The Montgomery Advertiser
- Three Air Officers Held for Killing of Frank Browder
- Klan Supporting James E. Watson, Witness Charges
- Noted Socialist Leader Succumbs; Is Silent in Death
The Montgomery Advertiser's front page of October 21, 1926, gave prominent space to a local tragedy: three lieutenants from Maxwell Field were held on voluntary manslaughter charges after Frank G. Browder, an 83-year-old Confederate veteran, was struck dead by a low-flying plane in a cotton field east of the city. The base commander refused the sheriff's request to hand over one of them, and the paper laid out the flight records and witness statements against each pilot. From Chicago it carried testimony before the Senate campaign funds committee that the Ku Klux Klan was backing Indiana Senators James E. Watson and Arthur Robinson, including a former Klan officer's account of a $10,000 offer and the warning that "the good die young." An AP dispatch reported the death of socialist leader Eugene V. Debs in a suburban Chicago sanitarium.
Translation
THREE AIR OFFICERS HELD FOR KILLING OF FRANK BROWDER
Prominent Montgomerian Struck Down by Airplane While in Cotton Field Early Wednesday Morning
COURTMARTIAL WILL MAKE INQUIRY INTO SAD TRAGEDY
Military and Civil Authorities Have Concurrent Jurisdiction in Matter
Three officers were arrested late Wednesday afternoon on charges of voluntary manslaughter, in connection with the killing of Frank G. Browder, 83, Confederate veteran, who was struck dead by a low flying plane yesterday morning in a cotton field four miles east of Montgomery.
The officers arrested are Lieutenants A. J. Lehman, J. C. A. Dennison and Claire Stroh. They are being held in custody at the field under orders of Major H. H. C. Richards, pending courtmartial. Date for the courtmartial has not been set, but will probably be decided upon today with the arrival of Inspector General Wagner from Atlanta, to further investigate the affair.
Informal request for Lieut. Lehman was made Wednesday night by Sheriff R. C. Phelps upon Major Richards. The request, however, was refused, Major Richards explaining that the men were already in custody and that, while a civil law had been violated, the act was also in violation of the military law. In such cases, it was explained, military and civic authorities have concurrent jurisdiction. Major Richards stated that he also wished to confer with Corps Area Commander Haygood before releasing the prison- [?]
Two chains of evidence are linked with the charges against Lehman and Dennison, Major Richards said. The evidence against Stroh is not so strong, he stated. All three of the pilots were in the air Wednesday morning.
The pilots were not questioned and upon being arrested, made no statements. Mechanics who accompanied the accused men on the flights, however, told the officers that they had no knowledge of the planes having struck any object, and that at no time did they fly low.
The evidence against Dennison is based partly on a statement of a negro, Charlie Judkins, 605 North Union street, who told officers that a plane dipped down close above him Wednesday morning over the Ware's Ferry road. He said the plane bore the number "10" and which was identified as Dennison's machine. The records show that Dennison left the field at 9 o'clock and that he returned at 10:15. The tragedy occurred between 8:30 and 9:10 according to Major Richards. Dennison's mechanic, Corporal Clarence C. White, admitted flying near Cook's station on the Ware's Ferry road, but maintained that the plane remained 1,000 feet and higher during the flight.
Lieut. Lehman left the field at 8:50 o'clock, the records show, in plane No. 1. He was accompanied by Sergeant Ray Francisco, who testified that they flew close in the vicinity of the tragedy, about the time Mr. Browder was killed. Sergeant Francisco denied that the plane 'swooped' downward during the flight. It was intimated that other evidence was held against Lieut. Lehman, the exact nature of which was not revealed.
The only evidence against Lieut. Stroh, insofar as is known, is that he was in the air at the time and also flew eastward during the flight.
Lieut. Lehman was brought before Sheriff Phelps Wednesday night at Maxwell field, but acting upon advice of his counsel, he refused to make any statement.
