BEN T. BARNES.
"The Informer" Who Betrayed Charles
Anderson in Hope of $60 Reward.
Ben T. Barnes, an ex-convict, who conducts a harness shop at 2845 Southwest boulevard, is the person who betrayed Charles Anderson into the hands of the law.
Barnes has no regret for his act.
The tears of the heartbroken Mrs. Anderson have failed to touch a softer side of his nature. The blight cast by his act upon the name of the innocent Anderson child brings him no twinge of remorse.
Barnes knows the horrors of prison stripes -- the encircled his body for months. He knows the terrible penalty society inflicts upon its wayward members, even after they have satisfied the judgment of the law. Yet, with scheming, deliberate, cruel malevolence he consigned a fellow being who was leading an upright, honest life, respected by his neighbors, happy in his home, to a fate as pitiless as the tomb.
He sent Charles Anderson back to walled-in cells of steel, wrecked a home where love was the guiding spirit, and for what?
Was it for the $60 reward the government pays for escaped convicts?
Barnes says it was not. His letters to the prison warden tell an entirely different story.
In his home in Southwest boulevard Barnes gave his reasons for "turning up." He said: "But the public evidently wants escaped convicts to be left at large, and, as far as I'm concerned, they can have the rest of them free, since they think the law is wrong.
"It would never have been done if it had not been put up to me in such a shape that I was bound to do it for the benefit to myself. Anyone who had been in my place and under obligations to tote fair with officers, would have done the same thing. I am hoping and working to have my citizenship restored, and I was told by interested persons to 'come through' with the whereabouts of this man, and it was business for me to do it.
"It would never have been done if it had not been put up to me in such a shape that I was bound to do it for the benefit to myself. Anyone who had been in my place and under obligations to tote fair with officers, would have done the same thing. I am hoping and working to have my citizenship restored, and I was told by interested persons to 'come through' with the whereabouts of this man, and it was business for me to do it.
LUCILLE ANDERSON
Daughter of Charles Anderson, an Innocent
Victim of Ex-Convicts Cupidity.
"I can't understand how people who believe in supporting the majesty of the law can turn indignantly against me, I suppose it will gratify these gushing people to learn that I happen to know six or eight other escaped convicts at large in Kansas City. They are all, of course, from one prison, and there are many others from elsewhere. Do you suppose anybody is going to report such men to the officials when the public makes a hero of the wrongdoer and wants to mob the man who showed him up? I was not to judge Anderson . The law said he was wrong. It wasn't my business to take issue with the law.
Barnes is proud of his own record for honesty and industry since he got out of prison. He married seven years ago, telling the girl and her mother beforehand his history. Now he lives in a room in the rear of his shop and there are two children. He has conducted the same shop for four years, and says he is not afraid that the notoriety will injure his business.
"Everybody knows that I'm square," he says.
