The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-17
JUDGE JONES EXPLAINS
 ATTITUDE OF ROOSEVELT I

Advertiser, was advised of the agree ment.
 Judge Jones said yesterday that he was surprised and chagrined yesterday morning wien he observed that Mir. Ohl had published the interview in The Constitution to the exclusion of The Advertiser. His surprise and astonish- ment was increased when he was in- formed that The Advertiser made a re- quest on The Constitution Sunday night to telegraph the interview to The Ad- vertiser and that the request was ig- nored.
 The interview is of such great inter est that 1t is published In fulf here- with, as Judge Jones said yesteroay second interview.
 Washington, Jan. 15.-(Special)-
 The reports suggesting that my pr1U,
 ence in Washington has 10 oo "ien federal appointments in Alabama are
 entirely erroneous It Is true, l came
 here at the request of President hoose
 welt, but the purpose Of my Visit mas
 nothing to do with any specinc ap-
 pointments or with appointments Tn
 general The President has done me
 the honor of requesting my views upon
 matters appertaining to the south anu
 his relationship to the Southern people. and I have given them ireeiy anu
 frankly. as a Southern man, nfelong
 Democrat, and a Confederate soldier
 Hon. Thomas G. Jones, United States district judge and former Governor oi Alabama. made this statement in his room at the Metropolitan Hotel this evening" Judge Jones has been III
 Washington several days, having come
 on here at the request of the President. He and several other well known Southern men, among them Thomas
 Nelson Page and President Alderman,
 of the University of Virginia, were din-
 ner guests at the White House few
 evenings since, and after the dinner
 there was a full and frank discussion
 of the Souths attitude toward the
 President and the Presidents attitude
 toward the South. It was an informal talk, in which all participated in an informal way. It was not a gathering
 of politicians. President Roosevelt
 wanted the views of men he recognized
 as leading representative Southerners
 not in active politics. and to these he
 talked with the frankness and sinceri- ty characteristic of the man.
 A Gathering of Friends.
 When asked about it, Judge Jones
 said:
 "No. I do not feel at liberty to go
 into details. Of the meeting itself am free to speak. Indeed, l think 1t
 is my duty as a Southern man to give somewhat of an insight into this meet
 ing and the spirit which pervaded 1t.
 I wish all our people could have heard what transpired there. The partici-
 pants were Democrats, Republicans,
 men who have been ex-Confederate
 soldiers and ex-Federal soldiers, prominent alike in great busi- ness affairs, and men of let ters. They represented all shades or opinion and religion. They had no ties in common. except that they were
 all personal friends of the President.
 and all in hearty sympathy with solution of the important problem or how best to remove, in manly, straightforward and equally honoring
 way, the misapprehension which exists
 at the South as to the animus toward
 it of a President who has been lately voted the confidence of the American
 peorM by stupendous majority, In a
 contest in which his personality and
 character, after all. was one Of the
 great, if not the chief, issues.
 No man who loves his country or de- sires its welfare can fail to be sadden- ed, no matter what the cause, at the thought that the people of large section of the country, for some reason, sincerely believe that its chief magls- trate Is unfriendly to them as people, and desirous of thrusting upon them hostile policies which sweep close around their very firesides and homes.
 It was a noble thing for a President who had just gone through fierce campaign, in which SO many hard things had been said about him-some- times from transformation and some | times from other motives-to himself 1 initiate a method of a better under standing between himself and such large number of his fellow countrymen | at the South.
 Neither Said Nor Thought Hard Things The matter discussed necessarily | affected not only the President and the Republicans but also Theodore Roose- welt, the man-Theodore Roosevelt, who is half Southern and is proud of his
 Southern ancestry as of his Northern lineage. One remark of the President | in this conference, I think, I ought to | repeat In discussing the ideas which
 so many at the South entertain of his purpose and animus, some one said: Mir. | President. you have never said hard | thing about the South. And another
 of his guests said: Nor have you | thought them. either The President answered with emphasis: I have never said any hard things about the | South; indeed. I could not. for l have never felt any such thing.
 Personally, have long known the sentiments and feelings of the Presi- dent toward the South. But. partly because q campaign was pending and partly from fear of being misunder- stood, I have refrained till now of speaking publicly of them. You will recall some prosecutions for peonage in Alabama, an evil which has now, l fortunately. passed almost entirely away, in which two men were sent to l the peintentiary. The people in the | region where it had prevailed became ] sponsors. as it were. for the future | good behavior of everybody there, and | were anxious on that account for the l pardon of the offenders. l reached 1 the conclusion that that was the wisest | course to pursue and wrote an earnest official letter to the President recom- mending a pardon.
 An Old Confederate.
 1 T also sent a private communica- l ton in which I spoke of the fact that 1 the wives and children of the two de- | fendants had been compelled to return | to their father-in-law's an old Con- 1 federate soldier. with one leg, who was | hardly able to earn a support for him 1 self and his immediate family and too | proud to ask for help, and stated that
 this thought. though possibly out of | place in determining whether clemen- cy should be exercised. had appealed very strongly to me. The President promptly pardoned the two offenders, saving that I knew the situation and