The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-10-04

IHe llJuTeus
 E. M. Rightmiller Cartersville.
 Harris. Boynton and the unknown ne- gro are still buried beneath the mass of earth. One hun-fed men are now work ing to remove the earth. It is not ex- pected the unrecovered bodies will be reached before early tomorrow The cause of the disaster is known by miners as a slickhead. A heavy strata of oil lay above a mass of clay and the latter gave way.
 MT. Morgan is well known here and in Boston and New York.
 -4-4-e -e~-A->-<s&s~->~>e>% times and fixed the bribe cases which we were to receive by our votes. by a majority vote of the combine. Then we would select one of the combine in whose honesty we had confidence to go out and get the money.
 These agents would rarely ever betray us. In one or two instances they confls- cated part of the money, but as general rule they were honest with us Among ourselves, understand, we had high code of morals, and 1t was considered ex- tremely dishonest for member of the combine to accept bribe money without dividing 1t among his fellows.
 We had a fixed scale of prices for va- rious bills, according to the value of the
 
 ly ever received less than 5000 for the combined vote. We considered 1t beneath our dignity to take less than that On one or two occasions though we got as low as $50 each for our votes, and some of the boys took 8 each, but were ashamed of it, because the price was so small
 Not Along Party Lines.
 Our combination was not along party lines, both democrats and republicans be- longing to 1t. My experience has been that boodlers line up according to their own interests and not under party stand ards
 "In the majority of the wards of St. Louis, both the democratic and republican parties usually nominate men to go to the house of delegates for the money they can make out of 1t. Each party man votes for his own fellow, and either one that gets in serves those who rob the city Of franchises. I believe this has been toler- ated in St. Louis because so many of the large corporations of the city are mixed up in booding one way or another. The heads of these corporations used to think it less trouble to buy what they wanted than to elect honest men to the house of delegate.
 One Man Is In Control. mere are many OlntI tHifBS Cdl dilb will tell later on, but this will do now. This in brief Is my story, and the con fession of my infamy. I believe, though that if the people of St. Louis allow this man Ga prominent politician Is named) tc go on and control both political parties and put his men in office, the public vii be just as guilty as I am today. Such is his hold on the community, though fl seems helpless. If I knew anything could do that I have not done to arouse the people of this city, and the people of this state to the necessity of putting a stop to corruption, would gladly do 1t.
 q am now suffering the penalty for my crimes: am degraded and disgusted. don't want to preach, but l do want to sound the alarm to the public as one would do to a friend whose house Is on l fire few weeks ago this man told us | we could either get continuance untll | a new circuit attorney was elected; that his man would be put in and ey~ care would be dismissed, or we could plead guilty and stay in jail until next January | and he would see that we were pardoheu'
 q have determined not to be under ms dominion any longer. l shall endeaVor TOT tbe rest of life to atone for the wrongs have done I shall have more lo say q later on"