00:00You went to William's house like a lamb to the slaughter, Collier tells Felder in letter.
00:03Atlanta Journal, Sunday, May 25, 1913.
00:07Former Tennessean in open letter tells Colonel Felder that he was never caught with goods until
00:11last Wednesday. Collier says he strayed from the path he should have followed when he went to wash.
00:16Attorney's political linen in a state in which Colonel Felder could not set foot.
00:21As Collier has addressed the following open letter to Colonel Thomas B. Felder,
00:25Colonel Thomas B. Felder, Sir, knowing you as I do, I anticipate your promised attack on me in
00:31the press of Sunday, as you have announced you intended to make, and were I to attempt to answer
00:36you, I would have to resort to the lowest and vilest Billingsgate, which I daug not care to do,
00:41for to do so would be to prostitute the refinement that I inherited from birth, and place me on a
00:46level with such ilk as you. Therefore it is my purpose to address you this letter and ask you
00:50the following questions. First, is it not a notorious fact that you are the attorney of
00:55every crook, gambler, Mary Magdalene, and the whiskey ring, provided of course anyone of this
01:01clan has the price to pay you? Second, have you the audacity to ask the people of this city to
01:06believe that your intentions were straight to prosecute Leo M. Frank for the paltry sum of $500,
01:11and then donate that fee to the Burns Agency to secure the evidence that the chief of detectives
01:17had already procured? Is it not a notorious fact that you received $100,000 in the famous dispensary
01:24cases of South Carolina? A state, by the way, whenever you start to New York, you always buy
01:28a ticket by a route that does not touch its border. Third, is it not a notorious fact that you
01:34have been
01:34known far and wide, not only as an attorney, but as an astute politician, lobbyist, and pardon broker,
01:40and did you not receive $100,000 from Charles W. Morse or his wife to deliver the goods? Fourth,
01:46it does not make any difference to me, personally, what kind of an attack you may see fit to make
01:51upon me with your vile pen, and I note that you state that you can get 1,000 men to
01:56swear that
01:56they would not believe me on oath. I desire to ask you that, before you can impeach my owneth.
02:02Does not the law require you to bring forward my neighbors and my acquaintances who know me,
02:06and who will state that upon their knowledge of me they would not believe me on oath? Or is it
02:11your
02:11purpose to scour among your clients, principally those who belong to the red light district and
02:16the whiskey ring, and are ever ready to do your bidding, even the swearing a man's life or character
02:22away, one of whom called upon me this afternoon by the name of McNeil, who professed to live in
02:27Nashville tennis some fifteen years ago, and wanted to rake up an old boyhood acquaintance,
02:32as his breath smelled like a distillery on legs, so much so that my wife had to leave the room,
02:37and knowing that you are in the habit of digging up such people as this, when you have got any
02:42dirty work to carry out. I was extremely reticent with him, and fortunately I had two gentlemen in
02:47the hotel office, of unimpeachable character, who happened to be sitting close enough to me to know
02:52that about all Mr. McNeil got out of me was yea and nay, says Felder is sore. Fifth, is it
02:58not a fact
02:58that you are sore because this city happens to have at the present time a high-toned, honorable
03:04Christian gentleman, who is a man of God, and tries to practice his belief in the Christian
03:09religion, and would not prostitute his oath of office as chief of police by catering to you and
03:14your cohorts? And if he had, wouldn't he have been the grandest chief in your poor eyes that are glued
03:20by filthy lucre that ever ruled Atlanta's police department, for there has never been anyone who
03:26knows you that will doubt the assertion that you have been a worshipper of gold instead of God,
03:31and had no conscientious scruples as to how you obtained it? Sixth, I note that you are going to
03:37attack me with an affidavit from one W.A. Milner, attorney-at-law of Cartersville, Georgia, in which
03:43he charges me with the crime of having professed religion in Cartersville and acknowledging that I
03:48was an ex-convict. As to this charge, which was made in the Constitution of Saturday, I refer to a
03:54telegram printed in this issue of the journal exclusively. Is it a crime to profess religion? It was not
04:00considered so in the home that I was raised in under the influence of a sweet Christian mother,
04:04which no doubt you yourself had the same kind of a mother, but I fear that you and I both
04:09have
04:09strayed far away from the early influence of our sweet Christian homes. In fact, I am free to confess
04:14that I have done so since the time that I helped you wash your dirty, filthy political linen in South
04:19Carolina, and I fear that the gentleman from Cartersville would not know religion if he were to
04:24meet it upon the public highway, for religion believes in helping the fallen to rise and not pushing them
04:29down. I cannot control things that happened in Cartersville among some people that I did not
04:34know forty years ago, but have since Beokh me connected with, and I have to pay the price of
04:39a poor, miserable amlis carried in the fertile brain of Colonel Milner, who belongs to the political
04:44clan that you are aligned with, does not know him.