Mr. Browder accompanied by his daughter, Mrs. B. S. Chapman, left his home, 812 Highland avenue at [?]
KLAN SUPPORTING JAMES E. WATSON WITNESS CHARGES
Refusal to 'Go Down Line' For Indiana Senator Cost Grand Dragon Position in Hooded Organization
FORMER KLUX OFFICIAL WARNED 'GOOD DIE YOUNG'
Senate Probing Committee Turns Attention to Hoosier State Affairs
CHICAGO, Oct. 20.—Ku Klux Klan support of Senators James E. Watson and Arthur Robinson, republicans of Indiana in their fight for re-election was testified to today before the senate campaign funds committee.
Hugh P. Emmons of South Bend, Ind., a former exalted cyclops, declared he had been told by Klan officials that Walter Bossert, of Indianapolis had been removed as grand dragon for Indiana because he had refused "to go down the line" for Senator Watson in the present campaign.
Emmons also charged that W. Lee Smith, of Evansville, Ind., appointed by Dr. Hiram W. Evans, imperial wizard, to succeed Bossert, had offered the witness $10,000 if he would support the Watson candidacy.
Asserting that he had declined this proffer, Emmons charged that Smith told him that if he turned "traitor," he might "go down the line," reminding him that "the good die young."
The former Indiana Klan official told the committee that he had been informed by Evans that the Klan owed a debt to Senator Watson because he had been instrumental in the seating of Senator Mayfield, democrat, Texas, described as one of "the best klansmen in the United States." The imperial wizard was quoted further as saying that Senator Watson had "gotten to" Senator Moses, republican, New Hampshire, with reference to the seating of Mayfield.
Relating that Evans visited South Bend shortly before the Indiana senatorial primary, Emmons declared Evans had told him that if a big majority were given Watson, it might be that he would become a presidential candidate.
The witness related that Evans had said that should Watson reach the White House he would appoint as ambassador to Mexico William F. Zumbrunn, formerly of Kansas City and now of Washington who is general counsel for the klan. Evans, Emmons continued, described Zumbruhn as a person of great influence with United States senators and their wives. "He wines and dines with them," Emmons said Evans had told him.
Before opening its investigation of the Indiana situation the committee heard a vigorous disclaimer from Hugh S. Magill of Chicago, independent republican senatorial candidate in Illinois that any such sum as $300,000 or $400,000 was to be expended in his campaign against Frank L. Smith, regular republican nominee, and George E. Brennan, the democratic candidate. Asserting that he would not coun-
NOTED SOCIALIST LEADER SUCCUMBS; IS SILENT IN DEATH
EUGENE V. DEBS
End Comes to Activity of Outstanding Figure in American Political Life; Family at Bedside
CHICAGO, Oct. 20.—(AP)—Eugene V. Debs, outstanding apostle of socialism in the United States, died in a suburban sanitarium tonight at 7:44 o'clock. Mr. Debs would have been 71 years old had he lived until next November 5.
He suffered a nervous breakdown a month ago and retired to the sanitarium in which he died. Because of his advanced years and heart disease, which had persisted virtually throughout his life, he offered but slight physical resistance when a turn for the worse occurred. Several weeks ago kidney disease developed as an added complication.
He lapsed into a profound coma last Saturday and failed to recover consciousness. It was his will to live which stayed death, said the attending physicians, who also remarked upon the period of coma as very unusual.
With the aged socialist leader at the end were his wife, Katherine, his daughter, Mary of Muncie, Ind., a brother, Theodore, and two sisters Mrs. John Heinl, of Terre Haute, Ind., and Mrs. C. O. Meilloux of New York. At his bedside during his last moments also were socialist party leaders, including William H. Henry, the national executive secretary.
Dr. H. O. Wiseman said Mr. Debs died peacefully, his strength gradually ebbing away. His death had been expected at any minute for the past three days. Mrs. Louise H. Niblack, who had attended Mr. Debs almost continuously since Saturday told physicians the patient apparently suffered no pain whatever during his last days.
