The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1920-03-12

II
NASHVILLE, Tenn, March IL
How many bank robberies will BIZ
cleared by the arrest of Oils Bailey
Wednesday?
This question was asked by the pc
lice Wednesday night after Robert
Nix, cashier Of the Flat Rock branch
of the Fourth and First National
Bank, said:
believe those are the men,"
The police had asked Mr. Nix to
look at Bailey and his relative, Fred
j. Compton, confessed embezzler of
$1,000 from the Fourth and First Ma.
tional Bank. Officials sought to learn
if Mr.. Nix could identify the men as
the bandits who held him and j. C.
McMurray up January 2, 1919, and
took $4,350 loot.
Both Bailey and Compton, his doub-
lie first. cousin, are held under war
rants charging them with robbing the
bank at Goodlettsville of $6,350 March
/ Is, 1919, ten weeks after the first Flat
Rock case
The Goodlettsville warrants were
sworn out before Esquire Whitley,
after Leon Wilson, who drove the car
carrying two bandits to and from the
scene of the robbery, positively identi-
fed Bailey and said he was almost
sure Compton was the other man.
Both men are from the vicinity OF
Hartselle, Ala, and are said to be from
prominent families.
| Oils Bailey aged 90, arrived at the
county jail about IL o'clock Wednes-
day morning giving a government
permit to visit Compton, who is be-
ing held for the Fourth and First Ma
tional Bank swindle.
Sheriff Wright looked at the man
| and then said to an officer nearby:
HE fits the description of the tall
bandit who pulled the Goodlettsville
job
Bailey was permitted to see his rela-
tive. While visiting Compton he was
caught trying to slip, the prisoner
money through the bars, it is said.
He was hooked into long converse
ton in the jail Office following the visit
while S. H. Without, cashier, the lone
man at the Goodlettsville bank when
it was robbed, was called. tfg
Mr. Without looked at the men, but
said that he was so excited the day of
the robbery that he could not positive
ly identify them. Their clothes were
different.
"But they are mighty like the same
robbers" he asserted.
Warrants were sworn out against
both prisoners before Squire J. w.
Whitley charging: Robbery of a
bank at Goodlettsville, Tennessee, Da-
wilson county, by going into said bank
and, at the point of pistols and by |
force, taking from said bank $1,000 in
liberty bonds and $5,55O.0S in United
States money
Ten thousand dollars was set as the |
bond. Both men failed to make it. |
When the warrant was read to Bailey
he smiled and said whats my bond?"
The man never flinched. He would
not discuss the robbery. 1t is possible, |
the police say, that he came to Nash
vile to tell his pal not to "snitch" on
other jobs.
When confronted by Williams, the
chauffeur, Compton's fcae became
flushed, and he wheeled around, giving |
his back to the man forced to drive
from the scene of the Goodlettsville |
robbery On the morning of March IS,
1919, at 8 o'clock, two men came to
Leon Williams, who was a chauffeur
in the employ of Shorty Young, and |
hired them to carry them to Good |
lettsville, where they said they intend
ed to meet friend and secure some |
whisky in small black grip they car
ried. He drove them there. They |
hung around the front of the small |
bank all morning awaiting their