00:00Lanford and Felder indicted for libel. The Atlanta Constitution, Saturday, June 28, 1913.
00:06Indictments grew out of the dictograph episode and the letters which followed.
00:10Formal investigation into the invectives hurled between Colonel Thomas B. Felder and Detective
00:15Chief Newport Lanford resulted yesterday in indictments of criminal libel being returned
00:20by the grand jury against each of them for their cards and interviews in the daily papers
00:24in which they attacked each other's character after the dictograph row.
00:29Colonel Felder is held under two indictments on a bond of $500 while Chief Lanford has
00:34one indictment against him and is free on the same bond. The offenses charged against each
00:40are misdemeanors and the punishment in case of conviction is six months in the county jail,
00:45twelve months in the penitentiary or a fine of not more than $1,000. It is in the discretion
00:50of the judge to impose any or all of these penalties after conviction. In order to come clear at the
00:56trial, it will be necessary for the man indicted for criminal libel to prove that the charges he
01:01made were true, and it is expected that the cases will develop into the most bitterly fought in the
01:06history of the Fulton courts. Felder will not talk. Shortly after his indictment, Colonel Felder
01:13appeared in the solicitor's office and was told of the two indictments. He appeared to think for a
01:17moment that he was being jailed. When he saw the bills, his only comment was that he
01:22didn't give a darn. He refused to make any further statement on the matter and declined to discuss
01:27what steps he would take to clear himself of the libel charges. Chief Lanford made only the comment
01:32that he could prove every charge he had ever made against Colonel Felder, but he declined to discuss
01:37the matter at length. Both Colonel Felder and Chief Lanford are indicted for the articles that
01:41appeared in the Atlanta Constitution and other Sunday papers on June 8th, and Colonel Felder is also
01:47indicted on another bill for alleged libel in connection with his famous letter addressed to the
01:51people of Atlanta and published in the Constitution of May 25th. It was in the latter article that
01:57Colonel Felder referred to the detective head as the Lieutenant Becker of our system, and also
02:02charged that since the arrest of Leo M. Frank and Newt Lee, charged as suspects in the murder of Mary
02:07Fagan, that the detective chief had been protecting them. It is charged in the bill of indictment that
02:13Colonel Felder did maliciously, unlawfully, and intending to injure and vilify the reputation of Lanford,
02:18write and cause to be published the letter referred to, a great part of which is copied upon the
02:23indictment. Charges against Lanford. The indictments against Colonel Felder and against Chief Lanford for
02:29their articles of June 8th, which appeared in the Atlanta papers, are practically similar in form.
02:35Lanford is charged with calling Colonel Felder a contemptible liar and a scoundrel, and accusing him
02:41of grafting and of pretending to raise a fund for the prosecution of the murderer of the Fagan child.
02:46Colonel Felder's article on June 3rd was full of bitter invectives against the detective chief,
02:52whom he accused of graft, and who, he declared, was a disgrace and dishonor to the office he held.
02:57All three of the indictments were returned as special presentments by the grand jury,
03:02which indicates that the investigations leading up to them were taken up at the volition of the members,
03:07and that no outsider appeared as prosecutor. The only witnesses used in finding the basis for the
03:13indictments were newspaper men by whom the grand jurors proved that the articles in question
03:19had actually come from the men whose names were given as the authors of them. In all, the grand jury
03:25probably put less than an hour's time upon the question before returning its true bills,
03:30and the case was taken up in the interim of routine criminal business.
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