Sunday, 21st September 1913: Sheriff Mangum Will Run For Re-election, The Atlanta Journal

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The Atlanta Journal,

Sunday, 21st September 1913,

PAGE 5, COLUMN 7.

Announces as Candidate and

Replies to Criticism of His

Treatment of Frank

Rumors to the effect that owing to advancing years Sheriff C.

Wheeler Mangum, would not again be a candidate for public

office, are set at rest today be his formal announcement of his

candidacy before the coming county primary.

Although the primary will not be held until next year two

candidates are already in the field against Sheriff Mangum, and

two others are said to be considering entering the race. In fact,

the race is already running full blast.

Owing to a recent illness, from which happily he has now

completely recovered, it was for a time rumored that Sheriff

Mangum would retire from active life, and that one of his present

deputies would head the ticket at the coming election.

Sheriff Mangum has now formally announced his candidacy,

however, in a lengthy statement in which he replies to certain

criticism in regard to his treatment of Leo M. Frank.

Sheriff Mangum's ticket, it is claimed, will receive practically

the unanimous support of the members of the Atlanta bar

because of the remarkably efficient administration of the affairs of

the office of Chief Deputy John Owen, and the other members of

his staff, who are going into a campaign with him again.

Sheriff Mangum's ticket, it is claimed, will receive practically

the unanimous support of the members of the Atlanta bar

because of the remarkably efficient administration of the affairs of

the office of Chief Deputy John Owen, and the other members of

his staff, who are going into a campaign with him again.

Sheriff Mangum, who has long been known as one of the

most popular men in the county declares, that he is confident that

his friends will again stand by him and that the coming election

will result in a victory.

PAGE 6, COLUMN 4

Sheriff C. W.

Mangum

Makes

Announcement

To the Citizens of Fulton County:

Now that the wave of excitement and heat of passion

incident to the Leo Frank trial has in a measure subsided I deem it

advisable to address a few words to the voters and the people of

the county relative to the many baseless, unfounded, and unfair

rumors which have been circulated about my treatment of the

county's prisoner, Leo M. Frank.

These rumors, many of which are too unreasonable to be

dignified with a reply or denial, have largely originated with my

personal and political enemies, solely for political purposes, but

they have been given such wide and such ingenious circulation

that I consider this statement necessary, not as a justification of

anything which I have done, but in order that those who have

listened to these rumors may understand the true facts in the

case; in order that the good citizens of the county will not be

misled by false statements originating with a few men who, for

gain or spite, are willing to attack a man for the simple

performance of his duty.

It has been said that I announced that I believe Frank

innocent of the charge against him. This I emphatically deny. I

have never made a statement of my personal belief in the case,

but have only quoted the prisoner, when I was requested to do so,

as saying himself that he was innocent.

C. W. MANGUM,

Sheriff Fulton

County:

During the trial I was criticized because I failed to handcuff

Frank when he was carried from the jail to the court house during

his trial. My enemies say that in doing this I violated the law. In

this they willfully misrepresent or show themselves densely

ignorant. The law requires the sheriff simply to safeguard his

prisoners, and this I have done.

Relative to my failure to handcuff Frank I say that it has

never been the custom of myself or my deputies in our five years'

service to the county, to handcuff a prisoner unless it was

absolutely necessary, and I take occasion to say that of more than

twenty who have been charged with murder during my

administration, only three"George Burge, George Quarles, and

Robert Clay"have worn steel cuffs, and these men were known

as desperate characters. Bain, Darden, Garner, Reeves, Copeland,

Vane, Matthews, McDonald, Parham, Camp, Folds and many

others charged with murder, have been allowed to walk to their

trials with un-manacled hands. Even negroes, when there is only

one or two to be moved at a time, are not handcuffed unless

there is some reason to believe that they will attempt to escape

or to do violence to the guard.

In other words, whenever it is possible, without running any

risk of allowing a prisoner to escape, we spare him the shame of

appearing on the streets with manacled hands, be he white or

black, Jew or Gentile. Of course, when a large number, often from

twenty to forty, prisoners are being brought to court by two or

three deputies, we find it necessary to manacle them in order to

prevent their escape, but never when there is only one prisoner

unless he is not only desperate but of such powerful build that in

single combat, he might overcome even an armed deputy. Frank

is a man of slight stature, a physical weakling.

