The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-11-12
MIR. HUDSON
Speaks Emphatically About Rom.
 trees Accusations.

trees Accusations.
 To the Public:
 Press Association charged bv i1p1ams pa,.n
 tree as having within twelve month. sold his (mO railroad transporta tin, ,. oi which he says he has absolute and snaaDttapie assent st proof in writing" I cannot ne proposes in his card published in voS,r Sundays issue to make of it. I promntIv pronounced the charge an unutterabiy dence to sustain it., and challenged him
 to publish the evidence which he said
 he had in writing, and proffered to hear all , the expense of such publication. The public well knows that had he evidence
 to sustain that charge he would have promptly accepted that challenge, moi only to convict me of the charge made put especially to confound and degrade me by showing myself to be what I know
 him to be, a malicious falsifier.
 He says in his card that he Twill not
 take up special and separate newspa. per controversy with each one whom he
 will take no further notice of them until tne time comes for his full justification lD A newspaper controversy Is cer- tainly not sought by any reputable jour. nalist with person like him, but a pub- iication of the facts to sustain the charges ne has made against them in the news. papers: His proposed step is a miserable subterfuge, the resort not only of con- sclous. but in this instance of self-con- fessed guilt. He knows that there is no justification for him; that there can he no trial. for he has no defense. He has confessed to pocketing thousands and gains, dtshonorably obtained under the guise of his late office, and before the in. vestigating committee it was conclusively
 proven by evidence that he did not at- tempt to question or deny that he had
 swindled the railroads by improperly oh. taining transportation for his personal f- nancial ends These were the published
 charges against him. He made no de-
 fense, for he had no defense, He never will have 8 defense. His recourse to his persistently vaIunted "constitutional
 rights will give hm no defense eight months hence any more than they will eight years hence.
 An honest. honorable man charged with vile and heinous offenses, if innocent,
 would not plead constitutional rights'' to delay his final vindication." If there Is evidence to establish his innocence. it is in existence now, and it is more avail
 able now than 1t possibly can be months or years hence. Yet MT. Rountree seems to prefer to remain under the disgrace and stigma of the offenses of which he
 stands charged than to promptly attempt
 to establish his innocence, and brazenly proposes to drag others down into the stench and mire in which he founders and grovels and keep them there for dication.
 rms IS LOO glarlngiy lnhuman, too out.
 rageously unjust, not only to myself and the others against whom he has made charges, and who deny guilt, but against Rountree himself, who admits his guilt, for it simply prolongs the agony and re- morse under which he now suffers, and
 for one, reiterate, protest. He charges
 me in the public press with a despicable and detestable offense. He asserts that
 he possesses the written evidence of it, so that 1t is immediately available. What ever my confreres similarly charged may do, I demand to be confronted in the
 press and before the world with that evidence. and, to make my confounding and ignominy more abject and humiliat- ing in case he produces such evidence, I reiterate my statement that he in making such charge is guilty of willful, un- mitigated, inexcusable and malicious falsehood. VIM. H. H. HUDSON
 Bessemer, Nov 9, 1903.