All six members of the back-to-nature-hallelujah-barefoot party whose wild ride through the city early Friday afternoon, their feet elevated high in the air, set the town agog and resulted in a police chase that assembled them at headquarters shortly afterwards with spirits drooping and faces wearing woe begone expressions settled for their frolic at Saturday’s session of Recorder’s court.
All members of the party were convicted, one of them on a triple charge and the other on a pair. With the exception of Garner, who appealed, they paid their fines, smiled at one another and trooped out of the court room with the conviction that entertainment and pleasure always comes high.
All five, Herman and Battle Wheeler, Pete Garner, Charles Dixon, Dick Ferrell and Donie Stallings, were convicted of disorderly conduct and were fined $5 each and their proportionate part of the cost.
Ferrell, convicted of indecent exposure and escape, was fined $10 and cost for the first and $5 and cost for the second. Pete Garner, who is alleged to have left the station without permission after having been rounded up, was fined $5 for this offense. He appealed his case and furnished bond in the sum of $75 during the afternoon for his appearance at the October term of criminal court.
The court expressed compassion for Battle Wheeler, Judge Graham’s remarks being to the effect that he apparently was guilty only because of the fact that he aided and abetted. There was no evidence that he had been drinking, and it was shown that he had not been in trouble for more than a year. Solicitor Umstead was inclined to think the others had put Battle at the wheel because they knew he did not drink, trusting him to carry them safely to and from the Mebane fair which had been agreed on as the place to be visited.
Not all members of the party had off their shoes and because of this it was impossible for the officers to swear who was without shoes and whose feet were elevated in the air as the well-loaded U-Drive It machine rolled through the city’s principal artery of travel. Ferrell was identified as the one who climbed to the top of the car and hung there in a precarious position a rift in his trousers furnishing the basis for the indecent exposure charge.
All denied that they had been drinking and when one of the young men was asked if he knew the Rev. Dr. D.H. Scanlon as part of a question as to whether he would deny that he had been seen taking a drink of liquor on Parrish street, he advised that he was not acquainted with any of the city’s ministers.
Another admitted on the stand that had his wife or mother passed down Church street while the party was there that she would probably have been frightened.
Solicitor Umstead in asking for convictions and imposition of the maximum penalty for all offenses charged, made one of the best addresses a police court crowd has listened to in months. He said he was satisfied the verdicts would be guilty and urged that the court’s duty was plain and that the maximum penalties should be imposed. “It makes no difference” the solicitor said, “whether these men appeal or not, and it doesn’t matter what a high court does with them in event thy go there. It is your duty to do everything possible to help break up these things which have made Church street what it is.” It was a powerful appeal, couched in plain words, and he was heard with deep interest.
From page 7 of the Sunday Durham Herald, Sept. 21, 1924
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn84020730/1924-09-21/ed-1/seq-7/#words=SEPTEMBER+21%2C+1924
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