Raleigh, March 27—Following a six-hour session of the State prison directors Friday for the consideration of charges of trafficking in pardons and paroles brought by Rev. W.S. Shacklette, chaplain, against George Ross Pou, prison superintendent, and H. Hoyle Sink, commissioner of pardons and paroles, the hearing, like a nickel thriller, was continued to next week, just at the most interesting point. The hearing will be resumed next Thursday, when the chaplain’s attorney will attend.
The afternoon brought forth the following salient points in regard to the sensation:
Chaplain Shacklette, some time prior to March 9th, laid before Ben E. Everett, one of the prison directors, charges that the pardon granted to W.W. Green, negro, convicted in Davidson county for criminal assault, had been “sold” him for $1,000 and that the purchase price had been split three ways.
Superintendent Pou and Commissioner Sink being two of the recipients. The other man named by the chaplain was an attorney in the western part of the state, but Mr. Everett was unable to remember his name.
Before the prison board yesterday, the chaplain exonerated Superintendent Pou of all complicity in the Green case and refused to discuss the remaining charge against Commissioner Sink.
Statements were issued by both the officials figuring in the accusations, citing conclusive evidence to prove that neither had any hand in the issuance of that pardon; that the matter had been handled by Governor McLean alone, due to the fact that Commissioner Sink had assisted in the prosecution of the case in Davidson county before his appointment.
Chaplain Shacklette, before the board, preferred additional charges against Superintendent Pou and Commissioner Sink sufficiently grave in nature to warrant further investigation, in the opinion of the board members.
Chaplain Shacklette retained Attorney J.W. Bailey of Raleigh, candidate against Governor McLean in the last primary election for the gubernatorial nomination, and one of he principal figures in the campaign against the re-appointment of Superintendent Pou, to act as his attorney during the board’s proceedings.
It became generally accepted that Chaplain Shacklett, the stormy petrel of the prison administration, will be replaced unless he should be able to prove the seemingly wild charges he has made against the two officials.
Announcement was made that the recent accusation made by the chaplain that Commissioner Sink has called all ministers “damn fools” had no relation to the present matter.
Superintendent Pou, in a statement issued at the close of the day’s hearing, declared the charges of Mr. Shacklette too ridiculous to merit serious thought.
“The charge Mr. Shacklette made to Director Everett connecting my name with the pardon of W.W. Green is so ridiculous that I have given it no serious thought,” he said. “However, the matter has gotten into the papers, and I feel I should quote an excerpt from a letter bearing on the charges, written by Governor A.W. McLean to Director John M. Brewer and which I feel will exonerate me completely of such charge.”
From the front page of The Concord Daily Tribune, Saturday, March 27, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1926-03-27/ed-1/seq-1/
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