Dr. Wiseman said death was due to chronic myocarditis, a heart affliction with which he had suffered for 25 years.
Funeral services will be held at Terre Haute, Ind., Friday or Saturday, after which the body will be taken to Indianapolis to be cremated. The Terre Haute funeral services probably will be public, relatives said, although final arrangements have not been made.
Debs five times was the nominee of the socialist party for the presidency. Twice he served prison terms as a result of his constancy to his principles
Context
What Maxwell Field was in 1926
The airfield where the three lieutenants were held was a young Army aviation post on the edge of Montgomery. The Encyclopedia of Alabama records that it began as Engine and Repair Depot No. 3, located just northwest of the city, and that in 1922 the War Department changed the field's mission to an operations base and assigned it the Twenty-second Observation Squadron, whose primary duty was reconnaissance support of Army ground units. That routine shows through the Advertiser's report: the planes went up on ordinary morning flights with mechanics aboard, and the field logged when each numbered machine left and returned, which is how Major Richards could match takeoff times against the 8:30 to 9:10 window of the accident. The paper did not say which unit the accused officers belonged to. What it did report was the commander's position that military and civil authorities held concurrent jurisdiction, and his refusal of the sheriff's informal request for Lieutenant Lehman. At this stage the case rested on flight records, a bystander's sighting of plane No. 10, and the mechanics' denials, while the pilots themselves had said nothing.
Hiram Evans and the Klan's political ambitions
Emmons's testimony placed Imperial Wizard Hiram W. Evans at the center of the alleged arrangement with Senator Watson. Evans had taken power as Imperial Wizard in Atlanta in November 1922 with the support of D. C. Stephenson, and he had ambitions to make the Klan a political force in the country. Emmons's account of Evans musing that a big Watson majority might make the senator a presidential candidate, and that a Klan lawyer might become ambassador to Mexico, fits that ambition. Indiana was fertile ground: Klan leaders there publicly endorsed candidates in state and local elections, and the endorsements proved effective. The grand dragon's office the witness described had itself been fought over. Stephenson broke with the national organization in September 1923, and a chronology of his trial records that he was reinstated as grand dragon in May 1924. The claims that Walter Bossert was removed for refusing to back Watson and that W. Lee Smith offered $10,000 appear in the paper as Emmons's charges before the committee, not as established facts.
Where the Indiana Klan stood in October 1926
The Senate committee turned to "Hoosier State affairs" about a year after the Indiana Klan's best-known leader had fallen. In 1925 D. C. Stephenson was charged and convicted for the rape and murder of Madge Oberholtzer, a young schoolteacher; the jury convicted him of second-degree murder on its first ballot on November 14, 1925. The wider exposure of Klan money in Indiana politics came only later. Denied a pardon by Governor Ed Jackson, Stephenson started talking with reporters for the Indianapolis Times in 1927, and the information he released led to the indictment of Jackson and other officials. So when Emmons testified in Chicago, the Klan was already damaged by the Stephenson case, but the detailed record of its payments to officeholders had not yet been made public. His allegations of cash offers and threats therefore came before that record of payments was public.
Debs's five campaigns and two prison terms
The closing lines of the AP obituary compressed a long public career. Debs ran for president as a Socialist five times; his best showing was 6.0 percent of the popular vote in 1912, and in 1920 he drew 3.4 percent while campaigning from a prison cell. The "two prison terms" the dispatch mentioned were of different kinds. In 1894 he became involved in the Pullman Strike, and he was convicted of federal charges for defying a court injunction against the strike and served six months in prison. His speech denouncing American participation in World War I led to his second arrest in 1918; he was convicted under the Sedition Act and stripped of his citizenship. President Harding commuted his sentence in December 1921, but his citizenship was not restored in his lifetime. The dispatch gave the cause of death as chronic myocarditis of 25 years' standing, whereas Wikipedia's account ties the cardiovascular problems behind his sanatorium stay to his time in prison. The Advertiser, a Southern daily, ran the wire report's respectful wording, calling him an "outstanding apostle of socialism" whose imprisonments came from "constancy to his principles."
