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91 H is nerves spent from two years of chaos, the unemployed ex-bank president H. C. Poe finally arrived at the hour he could openly share the secrets he had harbored, secrets that had short-circuited his career and turned his life upside down. Unfortunately for him, his own secrets were so intertwined with those of the governor that any sense of relief was tempered by feelings of fear and regret. If there was any joy to be had in publicly exposing the governor’s misdeeds and shortcomings, Poe’s hushed tone did not betray that emotion. Poe, still a young man of thirty-six, spoke so softly that committee members could scarcely hear his testimony and repeatedly requested that he speak more loudly. Under Crane’s direct questioning, Poe established that he had taken over the presidency of the Temple State Bank in January of 1915, and that the bank’s reduced capital, which Ferguson and other board members decreased by half shortly before his taking charge, had imposed critical limits on the bank’s lending ability. 1 When prompted by Crane, Poe told the court about the difficulty he encountered in his efforts to collect certain loans at the bank when the responsible party was not clearly defined. He elaborated on the unique characteristic of each circumstance explaining that the common thread was Ferguson’s masked debt. One such note in the amount of $6,500 bore the name of John Spires (sometimes spelled Spryors and Spyers in the transcripts), a Ferguson friend. Poe explained that when he contacted Mr. Spires for collection, he became angry, denying that the debt was his. A similar situation occurred with a note carried in the name of Ferguson’s friend and campaign manager, John McKay. Poe was unsure of the exact amount, but to his best recollection, the McKay note had been $9,000. McKay had become so angry when contacted for payment that he had written Poe a heated letter, a letter that Poe had never actually seen. McKay apparently regretted the letter soon after he mailed it and enlisted one of the cashiers at the bank to intercept it. Chapter 10 Testimony Most Telling 92 In the Governor’s Shadow Another dubious note carried by the bank, Poe explained, bore the name of Will Wallace, Jim Ferguson’s brother-in-law. This debt, acquired when Ferguson entered into an agreement to lease Wallace’s land, was particularly perplexing. Ferguson paid Wallace $20,000, using bank funds, but registered the note in Wallace’s name. Ferguson later testified that the lease contract between himself and his brother-in-law also included an additional obligation on his (Ferguson’s) part to pay off an existing Wallace note of $8,500 to another lender. Poe continued, explaining the next note in question in the amount of $2,000, which bore the name of the local newspaper. When John McKay had taken funds from the bank to pay the Temple newspaper for advertising expenses related to Ferguson’s 1914 campaign, Ferguson had recorded the debt in the name of the newspaper. Another note in the amount of $8,500 from the Whitley Cotton Company resulted from a loan that Whitley Cotton Company made to Jim Ferguson personally. When Ferguson could not repay the company himself, he paid them with bank funds, but recorded the note in the name of the Whitley Cotton Company. Poe told the court that he found the governor’s cavalier attitude toward his concerns about the instruments unsettling. Ferguson had claimed that he had simply forgotten to mention them to Poe but promised to take care of them himself. Still under direct questioning from Crane, Poe spoke of his failed attempts to help the governor reduce his debt with a demeanor that mimicked that of a reluctant witness. He claimed that he regretted the necessity of having to relay damning stories against a man who had once been his friend, stating that he would rather go to jail than go into details about the governor’s account. In response, Crane pressed forward, assuring Poe that he was doing the right thing because the committee needed to know the full story. The distraction incensed Mr. Hanger, the chief opposing counsel. He interrupted the testimony, accusing Poe of feigning his reluctance to testify as a ploy to add drama to the proceedings. Hanger’s accusations were probably valid. It was no secret that any affection Poe had held for the...

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