The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-04-05
SENATOR JONES OF FLoR1pA.
He Discusses His Own Case and Ap

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in nv heart the hope that your great paper
is still true to its motto, and that the sun
hurst that emblazo ns its columns is not like
some of the mockeries of justice at the
head of some of the great papers of the
country, a snare and delusion,
and emblematic only of living
lies. No public man in this genera
tion has ever been SO unjustly and I'M
mercifully assailed by the public press as l
have been. From the great lakes co the
blue waters of the gulf, from the stormy
Atlantic TO the tranquil shores of the Pa
cific. every sheet, from the penny magazine
and notice gazette to the rural weeklies and
the great metropolitan dailies, for nearly
four years harassed, vilified, ridiculed and
rnisreDresented ex-senator Jones' Surely
a gentleman of your great experience and
ability in your profession must know that
this hostile attitude OF the press to-
ward a defenseless man destitute of
means, in a strange city, whose
whole population, with one or two noble ex-
ceptions, turned away from him as from a
lerer had some other cause than the one as
signed for this barbarous treatment, namely:
That he had left his seat in the Senate of
the United STATES before the expiration of
his term of office. IL there is one thing that
makes the name Of the American more
honored than that of any other inhabitant
of the globe, it is the consciousness that
Justly exists everywhere that in the Ameri-
can heart there is a sense of honor and JUS
tice that can be found nowhere else but
here.
This great virtue is on trial to-day in the
case of the humble and innocent man who
writes these lines. 1.-THE violation of Lu-
crece, the death of Virginius, and the op-
preston of William Tell" as has been
classically said, aroused millions of people,
including the pagans of antiquity, from the
torpor of ages and made them feel that
their most sacred rights were violated and
made insecure by the tyrants who had
prosecuted their innocent fellow citizens.
Nothing that the press can now
of suffering and agony that it
has so unjustly and numerically inflicted
upon me and my helpless orphan children.
The folly and the barbarity of its course to-
ward me can only serve as shield for the
protection of innocent public men in the
future. My vindication is complete NV
long silence under the most trying of stu
at ons, and with the greatest provocation to
speak, has discomfited-yes has DESTROYED
my enemies. That sublime patience
which the gods loved so well has done
the noble work without my uttering a single
word in my own defense The great O'Con-
nell used to say TO his associates at the
Dublin bar, "Gentlemen, a fine speech is
very important in just cause, but the YER
dict is the thing" Jones has go5 the verdict
And when tee history of his exile here is
written 1t will be clearly demonstrated that
it was his Catholic faith that won it. This
the uncultured reader cannot now see, but he
VIII see ii.
Has the public press up to this time given
to the public the faintest conception Of my
real position here or of the contest in which |
,,,xro i
could have done it, but, for reasons best
known to itself, it has not. The real con-
test was the right of an American Catholic
senator to marry the lady of his choice and
of his own faith against the most powerful
secret and public influences ever interposed
in this country against such union on the
part of persons who had no more moral.
legal or religious right TO interfere in the
matter than strangers on the continent of
Europe.
This statement may possibly subject me
to the old charge of insanity on the part of
honest people, but to persons who are well
up in the affairs of the world need only
say that the corruption and the venality of
the flesh, combined with the well-known
baseness and selfshness of the human heart
on the part of many cold-blooded people in
the world, is sufficient explanation. The
conspiracy was against me and the lady
named in my former letter, Miss Clotilde
Palms. Are the attacks thus made upon
me to be wondered at when the infamous
means resorted to to destroy the character
of one of the purest Catholic ladies in the
country are known?
Nothing but thorough judicial investiga-
ton can bring to light the Dlackness aud
enormity of this great crime. The relations
which | now bear the lady existed from the
beginning of my exile in Detroit. And
can tell the conspiratOrs both in and out of
the holy church to which we both belong,
that they were sanctified by the approval
and witnessed by the authorities of that
holy church, the mention of whose power in
in matters of this KIDD made one of the
haughtiest tyants of France tremb.e at the
finger of despised cardinal You can see
from this that the senator could afford
to bide his time. In the further
ance of this conspiracy the crimi-
nails overreached themselves. When
they found that they could not drive me
from Detroit by the attacks OF the news.
papers, they worked up scheme to
hlacken the character of the lady. A
divorce suit was begun and ended here in
one day, and the papers gave it out that
the mos urgent cause existed for this haste.
The person who obtained the decree of
separation from his wife in that suit is the
person whom all the papers of this city, in
Guiding the venerable Free Press. falsely
married in New York to Miss Palms t.
save her reputation.
This infamy was followed up by another
in the high life of Detroit That she went
to Europe and was now in Nice nursing the
base-born offspring of Detroit bigamist
| denied in the columns of the Inter Ocean
for the first time her marriage in New
FORK. | repeated it 10 the sun, and now
reatfirm what l formerly said, and pro-
nounce it a base, scandaious, and atrocious
lie, put forth in furtherance of The vilest of
conel4races. Why don't the press Of the
city, since my denial went out, dare to ro-
peat the calumnys They are. silent now.
This silence springs from terror, this terror
from the consciousness of infamy, and thie
lntamy from the commission of the blackes.
crime in the history Of American Journal
ISM She is not III Nice as | told the Sun
out the senator knows where she is and
where she was all during the period of his
exile And l now tell her calumniators
hlgn or low, that she is to-day what she
was when he first knew her, and all during
her life, as pure, as holy, and as undefiled
as tue day she kaelt at the altar, and, in
l,er garments of snowy whiteness, was con-
HSIled Ia the holy church of her parents.
am not here to disturb the social and Doliti-
en- order OF the stae of Michigan. l am
mere because | have-the best possible rig bit
% De mere, and, in tbs language OF the i'm
mortal Grattan, ''to lay the shattered re-