The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1907-02-27
Well, the thriller" has appeared.


vocabulary of campaigner and the
manner and appearance of a school
| boy, who came to Tallahassee last
summer and announced that he had
been commissioned by McClure's to
| write story about white slavery in
the South, has succeeded in getting a
/ publisher TO print his stuff.
Like all reachers after the sensa-
| tional, Mr. Barry has the color OF
truth with which to save his narrative
! from rejection as lie out of whole
cloth.
He has some pictures of bona fide
citizens of Florida which lend some
air of probability to his story. In the
middle of the story, which appears in
the March Cosmopolitan, is a picture
! that would do credit to the illustra-
tons that l imagine adorn the pages
of that monumental SANDER on the
South, which l have never read,
Uncle Toms Cabin" A white man,
mounted on horseback, with rifle in
his hands, and ahead of him a pack
of hounds running down two negroes,
is shown in this picture.
Now that Mr.. Barry has had his
say, l think that 1 am released from
any restraint due to professional cour-
tesy, and will let a little more light
into the inspiration that sent him to
Florida
Barry confessed while in my Office,
where he came after paying his visit
to the governor, that when Mr.. Nc
Clure gave him this assignment that
he did not doubt there were abuses
practiced by employers on their en-
ployes in Florida, as well as in other
states, but why should he go to Flor
ida for story of white slavery, when
| he could write story about five
thousand white slaves without going
outside of New York City?
He said Mr.. Mcclure told him: "Oh,
well, that's very true, you might write
a story of white slavery in New York,
but it is the picturesque details and
the heart interest surrounding the
slavery in the South that have the
makings of a good magazine article -
Mr.. Barry told his story to the gov
ernor, but he did not tell it as he
wrote it for the Cosmopolitan Maya
zine. Mr.. Barry came to get a story,
and he was going to get it.
What he got did not impress the
man who sent him, so Mcclure turned
it down, doubtless because he did not
think the story worth the space, and
was not so anxious to publish a
thriller as to allow it to induce him
to do an injustice to state.
Mr.. Barry, therefore, had TO go to
another market to sell his wares. He
found it in one of the places where
William Randolph Hearst does bust
ness
The whole thing is overdrawn, and
the few evils that came to Mr.. Barry's
attention have been magnified, and
with studied design have been made
to produce an effect on the minds OF
northern readers totally different from
the one that calm, straight state
ment of conditions would make
There are abuses in Florida, as
there are everywhere, but it takes
magazine writer with an atrophied
conscience to present them in the
shape that Mr.. Barry does in his ar
ticle in the March Cosmopolitan, be-
cause his only PURPOSE has been to
startle the minds and play on the pas
sions of the people, who will read this
story without an opportunity of know
ing that it is purposely overdrawn
picture.
Sprinkled here and there through
the story are lies which stand boldly
out, one of which quote:
THE corruption begins with the
convict system. Instead Of an ex-
pense, her, (Florida's) convicts are a
source of income. This would be all
right If it were business proposition.
Instead it is politics, which means
graft Last year the 1900 convicts
were leased to c. H Barnes & Co.
of Jacksonville. Barnes was the only
bidder. He had no competitor. The
others knew it was useless"
This statement is wholly untrue
Politics had nothing to do with the
leasing of the convicts. 1t was done
by sealed proposals submitted to the
Board of State Institutions, which
were opened in the presence of all the
bidders. The contract was awarded
to Barnes & Jesup, who do not agree
in politics with the present admins
tration, thus disproving the imputa-
ton of graft made by Mr.. Barry. There
were many bids beside the one made
by the successful one, and competi-
ton, instead of being absent, was ac-
tive, plentiful and keen.
Another statement of Mr. Barry's.
which any cracker" in the woods
knows TO be false, is as follows |
quote again: ''Laceration from the
saw palmetto, when exposed to the
dews of the forest, goes into inflam-
nation, sometimes blood poison: even
death. There is always intense pain
Saw palmetto scratches. 1t doesn't
lacerate. 1t never produces blood
poison, unless the person is so dis
eased that an antiseptic needle would
produce gangrene.
1t is a clean scratch and never in
tenSely painful The rabbit told the