The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1908-10-20
$4,000 COST
OF OIL LETTERS
Former Standard Employees
Tell How They Delivered
Goods to Hearst.
SOME NOT YET GIVEN OUT.
PHOTOGRAPHIC COPIES STILL
LIE IN THE EDITORS SAFE IN
NEW YORK.

new 1OTk, Oct. -O.-COlIleT weekly,
in its next issue, will explain how Will
liam r. Hearst came into possession of
the Standard Oil letters to national leg
islators. the reading of which has put
much life into the present campaign
and has put several men out of it.
William w. Winfield, negro file
clerk, messenger, and door tender for
John d. Archbold until 1905, and Char
les Stump, also an employe in the
Standard Oil Office at % Broadway un-
til 1905 were Hearst's cats paws. Win
field did the actual work of pilfering
the Standard Oil archives and Stump
took the letters to the Hearst offices,
where they were photographed. The
originals then were returned to the
Standard Oil vaults and the photo
graphs locked in a safe in the Hearst
offices to await an opportune time for
their appearance.
They have not all appeared even now,
says Stump. Some of the others, he
declares, concern Senator Penrose and
Senator Aldrich and are even more
sensational than any yet read.
Money Gained Goes Quickly.
1t was early in 1905 that the trick of
Winfield and Stump was discovered
and they were discharged. The two
had received $12 1000 from Hearst's peo-
pie by that time. Much of this had
gone on the races, where Stump bet
under the guidance of Winfield. More
in, nc
saloon at One Hundred and Thirty
fourth street and Seventh avenue.
Then Stump crossed the color line
and the money he had and some more
he gained in small dribiets from time
to time all went in lavishing gems and
other luxuries on a negro woman OF
the uptown district. Stump disap-
peared later, turning up as clerk III a
Murray street establishment. He now
is looking for Winfield and claims they
have been offered a large sum by
Standard Oil people to swear that the
letters were faxed. He is willing to
act if Winfield advises him to do SO.
Winfield, the negro, seems to have
furnished the brains of the combina-
ton to betray their employers. He is
the stepson of John D. Archbold's neg.
70 butler, James N. wilkins. He says
he was with the Standard Oil COM
pany ten years and that he taught
Stump all he knows. The two became
great friends. They lived together and
spent all the time when not working
in each others company, most of their
,f-1, xr-tf hn nf
Little Savoy" notorious negro dive
in West Thirty-fifth street.
How Plot Was Carried Out.
Life was too slow for the two and
they decided to do a little better. II
was at the close of 1904 that Willie
Winfield brought the Archbold cores
pondence in bargain lots to Charley
Stump, and made him, the white man
the actual negotiator at the Hearst
office in Park Row.
In 1904 Stump became a familiar
figure of nights, in the editorial
rooms of William Randolph Hearst's
| New York newspapers.
1t was known that, with two high
officials in the Hearst office, he and
a photographer met in the photograph
rooms of the newspaper. A safe in
the office became known as the safe
with the negatives of the Standard Oil
letters in it." When news was dull
and the editorial council was dolefully
bewailing the fact, it was common
place for one editor or another tC
sigh: Wish the boss would let us in
to those Standard Oil negatives in the
safe!"
1.-The three men l did business with