The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1908-10-28
HEARST'S STOLEN LETTERS
HOW STANDARD OIL LETTERS
WERE PURLOINED.
"A Negro Messenger and White Man
Engineered the Job. Former
Employees Confess.

Employees Confess.
A New York dispatch to the Bal
timore American says: The John
Archbold Standard Oil letters. which
William R. Hearst has presented to
the public during the present cam
paign, were stolen from the Arch
bold files by negro in Mr.. Arch
Dold's office, and sold by him to the
Hearst papers through a white man,
a confidential messenger of the
Standard Oil Company, according to
an article in Golfers Weekly for
Oct oath. The negro and the white
man are said to have made a trife
over $4,000 out Of the transaction.
The white man, in his interview
with the writer for Golfers, hints
that the best of the letters are yet
to be used-and that those which
have been held in reserve have to do
with Senator Aldrich and Senator
Penrose.
The Collier article is headed Mr.
Hearsts Thieves" and is written by
one Arthur H. Gleason. One of the
men who, according to Mr.. Gleason's
story, got the letters for Mr.. Hearst
is William w, Winfield, colored, file
clerk, messenger and doortender in
Mr.. Archbold's Office and stepson of
Mr.. ArchbOld's negro butler, James
n. Kilkens, who has been in Mr..
Archbold's family for twenty years.
Winfield had been in the Standard
Oil office ten years, when he was
dropped in 1905.
More Sensations Promised.
The other man was Charles Stump,
white, in the Standard Oil office for
six years, when, he, too, was dropped
in 1905. Winfield is represented as
| furnishing the brains of the combina-
ton, while Stump was merely used
by him to arrange the negotiations
with the Hearst people
The white man and the negro are
! represented as having played the
races of Saturdays, and thus having
acquired an idea of what money
would do along in 1904. Just after
the presidential election of that year
Winfield brought to Stump the first
| batch of the ArchbOld correspond
I ence, and soon after Stump began
making visits to the office of the
! Hearst publications. At that time
the Hearst Cosmopolitan Magazine
was running a series known as THE
Treason of the Senate" but the ma
terial was of a sort which could be
used with greater effect at another
time, and the letters were put away
in safe.
Mr.. Gleason quotes Charles Stump:
Mr.. Hearst hasn't begun to read
the best letters. He's beginning
easy. Wait till you hear him read
the Senator Penrose and the Senator
Aldrich letters Then there will be
a sensation What's happening now
is nothing. He has not the originals,
you know. These were returned to
the Standard Oil files Photographic
copies were made and those are the
ones Hearst is using. He hasn't
originals, except few Hanna let
tiers, which may not come out at all.
After the photographed copies were
sold to the Hearst people some of
the letters were returned to Mr..
Archbold by a friend of mine. Mr..
ArchboId had offered us $1,000, but
he didn't pay it after he got his
hands on the letters"
Want More from Hearst.
Stump also is quoted as saying
that since Mr.. Hearst has begun read
ing the letters he had written MIR.
Hearst suggesting that Mr.. Hearst
might send him little more money;
but he adds that nothing came of
that letter.
Mr.. Archbold discovered the theft
early in 1905 and discharged Win
field and Stump. They already had
cleaned up some $4,000. A small
part of this they invested in a saloon
on the southeast corner of One Hun
dred and Thirty-fourth street and
Seventh avenue. The rest they blew
in on the races, and other ways.
The two men, one white, one col
ored, are represented as close
friends. Baron" wilkins, a brother
of a negro whom they installed as
manager of the saloon and who later
bought them out, runs the Little
Savoy" at 253 West Thirty-ffth