I have also been criticized because I carried Leo Frank to and

from jail in an automobile, when other prisoners have walked

from the court of justice to the place of their incarceration. The

reason for the use of the automobile is simple and obvious. There

were many threats against the life of the prisoner and the

sheriff's office had received many anonymous communications

from people, who threaten to lynch Frank. Always there were

crowds gathered about the court house to see the prisoner, and

had I walked him to the jail he could have been surrounded by

people, some of whom might have attempted to do him harm; or

in the surrounding crowds there might have been friends, who

would have sought to liberate him.

Necessarily, I had to use an automobile to protect the

prisoner and to guard him effectively, otherwise everyone of my

deputies would have had to assist in guarding him, and they were

need elsewhere. This machine belongs personally to one of my

deputies and did not cost the county one cent.

My enemies have foolishly declared that I attend the Frank

trial very day because of a personal interest in the fortunes of the

prisoner, and that I had never before attended constantly on a

criminal trial.

Not only had threats of violence against the prisoner then

freely made, but there were many wild rumors that the Hillsboro

affair would be repeated in the Frank case, and that the judge and

other court officials were in constant danger.

While I did not credit these rumors I realized that never

before had there been such intense feeling, both for and against a

prisoner on trial in this county.

For that reason and that reason alone I attended constantly

on the trial. Had violence been attempted I would never have

forgiven myself, and the public would never have forgiven me, for

allowing my deputies to stand without a leader against a mob,

while I, the sheriff of this county, sat safe in my private office,

unable to reach the scene of action, and the scene of my duty

until it was too late to be of any actual assistance to my men. I

was there because it was my duty to be there and for no other

reason.

I have been criticized by many because they could not get

seats in the court room and the charge that I showed partiality in

this matter has been made. I deny the charge flatly and firmly. I

was sorry that every man in the county, who had any desire to

hear the trial could not do so, but space was very limited. That

the court room was not large is not my fault as I have no control

over it. I was instructed by the judge, and it is my sworn duty to

obey his orders to close the doors, when the seats in the room

had been filled, and this I did.

Doubtless some parties were allowed to pass in and out of

the room after the doors had been closed to the general public,

but I deny the charge that they were all friends of Frank. They

were attorneys, court officers, city detectives, policemen in plain

clothes and in practically all instances their presence in the court

room was necessary, and they had a right to demand and receive

admittance.

That the court was filled with men of the same race as the

defendant, I also deny. At practically every session there were ten

Gentiles to every Jew in the room.

It has been said that Frank has been allowed privileges at

the jail accorded no other prisoner. THIS IS A LIE AS PITIFUL AS IT

IS BASE. HE HAS BEEN ALLOWED THE SAME PRIVILEGES, NO

MORE OR LESS, ACCORDED EVERY OTHER PRISONER,

REGARDLESS OF HIS COLOR, RACE OR CREED.

Like the officials of the federal penitentiary of Atlanta, and

like all sincere students of criminology, I believe that as few

hardships as possible should be placed upon the man whom the

law has restrained of his liberty, and that prisoners should not be

made to suffer unnecessary indignities.

But I also believe that every prisoner should be accorded the

same treatment and discipline, and I can truthfully say that all

prisoners in the Fulton county jail, since it has been in my charge,

have been made to conform to the same rules and regulations.

Frank has had his meals sent to him from his home. I try to

make the fare of the prisoners wholesome and substantial, but it

is a rule that any prisoner whose friends or relatives desire to

furnish regular meals or special delicacies can receive them, and

this rule applies to negroes as well as white men.

If the friends of a prisoner, regardless of whom he is, care to

furnish him with books and magazines, he may have them . If a

prisoner is to be held for some length of time, and has the money

to purchase some bit of furniture, which cannot be used as a

weapon, to make his cell more comfortable, he can have it. This is

a general rule, applicable to every prisoner alike. In the Fulton

county jail there are not special rules made for one man or set of

men. I try to do everything in my power, consistent with the same

keeping of the men, to make their stay at the Tower at least

comfortable.

