Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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I the people of South | forever from the slean and decent DemoBbility. He could have leader and could have )0<L But he chose to s ability to gain an se and gratify an insatr for power. Once he jTow there are none so him reverence. Iirest the people of South know.what Blaese did to j|fall of 1916 Beard had gat an independent tickjfeneral election, prompted V'to this course by site/ appeared no chance iss of thi3 ticket, howGfe&y -V ' . tease drew away from it. jhis matter I have a letfrd, under date of March jr>which he says that and even named the " ticket of 1912, and FBlfiase^encouraged me lat ticket at the followgeneral election?which yised me against Then feet and left me in the he has deserted me." r" South Carolina has > : i as Beard has. Beard goard in 1910, pron the stump, and was beck and call. t'A' a- j i? t.:? Iljns xo sluuu uy uia rdia in the penitentia resuitu of following *fcd /and yet, as I can ird's letters. Blease had ]p him in any way, and n$h as given a dollar to fty?fo;r Beard is no -/ k when I learned that loncerted effort all over la to get me into the oinor as a Blease can ISsttned. I knew that I tftider any circumstances H&e to be used in cons' this man who was a as party and an outny of the government in IbHe^C x' ic will rceall my correaith certain Blease memV' . Anderson county delegaih I refused to ally my?had a great work ahead qrk that was bigger than lIMao .And pofnaorl to BBlwith either the Blease faction, choosing ra|Hter the campaign as a a supporter of prinEbly put into Aull at the i secret use lought that helping him, was to get work, as he that when I I Bid expose CoopHiery and destroy Ry hoped by. tiiia. by me, and to^Cse Die5?troyHig~ ooper H Richards, their Railed. The treach I to unmask CoopBne the opportunism at an earlier Ihn Aull hopes for Seel sorry for him, by when away from nee of Blease. KTDRS M^T.ATTRIN IBs. c. He under a doctor's be back on the camay if possible. V-; ? Entered 'm ,;V lease and Aull ECRETARY KNOWS OF McLAURIN'S> ALH|"TRAP" LETTERS. HUnts were issued yesterday Aull and Cole L. Ri: answer to the McLaurin ro the people of South CaroAkished in The State yesterjBpg. The statement by Mr. Editor of The- State: ffhnfeel it necessary for m? ^Tany comment on the letter McLauriij, which you |^?this moraihg. I am satisSKr. McLaurin'a past con-' IBvtttb Carolina politics, "? ? " m |tion. ... A few disgruntled per- ^ sons may vote against Mr. Manning ^ and against President Wilson but there is no likelihood that Mr Blease ^ will lead a party mutiny." gg And the Greenville Piedmont, the n( editor of which is a very close friend j of Mr. McLaurin, said editorially in ^ his issue of November 8, 1916: fr "Just as The Piedmont predicted, the regular Democratic ticket in ja South Carolina was elected yester- n( day with practically no opposition, p( though some hot-headed friends of ai ex-Governor Blease did not listen to a? him and distributed tickets on which w his name appeared as a candidate ^ for governor instead of that of the ej regular nominee, Richard L Man- m ning. There was lots of talk of a w bolt, but it ended in talk. The Piedmont felt sure that it would so end, ao S?l because "no bolt in this State has w ever come from the class of peo- jn pie who furnish the bulk of the gy strength of the Bleaseite faction, and pj because the suggestion of a bolt re- ? fli ~celve3 no encouragement frouTefcf^ ther Blease or any of his lieutenants." that he is too honorable a gentleman ?j to betray any trust reposed in him. ge He served the old Eighth circuit as aj court stenographer for eight years, and has been made court stenographer of this circuit, a position of gF honor and trust, and I know that he would be willing to leave his reputation for square dealing in the jy hands of the members of the bar __1 1__ 1 nnJ among" wiiuni n? uw wumcu, quu with the supreme court and circuit f judges who have presided over the gf. many courts which he has reported. The statement that I encouraged n( Beard in putting out a ticket is as m black a lie as has ever been put in print. On the contrary, I warned ta Beard against any such step, and told him not to do it, and when he came to me complaining that he had spent money to have tickets printed and wanted me to help reimburse A him. I absolutely refused to have T< anything to do with it; and there isn't a man in the State of any hon- Sc or who will say that I ever men- Jc tioned the matter of an independent lis ticket to him, except to discourage se it. wi As to my "desertion" of Beard, I ev think it only necessary for me to ev say that I warned Beard frequently m: