The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-27
SMITH APPO|NTEES , ARE STORM CENTER Men Named Will Fight for
 Places SITUATION TANGLED First Contest Will Perhaps Be For Judgeship at Athens, Ga--At-
 lanta Police Probe Ends
 in Exoneration

Atlanta. August 26.-(Special. 1.-The ap- pointments by Governor Smith, which the senate failed to confirm, are the po- litical storm center now that the legisla~ ture is over
 It seems that practically every ap- pointee, whose appointment was not con firmed by the senate will have to fight it out in the courts to get his place, and since the last batch of names announced by Governor Smith covers nearly every part of Georgia, the battle will be Of statewide interest.
 It is very peculiar situation. and may grow more and more tangled.
 Announcement has already been made that the first fight to be precipitated by the contest for place between the man who now holds office and the man who was appointed by Smith, and who wants to get in, will be when Judge T. J. Shackeford of Athens tries to get the judgeship now held by Judge West. To secure the office the courts will be in- voked by mandamus, or by quo warranto proceedings.
 The trouble dates practically from the very beginning of the struggle in the gen. eral assembly for the position of sem ator, to succeed the late A. S. Clay.
 The senate was admittedly an anti Hoke Smith organization. Many of the members opposed him because they had always done so, and some because they thought that the man who had been elected to the high office of the gover- nor of the state should be content to stay where he had been put, and at later period seek the toga of the Senate.
 It was on the last ground that the fight was made, and after Hoke Smiths elec- tion to succeed Clay was assured, then the matter of appointments came to light
 The impression prevailed that Smith wanted to reward faithful friends by making appointments for periods far in advance of the time when he would lay down bis duties and become senator This belief was largely caused by the fact that Mr Smith refused then, and has consistently done so in the months following, to say just when he would re- sign.
 really took the position that Hoke Smith was senator soon as he was elected, and that it was up to him to retire at once, and acting on this belief, they re- sisted from the first all efforts on his part to name any candidates for positions at the disposal of the governor.
 The first batch of four names which
 
 of them were passed and the fourth in executive session held up. That fourth appointment was, according to the paper presented. to become effective next July. Smith finally announced that there had been an error and that the appointment would become effective probably six or seven months earlier. The opposition Jagged for awhile. and one day the Smith senators managed to rush them through
 Toward
 ever. Smith tried another batch of ap- pointments, and this time the senate sat down on the governor hard, and the appointments never have been confirmed. Until the next senate meets the ap- pointees can hold office, provided they don't find the doors locked and the keys turned on the inside. At the next session on them. Maybe they will be made peri manent and maybe not.
 AS expected, the Atlanta detective de- partment has been whitewashed. A lovely thick coat has been laid on, and it will be some time before developments will come thick and fast enough to scrape some of it off. and show any inefficlency which might have been so neatly covered up.
 The charges against the detective de- partment have been many and various On it's side the detectives have the iusti- f1cation of an inadequate force, but on the other side they have done very little in the way of keeping the city clean of crooks and burglars, and in the capture of murderers.
 They have put in their time in running down trivial cases, it is charged, in look ing after blind tigers.
 When the probe was proposed it was hoped in Atlanta that it would be thor ough, and that out of it would come some Improvements that would be worth while
 But at the last meeting of the board there was love feast. Everything was O. K, fine, beautiful. Atlanta has the finest detective department in the coun- try--almost. Some of the Atlanta men are capable of coping with the men from Scotland Yard 1t Is possible that the man who expressed that opinion had been reading Sherlock Homes and had im- bibed some of his contempt for Scot land Yard.
 Finally it was agreed that the ends of justice and of improvement could be best subserved by allowing the chief of police and the chief of detectives to get together and map out a list of suggested improve ments, on which the board would be glad to act
 Chief Lanford of the detective depart ment has now been practically exoner- ated. and seems to stand stronger with the members of the board than ever be- fore. It has been suggested that the fact that Atlanta may soon go under diff ferent civic management, and that the board will be a thing of the past, if the new charter carries. had something to do with the decision to hold up the hands of the chief ->-~----~--------------