AIR POLITICAL ROW
TAKING TESTIMONY IN MANN-
DANNHOWER CASE
THE JURY IS DEMOCRATIC.
STATE PROVES DANNAHOWER
HAD THE LETTERS PRINTED.
Long Brewing Row Among Tenth
Ward Republicans Finally
Reaches Criminal Court--
Prominent Men as Witnesses.
Prosecuting Attorney I. B. Kimbrell, in his opening argument to the jury in the case against William Dannahower, charged with criminal libel, upon the complaint of Homer B. Mann, formerly speaker of the lower house of the city council and treasurer of the Republican county central committee, yesterday afternoon said:
"The state will attempt to prove that the defendant with malicious intent had printeed and circulated hand bills in which the public character and private life of Homer B. Mann was held up to public ridicule and contempt. In these circulars, alleged to have been written by the defendant, Mr. Mann is charged with corruption in public office and immorality in private life. The state wil show that these circulars were sent to many of Mr. Mann's friends in Kansas City and in Washington, and were went to his wife and left in the school yard where his children attended school."
The case promises to last all of this week and to be hard fought. One hundred and thirteen witnesses have been subpoenaed, seventy-four of them by the defense. The state's wintesses, in addition to Homer Mann and his wife, include Congressman E. C. Ellis; Thomas K. Niedringhaus, chairmoan of the Republican state entral committee, and Joseph McCoy, of St. Louis. The fefense has subpoenaed among its list of seventy-four Bernard Corrigan, of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company; C. F. Morse, of the Kansas City Stock Yards Company; Al Heslip, county marshal; Frank C. Peck and Wallace Love.
ONE REPUBLICAN ON JURY.
From the questions asked of the men who tried to qualify as jurors, it can be guessed that teh state is relying upon a conviction along lines of direct evidence, adn that the defense hopes to muddle the case by airing the linen of the Tenth Ward Republican Club. The jurors impaneled were asked by Attorney L. H. Waters, for the defense, whether they were Democrats or Republicans in politics and whether or not they had ever held office or done work for the city or county. Prosecuting Attorney Kimbrell passed over the matter of political affiliations, and tended strictly to seeing that the jury was composed of married men with families. Evidently he intends to bring out stongly the fact that Dannahower is charged with forcing the attention of Mr. Mann's wife and children to the circulars which he is alleged to have written.
"The defense is trying to make Democratic political capital out of this trial," said Clyde Taylor, who is assisting Attorney Kimbrell in the prosecution, "but I don't see what they will gain by it. This is a criminal libel suit and not a political meeting. If they are not careful they will overplay their hand and neglect their client's interests."
The jury which is trying the case coprises: Charles R. Jones, Democrat; J. F. Shortridge, Independent; J. M. Burton, Democrat; I. H. B. Edmondson, Democrat; Albert L. Williams, Democrat; J. H. North, Independent; J. G. White, Democrat; Elmer Dorse, Democrat; W. E. Van Crate, Independent; J. H. Pemberton, Democrat; W. D. Oldham, Democrat, and F. B. Alexander, Republican.
Every juror is married and has children. most of them are business men and own their own homes. There is only one Republican in the twelve. Attorney Kimbrell and Attorney Waters got what they wanted in the character of the jurors and the twelve men were agreed upon after half an hour.
MANN HAD KNIFE, ELLIS SAYS.
The first witness for the state was Congressman E. C. Ellis. He testified that he had received at his residence in Washington, D. C., last February copies of the circulars signed by Dannahower through the registered mail. Upon cross-examination he admitted that he once was in a buggy with Mr. Mann when Dannahower drove by and the men began quarreling. He admitted that Mann had an open knife in his hand, but denied that Mann had tried to use the knife. He said that very hot words passed between the two men.
J. F. Ewing, of the Gate City Printing and Advertising Company, 1229 Main street, swore taht Mr. Dannahower had placed tow orders for printed circulars with the establishment, got the circulars and paid for them. One order was placed on October 27, 1906, for 10,000 circulars, and one in February, 1907, for 2,000. Dannahower paid the firm $30 for the big order and $6 for the second. The circulars were different. Copies of both were introduced in evidence, as was a copy of the Gate City company's ledger account with Dannahower.
R. F. Jarmon, of 3419 Summit, formerly of Jarmon & Kykes, at 1229 Main, testified that three years ago, during the Kemper-Neff campaign, he had printed several thousand circulars for Dannahower in which Mr. Mann was attacked. His testimony was stricken out on account of the time which had expired, but the court let stand his statement that at the time Dannahower gave the order he said he was "going to keep after Mann until he got him."
