00:00Chief James L. Beavers replied to Mayor Woodward, Atlanta Constitution, Tuesday, May 27, 1913.
00:07If Beavers and Lanford permitted February, a trusted man, to go out and circulate lies about
00:12corruption in the police department in an effort to trap someone, they have debauched their officers,
00:17and the sooner they are put out, the better it will be for the men who work under them.
00:21Mayor James G. Woodward made the above reply to Chief James L. Beavers in a statement to the
00:27Constitution late Monday afternoon. The mayor declared that February's part in the conspiracy
00:32has destroyed his usefulness with the department, and he is not fit to serve with honorable men.
00:37In my opinion, and I believe every decent citizen of Atlanta will agree with me,
00:42February is not fit to serve in the department in any capacity. Mayor Woodward continued,
00:47How can Beavers or Lanford or the members of the police commission place faith in him?
00:52He has dragged the department through filth of his own making. He has cast reflection by his act on
00:56the blue uniform. Beavers' charge refuted. Mayor Woodward scathingly denounced Chief
01:02Beavers' allegations that he, Woodward, urged the reopening of the Manhattan Avenue district.
01:07He admits telling Beavers that the district would be opened as a result of public demand for the
01:12interest of society, because of the scattered conditions. He declared that he has never placed
01:17a straw in the way of Chief Beavers' vice-crusade, and explained that whenever he called the chief to
01:22his office it was for the purpose of referring complaints to him, complaints of bad conditions
01:27in respectable neighborhoods. Mayor Woodward said that on one occasion he referred to the chief a
01:32letter written by a respectable woman, the mother of little children, who complained that there was
01:37an immoral house near her home, and she wanted the police to protect her and her babies.
01:42This woman told me that she had written Chief Beavers about the house some ten days before she wrote me,
01:47and nothing was ever done, Mayor Woodward said. All that I have ever heard of the complaint is that
01:53the house is quieted down. Mayor Woodward says that the only time he has called Beavers to task
01:59was when he received complaints of women being insulted in the central portions of the city.
02:05Protect respectable women. I told him of the conditions as reported to me, and urged him to
02:10clean up the central portions of the city so that respectable women might be safe.
02:15As to the Eva Clark affair, Mayor Woodward said that the women came to him and explained that
02:20herself and her mother wanted to move into a house near the Grady Hospital, 95 Armstrong Street,
02:25and that he informed her that she had the right to live wherever she pleased,
02:29just so long as she conducted a moral house and lived within the law.
02:33He says that he laid the whole matter before Beavers just as the Clark women laid it before him.
02:38Mayor Woodward further stated that the whole affair casts a dirty reflection on the heads of the
02:43police department, and that the part they played in it branded them as being unfit to guard the
02:48lives and property of the people of Atlanta. Men who will allow their personal characters and their
02:54offices to be dragged through such a mess cannot hope to gain the respect and esteem of the people
02:59they serve, he said. When February came to me and told me that Beavers and Lanford were protecting
03:04disorderly houses and blind tigers, I knew that it was either true or that he was lying.
03:09Gave him benefit of doubt. I decided for the time being to give him the benefit of the doubt.
03:15If I had known that that visit to the Williams house would be the last time I would see him,
03:19I would have shown him up for the liar that he is. But in the interest of the public,
03:23I decided to give him leeway. I did not expose him because I did not want to do the police
03:28department
03:28an injustice. I think I have made my position clear to the people. I am just as anxious now as
03:34I was at
03:34that time to correct any evils in the city government. February and the police are attacked
03:39by Maller chief of police James L. Beavers issued the following statement Monday morning.
03:44As for Collier, I never heard of him until this thing came up. He may be a crook. As far
03:49as I know,
03:49it seems that Mr. Felder has known him for a long time, but it is no uncommon thing for one
03:54crook to
03:54turn up another to the police or turn state's evidence. When I heard of this deal that Mr. Felder was
03:59trying to make in the Fagan case, I told Chief Lanford to advise with Solicitor Dorsey and get
04:04his advice in the matter. He did this. I did not want anything done that would not be perfectly
04:09legitimate. G.C. February, who is a trusted man in the detective department, was instructed to carry
04:15out the deal with him. Now it appears that Mr. Felder has been closely associated with Collier for a
04:20long time, and certainly should have known what manner of man he is. If he knew him to be a
04:26crook,
04:26why did he enter into a deal like this with him if he wanted to do the straight thing?
04:30I say that I never heard of this man Collier, but I would have listened to any report or rumor
04:35in
04:35hunting for the guilty party in a case like that of the Fagan murder. It seems that Mr. Felder,
04:40in his ramifications through the press, tries to get eloquent and undertakes to tell about the
04:45government of Scotland and the conditions in Ireland, as if that had anything to do with this
04:50case he is trying to distract attention from. What he has done, and as far as his evidence he
04:55claims to have about my moral turpitude as chief of police or as a citizen, I defy him to show
05:00anything wrong. If he is a good, loyal citizen, which he claims to be, why did he not go to
05:05the
05:05police commission and lay the evidence before them? Would be in South Carolina. Now Mr. Felder
05:11knows well enough that if he had anything that would have been damaging against the police department,
05:15he would have hurried to bring it to the proper authorities. That is what you are hired to do by
05:19a gang
05:20you are very close to. I would say that someone has been misled by Mr. Felder, or no doubt he
05:25would
05:25be in South Carolina today where he belongs. So much for Mr. Felder. I see that Mr. Woodward says
05:30he has nothing against me personally. Now I don't quite understand his connection with the Felder-Colyar
05:35affair. He knew that G.C. February was a trusted employee of the police department, and if February
05:41knew of crookedness or graft in the department, he would have forced him to divulge it or seen that he
05:46was turned out of the department, would have been guilty. If February had known anything of the kind,
05:52and not made it known he would have been equally guilty, Mr. Woodward knows that in the frequent
05:57talks with me since he has been mayor, there has hardly been a time that he did not bring up
06:01the
06:01question of the red-light district, and he gave me to understand in his first talk with me that three
06:07women should be allowed to go back to Manhattan Avenue where they had previously plied their nefarious
06:12trade. No longer than last Saturday a week ago, he asked me if I was willing for Eva Clark and
06:17her
06:18mother to move into a house on Armstrong Street in front of the Grady Hospital where they had
06:22previously lived, as to Eva Clark. I told him I would answer him as I did Alderman McClelland,
06:28that it was none of my business as long as she did not violate the law, but that if she
06:33did she would
06:33have to take the consequences. Mr. Woodward also told me the first of the year that if my vice policy
06:39continued the police department would be reeking with graft like the New York department, graft on
06:44outside. I told him that no graft had ever existed, and I was satisfied there would never be any.
06:49I told him that from what I had heard, someone outside the police department had been receiving
06:53money from the vice traffic that virtually amounted to graft and extortion. I am ready and willing to
06:59compare my past record both as citizen and as an official with Mr. Woodward as to which is in the
07:03right and which is in the wrong.
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