Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1911 — “JIMMY TURNER’S BOY.” [ARTICLE]

“JIMMY TURNER’S BOY.”

Before the American Bankers Association in New York the other evening, W. J. Burns, the Chicago detective, was describing how his operatives with the aid of a dictograph recently trapped the legislators in Columbus, when one of those present asked him what sort of an instrument this was. * “It’s an ingenious little invention of K. M. Turner, formerly of Indiana, now of New York, and can beat any crooked legislator in the country at their own game,” exnlained the famous detective, who rounded up the Los Angeles dynamiters and topped that feat off a few weeks later by weaving a web of trouble around five or six of the most respected lawmakers of the Buckeye state. “K. M. Turner,” exclaimed a silver haired old Indiana banker reminiscently. “Why that’s Jimmy Turner’s boy. Last time I saw 'him he was out ploughing the corn field on his father’s farm near Terre Haute. Jimmie Turner was a Baptist preacher who ministered to the sick and the poor and when called upon preached a funeral oration, married the young folks and baptised their babies, without charging a cent for his services. He was»everybody’s friend and everybody ’roundabouts was his friend. The boy—Monroe—they called him in those days used to help the old man split rails, milk the cows and work the farm like the rest of them. He was a husky, bright boy and ‘his father was mighty proud of him. When he grew up to be a man he went to railroading and got a job as superintendent of a line that carried colonists to it. Louis and Kansas City from Terije. Haute. Then he became an inventor but Jimmie Turner had passed away then and I missed sight of him.” “That’s hifn all right,” replied Burns. “And I guess some of the Ohio legislators who were caught through his little invention are wishing today that he was still on the farm, tending to the cows and splitting rails, for they’re apt to be splitting something else pretty soon. If Jimmie Turner was the sort of man you say he was, his boy came rightly by whatever talent he’s got. I wish Indiana could produce a few more of them for if I’m not wrong in my guess the country sorely needs them.” 1