Indiana Scandals

What did the present Governor of Indiana say to the onetime Governor of Indiana?

An Indiana grand jury was impaneled eleven months ago to find out. It failed to indict. Another grand jury likewise failed, being discharged prematurely when one of the jurors reported having been offered a bribe.

Last week, finally, Governor Ed Jackson walked into the sheriff's office in Indianapolis and said: "I want to be arrested." He had been indicted.

Charges. What Prosecuting Attorney William H. Remy will seek to prove at Governor Jackson's trial next month are the following allegations: 1) That, in 1923, Ed Jackson, then secretary of state, approached Warren T. McCray, then Indiana's governor, with the proposition that one James E. McDonald be appointed prosecuting attorney of Marion County. This office was vacant because Mr. McCray had just been indicted in the criminal courts for a financial felony, and Prose- cuting Attorney Williams P. Evans had resigned, being Mr. McCray's son-in-law. 2) That Ed Jackson offered the indicted Governor $10,000 cash and a guarantee that he would not be convicted for his felony, in return for Mr. McDonald's appointment. 3) That Mr. McCray refused Mr. Jackson, his cash and his immunity, appointing instead to the vacant post the successor recommended by his son-in-law, namely, William H. Remy. 4) That Grand Dragon David C. Stephenson of Indiana's Ku Klux Klan later repeated the cash-and-immunity offer to Mr. McCray, who again refused. 5) That Mr. Jackson and Mr. Stephenson then threatened Mr. McCray, while he was serving time for his felony in Atlanta Peni- tentiary, to obstruct his parole if he ever gave them away.

Indicted last week with Governor Ed Jackson for his alleged chicanery, were Robert I. Marsh, his one-time law partner, and George V. Coffin, Republican boss of Marion County. David C. Stephenson is already in jail for life, as a murderer.

The grand jury further indicted Mayor John L. Duvall of Indianapolis for allegedly corrupt campaigning in 1925.

Defense. Governor Jackson, long though he had been faced with the possibility of his indictment, had not until last week answered the widely-circulated charges against him. Last week he declared that he had indeed called on Mr. Mc-Cray for the McDonald appointment, not with cash or immunity in hand but at the request of Bishop H. H. Fout of the United Brethren sect. Bishop Fout last week corroborated this statement so far as he was able.

Governor Jackson's friends, the Messrs. Marsh and Coffin, offered no additional protests of innocence. Mayor Duvall had nothing, as yet, to say.

Witnesses. These cases have reached court at an opportune moment. All the main witnesses are conveniently at hand. In his cell at Michigan City, Ind., onetime Dragon Stephenson has been telling secrets with his eye on the prison gate. From his cell in Atlanta, Warren T. McCray returned home last fortnight, happy to be free, resolving to be good. He of all men can tell what passed between the Governors of Indiana.

"Worse Offenses." Following the Jackson trial, "far worse offenses" will be delved into, according to Publisher Thomas H. Adams of the Vincennes (Ind.) Commercial. The Commerial's editorials have been the flame by which the eggs first laid by the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana were candled and judged suspicious.