Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1912-12-24
GOVERNOR WILSON
 LIBERTIES ll6 Favors Pardon Board Rath- CT Than One Man to Shoul-
 der Responsibility.
TALKS NO POLITICS
"Ihls Will Be an Cnhappy Days Work When He Began Re.
 view of Petitions.

Trenton, N. J., Dec. Ex-Governor | "llson devoted all of his time today : to consideration of 230 applications of inmates of the New Jersey prison for 1 clemency. The governor sat with the ! Court of Pardons from 10 o'clock in the morning until nearly , o'clock in the afternoon and at the end of that i period he said he felt like a "soueez- ed sponge
 After the most careful investigation 1 and examination clemency was grant Cd Ill ll6 cases. Among those were two young murderers, Harry Duffield, 2O years old, and Fred Coursey, 21, l of Camden, who were under sentence of death for the hold-up and shooting of Karl kellman, on the public street. It was represented to the court of pardons that the boys had just wit messed make believe hold-up' in moving picture show and this in ferred them to commit the crime. Duff fields sentence was commuted to 15 years and Coursey to 30 years.
 Another interesting case was that of John Waldron, an express driver of Jersey City. who had served nine months of two year sentence for the theft of $2. Secretary Tumulty had learned of this case and had brought it to the attention of the Court of Pardons. John A. Blair judge of the court of common pleas of Hudson county, who sentenced the man, was communicated with. He replied that there must have been some mistake and that it was never intended to impose such a penalty. The man was promptly pardoned. The application bore only two names, those of MT. Humility and his stenograher, War ren Johnson.
 Lester Smith, of Atlantic City, N. J., murderer who had his death sen tepce commuted to life imprisonment in March, 1903, was paroled.
 The application of Charles Ford, of Camden, murderer, under death sen tence, was not granted. Acting Gov ernor Prince had stayed execution in this case until January 6 in the ab- sence in Bermuda of Governor Wilson in order to give him the benefit of the attention of the Board of Par dons. Ford has killed his common law wife because she had left him for another man and he afterwards at- tempted suicide. The court today could see no reason for granting Ford clemency.
 An unusual case was that of Will liam Foist, of Newark, N. J., young drug clerk, whose mistake in filling a prescription resulted in the deatN of woman. The prescription called for nine grains of morphine, divided into six pills of a grain and half each. Foist put nine grains in each of the pills and the first resulted in the death of the patient. He was sen tenced to the Railway reformatory and today was paroled.
 Governor Wilson went at the task of considering the cases with very little enthusiasm. Before he entered the office which had been turned in to a court room, he said:
 "This will be an unhappy day s work, because it pulls at the heart strings"
 After the court had adjourned in the afternoon he looked care worn. "This has been one of the days that CdkCS IL out Ol 1AOS AAC SoAN' AOu don't know whether you are acting right or wrong and you cannot go ln- to all the circumstances of all the cases"
 The governor was asked if he favor ed the New Jersey system of vesting the power of granting clemency in a Board of Pardons as against the New York system, which gives the gover- nor absolute power, as illustrated by Governor Dix's pardon of Albert T. Patrick.
 q would rather have the full board of pardons than have the responslbll- ity rest alone with the governor, ne said. ,,-
 The governor had not time to talk or even to think politics today. When he had finished with the Court of Pardons he hurried to Princeton and rotiroI carly