about articles that he was writing, of and told him that if he was not ag careful he was going to get into fa serious trouble. It ?9 unnecessary pi; foAme to gay what__*hia reply was, gi1 ing himself to run for governor, and in reply to one of these, signed bycertain members of the Anderson delegation, he takes occasion to ex coriate these gentlemen who had paid" him the highest compliment they could; cusses out Tillman and Blease and sets out to create a McLaurin faction in South Carolina. He (Continued on Page 5, Col. 2.) i I V? a s secretary; but on the contrarj Iter his election, he came into m fice with Mr. Aull and said h dn't see how he could run the bus ?ss unless I would let hiriS hav ull to help him. I remember th >nversation distinctly. And I sai * Mr. Aull, "John, I don't like t ve you up; my business is in sue lap'e now, winding up the affairs o ie office; but I don't want to de *ive you of a good position, bf luse I will have nothing to offe >u after I leave the governor's oi :e, and while I do so with much re * -C 4-ry o, nation which too often leads him to believe that those who are trying to t serve him have some double purpose. My recollection of the senator's position in the race is that he wrote Mr. Blease urging that the Blease candidacy would elect Cooper, and that Blease should get out of the race in favor of Manning; that he then played to the Manning regime until Manning threw him down in the State convention and Fred. Dominick and I, in that convention, came to the rescue of the State warehouse system. Then he came out actively and openly for Blease, and made speeches in his behalf. When Blease was defeated, he then drops Blease, He then has petitions circulated ask he destroyed, in order that Blease might be led into a trap through me. That is about all there is to the whole matter. Mr. Capers' statement to "my dear Mac," as to any overtures made by me is absolutely false. Mr. McLaurin's statement that I was "keeping Blease inform- * ed" as to anything going on in Mr. McLaurin's office is also absolutely untrue. As I say, in view of later developments, I have no doubt that | Senator McLaurin was endeavoring to use me as a tool; but he succeeded only in so far as securing from me the best work of which I was capable for him and the State warehouse system. As to any change in my attitude on account of McLaurin's frequent changes of position in the gubernatorial race of 1916, that is simply an evidence of the senaotr's imagi not mention the name of McLaurin nor of Capers, nor did I say anything about any correspondence between McLaurin and Capers, of which I learned only this morning. As the matter in controversy was the incident here in Columbia, with regard to which the newspaper conference had taken place in the office ' of Governor Manning's secretary,v participated in by the News and - _ ' Courier and State representatives.: and myself, and at which Governor ' Manning stated what he felt would ' be the injury resulting to South Carolina if the fisticuff should be published at that time?in which I agreed?I furnished a copy of the letter to the city editor of The State the Columbia representative of the News and Courier, and to Governor Manning. It was from one of these sources that Mr. Cooper must have secured the copy of the letter and "not from me. Had Mr. McLaurin requested a ' copy of the letter, I would have gladly furnished it to him, and he . would have saved Mr. Capers a search of his files and saved himself all that far-fetched rigmarole about letters to Mr. Ciapers, dictated to me* and the originals of whcih he says better for him to come to Columbia and make certain satemente face to face rather than' to be publishing' them from long range, and also warned him that "none of the newspaper men involved is subsidized by a candidate for governor, as you are, and none of them is supporting: a man, who, in the face of his pre-v vious record, went to Washington,! after the campaign of 1916, and offered to carry the State 'Republi- - can' if $1,000 for each county was put up by the Republican commit tee." '* . That's all I said, and it was in a letter to Cheshire, in which I did 1 : on authority which I did not question, my name was constantly being rung in, and I knew that the charge to be made, and which had been made, that I had played any double part, or had anything to do with any Washington conference, or any bolt from the party, was absolutely and unequivocally false, and I was getting tired of being drawn into the political mess which Senator McLaurin was stirring .in the pot which he always has handy, it seems, downin Marlboro. In order to put both Senator McLaurip and The Tirbune on notice, I wrote the editor of