04:477. I note that you are attacking me in an affidavit purporting to have been signed by one W.D.
04:52Ray of Nashville Tenera, who claims to be a neighbor of mine. For your information, as well as Mr.
04:57Ray, I wish to state that I do not know him, and that I have not been a resident of
05:02Nashville
05:02Tenera since April 1899, and I never knew any Ray in Nashville Ten, and I would appreciate
05:08the fact if you would tell me who he is. I also note that you are attacking me with one
05:13Atchison of Nashville, who says that I am a moral degeneratelle and pervert. I presume
05:18that Mr. Atchison has qualified that he is an expert witness, and has not allowed you to
05:23frame up the affidavit for him to sign, as everyone who knows you know that you are an
05:28artist in such matters. I note that you have brought into your affidavit category your
05:32royal flunky C.W. Toby, who took occasion to attack me in a sheet published in this city
05:38Saturday afternoon. But the earmarks of his article show too plainly that the author of
05:43it was Toby's master, Felder. What does Toby know about me? And is it not a fact that you
05:49and Toby are sore because your scheme has been exposed to graft a large amount of money
05:52out of the citizens of Atlanta? And don't you know it to be a fact that Toby is ready
05:57to sign any affidavit pertaining to any subject that you might suggest? And don't you also
06:02know that when you and Toby attempt to slur the Atlanta Police Department and the Pinkerton
06:06Detective Agency and charge me with being a tool in their hands to break you and the Burns
06:10agency down, that it is only a makeshift to divert the public mind from the real issue that
06:16you, a member of the Atlanta Bar, and a former member of the legislation from Fulton County,
06:21an opposer as a statesman and a great lawyer, would forget your high profession and stoop
06:26so low as to attempt to bribe a poor, honest young man, struggling to get a foothold in
06:30life, to rob his chief and superior officer of certain valuable papers in the Fagan case
06:35for one thousand dollars? Before you call me a moral degenerate and pervert, think of
06:40the enormity of your attempted crime in trying to brand this young man as a thief the balance
06:44of his life. Did give instruction.
06:47Ninth. Now, Colonel, I did not intend to write such a lengthy letter when I started, but I
06:51desire to call your attention to another matter. You have stated in one of your many newspaper
06:56interviews, where you had a chance to get free advertising, which is part of your egotistical
07:00nature to feast and fatten upon, that you refused to give an introduction to one E.O.
07:05Miles. To refresh your memory, I refer you to that card of introduction with your signature
07:10attached to it, reproduced in this issue of the journal, and I hope that you have not
07:15become such a moral pervert since we parted company as to denounce the signature of forgery.
07:20But yet, if you found yourself hemmed in and saw no other escape, I dare say that you would
07:26not hesitate to denounce it as such.
07:27In conclusion, permit me to say frankly and candidly that I have strayed away from the path I should
07:33have followed in life in some instances. But the difference between you and I, Colonel, is simply
07:37this. I have been caught in times gone by, and you have never been caught with the goods on you
07:43until you walked into room number thirty-one in the Williams house, number two, like a lamb for the
07:48slaughter, and allowed yourself to be taken by the dictograph. And it is natural. You are sore.
07:54I do not blame you. Any farmer will tell you that when a pig gets caught in a stye he
07:58will squeal.
07:59I note that the people of Bellwood as well as the Colemans have repudiated you.
08:03The ox knoweth its owner, and the ass knoweth his master's crib. But my people do not know me,
08:08O Israel. It is sad to think when a gentleman of your ability in standing at the bar,
08:13who controlled governors and judges, solicitor generals, and last but not least great mayors,
08:19and started out to gain a great reputation in the Fagan case, alas, has come to a sorrowful end
08:25because he could not induce a poor, young, struggling stenographer to commit the crime
08:29of larceny for the paltry sum of one thousand dollars. Goodbye, Colonel. I am going to try to
08:34live honest in the future, and I know that I can do so if I will only be guarded in
08:38the associations
08:39that I form than I have been in the past. As Collier, Atlanta, Georgia, May 24, 1913.
08:46P.S. I note I was arrested Saturday afternoon on a frame-up of four years standing in my native
08:51state,
08:51brought against me by a member of the Red Light District, among whom you have so many clients.
08:56ASC. At the request of A.S. Collier, Jr., the journal publishes a facsimile of a note of
09:02introduction to E.O. Miles given to Collier by Colonel T.B. Felder. The note was given prior to
09:08the dictographed conferences. The facsimile follows.
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