Los Angeles herald., 1909-08-19
FEELING GROWS
BROADHFAD IS
A SCAPEG0AT
REAL BLAME is LAID ON MEN
HIGHER UP
SIX WITNESSES EXAMINED IN
YESTERDAYS PROCEEDINGS
Those Following the Prosecution of
Former Police Captain for AL
legged BribesT aking Look on
Defendant as Victim

A GAIN, in a single day, six wit
nesses were examined yesterday
Al in the trial of Thomas H. Broad
head on a charge of accepting $1,000
bribe for protection of "Nick" Oswald s
redlight district last year. in further
ance of conspiracy iii which, accord
ing to the testimony taken in the pres
ent trial. former Police Commission
CT Samuel Schenck appears to have
played the leading role.
-Four patrolmen were called to the
witness stand. testifying cautiously fol-
lowed by Samuel T. Glover. formerly
publisher and editor of the News in
this city, and another man who gave
his business as, publisher and then, on
cross examination, admitted that his
career as publisher was suspended
fifteen years ago and never resumed.
This was William l.. Fctter, most trust
ed agent of Nicholas ID. Oswald in the
redlight project The Il" stands for
Lawrence, the name which Oswald
borrowed for use in various ways, de-
posting money iR local bank i'm the
name of Lawrence Fetter." signing
SO in the bank records and buying
property on Commercial street east of
Alameda in the same name, property
consisting of narrow lots, and deserted
cottages, which the peculiar genius of
Oswald, with the aid of certain ele-
ments in city administration now con-
signed to obloquy. succeeded in renting
to women of the undcrdorld at the rate
of $l00 per month for each small old
cottage.
Fetter. who declares himself a pub
Usher, looks like an English curate
fallen into physical and moral degener-
tT,g, 1f
-bookkeeper of the redlight district,
received the money from Oswald's col
lectors and deposited it in the name of
"William Lawrence" for Oswald to
draw upon, if the testimony of wit
nesses of various types and walks of
life Is not all mass of useless lies,
for the benefit of Samuel Schenck and
the lesser lights of the alleged con-
spiraey.
Broadhead Considered Scapegoat
Wonder has been, freely expressed in
the courtroom and the corridors, dur
ing the progress of this trial, that the
defendant Broadhead, who clearly did
whatever he may have done as a more
or less unwilling associate in crime of
men toward whom the finger of scorn
points far more unerringly in the evil
dence presented in the Broadhead trial
SnODid
by the grand jury on the grave charge
of accepting bribe. while Samuel
Schenck, of all the men involved, Is
held to answer only upon a minor
allegation.
The feeling is strong that therein lies
much of the explanation of the marked
unwillingness of many witnesses, no
tably patrolmen and sergeants of po
lice. to testify according to their oath
to tell "the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth" upon the stand.
"Broadhead is the goat; Schenck and
Kern are to go practically free" is a
common expression, delivered with an
air of disgust by those in closest touch
with the present proceedings and the
facts which underlie them.
Hung Jury Anticipated
And in the eyes of Thomas BroadA
head, usually eXpressionless in their
cold concealment of the feelings that
lie behind them I'm the rigidly repressed
of the man, there is grow
ing suggestion of perplexity, of be-
wilderment, at finding himself alone to
face the shafts of legal prosecution for
the breaking of the law But with all
the shafts that strike home to the hui
man target who is made the sole OBJ
jeet of present attack, many have
glanced from him, to strike the ones
who have escaped indictment of the
law.
Four of the jurymen display more
eager interest in the points made for
the defense than in those which
of Thomas Broadhead for the infamy
of a conspiracy into which he is
charged with entering after it was
we'll formed, with its tentacles already |
sunk into the dark, rich blood of the |
Indications of hung
jury are most obvious, though more
than one discriminating onlooker has
said:
IF the others were here with Broad !
head In the dock, or the jury knew |
they would have to take their turn, |
they'd all be convicted"
William Lawrence Fetter testified |
that his business in the year 1908 was |
the conducting of brokerage business |
in the II. w. Hellman building at |
Second street and Broadway. Asked |
by the district attorney if he had any |
other business during that period, he
Yes, 1 kept a set of books"
Income Reported Enormous
Under further questioning the wit
ness, with a deprecating cough, ad-
mitted the books he kept were the rec
ords of the Tenderloin. These records
showed the accounts kept of all deal
Ings between Oswald's agents and the |
whose life of shame was made
to render profit to Oswald and his
associates in high and low places in the
political and lay life of Los Angeles
city.
The income from one of the crib
houses, according to Fetter, was $3.50
week; that from the other was about
the same; and the receipts from the
Lwenty-one cottages in the redight dis
Lrict east of Alameda, at $100 month
for each, was $2100, nearly all of which
passed through Fetter's hands.
He told, too-in' spite of determined
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