The Tribune, about the time I calculated Senator McLaurin was to start for Charlotte to give out his great political annunciation, and told Cheshire that I thought it would be \J b ailCCU iliVj KJ VVH M fcJ W - !ut along with all these other things was constantly receiving informaion of Senator McLaurin's asserions that while I was his secretary e had used me as a tool to get ther people into traps, and that he ras going to "show up" certain (lings, and tell how a certain politi - - .. ... I ewspaper correspondents of Colum ia to task for suppressing the news. would have paid no attention to his, except for the fact that I had een noticing that The Tribune was ublishing a good deal of inspired tuff, which I was convinced was ased upon financial considerations, had learned the inside of how its ditor had secured the socalled "enorsement" of Senator McLaurin for overnor by certain members of the inderson delegation. Even that did nffnnt ma Vtanaiiao T Hirln't rflTfi. JclStSllIg* Xig uao uv v mviiwtviiw .? ace to me, nor have I mentioned he campaign to him, either directly ?r indirectly. It seems to be necessary that I rive a brief recital of the reasons trhich actuated me in writing a leter to the editor of the Anderson Mbune in1 January of this year, rtiich seems to have aroused the re of Mr. McLaurin, and brought bout the confession asNto how he iras trying to use everybody conlected with him, for his own person1 political ambition. During the sesion of the general just passed-. tWp .waa_Sisticuff between a State official and , military officer, which was really nore amusing than serious. At the equest of Governor Manning, who irged it as a war measure of conern to the State at the particular ime, the newspapers did not pubish it, and I agreed not to mention t because I was appealed - to upon he proposition that it might interere with the securing of funds necssary to equip the home militia, /hich was an organization for the irotection of the homes of the State mring the absence of the National iuard at the front. Rightly or n-ongly I yielded to the appeal and aid nothing about it. Nobody had een seriously hurt, anyway. A loody nose comprised about the ntire casualty list. The Anderson Tribunee heard of he affair and undertook to take the AlkXt I'UIUClCUtc ao an imivsent onlooker, who did not even enow there was going to be a con'erence, and the records down here n the State house will show that it vas a very few days afterwards ;hat I ceased to draw a salary from he State warehouse system. And ny disapproval of that conference vas the cause of my resignation. I have never given Mr. Cooper iny political letter at the request of tlr. Blease or any one else; nor have ever furnished him with any letter it all in any of his' campaigns for fovernor. From the inception of this ampaign, I have seen him only once ir twice, when we have spoken in ~ XI/* lias nnt mantinnort Vila ;r Governor Blease, is a letter I ivrote the editor of the Anderson Tribune last January, and which, had Vlr. McLaurin seen, he would probibly have kept silent as to letters he wrote Mr. Capers, of which I knew ibsolutely nothing until the Columjia State reached my home this norning. I never even knew before that Senator McLaurin had ever suggested to anybody here that noney might be secured from Capjrs in Washington to finance a bolt ?rom the Democratic party. I never cnew before that Senator McLaurin lad taken me to Washington to get ne into another trap there. I do enow if that was his purpose that le failed, because after I heard that conference my resignation as secre;ary went to Sen. McLaurin the ^ery day the official auditors finished their check, and however much Mr. Capers may address Senator Mc Laurin as "My Dear Mac," there is ibsolutely no truth in any assertion jy anybody that I took any part in * 6 f entious service as I was capable of. p r If I was being used as a tool to lead r) Blease into a trzlp I knew nothing; jr t of it; and if I had had any such idea f r that Senator McLaurin would use jj h the State warehouse system for any w t such purpose I never would have ac- p, _ cepted a position under him, in the 0 3 first instance. e< s The letter which Mr. McLaurin ir e says somebody has told him has been is i seen in the possession of Mr. Coop- ai b er, and which he charges that I gave di Mr. Cooper at the reqiwit^.of Form- st e * it ^ ords checked up by official account- ^ ants, following some statement ^ which the governor had made in the ^ ^ public prints in regard to the management of the system. ^ Mr. Capers may save himself the q r trouble of searching any files in an v effort to find any letter a copy of g which I may have. t. :- Mr. McLaurin says that in order b d to