Notice has been served on The Smithfield Herald that the article published on the front page of the last issue contains statements that are untrue, and offers the publication an opportunity to retract. The pubic may be interested in the content of the notice, which is as follows:
To the Smithfield Herald:
Please take notice that a certain article appearing in the issue of your paper dated October 15, 1926, in the first column on the front page, contains statements concerning me as Sheriff of Johnston count which are untrue, libelous and defamatory.
First, wherein it states “And Sheriff Prim Parker took me off to the back steps of the courthouse and he asked me about the arrests I had been making, and then he told me that I would have to go slow. He told me the way to handle reported stills was first to investigate who it was who was running them, and if I found that it was a negro or a Democrat who was running it to go ahead and rush it, but if I found that it was a Republican I would have to be silent about it, as I had already arrested so many Republicans that I was hurting the party badly. I then told the Sheriff that if this was what he expected of me as a subordinate officer, that I thought the best thing I could do would be to resign, and he said he thought so too. He then promised me that he would publish in the papers my exact reason for resigning. All of which above statements by the said J. K. Hartley are absolutely false.
“The facts are that I notified Hartley to come to the Sheriff’s office, and that I informed him that the reports concerning him and his contact as Deputy Sheriff were so bad that it was necessary for me to ask for his resignation, he declined to resign, and I therefore moved him.
“The article is further false, scurrilous and defamatory by inuendo in the part of the first paragraph, as follows: ‘When a dog bites a man it is not new, but if a man bites a dog it gets a headline.’”
“The said Hartey makes a statement that he captured or assisted in capturing 67 stills while he was serving as Deputy Sheriff, which statement is not correct, as I am informed that he captured only a few stills, the capture of which met my approval.
“This notice is served on The Smithfield Herald in order to give it an opportunity to retract, as provided for in Chapter 48, Consolidated Statutes of North Carolina, said Chapter entitled “Libel and Slander.”
--J. P. Parker, Sheriff of Johnston County
From the front page of the Smithfield Herald, Tuesday, Oct. 19, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073982/1926-10-19/ed-1/seq-1/
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Former Deputy Is Held for Hearing. . . J. K. Hartley Is Charged with Criminal Libel and Placed Under a $1,000 Bond
Former Deputy Sheriff J. K. Hartley of Boon Hill township, who last week made a public statement that he resigned his office as deputy because Sheriff J. Prim Parker told him to arrest negro and Democratic distillers, but to go slow when he found out the offenders were Republicans, was arrested Saturday and held for preliminary hearing in Recorder’s Court on the charge of criminal libel. Bond was fixed at $1,000. He readily gave bond, his bondsmen being W. W. Stewart, J. R. Creech, and C. T. Hill.
Preliminary hearing will be given today by Judge Ezra Parker of Benson, judge of the recorder’s court. Judge Parker is a brother of Sheriff Parker.
Hartley is a farmer and a Holiness preacher. He ha a good reputation. He stated Saturday that he is sticking to his original statement, for it was the truth. His friends say he can give a good account of himself in any court. He has retained as counsel Col. Ed S. Abell, Wellons and Wellons and L.G. Stevens.
The statement and the resulting prosecution are both taken as evidences of the heat of the political campaign in Johnston county.
From the front page of the Smithfield Herald, Tuesday, Oct. 19, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073982/1926-10-19/ed-1/seq-1/
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