Arizona republican., 1913-02-26
Administration Occupies Day in Introducing Testi- mony in Support of the Policy at the State Penal Institution
SIMS MAKES
 HIS STATEMENT
Does Not Violently Deny Charges of the Florence People But Defends His Actions. Says Pen is Bet ter Managed Than Ever


 ter Managed Than Ever
 The prison investigation is finished It was finished last night. Three more sessions were held yesterday making six in all, the entire day being given over to the superintendent of the peni- tentiary and his friends, in order that full opportunity might be given for all the evidence they desired in support of their side of the controversy. AS was expected Warden Sims occupied the stand for a large part of the day and gave a great deal of interesting tes- timOny relative to his connection with the penitentiary and the application of the honor system for the uplift of con- Victs confined therein.
 For the first time there was friction in the committee. The members of the house committee assuemd a. positive attitude toward the introduction of certain damaging testimony while the members of the senate committee of equal number assumed the attitude of objecting to the introduction of damag- ing testimony so to an outsider 1t ap- peared the committee was completely divided on the questions at issue. It was freely intimated yesterday toward the close of the hearing and last night after the hearing there would be two reports from the committee one from the senate and one from the house. There was also a well defined rumor | Inc. a1p init l traitor of the prison while the senate report would insist the charges in the petition had not been supported by the evidence
 ] The work progressed yesterday more rapidly than the first day. It appeared i by tacit agreement the questions in be- half of the petitioners were made en- { tirely by Representative Jacobs of tho house committee, while those of the de- fense, if the administration can so be ! termed. were made almost entirely by Senator Hughes of Pima. Both these gentlemen showed themselves able 1 champions of their respective sides and their ability in questioning the wit ! nesses elicited much valuable infor- | nation on those sides of the contro- versy.
 As in the first day, the deliberations i were presided over by Senator Wood of ! Maricopa who seemed to develop sud-
 denly a great deal of judicial ability in
 his determination of the materiality of evidence and the relevancy of state
 ments one occasion in particular
 demonstrated the fairness of his atti-
 tude during the investigation. It oc- ! al in ha of yyI1
 tary Wamsey of the penitentiary was
 being examined MT. Wamsley wished
 to introduce into the record certain
 letters received by him and Warden
 Sims from persons whose names were
 signed to the petition of Florence citi-
 zens which precipitated the investiga-
 ton. These letters it was claimed
 would show why certain persons de
 sired if possible although signing the petition to still retain the friendship
 of the superintendent of the peniten-
 tiary. Wamsley presented the letters
 and immediately made the explanatory
 statement he wished to refute the
 charge that all signatures had been placed on the petition without recourse to misrepresentation on the part of the circulate of the document. Jacobs l immediately objected on the grounds
 since the petition was addressed to the legislature the withdrawal letters if l any were should also have been ad- ? dressed to the legislature or at least to r the Investigating committee. Hughes ? demanded the letters be read on the ? | ground that other letters had been read X 1 during the investigation that were not addressed to the legislature nor to the { committed Jacobs said the names of { the people writing the letters could be . easily obtained and the persons could e be brought before the committee and d would enable them to find out whether e or not there were considerations oi a weight back of the requests. Wood O ruled the letters immaterial and that = the people themselves could give the = best testimony
 q This precipitated so fierce discus
 sion that finally Hughes moved anC t Maddock seconded that the committed if take a recess and discuss in secret ses l, sion the letters and then that they he o read to the committee. This was done g and after a session of less than ar e hours duration the committee returned e and Wood announced that the unani- Y nous decision was the letters should T be kept out
 e Contrary to general expectation, al 1T expectation based on the actions of tho tt committee in the Monday sessions. tht y evidence yesterday did not stick closely ,r to the matters in the petition.
 Continued on Page TWo)