Original
THREE AIR OFFICERS HELD FOR KILLING OF FRANK BROWDER
THREE AIR OFFICERS HELD FOR KILLING OF FRANK BROWDER Prominent Montgomerian Struck Down by Airplane While in Cotton Field Early Wednesday Morning COURTMARTIAL WILL MAKE INQUIRY INTO SAD TRAGEDY Military and Civil Authorities Have Concurrent Jurisdiction in Matter Three officers were arrested late Wednesday afternoon on charges of voluntary manslaughter, in connection with the killing of Frank G. Browder, 83, Confederate veteran, who was struck dead by a low flying plane yesterday morning in a cotton field four miles east of Montgomery. The officers arrested are Lieutenants A. J. Lehman, J. C. A. Dennison and Claire Stroh. They are being held in custody at the field under orders of Major H. H. C. Richards, pending courtmartial. Date for the courtmartial has not been set, but will probably be decided upon today with the arrival of Inspector General Wagner from Atlanta, to further investigate the affair. Informal request for Lieut. Lehman was made Wednesday night by Sheriff R. C. Phelps upon Major Richards. The request, however, was refused, Major Richards explaining that the men were already in custody and that, while a civil law had been violated, the act was also in violation of the military law. In such cases, it was explained, military and civic authorities have concurrent jurisdiction. Major Richards stated that he also wished to confer with Corps Area Commander Haygood before releasing the prison - [?] Two chains of evidence are linked with the charges against Lehman and Dennison, Major Richards said. The evidence against Stroh is not so strong, he stated. All three of the pilots were in the air Wednesday morning. The pilots were not questioned and upon being arrested, made no statements. Mechanics who accompanied the accused men on the flights, however, told the officers that they had no knowledge of the planes having struck any object, and that at no time did they fly low. The evidence against Dennison is based partly on a statement of a negro, Charlie Judkins, 605 North Union street, who told officers that a plane dipped down close above him Wednesday morning over the Ware's Ferry road. He said the plane bore the number " 10 " and which was identified as Dennison's machine. The records show that Dennison left the field at 9 o'clock and that he returned at 10: 15. The tragedy occurred between 8: 30 and 9: 10 according to Major Richards. Dennison's mechanic, Corporal Clarence C. White, admitted flying near Cook's station on the Ware's Ferry road, but maintained that the plane remained 1, 000 feet and higher during the flight. Lieut. Lehman left the field at 8: 50 o'clock, the records show in plane No. 1. He was accompanied by Sergeant Ray Francisco, who testified that they flew close in the vicinity of the tragedy, about the time Mr. Browder was killed. Sergeant Francisco denied that the plane ' swooped ' downward during the flight. It was intimated that other evidence was held against Lieut. Lehman, the exact nature of which was not revealed. ~ The only evidence against Lieut. Stroh, insofar as is known, is that he was in the air at the time and also flew eastward during the flight. Lieut. Lehman was brought before Sheriff Phelps Wednesday night at Maxwell field, but acting upon advice of his ' counsel, he refused to make any statement. Mr. Browder accompanied by his daughter, Mrs. B. S. Chapman, left his home, 812 Highland avenue at [?]
