The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-08-03
SOME TRUTH AND MUCH FALSITY
 IN THE CHARGES OF REFUGEES
Jac kson Lumber Company are charged with the crime of peonage.
 Visit To Laurel Hill.

Jac kSon bumDer Company are charged with the crime of peonage.
 A Visit To Laurel Hill.
 The Pensacola end of the story was looked into thoroughly, and a trip was made to Laurel Hill. where the men who were alleged to have run away from the camp were received and sent on to Pensacola. A number of Laurel Hill men were seen and ques toned.
 The trip of investigation was ex- tended to Lockhart and the logging camp in the woods. where officers of the company and fellow laborers of the men who ran away were seen and talk ed to. as to the truth or falsity of the charges made. The conclusions set forth have been as impartially reached, as is possible under the circumstances.
 Tn reaching them the. interest of the Alabama Industries and the future of immigration to Alabama were consid- cred no more important than justice and humanity to men who might or might not have been mistreated In the meanwhile. there are warrants out standing against W. U. Porter, book keeper at the logging camp, and Rob ert Gallagher, woods foreman of the Jackson Lumber Company, charging them with the crime of ,peonage. The evidence of the men who make the charge has already been submitted and unless it is rebutted it will be QdDldklnR III IHG Ilndl QISDOSlLlOn the case. The final stage of the hear ing will take place Friday in Pensaco- la before United States Commissioner F F. Marsh. The defense will then will be introduced for the prosecution.
 The Jackson Lumber Company's camps is not to be confused with the camp at Melton, Florida, about which In which peonage was alleged and say ing that the charges were made by men from New York who had escaped after working in the Florida Lumber camp. The Jackson Lumber Compa- ny's camp is in the State of Alabama two miles from the Florida line, and Is not the same industry spoken of In the Associated Press dispatch.
 courts that the accused men, employees of the Jackson Company, are guilty of peonage, 1t would be remembered that 1t is not another Southern case their superiors are northern men. If any wrong has been done, 1t has not been done by Southern men. On the were harbored and protected by South ern men, and were put In the way of adjusting their wrongs by law, If ther publications of sensational sto- ries of Southern outrages and peonage as there were three years ago, 1t is we'll for people to remember that the
  In this last affair has been to help protect some of the men who came out of the woods with narrowing sto- ries portions of which have already been disproved.
 The. Jackson Lumber Company is one of the richest lumber concerns in the world. This company, with two or three others with which 1t is allied, the South. It Is said that the com pany has between four and five mill ion dollars invested along the Alaba- ma and Florida line It's mill Is one country. About Florala 1t has about 1S0,000 acres of virgin timber lands, said to be the finest single body of yellow pine timber In the country.
 The Jackson Company.
 ID. J. Crossett Is president of the company He lives at Davenport, Ia. x-Governor E. E, Jackson of Mary land is an officer and one of the large stockholders. The company has daily output of 125,000 feet of lumber. It turns out nothing but rift flooring, an article that brings high price in the market.
 The trouble which is now being aired in the courts began last May, when the company received a car load of la borers furnished it by Frank & Miller employment agents of 401 East Second Street. New York city. During the month of May the company received from this agency about 200 men. They were an assorted lot, picked indiscrim- lnately from New York's metropolitan population. Some were Germans, some were Hungarians, some were Polish Jews and half dozen of them and the chief trouble makers were Bowery toughs.
 The lumber company had paid the agency commission on each of the men sent them and had paid the sum of SIS for their fare at excursion rates from New York to Lockhart; The them from the start. Some of them after getting advance money and sign ing contract. tried to break away in New York: They mixed up in half a company agents felt like they were es- corting a menagerie of wild animals When they got to Lockhart the agents wiped the sw eat off their foreheads and drew a long breath of relief
 The new corners made the logging camps a lively place. Fights were re- garded as things to be looked for and watched with only desultory interest. The company offiI CTS declare that some of the Bowery boys and the Hungarians were the most expert thieves that were seen south of Mason and Dixon's line. On the other hand, some of the men and kept in constant fear of their lives.
 Nor was 1t many days before some of the men begin to go South. Most of them wound up at Laruel Hill and work their way on the train from that point to Pensacola. People living in Laurel Hill declare that some of these men were trailed by dogs. They say they saw the dogs following the tracks of the men and they saw the dogs trot- ting behind tho buggy after the men had been captured The men who went to Pensacola told narrowing stories~of the ferocity of the "bloodhounds," when as a matter of fact this is an exag- geration to which all Northerners are subject since Uncle Toms Log Cabin" began it's trouble breeding career. The dogs in question, like all other dogs kept for trailing purposes, are species of fox hounds which will follow a trail, but which, like the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz, could be chased over ten acre field with a lead pencil. Probably the Hungarians did not know this. At any rate it is not denied that the dogs are kept at the logging camps.
 Bull Dogs at the Camp.
 Moreover, Laurel Hill people say that two bull dogs are kept there which are the real thing in ferocity if the bosses should direct them to seize hold of anything one Laurel Hill man who says he saw them, described them "as real bull dogs, with eyes like fried
 The men continued to slip into Lau-