RAWLINGS TALKS OF SENTENCE.

He Does Not Like Fixing the Day Before Alf Moore’s

He Says That It Is a Scheme to Prevent the Negro from Confessing on the Gallows and Clearing the Boys—He Says Wrong Has Been Done and Other Wrongs Are Done to Cover It Up

(From Tuesday’s Daily)

The sentencing of the Rawlings boys to hang on Tuesday, October 2nd, three days before the time fixed for the execution of Alf Moore, is, in the eyes of J.G. Rawlings, a deep-laid scheme to force the boys to go before the pardon board.

He thinks that then the negro will also go before the pardon board and that he will have his sentence commuted. Then, in a year or two, he will be pardoned. “Then, the truth of this thing will never come out,” said Rawlings. “What did I tell you? What have I been saying all of the time?” he asked this morning. “Don’t you see through the whole scheme? Can’t you see a conspiracy to force these boys to go before the pardon board, so as also to let the negro do the same thing? They don’t want the truth to come out, but they want to keep things hid. If the negro confesses, it shows that innocent boys have been sentenced to hang, and they would rather hang them than have their own wrongs proven up. Don’t you see how plain it is?”

The reporter was not willing to admit all that Rawlings said, whereupon he continued:

“You may not be able to see this thing as I do, but you have read history and you know it when you see it. What happened to David, a man after God’s own heart, when he committed that sin? Why did he put Uriah in front of the army if it was not to get rid of the evidence of his own crime? My God, how I wish that we had men today who, like the old priest who faced David, would point his finger at the guilty ones and say ‘thou art the man.’ Take the case of Herod. Didn’t he behead his accusers in order to put away the evidence of his own wrongdoing? Why did Cain kill his brother? Was it because his brother was evil? Not at all, it was the evil in Cain. It is just so today. Men do a wrong and then they do other wrongs trying to cover it up.”

“If you boys want to say anything, say it now,” he said to the boys.

“The boys can talk plenty when they want to, but they have been treated so badly that they have grown sullen. They have been convicted of crimes they didn’t commit—they have been sentenced to die on the gallows—they have been nagged at and bedeviled, kicked and cuffed, and badly whacked until they haven’t got much spirit left. Do you boys want to say anything?” he repeated.

“We just want to say this much: We don’t want any petitions to the pardon board. We would rather be hanged than sent to the penitentiary.”

The boys seemed to be especially put out over being sentenced to hang before the negro does. They have believed with their father all along that Alf Moore will vindicate them at the last minute, and they will walk away free men. Rawlings seems to think that if the negro should confess, then the sheriff would have to turn the boys loose.

“Human nature has been the same thing in all ages,” he said. “Men do wrong and then get afraid to correct it. They go on doing other wrongs to prevent exposure. Everything is being done now to keep that negro from opening up and clearing the boys. Mitchell even came over here on crutches to pass the sentence,” he said.

Judge Mitchell has been suffering from rheumatism and spent the day here on his way to Echols County, but Rawlings could not be convinced that there was not something dark behind it all.

“The Bible says there will come a time when darkness will be made so tight, and when the hidden things will be revealed. I may not live to see it, but you and others will find that what I have been saying is true. I have written Cooper not to carry this thing to the pardon board and I hope that God will smite the person who tries to carry it there, be he lawyer, kinsman, or whatnot. The boys don’t want any pardon. What they want is liberty, and if they had gone on and hanged me and the negro according to the original program, they would have had liberty.”

Rawlings betrayed more emotion than usual today and tears came into his eyes as he thought of the boys being sentenced to hang three days before the negro. It is generally believed, of course, that another respite will be granted in the case in order for the pardon board to consider it.