I am awakened at midnight from the first deep slumber. The Pullman conductor with a lantern is peering into my face.
    "Is this Mr. Putnam?"
    "Yes."
    "Then consider yourself under arrest. I am the deputy sheriff of Douglas County. Hurry up and dress," says a tall young man wearing a star.
    "What am I arrested for?" I ask.
    "On telephone request from the sheriff of Jackson County. Perjury, I think. A grand jury indictment."
    Then I remembered that I had heard threats of indictment for having dared to criticize a grand jury and a deputy district attorney on some trumped-charge or other.
    "Is it necessary for me to spend the night in jail? Can't I go to a hotel. I will pay for a deputy to stand guard and sleep with handcuffs," I urged. "I have friends in Roseburg who will vouch for me and go bail if necessary."
    But it is in vain. The jail for me. I am even refused permit to send a telegram.
    Going into the sheriff's office, my coat, grip and umbrella are deposited. We cross to the jail. The double steel doors are noisily unlocked and clank and groan ominously as I enter.
    "There is plenty of wood to keep the fire going and plenty of company. I will phone Sheriff Jackson of your arrest and see if he will let you out on bail," said my jailer, departing after the great doors are shut and bolted. But he does not return.
    The jail is not inviting. The air is foul. There is no ventilation. The floor is cement. The walls, ceiling and subceiling and partitions are steel strips with three-inch-square openings between. At one end of what might be stated the reception room is a dilapidated table loaded with odds and ends of food, the remnants of the prisoners' supper. On another table is a pile of old papers and a greasy bunch of cards. A rough homemade bracket juts from the wall, laden with a miscellaneous assortment of rubbish. On the floor is a pile of old magazines.
    Several dilapidated chairs surround the table. In one corner of the room is a bed, on which a mere boy is sleeping. Two broken-off chairs and two logs of wood answer as legs. On strings behind the stove hang the prisoners' underclothes, newly washed and drying.
    "Hullo, partner," exclaims a man of 40 who emerges from one of the cells clad only in a flannel shirt, which flops against his bare legs. "Got any tobacco?"
    Another prisoner, a mere boy, enters. Both are held as suspects in burglary cases. "There are seven of us here, eight with you," says the older. "All the beds are full, but you can use mine if you want and I will take the table. My bunk's not very clean; they are all inhabited [by vermin]."
    I thank my fellow jailbirds, but decline their courtesy, and they retire for the night. I build up the fire and try to read the two- and three-year-old magazines, but the light is too dim. A huge rat comes out to keep me company. I watch him as he runs back and forth on the floor and over the prisoners' unsanitary bunks, greed shining in his little beady eyes.
    It is a dismal night, but my thoughts are tropical enough. The drone of the steady downpour outside is interrupted only by the creaks of the sheet iron floor as the prisoners turn uneasily in their slumbers. The night seems endless. Another rat joins the first, and then another, but they scamper when I move.
    Finally the darkness wears gradually away, and the twilight that answers for daylight creeps slowly in. The rats have gone, and only the filth and squalor and misery that a boasted civilization reserves for its unfortunates shows in the gray dawn of a Sabbath day, to usher in elsewhere the merry Christmas season. But there is no Christmas joy here.
    At 8:15 o'clock it is still dark, but the electric light goes out. At 9 o'clock the prisoners awake and make their dreary toilets. At 10 o'clock Sheriff McClallen comes with the breakfast basket. Two meals a day only are served prisoners. Biscuits, fried potatoes and meat comprise the menu, with coffee. We eat on tin plates. There is one fork and three teaspoons and no knives for the eight of us. Then the prisoners clean house as best they can in the dark. At noon it is still too dark to see to read a paper. The prisoners tell me their stories.
    The sheriff appears. The doors swing open with their customary clatter. My name is called. I find with the sheriff an old friend--L. Wimberly, editor of the Roseburg Review. The sheriff has just received a telegram authorizing my release on bonds. Mr. Wimberly offers to go upon the bond. Medford friends phone other friends to go, and my day in prison ends. On the afternoon train comes Deputy Sheriff Grant of Jackson County and bail is arranged.
    Meanwhile, offers of help are phoned from Portland and other places where the news has spread.
    "A friend in need is a friend indeed." I shall always feel grateful to those who proved themselves friends in need.