It has been charged that I have shown Frank partiality by

allowing his friends and relatives to visit him. In his connection I

wish to say that in this, like everything else, he has been made to

conform to the rules of the jail, and his friends and relatives have

been allowed to visit here just as the friends and relatives of

every other prisoner have been allowed to visit the Tower. If a

prisoner does not desire to receive visitors I comply with his

wishes in the matter.

I have been condemned by some because I refused to allow

city detectives to question Frank over his protest. I want to say

here and now with all emphasis at my command that I have

NEVER KNOWINGLY ALLOWED A PRISONER IN THE TWOER TO BE

PUT THROUGH THE THIRD DEGREE BY ANYBODY, AND I NEVER

WILL SO LONG AS I HOLD OFFICE. I thus throw down the gauntlet;

let him take it up who will"be he chief, captain or private. That

my position in this matter is right is shown by the fact that only

recently the court of appeals of this state has handed down a

decision condemning the Third Degree and declaring evidence

secured by means of it is valueless in a court room.

In connection with my administration of the jail, those who

are familiar with conditions have declared the work of myself and

deputies as remarkably efficient. This is largely due to the fact

that all of the deputies on duty there work on ly eight horus per

day instead of twelve hoursa s under former administrations.

While this requires more men, and curtails the amount of money

which I personally derive from the office, the result has made me

glad that I have adopted this policy, and I have the knowledge

that more working men, laboring conscientiously eight hours a

day, are sharing in the revenue of this office now than ever

before.

The rumors about the sheriff which were current during the

Frank trial are too numerous to mention in full. I did not try to

deny them then, when passion and prejudice was at its height,

but now in order that no part of the public may eb misled by false

rumors, I make this statement and clearly and emphatically state

he has not received more privileges than other prisoners, but in

some cases not as many.

My record is clean and clear. I have tried to do my full duty

at all times, and nothing but my duty.

If the good people of Fulton county think that I am wrong in

treating all prisoners decently and humanely or in refusing to

allow them to be subjected to the third degree or other

indignities, I am willing to stand by their verdict, and accept

without rancor defeat at the coming primaries. However, I may

add that I am fully confident of re-election to the high office I now

hold, the duties of which I have done my utmost to discharge

without fear, favor or affection.

In the past I have been supported by an earnest and

conscientious corps of deputies, and if there are any changes

made in their personnel the public may rest assured that it will be

done for the public good and not for political effect.

As above indicated, I am a candidate for re-election as

sheriff of Fulton county, looking backward to a clean and

honorable record, going forward with full confidence that the good

people of Fulton county are not yet ready to rebuke and cashier a

man for doing his sworn and bonded duty. With thankfulness in

my heart for past support, and with a consciousness of duty done,

I earnestly solicit your support and influence in the next primary.

Very Respectfully Yours,

C. W. MANGUM.

Sept. 20, 1913. (Advt.)

PAGE 29, COLUMN 1

Paul Donehoo

Atlanta's Blind

Coroner

BY WARD S. GREENE

A CHILD of three lay in his white cot and cried because he

was afraid of the dark. A moment before and the little room had

been yellow with lamp light; now the dread unknown lurked in the

black shadow that penned him close. They had taken the light

away.

Two years later a child of five fell ill. On the third day, as he

lay listless on the hot pillow, the light went out again, never to

return. They told him he was struck stone blind.

Blindness is ever a tragedy, but it is a pitiful and

incomprehensible thing for fate to seer the blue eyes of a little

child. Only the week before his whole world was the world of the

blue sky and the green trees; now he was muffled in the dark he

knew would never go.

When Dick Heldar, Kipling's great hero, felt the light go out,

he said, Let's curse God and die. Though the child of five did not

speak them, his thoughts must have been much like those of Dick

Heldar's, yet once the first horror of the blackness passed, once

he had peeled himself to face the sightless future, in the pitch

night that covered him, he found the bright star of hope.

