The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1907-10-15
UNJUST TO THE PRESS OF THE
STATE.

The Durham Herald says Mr..
Drewry'S explanation affords lit
tie satisfaction to his friends. We
hate to differ with the Herald.
We believe that the Times, how
ever indiscreet it may have been,
intended no wrong. and that it did
no more than a good many other
papers in the State have done
but they have not been caught up
With.-Wilmington Messenger.
We prefer to believe that the Will
mington Messenger wrote the above
without having read the u~ndisputed
facts in connection with a scandal I'M
p~recedented in the history of North
Carolina Journalism, remarkable as it
may be that it lie not do 50. other
wise, the Messenger is in the attitude
of at once c~ondonirg the moral turpi-
tude of the Times and of bringing a
wholesale charge of corruption against
other North Carolina papers with no
other foundation than hat its friend,
the Times, has been caught in fragrant
wrong doing. Because in the carrying
out Of a corrupt agreement, the Times
may have happened to advocate from
a wrong motive things that the viii
4 NCli 49,
estly certainly should not operate to
p~alliate the crime itself even in the
eyes of the Messenger.
The Messenger states that it believes
that the Times intended no wrong
and that it did no more than a good
many other papers in the State have
done-but they have not been caught
up with"
Let us understandable understand
the general charge against "a good
many other papers in the State"-ex-
actly what the Times scandal disclos-
es that it did:
On the morning of September oath,
the News and Observer and the Char
lotte Observer printed detailed dis
patches from Washington to the effect
that the Southern Railway had paid
to the Times and Senator John c.
Drewry, its president, three vouchers
for two thousand dollars each, within
ten months for advertising and spe-
cial notices"
1t was recognized and shown con-
clusively by an examination of the
Times files for one of the four month
periods thai this payment was ridic-
ulously higher than any possible legit-
innate rate of advertising. 1t was
shown that the $4,000, paid to John
C. Drewry was issued to him while
he was a candidate for the nominal
ton, ard that a third voucher for like
amount was issued in favor of the
Times after Senator DreWry had been
sworn in as a Senator.
At the same time it was shown from
the files of Senator Drewry's own paper
that, among other general denials of
any connection between either himself
or his paper with the Southern or
any other railroad. he made, on July
70, at anthe Branch, to the people
of Wake county from whom he was
asking the nomination, a specific de-
NAL, as follows:
1.-THE transportation is issued in
payment for publishing the railroad
schedules in the Times. The paper
would greatly prefer to receive the
cash for this advertising, but as every
newspaper ma knows, the railroads
only pay in Advertising"
on September 25th the News and
observer printed that Publisher era
ceipt by the paper of the money indi-
Gated in the vouchers. That statement
had apparently been confirmed the af-
ternoon before by a publication in the
Times denying by implication any
knowledge of the money and headed