The age-herald., 1899-11-15

Montgomery, November 14.-Capt. H. c.
 Reynolds has exploded a bombshell under the gubernatorial chair by an interview he
 gave to the Advertiser, which was printed this morning.
 In it he makes serious charges against Governor Johnston about the disposition of the Montevallo lands. Among other things he says:
 'When l secured the consent of Speaker Reed and Chairman Lacey of the house committee on public lands to the donation of thes.e lands to the two schools, I pro- missed them that I would see that the Tus- | kegee school should have fair divide of | the lands. I believe now that not only are l the lands of the Montevallo school being | bartered off at less than half their real value by men who occupy the position of | both seller and buyer, but that in the divi- | sion of these lands the most valuable will 1 be selected and transferred to MT. DeBar- l deleben and his associates, through the op- | tion he holds, and that the Tuskegee school | will be given the inferior or most worthless | share of the 10000 acres of the lands. V "I think can demonstrate that my con- ception of the situation is correct and to do so I shall proceed to give you the facts as | they occurred. I shall tell you nothing but what came under my own observation, and what l know to be true. This will be quite | enough to show that Governor Johnston l has used these lands in the first instance | to the furtherance of his political ends; that Captain Plowman was a partner in a proposed purchase of the lands and at the same time a seller representing the school.''
 Captain Reynolds then goes on at length to tell of the state legislation following the grant and the matter of appointing the commissioners for the sale of the lands.
 He alleges that Captain Plowman, early in
 the game, made known his desire to be one of the commissioners and that he (Captain
 Reynolds) worked for him. He then says: Later I met Plowman and he told me
 that Governor Johnston had offered him the position of bank examiner; that he had examined the bill and found that stock
 holder in a bank was not eligible and he
 he'd declined it; that Governor Johnston
 had then, through some one, offered to ap-
 point him state examiner of public ac-
 counts. to which he replied that he was no
 .d-n smeller,' and would not have that
 place; that finally Governor Johnston had
 sent for him and offered him $500 in cash
 to get out of the way.
 offered Plowman $500
 "I then went to see the governor in his
 nriyate office, and then and there he him.
 self told me of the various offers he had made Plowman, including the one of $500
 in money. and asked me if would go and see that Plowman accepted the money; that
 if he did not accept it he would see that he
 did not hold his position over ninety days.
 Shocking of what occurred shortly after
 the general assembly adjourned, Captain
 Reynolds says:
 "At the meeting of both boards few
 days later, the governor proceeded 10 con-
 vince us that the lands were of compara-
 lively little value. He had made this state ment to me before, but said that there were
 some lands in Walker county, lying De- tween lands that he owned or had an inter- est in, though not in his own name, and that he would give $l2.5O per acre for such lands. but that the balance was hardly worth taxes. At this meeting Plowman and Thompson were both appointed com missioners. representing the respective scbools \
 
 "A few days after this I was in Montgom- cry and had some conversation with Gov ernor Johnston, at which time he referred to the school lands again, saying to me that $50 OOO was as much as the lands would bring. but that that amount would do all the building we needed, and asked me what I thought of it. replied that $1O0,OOO would be great deal more and had an abiding fo; hat WIG Uol11d pei than 00O for the lands. l saw very plainly that he did not like this, and that he wanted the lands. I had thought this before, and now I was fully convinced of it."
 Speaking of the Pinckard matter he says:
 "At the same time he also stated that W. P. Pinckard, of Birmingham, had informed him that w. B. Reynolds had made proposition that if he would give him $15,- 900 he would secure the lands for $4 per acre. In this connection either MT. Pinck- ard or Governor Johnston made an inten- tionally false statement and I desire to show that this is true by publishing a true statement of the facts as they occurred"
 After the transaction, referred to above, fell through, and after the meeting of the board, when I was deposed, was told by my son that he had arranged with a promi- nent man in Birmingham to make a bid on these lands, and he was authorized to bid s5.25 per acre, and to give $6 if necessary to get them. A sealed bid was prepared on this basis, to be put in on the day the board met at Montevallo at the close of the school. My son met MT. Plowman that morning and told him what he proposed to do, and that he had the bid ready to put in. whereupon MT. Plowman insisted that such action would prevent the consummation of Il. asd ,d t< xixro his,a