win the support of the Blease e i, faction to his warehouse measure I, during the extra session of 1914 he ? e agreed to. make me his secretary. n it His letter in this morning's State is ^ ,t the first I had ever heard of that, j e Governor Blease called the extra ses ? y sion mainly for the purpose of get- b ting a warehouse measure through, p e how little tnat comerence met wnn n lt my approval is shown by the fact a that immediately upon my return y J^eveEed-JEy-jggT^ g nection with the State warehouse ^ y system on the very day that I was g given a balance sheet upon my n jj books by State Auditor Wideman p r W. Bradley and Mr. Walton, special v accountant, who were checking up c the system, by appointment of Gov- t I ernor Manning, upon request of j. Senator McLaurin, who had asked . e ii ^Avornnr fn Kvnp flip PTltlTP rGC ' his secretary as a tool to lead Blease ? into a trap. If that was his game g he failed, because none of Mr. Mc- c ^ Laurin's letter were ever mentioned c by me to Mr. Blease or anybody p else; and the Capers correspondence r need give him no further concern, t so far as I am affected, because I 0 can assure him that I have no copy of any of it, nor any recollection " of any of it. His letter in the Co- v l~ lumbia State this morning is the t n first I ever heard of it. q j_ I was present in the Evans build- v e ing, in Washington, at a conference ii he had with John G. Capers, in a . which I took absolutely no part; and v e - McLaurin think I was charging him 1' with this is more than I can under^ stand. He may have given me dic^ tation for letters to Capers, but I have no recollection of any letter to Capers of any special significance, and during my course with the 18 State warehouse system, as secre^ tary to Senator McLaurin. I never s' tiied to secure copies of any of his n letters and never mentioned to a 16 living soul any letter that he had tS ever written to anybody. ir ^ I am sorry that Mr. McLaurin felt j that he was using me while I was j )r In the first place, I desire to say id that Mr. McLaurin gives some facts which are absolutely news to me, ly and which I had never even dream;d ed of. He says that he "frequenter ly called John Aull to take dictat tion for letters on this subject ad3t dressed to Capers," referring to seis curing money for a bolt from the s, Democratic party, in order to lead Id Blease into a trap. Mr. McLaurin states that I wrote the letters and al retained carbon copies, but that as h- soon as I was out of sight he destroyed the originals. !y This is the first time I have ever s even heard of his writing any such 13 letters to Mr. /Capers. He seems to ie think that I have a copy of some ^ such letter that he wrote to John G. ie Capers in Washington. I know absolutely nothing of any such letter d or letters, and have never said or 13 written that I did, and I have no ^ letter purporting to be a copy of *" any such letter. What made Mr. his effusion which make charge ;ainst me, and t^iat you do me thi irness to give it as prominent i ace in your paper as you hav< yen Mr. McLaurin's address. , . : Z . * ' . - * \' .v The statement given out by Mi all follows: j the Editor of The State: The address to the people o >uth Carolina by former Senato ?hn L. McLaurin, which you pub ihed in your issue this morning ems to be inspired by a lette ritten by me last January, whicl idently Mr. McLaurin has not ye en seen, and I ask that you per it me to make reply to the portion ctance, l am wnuug xui pu w ? spt the position." And I turne lmediately to W. F. Blackburr ho was in the room, 'and saic ?rank, I will appoint you privat cretary, and I guess we can ge ong." Mr. Blackburn replied tha e could, because "John would b mdy if we needed him on an lecial matters." I regret to have taken this muc : your space; in fact, I though ist as good idea as any was not t ly any attention to. this man' ivings and hallucinations, but fo :ar my silence might be misundei ood, I would be glad if you woul ve this article the same promi :nce that you give the article thi orning, in which, as you put i1 McLaurin Flays Blease" and A1 cks R. A. Cooper." COLE L. BLEASE. Columbia, June 30, jr he is now serving a sentence f< le charge which was prefem jainst him. As to the matter of having ir ame and McLaurin's names place n the electoral ticket, I have nev< eard of that before, and as a ma >r of fact, Duncan Adams was n< le Republican State chairman, j perybody with any sense know ut Joe Tolbert of Ninety-Six he! len and holds now, that position. As to Mr. McLaurin's personi pinion of me, that is quite laugl ble, after his very devoted servic nd expenditure of time and mone ying to put me in the governor ffice for a third term. If I