Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1912 — SAYS REPORT IS NOT TRUE. [ARTICLE]

SAYS REPORT IS NOT TRUE.

Bader Was Not Released Before “Investigation” Was Made, Says Mr. Darling. Regarding the release of C. L. Bader, the convicted Winamac bridge grafter, before Messrs. Darling and Daily, members of the parole board appointed by Governor Marshall to p“4nvest3gate” before granting the application for a „parole, wherein The Democrat Bader had . been paroled before the members of the parole board had visited Rensselaer, The Dmocrat is in receipt of a letter from Mr. Darling which we publish in full, together with our reply to same. We wish also to add that an Indianapolis paper of last Friday, in mentioning the fact that a parolet had been granted, said:* “Daily and Darling, who were in Winamac, telephoned the governor that if Bader was to see his wife before she died he should be releaesd at once.” The natural inference from this was that they had telephoned from Winamac before coming to Rensselaer. A dispatch from Winamac also bore out this inference, and a Winamac paper of date of Friday, /August 2, stated that Bader was released from prison Thursday, the day Darling and Dally were in Rensselaer. Mr. Darling’s letter and our reply thereto follows: Laporte, Ind., Aug. 7, 1912. Dear Friend Babcock—l am sure' you will be glad to give space to the enclosed. I do not want toj be placed in a false position and I am sure you have no desire to so place me;; V, Fraternally DARLING. Editor Democrat:—l am sure that as a brother newspaper man you have no Intention or deeire to place me in a false position in

my official relationship in the case of Clinon L. Bader. You state in your issue of August 7th that “Bader was paroled the same: day that Barling and Daily, members of the parole board, were in Rensselaer in the late afternoon investigating the case, and left prison the same afernoon." This is a false and wholly unjustifiable accusation. (The report recommending Mr. Bader’s temporary parole was submitted to Governor Marshall the following day and on that report Mr. Rader was granted permission “to leave the prison and go to the bedside of his wife in Chicago. This report* for recommendation, followed the investigation which we made at Winamac and Rensselaer and which convinced us that public conscience would not be outraged in Bader’s parole. Human instincts should be an impelling influence, even though the individual dealt with he a convict. I am sure that you were misinformed as to the action which you attribute to Mr. Daily and myself. Believing that your sense of justice will dictate the publication of this statement, I beg to remain, with the very kindest of personal wishes, Yours very truly,

HARRY B. DARLING.

Rensselaer, Ind , Aug, 8, 1912. Mr. Harry B. Darling, Laporte, Ind, Dear Sir:-—ln reply to your favor of the 7th Inst, we want to submit a clipping from the Winamac Democrat of Friday, August 2, as follows: 1 “Word came at ten o’clock this morning that Mr. C. L. Bader has been temporarily paroled and that he left Michigan City last night for Chicago, where his wife, who is in a hospital, is lying dangerously ill.” The above was printed Friday, Aug. 2; you were, here in the late afternopn of £ug. 1. A dispatch from Winamac dated Aug. l, also states that you and Mr. Dally telephoned the governor from Winamac to release Bader. In view of this, Mr. Darling, we fail to see wherein the paragraph you complain of was in error. Either the dispatches from Winamac and the item from the Winamac paper are “false and wholly unjustifiable” or you are mistaken about your report to the Governor being made the following day (Friday) and “on that report Mr. Bader was granted permission to leave the prison,’ etc., and The Democrat was perfectly justified in assuming—which it did from the start—-that the investigation was a mere farce and the money Bpenufor same could Just as well have been saved to the taxpayers. As an appointee of Gov. Marshall you of course are expected to carry out the wishes of that individual or Incur his displeasure, and we are in no sense surprised ‘ that you should do so. In fact we would have been surprised had you done otherwise. The governor hag shown a annoyance from the start that a democrat grafter should be caught with the goods on him, as was the case in this instance, and the Influence of democratic friends 'and republicans, who perhaps were also shaking In their boots, caused him to use the most desperate means to keep Bader out of prison. The wishes of the people here were not considered; the court and prosecutor were snubbed and the verdict of the jury of twelve as good men as we have in the county was set aside at tb** behest of a man who la Jong in his denunciation of his public speeches—and does everyin his power as a public officer to prevent punishment of the grafter when he gets caught red-handed. Both you and Mr. Daily admitted to _ the writer that there was no question but what the convicted man was guilty, but sympathy made it almost Imperative that he be released; that there seemed to be a feeling that Bader was not alone in his stealings here, and that it would be wrong to let the others go free and make him sufTer punishment. Mr. Bader was the whole thing so i far as management, sales and collections of the Winamac Bridge Co. was concerned, and so testified. He was the only person or member of tbat company that came to Rensselaer and bid on work toere, and who superintended the erection of bridges and filed the claims In payment therefor.' If you were running down a gang of horsethleveg and rounded up the ringleader, would you . turn him loose because you did not at the same time canturc* all his accomplices? Mr. Bader tv?s the only person on trial; if he had accomplices they had not been caught, and were not on trial. r Had Mr. Bader been the same treatment as oher convicted men of his class and served the minimum term for which he was sentenced, I have no hesitancy in saying that I think there would have been no objections here, where his crime was committed, against his release. Why all these special privileges and efforts to thwart justice have been made, the people may judge for themselves. If justice myst be set aside because of our sympathies for one’s family, we would no doubt, see more than half the inmates of our prisons set free. But, in looking at these matters as they are, we must admit that the poor devil who has no pull, regardless of how flue a family he may have or the

condition they may be in, must take his medicine and serve his time. In fact, no sympathy is demonstrated for his family. The evidence in the Bader case and in the investigation made by Pro*. Smith, head of the mechanical engineering department of Purdue, who was employed by our JfeToseeuting attorney to make an investigation of the bridges erected by Bader in Jasper county, was that the taxpayers here had been directly swindled out of about $2,200 because of the scaling down of bridges, which by reason of this were unsafe to carry the traffic for which they were intended; all of whiph goes to show conclusively that there was a sysetmatic aird premeditated steal in every one of the eon-; tracts and that the thought of whati might happen should some of these structures go down was too trivial a matter to be considered at all. Xo Sympathy for the families of the possible victims of this thievery and criminal negligency entered into the matter at all. The only thing considered was the getting of the contracts and then making as much profit out of them as possible by scaling down the specifications. I am giving space to jrour reply to the statement made in The Democrat of August 7, and our reply thereto as set out above. If you have anything further regarding the truth of falsity of the statements on which we based our belief that the investigation was prejudged and that Bader was released before the investigation was made, we shall be pleased to give it space. Fraternally, F. E. BABCOCK. P. S.—lt must indeed be gratifying to the humane instincts of both yourself, Mr. Daily and Governor Marshall to read in the papers that the wife, who had but a few hours to live from a second stroke of paralysis, when you were here, begun to recover immediately on the release of her husband, and is now greatly improved.