Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1921-12-10
sAYssMoI.sE ATE SOAP
TO GET OCT OF ATLANTA

HI
Writing in the Philadelphia Public
Ledger. Richard Spill ane makes interest
ing reference to Charles W. Morse as fol-
| lows:
The Morse affair should be Of partic-
ular interest to the chief justice OF the
supreme court and also t. the attorney
general of the United States.
When William Howard Taft, was Kent
professor in the law school at Yale he
| occasionally told a story, naming no
names, of how a president CT the United
States was deceived into pardoning a
prisoner confined in the Atlanta peniten-
tiary.
Some of the students gathered from
the genial expresident's narrative that he
had lost confidence in the army surgeons
who examined that prisoner and reported
| that he only had a few days to live.
From what Joseph w. Powell president
Of the Shipping Board, told the writer the
other night the surgeons were deceived
as we'll as MI Taft.
The prisoner, of course was Charles
W. Morse, who has genius for getting
into trouble and who now is in the lime
| light by r'ason CT his flight 20 Europe
According to Mr. Powell, It was the
d'termina ton of Morse to get Il pardon
from President Taft or die Whether
Morse took even hds wife into his
confidence is not known At any
rate, coincidental with the nation
wide circulation OF the petition for Il par
don for Morse the health of the lrisoner
began to fail Persons who declared nc
was very sick man told the truth No
wonder. Each day he ate a certain
quantity of soap Ulcers formed in his
stomach but that did not stop him When
the surgeons declared he was at deaths
DIM haxr Gold 81.
| taken from the prison free man it seem
ed he had only a few days or few weeks
to live.
But he ate no soap after being pardon
ed. 1t took many months for his system
to recover from the horrible mistreatment
to which he had subjected it. He was
| taken to Europe and there he gradually
improved. When, after about ei.h-
months absence. he returned ne was ap
parently in excellent health.
| Attorney General Daugherty wa,
counsel for Morse years ago. Now. a.
head of the department of justice, he il
the prosecutor.
Morse has extraordinary mental en-
ergy. In his youth ne was a train an,
steamboat butcher the term applied L
vendors of candies, magazines. cigars IN,
such to travellers and eXcursionists II
get into the ice business in Maine in
small way and extending his operation
to New York formed what was known a
the ice trust. He tried at one time to &c
control of chain of banks in New Yorl
1t was through juggling with banks tha
he got into the trouole that landed hr
in Atlanta. He formed combinatio
once that for a time brought the most in
portant coastline steamship companies in
to one control. After getting out {
= prison he tried to get control Of III
steamboat, lines of the Hudson river an
succeeded in part. He went into shil
, building on a considerable scale in III
: | war period and it is from some OF II
= things he did in this connection his pre-:
: ent trouble began.
:. Few men have been sued so mar
e times and threatened with suit so ofte
e He has been in trouble of on5 kind
. | another almost continuously for a quartz
| of century. What ne has hal to ia
: the lawyers must have been great su
= in the aggregate.
HE is lame, does mot dress rarticl
:, larly well and would not attract notice
| a crowd