Liable Suit For $25,000

During the progress of the pres ent campaign, the Neue Washtenaw Post, the Germán paper of which Mr. Eugene Helber is proprietor has at various times contained articles uncomplimentary to the dem ocratic candidate for county treas urer, P. G. Suekey, who is also one of the editors and proprietors of the Hausfreund and Post. The last of these articles appeared in this week's number of the Neue Post and is a severe attack upon Mr. Suekey's administration of the office of treasurer during his present term. The article opens with a prefatory discussion of the importance of the office of treasurer, and recites in substance that the incompetency of the county treasurers has caused more loss to the taxpayers than all of the defalcations in such offices. It further recites that every tract of land in the county is virtually at the mercy of the treasurer, through whose incompetency trouble, expense and litigation over farms might result to clear titles clouded by such incompetency. It is further recited that a careful inspection of the public records of Washtenaw shows that many discdptions of Washtenaw lands have been in a deplorable condition and remained so until it became necessary to send a messenger to straighten them out, and that the mutiated condition of the records show the state they were in, before he arrival of the messenger. Then he charge is brought home to the )resent incumbent that during the irst year of his administration the ollowing are a few of the many mistakes. he has made, the alleged errors being introduced with sugjestions to the reader that it niay )e his property, for all the writer cnows, as each number represents a lescription of land. Then follows he rather startling statement that everal lots in the city of Ann Arbor were reported paid before sale; when on arrival of messenger they were found to have been sold either to the state or some individual, and that the tax record will show by the erasures the descriptions of property that were affected. The article adds (Perhaps it was yours,) and continuing submits a list of numbers of descriptions on which in 1893 the treasurer reported the taxes as still due, when the facts showed that they were sold to an individual. Again the writer says, "Perhaps, reader, this affects you." Other numbers are given as reported by the treasurer to be unpaid, but after the mistake was discovered by the messenger they were erased and put in their proper columns as sold to the state. Other instances of ularity are also charged against the treasurer's tïrst year, and the prediction is made of other mistakes to follow, equally as bad, and that help will be needed to complete the records. This state of affairs, the Post says, would not exist if a competent treasurer had been elected. After the first side of the Post which contained the article, had gone to press, some one furnished Mr. Suekey with a copy, and he at once applied to Judge Kinne for an injunction restraining Mr. Helber from issuing the paper containing the damaging article, alleging its libelous character. The judge, however, held that if the article was libelous, Mr. Suekey's rernedy lay in the recovery of damages in an action for libel. The paper was issued Thursday morning, and within an hour afterward Mr. Helber was asked to respond to a suit for $25,000 damages. Mr. Suekey denies the allegations of the Neue Post as false and calumnious, and proposes to push the prosecution to its end. Concernin certain of the material charges made, the fo'lowing affidavit is submitted: State of Michigan, I COUHTY Oí" WaSIITENAW f SS' Gustave Brehm, of the city of Aun Arbor, iu said county, beiug duly sworn upon bis oath, doth say: Tüat he is familiar with the books of the office and the duties of the Treasurer of the County of Washtenaw, he, this deponent, haviug beeu connected with the said office for the full period of eight years, as Principal and Deputy therein and iurther says that heretofore, towit, 011 the First Uay of November last, at the request of Pau! G. Sukey, who is noiv Treasurer and the Democratie caudidate for re election. he, this deponent investigated the books and records of the said oflice for the purposes of determiuiug the truth or falsity of a certain commuiiicatiou ptibhshed in the Xeue Washter aw Post on the flrst day of November inst., eutitled "incompetent County Officials." Deponent saya that nis investigatlon of the books and records of the said office was f uil and complete, covering the whole list of land, tax, sales, for the year, 1893 and the return thereof to the Auditor General oL the State by the said Paul G. Sukey. Deponent f urther says that he has read the communication atoresaid, both iu the German and English and avers that the said communicatioii as published ia wholly uutrue in so far as the same pretends to recite the record of land tax sales teferred to; that the truth relating to such land tax sales so in such publication referred to, is as follOWS, VÍZ: - No. 7, bid off to the State. No. 8, bid oiï to the State. No. 9, sold to John W. Rosier and Horace Rosier. No. 10, sold to John W. Rosier and Horace Rosier. No. 11, pald before sale. No's 12, 13 and 14 paid before sale. No. 23, bid off to the State. Deponent f urther says that the land tax sale book, is a public record at all times properly in the custody of the Treasurer at his public office and open to the inspection of all persons; that such book appears to have been regularly kept and nowhere shows any mark or indication of erasurers or changes, and this deponent does not believe that the said record has been chauged at all; that such land tax sale record, contains among other things, all of the court proceedings on the sale of lands for delinquent taxe9, and is required by law to be retnrned by the County Treasurer with his statement of land sales, to the Register in Chancery, after each and every land sale for taxes, and the said Register in Chancery is required to compare such report and return, and certify to the same; that such record of land tax sales, has attached thereto the certiicate of Arthur Brown, Register in Chancery, under date of May 31st, A. D., 1893, in due form of law and fur ther deponent saith not. GüsTAVE BBBHM. Subscribed and sworn to before me his lst day of November, A. D., 1894. L. Gruxek, Notary Public. Had the charges of the Neue 5ost been made earlier in the camaign, when Mr. Suekey through lis own paper would have had an opportunity of reaching the public n his own defense, his assailant would stand before the people in a much more favorable light. But he damaging accusations were reserved tor publication in the last week of the canvass, when it was too late to make an effective answer, and the libel suit follows as the only recourse Mr. Suekey feels is left open to hiui. The paper containing the attack is issued on the day that Mr. Suekey's paper, the Hausefruend, is published - on Thursday. Before another issue, comes the election, and no refutation of the charges would avail the candidate after the ballots had been cast.