The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-03-18
Clara Smith win Now Demand
Part of Hamon Estate.
Took Jury Only Forty Minutes
to Free Her of Charge.
ACOUITTAL VERDICT EXPECTED
Even Prosecution Declared the
States Case Was Weak.
Movies, Vaudeville, Literature
and Religion Offered as Careers.

Ardmore, Okla, March 1S.-Clara
Smith Hamon spent her first day of
freedom going over movie contracts
with her attorneys.
According to S. A. George, one of
her counsel, the girl who was ac-
quilted of numbering Jake L. Ha-
mon yesterday has offers from three
movie concerns.
The biggest offer is $1,000 a week
for fifty weeks, according to George,
who expects to announce a decision
today.
wild Bill" Mclean, "Sir" Walter
Scott. c. A Coakley and ]. B. Cham
pion are also comforting with Clara.
Clara, who for the last week has
faced trial for numbering Jake L.
Hamon, millionaire Republican ma
tional committeeman, was acquitted
ond ballot after it had deliberated
forty minutes.
Wants Share In Estate.
The immediate outcome of her ac-
quittal will be a suit for a portion of
her attorneys said several times that
a suit would be started when their
client was set free. Attorneys are
not ready to announce the exact ma
ture of the suit or the sum which will
be involved.
Clara today had not determined just
what she will do as she starts out on
her new life. She has had offers to
go in the movies; to write books and
magazine articles and to do many
other things.
Mrs. Jennie SharpIes of the World
Purity league has been here all dur
ing the trial trying to induce Clara to
I join the league and consecrate her
life to evangelism.
"of course. I can't say what I'm
going to do yet" she said today some
what sadly. But" and she smiled
a bit, IT am not going to accept the
one hundred Nproposals of ms sffiase
that have poured in to me during the
trial."
The acquittal of Clara was freely
predicted since the trial started; it was
generally admitted, even by attorneys
for the prosecution, that the state had
a very weak case against her.
Prince Freezing. attorney general of
Oklahoma, who acted as prosecutor.
said today, 'I am not bit surprised
at the verdict. I knew we had no
chance of conviction from the start
Verdict Was Expected.
H. H. Brown, who assisted Freezing,
said, mo other verdict could be ex-
, pected in Carter county. This COM
munity know of the relationship be-
| tween Jake Hamon and Clara Smith
for years and did nothing to correct
it. Why should a jury be expected to
draw moral lesson now?"
wild Bill" Mclean, one of the
counsels for the defense, said THE
jury will ever be proud of giving this
, verdict"
Here are the congratulations given
Clara by Sheriff Buck Garrett, who
has had custody of her since the trial
started, My only objection to the
verdict is that lose the incest prisoner
1 ever had"
= Clara and her attorneys today were
being swamped by congratulatory tele-
grams.
r. Jake L. Hamon was shot last Mo-
vember in the Randol hotel where he
had been living with Clara
His friends gave out statements that
it was an accident. Clara, on solicita-
ton of Frank L. Ketch, fled into Mex
leo.
Following investigation she was
charged with murder and voluntarily
, surrenderd last Christmas.