Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 July 1903 — PRISON FOR A PLANTER. [ARTICLE]

PRISON FOR A PLANTER.

Alabaman Pleads Guilty to Holding Negroes la Peonage. J. W. Pace of Tallapoosa, Ala., a wealthy planter, was found guilty in the federal court of holding negroes in Involuntary servitude and given five yeans in prison. He pleaded guilty to each of eleven indictments, but owing to the advanced age of the convicted man he waa sentenced to serve punishment concurrently, making his imprisonment a single five-year term. The case was appealed to test and defendant released on bail of $5,000. Pace was charged with holding in •peonage ten negroes. The negroes were treated cruelly on Pace’s farm, many being brutally whipped. It is said that Owens Green, a negro, was whipped so severely that many bones in his body were broken and that his power of speech was interfered with. When Pace made his statement to the judge he acknowledged that he was guilty. He said: “I plead guilty to the q£senses and would like your honor to be merciful.” The judge then asked him if he had anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon him and he replied in the negative. At' Macon, Ga., in the United States Court, Judge Speer imposed a fine of sl,000 each on three young men, William Shy, Arthur Clawson and Robert Turner, for holding a negro In involuntary servitude. He suspended the fine under conditions, and so doing the court aaid: “In view of the fact that it is the first crime of the kind which ever has occurred in Georgia, and because of the frank confession of the young men, sentence is imposed in order to convince the public that the purpose of the court la to warn and deter others from like crime. During good behavior fine is suspended upon payment of SIOO each.” The offense was that the young men, who are farmers, caught a negro who was in debt to them, gave him a whipping and made him go to work for them. Judge Speer said that the problem of the times _could not be solved by harYh measurer and wanted it distinctly understood that the laws of Georgia were against such treatment.