Those 300 Quarts on Davis' Property Not Theirs, Says Jury, Nov. 20, 1921

Davis Brothers Were Acquitted. . . Jury Did Not Believe Merchants Were Connected with Liquor Case

W.W. and Gilreath C. Davis, brothers, running a general merchandise store on the Pineville road between Charlotte and Griffith’s station, were acquitted Saturday afternoon in Superior court of the charge of having liquor in their possession for sale. It was on the premises of the Davis men that officers, rural and city, found about 300 quarts of fine bottle-in-bond whiskey a few weeks ago, stored in two automobiles. The jury didn’t believe the men were connected with the large supply of Scotch, gin and rye whiskey found on their property.

The acquittal of the defendants came after the jury had listened for two hours to what was declared to have been one of the most power legal presentations and persuasive arguments heard in the court house in years from the tongue of D.B. Smith, cousel for the defense. Mr. Smith was associated with J. Clyde Stancill in the defense of the two merchants.

The State expected to convict the men on the theory that they had guilty knowledge a to the presence of the whiskey on their premises. It was understood that the automobiles did not belong to them, that, rather, they belonged to parties in Savannah to whom also, it was supposed the whiskey also belonged. The State’s contention was that this whiskey from Savannah was enroute to local distributing agencies and that the cars had been stopped on the premises of the defendants merely to cover up the tracks of local blind tiger operators, that the Davis men were parties to this transaction to the extent at least that they gave their consent to store the whiskey-laden cars on their premises.

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From the front page of The Charlotte News, Sunday, Nov. 20, 1921

Sales Can't Improve Until Cotton Prices Rise, Nov. 20, 1921

Why Business Is Not Better

Business is better than it was, of course, but why is it that business is not much better, just as good as everybody had hoped it might be by this time?

This is the season of the year when it generally touches top, from now on until Christmas. Ordinarily, we would expect a veritable boom to be on and nobody complaining, but for some reason or another, as marked as the advance has been, it has not come quite so decisively as was hoped for.

Perhaps one basic reason is that prices are not yet acceptable to the people. It has been demonstrated by repeated instances that if the tags on goods show a price that is popular, the people have found the money with which to move these commodities. There has never been an absence of money when the people saw an article they wanted and believed was worth the money asked for it, whatever such article may have been. They have demonstrated with equal obviousness, however, that if they think the prices are not right, they are not going to become purchasers.

This leads naturally to the conclusion that the sooner everybody marks down goods to the lowest possible level and trims profits just as closely as is consistent with livable business, the sooner will come the revival in trade that is so universally desired. And in this particular territory, what perhaps is more important, is that when the price of cotton gets right, we will find a flood of new money pouring through local channels of trade. That is one thing that continues to have a depressing influence—the farmers who have the raw material out of which we get our new wealth are unable to dispose of it at such a price as will give them a reasonable profit. They are holding in the hope that such a price is around the corner, and so long as they old back their cotton, they hold up everything else. Business can’t flow unobstructively when there is a congestion in the movement of this trade-making and business-getting staple in the South.

From the editorial page of The Charlotte News, Sunday, Nov. 20, 1921. W.C. Dowd, president and general manager; Julian S. Miller, editor; and W.M. Bell, advertising manager.

Governor Refuses Clemency to H.B. Futrel, Inciting Riot and Trying to Lynch Negroes, Nov. 19, 1921

Refuses Clemency to Leader of Mob

Raleigh, Nov. 19—Governor Cameron Morrison today refused to extend executive clemency to H.B. Futrel, who was convicted of inciting a riot and trying to lynch two negroes in Goldsboro in December of last year, by breaking into the Wayne county jail. Futrel was the leader of the mob and was arrested soon after the machine gun company of Durham had been called to the scene to prevent a lynching.

Two negroes were under arrest on the charge of murdering a white merchant on the outskirts of the city. The negroes were brought to Raleigh for safe keeping, but it was when they were carried back to Wayne for trial that the mob formed and tried to lynch them. One of the negroes has been electrocuted and the other is waiting the decision of the governor on his petition for commutation of sentence.

From the front page of The Hickory Daily Record, Saturday, Nov. 19, 1921

Coroner Investigating Murder-Suicide of Harvey Furman, Mary Talton, Nov. 19, 1921

Raleigh’s Double Tragedy Is Probed

Raleigh, Nov. 19—Coroner J.E. Owens of Wake county is making an investigation of the double tragedy which resulted in the death of Harvey Furman, and the serious injury of Mrs. Mary Talton, in North Raleigh early yesterday morning. Mrs. Talton, a 37-year-old woman, at whose home Furman, 59 years old widower, boarded, says that the man came into the kitchen where she was cooking breakfast and proposed marriage to her. She spurned his suggestion, as she had done in the past, and he pulled out a pistol, shot her and then shot himself through the breast.

Mrs. Talton was the only eye-witness to the tragedy, and while her condition has been such that it has been impossible to examine her as to the details of the alleged assault and suicide, there are certain things about the homicide which leads the officers and coroner to believe that possibly some details and facts about the whole affair have not yet been brought out. For instance, it has been discovered that the pistol used was one belonging to Mrs. Talton. Her daughter examines that her mother had loaned the pistol to the boarder several days ago. There are also certain details about the nature of the wound which the officers are investigating before they render a verdict on the case.

From the front page of The Hickory Daily Record, Saturday, Nov. 19, 1921

Progressive Farmer Editorial Page, Nov. 19, 1921

Challenge to B.D. Radford's Will Fails, Nov. 19, 1921

Young Widow Wins Suit Over Estate

By the Associated Press

Elizabeth City, N.C., Nov. 19—Attempts of nieces and nephews to break the will of B.D. Radford, who died childless about three years ago at the age of 84 leaving the bulk of his $250,000 estate to his young widow to whom he had been married less than a year, failed when a jury today found a verdict in favor of the defendant.

From the front page of The Hickory Daily Record, Saturday, Nov. 19, 1921

Progressive Farmer Women's Page, Nov. 19, 1921