Today that star of hope has brightened until the man who

was the child of five, sees it luminous before him, blazing a path

through the future, rimmed only by a seat to the United States

senate.

Congress! That is the goal of ambition for Paul Donehoo,

stone blind since meningitis griped him twenty-three years ago

and plunged him into the dark. The coronership of the city of

Atlanta he feels is but a stepping stone in the making of a

statesman.

BATTLE OF THE BLIND.

How the child of five battled with blindness until he

conquered it in so far as to make him a man among men, is a

story the whole of which Paul Donehoo himself and he alone can

ever know. And the last chapter perhaps is yet to be written.

It was a day in May, 1890, when Paul Donehoo felt the light

go out. A few weeks later he was a student in the Academy for

the Blind at Macon, where men, women and little children are

given new eyes in their finger tips and sixth sense for the one

that's vanished. Many years later he was to serve on the board of

inspectors of that same institution, appointed to the office by

Governor Joseph M. Brown.

For eight years Paul Donehoo went to school. There he first

began the training of the memory which has since become his

greatest and most marvelous asset, and there, too, there came to

him the first of his plans for the future, music as a profession.

Later the young graduate of the blind academy entered

Mercer university, where for three years more he took a special

course which still further stiffened the bulwarks of the brain which

now so seldom tricks his memory.

He left Mercer feeling that in music he had found his life

work. The germ of it had always been to him, the blindness had

served merely to intensify it. Even as early as three years of age,

he had taken a prize in Sunday school for singing and today he

can listen to the sound of a far-off bell, go to the piano, and sound

the bell note on the keyboard.

So, he came back to Atlanta, the city of his birth, here

further to perfect himself in the calling he had chosen. The years

of study were followed by years of teaching. The years of study

were followed by years of teaching. The young blind man who

played the piano with such skill, soon became a prominent figure

in Atlanta musical circles, and before long Paul Donehoo had

more pupils than he could teach.

WHERE MEMORY FAILED.

Music teaching for the blind is a task to try the metal of a

Hercules. Before Paul Donehoo could teach a single piece to a

single pupil, he himself must have that piece note by note at his

fingers' end. Then indeed did that sturdy memory stand him in

good stead. But even it, gigantic though its powers were, was not

enough.

Every new pupil meant a new piece. And new pieces spelt

ever longer and wearier hours of grueling memory work. He found

his train seething with a myriad of notes and phrases. He was

vanquished.

Besieged though he was with the stress of his occupations,

the mind of Paul Donehoo, music teacher, yet found time to

harbor dreams of another and far different sphere of activity. At

the very time the demands of his profession were the greatest he

discovered that he had been stung by the bee of politics. Like his

father before him, he determined to cast his lot with those most

interested in municipal Atlanta. He decided to run for coroner.

No sooner had this idea flashed itself upon him than he

acted upon it. Giving up entirely his career as a music teacher,

the young man announced his candidacy. Hardly before setting

foot on the course, he was victor in the race, and Fulton county

for the first time in its history had a blind coroner.

Not only unique in the annals of Fulton county, it is believed

to be unprecedented in any other county in the United States.

Over in South Carolina today there is a blind coroner, but this man

came into his office only after he had heard of Paul Donehoo and

his success, had written here to find if it was really true that one

could be blind and a coroner as well, and learning that it was

indeed possible had determined to try his chances, and had been

successful. It was Paul Donehoo who taught his fellow prisoners of

the dark a new lesson in cusses.

CAREER AS CORONER.

Some there are who doubt the wisdom of having a blind

coroner. Yet even these cannot but admire Paul Donehoo's

handicapped career in that capacity. The law allows a coroner to

receive pay for not over 150 inquests a year. In not one county in

the state are this many recorded during any twelve months save

in one county, Fulton. The first year of Coroner Donehoo's service

he had an even 150 inquests, and every year since then the

number has passed this mark.

One hundred and fifty inquests will more than prove the

word of a man possessed of every sense and faculty. For one

without eyes, they are doubly tedious and exacting. Yet, Paul

Donehoo has buckled to his task with zeal and has even

surpassed many of his predecessors in the office in his

painstaking efforts.