Medford Daily Tribune, December 23, 1907, page 1

    The editor of The Tribune is at his desk once more, ready to meet his accusers and answer all accusations, to fight for his own rights and the rights of The Tribune and for the rights of the public. This is not Russia, and the district attorney and sheriff not czars. They may railroad a man to jail overnight for lese majeste, but it [is] up to a jury of citizens to say whether he stays there or not.
    The indictment brought against the editor of The Tribune by the grand jury reads as follows. Whether or not it is libelous is left for the reader to determine:
    "George Putnam is accused by the grand jury for the county of Jackson, state of Oregon, by the indictment of the crime of libel, committed as follows, to wit: That the said George Putnam on, to wit, the 19th day of December, 1907, in the county of Jackson, state of Oregon, then and there being, did and there willfully publish by means other than words orally spoken, to wit, by printed matter, in a newspaper called the Medford Daily Tribune, and then and there of general circulation in said county, the following false and scandalous matter of and concerning Wallace Woods, Joel Hartley, J. R. Robison, C. H. Vaupel, Adam Schmidt, T. E. Pottenger and J. L. Garvin, then and there composing and constituting the grand jury for said county, and Clarence L. Reames, then and there a deputy prosecuting attorney representing the state of Oregon in said matters before said grand jury, to wit: 'The grand jury is composed of the following men: Wallace Woods, J. R. Robison, C. H. Vaupel, Adam Schmidt, T. E. Pottenger, J. L. Garvin. it took them just 15 minutes to indict a friendless horse thief, a poor old woman and a penniless forger. They spent three days on the Barnum case and then justified the murderous assault. Deputy District Attorney Reames is a most relentless prosecutor, when a man drops a nickel in the slot machine or takes a drink on Sunday, or a poor fallen creature is caught sinning. Such heinous crimes must be punished; they are dangerous at once to life and limb. But anyone can try to brain a man with an ax and secure immunity from the blindfolded representatives of justice." That said publication was made with the intention to injure and defame said Wallace Woods, Joel Hartley, J. R. Robison, C. H. Vaupel, Adam Schmidt, T. E. Pottenger, J. L. Garvin, composing said grand jury, and said Clarence L. Reames, deputy prosecuting attorney, and that said matter so printed is false and untrue. That the words 'Deputy District Attorney Reames' in said publication were intended to and referred to said Clarence L. Reames, as deputy prosecuting attorney, and the said false and scandalous matter was published of and concerning all of said parties by said George Putnam with the intent to injure and defame each thereof; contrary to the statutes made and provided and against the peace and dignity of the state of Oregon."
Medford Daily Tribune, December 26, 1907, page 2

    The Portland Oregonian of January 12, [section 3, page 6,] under the above caption, says editorially:
    "We have just closed a week notable chiefly for its various and extraordinary legal decisions. Judge Hanna, of the circuit court for Jackson County, adds his portion to the astonishing records by denying a Southern Oregon editor the right to plead the truth in a case for criminal libel. One Putnam, a Medford editor, had harshly criticized the grand jury and prosecuting attorney of Jackson County for their failure to return an indictment in an assault case at Medford. The prosecuting attorney caused Putnam's arrest and subsequent trial for criminal libel. Putnam endeavored to show that his criticisms were justified by introducing testimony of witnesses who saw the assault. The judge denied him the right in face of this plain provision of the Oregon statute:
    "Section 2170--In all criminal prosecutions for libel the truth may be given in evidence, and if it shall appear to the court that the matter charged is libelous is true and was published with good motives and justifiable ends, the defendant must be found not guilty.
    "There would seem to be no way of avoiding the plain meaning of the law, but Judge Hanna seems to have found a way. The Oregonian does not know much about the merits of the strictures passed by the Medford editor. Very likely they were not warranted. But the Oregonian does know, if the reports from Jacksonville as to the procedure in Judge Hanna's court are correct--that there has been here a most surprising invasion of the liberty of the press and an unjustifiable denial of Putnam's elementary rights before the law as a citizen. This decision means that a newspaper has no right to criticize a grand jury or a court. This is absurd and cannot stand any test of history or experience or judicial precedent. If it shall be said--as we suspect it may be--that Putnam erred in assailing the grand jury while the assault case was pending, and was therefore in contempt, whatever the fact as to the assault, it is pertinent to inquire why he was prosecuted for libel and not for contempt of court.
    "Possibly it is too much to hope for, but we should really like to have from Judge Hanna an explanation of his remarkable decision; or we should like to be corrected if our understanding as to what the decision is is not correct."
Medford Daily Tribune, January 13, 1908, page 2