Los Angeles herald., 1905-02-05

Louisville, KY, and guarded day and
night with sharpest vigilance, are per-
haps the two most interesting prison.
ers I'm the United States. They are
Caleb Powers and James Ballard How
ard, charged with the murder of
Governor William Goebel in 1900
They are interesting, not merely be-
cause of the part they have played in
the most violent political cabal of
modern times, but because of their un-
usual life stories, which are here re-
corded from their own lips for the
frst time since their arrest shortly
after the shooting in Frankfort.
Their friends, who comprise large
proportion of the citizens of Kentucky,
believe they are innocent. So intense
is the partisan feeling in the state for
and against the two men that old
political party lines are practically
forgotten and men array themselves
not as Democrats and Republicans,
but as the friends or foes of the two
men who are awaiting trial in the old
jail. In the mountains of the state
are thousands of rifiemen ready to
start at moments notice to assert
by violence their belief in the inno-
cence of Powers and Howard, and be-
cause of this intense feeling there is
doubt in the minds of the state off,
cials il a death sentence can ever be
executed without threatening the
state with civil war.
For nearly five years these men have
been in prison. Each has been once
sentenced to die on the gallows.
Three times Howard has been con-
victed of firing the shot that killed
Goebel, and three times Powers has
been convicted of laying the plot for
his death. Twice each man has been
sentenced to life Imprisonment by
partisan juries, but in each case the
same measure of bitter feeling that
obtained the conviction has asserted
itself on the other side and procured
stay of sentence. Powers, whose
case has three times been reversed by
the appellate court of Kentucky, is
preparing for a fourth trial, and
Howard, whose last conviction was
sustained by the higher court, has ap-
pealed to the United States supreme
court.
Some Forgotten History
William Goebel was shot on January
30 1900, as he was approaching the
court house of Frankfort, few min
utes before the argument was to begin
in his contest for the governorship of
the state. Goebel was a Democrat.
Shortly before the shooting w. S. Tay-
lor, a Republican, had been declared
elected governor and a protest was
Immediately entered by Goebel and his
friends. The matter was taken to the
Legislature and under the Goebel law
the contest had been decided in Goe-
bells favor For days before the
tragedy Frankfort had been filling up
with armed men from the mountain
districts and partisan feeling was at
fever heat.
The fatal shot was fired from a win
dow and Immediately afterward many
arrests were made. Among the sus-
poets were Sergeant N. Wharton Gold
en- of the state militia, who made
confession duplicating Caleb Powers,
the secretary of state; James Ballard
Howard and several others.
Both Powers and Howard are Ken
lucky mountaineers, and it is this very
circumstance that lies at the bottom
of their trouble. 1t is in the noun
tains of Kentucky where is found the
purest American blood, untainted by
foreign mixture
Murder of the Family
The original Howards in America
helped to build Virginia and Carolina.
Recent generations have known old
Clay county. Kentucky, as the family
seat. AS Jim" Howard grew into
manhood he became a school teacher
and even studied law and medicine.
He was made storekeeper and gauger
in the internal revenue service, a posi-
ton of trust and honor, and partici-
pated in many lively adventures with
"moonshiners. He also served as
deputy jailer and deputy sheriff, and in
1897 was elected assessor of Clay coun-
ty.
In this same year occurred the tragic
events which We're so distorted in their
transmission to the outer world that
they placed him before the public i'm
a false light-a light kept carefully
burning by his enemies to this day. Let
Jim" Howard tell in his own words
as he told it TO the writer in the
gloomy old Jail at Louisville. the story
of what the world enormously knows
as the Baker Howard feud."
First l want to impress it upon
your mind that l am not feudist,"
he began in his soft halting, south
ern drawl. II have been painted so be-
fore the world. My name has been
spread over the pages Of yellow news
papers and grab penny magazines un-
iii / have come to be regarded as