The Savannah morning news., 1900-07-15
THE FACTS IN EVIDENCE.
ATLANTA's SEA GRIT TEAM AND
GEORGIA's OFFERED OBJECTION.

Governors Horse Guards Laid the
Protest on the Table and Seem
Determined TO Make the sea Girt
Trip-The Atlanta Journal Dis
courses Further on the sporting
Spirit as II Does Not Prevail in
savannah-What Savannah's spirit
Really Is.
The Atlanta proposition to send a rife
team to Sea Girt and the protest OF the
the Atlanta Journal
While II seems that no positive action
has been taken and that the statement
is not on authority, or is on undivulgeo
authority, the Journal article says that
the Governors Horse Guard will send
team 20 Sea Girt. Similar information was
conveyed in the Atlanta dispatches of the
Morning News yesterday morning.
Atlanta" says the writer in the Jour
nal. knew Of the Hilton trophy scandal
without this reminder from Savannah"
The first Misrepresentation under which
the writer in the Journal labors is that
the protest that has been made comes
from a Savannah team. This is true only
TO the extent that eleven out of the twelve
men who contested for the Hilton trophy,
as the representatives. of the state, were
from this city. These Savannahians Sc
cured their places on the team after con-
tests at Sea Girt, in which all the qualified
men from Georgia who were there at the
time competed. That Savannah was rep
resented by so many more rifiemen than
other cities is due to the fact that Sa-
vannahians could shoot straighter. The
team was Georg1a's from start TO finish.
The second misapprehension, said a
member Of the team, is as to the persons
against whom Georgia's charges of I'M
fairness were made in the first instance
Had il been true that the New Jersey
State Rifle Association was guilty Of
fraud, 1t would have been proper for the
Georgia team to withdraw immedia tely
from the contest, as it would undoubted-
ly have done. But no such charges against
the association or the range officers was
made, the allegation of unfairness being
confined to markers in the pit, who, it is
said, are chosen from the hucksters and
fishermen of Sea Girt and the vicinity.
The rules of the rifle association pre-
scribe the body to which appeal shall be
made. This is its Executive Committee
and to the Executive Committee the Geor-
gians went with their protest against the
treatment to which they had been subject
ed When there was no room to doubt
that fraud had been committed, there was
no room in the minds of the Georgians
that Justice would be done. So impressed
with the fact that there was fraud was
Gen A. r. Kuser. an officer in the New
Jersey National Guard, a member of the
Executive Committee of the State. Rife
Association, a member of the New Jersey
team and it's best shot for a number of
years, that he resigned from the assotia-
ton. If it was proper for him to take
this step, said the member of the team
it was scarcely improper for Georgia to
refuse to give a second opportunity TO be
fraudulently deprived of trophy the team
had won and then be denied justice That
this action was in thorough accord with
the best instinct of the most thorough
sportsman will not be denied by any one
who has any conception of the meaning Of
the term.
The imputations made against the sport
ing spirit in Savannah, as it is represented
by its best opponents here, and these are
the men who have made up the Georgia
team at Sea Girt in former years. they
think need no denial When rife prac-
tice in other cities was dormant, Savan-
nahians revived it, and, at their own ex-
pense, sent a team to the New Jersey
ranges. 1t was the Georgia team, and
the prizes 1T won redounded to the credit
of the entire state. The matches that it
lost 1t lost without a protest and in the
best of spirit. 1t lost enough matches to
| make it evident that there was no lack
of sporting spirit in its members, and
to convince anyone that as long as it
was treated with anything like a reason
| able degree of fairness there would never
| be protest. The personal popularity
achieved at Sea Girt by these Savannah
ians, making up the Georgia team, is suffi-
Gent evidence of the fact that they were
and are sportsmen in the truest and best
sense of the term.
third misconception under which the
Journal labors, said a member of the
team, is that the protest against the per-
petrated fraud was from Sapannah The
| ract Is that the protest was made on be-
| half of the state, and was signed by the
| inspector general of rife practice Col
George 7, Cam, and the acting adjutant
| general, Col. Phil G. Byrd. The pro-
test was from the state, and from the
state, with the exception of Atlanta, came
| the indignation excited by the denial of
| the just and fair claims that it embodied.
1t is said that the resources of the Geor-
gia team to prevent the Horse Guards
sending team to Sea Girt have not been
| exhausted by the protest filed with the
troop. which 1t has laid on the table. 1t
| is understood that an effort will be made
with the Governor to have him refuse his
assent to the projected trip, which will be
| backed by whatever influence Savannah
military men who are closest to his ear
can bring to bear.
| When spoken to on this subject Col.
George I. Cam, state inspector general
OF rifle practice, stated that had the plan
| been under considerat ton here he would
| certainly have used whatever influence he
had with the Governor to secure his veto,
as he considered that to send another team
to Sea Girt, after the occurrences Of last
| year, would be most unfortunate and most
| detrimental to the best interests of the
| military of the state. AS the plan was
not under discussion here, but in Atlanta.
Col. Cam said he did not know whether
he would make it the subject OF any Off
| cfal action or recommendat ton or not
m