The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-04-05
SERIOUS CHARGE nEruTEb.

has been willing virtually to bring the charge is only an additional reason why The Advertiser should notice and refute that charge SO completely that it will never be heard of again.
 In its issue of March 31st, The Clip per contains under double column head. Judge Pearce Did Not Knock | Out Claims Act" an article full to the brim of misstatements and misin- formation. Except for a slight intro- duction the article reads as If prepared outside of The Clipper once, but The | Clipper with its introduction and the publication of the article, gives the 1 endorsement of an Alabama paper of high standing. By this time The Clipper should know of its mistake. and by this time it should have learned I the danger that comes from taking un- | Investigated the statements of county politicians. anxious to further the claims of some candidate.
 Tn reference to an article on the rui- 1 ing of Judge H. A. Pearce on the Three fold Damage Act" published in | The Advertiser of Monday. The Clipper sasy, Now it is given out that the conee County Circuit Court sat down hard on one of his Senator Lusk's) laws; there is only one trouble about this--it is wholly a mistake
 Tn a statement given out in Geneva on Friday Judge Pearce says clearly and positively that he did rule the act unconstitutional. He ruled the act un- constitutional because Section 4, in the body of the act contained a penalty, | while the caption of the act contained no mention of a penalty. The Judge himself makes this statement.
 Before the ink was dry on The Clip pers article, Hon. R. H. Arlington. the attorney who filed the successful plea in the case which called forth this ruling. sent 8 hot protest to The Ad- l vertiser because of the unfairness of The Clipper article. Mr. Arlington prepared a brief with exhaustive care. setting forth that the act in question 1 was unconstitutional because the body of the act contained provisions which act having this fatal defect he claimed it unconstitutional. Judge Pearce sus- tained this brief and this argument. He says so himself. When he said so he only confirmed the statement of Mir. Arlington. made when The Clip per was fresh from the press with Its misleading statements.
 The Clipper has permitted itself to be led into a grave error because Judge Pearce did not set forth in full his rulings on the Judges docket This was unnecessary. The plaintiff in the case had actually lost his goods. The court held that 1t was not required that the injured plaintiff should lose the actual value of his property be- cause he had brought suit for a larger amount under an unconstitutional act. When the "Threefold Damage Act" had been ruled unconstitutional. the attor- neys On both sides reached an amica- ble agreement. by which the injured plaintiff received the actual amount of his loss. The parties who loaded up The Clipper with transformation must have known this, whether the editor of The Clipper did or did not know 1t.
 Does The Clipper now think The Ad- vertiser article was wholly a mistake?
 The first paragraph of the article printed by The Clipper declares, as did The Clippers introduction. that Judge Pearce did not rule the act unconsti- tutional The complete refutation of this statement. printed above. comes from Judge Pearce. and not The Ad- vertiser. Then piling one misstate- ment on another, the article says: The second error is that MT. Lusk never wrote the law in question" But the article adds this qualification, If The Clippers account of the passage of the law at the time was correct"
 Possibly Mir. Lusk did not write it. So many bills were thrown into the Legislature with Administration measure" vouched for them that mo- body knew who actually wrote them And nobody knows to this day. But this act was introduced by Mir. Lusk and charged to him in the records re- gardless of what The Clipper says about 1t. The record of the senate of the Legislature of 1907 shows that on the first day for the introduction of bills Senator Lusk introduced the "Threefold Damage Act" and it was marked Senate Bill Number 2. by MT. Lusk" The record is open to in vestigation by The Clipper and the friends of Mir. Lusk in Coffee County.
 The Clipper states that the article in The Advertiser was not written by The Advertisers regular correspondent at Elba. which Is true. But it came from a citizen of Coffee County who Is reliable. truthful and as intelligent as the correspondent. The Advertiser knew nothing whatever of the case. until this gentleman sent in the ar