For one thing, he has made an innovation in the taking of

evidence. Other coroners have depended on subordinates to take

down the evidence in cases. Not so coroner Donehoo. He is his

own stenographer.

Even men who have served on his juries, time and again

watch him with admiration and even envy at each new inquest.

The witness tells his story, a long and rambling one, perhaps. At

its conclusion the proceedings stop for a bit while Coroner

Donehoo addresses himself to his typewriter, snaps a sheet of

long paper through the holder, and wades into the keys with

nimble fingers. The spectators eye him in appreciative silence as

he hums through line after line, gives a last slash and rip at the

spacer, and zips up the sheet of paper. On it is as clear and

correct a transcript of the witness' testimony as an expert

stenographer, taking shorthand notes at every stage of the story,

could have spliced together. The memory has served him well

again.

It was but a short nine months after he had been elected

coroner the first time"he is now serving his third term"that Paul

Donehoo decided he could take a little time for other things.

Some say that switching from music to law is like bridging the gulf

between heaven and the other place; yet that is exactly what Paul

Donehoo did.

HARDEST TASK OF ALL.

He entered the Atlanta Law school. Now indeed had that

Herculean memory grappled with its twelfth labor. Music was

child's play for his mind compared to the task of mastering the

intricacies, word for word, of the law. References which other men

in his class could look up again and again he was forced to hear

once and file away in the index system beneath his skull. Briefs

that others drew and read he had drawn that he might get them

by heart. Yet did he succeed.

In two years' time the requisite course, he got his degree,

was a full-fledged lawyer. He and a fellow student, went into the

partnership which they still maintain.

Attorney Donehoo has set himself the hardest task of all. His

place as lawyer, well though he fills it, is beset with difficulties.

Again, must he turn to that memory for aid. His every pleading

must be committed to memory. Others read them in court, he

speaks them.

He has traveled alone from town to town about Georgia

trying cases. But a few weeks ago he went to Cartersville, arriving

there alone in the dead of night. Yet he was fully capable of

taking care of himself, turned up at court O. K. the next morning,

took his pleas from his mind and told them to the judge, and won

his case.

Student, teacher, coroner, attorney, all are but the notches

which Paul Donehoo hopes will be cut below bigger and deeper

ones in the stick of fame. The largest and deepest before him is

his ambition for the United States senator-ship. Come when it

may, he will find his memory backing him in the fight for it. This

he asks himself: if Senator Gore, another blind man, could attain

the goal, why cannot I?

THE SIXTH SENSE.

Sitting the other day in his office in the Third National bank

building, Paul Donehoo declared that his memory was the

greatest asset a blind man can have. There is another, he said,

what might almost be called a sixth sense.

When I am walking along the street, he explained, I can

feel a clay bank in front of me long before I reach out my hand

and touch it. I can take a cane and tap every telephone post I

pass just as I get opposite it. The other senses help me, especially

in getting around the city. When I pass a drug store I can always

tell it by the odor coming out.

Same way with sounds. Many people have wondered how I

could get aboard a street car without knowing what the sign said.

Well, I know the exact schedules of every car in town. Here's my

watch, closed case, with the crystal gone. I can feel and tell

exactly what time it is. For instance, it's now six and a half

minutes to 3 o'clock. If I was down

(Continued on Page Nine.)

PAGE 31, COLUMN 4

PAUL DONEHOO, ATLANTA'S BLIND

CORONER

(Continued from Page Eleven.)

town now and heard a car coming I would know just which one it

is.

I at one time could tell them by the sound they make, and I

can know a little. The West Peachtree cars always made a

different sound because they were larger and longer. Of course,

there are many cars just alike now and the schedules are often

wrong, so I'm bound to make mistakes.

When I'm on the car I can always tell just about where we

are by the notes. I know each curve in many of the tracks. I can

tell when we pass certain corners by the clank of the switch or the

swell of the wheels in the track. And at Baker street there is

always a different sound because the car passes through a wider

space right there. And by the Candler building I can always feel

the swift wind on my cheek and know just where are.

MUSICAL AIR MEMORY.

He was asked about his ear for music. Can you hear a piece

and then sit down at the piano and play it?

