Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1916-05-06
BERNEY AFFIRNS
AUTO STORY And
POLICE DO ALSO
Mills School instructor ResentS
Morning Papers HuWor in
Accident Case

Investigation at the police station
today corroborated the story printed
! in the Star-Bulletin yesterday con
corning the accident TO William f
Berney, instructor at Mills school.
Police officials wish to make il plain
that they have not denied Berney's
story and are still investigating.
Deputy Sheriff Julius w. 4Asch was
reported in the Advertiser to have
said: 1T is astonishing how such
yarn as the afternoon paper pub
lished yesterday could ever get into
tyne" ~.
THIS morning NJ: kscn said: Il
made no such statement. didn't
think anything of the kind. have
made every possible investigation of
the accident and believe that Mr..
Berney was telling straight story.
OF course, don't know whether he
was struck or not as have been I'M
able TO find any eye witnesses. |
have seen both car crews that were
working in Manoa valley and they
saw nothing" III -.
What Mr.. Berney thinks is shown in
the following signed communication to
this paper: *..f ...
Editor Honolulu Star Bulletin. ....
Sir: In the reporting of daily &C.
currences all newspapers are apt to
get some of the minor details of the
same somewhat twisted-bat when
newspaper picks out one individual
and attempts to make him look a lit
tie foolish-that individual should at
least have an opportunity Of answer
ing for himself. r.. +:
The Advertiser, In this mornings pa
per, has 1t that while walking up Ma
noa Thursday afternoon | fell down
and that, believing that nothing short
of a 12-cylinder machine, going at. the
rate of so miles an hour could have
struck me, | blamed an auto, the Ad-
yertiser inferring that at the same
time | accused All Han, who seems
to have picked me up, for the accident
know nothing of who was driving the
auto that struck me and never init
mated that did, though | do know
that it was an automobile and not
the force of my own weight falling to
the ground that knocked me uneon-
seious for an hour. OF course, it is
only natural that the omniscient Ad-
vertiser. who daily presumes to tell us
Just where the administration at
Washington is pursuing the wrong
policies, would know more about my
accident than I should. Yet it might
be good policy for the morning paper
to doctor up the facts uEthe truth
which they publish so that they would
at least appear halfway plausible.
Says the Advertiser, in part: Der
ney only thought so at first, because
later on, after his scratched face had
been gone over at the emergency hos
pital and he Had been AIKEN back to
the scene of his tumble, he said per-
haps he was not hit by an automobile
after all. Here our morning paper.
departs twice from the straight and
narrow path to which, Pharisaic- like,
they would hold their evening rival.
In the first place l was not taken back
to the scene of the tumble" and in
the second place r did not say that
perhaps / had not been LIT by an
auto after all. The Advertiser claims
to stand for efficient police protection
and yet when a man is Knocked down
by an auto, and all the facts in the
case are not Immediately forthcoming,
they would apparently have the police
sit back, twiddie their thumbs and ex-
plain 1t all by saying, "He went out
for walk, crossed his legs and went
down and out
Since the Advertiser consistently
presumes to tell the people just what
the heads of our nation should do, and
what Dig mistakes they are commit
ting, may it not be regarded as nre-
sumptuous on my part if suggest to
that paper that, hereafter, if they feel
the need of a little subtleC?) humor
in their columns, they stretch their i'm
agination Just little farther and in
vent some fictitious name for the hero
or villain of any story they may de-
sire to frame up-rather than picking
upon some one individual.
WIN. E. BERNEY.