The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-10-25

y.
 rent Issue prints what purports to bJ
 an exposure of how the New York
 editor got possession of the letters
 which shed light on the Archbold- For
 aker episode. It is charged thst9 the
 files of the Standard ., oil Company
 were footed by While W. Winfield, a
 son. of Archbold's negro butler, and
 Charles Stump. a white man. who
 formerly held a position in the New
 York ofiice of the Standard oil Com pany. s
 It Is. alleged that s12.oOO was the
 price paid by the Hearst papers. Ar
 thur H. Gleason. who wrote the article
 for Golfers. obtained extended inter- | views with the, two men who are al-
 leged to have betrayed the oil trus;
 omcial. Stump, who Is characterized
 as "a white man who crossed the color
 line" is quoted as having said that
 sensational disclosures would result If
 letters referring to Penrose and Ald- 1 rich, and which are now in the pos
 session of Hearst. are published.
 Here are some extracts from Col l Hers story:
 ] It was Willie w. Winfield and
 Charles Stump. you see who sold the
 John D. Archbold Standard oil letters | (about Sibley and Senator Foraker
 and other political intjmates of No. 26
 Broadway to Mir. Hearst for a trife | oYera Sl2.000. as.
 William w. Winfield, the negro. was
 the file clerk. messenger. and door
 tender of John D. Archbold until 1905.
 He Is the step-son of John D. Arch
 bold's trusted and now aged negro
 butler. James N. Wilkins. of blame- l less life, devoted to Mir. and Mrs | Archbofd, and by them much honored.
 For over twenty years Wilkins has
 been one of the family. He owns a
 charming large white house at No. s5
 North Washington street. Tarrytown.
 Its interior Is tasteful and attractlve
 to degree. Many years ago he mar
 ried widow woman, Mrs. Winfield. | whose two sons are John A. Winfield and Willie w. Winfield John Is port. | CT in the National Bank at Tarrytown. l Turn. we to Willie.
 T will tell you an odd thing" says Willie. "Archbold is big man, isn't ne and he knows a lot of big men; but he's more afraid of me- I've had diff erent odd jobs with him since I left standard Oil" I was with Standard OiI ten years. Stump was there six years--he came in 1899. l taught him all he knew Why, he didn't know how 10 handle q telephone. used to put the receiver to his ear, and drop it when'it buzzed. Poor Stump. he was just plain foolish. careless. as you might say"
 I've never been able to do much business with Archbold," says Stump,
 Since I sold the letters, little mon ey once in a while. $75 one time, Sl0 another time. but nothing much. He keeps my address. though, and knows where am. 1 don't understand how Willie keeps next. And vet we've stirred up the campaign for fair" says Charley Stump. 'I wrote A letter to MT. Hearst when he began reading the Archbold letters. saying that, con- sidering the sensation they we're mak- ing. he ought to send be a little mon- ey. There's no use trying to see him. You can't get through the office force But no money has come from that letter. Eldridge was the last man in the Hearst office that I actually did business with. When you came in this afternoon, so quiet and confidential with some proposition or other, i thought iat first you were one more Stapaard OH man with his hands fun of letters that wanted me to place them in Park Row. I'm through with that There's nothing in it. 1t gives you lots Of trouble and uneasiness and no satisfaction. I wouldn't go through 1t again. was only boy, only nine teen years old.' at the time I carried through the Archbold business for the Hearst people " v -
 And yet, do you know Mir. Hearst hasn't begun to read the best of the letters. He's beginning easy r. Wait Lii you hear him read the Senator Penrose and the Senator Aldrich let ters. Then there'll be sensation l What's happening now Is nothing He | hasnt the originals, you know. They | were returned to the Standard oil | files Photographic copies were | made. and those are the ones Hearst | Is usinE. He hasn't originals. except | a few Hanna letters, which may not | come out at all. After the photo | graphed copies of the letters were sold | to the. Hearst people. some of the let | ters were returned to MT. Archbold by | a friend of mine tstump gave me his name. which Is here suppressed | because he is living honestly.) MT | Arehbold had offered us thousand | dollars. but he didn't pay 1t after he got his hands on the letters.
 We knew 1t was too much risk to | steal the originals an dthen keep, them l J. D. A would be sure to ask some | day for some one of them. and where | would we be? So we had to photo graph them and then return them.
 "rhs two men together played the | races through 1904. Willie was al- ways the leader and suggester. stump | was a man you could pull in any direc- 1
 Early in 1905 Mir Archbold ds. covered the theft. and Willie ana | stump were discharged. They had | cleaned up little over 312.000 hy thu series of transactions in Park Row, and A small part of this they invested in the saloon at the southeast corner of 18th Street and Seventh Avenue. The rest they dropped in pSolrooms, the races and in one other way. to or specified in a moment. Neither or them was a worker, so they put in Clinton Wilkins. a negro as manager of their saloon. Later he bought them out.
 ssoon after the Presidential election of 1904, Stump became familiar figure. of nights, in the editorial rooms of William Randolph Hearst's New York newspapers. Some of those who observed him thought him consump- tive. because of his remarkable pallor. He wore a frieze overcoat and an air of the utmost self assurance. He had many whispered conferences, calling two or three times a week for many weeks It is hard to remember back three years in Hearst office (so much is in the air there all the time from ideas to tissue manifoldlng paper). but to those who escaped from the maelstorm with their brains least impaired, it seems now quite cor tain that these visits lasted from early December until the middle of Febru- ary. tAalong toward the end of his visits he became generally known to ma naging editors and other authori- ties of the office. including, of course. the office boys. whom he scorned, as "the man with the Standard oil let ters." It was known that with two