The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1911-09-06
is BITTER OVER QUEER FATE
SAILS FROM AMERICA AFTER
BEING IMPRISONED 20 YEARS.
Andrew 10th Found the ''Land of
the Free" a Country of Suffer
ing and Injustice.

ing anu luJuSIICSs
NEW YORK-His heart filled with
bitterness toward this land of lib
erty." which to him was a country
of suffering and Imprisonment, An
drew 10th, who spent twenty years
behind the bars for a murder he had
not committed, sailed today for his
native home in Austria, never to re-
turn to these shores.
10th had been in this country only
short time, and was working hard
| to support his wife and children and
! in the hope of acquiring a home and
and a competence, when he was ar
rested on the charge of killing fell
low-workman. He was only an zig
norant foreigner" unable to speak
English, and as circumstantial evil
dence pointed to his guilt he was
right speedily convicted and Whisked
away to prison. There was no laws
delay in Toth's case. Behind the
grim walls Of the penitentiary he
was soon forgotten, and might have
died there had not another, twenty
years after, confessed to the crime
of which 10th was innocent. Toth's
sons, grown to manhood, had for
years spent all their earnings in at
tempts to prove their fathers limo
cence. Toths wife, heartbroken and
hopeless, despairing at last of justice
in this strange land where poor men
are rushed off to prison on f1imsy
suspicious, returned to Austria to end
her years In the little town of Cen
gyel Falu she is anxiously awaiting
the old, broken man, with the prison
palIor on his face, who sailed today
to. join her.
Free America" scoffed 10th, with
the bitterness of twenty years of
hatred in his voice, do not tell me
of free America. 1t has robbed me
of my wife and of my youth, of every
thing that makes life worth living,
and 1 shall be glad to shake it's dust
from my feet. If you could realize
the anguish I suffered for twenty
years, two months and nineteen days
even the days seem like years in a
prison cell-you would not wonder
that l feel anger and sorrow in my
heart toward the government.
you do not know what it is to
sit, day after day, looking up at
narrow strip of sky, crying until your
eyes are so dry they hurt You do
not know what it is to have a wife
that loves you, and children whom
you most want to respect you, begin
ming to believe after all that you are
a murderer If you could understand
these things you would know why
prisons are hell for the guilty and
doubly hellish for the innocent. And
after all this they thrust me out in
the world broken and old, unable to
make a living-and they give me a
suit Of cheap clothing and five dollars
in money. Five dollars for twenty
years of labor-twenty years taken
out of the life of a man innocent of
all wrong-fve dollars to assuage the
grief of woman for twenty years
| deprived of her husband and forced
to toll like a slave for her subsist-
ence-five dollars to atone to my
children for the education and oppor-
tunities they might have had could
| | have been left free to provide for
them-for all this, and much more
that I could never put into words,
five dollars.
Some people blame me because I
talk so. They say that it was only
mistake, that nobody was to blame,
that l ought to accept it in a philo-
sophie manner and be thankful that
am free. l am thankful, of course,
but this philosophy is not for
those who have spent twenty years
| in prison.
81 would not have enough money
to return to Austria except for my
sons and the benefactions, of charita-
BILE people. Andrew Carnegie was
very kind to me, and I am deeply
grateful to him. I worked in his
mills when l was young man He
has come forward, with many others,
to help me financially in my old
age.
Il know that other innocent men
were in prison with me, and 1 weep
for them every night. When I have
seen my wife and children and grand
children l shall be content to die. -