The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-07-23
STAR CHAMBER
PROCEEDINGS
Open Meetings Give Way to
Secret Sessions.
IN PENlTENTIARY BOARD
NO ANSWER YET TO MIR. SIM
MONS REQUEST FOR IN
FORMATION.
IN PENITENTIARY BOARD
IT HAS CREATED A SENSATION
The Board Met in Executive Session Yesterday
and Nothing as 10 the Proceedings
Could be Obtained by News
paper Reporters.

That. courteous and perfectly legitimate
request sent by Mr.. i. NJ. Simmons 10
the board of penitentiary directors for
certain information that under the law
should have been embodied in report
bv SUPERINTENDENT Jno. II. Smith ana
filed on the first day of December last.
seems to have thrown the whole kit and
bilin" of them into Mysteries, the pompous
Mewb-rns of the many O's is is said be
came wrathy and in Il fiery speech flung
proiectiles that exploded all over the
heads of some of the members of the
board. He proclaimed his honesty III
tones loud enough almost to be heard by
the escaped convicts, and intimated that
he would rather be feeding pigs on his
Lenoir county truck patch than to be
meddling with this white elephant with
Il tail at both ends, or words to that eff
feet.
Mr. Simmons has merely made re
quest for information, but Mr. Simmons
in this is about in the same condition
with the balance of the people of the
State, for it seems that hereafter all the
people are to remain in blissful ignorance
of the doings of this blouse Of Lords
these mighty moguls of majestice
manoeuvering, these prncely potentates
of the Pen, this colossal collection of
convict curators, this bully board of
bouncerS. these silent secret service
solons. In the language of one perhaps
less great than these it is ''the public be
ID so far as their actions are con-
cerned. 1t has been for sometime. harder
for newspaper reported TO secure any
thing like accurate accounts of the pro-
ceedings of this mighty constellation of
star chamber actors than it is to get the
proceedings of n clan of the knights of
the Night and now the newspapers and
the public generally are shut off entirely.
These mighty masters of the peoples
matters have adopted new methods Of
meeting. The good old plan of holding
meetings with the doors and windows
open. with the sunlight of public justice
and the rights of the people streaming
IN. has given way to what
these mighty men call executive
sessions" with nobody allowed to enter
unless he has the "open session of
bolted doors. with no eye to see and no
ear to hear, and with every man pledged
inside that mysterious circle. This was
the kind of session the Board of Peni-
Tertiary directors held yesterday. II
lasted nearly two hours. and when il
was over there was an ominous, doleful.
dismal. solemn. sepulcral silence spread
over the closed lips Of the charter mem
bers of this new secret society that
would have done credit to the most loyal
-f[ l. L 4 "a II
whose institution this is, whose servants
these men were supposed to be, will per
haps never know what. if anything.
transpired in that meeting. This is a
new departure in the management of
public institutions, but these be queer
times in which we are living
But perhaps they are excusable; that
troublesome request Of Chairman Sim
mons came like a whirlwind. 1t per-
haps bowed the doors shut and the
windows shutter. There is said to have
been a mighty hurding together, and
much party cogitation as to what they
would do with it. The law says the re-
port must be filed, but in the haste TO
swap off Smith for Mewborne little
matters of law were not even thought
about. Now Mr. Simmons wants the
information and many other folks would
like to see it, but yet awhile it is not
forthcoming. perhaps these things came
MP i'll that secret star chamber meeting:
perhaps, too, that shell of Morrison
taidWelfs asking about farm leases
might explode If the doors were left
open and the air let in, that lease Of the
Wilmington rice farm, it is claimed was
without the sanction Of the board and
III view of Caldwells resolution, the
lease matters must be handled very eau
tiously for fear of an explosion. and
then the shirt factory matter. it is said.
is loaded Outside shirt makers are
kicking. and honest labor generally is
beginning to mutter ominously: all these
and perhaps many ether matters came
up in that star chamber meeting.
But what was said or done we don't
know, if we did we would give it to
the public which is clearly entitled to it..