Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1899 — ANOTHER "VINDICATION." [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER "VINDICATION."

The Infamy, Scandal and Disgrace to Bro. Marshall’s Character Is Officially Determined. Last April, after the vicious assault made upon John H. Jessen in the Rensselaer Republican for his having made an affidavit against John E. Alter at the earnest and repeated solicitation of the prosecuting attorney—which we know personally to be the case—Mr. Jessen asked of us and was granted space to reply over his own signature to the attack. Marshall was given some hard knocks, and he immediately jumped into court, behind the state —state cases cost the complainant nothing whether he wins or loses—and brought action for criminal libel against both the publisher of The Democrat and Mr. Jessen. The alleged libelous article, understand; was written and signed by Mr. Jessen, and the publisher of The Democrat had nothing whatever to do with it other than to give space to a citizen who had been bitterly attacked by a newspaper and had no way of replying, to give the same publicity, except through some newspaper of equal circulation. The cases were begun on affidavit and information in the April term of court, and that against The Democrat man was tried by jury Monday, James W. Douthit and Charles W. Hanley appearing for the defense and the State’s attorney and Frank Foltz —whom Marshall made oath he had personally employed to assist the prosecution—appeared for the plaintiff. The case occupied all of Monday. Two hours was given the attorneys for the closing argument Monday evening, the court gave his instructions to the jury Tuesday morning and after being out about three hours they brought in a verdict assessing a fine of $5 against the defendant but exempted him from all costs of the action. In the closing argument. Attorney Douthit made a brilliant argument lasting three quarters of an hour. Mr. Douthit gave a brief history of the criminal libel laws of Indiana and stated that only four cases had ever reached the supreme or appellate courts of the state; that men like Mr. Marshall were very scarce in Indiana, hence libel suits were rare. He was immediately followed by C. W. Hanley in a neat fifteen minute speech in which he quoted from “Newel on Slandßr and Libel,” that “a man who commences a newspaper war cannot come to the courts as plaintiff to complain that he has had the worst of the fray.” He said that Marshall had got the hot end of the poker and had squealed when the iron burned; that he did not like to see a man of his political faith do this, and urged the jury to take a common-sense view of the case. Mr. Foltz closed for the state in an impassioned speech of about 30 minutes, in vhich he was twice cautioned by the court to “stick to the text.” The prosecuting witness had deserted his counsel and was not in the court room to hear the closing debate. The evidence of the defence so far as deemed admissible by the court and placed before the jury, proved the truth of those particular charges made in Mr. Jessen’s article, but the evidence upon which it expected to establish the truth of the charge or statement on which the prosecution laid the most stress was not deemed admissible by the court. However, we can herein present the facts which were expected to be placed before the jury, that the public may judge for itself: In June, 1898, the Rensselaer Republican published what purported to be “a full official statement of the oost of the new court house.” In that statement, referring to the court house yard and coping contract, the following words were used: “ThefUliner, copin? and walks cost SB,BOO, contract price, to which about SSO will be, added for extra cement.”* ~ , It will be remembered that quite a little campaign thunder was attempted to be made out of the “compelling” the sub-contractors to tear up a part of the walks and coping on grounds that the ce-

ment was of poor quality. The Democrat, investigated the records of allowances made on this contract to see if anything extra had been paid, with the following result: Com’rs’ Record 10, page 551 $1,905 25 “ “ 11, page 4 1,200 25 “ “ 11, page 18 850 25 “ “ 11, page 93 800 25 “ “ 11, page 133 2,500 25 “ “ 11, page 141 1,700 25 Total $8,956 50 [We give record number and page where these allowances may be found, so that any taxpayer may go to the records and satisfy himself as to the reliability of these figures.] Then, taking the figures as they appeared in the Republican’s “official statement” as to contract price—thinking we could trust the M statement” that far —we stated that the records showed that over $650 more than the contract price had been paid for this work, and gave the allowances made. We commented on this considerably, stating that the last allowance made, (Sept. 7,1898) was for “sl,700,25, balance on court house yard contract,” which made a total of $8,956.50 on an $8,300 contract, and the records, so far as we could discover, showed no contract for the payment of any extras. Thus, here was an “irregularity” by which over $650 had been paid for which no apparant value received was rendered. Under date of Nov. 4, 1898, — two months after every dollar had been paid as above noted—the editor of the Republican denied the allegations made by The Democrat in the following vigorous language: the Court house yard slander. The Democrat, which has understated the amount of the original contract for the court house yard improvement, in order to have an opportunity to claim excess payment, has repeatedly stated that the contractors were paid for tearing up the coping and rebuilding the defective cement walk. There is not a word of truth in the statement, as they have not received a dollar for any of the work which had to be done over again and If any of the contractors were put on oath they would say the same thing. There was $250 paid extra on the coping, but this was allowed before the necessity of having the coping relaid was discovered. The necessity of paying this $250 extra occurred through a mistake which 09 men out of 100 would not have noticed. In the original contract for improving the yard, the word “curbing" was used in describing the stone to go around the yard, where the word should have been coping. Now curbing is stone dressed only on one side, and flat on the top, and used alongside of street gutters; while coping must be dressed on three sides and have its two top angles beveled off. The sub-con-tractors insisting on holding to the letter of the contract, and to make the change from curbing to coping stone, they were paid $250, which was not excessive. Aside from this Hiram Day has been allowed between SSO and S6O for extra cement used in the foundations. The original contract called for one-third cement and one-third lime, in the mortar, and the commissioners changed to all lime, and paid the actual cost of the additional cement used. Aside frcm these two items no one HAS BEEN OR WILL b'e PAID ANYTHING FOR EXTRAS ON THE YARD AND COPING CONTRACTS.” The capitals are ours. This was a very positive statement, made in defense of an “irregularity” in which several hundred dollars had been drawn from the county treasury, as shown by the records, and for which the records gave no satisfactory explanation.

When this libel suit was begun the records were again carefully gone over in the above matter and going away back to where the original contract was let (Oct. 5, 1897, Record 10, page 535) to Heinzman Bros, for $8,455—n0t $8,300, as given in Mr. Marshall’s “official statement” —and tracing it dotfn to the time the last dollar was paid, we found nothing to show where any extras came in. Yet, allowing the $250 for changing that word “curbing” to “coping”—a very expensive word, that —although we found nothing of record to substantiate this statement, $245.75 still remained to be accounted for in this deal, to say nothing of the S2OO or more paid to other parties for extra cement. All this evidence and much more of the same nature, evidence of record that could not be disputed, was in the court room but it was held inadmissible by the court, hence the defence had but little to offer, not even being allowed to show that the prosecuting witness had begun another action for criminal libel against the defendant and then ran away from it, for tbe purpose of showing his malice. The jury was composed of 3

democrats and 9 republicans, and | on the question of guilt or inno~ cense, that is technical guilt in giving space to the article, is understood to have stood. 6to 6. '