr.. Gowen's friends here and inspecting
the room at Wormley's, that he had COM
mitted suicide
HAD NEVER CARRIED PISTOL.
He thought that the fact that Mr.. Gowea
had bought a pistol was very remarkable,
if true, since Mr.. Gowen had never carried
a pistol or any other weapon during the
Mollie Mcclure days. But in the absence
of evidence as to where the pistol was
bought, Supt Linden declined at first to
believe that Mr.. Gowen had bought it, and
regarded this as a reason for accepting the
murder theory. Another of his reasons was
that Mr.. Gowen had made no preparations
and left no messages. But the evidence
of suicide was so overwhelming that Supt.
Linden's theory fell under it.
WHAT WORRIED HIM MOST
The thing that worried MI. Gowen most
in the oil cases which he had been prose-
cutting against the Pennsylvania, the Erie,
and the other trunk railways, before the
interstate commerce commission during the
past year, was his inability to get the COM
mission to order the production by the rail-
ways of certain important papers material,
as he thought, to his case, such as their
agreements with the Standard Oil corpora
tions. He thought at the hearing at Titus.
vile last summer that he had succeeded in
getting an order from the commission,
through Chairman Cooley, presiding, to the
Pennsylvania railroad to produce, at the
adjourned hearing in Washington, its secret
contract with sthe Standard Oil corpora
JUDGE CooLEY'S ABSENCE.
But at the adjourned hearing in this city
in the fall Chairman Cooley was alb ,ent sick
in Ann Arbor, and Mr.. Veazey, the new
commissioner, who had not heard the case
at Titusville. sat with Commissioners Nor
rison and Schoomaker, who had been at
Titusville, and when Judge Hancock, rep
resenting the Pennsylvania railroad, stated
that he had the secret contract In his
pocket, and SO had technically COM
piled with the Titusville order
ito produce" it, but refused
to exhibit it in any public way
the commission, to Mr.. Gowen's disappoint-
ment and chagrin, after listening to an
argument from Messrs Gowen and Han
cock voted, Messrs. Schoomaker and Veazy
against Mr.. Morrison, that Mr.. Hancock
had satisfied the Titusville order and need
not produce the contract publicly. Mr.
Gowen showed his vexation plainly at that
time. 1t did not appear so evidently during
the Rice hearings this week, but there can
be little doubt that he felt it, for he lost
similar evidence by similar rulings of the
commission which he deemed equally essen
tial to his case.
JUDGE COOLEY MUCH SHOCKED.
The suicide of Mr.. Gowen SO shocked
Inter state Commerce Commissioner
Cooley, who was also staying at Wormley's,
that his health has been very seriously
affected. Judge Cooley came back week
before last, comparatively well, but his sys-
tenn is not strong enough now to stand a
great shock. Mr.. Gowen was his personal
friend, and they chatted together on Friday
morning and again at luncheon Friday
afternoon. No one would the have dreamed
that Judge Cooley would outlive Mr..
Gowen.