Newport weekly independent., 1903-10-02
EDITOR GRAY SNAPPED
 GOVERNORS SECRETARY.
Wycliffe Gray of Fort Smith News Record Chastises tDeputy Gov ernor" Jacobson for Scurrilous
 Postal Card

Davis, and Wycliffe Gray, managing editor of the Fort Smith News Record, had personal encounter in front of the state house Saturday morning about 8:15 o'clock. Mir. Gray was formerly on the reportorial staff of the Arkansas Gazette, but for the past three months has been with the News Record. He was returning from visit to his former home at tlanta, Ga., and stopped off at Little Rock, so he says, for the purpose of calling Mir. Jacobson to account for an offending postal card which he says he received from Mir. Jacobson some time ago.
 Gray waited in the statehouse yard until Jacobson came in, when he struck him on the head and knocked him to the pavement. He was proceeding to follow up the assault when he was pulled off by bystanders. After the encounter MT. Gray made the follow ing statement:
 
 which I wrote in the News Record. In substance it was that while Gov. Davis was bowling about saving the taxpayers of the state money by at tempting to dismiss the committees on leftover bills, he was not so par ticular when it came to his own fam fly, having appointed his father coun ty judge of Pope county and then in duced the legislature to increase the salary of that position.
 II sent a marked copy of the edi- torial to the governors office. On the edge of the paper I wrote 'Comph- ments of Wycliffe Gray
 ''In few days I received a postal card from Jacobson using in part lam guage whose nature forbids publica ton. The card was printed blank of refusal of application for pardon, and was as follows:
 "Your marked article reached the
 , where you ought to be, without the governor ever hearing of it. You are common, A sewer smells sweet compared to you. Bahl Rats! Yop aresa swell a4o ? .noata reporter. What are you getting now, $41.5O a month";
 ''In taking the course I did this morning I considered that Jacobson was taking upon his shoulders, per- sonally, the political feuds of Davis, with the idea of paying them off in person. Such course he is always welcome to take at all times, and I do not boast when 1 say that he will be accorded the same treatment again under like provocation. The edi-
 rial in question was not aimed at Jacobson, but since he chose to take it up and attempted to insult me per- sonally, which, however, he cannot do, thought it time to call the bluff which he and his governor have too frequently indulged in-that of writ ing and saying scurrilous things of newspaper men indiscriminateIy.
 ''This is not the first time I have had trouble with the governor and those in his office. This great governor of Arkansas at one time went so far as to attempt to have me discharged from the Gazette, where I worked for year before assuming the managing edi- torship of the News Record.
 II said had but one regret. was mistaken; l have two. l wish it had been the governor. On more than one occasion, however, think he has demonstrated beyond dispute that his aesthetic temperament denies him the privilege of acting the part of man, causing him to hide behind the lesser lights CD when. there is a personal dificulty.o
 Gen. Jacobson gave the following version of the affair: "As l entered he yard I saw Gray on the bench, and as l came opposite him, said, Hello, there Gray, and passed on. The next thing knew I was struck on the back of the neck, and then l found myself on the ground, with Gray on top of me. He punched me around the waist with one of his arms, and with the other hand seemed to be trying to get something out of his pocket. thought he was trying to get knife, and I said, 'What do you mean, Gray?' and called for help.  Then Oury and Ezell came and pulled him off. He did not hurt me any, and only regret the notoriety it will give me. There is nothing to the story that wrote him scurrilous postal cards"
 Mr. Gray was arrested soon after the episode by Constable Jones on a warrant charging him with assault