Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 May 1910 — THE COURT HOUSE [ARTICLE]

THE COURT HOUSE

items Picked Up About the County Capitol. Several from Rensselaer went to Remington yesterday to attend the funeral of John C. Allman, a brother of County Treasurer Allman, who died at his home in Logansport Saturday evening after an extended illness. jMarriage licenses issued : May 14, Robert E. Smith of Rensselaer, son of James Henry Smith of Boswell, aged ,22, occupation farmer, td Flossie Ellen Hines, daughter of David Hines of Rensselaer, aged 18, occupation housekeeper. First marriage for each. Mr. and Mrs. E. G. Sternberg, who have been living in Rensselaer for the past few years during which the .Sternbergs were working on the Iroquois and other ditch contracts in this vicinity, expect to leave shortly for Iqwa, where the Sternbergs have a big ditch contract. The big dredge used on the Hoagland ditch in White county is being shipped to lowa to be used on their ditch contract there. Attorney Foltz of Rensselaer has been engaged to assist County Attorney Higgins of Newton county in the latter’s suit against ex-treasurer Charles W. Spinney, whom experts employed by the county found to be short nearly $5,000 in his accounts. Mr. Spinney later employed experts to go over the books in his behalf and they reported, it is said, that instead of Spinney owing the county the county owed him. The coujjs will decide which set of experts is right. —o— The thirty per cent Rensselaer Republican of last week in a two column article proceeds to try the bridge cases, in that county, and incidentally, to claim that Prosecutor Longwell misrepresented some of the facts in the cases. Longwell says he misrepresented nothing and has" the goods to show for what he said. This sheet also tries the commissioners and gi*es them a, clean bill before they are called to bdok for carelessness or something else, call it what you may. In view of the fact that the grand jury brought six more indictments probably for more bridge graft, and that Prosecutor Longwell filed wan ants against some others, this'thirty per cent et al newspaper gives the whole bunch a clean bill of health. It is more than evident to everyone that things around the court house in Jasper have been rotten in past years, and also that every -effort will be made to thwart Longwell in his prosecution of the grafter or grafters, and the natural question is, “what is being done?” Are others interested in the deal ? The intelligent people of Jasper will draw their owiF conclusions, despite that thirty cents and his sheet are defending the graft.— Brook Reporter. The Democrat was in error in stating in a recent issue that Robert Parker, the ex-Reming-ton banker, was paroled by the state board of parole. Governor Marshall, in reply to a letter from editor McCullough of the Remington Press, explains that each of our penal' institutions has a parole board of its own and each of these boards sits ouce a month to consider cases where, the minimum sentence has expired, and the Governor knows nothing of the actions of these boards, they having full power to act under the law, and are separate and distinct from the Board of which latter can take up a case at any stage, and recommend a pardon, on which the' Governor acts, he having in these cases the power to grant or reject the recorrimendatjons of the Pardon Board. This ■ feature is not -generally known and many people have ignorantly blamed Governor Marshall for paroling Mn Parker, when as a matter of fact neither the governor or the Par-

don Board knew anything about it. The letter. to Mr. McCullough is written by the governor’s secretary, and among other things he says: “On March 9th, Governor Marshall received a telegram from certain citizens in Remington asking him not to pass on the Robert Parker case until papers from Remington reached him. A day or so later, a protest against granting clemency to Parker and signed by numerouscitizens was received. I looked up the records in this office and failed to find any record of clemency for Parker being asked; so, I took the papers to the State Board of Pardons, which meets in the Capitol Building, and asked the Clerk if she had received any application for clemency. Her records failed to reveal any and I had her make note of the fact thatra protest had been filed. It occurred to me that the protest had probably reached us before the application proper, as is often the case, resulting from a petition being circulated and opponents getting busy without delay. This was the last we heard of the case until the receipt of your letter, so our only conclusion tsthat the Board of Parole of the Indiana State Prison operating under the Indeterminate Sentence Law, has given Mr. Parker his freedom.”