KLAN SUPPORTING JAMES E. WATSON WITNESS CHARGES
KLAN SUPPORTING JAMES E. WATSON WITNESS CHARGES Refusal to ' Go Down Line ' For Indiana Senator Cost Grand Dragon Position in Hooded Organization FORMER KLUX OFFICIAL WARNED ' GOOD DIE YOUNG ' Senate Probing Committee Turns Attention to Hoosier State Affairs CHICAGO, Oct. 20. - Ku Klux Klan support of Senators James E. Watson and Arthur Robinson, republicans of Indiana in their fight for re-election was testified to today before the senate campaign funds committee. Hugh P. Emmons of South Bend, Ind., a former exalted cyclops, declared he had been told by Klan officials that Walter Bossert, of Indianapolis had been removed as grand dragon for Indiana because he had refused " to go down the line " for Senator Watson in the present campaign. Emmons also charged that W. Lee Smith, of Evansville, Ind., appointed by Dr. Hiram W. Evans, imperial wizard, to succeed Bossert, had offered the witness $ 10, 000 if he would support the Watson candidacy. Asserting that he had declined this proffer, Emmons charged that Smith told him that if he turned " traitor, " he might " go down the line, " reminding him that " the good die young. " The former Indiana Klan official told the committee that he had been informed by Evans that the Klan owed a debt to Senator Watson because he had been instrumental in the seating of Senator Mayfield, democrat, Texas, described as one of " the best klansmen in the United States. " The imperial wizard was quoted further as saying that Senator Watson had " gotten to " Senator Moses, republican, New Hampshire, with reference to the seating of Mayfield. Relating that Evans visited South Bend shortly before the Indiana senatorial primary, Emmons declared Evans had told him that if a big majority were given Watson, it might be that he would become a presidential candidate. The witness related that Evans had said that should Watson reach the White House he would appoint as ambassador to Mexico William F. Zumbrunn, formerly of Kansas City and now of Washington who is general counsel for the klan. Evans, Emmons continued, described Zumbruhn as a person of great influence with United States senators and their wives. " He wines and dines with them, " Emmons said Evans had told him. Before opening its investigation of the Indiana situation the committee heard a vigorous disclaimer from Hugh S. Magill of Chicago, independent republican senatorial candidate in Illinois that any such sum as $ 300, 000 or $ 400000 was to be expended in his campaign against Frank L. Smith, regular republican nominee, and George E. Brennan, the democratic candidate. Asserting that he would not coun -
NOTED SOCIALIST LEADER SUCCUMBS; IS SILENT IN DEATH
EUGENE V DEBS NOTED SOCIALIST LEADER SUCCUMBS; IS SILENT IN DEATH End Comes to Activity of Outstanding Figure in American Political Life; Family at Bedside CHICAGO, Oct. 20. - (AP) - Eugene V. Debs, outstanding apostle of socialism in the United States, died in a suburban sanitarium tonight at 7: 44 o'clock. Mr. Debs would have been 71 years old had he lived until next November 5. He suffered a nervous breakdown a month ago and retired to the sanitarium in which he died. Because of his advanced years and heart disease, which had persisted virtually throughout his life, he offered but slight physical resistance when a turn for the worse occurred. Several weeks ago kidney disease developed as an added complication. He lapsed into a profound coma last Saturday and failed to recover consciousness. It was his will to live which stayed death, said the attending physicians, who also remarked upon the period of coma as very unusual. With the aged socialist leader at the end were his wife, Katherine, his daughter, Mary of Munice, Ind., a brother, Theodore, and two sisters Mrs. John Heinl, of Terra Haute, Ind., and Mrs. C. O. Meilloux of New York. At his bedside during his last moments also were socialist party leaders, including William H. Henry, the nationel executive secretary. Dr. H. O. Wiseman said Mr. Debs died peacefully, his strength gradually ebbing away. His death had been expected at any minute ior the past three days. Mrs. Louise H. Niblack, who had attended Mr. Debs almost continuously since Saturday told physicians the patient apparently suffered no pain whatever during his last days. Dr. Wiseman said death was due to chronic myocarditis, a heart affliction with which he had suffered for 25 years. Funeral services will be held at Terre Haute, Ind., Friday or Saturday, after which the body will be taken to Indianapolis to be cremated. The Terre Haute funeral services probably will be public, relatives said, although final arrangements have not been made. Debs five times was the nominee of the socialist party for the presidency. Twice he served prison terms as a result of his constancy to his principles
Source: Holding institution