w? ich a very bad man as he says h new I was. whv should he attemi > foster me once again upon tli eople of the State? Of course everybody knows an is been knowing for many montl ist that I was not supporting an ould not support John L. McLai n for governor. That . is wh* akes him mad and what mkes hin i his desperation, attempt to dra e into his class of political deser rs. Referring to what he says aboi is warehouse commissionershi] irely the man must be out of hi ind or have taken something whic tused him to have hallucination: ame of my friends talked to me i (ference to running for warehoua >mmissioner after the position wa itablished, and I said that unde ) conditions or circumstances coul accept it. And Claud N. Sap] ten a member of the legislatur om Lancaster County, almost spo _ i- .j. xL neously, you mignt say, jusc ai in st moment, arose in his seat an )minated Mr. McLaurin for thi jsition. It came to him withou ly solicitation on his part, so fa i I am informed, and I think h as about as much surprised whe r. Sapp nominated him as any'ood se was, and I addressed a con unication to the legislature, i hich I said: "I congratulate you upon the pas ,ge of the acreage bill and th arehouse bill, and upon your elect g as manager of the warehous stem, the logical man for th ace?he who understands it bea id who, if it can be made a sue jss, surely is tKe one~to Kave~ Tfa edit." 1 y / Therefore, the public can readil :e that there was absolutely n >al with McLaurin to make Au As to the transactions between ge Mr. Aull and Mr. McLaurin on their ^ Washington trip, Mr. Aull reported * this matter to me immediately upon ^ his return, for the reason, as he stated, that he felt that it was due ^ me that I should know, and he told n( me then that he was going to resign ^ from the warehouse commission and cc have nothing further to do, with it, which he did. I saw Mr. Aull very . gi seldom while he was Mr. McLaurin's ^ secretary, and he has never yet said ^ one word to me. m reference to the pj personaJX^public transactions of cg ^p/jlcLaurin as warehouse commis- y( "sioner, except when he told me about the Washington trip and said he was ju going to get out immediately. And C? there isn't a man in South Carolina who knows John Aull but knows w h When it came to him be promptly is it signed it. Later Senator McLaurin | ^ o came to me and offered me the po- i s sition of his secretary. I told him e r I was inclined to accept it, but j - would have to consult Governor g d Blease, under whom I then held the ^ i- position of secretary to the govern- n s or. Next day Mr. McLaurin came j t, into Governor Blease's private office j and mentioned the matter to him, in tj my presence. I know from the con- ? versation that ensued that that was h the first time Mr. Blease ever knew 0 of it. I accepted the position, and v ' for two years, until I resigned fol- t] lowing the Washington trip, I gave c My IWnT.anrin no lnvnl and ponsci-1 _ peat a wora xnat ji nave evw ajpvnui ? encouraging any bolt on that occa- aI sion. This was so plain that even to you yourself wrote an editorial, in which you stated in your issue of si October 13, 1916: ta "Weeks ago The State expressed *c unqualifiedly the opinion that exGovernor Blease would not lead a ! bolt from the Democratic party in I the State in the approaching general p! election. The State adheres to that ^ opinion. ' " m | "The great mass of Bleaseites are honest men who would scorn the m suggestion of repudiating their oaths ej to support the nominees of the party, State and national . . . There will be no bolt in 1916 with the si aow/?Hnn nf t.he Bleaseite oreraniza pecially as a member of the senate ^ of the United States, is such that no tl honest-thinking man would give ere- al dence to any statement # which ht might make in reference to my at- n; temptnig to bolt the Democratic 01 party, in view of my service to the 111 party in the past, and in view of the further fact that every friend tl that I have within the State of ei South Carolina knows that I dis- *>' couraged any effort at a bolt in 1916 *1 and no man can show a line that I have ever written, or honestly re- ?] i iL.i. r i _ al lan had used me in an attempt to et money to bolt the Democratic arty, and how he was going to lise merry political cain generally, 1 all of which I was to be the goat, hen I heard that he was down in ennettsville laboriously preparing hat he considered was the greatest olitical annunciation in the history f South Carolina, which was former to retire Blease and Tillman ito oblivion, and that when he finhed it he was going to Charlotte nd give it to the press. That also id not affect me, but in all these ;atements that were coming to me