The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-19

tection. This. he reported later, hs did. The negro was never in the GUS tody of the sheriff. and. 60 far as I know, never asksd for any protection. and if he had I believe that the dep uty in question. Mfr. q. P. Brents. would have died. if necessary. to de- fend the negro; while on the other hand. he would have resented. as san insult, any offer to pay him for doing his duty. Nosone who knows the dep- uty in question. Mir. J. P. Brents questions or can question his courage and his fidelity to his duty. He has been deputy shertk in Jefferson Coun- ty for many, years, and other sheriffs than myself can testify in hig behalf as against this malicious islander.
 This charge of cowardice as to a matter where I wa4 not personally present, and where the deputy shertn in charge is Q man of courage ana to the front at any tfsne during the. whole strike, and of whom no com plaint was heard either from the oper- ators or the strikers shows the delfb- eration and the malieiousness of those who seek to attack me under color of theor official position. To recommend that T be impeached for cowardfce is so absurd and unwerranted that it does not deserve the consideration that it has been given. A.
 Looking People Up.
 ssThe third charge is: It has also come to our attentions that the sheriff has been making 1t a practice to so out into the community and arrest peo- pie. place them in jail and force them to remain there for days and days at a time, sometimes as much as week, without knowing what charge they were arrested upon. thereby forcing these unfortunate people to langutsh behind the bars Of the jail at the ex-. pense of the County, and in ignorance of the charge against them
 This. like the other charges made, is wilfully and maliciously false. and no reasonable man would believe such charge against the sheriff if. for no other reason that they know that he is ciYilly responsible in damages to any and all persons whom he would wrong fully and illegally arrest and detain. Ills civil interest, If not his sense Of justice and duty, would restrain him from doing this. * ssg
 There are, certain cases where the law permits arrests to be made with out warrant, but, in every instance. the sheriR has only made lawful arrests and lawful imprisonments. The charge Is further false as to his making ar rests without warrants. without nOti- flying the person of the cause of his arrest. The law requires, and the sheriff knows and abidea by it, that In making an arrest without warrant, he must notify the. person of the charge upon which he Is arrested and detained, or else he is responsible in damages to any person so mlsused.
 The fourth charge is. In substance. that aix bailifks allowed by the Judge of the Criminals Court to attend upon the deliberations of the grand jury, were not kept in constant attendance. and that, for this reason, their delib- erations were prolonged and the grand jury thereby delayed in It's investiga- tions, In standardization of the above, comes the fifth charge in the minority report, in citing one instance, not properly served, out of fourteen hum dred and ninefy-two [l4s2) different witnesses summoned and many of these 1.492 more than one time.
 "The fact Is. that in order to serve these 1.l92 witnesses and bring them before the grand jury, time and time again. not only did the sheriff put at iiffs, but at times his entire force of thirty deputies.
 T do not know how this matter win be received by the law abiding people of the county, but, as for myself feel complimented over the fact that, out of the enormous number of wit nesses which were required at the ate \ tendance of this grand jury and all other duties touching same. together with the work of serving other courts, that the hypocriticaI report of the four wise men, could find but one illustra- ton of failure to make q prompt ser vice.
 ''The sixth cfarbe is as follows:
 We wish to apologize to the cItlzens and tax payers of this county for be- Ing forced to continue our deliberations as q grand jury for the length of time that we have been in session Had we been given hat service and had the witnesses been promptly summoned be- fore us. our labors would have been completed sometime ago, but this serv- ice we have been unable to get T
 This is another ~ilfuliy false state ment of the four wise men and ia "a base libel and slander on the majority of the grand jury, which. if these facts had existed. would have ordered me before them to know why they were being held in session by 8 lack of ser vice on the part of my onice The statement carries on its face an ab- solutelv false charge. It carries its own internal evidence of It's falseness. 1t was commonly rumored that the de- lay was due to an effort by the four wise men, to coerce the majority into aiding them in their effort to slander and injure me. Day after day. my deputies for several weeks served and reserved subpoenas. as the records will show. on a set of the most notorious crooks. criminals and law-breakers, in the County of Jefferson. who were sum moned for the purpose of trying to convince a majority of the grand fury that had been guilty of a criminal act in rounding up the gamblers of this county as heretofore explained The record of no official in this county has ever been sifted and re-sifted as mine has been and yet. after all this effort had aborted and the four wise men found that there were seven men who refused to join their movement to pro- duce anarchy in Jefferson County. furious in defeat and mad in the power of privileged communication, they have assaulted me ino manner beneath the contempt of honest men.
 Special Deputies.
 ''The seventh charge is the one in reference to certain companies having during the strike made request for special deputies for which they agreed to pay $3 per day per man. and the fact that of the $3 the deputy sherin only received $2.
 "In the first place, this custom bR tween the sheriff's oflce and the oper- ators has existed for years and yeara without any complaint. so far as l have been able to know upon the part of any one.
 When the strike came on, ip order to observe all past customs on this sub- iect and not to do or ask for anything different from any former sheriff, I put Mir. John L. Barker in position in my ofylca to advise ma so I would