The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-03-24
FOR SAKE OF Wife
OF ANOTHER HE'D
SERVE IN PRISON
C. f. Fields of Topeka Asks to
Assume Sentence of Friend.
Would Save Grief Stricken Wife
of Arthur Davenport.
LEAVE HIS FAMILY To DO IT
Anguish and Sorrow Would
SwOOp Down on His Home.
But Alas, Governor Can Find
No Legal LOOphOIe!
LEAVE HIS FAMILY TO DO IT
and Sorrow Would
SwOOp Down on His Home.
But Alas, Governor Can Find
No Legal LOOphOle!

Greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lays down his life for his
friends.-John 1913.
Clarence F. Fields, sos East Fourth
street, Topeka, is the living example
of brotherly love. Fields wants to go
to prison for a friend. In fact, Fields
today upset all modern ideas of Bib
lical teachings of love and established
a new Damon and Pythias record
when he wrote a letter to Governor
Capper asking that he be permitted to
serve the prison sentence of Arthur
Davenport.
In a recent probe of the state hos
pital scandal, Davenport was the one
man whom the jury found guilty.
Davenport had displayed rare indis-
cretion in writing letters to a negro
was convicted on a charge of criminal
assault He was recently taken to the
state reformatory at Hutchinson to
serve an indeterminate sentence.
Back to His Wife.
While her husband is in prison. Mrs
Davenport has found home in the
Fields family Friendship for Daven-
port first went out to the unfortunate
wife of the convicted man. Now,
Fields believes. there is a far greater
service he may render. He would
leave his own home and go behind
prison walls that Davenport might re-
turn to his own fireside. Fields would
and would kiss his own wife goodbye
and go to Hutchinson for a prison
term that his friend might be free.
Weeping Her Eyes Out.
His wife is staying with us and is
weeping her eyes OUT Fields wrote to
Governor Capper today in an appeal
that he might take the convicted
mans place behind prison walls.
"Grief is killing her. Won't you let
me take his place."
Fields didn't write with the pen of
Dante when he addressed his letter to
the governor. He used a lead pencil
and he spelled badly. Fields forgot all
about the rules of punctuation and
capitalization as he yearned for a
chance to help his friend. Over two
pages of cheap scratch paper Fields
scribbled and scrawled his plea to the
state executive.
No one but Fields, perhaps, will ever
know the number of sheets of paper
that were wasted in that labored COM
munication to the governor. No one
but Fields knows of the sweat beads
that gathered on his forehood as he
! looked over a limited vocabulary and
vainly hunted for words that would
emphatic. In his labored effort to win
an audience. Fields became eloquent
in his mangling of the English lam
guage.
just Sits and Sobs.
"She just sits and sobs her eyes and
/ heart out Fields wrote of Mrs. Da-
venport Wont you send him home
and let me go in his place?''
| Fields is employed in the Santa Fe
/ shops He has a wife of his own
| and now as a friend he has under
taken to provide a home for Daven-
/ ports wife until the convicted man
/ wins his liberty. But Fields is willing
| to give up his own home, his job his
] freedom and lose his identity in con-
! vict's garb and prison number if the
/ governor will send his friend home to
his family.
There is no statutory provision that
will enable Fields to become a Kansas
Damon and Davenport must bear his
burdens alone