Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-05-01
LIGHT IS TURNED
ON STATE SENATOR
IN CRUELTY PROBE

TALLAHASSEE, Fla, April Is
| (By the Associated Press. )-Addition
al reported convict brutalities will
! be aired next week by the joint
legislative committee investigating
state and county prison camps.
State Senator T. J. Knabb, former
! owner Of a private lease convict
camp, and John Roddenbury, his al
legged whipping boss, the latter now
under indictment, will be the prin-
cipals in the coming inquiry.
The committee announced today
it was ready to take up the charges
based on the records of the prison
division of the department of agri-
culture against Senator Knabb and
Roddenbury Tuesday morning and
added that one of the chief witnesses
in the case will be John B. Thomas,
state prison Inspector, who re-
ported alleged brutalities existing
at the knabb penal institution. The
investigating committee also an
nounced it would have to reopen
its hearing of charges against Judge
B. F. Willis, Of Leon county, before
submitting its recommendations to
the legislature. Judge Willis fig
ured prominently in the investiga-
ton Of the death of Martin Tabert
of North Dakota in a convict camp,
as having entered into a collision
with Sheriff j. r. Jones, who has
been removed from office.
Counsel for Paul Revere White, of
Washington, D. c., who is alleged
to have received brutal treatmeant
while serving sentence in the
Knabb camp, telegraphed the COM
mittee today that his client would be
unable to leave his~home in Wash
ington to appear before the COM
nlittee. An affidavit made by White,
together with the records of the de-
partment of agriculture relative to
his case, will be introduced in his
behalf
White, 10 years old, was arrested
while walking on the highway near
White Springs, Fla, it is alleged,
and after being arraigned in a jus
'""kC VI pCCISG COuL was oSIlICl1CCA
to, six months imprisonment in the
Alachua county Jail.
He was charged with vagrancy.
He was later leased to State Sena-
tor Knabb, who operated a turpen-
tine camp near Macclenny. White
contends he was put to work scrap
ing turpentine boxes and because
I could not do as much work as the
negro hands," his affidavit reads,
81 was whipped the third day after
I arrived. was kicked, beaten, and
whipped practically every day dur
ing the time L was there"
The youth recited how he had
contracted swamp muck poison and
because he was unable to perform
manual labor was whipped and
kicked by the whipping boss, Rod
denbury, until he was finally rescued
from the camp by Prison Inspector
Thomas and Sheriff Joe Jones, of
Baker county.
Whites affidavit has been sub
stantiated by DR.. Lamb of Mac
clenny, who claimed the youths
hands and feet were raw, deep seated
ulcers were found on his legs, and
one or more ribs were fractured
where White claimed was the spot
that the whipping boss hit him with
his his fist and where he had also kicked
1.-THE patient" DR.. Lamb averred
in a signed statement was in an
emaciated condition, very much I'M
der-nourished, pale without the color
of blood; also each side of his face
about the mouth was a mass of
sores. I found number of scars on
the back that had healed or par
TALLY healed where he had been hit
with q side of a Whin"