He can do better than that, said his partner. You can call

off the names of the notes to him and he'll sit down and play

them. Once he had to memorize a piece of music thirty-five pages

long. He started working on it at 4 o'clock Saturday afternoon,

and by the same time Sunday afternoon could play it.

Do you hear that bell ringing down stairs? said Paul

Donehoo. The dull clang of an engine bell came up faintly from

the railroad tracks. If you'll go to the piano and strike E! you'll

reproduce that sound.

If you'll notice, he continued, All the street car gongs in

this town are pitched in exactly the same tone, or within one or

two notes of each other. I can recognize a good many of them

and tell what cars they're on, and I can tell the cars by the ring of

the push buttons, too.

To him the world seems to be a world of sounds, of smells, of

touch, of taste, with that other indefinable thing that some call

instinct and some a sixth sense. Asked what the world looked like

to him as he remembered it last, Paul Donehoo knew but faintly.

REMEMBERS RED.

The last thing I remember, I think, is an old horse that I

went driving behind the day before I got sick. As for the rest of

the world, I can't say. I have just a faint recollection of colors. I

think blue, red and green are the only ones that I know now. If

you say that brown book over there' the word brown' just means

a word for distinguishing it in description to me. It doesn't convey

any sort of picture to my mind. Red is really the only color of

which I have a very vivid memory. I think I remember that only

through fire. I guess I've got the best recollection of that old

horse. I still go horse-back riding. It's my favorite exercise, just as

it was Senator Gore's.

No, he said, I haven't tried anything else yet except

music, law, and politics. Of course, I know about other things,

many things that come-up in a practice, such as a medicine and

measurements in engineering cases. You see, I've made my rule

what Hooper Alexander said were the requirements of a well-

educated man, One that knows everything about something, and

something about everything.'

PAGE 32, COLUMN 7

FEE BARRED

AT

MUSICAL

ASS'N

SUNDAY

RECITAL

Mrs. John M. Slaton's

Conference

With Chief Beavers

Fails to

Obtain Special

Dispensation.

An echo of Atlanta's recent Sunday movie war was heard

Saturday night when it became known that City Attorney Mayson

had ruled against the Atlanta Music Association charging

admission to a Sunday concert on October 5 in the Atlanta

Theater.

At the same time was solved the mystery of the visit to the

police station Thursday afternoon of Mrs. John Marshall Slaton,

wife of Georgia's Governor, and her long secret conference with

Police Chief Beavers.

Mrs. Slaton, as president of the music association, was

seeking information as to whether, under the Sunday laws, it

would be permission for the association to charge a small

admission fee to the concert.

Explains Plan to Chief.

Although the moving picture theaters were not allowed to

open on Sunday and charge admission, Mrs. Slaton thought

perhaps that the character of concert to be given by the musical

association would not come in the same class.

To be sure of her ground, Mrs. Slaton drove to the police

station in her auto Thursday afternoon and took up the matter

with Chef Beavers, explaining to him in detail the plans of the

association and asking if there would be any objection by the

police to a small admission fee.

The Chief next sought a ruling from the City Attorney. Mr.

Mayson studied the proposition carefully and reported that the

only hope for the music association to realize on the concert

would be to place a contribution box in the theater and receive

voluntary offerings, as did the movies when they started their

futile fight to operate on Sunday. He ruled that the law would not

permit a regular, stated admission fee.

Whether the contribution box plan will be adopted by the

musical association will be determined later.

Serious Problem Arises.

Officials of the association have been put to great expense in

preparing for the concert on October 5, and this is the only reason

an effort was made to charge admission. It merely was a desire to

defray expenses.

Mrs. Slaton is expected to immediately take up the matter

with other officials of the association and report the ruling of the

City Attorney in order that some other plan may be devised.

The Atlanta Music Association has taken a recognized place

in the artistic life of Atlanta, and means much for the city's

educational development owing to the high standard it has

sought to maintain, it is under heavy expense, and the decision

barring admission fees creates a serious problem.

Sunday, 21st September 1913: Sheriff Mangum Will Run For Re-election, The Atlanta Journal

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