The weekly true Democrat. (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1905-1912, 1906-06-08

Monday, granted a pardon to Walter L.
Taylor, and the correspondent for sew.
eral newspapers who IL an employee OF
Comptroller Croom's Office and was To-
cal editor Of the Daily Capital sent the
following TO her newspapers:
The Board of Pardons today granted
a conditional pardon 10 Walter J.. Tay-
Tor, who was serving FIVE years for an
assault on Congressman W. B. Lamar.
Taylor will be released at once. There
have been several previous attempts 70
secure pardon for Taylor, but without
success until this time.
Those members of the pardoning
board who have at last yielded to their
better judgment, and perhaps better
dictates Of their consciences, can and
must feel relieved after this very com.
mendable action, even IL it does come
at the eleventh hour, and after the vim
dictiveness and persecution of that case
have been driven 10 the bitter end
There is a heGping pile Of the very low
est and meanest kind Of political perse-
cutiOn connected with that Taylor
Lamar occurrence, and which had its
beginning the day after the primary
election and closed, we hope, with the
last chapter in the just action of that
very mercifut board on Monday, There
is a lot Of unpublished history in con-
nection with it which will make some
very interesting and amusing reading
for the people Of Florida some day soon.
For this issue we will have space for
only little, preferring to wait until we
can give an accurate and complete
statement Of II, with the dissenting
opinion on 1t by Judges Taylor and
Hooker. The editor Of this newspaper
has never at any time claimed that oar
FRIEND, WALTER TAYLOR, did right in
assaulting ". 3. Lamar in his office
Che was convicted for that offense, mis-
represented and made many times worse
than 1t really was, however,, but we
have claimed, and do now most posi-
ttvGlU claim, that he had been bounded,
prosecuted and punished enough, and
more, before he was drug from his home
ard loved ones, in that all that he pos
sessed had been taken from him and
his to defend himself agains. the pow
erful political enemies Several Of them
other than Mr. Lamar who took up
Mr.. Lamar's side Of the fight for dirty
political purposes, and that everything
possible was done by Jennings and his
gang 10 persecute and get rid Of Tay-
lOr. Now, from the light before US, we
can but believe these members Of the
board who have held out until now to
show mercy did so under a pressure
from the outside, which outside inhu-
ences have az last bid them act.
Another contemplate and ugly feat
ure of the affair is the excuses some oil
them, the great, merciful pardoning
board, have given for not granting the
pardon sooner: That we, as newspa-
per man, had been digging them about
public affairs; that Taylor would have
been pardOned in December il Collins
paper had not had so much to say "
High and lofty ground, that, for high
toned State officials TO stand upon al |
most, II not, an admission that Walter
Taylor should have then been shown
mercy; but it could not be meted out to
him because newspaper man who be.
lieved a great wrong and injustice was
being done had the nerve and dared tell
the public Of it. as he had done in re-
gard TO some other matters. Taylors
just claims for mercy must wait. the
heartaches and the material needs OF
Taylor wife and little ones must wait,
every good and worthy human impulse
which the hearts of these members of
the pardoning board were capable of
generating, must stand in allegiance, be-
come stagnant from disuse, while Col
Inns is shown that he can have no infu-
ence in administration circles and Tay-
Or and his friends are shown that our
efforts have a negative result, and to
secure clemency nee must be muzzled.
small! Startlingly original
Tor statesmen Scientists would likely
be much interested in an examination
II the organ Of their bodies which in
Ither humans is termed the heart.
Not every member Of the board was
A 4. ia a.