The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1908-06-15
splLLlNe coNFIscATeo LIQUOR.
Bud Ledbetter Has Spilled 10000 Gal
Ions Of Whiskey at Muokogee.

At the southwest corner of the Fed
eral Court building in Muskogee, |. t.,
the brick wall furnishes the buffer for
Bud Ledbetter in action, and there
thousands of gallons of liquor, from
the finest champagne to the lowest
grade of beer, have been spilled. A
spadeful of soil from that spot burned
In the fire, says the Kansas City Star,
will give off an odor of burning alco-
hal. If the glass of broken bottles
were allowed to remain there would
be a pile half as high as the court
house itself.
Under the law when an officer finds
liquor in Indian Territory he must
confiscate and destroy 1t. Ledbetter
is special officer whose duty 1t is TO
suppress bootlegging. He has come
nearer breaking it than any other
man in Indian Territory. But even
he is at this time more or less dis
couraged
To keep liquor out of town OF 25,-
900 people with FIVE railroads In the
city, in addition to having half hum
dred other towns in his district, Is not
a small matter, especially when
bootlegger can double his money ON
every quart of whisky he can get into
the territory, and when pro1t ana
thirst create geniuses in the art oi
getting liquor past the marshals.
When Ierbetter finds any consider
able quantity of liquor he gets dray
hauls the stuff to this corner OF the
old court house and destroys 1t by
hurting bottles against the brick wall
Ledbetter in action always draws
big and thirsty crowd. All are Will
ing to assist, with the hope of being
able to get away with one bottle with
out LedbettG seeing them. ottel
liouor runs In stream down the gut
ter and negroes, will kneel down ahc
drink IL. When this is done mater
is applied so that flames VIII spreae
! over the top of the liquor soakee
| ground. This keeps the negroes on
no matter how thirsty.
| The court house corner was selected
because It is sheltered from the wine
I'm the winter and there is large
shade tree valued in the summer
| How much whiskey has been splice
there Ledbetter does not know. Du'
he saws there have been thousands
of gallons. He has figures to show
that during the past three years h'
has confscated 10000 gallons o
liquor, worth at Indian Territor!
| prices $S0,000
Bud Ledbetter is 81 years old.
six footer and weighs more than 200
| He has been an officer for twenty-five
years and has never been seriously
wounded in q fight. He has been
deputy marshal in Indian Territor!
for thirteen years and is considered
the best field deputy In the country
He made his reputation at the reck
less period when the fight for su
premacy was on between the govern
ment officers and the gangs OF out
laws which infested Indian Territory
Since the outlaw days are past Led
better has been speclany u.,ailed Il
break up the liquor business. He hal
worked faithfully at 1t for three years
and while he has not suppressed 4
entirely, it is harder to get drink II
Muskogee today than it ever was be
fore, and that, too. in spite OF thu
greatly increased population. He car
find liquor where no one else woulC
ever think OF 1t.
His most effective resource is th
fence" he has established on tn,
express lines and freight trains enter
ing this district. He has spoilers
and scores of packages containing
liquor are tipped off to him before th
trains reach Muskogee. BY watching
negro walking along the street HI
can tell by his actions whether he ii
bootlegger. BY shaking a box o
trunk he can tell every time whethe