This date’s headlines are all about law enforcement. In 1924, controversial detective G.H. Foree was arrested on liquor charges after testifying against a man arrested in the raids he led. An Alcatraz parolee (briefly) visited Poplar Bluff in 1949, and an Arkansas publisher was convicted of libel in 1974.
100 years ago
Sept. 6, 1924
• A month after massive, coordinated Prohibition raids swept Poplar Bluff, residents are divided. Was the detective leading the raids a patriotic hero, or an agent of the Ku Klux Klan?
Detective G.H. Foree of the Foree Detective Agency in St. Louis led a massive Prohibition force of federal agents, local law enforcement and deputized citizens in early August. Today, he and two of his operatives, I.F. Palmer and A. Booher, were arrested on a complaint of possessing and transporting liquor. Lawyer Byron Kearbey filed the complaint based on the trio’s testimony during the first liquor violation trials: they bought alcohol undercover from a defendant and carried it to their hotel room headquarters.
Foree was unbothered, telling the Poplar Bluff Interstate American, “The same stunt has been pulled on me before...but it won’t stand up in court.”
During one of the trials, defense attorney Jerry Mulloy claimed Foree was hired by the KKK. Foree vehemently denied this. In recent weeks local leaders have also accused Foree himself of being a KKK member, while others insisted he has no connection to them at all.
The PBIA called the allegations “systematic propaganda directed by organized bootleg traffic” and a “political expedient” for unnamed parties.
Kearbey refiled his affidavit in circuit court this morning to ensure the case got a fair trial outside the city. Attorney R.I. Cope has refused to sign it until he could question all the witnesses named in the document.
Cope said “the entire affair was gotten up in an entirely wrong way” and urged both factions to let it go.
Foree, Palmer and Booher were released on bond and left town soon after. Further liquor trials are postponed.
75 years ago
Sept. 6, 1949
• Poplar Bluff authorities chased down an Alcatraz parolee.
Marvin Atkeson, 43, was caught after a downtown foot chase on Sept. 4. He was first arrested by Poplar Bluff police for carrying a concealed gun, with which he allegedly threatened a man. Atkeson broke loose while being fingerprinted and ran up Second Street, pursued by Sheriff Bill Brent and highway patrol Sgt. George Montgomery. Brent dove to tackle him but instead met a brick wall. The chase ended when Atkeson ran into Officer Bagwell of the city police, who was on parking meter duty.
Atkeson was paroled from Alcatraz in May after serving part of a 15-year sentence for robbing a bank in St. Genevieve.
50 years ago
Sept. 6, 1974
• A newspaper publisher in Arkansas was convicted on one count of libel yesterday.
Joseph H. Weston, editor and publisher of the Sharp County Citizen, was fined $4,000 and sentenced to three months in prison for making criminal allegations about local law enforcement.
Weston’s paper attacked public officials and private citizens in Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri in 1973, including Poplar Bluff residents. In the article in question, Weston wrote Clay County Sheriff Lidell Jones ran a drug racket, and his deputies threatened witnesses. The defense brought no one to the stand. The prosecution called up Weston’s source on the sheriff, who said she told him the information was only hearsay, and the accused deputies, who denied the allegations.
Weston’s attorneys repeatedly claimed his constitutional rights were being violated. They were overruled. When they broached freedom of the press, Prosecutor Gerald Pearson responded, “The defendant is trying to hide behind (the First Amendment) to maliciously libel innocent people and sell his newspaper. With freedom of the press comes a corresponding responsibility and that’s at issue here.”
Weston’s lawyers plan to appeal.